Saint Rasputin??

 Internal conflict is dividing the Russian Orthodox Church over the canonisation of Ivan the Terrible, Russia’s first tsar (czar), known for committing mass murders, including those of his son and prominent clergymen, as well as his many marriages; and also of Grigory Rasputin, described by journalist, Andrei Zolotov as ‘the lecherous mystical healer who compromised the [Russian] monarchy in its waning years.’

 An aggressively vocal faction within Russian Orthodox Church has been pushing for the canonisation of Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin for about a decade now. 

 Books and articles describing Ivan the Terrible as ‘St. Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich’, and Rasputin as ‘Martyr for God and Tsar Elder Grigory Novy’, first appeared in the mid-1990s, along with icons depicting them as saints, and special prayer services glorifying the two.

 Reports indicate that the canonisation push is an offshoot of the teachings of the charismatic and controversial Orthodox Metropolitan Ioann of St. Petersburg, who died in 1995.

 Ioann taught that the monarchy was the last bastion of the Orthodox faith in a battle against the anti-Christian forces of Jews, Freemasons and Western Christian heretics, who he said led the Russian people to atheism and liberalism.

 In the past the Orthodox Church apparently attempted to officially ignore both the canonisation requests, and those making them, in the hope of avoiding a major schism.  That position changed early this year.

 At the beginning of 2003 a group of leading church historians, theologians and official Orthodox journalists met to discuss the issues.  They issued a semi-official statement, declaring that a faction, or sect, is behind the canonisation drive and is threatening to split the Russian Orthodox Church from within.

 Those involved in the canonisation push held a conference in Moscow in October 2002, at which they urged Moscow Patriarch Alexy II to reconsider his opposition to the canonisation.

 Patriarch Alexy II has strongly spoken out against the canonisations efforts, saying it would be impossible to canonize Ivan the Terrible, who had ordered the deaths of several clergymen who were later sainted, and Rasputin, whose debauchery and dubious healing practices compromised the last imperial family of Tsar Nicholas II.

 In his first statement on the issue, back in December 2001, the Patriarch declared the push to be ‘…madness! What believer would want to stay in a church that equally venerates murderers and martyrs, lechers and saints?’

 But his statements have basically been ignored.  It seems that those behind the canonisation push apparently believe, and claim, that Rasputin, and the Russian monarchy, were not as bad as people thought, but that they had been the victims of a plot masterminded by Jews and Freemasons. These same people apparently opposed a government move to issue tax identification numbers, which they likened to numbers linked to the apocalyptic sign of the Beast.  It also seems that the same people were trying to get the Orthodox Church to elevate the last tsar, Nicholas II, to the level of veneration as a ‘co-redeemer’ - which would make him equal to Jesus Christ.

 The canonisation faction has mobilised various media to promote their viewpoints. The theologians and others who met in earlier 2003 drew up a list of unofficial Orthodox publications, Internet sites and radio programmes involved in supporting the faction, or sect (as they prefer to call it), and stated: ‘These publications juggle the facts of church history, distort the foundations of the Orthodox faith and ultimately create a sectarian mentality.’

 Some of the published claims and beliefs are seen by the more moderate Orthodox as disturbing and representing a more recent development of appealing and coherent anti-Semitism within the Russian Orthodox Church.

 Alexander Dvorkin, regarded as one of the Russian Orthodox Church’s leading experts on sects and cults, stated: ‘Those demanding the canonisation of Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin are a small but very noisy group. This will be followed by demands to canonise Stalin - there is already some so-called research showing that he was secretly a monk. It is impossible to disprove all of these myths. Religious hysterics are the basis of this pseudo-Orthodox sect acting within our church.’