WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th August, 2022) Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church at home and abroad overcame their decades-long division in August 1991 by uniting to condemn the attempted coup in the then Soviet Union, a Russian priest from Germany, Nicholas Artemoff, told Sputnik.
"In August 1991, a group of priests from abroad was in Moscow, and we organized a meeting with our colleagues from the Moscow Patriarchate by blessing of Patriarch Alexey II and our First Hierarch Vitaly," Artemoff said. "We discussed the relationship between the church and the state, as well as glorification of the Russian New Martyrs."
One of the Moscow priests said totalitarianism has ended and would not ever return in Russia, he added.
The meeting took place on August 16, 1991 in the Moscow City Council. Three days later, on August 19, a group of hardliners attempted to remove from power the then reform-minded Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev while he was vacationing in Crimea.
The attempted coup ended unsuccessfully on August 22 but it is widely believed it significantly contributed to the disintegration of the Soviet Union several months later.
Artemoff recalled that journalist Mikhail Pozdnyaev from the magazine named "Stolitsa" ("Capital") helped him enter the so-called White House, which became the epicenter of the opposition to the coup.
"We went to the balcony and saw a crowd around the White House. They said there were some 50,000 people there," he said. "I approached the microphone and said that now we will serve a prayer for New Martyrs."
New Martyrs - a group of several thousand saints who were persecuted and killed for their faith after the October Revolution of 1917, were canonized by the Russian Church Abroad in 1981.
Artemoff said he was surprised that people were not aware of the way to pray during an intercessory prayer service.
"Usually, after the clergy singing, for instance and in this case, 'Holy New Martyrs, pray to God for us,' people should respond with at least some number of voices and repeat these words. However, I heard nothing in response and had to repeat once again by myself with my colleagues," Artemoff noted.
After the prayer, deacon Andrey Kuraev, who was the assistant of Patriarch Alexey II at that time, came to the microphone and proclaimed (read aloud) the Patriarch's anathema to the coup organizers, Artemoff said.
"I think that moment gave a special turn to the whole situation, and it is important to note that priests from both sides - the Moscow Patriarchate and the Church Abroad - were united at that time," he said.
Artemoff pointed out that the first months after the attempted coup were very intensive in terms of improving the church life in the Soviet Union and then in Russia.
"In 1991, already after the coup, we came to the Ministry of Justice to register the Brotherhood of St. Job of Pochaev. Reorganization was underway and a lady we were directed to meet ran out of the office saying she understands nothing about church issues. However, she sent us to the upper floor, where there was an official (a man), who previously worked as Deputy Commissioner for Religious Affairs, and he knew all the details," Artemoff added.
Gorbachev in an interview last December said he believed the Soviet Union could have survived even after the August 1991 coup as a Union of Sovereign States. A Gallup poll taken in 2013 revealed that a majority of residents in former republics regretted the collapse of the Soviet Union.
