The Russian Orthodox Church faces a health crisis, with many priests suffering from the coronavirus, and deep rifts in views about how its members should deal with the pandemic. Clashes between faith and public health leaders have sparked tensions. A point of division was around the government’s orders that church services be held online, which was opposed by some leaders as “the work of the devil.” Memories of religious persecution in the Soviet era make priests sensitive to any limits on their rituals, and tensions spill over into relationships with the Russian state more broadly. These have been particularly close in the past, but trust, both ways, is eroding.

What is described as an apocalyptic mood grips parts of the Russian church. A bishop in Komi protested restrictions on churchgoing as an infringement of fundamental rights and threatened to go to court to get them reversed. Declaring that the ringing of church bells was the best way to combat the pandemic, he claimed that the word coronavirus — derived from the Latin word for “crown” — is “not coincidental but is linked to the coronation and enthronement of the Antichrist.” 

Some of the Russian Orthodox Church’s most important monasteries and other sacred sites have large COVID-19 infections. Easter (April 19) was an important turning point, as many churches defied Patriarch Kirill, a senior cleric of Russian Orthodoxy, and his recommendation not to hold services in person, violating the nationwide quarantine policy. Easter services were held in 43 out of 85 regions, and in 15 physical distancing and mask-wearing were not obligatory. Lengthy Easter services “turned churches into giant petri dishes as unmasked clerics and choristers ignored social distancing protocols. Many believers, already weakened by the 40-day Lenten fast, took communion from unsterilized spoons and lined up to kiss icons that are usually not wiped clean.”  The pandemic struck the church’s largest administrative centers, monasteries, convents, and seminaries.

Clergy members have found support among conservative, nationalist members of their congregations, who continue to dismiss the risk posed by mass gatherings. One expert indicated that this “is mostly based on their wish to do everything in opposition to the ‘cowardly and panicking’ West.” Another motivation is that Easter is “the most profitable weeks of the church calendar,” as many clergy rely on donations. 

But there is confusion as to how to proceed. “Unfortunately, it is obvious that there is no unity in the church in relation to what is happening,” a group of confused believers complained last week in an open letter to Patriarch Kirill. The patriarch, a close ally of President Putin, initially hesitated to enforce instructions from health officials that people should avoid public gatherings like church services, driving around Moscow in a black Mercedes van with a holy icon, blessing the Russian capital with prayer. He later, however, unequivocally urged worshipers to stay away from services over Holy Week but left it to local dioceses whether to hold services. Soaring infections followed. The patriarch then issued an order that monastery abbots and parish rectors in the Russian capital have “personal responsibility” for complying with state instructions aimed at combating the virus. Clerics and lay church workers who ignore the health authorities, he warned, face trial before a church court if their noncompliance results in death from COVID-19.

(Based on: March 26, 2020, Washington Post article; April 15, 2020, Atlantic Council article; May 5, 2020, New York Times article; and May 9, 2020, Reuters article)