Moscow Patriarchate Said Opening the Way for Kadyrov to Succeed Putin and Islam to Dominate Russia

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, February 7 – Nikolay Podosokorsky says that the Moscow Patriarchate’s support for the right of Muslims to wear the hijab and for Ramzan Kadyrov’s demonstration in support of the Prophet Mohammed promotes “the Islamization of Russia” and thus opens the way for the Chechen leader to succeed Vladimir Putin as Russian president a decade from now.

 

            In an article published today in the online journal “Inache,” Podosokorsky, a philologist and blogger, argues that recent statements by officials of the Moscow Patriarchate in support of the hijab and of Kadyrov’s “million man march” in defense of Islam should disturb Russians concerned about the future of their country (inache.net/signs/968).

 

            At the time of Kadyrov’s march, which was intended as a response to the Paris march in support of the French publication “Charlie Hebdo,” Podosorkorsky posted in his blog “a scenario according to which the next president of Russia after Putin could become the current head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov” (philologist.livejournal.com/7193805.html).

 

            He suggested there that “this could take place approximately in 2024-2025” and that “Kadyrov would then become for Russia a certain ‘Islamic’ analogue of Stalin.” This could occur, Podosorkorsky said, because the 2018 elections are likely to be “the last direct elections” in Russia and the next president will be chosen by the Kremlin-controlled Federation Council.

 

            For that to happen, the philologist continued, Russian life will have to be “changed in a cardinal way;” and in his article today, he suggests that “over the next decade, the Russian Orthodox church will become an even more obvious weapon in the Islamization of Russia, although,” he insists, “its role already now is obvious to the unaided eye.”

 

            Not only has the Moscow Patriarchate expressed its support for the hijab and for the Grozny march, but its senior officials have shown themselves to be promoters “not so much of Christianity as of a certain syncretic ideology with elements of totalitarianism, fuehrer worship, nationalism, paganism, Islam, etatism, magic and superficial ‘moralizing’ Orthodoxy.”

 

            Patriarchate officials like Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov has said that “the future belongs to the Muslims” (youtube.com/watch?v=y7uMonaoHeg), Podosorkorsky points out, and Putin himself has even proclaimed that “Russian Orthodoxy is much closer to Islam than it is to Catholicism” (youtube.com/watch?v=nqyVYtWB894).

 

            “Almost every day,” he continues, “we see various manifestations of so-called ‘Orthodox Islam,’” a when Orthodox officials say that they “do not exclude” the possibility of legalizing shariat courts in Russia (lenta.ru/news/2012/04/25/shariat/) or when Islamic leaders kiss the hand of Patriarch Kirill.

            According to Podosorkorsky, “Russia is ceasing to be a secular country in front of our eyes,” and no one should content themselves with “illusions that it will as a result become Christian.”  The Orthodoxy Moscow is promoting now “has very little relationship” to real Christianity and is instead “drifting toward Islam.”

“Everything begins with something small,” he continues. “Russians will be offered a unifying anti-Western ideology according to which Islam and a special ‘Russian Orthodoxy’ are the two pillars on which Russia stands. Further, television will convince us that in the capital of each region there must be both an Orthodox cathedral and a mosques.”

Then, “at the next stage,” Russian officials will argue that “for the unity of the nation it will be necessary to unite these religions into one state-forming religion and fix its status in the basic law of the law, especially since Putin has already long ago spoken about the similarity of Orthodoxy and Islam.”

            “If Kadyrov really does replace Putin as president, then Patriarch Kirill could become under him ‘an Orthodox ayatollah’ but only of course until he is replaced by a mufti of more radical views.” That will open the way to the discrimination of women and many other horrible things, the Russian philologist says.



            Given this threat, Podosorkorsky says, Russians must be strong in order to defend our freedom and the secular character of our state!”  Indeed, he concludes, it is already time to consider forming “an all-Russian popular front against the clericalization of the country, something that could lead to its ultimate Islamization as well.