The Russian Transfiguration

And as he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered and his clothing became dazzling white.

-- Luke 9:29

In considering from a religious perspective the Kremlin coup's hectic rise and fall, one should be aware that the day Gorbachev's removal was announced also happened to be a day of particular importance in Orthodox Christianity: the Feast of the Transfiguration.

For those attuned to the church calendar in the West, this comes as a surprise; they had marked the same event in Christ's life nearly two weeks earlier. The problem is a disparity of calendars. The Old Calendar, established under Julius Caesar in the mid-first century BCE, is still used within the Russian Orthodox Church. Thus while every newspaper declares it is August 19, the church turns the page to August 6.

As the junta was preparing for its first (and, as it turned out, only) press conference in the Kremlin, the gospel being chanted in surrounding parishes described the revelation to Peter, John, and James of Christ's true face. The icon being kissed that day by the faithful entering every Russian church shows the three disciples struck down by blinding light.

In the future Russian believers will link the Transfiguration with the day Russians recovered their own true face -- not the familiar face of acquiescence to czars and political bosses which marked them from the days of Ivan the Terrible through Stalin and Brezhnev, but a face that can confront an army.

Among the more surprising indications that not only the Russian people but the Russian church was turning a corner was the appeal made by Patriarch Aleksi at a time when it seemed likely that massacres were going to happen outside the Russian Parliament and wherever democratically minded citizens dared to confront the military.

Boris Yeltsin, who had arranged for Patriarch Aleksi to take part in his inauguration as president of the Russian Republic, apparently realized in the early hours of the coup that the response of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church would be an important factor. Over the shortwave station set up within his besieged headquarters Monday night, Yeltsin broadcast an appeal to Aleksi: "We call upon you," Yeltsin said, "to use your authority among all religions and believers, as well as the influence of the church, not to be bystanders to what is happening." Reminding Aleksi how the church might once again suffer under totalitarian rule, Yeltsin concluded: "Believers and all the Russian people await your words."

Patriarch Aleksi's response put him clearly in Yeltsin's camp. Questioning the legality of the process that deposed Gorbachev and calling on the coup leaders to allow Gorbachev to address the nation, Aleksi appealed to the army not to obey any orders that would result in bloodshed.

"It is essential to hear the voice of President Gorbachev," Aleksi said, "and to know his attitude to the events taking place." After all, he stressed, it was Mikhail Gorbachev who had been elected president by the USSR Congress of People's Deputies. His removal from office "troubles the conscience of millions of our fellow citizens. We hope that the USSR Supreme Soviet will give a fundamental assessment of what has happened and will take determined measures to stabilize the situation in the country."

THE MOST IMPORTANT section of his appeal was addressed to those in the military: "We appeal to all the children of the Russian Orthodox Church, to all our people, and especially to our army, to display restraint at this critical moment for our motherland and not to permit the shedding of fraternal blood." He went on to express his hope that the people of the republics "will be able to continue to build their home in accordance with freedom of choice and the generally accepted norms of morality and law."

In one of the first indications that those in charge of the structures of mass communication were having doubts about their initial compliance with the coup, the patriarch's statement was carried not only on the improvisational media set up by Yeltsin supporters but was released throughout the USSR by Tass, the Soviet government press agency. Aleksi made several similar appeals.

"I think," said Alexander Makstotski, an Orthodox journalist from Leningrad, "that his words may have made some difference within the army. He gave soldiers courage to follow their conscience and perhaps this is one of the reasons so few people were killed."

Vera de Lange, a Dutch journalist in Moscow, was also impressed by Aleksi's "quick and unequivocal" siding with the Yeltsin camp. "He sharply criticized the coup leaders," she commented in a radio broadcast," and as it were 'excommunicated' them from the community of loyal Soviet citizens."

As for the future of the Russian Orthodox Church, these events are likely to spark a process of purification. Aleksi has clearly and publicly offered his regret for the way he and the church behaved in the past with regard to the political powers. He has, in effect, confessed the sins of both himself and the church he leads. Unfortunately, there are still many bishops and pastors in the church who are used to compromises with the Communist Party and who will find it difficult if not impossible to adapt to a truly pastoral responsibility within a democratic society. The job confronting Patriarch Aleksi in the coming months is a process of personnel change similar in character to changes occurring in national political structures.

Still another urgent problem confronting the Russian Orthodox Church is the danger of chauvinistic forms of Russian nationalism gaining dominance in a decentralized USSR. Russian Jews, remembering the Black Shirts of a century ago, are by no means alone in feeling threatened.

And yet, in the transfiguring light of what has happened around and within the Russian Parliament, there are reasons to hope that Russia will henceforth not only be safer for Russians but that Russians will be safer to their neighbors.

In Amsterdam, Father Sergei Ovsiannikov, a Leningrad-born priest now serving at the Russian Orthodox parish of St. Nicholas, presided at a service celebrating the success of democratic opposition to the coup. "The Russian people," he said, "will never again submit to being enslaved. In the old days the principle on which the Soviet government was based was the idea that society could be 'built' in a mechanical way, that people were like little screws in a large machine that had to be manipulated by a great central authority.

"But that's not the way to nurture a healthy society. You can't build a tree. You can't build a child. A tree has to be nurtured and a child has to be raised. The same is true of societies. The loving nurturing of society has now been recognized in Russia."

On a stand in the center of the church, kissed by nearly everyone who entered the crowded chapel for the special night service, was the icon of the Transfiguration.

Jim Forest was the author of Religion in the New Russia: The Impact of Perestroika on Soviet Religious Life and co-secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship when this article appeared.