On the ministry and church tradition in Western Belarus О служении и церковной традиции в Западной Беларуси

On the ministry and church tradition in Western Belarus О служении и церковной традиции в Западной Беларуси print version July 19, 2019 18:21 For more than two decades, the Grodno diocese of the Belarusian Orthodox Church is headed by the Archbishop of Grodno and Volkovysk Artemy . In an interview with the correspondent of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, Vladyka shared his memories of the difficult times for the revival of church life, about the experience of serving in the Belarusian language, about how the International Festival of Orthodox Singing “Kolozhsky Blagovest” appeared, which became well-known far beyond Belarus, and also told why an environmental department was created in his diocese The interview was published on No. 5, 2019 ( PDF version ). - Your Eminence, which took place in February of the XVIII International Festival of Orthodox Songs “Kolozhsky Evangelism”, you awarded with the epithet “Spiritual Spring in Grodno”. Since the mid-1990s, this forum has managed to go a tremendous way from a modest diocesan review of choir choirs to a prestigious international event. How did you manage to do this? - When in 1996 I occupied the Grodno department, here, as, indeed, in Minsk, the backbone of the parish intelligentsia was composed of singers from the philharmonic society, from the conservatory, from the music school. Clergymen with music education were also part of some choir choirs. My friends from among them offered to try to make a festival. At that time, of course, no one thought about international status: we wanted to raise the level of parish singing. Still, our dioceses are in the West of Belarus, the old church potential is not completely lost here. The Bolsheviks got here late, and after the war they didn’t fake so much. For comparison: by 1939, in Eastern Belarus, all Orthodox churches were destroyed, most of the clergy were killed. Only a third of the temples that fundamentally did not succumb to Polonization were closed here. Christianity as such had no persecution before the war: the seminary worked, the monastery operated. And at the end of the 1990s, it was still possible to see grandmothers on rural kliros, who, from the Polish hour, carried the baton of church singing. But, of course, it was necessary to prepare new personnel. To understand what we have, we decided to listen to all our church choirs - from each parish, with no exceptions. Not everyone on the ground understood at once why this was needed, some even resisted. I had to ask each priest to participate with his chorus in the festival at the level of deeds. This step alone greatly and literally immediately raised the level of singing in the parishes. But the festival grew. Over time, serious singing groups began to appear in the district centers, children's choirs appeared around them. The participants had already ceased to be located in the houses of culture: a large hall was needed. And a large audience and requests where more exacting. We began to invite teams from all over the country - the rumor went around the near abroad. Poles and Lithuanians began to visit us. This is already a big deal - for an Orthodox choir from a Catholic country to perform at an international choral forum (and if you also bring a prize home - so generally a resounding victory). - This year, a diocesan hotel was opened as part of a complex of historic buildings of the bishop's monastery on Gorky Street, one of the best architectural ensembles of the city. Please tell us about the history of this memorable place. How do you see his prospects? - At one time it was a pansky palace, the owner of which, the vice-administrator of Grodno Valitsky, lost and was forced to sell the buildings of the Church in the person of the Spiritual Consistory of the Vilna diocese . Just then, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the ancient Boris and Gleb temple on Kolozhya collapsed, and the monastery located there needed to be relocated urgently somewhere. For this purpose, the consistory and decided to temporarily use the newly acquired manor. On the second floor of the former manor house a temple was arranged. In the late 1990s, I still found clerics who, as a child, prayed and served there. When I was appointed here as a bishop, the department of anatomy and the vivarium of the medical institute were located in this building. The residence of the ruling bishop was equipped in one of the wings of the building. The impressions were heavy: they constantly smelled of formalin, the experimental animals after operations with stopping anesthesia howled and whined ... This went on year after year, while at the meeting of the bishops with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko I didn’t draw his attention to the fact that the Grodno diocese is the only one in a country that does not have a historic building. The issue was resolved within 24 hours. From the ruined state of our own, we raised the structure of the coach wing. Now here, in the outbuildings, the Nikolskaya Church is consecrated, premises for the Sunday school and office apartments for the clergy of the diocese are equipped. In the manor house the equipment of our hotel rooms is being completed. In the central staircase on the second floor, where the temple was once located, an ancient fresco was found during restoration, which still pleases the eyes of believers, it was left in its original place and restored. - Being in the Nikolsky Church, I heard that the Liturgy was served in Slavonic, but the Apostle and Gospel were read in Belarusian ... And how common is the service of the liturgy entirely in Belarusian in your diocese? - As the ruling bishop, I do not oppose the appeals of believers with such requests - provided, of course, that such a desire is really present. Basically in Belarusian serve in city parishes. The degree of discussion of this issue stirs our national intelligentsia, but often from scratch. Here, before putting the bishop inn into operation, we repaired the heating main. The students came up and began to resent that the workers were “digging in the cultural layer.” I talked to them. Claim: “Why don't you serve in Belarusian ?! I wanted to christen the newborn in Belarusian, so I didn’t find anyone here - I had to go to Vilnius! ”Obviously, these claims are not the right thing to say. After all, in Lithuania, Orthodox priests do not make demands in the Belarusian language! In contrast, by the way, from our country, where the Synod approved the Requiem with the texts of rituals in Belarusian and the prayer book in the Belarusian language; The specialized commission for the translation of the divine service, convened by the blessing of Metropolitan Philaret (Vakhromeev), is working. Do you want to serve in Belarusian in your parish, - no problem, write a petition! Today the Divine Liturgy in the Belarusian language is performed mainly in the regional center (usually on Saturdays). But during each week at a particular parish in the schedule there is a similar service. So, any believer in Grodno can calmly pray in Belarusian. - For a long time you have read the basic course of Orthodoxy at the theological faculty at the European Humanities University. How could you characterize modern Belarusian students as a whole? - At first, there were very interesting guys. Recently, the general level of training began to decline markedly. However, I would like to note that, in teaching at the university, I probably learned more myself than I taught someone. - Your diocese, perhaps, was the first in the Church to practice compulsory catechism of those who are baptized and crowned. Now publicity talks are everywhere an indispensable attribute of preparation for these sacraments, but you have had a similar experience for a couple of decades. “In Minsk, where I served as a priest, I had to face the psychology of the old clergy: if a person came to the temple, he is already an ascetic. But during my youth, Orthodoxy was already becoming “fashionable,” and it was wrong to baptize without publicity talks. And a hundred people came to be baptized a day! At that time, I often recalled the teachings of the current Holiness Patriarch Kirill, who headed the Leningrad Theological Academy in the years of my studies there. The initiatives of the Primate were clear to me, and when I took the Grodno department, I simply began to implement what Vladyka Rector taught us. Some clergymen at the age did not immediately accept the order of obligatory publicity conversations. And the youth liked it! - The Grodno eparchy, the only one in the Church, has an environmental department. The Council of Bishops adopted the document “The Position of the Russian Orthodox Church on Actual Problems of Ecology” in February 2013, but you still have no direct followers. Please tell us what this unit does. “To slander nature is a sin, to mercilessly use God's creation for selfish purposes, without looking at the consequences, it is an even greater sin. Our department is focused on concrete actions: cleaning the territories, attracting lay people to one-time and multi-stage actions, environmental education of the population. All this is done by specially created at parishes eco-team. I think this is the most important area of ​​environmental work. One may take away garbage and struggle with environmental pollution, but it is better to educate people who simply will not litter and selfishly exploit God's creation. Only in this way the situation can change dramatically. The largest event of the department is the annual environmental gathering. About a hundred and fifty young people are gathering to work out a joint program of action for the next year. This activity is also close to me from the experience of my Minsk ministry. There I served in the cemetery parish, and regularly had to organize believers to clean up the surrounding area. Our developments, in fact, formed the basis of the document adopted first by the Inter-Council Presence , and then by the Bishops' Council. - Several new temples in your diocese are being built according to the designs of the Polish architect Jerzy Ustinovich - at first glance, to be honest, not quite traditional ... “I cannot agree with this assessment, since absolutely in all the temples designed by Professor Ustinovich there is a modern perception of the architectural canons of both Old Russian and Byzantine church-building. That is why one of his projects won in Moscow in the competition of architects, conducted with the support of the Financial and Economic Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate. I must also say that this Polish architect provides us with his drawings completely free of charge, for which we are very grateful. In general, we consider the primordial appearance of the Borisoglebsk Kalozhskaya Church to be fundamental. No one really knows how it looked entirely, since the view of its dome is unknown to us. But it is obvious: this temple of the XII century was built in the best traditions of Byzantine architecture. Bearing in mind the appearance of our churches, we would like to gain a foothold in the image of Kolozhi, especially as its architectural elements are included in the diocesan heraldry. And here, for example, a church in honor of the Cathedral of All Belarusian Saints is built in this way, as the author of his project imagined one of the possible variants of the original form of the Kalozhskaya Church.