Believers call Easter the celebration of all celebrations. For them, the Resurrection of Christ is the main holiday of the Orthodox calendar. For the sixth time in a row in its modern history, the Russian army celebrates Easter, blessed by military priests who appeared in units and formations after a ninety-year hiatus.
At the origins of the tradition
The idea to revive the institution of military priests in the Russian army came from the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) back in the mid-nineties. It did not receive much development, but secular leaders generally positively assessed the initiative of the ROC. Affected by the benevolent attitude of society towards church rituals and the fact that after the elimination of the staff of political workers, the education of personnel lost a distinct ideological core. The post-communist elite was never able to formulate a new bright national idea. Her search has led many to a long-familiar religious perception of life.
The initiative of the Russian Orthodox Church bogged down mainly because there was no main thing in this story - the actual military priests. The father of an ordinary parish was not very suitable for the role, for example, of the confessor of desperate paratroopers. There should be a person of their milieu, respected not only for the wisdom of religious sacrament, but also for military valor, at least for the obvious readiness for feat of arms.
This became the military priest Cyprian-Peresvet. He himself formulated his biography as follows: first he was a warrior, then a cripple, then he became a priest, then - a military priest. However, Cyprian has been counting his life only since 1991, when he took monastic vows in Suzdal. Three years later he was ordained a priest. Siberian Cossacks, reviving the familiar Yenisei district, elected Cyprian as a military priest. The history of this divine ascetic deserves a separate detailed story. He went through both Chechen wars, was in captivity at Khattab, stood at the firing line, survived wounds. It was in Chechnya that the soldiers of the Sofrinskaya brigade named Cyprian Peresvet for courage and military patience. He also had his own call sign "Yak-15" so that the soldiers knew: the priest was next to them. Supports them with soul and prayer. The Chechen comrades-in-arms called Cyprian-Peresvet their Brother, the Sofrintsy called Batey.
After the war, in June 2005 in St. Petersburg, Cyprian will receive tonsure into the Great Schema, becoming the elder schema-abbot Isaac, but in the memory of Russian soldiers he will remain the first military priest of the modern era.
And before him - a long and blessed history of the Russian military clergy. For me and, probably, for the Sofrintsy, it begins in 1380, when the Monk Sergius, Abbot of the Russian land and the Wonderworker of Radonezh, blessed Prince Dmitry for the battle for the liberation of Rus from the Tatar yoke. He gave him his monks, Rodion Oslyabya and Alexander Peresvet, to help him. This Peresvet will then come out on the Kulikovo field for single combat with the Tatar hero Chelubey. With their deadly battle, the battle will begin. The Russian army will defeat the horde of Mamai. People will associate this victory with the blessing of St. Sergius. Monk Peresvet who fell in single combat will be canonized. And we will call the day of the Battle of Kulikovo - September 21 (September 8 according to the Julian calendar) the Day of Military Glory of Russia.
Between the two Peresvetas six more centuries. This time contained a lot - the arduous service to God and the Fatherland, pastoral deeds, grandiose battles and great upheavals.
According to the military regulations
Like everything in the Russian army, military spiritual service first acquired its organizational structure in the Military Regulations of Peter I of 1716. The Reformer Emperor found it necessary to have a priest in every regiment, on every ship. The naval clergy were mainly represented by hieromonks. They were headed by the chief hieromonk of the fleet. The clergy of the ground forces was subordinate to the field chief priest of the army in the field, and in peacetime - to the bishop of the diocese, on the territory of which the regiment was stationed.
By the end of the century, Catherine II appointed a single chief priest of the army and navy at the head of the military and naval clergy. He was autonomous from the Synod, had the right to report directly to the Empress and the right to communicate directly with the diocesan hierarchs. A regular salary was established for the military clergy. After twenty years of service, the priest received a pension.
The structure received a military-like finished look and logical subordination, but it was corrected for another century. So, in June 1890, Emperor Alexander III approved the Regulation on the Administration of Churches and Clergy of the Military and Naval Departments. He established the title of “Protopresbyter of the Military and Naval Clergy.” All the churches of the regiments, fortresses, military hospitals and educational institutions (except for Siberia, where the military clergy were subordinate to the diocesan bishops “because of the distance” was assigned to him.)
The farm turned out to be solid. The department of the protopresbyter of the military and naval clergy included 12 cathedrals, 3 house churches, 806 regimental, 12 serfs, 24 hospital, 10 prison, 6 port churches, 34 churches at various institutions (total - 407 churches), 106 archpriests, 337 priests, 2 protodeacon, 55 deacons, 68 psalmists (total - 569 clergy). The Office of the Protopresbyter published its own magazine, the Bulletin of the Military Clergy.
The highest position was determined by the service rights of the military clergy and salaries. The chief priest (protopresbyter) was equated with the lieutenant general, the chief priest of the General Staff, the guards or grenadier corps - with the major general, the archpriest - with the colonel, the rector of a military cathedral or temple, as well as the divisional dean - with the lieutenant colonel. The regimental priest (equal to the captain) received an almost complete captain's ration: a salary in the amount of 366 rubles a year, the same number of canteens, seniority allowances were provided, reaching (for 20 years of service) up to half of the established salary. An equal military salary was observed for all clerical ranks.
Dry statistics give only a general idea of the clergy in the Russian army. Life brings its bright colors to this picture. There were wars, heavy battles between the two Peresvetas. There were also their Heroes. Here is the priest Vasily Vasilkovsky. His feat will be described in the order for the Russian army No. 53 of March 12, 1813 by the commander-in-chief MI Kutuzov: with courage he encouraged the lower ranks to fight without horror for the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland, and was severely wounded in the head by a bullet. In the battle at Vitebsk, he showed the same courage, where he received a bullet wound in the leg. I presented Vasilkovsky's chief testimony of such excellent fearless actions in battles and zealous service to the Emperor, and His Majesty deigned to award him with the Order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George of the 4th class”.
This was the first time in history that a military priest was awarded the Order of St. George. Father Vasily will be awarded the order on March 17, 1813. In the autumn of the same year (November 24), he died on a trip abroad from his wounds. Vasily Vasilkovsky was only 35 years old.
Let's jump over a century into another great war - the First World War. Here is what the famous Russian military leader, General A. A. Brusilov: "In those terrible counterattacks among the soldier's tunics, black figures flashed - regimental priests, tucking their robes, in rough boots, walked with the soldiers, encouraging the timid with a simple Gospel word and behavior … They remained forever there, in the fields of Galicia, not separated from the flock."
For the heroism shown during the First World War, about 2,500 military priests will be awarded state awards, and 227 gold pectoral crosses on the St. George ribbon will be presented. The Order of St. George will be awarded to 11 people (four - posthumously).
The institute of military and naval clergy in the Russian army was liquidated by order of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs on January 16, 1918. 3,700 priests will be fired from the army. Many are then repressed as alien class elements …
Crosses on buttonholes
The efforts of the Church yielded results by the end of the 2000s. Sociological polls initiated by priests in 2008-2009 showed that the number of believers in the army reaches 70 percent of the personnel. The then President of Russia D. A. Medvedev was informed about this. With his instructions to the military department, a new time of spiritual service in the Russian army begins. The President signed this instruction on July 21, 2009. He obliged the Minister of Defense to make the necessary decisions aimed at introducing the institution of military clergy in the Russian Armed Forces.
Fulfilling the instructions of the president, the military will not copy the structures that existed in the tsarist army. They will start by creating a Directorate for Work with Believer Servicemen as part of the Main Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for work with personnel. Its staff will include 242 positions of assistant commanders (chiefs) for work with religious servicemen, replaced by clergymen of traditional religious associations in Russia. It will happen in January 2010.
For five years it has not been possible to fill all the offered vacancies. Religious organizations even presented their candidates to the Department of the Ministry of Defense in abundance. But the bar for the demands of the military turned out to be high. To work in the troops on a regular basis, they have so far accepted only 132 clergymen - 129 Orthodox, two Muslims and one Buddhist. (I will note, by the way, in the army of the Russian Empire they were also attentive to believers of all confessions. Several hundred chaplains rounded up Catholic servicemen. Mullahs served in national-territorial formations, such as the Wild Division. Jews were allowed to visit territorial synagogues.)
The high requirements for the clergy have probably matured from the best examples of spiritual ministry in the Russian army. Maybe even one of those that I remembered today. At the very least, priests are being prepared for serious trials. Their robes will no longer unmask the priests, as happened in the battle formations of the unforgettable Brusilov breakthrough. The Ministry of Defense, together with the Synodal Department of the Moscow Patriarchate for Interaction with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies, has developed the "Rules for the wearing of uniforms by the military clergy." They were approved by Patriarch Kirill.
According to the rules, military priests "when organizing work with believing servicemen in conditions of hostilities, during a state of emergency, liquidation of accidents, natural hazards, catastrophes, natural and other disasters, during exercises, classes, combat duty (military service)" will wear not a church vestment, but a field military uniform. Unlike the uniform of military personnel, it does not provide for shoulder straps, sleeve insignia and badges of the corresponding type of troops. Only the buttonholes will decorate the dark-colored Orthodox crosses of the established pattern. When performing divine services in the field, the priest must wear the epitrachelion, the rug and the priest's cross over the uniform.
The base of spiritual work in the troops and the navy is also being seriously renewed. Today, there are more than 160 Orthodox churches and chapels in the territories subordinate to the Ministry of Defense alone. Military temples are being built in Severomorsk and Gadzhievo (Northern Fleet), at the air base in Kant (Kyrgyzstan), and in other garrisons. The Church of the Holy Archangel Michael in Sevastopol became a military temple again, the building of which was previously used as a branch of the Black Sea Fleet Museum. Defense Minister S. K. Shoigu decided to allocate rooms for prayer rooms in all formations and on ships of rank I.
… A new history is being written in the military spiritual service. What will it be? Certainly worthy! This is obliged by the traditions that have developed over the centuries, melted into a national character - the heroism, perseverance and courage of Russian soldiers, the diligence, patience and dedication of military priests. In the meantime, the great holiday of Easter is in the military churches, and the collective communion of the soldiers is a new step in their readiness to serve the Fatherland, the World and God.
