The abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, Vladyka Tikhon Shevkunov, in 2017, in terms of mention in the media, almost bypassed Patriarch Kirill.

He is still called the confessor of Vladimir Putin, despite the fact that he denies his closeness to the president. He is stubbornly called a competitor of Patriarch Kirill and is credited with the role of one of the "customers" in the case of director Kirill Serebrennikov. Zoya Svetova figured out how a student of the screenwriting department at VGIK turned into a major church figure in 35 years, whose influence on the Kremlin is legendary.

A black cassock, dark ash-gray hair smoothly parted in the middle, a neat beard - Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov of Yegoryevsky meets me in his spacious office in Sretensky Seminary. Upon learning of my arrival, he quickly ends the conversation, and his visitors hurriedly leave the office.

Not a confessor of Putin

“What should I call you: father Tikhon? Vladyka Tikhon? I ask.

“I’m not used to being called Vladyka, call me Father Tikhon, (ordained a bishop in 2015 - Z.S.) democratically he offers and invites to sit on a leather sofa. He sits opposite me in an armchair, puts two iPhones one on top of the other on the coffee table. He does not turn them off, he only reduces the sound, and during our conversation both iPhones literally explode with text messages. Father Tikhon asks to bring us herbal tea. I look around. Photographs of the Pskov-Pechersk Elder John Krestyankin with Father Tikhon himself, collected works of Dostoevsky. Above the desk is a huge, full-wall, bright picture - a rural landscape, reminiscent of the cover of Shevkunov's book - "Unholy Saints". We agreed on an interview for two months - at first Shevkunov refused me quite sharply. I texted that I would like to talk to him because I am writing an article about him: “I know that several articles about me are ordered now. Even a movie. I won't be able to give an interview now regardless of the topic. Go ahead," he wrote back.

I replied that he was mistaken, no one orders articles for me. He wrote: “God will forgive you. Do your thing." But when I asked him to talk about my mother, the religious writer Zoya Krakhmalnikova, who was sentenced in 1983 to a year in prison and five years in exile for publishing Hope collections of Christian reading in the West, Shevkunov nevertheless agreed to talk.
We talked about my mother and Soviet religious dissidents for about ten minutes, and then about an hour more about everything. As a result, an interview was published on Radio Liberty. Shevkunov urged me to send the text, because he carefully edits all his interviews.

When I received the endorsed text of the interview, it turned out that Vladyka threw out a few very interesting moments who speak a lot about his attitude to important issues of Russian life.

I asked him if he really showed President Putin Kirill Serebrennikov's film The Apprentice, which led to the emergence of a "theatrical case" and the arrest of the artistic director of the Gogol Center, Kirill Serebrennikov.

- Gossip, gossip. I did not watch this film by Kirill Serebrennikov, I did not watch anything that he did.

- Well, do you know that there is such a director?

- Yes of course I know.

How do you know if you haven't watched anything?

- When they told me that I banned his performance, I, of course, more seriously asked who he was. But before that, I heard about it. I watch movies very little now. It's good if I manage to watch one film a year.

“The Apprentice is a very tough anti-clerical film.

- I know, I know the plot of it, they told me about it, I read it somewhere in an article.

"But you never saw him?" And they didn't show Putin?

- Well, are you kidding me?

- I'm telling you what they say.

- They don't say much.

"Then explain why?"

Because they are liars and gossips.

- To harm you?

- No, just to chat and create the appearance of being informed. I showed Putin? I have nothing to do! Bullshit! You say that I vaguely assessed Venediktov's statement (wediscussed from him statement Venediktova about volume, what supposedly Shevkunovsent on the spectacle "Nureyev" their monks, which spectacle notliked, And Shevkunov complained Medina — Z. FROM. ) I respect Venediktov as a professional. Our positions differ radically from him, but he is, of course, a great professional, what can I say. And he created such an amazing, so to speak, hostile to me personally radio station.

Vladimir Medinsky (left) and Tikhon Shevkunov. Photo: Yury Martyanov / Kommersant

"Hostile because she's an atheist?"

— No, atheists, Lord! Today he is an atheist, tomorrow he is a believer.

Who are your enemies then?

— Enemies of my beliefs. They have one belief, I have another. I'm not saying that they should be eliminated, shot, banned. There are opponents, tough opponents. Here I call tough opponents enemies. Tough opponents can come to enmity. What is enmity? This is an irreconcilable attitude towards a particular position. Right? And every person is a creation of God for us. And we should in no way transfer to a person hostility to one or another of his ideas, a worldview that contradicts ours. We can criticize and denounce his ideas and disagree with them. I quite definitely said: "Alexey Alekseevich Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy is lying." Dot. As the people say: "He lies like he bakes pancakes."

And did he answer you?

- The guys showed me, I asked to trace. He said: "I don't know how to bake pancakes."

After Shevkunov's editing, the entire fragment about Alexei Venediktov disappeared from the interview, but remained on my dictaphone recording.

Disappeared from the interview and another very interesting fragment:

- You do not think that today's FSB officers are the successors of the NKVD, the KGB?

- I don't think so. I am familiar with several FSB officers. I know a man who worked in intelligence. He is much older than me, I have infinite respect for him. This is Nikolai Sergeevich Leonov, lieutenant general, our intelligence officer. Of course, they did not participate in all these repressions. And even more so modern law enforcement agencies.

Were they being rude?

- Not. They came for no clear reason and were looking for traces of Khodorkovsky's money. They came to me as a journalist. And one of the employees, reading the protocol of the search at my mother's, said that he knew those investigators who had conducted a search at our house almost forty years ago.

Probably their teachers. Now to tell the current employee, as I know them and represent them, that you are the direct heirs and continuers of the work of Yagoda and Yezhov, my tongue will not turn.

Why not followers of Andropov, for example?

- As far as I know, many people respect Andropov. Many are strongly opposed. Young guys who came to military service to protect the peace and security of the state. I don't like, for example, that some people have a portrait or a bust of Dzerzhinsky.

- And Stalin?

I have never seen Stalin. But I don’t like Dzerzhinsky, I can say it, but this is their own business. You know, you will learn from business.

- So you are not embarrassed that repressions against dissidents are taking place in Russia?

- I see, of course, that some cases are being initiated. Cases, including those under the article “violation of public order”. According to the articles of the Criminal Code, but people say that in fact it is political persecution. These things need to be sorted out, I don't know. If there really was some kind of unsanctioned demonstration under political slogans, yes. Well, the guys were detained and released. As far as I understand, this is a normal practice all over the world. If someone hit a policeman or threw a stone at him, this is an article of the Criminal Code. You can spare this person if he falls under the amnesty and so on. This is where the law comes into play. I can sympathize with him, but at the same time say: “Listen, you are leaving,“ you must go to the square, ”remember? Come out, it's a duty of your conscience, but don't throw stones!"

Communication with Father Tikhon raised many questions in me: is it true that he did not see the film “The Apprentice” by Serebrennikov and is it true that he knows Vladimir Putin quite a bit? Does he really believe that the enemies of the Church are ordering films and articles against him, wanting to weaken the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on society?

Student "Whispers"

The future bishop and abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, in the world of Gosha Shevkunov, after graduating from school in 1977, entered the VGIK at the screenwriting department to Evgeny Grigoriev (authorscript films "Romance about lovers", "Three days Victor Chernyshev" — Z. FROM.) and to Vera Tulyakova, the widow of the writer Nazim Hikmet. According to his fellow students, Gosha acted without any cronyism. His mother Elena Shevkunova, a well-known doctor, founder of the laboratory for the diagnosis and treatment of toxoplasmosis, dreamed that her son would go to medical school, but Gosha chose cinema.

Gosha Shevkunov (right) and Andrey Dmitriev, 1977. Photo: Dmitriev's personal archive

“He grew up without a father, read Dostoevsky, wrote well, I remember him as a frail boy with burning eyes,” recalls Shevkunov’s classmate, screenwriter Elena Lobachevskaya. - For Gosha, Evgeny Grigoriev was like a father. Paola Volkov lectured at VGIK (coursesuniversal stories arts Andmaterial culture — Z. FROM.) , philosopher Merab Mamardashvili. Gosha borrowed Solzhenitsyn's books from me. And master Yevgeny Grigoriev told us in class that Solzhenitsyn was a great Russian writer, and Gosha listened to him attentively.”

Another fellow student of Shevkunov, the writer Andrey Dmitriev, was one of his close friends during his student years. Over time, their paths diverged: Dmitriev now lives in Kyiv and is not going to come to Moscow. Shevkunov called him during the events on the Maidan, asked what was happening there. Hasn't called since.

“He is my godfather. I was baptized even before he became a monk. This person is very dear to me, despite our cardinal difference in views. Gosha is one of the most talented people I know. Either the great-grandson, or the grandson of the Socialist-Revolutionary, who was preparing an attempt on the sovereign emperor. His mother was an outstanding Soviet epidemiologist, but they lived in a small apartment in Chertanovo and, as Gosha said, he worked in some construction team, and one of the guys who worked with him persuaded him to enter VGIK. The guy failed, but Gosha passed. He was so naive, pure, like Candide. He told me quite sincerely in my first year in 1977: "Let's publish a magazine." I explained to him: "It's impossible." He did not understand:

- Why?

"They'll put me down," I said.

He didn't believe me.

Gosha came up with different stories. For example, I remember he wrote a script about Ilya Muromets, there was also some story about a man who sits in his apartment and manipulates other people, there was something about the Nightingale the Robber.

Dmitriev could not remember the plot thesis Shevkunov. One of the employees of VGIK said that it was called "Driver". This is a story about a man at a crossroads who does not know how to live. There is a scene with a dove in the script, when the hero twists his neck, catching him on the windowsill. It was not possible to confirm that this was exactly the plot of Shevkunov's graduation script: they were not allowed to read the manuscript at VGIK.

Screenwriter Elena Rayskaya, who studied a year older than Shevkunov, remembers him well, although she did not communicate much with him: “He was smiling, soft, quiet. When I learned that he later devoted himself to the Church, I was not surprised. He was always like that - detached, enlightened, as they say, not of this world.

Olga Yavorskaya, another VGIK graduate, has somewhat different memories of Father Tikhon: “He came to our hostel, and we called him Gosha Sheptunov. I think it's a no-brainer."

However, Andrei Dmitriev does not believe that he could have been recruited at the institute: “I don’t know this, he was the Komsomol organizer of the course, we collected contributions together, and then drank them together. I have never heard anyone call him "Whisperer", maybe this myth developed later.

Gosha Shevkunov was fond of the Baptists and went to services with Dmitriev. And then Dmitriev, who lived in Pskov as a child, told a friend about the Pskov-Caves Monastery, and in his fourth year Shevkunov went there in search of God.

Pskov-Pechersk Lavra. Newsreel TASS

Novice Gosh Shevkunov

“Then there was the only Moscow-Tartu train, it stopped in Pechory, one night Gosha got off the train and knocked on the gates of the monastery. They let him in, and so he became a novice,” recalls Dmitriev.

In the book Unholy Saints, Shevkunov writes a lot about the Pskov-Caves Monastery, about the monks, about his life in the monastery. Dmitriev says there is a story that is not written in the book: “He lived in a monastery and wrote his graduation script. The governor was Gabriel, a tough man and, apparently, Gosha resisted this totalitarian monastic system. He had chronic pneumonia since childhood, he then weighed 49 kilograms. And Gabriel sent him to a punishment cell, where he had to sleep on a stone bench, and one day his mother came to the monastery. She was generally against his monastic vows, and when she saw how badly he was in, she got scared. She turned to his teacher Vera Tulyakova, begging her to get her son out of the monastery. Tulyakova called Vladyka Pitirim, who then headed the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchy, and asked to take Gosha Shevkunov to Moscow: he is a professional filmmaker and can come in handy. The date of the millennium of the baptism of Russia was approaching, and Gosha could make films. Once in the publishing department of Vladyka Pitirim, he quickly entered a very serious circle, and in Pechory he had already been only on short visits.

Archimandrite Zinon, one of the most respected masters of Russian icon painting (in 1995 year behind contribution in ecclesiastical art got State Prize RF— Z. FROM.) in the mid-80s he lived in the same Pskov-Caves monastery. He tells a completely different version of Shevkunov’s position in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate: “He worked for a long time in the monastery at the cowshed, he didn’t like it, and, obviously, his patience was already running out. He told me that once the governor asked him to give a tour of the monastery to some KGB officer and his wife (according to another monk, to whom Shevkunov told the same story, he did not tour the KGB officer, but some prominent party member and his wife). So, the wife of this officer asked what education he had. When I heard that he graduated from VGIK, I was horrified that a person with such an education was sitting in this hole. She asked her husband to arrange a nice novice to Vladyka Pitirim. So Gosha ended up in Moscow. He said that his mother was an unbeliever and did not agree that he went to the monastery. She allowed her son to take the tonsure, but only in Moscow.” Many years later, Shevkunov's friend Zurab Chavchavadze said in an interview that Elena Anatolyevna Shevkunova was baptized at the end of her life and took monastic vows.

Another monk who lived in the Pskov-Caves Monastery in those same years recalls that Gosha already boasted of his KGB connections.

Father Zinon does not rule out that Shevkunov could have been “recruited” at VGIK: “I think this is possible. Once he came running to my studio very excited: "A KGB major came with me, and he wants to see how you paint icons, can you accept him?" I told him: “You know how I feel about this audience. How could you, without warning me in advance, promise a person that I will accept him? I won't talk to him." He snorted: "You pushed a man away from the Church." And since then he stopped all communication with me.

Sergei Pugachev (second from left), Sergei Fursenko, Yuri Kovalchuk, Vladimir Yakovlev, Vladimir Putin and Tikhon Shevkunov (left to right), 2000s Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

"An eavesdropper of Gosh Whisperers"

Georgy Shevkunov remained a novice for almost ten years and did not take monastic vows. Already being the rector of the Sretensky Monastery, he told his parishioners that he decided to become a monk, almost running away from the crown, leaving his bride, who was considered one of the most beautiful girls in Moscow. One of his friends says that the future archimandrite had an affair with a famous actress, but he preferred a monastic career: as if one of the elders predicted a patriarchal chair for him in the future.

Be that as it may, but, once in Moscow, a graduate of VGIK and a novice began to make a successful church career.

“He always liked secular intrigues,” recalls Yevgeny Komarov, a journalist who worked in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate in the late 1980s. - Gosha did not really work in any particular division of the publishing house, he directly communicated with Pitirim, was his "oprichnik", as he himself said. Accompanied him at bohemian parties, communicated with visiting Western bishops. It was already impossible for him to drink then: he got drunk quickly. It felt admiration for those in power. We jokingly called him not “the novice of Gosh Shevkunov”, but “the eavesdropper of Gosh Whisperers”.

Another former employee of the publishing department of the MP, on condition of anonymity, says that in the 90s KGB officers began to visit them, Shevkunov willingly communicated with them. He said that we need to cooperate, because only the special services can protect the country from Satanism and Islamism, that the KGB is the force that can keep the state from disintegration.

In 1990, he published a policy article in the newspaper "Soviet Russia" "Church and State", in which he argued: "A democratic state will inevitably try to weaken the most influential Church in the country, setting in motion the ancient principle of divide and rule."

In August 1991 he was ordained a hieromonk.

“Shevkunov had a difficult transition from partying to a church-bureaucratic position. He was in charge of cinema under Bishop Pitirim, then he served as a hierodeacon at the Donskoy Monastery, everything went smoothly, and then he realized that he needed to change his status,” says Sergey Chapnin, a journalist and former executive editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The beginning of the 1990s was the time when the Russian Orthodox Church returned churches taken away in Soviet times. In 1990, Father Georgy Kochetkov was appointed rector of the Vladimir Church of the Sretensky Monastery. The headman of the parish, Alexander Kopirovsky, says that at that time the community of Father George numbered about a thousand parishioners, there was constant catechesis, they tried to equip the temple. But in November 1993, Patriarch Alexy decided to transfer the monastery to Hieromonk Tikhon Shevkunov, who was going to create a courtyard there for the Pskov-Caves Monastery.

“Apparently, there was also a political motive here,” says Kopirovsky. “The Sretensky Monastery is located on the Lubyanka, and, probably, those who worked nearby did not like the neighborhood with our community at all: we were engaged in catechesis, and foreigners came to us.”

The Kochetkovites served in Russian, and in the Russian Orthodox Church they were called Novoobnovlentsy. The parishioners of Father George themselves considered the eviction from the Sretensky Monastery a “raider seizure”, the patriarch’s decree appeared only after the Cossacks came to the temple to expel the Kochetkovites, who actively supported Father Tikhon Shevkunov.

“When Shevkunov drove Kochetkov out of the Sretensky Monastery, he realized that he needed a systematic media resource. So Alexander Krutov appeared in his orbit with the Russia House, - says Sergey Chapnin. - He realized that he needed professional analytics, Nikolai Leonov appeared. And through Leonov (Nikolai Leonov - head of the analytical unit of the KGB of the USSR - Z. S.) he entered the KGB circle.

Former senator and banker Sergei Pugachev says he was the one who introduced Father Tikhon to future President Vladimir Putin in 1996. Then Putin held the position of deputy manager of the presidential administration. Once Pugachev brought Putin to serve in the Sretensky Monastery. After that, they began to communicate.

Sergei Pugachev and Lyudmila Putina during a pilgrimage to the Pskov-Caves Monastery, mid-2000s. Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

Spiritual Advisor to the President

“I have known Tikhon since the 90s. We were very friendly,” recalls the ex-senator. He is a real adventurer. In the 90s, he was a terrible monarchist, was friends with the now deceased sculptor Slava Klykov, monarchist Zurab Chavchavadze, Krutov, editor-in-chief of Russia House. At the same time, he is very Soviet: he loves Soviet songs, sobs to the marches of Slavyanka. Forces the choir of the Sretensky Monastery to perform Soviet songs. He has a vinaigrette in his head: everything is mixed up there. He has, in my opinion, a terrible trait for a priest: veneration of rank. For example, Nikita Mikhalkov is his idol. When he sees him, he is speechless."

At the end of 1999, in the “Kanon” program, Shevkunov told the story of how Putin’s dacha near St. Petersburg burned to the ground, and the only thing that survived was a pectoral cross. They began to talk and write about the fact that Father Tikhon is Putin's confessor. Today he says that this is not so, and he "has the good fortune to know the President quite a bit." And in the early 2000s, the status of Shevkunov's "confessor of the president" was quite satisfactory. In August 2000, Sergei Pugachev, together with Shevkunov, took Putin to the elder John Krestyankin in the Pskov-Caves Monastery. And in 2003, it was he, and not Patriarch Alexei, who accompanied the president on a trip to the United States. And there Putin conveyed to the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia an invitation from the patriarch to visit Russia. This was the beginning of the unification of the two Orthodox Churches separated after 1917, which for many years were considered hostile to each other.

“He gave Putin a very powerful, literally imperial experience - thanks to Shevkunov, Putin played leading role in the unification of the Church Abroad with the Moscow Patriarchate,” says Sergei Chapnin. “I have no doubt that Putin is grateful to Shevkunov for getting the chance to go down in history as a unifier of the Churches. Putin won over the anti-Sovietists (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia-Z.S.), revived the Church, became president not only of Russia, but also of the Russians in the Diaspora - this is a very serious intangible capital that Putin could not get without Shevkunov. I think that the president appreciates this and is grateful to Shevkunov. And Shevkunov carefully uses this.”

Now Shevkunov heads the commission investigating the murder of the royal family and is responsible for ensuring that the Investigative Committee recognizes the Yekaterinburg remains as authentic, which should be solemnly buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg in the summer of 2018.

Sergei Pugachev says that Boris Yeltsin opened a house church in the Kremlin next to Stalin's former office. According to the ex-senator, once in this 15-meter room, Father Tikhon Shevkunov gave communion to Vladimir Putin. “I was against it,” Pugachev recalls. “Putin was late for the service, and the confession lasted half a second.”

It was Shevkunov who oversaw the construction of the temple at Putin's residence Novo-Ogaryovo in the village of Usovo. This was confirmed by deacon Andrei Kuraev, who once came there with Shevkunov.

Among the spiritual children of Shevkunov are former Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, Governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko, head of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, KGB General Nikolai Leonov, TV presenter Andrei Malakhov, State Duma deputy and editor-in-chief of the Kultura newspaper Elena Yampolskaya, who She was also the editor of Shevkunov's book "Unholy Saints". Yampolskaya became famous for her recklessly said maxim: “Russia can be held over the abyss by two forces. The first is called God. The second is Stalin.

Tikhon Shevkunov and Vladimir Putin. Photo: Valery Sharifulin / TASS

“His target is the Orthodox Taliban”

Lina Starostina first came to Father Tikhon with her son more than 20 years ago, back in the Donskoy Monastery. Then she followed him to Sretensky. “He had an incredible power of prayer,” Lina recalls. - A queue lined up for him in the Donskoy Monastery for confession. He is very humane, always enters into your circumstances, always communicates in a friendly way, without rudeness. He is not a hoarder, he is calm about comfort, but he has bad taste. Attributes for worship can cost a lot of money. He willingly helps those in need.

I remember how Father Tikhon said at one of his sermons that the Lord had finally given Russia a believing president, and now it was possible to build an Orthodox state. I understand now that his goal is the Orthodox Taliban, the Orthodox empire. He is a man of ideas. His main idea: if you do not cooperate with the authorities, then the Antichrist will come, who will destroy the Church. If Father Tikhon was asked who to vote for, he always answered: you know who. His sermons were sermons of love for one's neighbor and for enemies - just as it should be according to the Gospel. At the same time, he called the enemies of Catholics and those who support gays.”

Lina Starostina left the parish of the Sretensky Monastery in 2014, when one of the parishioners said that Father Tikhon supported the annexation of Crimea and the entry of troops into Ukraine, while another priest did not bless her to go to a rally against the war. A month ago, when Shevkunov announced that the Investigative Committee should check the version of the ritual murder of the royal family, Lina wrote him an open letter, which was published on the website « Achilles":

"I that the most jewish, which more 20 years was nearby, in monasticparish. Now— then You big And influential face, not only in MP, takeabove, but then, quarter century back… to me entrusted first Veil (sew — Z. FROM.) And altarpiece vestment, not It was yet workshops, And I crawled Houses on theknees, afraid step on on the sacred the cloth, when sewed her. AND you servedliturgy on the this throne, not It was seizures disgust?

AND Veil Easter, first Easter. When you opened US Royal gate, how entrance in Paradise, You already then disdained topics, to what touched my arms? Icould to be from these, No? Not felt? instructed to me restorestole old man John Krestyankina, you every year put on her frontGreat fasting, went out on the Chin forgiveness, she not strangled you? You Sosincerely asked forgiveness from myself And all brethren monastery, but all— stillsuspected?

Why you lied to me, when I asked you 20 years back:

— Father, write And they say, what Jews kill Christian babies. ButI, my close And familiar, this unthinkable!

You said then — take it easy, No, certainly.

You taught US: » Our wrestling not against flesh And blood, but against spirits maliceheavenly».

Is not you repeated US, what » our fatherland — Kingdom God's» ?

» check his a heart, main criterion — love to enemies. Bye you readyto pay evil behind evil, you not you know Christ» .

How you could quit grave accusation mine blood brothers And sisters, after Togo, how thousands, dozens thousand buried in Babi Yaru, there And mygreat-grandfathers? After Togo, how many from Jews baptized, become priestscontrary to everyone And everything. After killings father Alexandra Me? How once youprayed behind me And mine family, but you overcame doubts? You knew about myancestors And were silent?

If all these years suspicions poisoned your monastic feat, sorry.

When— then you spoke: Church should to be persecuted, to be cleansed Andto be faithful, but from ami built tombs prophets, together from them notrepentant killers.

Time are changing, And from favorites « elite" you you can become persecuted Anddespised.

If what, Come under my shelter, at US you you will in security, welet's divide piece, even if is he will last".

At the birthday party of Sergei Pugachev's ex-wife Galina. Tikhon Shevkunov (far left) and Nikolai Patrushev (second from right). Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

Church businessman

Sergei Pugachev financed Shevkunov's projects for many years: he gave money for a publishing house, for the Resurrection collective farm in the Ryazan region, and for the skete in which the monks of the Sretensky Monastery live. After the film "Confessor" of the TV channel "Rain" was shown at the "Artdocfest", deacon Andrey Kuraev shared his knowledge about this skete, in which common man entry ordered: “This skete is a closed organization where no one is allowed in except for VIP guests.” Father Andrei confirmed that a helipad was specially built in the skete so that VIPs “could come and communicate with the monks.”

Receipt from the store "Sretenie"

At the Sretensky Monastery there is a large bookstore and a cafe "Unholy Saints". According to the register of individual entrepreneurs, income from trade in the store goes to the account of an individual entrepreneur, monk Nikodim (in the world, Bekenev Nikolai Georgievich), who has the right to trade in retail jewelry, wholesale ceramics and glassware, engage in restaurants and dozens of other types of economic activity). The big question is: why was it necessary to open an IP to a monk who, by definition, takes a vow of poverty? Why not entrust the management of economic activity to a layman?

However, the monk Nicodemus has long been a confidant of Father Tikhon. He is a member of the Patriarchal Council for Culture, where Shevkunov is the chairman. It was on his instructions and blessing that Nikodim acted as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of the curators of the Forbidden Art 2006 exhibition, Yuri Samodurov and Viktor Erofeev, in 2010.

According to the SPARK database, Georgy Shevkunov himself owns 14.29% of the shares of the Voskresenie collective farm. In 2015, the company's profit amounted to about 7 million rubles.

Shevkunov also owns a stake in the Russian Culture Fund, which in turn owns the Russian House publishing house. According to SPARK, the Fund's net loss is 104 thousand rubles. Father Tikhon also owns a share in the Return Fund, where the Minister of Culture Medinsky and his deputy Aristarkhov previously had their shares.

No other information about Shevkunov's shares or property was found in open sources.

Receipt from the store "Sretenie", issued by IE Bekenev N.G. (Hieromonk Nikodim Bekenev, resident of the Sretensky Monastery)

Effective manager

IN last years two large projects were occupied by Father Tikhon Shevkunov - the construction of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in the Sretensky Monastery and the exhibition "My History" in different regions of Russia.

The temple was solemnly consecrated on May 25, 2017. It was built for three years, and all this time fierce disputes did not subside around the construction. Many architects were surprised that the temple turned out to be so huge, and for its construction several historical buildings had to be demolished, in addition, the design competition was won by an unknown designer Dmitry Smirnov, who does not have an architectural education.

“When the project for a gigantic temple on the territory of the Sretensky Monastery came to our methodological department, I strongly opposed it,” says Andrei Batalov, deputy general director of the Moscow Kremlin museums, architectural historian. “I believed that a temple in the name of the new martyrs should be extremely modest and contain allusions to the catacombs in which priests and hierarchs served in the name of persecution.”

Batalov's opinion changed after Shevkunov invited him to Sretensky Monastery. Batalov saw that the parishioners did not fit into the old small church and were standing on the street. He agreed with Fr. Tikhon that the temple should "mark the feat of the new martyrs and become a sign that it is impossible to destroy Christianity in our country." The architect Ilya Utkin, who is known for his temple buildings, also participated in this competition, but his project was rejected. He says that when Shevkunov presented the competition projects to Patriarch Kirill, he “pointedly” brought him to the layout of Dmitry Smirnov, who was later declared the winner.

“From an architectural point of view, this project presented an absolutely impossible picture. There was a feeling that such a fabulous tower was standing in an open field, where there was a blue sky and golden domes. Unprofessional work done by absolute amateurs,” architect Utkin evaluates the winner.

With Yuri Cooper, who since the 70s lived between Paris and Moscow, Father Tikhon met in Voronezh, where he arrived together with the Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev. Cooper designed the new building of the Voronezh Drama Theatre. “Avdeev recommended me to Shevkunov, and he invited me to the temple construction project,” says Cooper. — I made only the outer part of the temple. Dmitry Smirnov was my assistant. He is not an architect, but a computer scientist. I refused to do the interior of the temple. What Tikhon proposed to do inside the temple turned out to be very tasteless, a kind of space for the nouveau riche, there is nothing religious there. All the walls are painted with terrible frescoes.

Yuri Kuper says that his friendly relations with Shevkunov cracked, and Dmitry Smirnov, after the construction of the temple, never mentioned his last name in any of the interviews and did not say that he participated in this project: “Dmitry has no education, he is a computer scientist who has worked with me for many years. Tikhon lured him to him, and now he is doing all the projects with him.

I asked Yuri Kuper if Shevkunov was an anti-Semite, because he is sometimes referred to as a nationalist and a Black Hundred. “No, there was nothing like that. He offered to become my godfather,” said the artist.

Shevkunov came up with the exhibition "Russia - My History" and traveled with them all over Russia for the whole of 2017. These projects will continue next year. The initiative group for the nomination of Vladimir Putin for the presidency, as you know, gathered at this particular exhibition at VDNKh in Moscow.

The Ministry of Education and Science suggested that university rectors use these expositions to organize extracurricular activities for students and to retrain history teachers. This initiative outraged the members of the Free Historical Society. They addressed the Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva with an open letter, demanding a public professional examination of these exhibitions.

And the Center for Anti-Corruption Research and Initiatives “Transparency International – R” became interested in financing exhibitions: “Since 2013, almost 150 million rubles have been allocated through the system of presidential grants for the creation of exhibition content, through subsidies from the Ministry of Culture – 50 million rubles, technical support exhibitions cost 160 million, and 1.5 billion was spent on the construction of the pavilion at VDNKh, where the exhibition is now permanently located (this without accounting regional costs, but, for example, construction one exhibition complex in Saint— Petersburg cost in 1.3 billion rubles — Z. FROM. ). In addition, the exhibitions are actively financed by Russian business,” says Anastasia Ivolga, expert of the Center. - The received budget funding is absolutely not competitive, that is, in fact, in 2013, for a specific idea of ​​a specific person, a specific network of organizations was created, which was guaranteed financial support for several years to come. It is rather difficult to imagine another similar structure that could so easily secure active support for itself both in Moscow and in the regions, and in four years freely grow into a federal-scale project.”

Tikhon Shevkunov at the presentation of the book Unholy Saints at the 24th Moscow International Book Fair at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. Photo: Maxim Shemetov / TASS

Man in a shell

Since 2000, when, at the suggestion of Shevkunov himself, one of the journalists stated that Father Tikhon was Putin’s confessor, as soon as he was not called “the Lubyanka archimandrite”, “the confessor of His Majesty”, “the confessor from Lubyanka”. True, he himself was in no hurry to refute his closeness to the head of state, receiving certain dividends from the status of "confessor". His book "Unholy Saints" has already gone through 14 editions and is published in millions of copies, translated into several languages. In an interview with RBC, Shevkunov said that he earned about 370 million rubles from the sale of books and invested them in the construction of the temple. The film “The Byzantine Lesson” shot by him in 2008 cemented his image of an anti-Western and obscurantist. Sergei Pugachev claims that now Shevkunov is afraid of his own shadow:

“A few years ago, he came to me in London and begged me: “Let's go to the forest, otherwise Western services are listening to me everywhere.” He was used to listening to the FSB. But his anti-Western idea has reached a new stage. He repeated: "Westerners want to destroy our country." Some kind of stream of consciousness. In general, he looks like Igor Sechin. Only in a cassock. Ministers sit in his waiting room for hours. He bathes in it and is very afraid of losing it. If he doesn’t like something or someone, he can become very tough.”

Journalist and publisher Sergei Chapnin calls Tikhon Shevkunov the main interpreter of Russian history for the authorities. "He tells the President what great country he governs. Starting with a film about Byzantium, he creates a new "author's" mythology, using modern political language, which is quite understandable to those who sit in the Kremlin, Chapnin argues. - In the film "The Byzantine Lesson" he explained to dummies the history of the fall of Byzantium and the insidious role of the West. And soon he decided that by doing so he had found the key to the history of Russia. Unlike many bishops, he is interested in all this. Sometimes he says reasonable things, but when you listen to how the accents are placed, it becomes scary - the desire to search for enemies of Bishop Tikhon does not leave.

Nikolai Mitrokhin, a historian and researcher of the Russian Orthodox Church, explains why Shevkunov was not ordained a bishop for so long: “He is a bishop for relations with the FSB, I think he was, as it were, the representative of the FSB in the Church. And it was precisely for this reason that he was not made a bishop, although he deserved it according to formal indicators already 15 years ago. And it's hard to do now. The church people do not like the FSB people very much, they especially do not promote such ambitious characters.

His entire biography in the latest period points to his clear connections with the FSB. He has some pretty serious money, good connections with the FSB. The street where the Sretensky Monastery is located, this street, by agreement with the FSB, is his street. He destroyed the French school, which stood on the territory of the monastery, erected his giant temple. It is clear that he did not do this with the income from the publishing house. He got some money."

“The FSB people like to have their own priest, who, moreover, sticks out in the same place for 25 years,” says Mitrokhin. - They feed him as best they can, provide him with assistance and services. It ideologically strongly coincides with them, with their ideological vision of the world and with everything else. I reviewed the film "The Byzantine Lesson". This is an ideal presentation of textbooks, according to which they study at the Academy of the FSB, only in historical analogy: a conspiracy, an implacable enemy, pressure on the authorities and the state through internal groups. The logic of the textbook of the KGB Institute. I read what they wrote about Soviet history.”

The editor-in-chief of the Credo.ru portal, Alexander Soldatov, believes that Patriarch Kirill did not want to ordain Shevkunov as a bishop because of jealousy: the presidential administration pushed through his consecration, ”he is sure.

“According to the charter of the Moscow Patriarchy, a candidate for patriarch must have experience in managing dioceses. Shevkunov has no such experience, and he has not yet been given an episcopal chair. But, if necessary, the charter will be rewritten, ”continues Soldatov.

A friend of Shevkunov's youth, the writer Andrei Dmitriev divides his friends and acquaintances into "people of the shell" and "people of the ridge."

“It doesn’t mean that the man of the spine is strong, the spine can be weak,” Dmitriev explains his theory. - It does not mean that the shell protects, the shell can be frail. Mayakovsky was a man of shell, because he could not live on his own. This is either the party, or the Brik family, or someone else.

Shevkunov is one of brightest people era, he cannot live without a shell, he was always looking for this shell. But the shell is influential and spiritual.”

“Shevkunov symbolizes the conservative wing in the Russian Orthodox Church,” says one of the priests on condition of anonymity. He is pragmatic and romantic at the same time. His main idea is that Russia is an Orthodox country, and the churched Chekists are the right Chekists. He really loves the Church more than Christ, and it is dangerous if ideology and faith at some point come together, and faith is reduced to ideology.”

And yet, how does friendship with the Chekists and the glorification of the New Martyrs fit in one head?

Father Iosif Kiperman, who met with the novice Gosha Shevkunov at the Pskov-Caves Monastery in the late 1980s, offers his explanation: “From the very beginning, the Chekists planned to build a Soviet church so that the parishioners would be just Soviet people. They wanted to leave appearance church, but change everything inside. Tikhon is one of those Soviet people. The latest idea of ​​the devil: to mix everything so that both Ivan the Terrible and the holy Metropolitan Philip are together. There were both new martyrs and their tormentors, who suddenly turned out to be good, because political Orthodoxy sees both Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin as saints, and Stalin as a faithful child of the Church. This mixing is the devil's last know-how."

Political press Russian state more than once returns to the name of the famous Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov. Some people claim that he is a kind of gray cardinal who prompts various thoughts, and in some way even dictates his own will to the immediate rulers of the Russian state. Other people suggest that Vladimir Putin needs unhindered communication with the Moscow Patriarch Kirill, who helps him curb his own thoughts and arrange them in the most optimal way so that Orthodox spiritual thinkers can understand him.

It is important to note that the preacher of Orthodoxy, Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, is an extremely intelligent and far-sighted person. He is a contemporary, while retaining his own perspicacity, and of course he feels a high responsibility for the fate of every Orthodox believing people of the Russian state, as well as for the clergy and monks who are under his command. Consequently, Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov is aware of the seriousness of the obligations assumed, both to the Russian state and its rulers, and to the Almighty.

The history of the emergence of monasticism

Orthodox Christian monasticism is a kind of peculiar community that is formed in a person from the very moment when he, of his own free will, decides to give up all possible blessings and begins a new life in accordance with the church charter and canon. Therefore, such a person must throughout his life observe the vow of chastity, modesty and show his own complete obedience.

From historical information it is known that the very first monarch in the Orthodox Christian faith was St. Anthony. He lived in 356 in Ancient Egypt. Historical information claims that Anthony was far from being a poor person, however, for the sake of monasticism, he sold his existing property, and distributed the money accumulated in this way to needy people. Over time, he settled near his own home, which he had previously sold, and began to live a hermit's life, thus, he spent almost his entire life in solitude. He devoted all his time to prayers and prayers directed to the Almighty, and also read the Holy Scriptures. He became a vivid example for other hermits, who, seeing his tireless prayers, also settled near him, rebuilt their own cells and, just like Anthony the Great, began to offer various prayers to the Almighty. It was from the hermit life of Anthony that a community of monks was created. After some time, similar communities began to emerge in various parts of the world, including northern and middle Egypt.

The emergence of monasticism in Russia

A variety of historical data, evidence, say that monasteries appeared on the territory of Russia around 988, when the baptism of Russia appeared. It is known that the famous Spassky Monastery was founded in the city of Vyshgorod. It was during this same period of time that Saint Anthony the Great brought to ancient Russia, a kind of Athos monasticism, and since then he has been one of the main founders of the world-famous Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Many years later, it is the Lavra that will act as the most grandiose center for all religious life on the territory of Kievan Rus. Currently, St. Anthony of the Caves is a very revered shrine, since many Orthodox Christian believers and church ministers revere him as the head and creator of almost all Russian churches.

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov). Biography. Path to monasticism

Known to almost every modern inhabitant, Tikhon, before becoming a monk, was Grigory Shevkunov. He was born in 1958. At a young age, he went to study at VGIK at the screenwriting and film studies department and graduated around 1982. It was at this moment in the life of Archimandrite Tikhon that the most striking changes occurred, because after graduating from the screenwriting and film studies department at the institute, he became a novice at the Holy Dormition Pskov-Caves Monastery. And his further fate was influenced by the monks and associates with whom he connected his fate. At that time, an extremely kind and spiritually believing man, Archimandrite John Krestyankin, ruled in the Holy Dormition Pskov-Caves Monastery. Therefore, it is believed that it was he who influenced the holy, spiritual changes that Grigory Alexandrovich Shevkunov experienced after graduating from the institute, which is why he later became the famous Archimandrite Tikhon.
Around 1986, Archimandrite Tikhon begins his new life and creative path. Thus, Grigory begins a new round of life, working in the department associated with the publishing house of the Moscow Patriarchate. At that time, the leader was Metropolitan Pitirim Nechaev. In 1986, the Holy Archimandrite begins to study the most important historical information, facts, various documents that are associated with the Orthodox Christian faith, and at this moment in his life he studies biographical information about the Saints. It is known that for the solemn date, that is, for the millennium of the Baptism of Russia, Archimandrite Tikhon prepared extremely diligently, since he found a large number of various religious and educational films. In such tapes, he was not only the author, but also a consultant. Consequently, Tikhon influenced many Soviet citizens, giving them a clear understanding and knowledge of the various canons associated with the Orthodox Christian faith. Around the same time, Grigory Alexandrovich Shevkunov was engaged in publishing the most ancient Patrick and other sacred domestic publications.

Acceptance of monasticism

In 1991, Grigory Alexandrovich makes the most significant decision for himself and goes to the Donskoy Monastery, which is located in Moscow. There, in the summer, he becomes a monk, and the servants of the temple give him a new name, under which he is now known as Archimandrite Tikhon. At that moment, when Grigory Shevkunov appeared at the service in the Donskoy Monastery, he took part in the most important act for this temple. The man was present at the moment of finding the relics of the Saint, which, as you know, were previously buried in the Donskoy Cathedral, which is located in Moscow, around 1925. After some time, Archimandrite Tikhon became the rector of the Pskov-Caves Monastery, which was located in buildings near the ancient Sretensky Monastery. It is important to note that various monks and priests, speaking of the archimandrite, argue that regardless of the place, in whatever temple or monastery he serves, everywhere Tikhon feels his own true purpose, and is often firm in his own convictions. Therefore, for many priests and monks, he was not only a good adviser, but also instructed them on the true path in the event of various life adversities.

The life of an archimandrite

Around 1995, Grigory Alexandrovich was ordained in the monastery to the new rank of abbot. After 3 years in the same monastery, he is consecrated new san archimandrite, in which he is, to this day. In 1999, Archimandrite Tikhon became the rector of the Sretensky Higher School at an Orthodox Christian monastery, later this school was transformed into a new theological seminary. It is important to note that in his speeches, Archimandrite Tikhon, often loyally and with great love, as well as gratitude, speaks of the Sretensky Monastery. Many Orthodox believers believe that such affection for the monastery suggests that Tikhon was a minister of this church for a long time, and also received various new ranks there.

After Grigory Alexandrovich was consecrated to the rank of archimandrite, he and his brothers from the Sretensky Monastery went to the Chechen Republic in order to transport humanitarian aid from the Russian state there. Archimandrite Tikhon continued this activity from 1998 to 2001. In addition to such acts, it is important to remember his Active participation in the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church, with the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. It is also important to note that it was in this process of reunification that he played an important role. Starting from 2003 and ending in 2006, Tikhon was a certain member of the commission that prepared dialogues and acts related to canonical communication.

Around 2011, becomes a member of the supreme church council of the Russian Orthodox christian church and at the same time he is the chief trustee of the board of the charitable foundation of St. Basil the Great. At the same time, he is an academician and a permanent member of the committee of the Izborsk club.

It is worth noting that Archimandrite Tikhon was awarded a large number of church Orthodox awards, one of the most revered awards is the Order of Friendship, awarded to him in 2007 for the preservation of cultural and spiritual values. Many Orthodox believers and clergy admire him in a creative way and the work he does. It is also worth noting the fact that while communicating with Archimandrite Tikhon, you not only learn many interesting information, but his speeches are accessible and understandable to almost every person, and at the same time they are not boring, therefore, the conversation with him is interesting and informative.

An archival interview with Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) that is relevant today about where faith goes, where the need for worship, prayer and joy disappears.

Sretensky Monastery rises early: Father Tikhon appoints an interview at 8.30 (!). By this time, part of the day in Sretensky had already passed: the fraternal prayer service had ended, the seminarians had finished breakfast, before the start of classes they were on obedience, some, for example, were sweeping the yard in front of the temple.

I’m standing in the monastery garden, well-groomed no worse than the botanical garden, waiting to be taken to the Father Superior, and peering into the faces of the seminarians and parishioners of the church, who on a normal weekday are not a holiday, rushing to the Liturgy at such an early hour ... In the waiting rooms of Father Tikhon - a spacious room with huge bookcases, Emperor Alexander looks at us from one portrait, and from the other ...

- See, really. good portrait Metropolitan Laurus, is the facial expression very accurately conveyed?

Yes, this is Metropolitan Laurus, who came to Russia from distant America many times under the guise of a simple monk - to travel around the monasteries, breathe in faith.

Where does our faith go - this is our conversation today with Father Tikhon:

—Father Tikhon, where does faith go, where does the need for worship, prayer and joy disappear?

- Once I was talking with Archimandrite Seraphim (Rosenberg). This was shortly before his death. Of the German barons, after graduating from the University of Tartu in the thirties of the last century, he went to the Pskov-Caves Monastery, where he spent sixty years. During that conversation, Father Seraphim spoke about monasticism. He said that The biggest problem with modern monasticism is the lack of determination. Probably, this can be said not only about the monks, but also about many of our Christian contemporaries.

Determination, courage and the spiritual nobility associated with them are noticeably impoverished. But if people understand throughout their lives that the most important thing is to go to God, to be faithful to Him, despite any obstacles and temptations, then they do not waver in faith so much as to lose it.

The crisis of faith you are talking about is especially vivid in our teenagers. At 8-9 years old, children go to church, sing in the kliros, amaze and touch everyone around, and at 14-16 years old, many, if not most, stop going to church.

- Why it happens?

“Children were not introduced to God. No, of course, they were introduced to the rituals, the Church Slavonic language, the orders in the temple, the lives of the saints, sacred stories arranged for children. But they did not introduce God himself. The meeting didn't happen. And it turned out that both the parents and the Sunday school and, sadly, the priests were building a house of children's faith " on the sand”(Matt. 7, 26), and not on a stone - Christ.

How does it happen that children do not notice God despite all the most sincere attempts of adults to instill faith in them? How is it that a child does not find the strength to discern Christ the Savior in his childhood life, in the Gospel? Answering this question for ourselves, we raise another adult problem, which is reflected in children, as in a mirror. This is when both parents and priests teach one thing, but live differently. This is the most terrible blow to the tender forces of children's faith, an unbearable drama for their sensitive consciousness.

But there are other examples as well. I could bring another one, but this one I especially remember: in 1990, during my first trip to Germany, I, to my great surprise, received good lesson from one priest. Catholic. I was struck by his flock - very pure young people of 16-20 years old, sincerely trying to live a Christian life. I asked this priest how he manages to save these teenagers from the aggressive onslaught of temptations and pleasures so familiar to their peers in the West? He then looked at me in complete bewilderment. And he said words that, with their simplicity and clarity, simply crushed me then (I am very sorry that I did not hear this from an Orthodox priest): “Yes, they just love Christ more than all these pleasures!”

Are we in a different situation?

- Of course not! We also have a lot of bright examples, thank God. In our Sretensky Seminary, I see amazingly pure and sincere guys, although, of course, there are all sorts of temptations, life is life.

– But these are teenagers, and what about the people who came to the temple as adults?

- What's the difference? Something similar happens with adults. We also tempt each other (in this case, “these little ones” about whom the Savior speaks - not necessarily children by age) with our lukewarmness, conscious violations of the gospel commandments, and unclean lives. Gradually, people develop the idea that a Christian can generally live as he pleases. And if this happens, people who come to faith already in adulthood gradually lose interest in spiritual life, they get bored with everything. There is no real communion with God, which means there is no life of the spirit. The first three years of faith, Orthodoxy is interesting, new life captures and brings a lot of new impressions, and then everyday life comes.

You know, there is a great danger in the fact that we willingly stick out and inflate such painful moments and with these examples we begin to defend our negligence and lukewarmness imperceptibly for ourselves. And in general, in the church environment, such evil and in their generalization incorrect stereotypes began to spin more and more: if church women, then evil witches, if young people, then they are notorious, if adults, then losers, if altar servers, then they left their family for the sake of the temple, if monks, then money-grubbers and wicked.

But it does happen sometimes...

- Who's arguing? It cannot be said that this does not exist at all, that this is not true. But why, with perseverance, worthy of a better application, convince yourself and others that this state of affairs is the peculiarity of our Church.

I once traveled through Orthodox forums, and it simply became unbearable with what cynical malice Orthodox people, who consider themselves to be very churchly educated, treat not only the clergy, which they generally do not value, but also the most pious laity .

- They say: "Orthodox" and "Orthodoxy of the brain" ...

- These terms, I'm afraid, did not come from anywhere, but from the Orthodox environment. Because only “their own” can prick so subtly. However, be that as it may, but they are picked up in our environment with enthusiasm. But this is a truly disturbing phenomenon in our Christian community. In addition, gradually we ourselves begin to look at ourselves and those around us precisely through the prism of such pejorative ideas.

“To act in accordance with traditional piety has become… uncomme il faut?”

“Remember how Tolstoy in Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” remarkably talked about comme il faut, how comme il faut mercilessly influenced his life. Now (fortunately, only in church circles, because it is simply impossible to call such people ecclesiastical), an Orthodox comme il faut is being developed, and if a person does not fit into it, he is an outcast, a completely despicable person.

Thus we come to cynicism, and in fact to the origins of the very disease of lukewarmness, which has infected Christians since the time of the Laodicean church. The enemy force, which begins to be whipped up by spiritually chilled Christians from within the Church, is infinitely more dangerous than any external force, than persecution.

We teach our students not to become "Orthodox comme il faut" in any case, because they themselves will not notice how they will lose their faith, how they will become careerists, how all the values ​​in their life will absolutely change.

People of the older generation often say when they get together: “How great it was in the 60s and 70s, what faith it was!”. We say this not only because we begin to grow old and grumble, but because it really is. Then there was an external opposition to the Church from the side of the state, but we were together and valued everyone. "Orthodox" - it would certainly be something from the camp of the enemy. Only Yemelyan Yaroslavsky could say about the Orthodoxy of the brain. An Orthodox person would never use such words, such expressions, would never repeat them. And now it is heard in the church environment, they flaunt it, they are proud!

– Why does such an attitude arise?

- What's happening? People went to the Church, but only partly loved it. And gradually, over the years, in the secret of their souls they realized the terrible truth: they treat Orthodoxy with the deepest contempt. With them begins a terrible disease of treacherous cynicism, akin to the act of Ham. And people around get infected with it one way or another. But we are indeed a single organism - the Church, so this disease must be resisted somehow.

When the Orthodox came across such things in the Soviet years, they understood that it was “from our enemies”, “from adversaries”. Now the lessons of contempt and arrogance are increasingly being taught by church people. And we know the bitter fruits of these lessons.

- Bad forecast...

It remains only to remember the words of St. Ignatius, who said that "Retreat is allowed by God: do not try to stop it with your weak hand." But then he writes: "Get away, protect yourself from him." Don't be a cynic.

- Why? After all, cynical judgments are sometimes accurate ...

- Sobriety and witty taunts, when a fool or an insolent person is put in his place, when they want to protect someone from excessive enthusiasm - this is quite acceptable. But cynicism and Christianity are incompatible. At the heart of cynicism, no matter how it justifies itself, there is only one thing - unbelief.

Once I happened to ask the same question to two ascetics - Father John (Krestyankin) and Father Nikolai Guryanov: "What is the main disease of today's church life?" Father John answered immediately - "Unbelief!" "How so? I was amazed. What about the priests? And he again answered: “And the priests have unbelief!” And then I came to Father Nikolai Guryanov - and he told me completely regardless of Fr. John said the same thing - unbelief.

And disbelief becomes cynicism?

People stop noticing that they have lost their faith. The cynics have entered the Church, they live in it, they are used to it, and they do not really want to leave it, because everything is already familiar. And how will they look at it from the outside? Very often cynicism is a disease professional orthodoxy.

“But sometimes cynicism is a defensive reaction of a very vulnerable, insecure person who has been hurt or hurt…

- How, for example, is the exhibition of "forbidden art" different from Perov's painting "Tea Drinking in Mytishchi"? In the forbidden art there is disgusting cynicism, while in Perov there is denunciation. Pain and denunciation for which we should only be grateful.

And the ascetics could say very harshly, for example, the Monk Schieromonk Lev of Optinsky. Yes, and today we have a wonderful archpriest in Moscow who can joke so sharply that it will not seem like a little. But it would never occur to anyone to say that he is a cynic, because there is no malice in his jokes.

- Reading the memoirs of M. Nesterov, I always caught myself thinking that he would certainly be ridiculed today. For example: “Mother was at Iverskaya. They stole a bag with money, but they kissed it” - everyone will immediately say, here, Orthodox ...

– Twenty years ago we would have said about such a person: “Lord, what faith, how good!” And today, prosperity in relation to the Orthodox faith has turned out to be no small test for Christians. Remember, in the Apocalypse: “For you say: “I am rich, I have become rich and have need of nothing”; but you do not know that you are miserable, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). We are poor in faith, and therefore many people, looking at us, get tired of being Orthodox. They still go by inertia, by first love, they still remember how much they received in the Church and hope to receive grace in the future.

– How to properly orient your spiritual life?

The most joyful thing in the spiritual life is discovering new things. Remember with what joy you woke up on Sunday morning for the Liturgy, how you read the holy fathers avidly and discovered new things for yourself all the time. If the Gospel does not reveal anything to us, it only means that we have closed ourselves to the discovery of the new. Remember the words of Christ to the Ephesian church: Remember your first love».

Photo by Anatoly Danilov. Text preparation: A. Danilova, O. Utkina

Saint Theophan the Recluse

Petrified insensibility, or spiritual dryness
Means against it and the causes of its manifestation

I thought you were permanently chilled... or dry and numb. But you don’t have this, but there is something that happens to everyone from time to time. Almost everyone who has written about spiritual life mentions this. Saint Mark, the ascetic, exposes three such enemies: ignorance with oblivion, languor with negligence, and petrified insensitivity.

"Some kind of paralyzed state of all the forces of the soul." In short prayers, St. Chrysostom did not forget them either: “Deliver me from ignorance, oblivion, despondency (this is decay with negligence) and petrified insensibility.”

The means indicated are not polysyllabic - endure and pray.

Tolerate. It is possible that God Himself sends this to teach not to rely on oneself. Sometimes we take on a lot and expect a lot from our efforts, methods and labors. So the Lord takes grace and leaves one, as if to say, try as far as you have the strength. The more natural gifts there are, the more necessary such training is. Knowing this, let us endure. This is also sent as a punishment - for outbreaks of passions, admitted and not condemned, and not covered with repentance. These outbursts are the same for the soul as bad food is for the body, which aggravates or weakens, or dulls ... It turns out that in case of dryness, you need to look around to see if there was anything like that in your soul, and repent before the Lord, and put forward to beware.

Most of all, it goes for anger, untruth, vexation, condemnation, pride, and the like. Medicine is the return of a blessed state again. As grace in the will of God, then it remains for us to pray ... for deliverance from this very dryness ... and from petrified insensitivity. There are such lessons: do not leave the usual prayer rule at the same time, but fulfill it exactly, trying in every possible way so that the thought accompanies the words of the prayer, straining and stirring up the feeling ... Let the feeling be a stone, but the thought will be - at least half a prayer, but still there will be a prayer ; for complete prayer with thought and feeling must be. With cooling and insensibility, it will be difficult to keep the thought in the words of prayer, but it is still possible. It is necessary to do it in defiance of oneself ... This overworking oneself will be a means to bend the Lord to mercy and return grace. And you don't have to give up prayer. Saint Macarius says: the Lord will see how sincerely we wish for the good of this ... and will send. Prayer against cooling should be sent with your word before the rule and after the rule ... and in its continuation, cry out to the Lord, as if offering a dead soul before His face: you see, Lord, what it is! But the word will heal. With this word, and throughout the day, often turn to the Lord. (Issue 1, pass. 190, pp. 230-231)

Leo Tolstoy "Youth"

According to the division of people into comme il faut and not comme il faut, they obviously belonged to the second category and, as a result, aroused in me not only a feeling of contempt, but also a certain personal hatred that I felt for them because, without being comme il faut, they seemed to consider me not only equal to themselves, but even patronized me good-naturedly. This feeling aroused in me their feet and dirty hands with bitten nails, and Operov’s one long nail on the fifth finger, and pink shirts, and bibs, and the curses that they affectionately addressed to each other, and the dirty room, and Zukhin’s habit constantly blowing their nose a little, pressing one nostril with a finger, and especially their manner of speaking, using and intoning certain words. For example, they used the words: fool instead of a fool like instead of exactly fabulous instead of fine moving etc., which seemed to me bookish and disgustingly dishonorable. But even more aroused in me this comme il faut hatred * intonations that they made into some Russians, and especially foreign words: they said m but tire instead of machine And on, de I validity instead of d e activity, n but urgently instead of narc about chno, in the fireplace e instead of in cam And no, sh e xpyre instead of sheksp And p, etc., etc.

In contact with

The abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, Vladyka Tikhon Shevkunov, in 2017, in terms of mention in the media, almost bypassed Patriarch Kirill.

He is still called the confessor of Vladimir Putin, despite the fact that he denies his closeness to the president. He is stubbornly called a competitor of Patriarch Kirill and is credited with the role of one of the "customers" in the case of director Kirill Serebrennikov. Zoya Svetova figured out how a student of the screenwriting department at VGIK turned into a major church figure in 35 years, whose influence on the Kremlin is legendary.

A black cassock, dark ash-gray hair smoothly parted in the middle, a neat beard - Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov of Yegoryevsky meets me in his spacious office at the Sretensky Seminary. Upon learning of my arrival, he quickly ends the conversation, and his visitors hurriedly leave the office.

Not a confessor of Putin

“What should I call you: father Tikhon? Vladyka Tikhon? I ask.

“I’m not used to being called Vladyka, call me Father Tikhon, (ordained a bishop in 2015 - Z.S.) democratically he offers and invites to sit on a leather sofa. He sits opposite me in an armchair, puts two iPhones one on top of the other on the coffee table. He does not turn them off, he only reduces the sound, and during our conversation both iPhones literally explode with text messages. Father Tikhon asks to bring us herbal tea. I look around. Photographs of the Pskov-Pechersk Elder John Krestyankin with Father Tikhon himself, collected works of Dostoevsky. Above the desk is a huge, full-wall, bright picture - a rural landscape, reminiscent of the cover of Shevkunov's book - "Unholy Saints". We agreed on an interview for two months - at first Shevkunov refused me quite sharply. I texted that I would like to talk to him because I am writing an article about him: “I know that several articles about me are ordered now. Even a movie. I won't be able to give an interview now regardless of the topic. Go ahead," he wrote back.

I replied that he was mistaken, no one orders articles for me. He wrote: “God will forgive you. Do your thing." But when I asked him to talk about my mother, the religious writer Zoya Krakhmalnikova, who was sentenced in 1983 to a year in prison and five years in exile for publishing Hope collections of Christian reading in the West, Shevkunov nevertheless agreed to talk.
We talked about my mother and Soviet religious dissidents for about ten minutes, and then about an hour more about everything. As a result, an interview was published on Radio Liberty. Shevkunov urged me to send the text, because he carefully edits all his interviews.

When I received the endorsed text of the interview, it turned out that Vladyka threw out some very interesting moments that say a lot about his attitude to important issues in Russian life.

I asked him if he really showed President Putin Kirill Serebrennikov's film The Apprentice, which led to the emergence of a "theatrical case" and the arrest of the artistic director of the Gogol Center, Kirill Serebrennikov.

- Gossip, gossip. I did not watch this film by Kirill Serebrennikov, I did not watch anything that he did.

- Well, do you know that there is such a director?

- Yes of course I know.

How do you know if you haven't watched anything?

- When they told me that I banned his performance, I, of course, more seriously asked who he was. But before that, I heard about it. I watch movies very little now. It's good if I manage to watch one film a year.

“The Apprentice is a very tough anti-clerical film.

- I know, I know the plot of it, they told me about it, I read it somewhere in an article.

"But you never saw him?" And they didn't show Putin?

- Well, are you kidding me?

- I'm telling you what they say.

- They don't say much.

"Then explain why?"

Because they are liars and gossips.

- To harm you?

- No, just to chat and create the appearance of being informed. I showed Putin? I have nothing to do! Bullshit! You say that I vaguely assessed Venediktov's statement (wediscussed from him statement Venediktova about volume, what supposedly Shevkunovsent on the spectacle "Nureyev" their monks, which spectacle notliked, And Shevkunov complained Medina — Z. FROM. ) I respect Venediktov as a professional. Our positions differ radically from him, but he is, of course, a great professional, what can I say. And he created such an amazing, so to speak, hostile to me personally radio station.

Vladimir Medinsky (left) and Tikhon Shevkunov. Photo: Yury Martyanov / Kommersant

"Hostile because she's an atheist?"

— No, atheists, Lord! Today he is an atheist, tomorrow he is a believer.

Who are your enemies then?

— Enemies of my beliefs. They have one belief, I have another. I'm not saying that they should be eliminated, shot, banned. There are opponents, tough opponents. Here I call tough opponents enemies. Tough opponents can come to enmity. What is enmity? This is an irreconcilable attitude towards a particular position. Right? And every person is a creation of God for us. And we should in no way transfer to a person hostility to one or another of his ideas, a worldview that contradicts ours. We can criticize and denounce his ideas and disagree with them. I quite definitely said: "Alexey Alekseevich Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy is lying." Dot. As the people say: "He lies like he bakes pancakes."

And did he answer you?

- The guys showed me, I asked to trace. He said: "I don't know how to bake pancakes."

After Shevkunov's editing, the entire fragment about Alexei Venediktov disappeared from the interview, but remained on my dictaphone recording.

Disappeared from the interview and another very interesting fragment:

- You do not think that today's FSB officers are the successors of the NKVD, the KGB?

- I don't think so. I am familiar with several FSB officers. I know a man who worked in intelligence. He is much older than me, I have infinite respect for him. This is Nikolai Sergeevich Leonov, lieutenant general, our intelligence officer. Of course, they did not participate in all these repressions. And even more so modern law enforcement agencies.

Were they being rude?

- Not. They came for no clear reason and were looking for traces of Khodorkovsky's money. They came to me as a journalist. And one of the employees, reading the protocol of the search at my mother's, said that he knew those investigators who had conducted a search at our house almost forty years ago.

Probably their teachers. Now to tell the current employee, as I know them and represent them, that you are the direct heirs and continuers of the work of Yagoda and Yezhov, my tongue will not turn.

Why not followers of Andropov, for example?

- As far as I know, many people respect Andropov. Many are strongly opposed. Young guys who came to military service to protect the peace and security of the state. I don't like, for example, that some people have a portrait or a bust of Dzerzhinsky.

- And Stalin?

I have never seen Stalin. But I don’t like Dzerzhinsky, I can say it, but this is their own business. You know, you will learn from business.

- So you are not embarrassed that repressions against dissidents are taking place in Russia?

- I see, of course, that some cases are being initiated. Cases, including those under the article “violation of public order”. According to the articles of the Criminal Code, but people say that in fact it is political persecution. These things need to be sorted out, I don't know. If there really was some kind of unsanctioned demonstration under political slogans, yes. Well, the guys were detained and released. As far as I understand, this is a normal practice all over the world. If someone hit a policeman or threw a stone at him, this is an article of the Criminal Code. You can spare this person if he falls under the amnesty and so on. This is where the law comes into play. I can sympathize with him, but at the same time say: “Listen, you are leaving,“ you must go to the square, ”remember? Come out, it's a duty of your conscience, but don't throw stones!"

Communication with Father Tikhon raised many questions in me: is it true that he did not see the film “The Apprentice” by Serebrennikov and is it true that he knows Vladimir Putin quite a bit? Does he really believe that the enemies of the Church are ordering films and articles against him, wanting to weaken the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on society?

Student "Whispers"

The future bishop and abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, in the world of Gosha Shevkunov, after graduating from school in 1977, entered the VGIK at the screenwriting department to Evgeny Grigoriev (authorscript films "Romance about lovers", "Three days Victor Chernyshev" — Z. FROM.) and to Vera Tulyakova, the widow of the writer Nazim Hikmet. According to his fellow students, Gosha acted without any cronyism. His mother Elena Shevkunova, a well-known doctor, founder of the laboratory for the diagnosis and treatment of toxoplasmosis, dreamed that her son would go to medical school, but Gosha chose cinema.

Gosha Shevkunov (right) and Andrey Dmitriev, 1977. Photo: Dmitriev's personal archive

“He grew up without a father, read Dostoevsky, wrote well, I remember him as a frail boy with burning eyes,” recalls Shevkunov’s classmate, screenwriter Elena Lobachevskaya. - For Gosha, Evgeny Grigoriev was like a father. Paola Volkov lectured at VGIK (coursesuniversal stories arts Andmaterial culture — Z. FROM.) , philosopher Merab Mamardashvili. Gosha borrowed Solzhenitsyn's books from me. And master Yevgeny Grigoriev told us in class that Solzhenitsyn was a great Russian writer, and Gosha listened to him attentively.”

Another fellow student of Shevkunov, the writer Andrey Dmitriev, was one of his close friends during his student years. Over time, their paths diverged: Dmitriev now lives in Kyiv and is not going to come to Moscow. Shevkunov called him during the events on the Maidan, asked what was happening there. Hasn't called since.

“He is my godfather. I was baptized even before he became a monk. This person is very dear to me, despite our cardinal difference in views. Gosha is one of the most talented people I know. Either the great-grandson, or the grandson of the Socialist-Revolutionary, who was preparing an attempt on the sovereign emperor. His mother was an outstanding Soviet epidemiologist, but they lived in a small apartment in Chertanovo and, as Gosha said, he worked in some construction team, and one of the guys who worked with him persuaded him to enter VGIK. The guy failed, but Gosha passed. He was so naive, pure, like Candide. He told me quite sincerely in my first year in 1977: "Let's publish a magazine." I explained to him: "It's impossible." He did not understand:

- Why?

"They'll put me down," I said.

He didn't believe me.

Gosha came up with different stories. For example, I remember he wrote a script about Ilya Muromets, there was also some story about a man who sits in his apartment and manipulates other people, there was something about the Nightingale the Robber.

Dmitriev could not remember the plot of Shevkunov's thesis. One of the employees of VGIK said that it was called "Driver". This is a story about a man at a crossroads who does not know how to live. There is a scene with a dove in the script, when the hero twists his neck, catching him on the windowsill. It was not possible to confirm that this was exactly the plot of Shevkunov's graduation script: they were not allowed to read the manuscript at VGIK.

Screenwriter Elena Rayskaya, who studied a year older than Shevkunov, remembers him well, although she did not communicate much with him: “He was smiling, soft, quiet. When I learned that he later devoted himself to the Church, I was not surprised. He was always like that - detached, enlightened, as they say, not of this world.

Olga Yavorskaya, another VGIK graduate, has somewhat different memories of Father Tikhon: “He came to our hostel, and we called him Gosha Sheptunov. I think it's a no-brainer."

However, Andrei Dmitriev does not believe that he could have been recruited at the institute: “I don’t know this, he was the Komsomol organizer of the course, we collected contributions together, and then drank them together. I have never heard anyone call him "Whisperer", maybe this myth developed later.

Gosha Shevkunov was fond of the Baptists and went to services with Dmitriev. And then Dmitriev, who lived in Pskov as a child, told a friend about the Pskov-Caves Monastery, and in his fourth year Shevkunov went there in search of God.

Pskov-Pechersk Lavra. Newsreel TASS

Novice Gosh Shevkunov

“Then there was the only Moscow-Tartu train, it stopped in Pechory, one night Gosha got off the train and knocked on the gates of the monastery. They let him in, and so he became a novice,” recalls Dmitriev.

In the book Unholy Saints, Shevkunov writes a lot about the Pskov-Caves Monastery, about the monks, about his life in the monastery. Dmitriev says there is a story that is not written in the book: “He lived in a monastery and wrote his graduation script. The governor was Gabriel, a tough man and, apparently, Gosha resisted this totalitarian monastic system. He had chronic pneumonia since childhood, he then weighed 49 kilograms. And Gabriel sent him to a punishment cell, where he had to sleep on a stone bench, and one day his mother came to the monastery. She was generally against his monastic vows, and when she saw how badly he was in, she got scared. She turned to his teacher Vera Tulyakova, begging her to get her son out of the monastery. Tulyakova called Vladyka Pitirim, who then headed the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchy, and asked to take Gosha Shevkunov to Moscow: he is a professional filmmaker and can come in handy. The date of the millennium of the baptism of Russia was approaching, and Gosha could make films. Once in the publishing department of Vladyka Pitirim, he quickly entered a very serious circle, and in Pechory he had already been only on short visits.

Archimandrite Zinon, one of the most respected masters of Russian icon painting (in 1995 year behind contribution in ecclesiastical art got State Prize RF— Z. FROM.) in the mid-80s he lived in the same Pskov-Caves monastery. He tells a completely different version of Shevkunov’s position in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate: “He worked for a long time in the monastery at the cowshed, he didn’t like it, and, obviously, his patience was already running out. He told me that once the governor asked him to give a tour of the monastery to some KGB officer and his wife (according to another monk, to whom Shevkunov told the same story, he did not tour the KGB officer, but some prominent party member and his wife). So, the wife of this officer asked what education he had. When I heard that he graduated from VGIK, I was horrified that a person with such an education was sitting in this hole. She asked her husband to arrange a nice novice to Vladyka Pitirim. So Gosha ended up in Moscow. He said that his mother was an unbeliever and did not agree that he went to the monastery. She allowed her son to take the tonsure, but only in Moscow.” Many years later, Shevkunov's friend Zurab Chavchavadze said in an interview that Elena Anatolyevna Shevkunova was baptized at the end of her life and took monastic vows.

Another monk who lived in the Pskov-Caves Monastery in those same years recalls that Gosha already boasted of his KGB connections.

Father Zinon does not rule out that Shevkunov could have been “recruited” at VGIK: “I think this is possible. Once he came running to my studio very excited: "A KGB major came with me, and he wants to see how you paint icons, can you accept him?" I told him: “You know how I feel about this audience. How could you, without warning me in advance, promise a person that I will accept him? I won't talk to him." He snorted: "You pushed a man away from the Church." And since then he stopped all communication with me.

Sergei Pugachev (second from left), Sergei Fursenko, Yuri Kovalchuk, Vladimir Yakovlev, Vladimir Putin and Tikhon Shevkunov (left to right), 2000s Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

"An eavesdropper of Gosh Whisperers"

Georgy Shevkunov remained a novice for almost ten years and did not take monastic vows. Already being the rector of the Sretensky Monastery, he told his parishioners that he decided to become a monk, almost running away from the crown, leaving his bride, who was considered one of the most beautiful girls in Moscow. One of his friends says that the future archimandrite had an affair with a famous actress, but he preferred a monastic career: as if one of the elders predicted a patriarchal chair for him in the future.

Be that as it may, but, once in Moscow, a graduate of VGIK and a novice began to make a successful church career.

“He always liked secular intrigues,” recalls Yevgeny Komarov, a journalist who worked in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate in the late 1980s. - Gosha did not really work in any particular division of the publishing house, he directly communicated with Pitirim, was his "oprichnik", as he himself said. Accompanied him at bohemian parties, communicated with visiting Western bishops. It was already impossible for him to drink then: he got drunk quickly. It felt admiration for those in power. We jokingly called him not “the novice of Gosh Shevkunov”, but “the eavesdropper of Gosh Whisperers”.

Another former employee of the publishing department of the MP, on condition of anonymity, says that in the 90s KGB officers began to visit them, Shevkunov willingly communicated with them. He said that we need to cooperate, because only the special services can protect the country from Satanism and Islamism, that the KGB is the force that can keep the state from disintegration.

In 1990, he published a policy article in the newspaper "Soviet Russia" "Church and State", in which he argued: "A democratic state will inevitably try to weaken the most influential Church in the country, setting in motion the ancient principle of divide and rule."

In August 1991 he was ordained a hieromonk.

“Shevkunov had a difficult transition from partying to a church-bureaucratic position. He was in charge of cinema under Bishop Pitirim, then he served as a hierodeacon at the Donskoy Monastery, everything went smoothly, and then he realized that he needed to change his status,” says Sergey Chapnin, a journalist and former executive editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The beginning of the 1990s was the time when the Russian Orthodox Church returned churches taken away in Soviet times. In 1990, Father Georgy Kochetkov was appointed rector of the Vladimir Church of the Sretensky Monastery. The headman of the parish, Alexander Kopirovsky, says that at that time the community of Father George numbered about a thousand parishioners, there was constant catechesis, they tried to equip the temple. But in November 1993, Patriarch Alexy decided to transfer the monastery to Hieromonk Tikhon Shevkunov, who was going to create a courtyard there for the Pskov-Caves Monastery.

“Apparently, there was also a political motive here,” says Kopirovsky. “The Sretensky Monastery is located on the Lubyanka, and, probably, those who worked nearby did not like the neighborhood with our community at all: we were engaged in catechesis, and foreigners came to us.”

The Kochetkovites served in Russian, and in the Russian Orthodox Church they were called Novoobnovlentsy. The parishioners of Father George themselves considered the eviction from the Sretensky Monastery a “raider seizure”, the patriarch’s decree appeared only after the Cossacks came to the temple to expel the Kochetkovites, who actively supported Father Tikhon Shevkunov.

“When Shevkunov drove Kochetkov out of the Sretensky Monastery, he realized that he needed a systematic media resource. So Alexander Krutov appeared in his orbit with the Russia House, - says Sergey Chapnin. - He realized that he needed professional analytics, Nikolai Leonov appeared. And through Leonov (Nikolai Leonov - head of the analytical unit of the KGB of the USSR - Z. S.) he entered the KGB circle.

Former senator and banker Sergei Pugachev says he was the one who introduced Father Tikhon to future President Vladimir Putin in 1996. Then Putin held the position of deputy manager of the presidential administration. Once Pugachev brought Putin to serve in the Sretensky Monastery. After that, they began to communicate.

Sergei Pugachev and Lyudmila Putina during a pilgrimage to the Pskov-Caves Monastery, mid-2000s. Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

Spiritual Advisor to the President

“I have known Tikhon since the 90s. We were very friendly,” recalls the ex-senator. He is a real adventurer. In the 90s, he was a terrible monarchist, was friends with the now deceased sculptor Slava Klykov, monarchist Zurab Chavchavadze, Krutov, editor-in-chief of Russia House. At the same time, he is very Soviet: he loves Soviet songs, sobs to the marches of Slavyanka. Forces the choir of the Sretensky Monastery to perform Soviet songs. He has a vinaigrette in his head: everything is mixed up there. He has, in my opinion, a terrible trait for a priest: veneration of rank. For example, Nikita Mikhalkov is his idol. When he sees him, he is speechless."

At the end of 1999, in the “Kanon” program, Shevkunov told the story of how Putin’s dacha near St. Petersburg burned to the ground, and the only thing that survived was a pectoral cross. They began to talk and write about the fact that Father Tikhon is Putin's confessor. Today he says that this is not so, and he "has the good fortune to know the President quite a bit." And in the early 2000s, the status of Shevkunov's "confessor of the president" was quite satisfactory. In August 2000, Sergei Pugachev, together with Shevkunov, took Putin to the elder John Krestyankin in the Pskov-Caves Monastery. And in 2003, it was he, and not Patriarch Alexei, who accompanied the president on a trip to the United States. And there Putin conveyed to the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia an invitation from the patriarch to visit Russia. This was the beginning of the unification of the two Orthodox Churches separated after 1917, which for many years were considered hostile to each other.

“He gave Putin a very powerful, literally imperial experience — thanks to Shevkunov, Putin played a major role in uniting the Church Abroad with the Moscow Patriarchate,” says Sergei Chapnin. “I have no doubt that Putin is grateful to Shevkunov for having a chance to go down in history as the unifier of the churches. Putin won over the anti-Sovietists (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia-Z.S.), revived the Church, became president not only of Russia, but also of the Russians in the Diaspora - this is a very serious intangible capital that Putin could not get without Shevkunov. I think that the president appreciates this and is grateful to Shevkunov. And Shevkunov carefully uses this.”

Now Shevkunov heads the commission investigating the murder of the royal family and is responsible for ensuring that the Investigative Committee recognizes the Yekaterinburg remains as authentic, which should be solemnly buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg in the summer of 2018.

Sergei Pugachev says that Boris Yeltsin opened a house church in the Kremlin next to Stalin's former office. According to the ex-senator, once in this 15-meter room, Father Tikhon Shevkunov gave communion to Vladimir Putin. “I was against it,” Pugachev recalls. “Putin was late for the service, and the confession lasted half a second.”

It was Shevkunov who oversaw the construction of the temple at Putin's residence Novo-Ogaryovo in the village of Usovo. This was confirmed by deacon Andrei Kuraev, who once came there with Shevkunov.

Among the spiritual children of Shevkunov are former Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, Governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko, head of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, KGB General Nikolai Leonov, TV presenter Andrei Malakhov, State Duma deputy and editor-in-chief of the Kultura newspaper Elena Yampolskaya, who She was also the editor of Shevkunov's book "Unholy Saints". Yampolskaya became famous for her recklessly said maxim: “Russia can be held over the abyss by two forces. The first is called God. The second is Stalin.

Tikhon Shevkunov and Vladimir Putin. Photo: Valery Sharifulin / TASS

“His target is the Orthodox Taliban”

Lina Starostina first came to Father Tikhon with her son more than 20 years ago, back in the Donskoy Monastery. Then she followed him to Sretensky. “He had an incredible power of prayer,” Lina recalls. - A queue lined up for him in the Donskoy Monastery for confession. He is very humane, always enters into your circumstances, always communicates in a friendly way, without rudeness. He is not a hoarder, he is calm about comfort, but he has bad taste. Attributes for worship can cost a lot of money. He willingly helps those in need.

I remember how Father Tikhon said at one of his sermons that the Lord had finally given Russia a believing president, and now it was possible to build an Orthodox state. I understand now that his goal is the Orthodox Taliban, the Orthodox empire. He is a man of ideas. His main idea: if you do not cooperate with the authorities, then the Antichrist will come, who will destroy the Church. If Father Tikhon was asked who to vote for, he always answered: you know who. His sermons were sermons of love for one's neighbor and for enemies - just as it should be according to the Gospel. At the same time, he called the enemies of Catholics and those who support gays.”

Lina Starostina left the parish of the Sretensky Monastery in 2014, when one of the parishioners said that Father Tikhon supported the annexation of Crimea and the entry of troops into Ukraine, while another priest did not bless her to go to a rally against the war. A month ago, when Shevkunov announced that the Investigative Committee should check the version of the ritual murder of the royal family, Lina wrote him an open letter, which was published on the website « Achilles":

"I that the most jewish, which more 20 years was nearby, in monasticparish. Now— then You big And influential face, not only in MP, takeabove, but then, quarter century back… to me entrusted first Veil (sew — Z. FROM.) And altarpiece vestment, not It was yet workshops, And I crawled Houses on theknees, afraid step on on the sacred the cloth, when sewed her. AND you servedliturgy on the this throne, not It was seizures disgust?

AND Veil Easter, first Easter. When you opened US Royal gate, how entrance in Paradise, You already then disdained topics, to what touched my arms? Icould to be from these, No? Not felt? instructed to me restorestole old man John Krestyankina, you every year put on her frontGreat fasting, went out on the Chin forgiveness, she not strangled you? You Sosincerely asked forgiveness from myself And all brethren monastery, but all— stillsuspected?

Why you lied to me, when I asked you 20 years back:

— Father, write And they say, what Jews kill Christian babies. ButI, my close And familiar, this unthinkable!

You said then — take it easy, No, certainly.

You taught US: » Our wrestling not against flesh And blood, but against spirits maliceheavenly».

Is not you repeated US, what » our fatherland — Kingdom God's» ?

» check his a heart, main criterion — love to enemies. Bye you readyto pay evil behind evil, you not you know Christ» .

How you could quit grave accusation mine blood brothers And sisters, after Togo, how thousands, dozens thousand buried in Babi Yaru, there And mygreat-grandfathers? After Togo, how many from Jews baptized, become priestscontrary to everyone And everything. After killings father Alexandra Me? How once youprayed behind me And mine family, but you overcame doubts? You knew about myancestors And were silent?

If all these years suspicions poisoned your monastic feat, sorry.

When— then you spoke: Church should to be persecuted, to be cleansed Andto be faithful, but from ami built tombs prophets, together from them notrepentant killers.

Time are changing, And from favorites « elite" you you can become persecuted Anddespised.

If what, Come under my shelter, at US you you will in security, welet's divide piece, even if is he will last".

At the birthday party of Sergei Pugachev's ex-wife Galina. Tikhon Shevkunov (far left) and Nikolai Patrushev (second from right). Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

Church businessman

Sergei Pugachev financed Shevkunov's projects for many years: he gave money for a publishing house, for the Resurrection collective farm in the Ryazan region, and for the skete in which the monks of the Sretensky Monastery live. After the film “Confessor” by the Dozhd TV channel was shown at Artdocfest, deacon Andrey Kuraev shared his knowledge about this skete, to which ordinary people are barred: “This skete is a closed organization where no one is allowed in except for VIP guests.” Father Andrei confirmed that a helipad was specially built in the skete so that VIPs “could come and communicate with the monks.”

Receipt from the store "Sretenie"

At the Sretensky Monastery there is a large bookstore and a cafe "Unholy Saints". According to the register of individual entrepreneurs, income from trade in the store goes to the account of an individual entrepreneur, monk Nikodim (in the world, Bekenev Nikolai Georgievich), who has the right to trade in retail jewelry, wholesale ceramics and glassware, engage in restaurants and dozens of other types of economic activity). The big question is: why was it necessary to open an IP to a monk who, by definition, takes a vow of poverty? Why not entrust the management of economic activity to a layman?

However, the monk Nicodemus has long been a confidant of Father Tikhon. He is a member of the Patriarchal Council for Culture, where Shevkunov is the chairman. It was on his instructions and blessing that Nikodim acted as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of the curators of the Forbidden Art 2006 exhibition, Yuri Samodurov and Viktor Erofeev, in 2010.

According to the SPARK database, Georgy Shevkunov himself owns 14.29% of the shares of the Voskresenie collective farm. In 2015, the company's profit amounted to about 7 million rubles.

Shevkunov also owns a stake in the Russian Culture Fund, which in turn owns the Russian House publishing house. According to SPARK, the Fund's net loss is 104 thousand rubles. Father Tikhon also owns a share in the Return Fund, where the Minister of Culture Medinsky and his deputy Aristarkhov previously had their shares.

No other information about Shevkunov's shares or property was found in open sources.

Receipt from the store "Sretenie", issued by IE Bekenev N.G. (Hieromonk Nikodim Bekenev, resident of the Sretensky Monastery)

Effective manager

In recent years, Father Tikhon Shevkunov has occupied two large projects - the construction of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in the Sretensky Monastery and the exhibition "My History" in different regions of Russia.

The temple was solemnly consecrated on May 25, 2017. It was built for three years, and all this time fierce disputes did not subside around the construction. Many architects were surprised that the temple turned out to be so huge, and for its construction several historical buildings had to be demolished, in addition, the design competition was won by an unknown designer Dmitry Smirnov, who does not have an architectural education.

“When the project for a gigantic temple on the territory of the Sretensky Monastery came to our methodological department, I strongly opposed it,” says Andrei Batalov, deputy general director of the Moscow Kremlin museums, architectural historian. “I believed that a temple in the name of the new martyrs should be extremely modest and contain allusions to the catacombs in which priests and hierarchs served in the name of persecution.”

Batalov's opinion changed after Shevkunov invited him to Sretensky Monastery. Batalov saw that the parishioners did not fit into the old small church and were standing on the street. He agreed with Fr. Tikhon that the temple should "mark the feat of the new martyrs and become a sign that it is impossible to destroy Christianity in our country." The architect Ilya Utkin, who is known for his temple buildings, also participated in this competition, but his project was rejected. He says that when Shevkunov presented the competition projects to Patriarch Kirill, he “pointedly” brought him to the layout of Dmitry Smirnov, who was later declared the winner.

“From an architectural point of view, this project presented an absolutely impossible picture. There was a feeling that such a fabulous tower was standing in an open field, where there was a blue sky and golden domes. Unprofessional work done by absolute amateurs,” architect Utkin evaluates the winner.

With Yuri Cooper, who since the 70s lived between Paris and Moscow, Father Tikhon met in Voronezh, where he arrived together with the Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev. Cooper designed the new building of the Voronezh Drama Theatre. “Avdeev recommended me to Shevkunov, and he invited me to the temple construction project,” says Cooper. — I made only the outer part of the temple. Dmitry Smirnov was my assistant. He is not an architect, but a computer scientist. I refused to do the interior of the temple. What Tikhon proposed to do inside the temple turned out to be very tasteless, a kind of space for the nouveau riche, there is nothing religious there. All the walls are painted with terrible frescoes.

Yuri Kuper says that his friendly relations with Shevkunov cracked, and Dmitry Smirnov, after the construction of the temple, never mentioned his last name in any of the interviews and did not say that he participated in this project: “Dmitry has no education, he is a computer scientist who has worked with me for many years. Tikhon lured him to him, and now he is doing all the projects with him.

I asked Yuri Kuper if Shevkunov was an anti-Semite, because he is sometimes referred to as a nationalist and a Black Hundred. “No, there was nothing like that. He offered to become my godfather,” said the artist.

Shevkunov came up with the exhibition "Russia - My History" and traveled with them all over Russia for the whole of 2017. These projects will continue next year. The initiative group for the nomination of Vladimir Putin for the presidency, as you know, gathered at this particular exhibition at VDNKh in Moscow.

The Ministry of Education and Science suggested that university rectors use these expositions to organize extracurricular activities for students and to retrain history teachers. This initiative outraged the members of the Free Historical Society. They addressed the Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva with an open letter, demanding a public professional examination of these exhibitions.

And the Center for Anti-Corruption Research and Initiatives “Transparency International – R” became interested in financing exhibitions: “Since 2013, almost 150 million rubles have been allocated for the creation of exhibition content through the system of presidential grants alone, 50 million rubles through subsidies from the Ministry of Culture, technical support for exhibitions has cost 160 million, and 1.5 billion was spent on the construction of the pavilion at VDNKh, where the exhibition is now permanently located (this without accounting regional costs, but, for example, construction one exhibition complex in Saint— Petersburg cost in 1.3 billion rubles — Z. FROM. ). In addition, the exhibitions are actively financed by Russian business,” says Anastasia Ivolga, expert of the Center. - The received budget funding is absolutely not competitive, that is, in fact, in 2013, for a specific idea of ​​a specific person, a specific network of organizations was created, which was guaranteed financial support for several years to come. It is rather difficult to imagine another similar structure that could so easily secure active support for itself both in Moscow and in the regions, and in four years freely grow into a federal-scale project.”

Tikhon Shevkunov at the presentation of the book Unholy Saints at the 24th Moscow International Book Fair at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. Photo: Maxim Shemetov / TASS

Man in a shell

Since 2000, when, at the suggestion of Shevkunov himself, one of the journalists stated that Father Tikhon was Putin’s confessor, as soon as he was not called “the Lubyanka archimandrite”, “the confessor of His Majesty”, “the confessor from Lubyanka”. True, he himself was in no hurry to refute his closeness to the head of state, receiving certain dividends from the status of "confessor". His book "Unholy Saints" has already gone through 14 editions and is published in millions of copies, translated into several languages. In an interview with RBC, Shevkunov said that he earned about 370 million rubles from the sale of books and invested them in the construction of the temple. The film “The Byzantine Lesson” shot by him in 2008 cemented his image of an anti-Western and obscurantist. Sergei Pugachev claims that now Shevkunov is afraid of his own shadow:

“A few years ago, he came to me in London and begged me: “Let's go to the forest, otherwise Western services are listening to me everywhere.” He was used to listening to the FSB. But his anti-Western idea has reached a new stage. He repeated: "Westerners want to destroy our country." Some kind of stream of consciousness. In general, he looks like Igor Sechin. Only in a cassock. Ministers sit in his waiting room for hours. He bathes in it and is very afraid of losing it. If he doesn’t like something or someone, he can become very tough.”

Journalist and publisher Sergei Chapnin calls Tikhon Shevkunov the main interpreter of Russian history for the authorities. “He tells the president what a great country he rules. Starting with a film about Byzantium, he creates a new "author's" mythology, using modern political language, which is quite understandable to those who sit in the Kremlin, Chapnin argues. - In the film "The Byzantine Lesson" he explained to dummies the history of the fall of Byzantium and the insidious role of the West. And soon he decided that by doing so he had found the key to the history of Russia. Unlike many bishops, he is interested in all this. Sometimes he says reasonable things, but when you listen to how the accents are placed, it becomes scary - the desire to search for enemies of Bishop Tikhon does not leave.

Nikolai Mitrokhin, a historian and researcher of the Russian Orthodox Church, explains why Shevkunov was not ordained a bishop for so long: “He is a bishop for relations with the FSB, I think he was, as it were, the representative of the FSB in the Church. And it was precisely for this reason that he was not made a bishop, although he deserved it according to formal indicators already 15 years ago. And it's hard to do now. The church people do not like the FSB people very much, they especially do not promote such ambitious characters.

His entire biography in the latest period points to his clear connections with the FSB. He has some pretty serious money, good connections with the FSB. The street where the Sretensky Monastery is located, this street, by agreement with the FSB, is his street. He destroyed the French school, which stood on the territory of the monastery, erected his giant temple. It is clear that he did not do this with the income from the publishing house. He got some money."

“The FSB people like to have their own priest, who, moreover, sticks out in the same place for 25 years,” says Mitrokhin. - They feed him as best they can, provide him with assistance and services. It ideologically strongly coincides with them, with their ideological vision of the world and with everything else. I reviewed the film "The Byzantine Lesson". This is an ideal presentation of textbooks, according to which they study at the Academy of the FSB, only in historical analogy: a conspiracy, an implacable enemy, pressure on the authorities and the state through internal groups. The logic of the textbook of the KGB Institute. I read what they wrote about Soviet history.”

The editor-in-chief of the Credo.ru portal, Alexander Soldatov, believes that Patriarch Kirill did not want to ordain Shevkunov as a bishop because of jealousy: the presidential administration pushed through his consecration, ”he is sure.

“According to the charter of the Moscow Patriarchy, a candidate for patriarch must have experience in managing dioceses. Shevkunov has no such experience, and he has not yet been given an episcopal chair. But, if necessary, the charter will be rewritten, ”continues Soldatov.

A friend of Shevkunov's youth, the writer Andrei Dmitriev divides his friends and acquaintances into "people of the shell" and "people of the ridge."

“It doesn’t mean that the man of the spine is strong, the spine can be weak,” Dmitriev explains his theory. - It does not mean that the shell protects, the shell can be frail. Mayakovsky was a man of shell, because he could not live on his own. This is either the party, or the Brik family, or someone else.

Shevkunov is one of the brightest people of the era, he cannot live without a shell, he was always looking for this shell. But the shell is influential and spiritual.”

“Shevkunov symbolizes the conservative wing in the Russian Orthodox Church,” says one of the priests on condition of anonymity. He is pragmatic and romantic at the same time. His main idea is that Russia is an Orthodox country, and the churched Chekists are the right Chekists. He really loves the Church more than Christ, and it is dangerous if ideology and faith at some point come together, and faith is reduced to ideology.”

And yet, how does friendship with the Chekists and the glorification of the New Martyrs fit in one head?

Father Iosif Kiperman, who met with the novice Gosha Shevkunov at the Pskov-Caves Monastery in the late 1980s, offers his explanation: “From the very beginning, the Chekists planned to build a Soviet church so that the parishioners would be just Soviet people. They wanted to leave the exterior of the church, but change everything inside. Tikhon is one of those Soviet people. The latest idea of ​​the devil: to mix everything so that both Ivan the Terrible and the holy Metropolitan Philip are together. There were both new martyrs and their tormentors, who suddenly turned out to be good, because political Orthodoxy sees both Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin as saints, and Stalin as a faithful child of the Church. This mixing is the devil's last know-how."

November 27, 2017 | Alexey Makarkin

Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov): secrets of influence

Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Yegoryevsk is considered one of the most influential figures in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). He is called the confessor of Vladimir Putin - although there is no evidence of this particular status, Vladyka Tikhon's closeness to the Kremlin and his political influence are beyond doubt. Especially a lot of controversy unfolded around the figure of the Yegorievsk bishop this year - he is called both a competitor of Patriarch Kirill, and the ideological leader of the conservatives, and a persecutor of director Kirill Serebrennikov.

Unusual Bishop

The standard biography of a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church includes receiving a higher spiritual education, either full-time or part-time. As a rule, such a career begins after school and the army, sometimes after a secular university or institute (completed or left due to a change in life plans). A young man begins his journey in the church with a short "internship" in the form of an altar boy in a church or a similar position, then receives a recommendation and enters a seminary, and receives a higher spiritual education either full-time or by correspondence, simultaneously with priestly service. If he chooses the monastic path, then soon after a short period of obedience, he takes the tonsure.

The fate of Tikhon looks different. He graduated from the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in 1982 with a degree in screenwriting. However, in the same year he entered as a novice at the Pskov-Caves Monastery, one of the two monasteries that were then operating on the territory of the RSFSR. The arrival of people from the creative intelligentsia to the church was not uncommon then. The rector of the Moscow church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhy, Archpriest Alexander Shargunov (the most famous priest among those who supported Gennady Zyuganov in 1996, the father of the writer and State Duma deputy from the Communist Party Sergei Shargunov) graduated from the capital's foreign language, was engaged in poetic translations. The rector of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kadashi (in the courtyard of which a prayer standing against the film "Matilda" took place) Archpriest Alexander Saltykov is a graduate of the art history department of the history department of Moscow State University.

However, the novitiate of George (the worldly name of Tikhon) lasted almost a decade, but included not only a stay in a monastery remote from Moscow, but also work in the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate under the leadership of the then influential Metropolitan Pitirim. In the second half of the 1980s, the importance of the Publishing Department grew - it was preparing materials for the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia, and its chairman enjoyed the support of the influential Raisa Maksimovna Gorbacheva. But after the death of Patriarch Pimen and the collapse of the USSR, the influence of Pitirim fell sharply, after a while he lost leadership of the department due to difficult relations with the newly elected Patriarch Alexy II. However, by that time George had already been tonsured a monk with the name Tikhon. He was tonsured by Patriarch Alexy II, who became his new patron.

Patriarch Alexy II, during his entire tenure as primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, was forced to take into account the interests of a group of bishops - "Nikodimians" - tonsured by the Leningrad Metropolitan Nikodim, who died in 1978. Among the “Nikodimovites” are, in particular, Metropolitan Yuvenaly and the then Metropolitan and current Patriarch Kirill. Under these conditions, Alexy made a bet on monasticism, which was suspicious of the liberal tendencies associated with the Leningrad Theological Academy. Most of the bishops ordained under Alexios were conservatives, adherents of traditional piety.

Tikhon fully complied with this course. Widely known was his struggle with the liberal priest Georgy Kochetkov, whose community was ousted first from the Sretensky Monastery, and then from the nearby Church of the Assumption in Pechatniki. The monastery complex was occupied in 1993-1994 by the courtyard of the Pskov-Caves Monastery, which was headed by Tikhon. It is characteristic that the cathedral was re-consecrated - in this way Tikhon demonstrated that he did not consider the community that served in Russian Orthodox, despite its official canonical status as part of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Church of the Assumption in Pechatniki was forced to leave the community of Father George in 1997 after a loud and scandalous conflict. As a rule, this conflict is interpreted in the context of the confrontation between church liberals and conservatives. This is true, but there is another, much less well-known aspect: Father Georgy Kochetkov was a student of the future Patriarch Kirill at the Leningrad Academy. And after the end of the conflict, he got the opportunity to serve in Moscow's Novodevichy Convent, the residence of Metropolitan Yuvenaly.

"Lubyansky Father"

Tikhon was the abbot of the courtyard of the Pskov-Caves Monastery for a short time - already in 1995 it was transformed into an independent Sretensky Monastery. Patriarch Alexy II became its rector, and Tikhon had the rank of governor. Soon the active development of the monastery began. It created a choir, which currently has the status of the main choir of the Russian Orthodox Church, which conducts concert activities in Russia and abroad. One of the major publishing houses Russian Orthodox Church and the largest Orthodox book store in Moscow. In 2000, the Internet portal Pravoslavie.Ru, popular among believers, was created.

In 1999, on the initiative of the then Archimandrite Tikhon and under his leadership, the Sretensky Higher Orthodox Monastery School was opened in the monastery. In 2001 it was transformed into a theological school, and in 2002 into a seminary. The first graduation of students took place in 2004 - Rector Tikhon was among the graduates. In such an extremely unusual way, he received the religious education necessary, in particular, to occupy the post of patriarch. Among the teachers at the seminary was Olga Vasilyeva, currently the Minister of Education and Science of Russia, who taught classes in church history.

One of the main problems of monasteries is the lack of revered relics of saints in many of them, which are worshiped by believers. The presence of such relics enhances the informal status of the monastery and increases the influx of pilgrims. Particles of relics are not enough for this - you can recall the story about a piece of the belt of the Virgin, which is located in one of the Moscow churches, but does not attract increased attention from believers (whereas the belt itself, brought to Moscow, became the object of worship of a huge number of Orthodox). There were no such shrines in the renewed Sretensky Monastery.

Then Archimandrite Tikhon achieved the transfer in 1999 to the monastery of the relics of the New Martyr Hilarion (Troitsky), who died in 1929 in Leningrad, where he was on his way from the Solovetsky camp to the Central Asian exile. His relics were in the St. Petersburg Novodevichy Convent, but the main period of his activity was associated with Moscow and the Moscow Theological Academy. Apparently, proceeding from this, Alexy II blessed the transfer of relics to Moscow. The reputation of St. Hilarion as a conservative theologian, who believed that only believers belonging to the Orthodox Church can be considered Christians, could also play a role in the decision to transfer the relics to the Sretensky Monastery. This thesis is consonant with the point of view of Bishop Tikhon. Thus, the veneration of the new martyrs was laid in the Sretensky Monastery, which led to the construction of the “church on the blood” consecrated in 2017 in honor of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia.

Of course, such large-scale projects cannot be implemented without sponsors. Initially, one of them was the banker Sergei Pugachev, previously close to the Kremlin. However, his bank went bankrupt long ago, and he himself ended up in exile and turned into a critic. Russian authorities. But the financial support of the monastery did not decrease, but even increased - the construction of the cathedral took place without Pugachev. The prosperity of the monastery is due to the numerous connections of its governor. In his book Unholy Saints, Tikhon calls the former Prosecutor General and Minister of Justice, and now the presidential envoy to the Southern District, Vladimir Ustinov, his parishioner. Tikhon's good acquaintances include the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin (whose daughter was married to Ustinov's son for some time). Nikolai Patrushev, the former head of the FSB and now Secretary of the Security Council, is considered an ally of Tikhon. The FSB building is located not far from the Sretensky Monastery - that is why Tikhon was nicknamed "the Lubyanka father."

Vladimir Putin is considered the most influential acquaintance of Tikhon. As far as can be judged, they first met in 2000, when the president visited the Pskov-Caves Monastery, where he met with Elder John (Krestyankin). After that, there was a rumor that Tikhon became Putin's confessor, but it is not confirmed. It is unlikely that the president has a permanent confessor, although it is possible that Putin once confessed to Tikhon. Tikhon's extensive connections are also associated with his hardware successes. Among them, the transfer to the monastery of the former building of the school with in-depth study of the French language - Tikhon publicly stated that the school was located on the site of the cemetery of people who died during the Napoleonic invasion, and emphasized in this regard that French was spoken at the school. As well as the demolition of several buildings of the 19th century, on the site of which a new cathedral was built - the protests of the Archnadzor did not lead to anything.

According to the TV channel "Rain", the budget of the project of modern multimedia exhibitions "Russia - my history", implemented by Tikhon, amounted to more than 10 billion rubles. In 2018, the number of exhibition parks "Russia - My History" will reach 25. Money for the construction of centers and the creation of expositions is allocated from the budgets different levels, large companies (including Gazprom) and through systems of state orders and grants. In total, more than 10 billion rubles will be allocated for these purposes. At the same time, the most expensive center after the capital will appear next year in St. Petersburg, where 1.4 billion rubles have already been allocated from the budget. In Moscow, a similar exhibition, on behalf of President Putin, was placed in one of the largest pavilions at VDNKh, the reconstruction of which cost 1.5 billion rubles. Norilsk Nickel became the general sponsor of the exhibition.

Thus, Tikhon is one of the most influential church figures - his capabilities are comparable to those of the patriarch, despite the fact that Tikhon, although he was ordained a bishop in 2015, is only one of the many vicars (assistants) of the patriarch. Despite the fact that his chair is officially located in Yegoryevsk, near Moscow, the bishop's residence remains in the Sretensky Monastery, which he continues to head.

The secret of success and problems

The question arises as to the reasons for such success of Tikhon. The fact is that the majority of representatives of the highest church hierarchy are perceived by state officials as their nomenklatura colleagues. In the Brezhnev era, the episcopate was dissatisfied with the fact that the high church status did not allow him to join the Soviet elite. Bishops were dependent on petty officials who could fulfill their requests, or they could refuse. This was due to the role of the church, which was considered a temporary, obsolete anomaly in the Soviet state. Much has changed in post-Soviet times. Bishops have become a natural part of the regional elite - their influence and living standards have risen sharply. As well as the patriarch, by definition, is included in the federal "super-elite", despite the separation of church and state.

But colleagues in the elite do not perceive such archpastors as spiritual authorities - for them they are often pragmatic business executives and, despite monasticism, secular people in terms of behavior. Therefore, for spiritual guidance and consolation - and it is often needed and strong of the world this - they prefer to go to monasteries to touch the ancient senile tradition. It is difficult to confess to a bishop, unlike a simple monk or even the abbot of a monastery. However, Tikhon is now also a bishop, but he retained his former image of a confessor, a monk, and not a bureaucrat - and this is a great advantage.

But the monastic tradition can be presented in different ways. The advantage of Tikhon as a certified screenwriter is that he does it brightly and, as they say now, creatively, combining the conservative tradition with the modern "shell". It is difficult for an ordinary secular person to master complex monastic texts, such as the five-volume "Philokalia", the lives of saints and the biographies of ascetics are often archaic for him. Another thing is Tikhon's popular book, Unholy Saints, which has withstood many editions, a collection of stories written not only with knowledge of the matter, but also with a literary gift, with irony and elements of self-irony (which is rare for the church, but typical modern society). Or the simple analogies contained in the film he created, The Fall of an Empire. The Byzantine Lesson” – about how the Byzantine elites colluded with the West and destroyed the country, and the Russians almost followed suit, but the president prevented them. Archpriest Maxim Kozlov said that this film is “a political satire filmed as part of a telenarrative, with the presenter, who is a clergyman, referring to Byzantine history as a substratum for narrating the facts of modern history.”

Attention is drawn to another important aspect that explains Tikhon's rapprochement with former and current security officials. For them, it is important to build a consistent concept of history, which would include both the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods of history. Tikhon proposed his own version, based on the division of politicians into statesmen and anti-statists, which is widespread in the church. Priority public interests unites Russian tsars and Soviet leaders, Stalin is not idealized, but he is not considered the culprit of all the troubles of the twentieth century that befell Russia. Instead, attention is focused on the responsibility for them of the liberals who participated in the overthrow of the monarchy. Tikhon's anti-liberalism and anti-Westernism are quite consistent with the mentality of the security forces. In "Unholy Saints" there is no condemnation of the Soviet power, which is characteristic of many church works - its place is taken by the attitude towards it as a reality with which it is necessary to coexist, preserving one's own Orthodox identity.

However, Tikhon's informal political influence led to problems in relations with three serious interest groups.

The first is a considerable part of the official church hierarchy, up to the patriarch. There, it seems, not only are they jealous of Tikhon's hardware capabilities, but they also believe that he has his own patriarchal ambitions. Related to this is a "leak" made public by Alexei Venediktov - that Tikhon intends to become rector of St. Isaac's Cathedral, then a metropolitan, and then a patriarch (Tikhon himself denied this information). True, as a vicar bishop Tikhon does not have the right to be elected patriarch - according to the Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church, the candidate must have "sufficient experience in diocesan administration." But sufficient experience is a loose concept; in principle, the council can recognize as such both six months and a year (refuting rumors about his ambitions, Tikhon said that we are talking about five years, but this is not in the Charter). Apparently, it is precisely with this that the assignment that Tikhon received is connected - to deal with the question of whether the “Ekaterinburg remains” are the relics of the royal family. If he recognizes them as authentic, he will irritate many conservatives, who proceed from the fact that under Boris Yeltsin and Boris Nemtsov it was impossible to open the real relics. If not, then the Kremlin will be greatly disappointed, where they want to reburial Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria next year, on the centenary of the execution of the royal family.

The second is the liberal part of the social spectrum, for which Tikhon is an ideological opponent. Regardless of the degree of reliability of the information that the bishop was involved in the arrest of Kirill Serebrennikov, there is no doubt that Tikhon is one of the main opponents contemporary art and a general orientation towards a global society. Moreover, in contrast, for example, from Nikita Mikhalkov, who retained significant apparatus influence.

The third is a part of the representatives of the "illiberal" secular elite, for whom Tikhon can be a dangerous competitor. The very fact that there is a figure with such a serious informal influence looks like an irritant for people who are on the public service and accustomed to certain formalized procedures. All these factors contribute to a strong informational tension around the figure of Tikhon, which may further intensify in the future.

 – leading expert of the Center for Political Technologies