BELARUS: Conservative anti-Putin Orthodox group raided
Persecuted in Russia, devotees of the “Russian Orthodox Church – Tsarist Empire” may now be banned in Belarus too.
by Massimo Introvigne
Bitter Winter (20.09.2024) – The Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Belarus announced earlier this month that it had started a criminal case against the Belarusian branch of the “Russian Orthodox Church – Tsarist Empire” (ROC-CI).
The “Belarusian cell of the international cult” was raided by the officers of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Belarusian Metropolitan of ROC-CI was detained.
The ROC-CI is actually part of a broader network of groups with at least ten thousand followers in Russia and adjacent nations. These groups share a nationalist perspective on Russian history, a reverence for the last Tsar, Nicholas II Romanov (whom the mainline Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill has canonized), and a recognition of Stalin’s role in Russia’s prominence. Despite their alignment with some of Kirill’s views, they are mistrustful of Putin’s government and, notably, resisted vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the war against Ukraine began, they refused conscription and destroyed their passports and IDs—not out of support for Ukrainian independence, as they see Ukraine as part of Russia, but because they don’t view Putin’s government as legitimate. They anticipate the return of the monarchy in Russia, with some groups claiming their leaders have Romanov lineage and should be the new Tsars.
Despite gaining thousands of followers, the “Tsarist” communities did not receive much public attention until 2017 when the film “Matilda” was released. This movie narrated the story of the renowned Polish-Russian ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska, suggesting that she had a three-year romantic involvement with the future Tsar Nicholas II before he married the future Empress Alexandra. The film emphasized that this relationship was not purely platonic. Given that premarital sex is considered sinful by the Orthodox Church, conservative Orthodox groups demanded the movie be banned for showing disrespect to a canonized saint.
The “Tsarist” groups became well-known protesters against “Matilda” and gained national attention when joined by then Duma member from Russian-occupied Crimea, Natalia Poklonskaya. It was revealed that Poklonskaya followed Archimandrite Sergiy Romanov from Yekaterinburg, a leading figure of the Tsarebozhniki (Tsar-worshippers) movement. The issue extended to Poklonskaya’s assertion that anyone who went to watch “Matilda,” including top Russian political leaders, should be excommunicated.
Previously a senior prosecutor in the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and having defected to Russia in 2014, Poklonskaya was lionized by Putin’s United Russia party. Regardless of “Matilda,” she has been named an advisor to the Prosecutor General of Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Her spiritual mentor, Sergiy Romanov, had a less fortunate outcome. Following his campaign against Patriarch Kirill and the government for closing churches during the pandemic, claiming COVID-19 was a Western invention, his convent was raided in December 2020. The archimandrite was arrested and, in November 2021, sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
However, this did not mark the demise of the Tsarebozhniki movement. Numerous factions existed within a loosely connected network, with the group under the leadership of “Zosima” Sergei Vlasov in Ulyanovsk Oblast gaining significant popularity due to effective social media strategies. Estimates indicated that Vlasov’s online following reached as many as 150,000 people, although the number of active Tsarebozhniki adherents across various groups dwindled to approximately 10,000 following Romanov’s arrest.
Vlasov is undeniably a contentious figure. He was ordained as a bishop by a Cyprus faction of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (a breakaway group not in communion with Moscow’s Russian Orthodox Church) and was even crowned Tsar of Russia.
Sergiy Romanov and Vlasov are former convicts who served sentences for major offenses before embracing conservative Christianity. Although critics use this against them, they argue that they are part of an old Orthodox tradition of criminals-turned-saints, inspired by Saint Moises the Ethiopian. Moises was a leader of bandits and murderers in 4th-century Egypt who converted, becoming an ascetic monk and priest.
Although they are monarchists with extravagant claims for their leaders, the Tsarebozhniki’s ideology is not vastly different from Patriarch Kirill’s. The main distinction is that they reject Kirill’s authority and oppose Putin. They face arrest and prosecution as “extremists” and “Ukrainian agents” both in Russia and Belarus. However, if they supported Putin and his war in Ukraine, instead of being arrested, perhaps they would be rewarded with high positions, like Poklonskaya. Any toxicity in their beliefs in fact stems from Kirill himself.
Mathilde Kschessinska (1872–1971, left, credits) and Natalia Poklonskaya (right, credits).