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Published by Russia Profile
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Thursday, 28 September 2006 |
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"Monarchist Past & Future">Monarchist Past & Future" - or click here - well worth a read!"...the degree of monarchist sentiment within the Russian Orthodox Church is astounding. Although the Church has officially declared that it is not affiliated with a particular form of government, Nicholas II, who was canonized under vast popular pressure in 2000, is one of the most venerated saints today. The hierarchy is ineffectively fighting a heresy within the Church which sees the slain emperor as a “co-redeemer” on par with Jesus Christ. The situation is such that I have heard a prominent priest exclaim at an internal conference: “We are becoming Ceaserodox instead of Orthodox!”......The quest for continuity with historical Russia recalls the “new old” flag and coat of arms, the rebuilding of a throne hall in the Kremlin and the reburial of the Romanovs. But it doesn’t address the actual issue, which the restoration of monarchy would have solved. It would give direction and meaning to Russia’s development; it suggests the elusive national idea which the country’s elite has been unable to formulate during the past 15 years.......Take these questions, add more than 60 percent of those opposed to monarchy, and you realize that no matter how attractive the idea might be, no matter how organic it appears for the Russians almost 90 years after they lost their monarchy, its restoration is largely unrealistic. Perhaps Russians' attitude to monarchy should be similar to that of the Jews to the Temple of Jerusalem: We should mourn its loss every day without trying to rebuild it. But then again, as my monarchist friends say, when the right time comes, God will simply make manifest the Tsar."
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