Russian Priest Reduced to Monk for Resisting Progress and Internet

This morning watching some news on TV and having breakfast I heard the words “Russian Orthodox Church” and “internet” mentioned in the same story and could not help but share the piece here. Yesterday one of Russian bishops Diomid was degraded to a usual monk for a number of wrongdoings, including prohibiting churchgoers from using cell phones and internet.

Quite obviously it is not his only fault and I don’t think that in Russia it could be viewed as a sin on its own but the aggregate of his errors was enough to justify the decision. The most important misconception he has is about autonomy of the Russian Church and avoiding any cooperation with other Orthodox Churches worldwide and other confessions as well. But still the fact that he resisted progress was viewed as a serious wrongdoing as well. In addition to forbidding his parish to use cell phones and internet, he also tried to make them stop using Russian passports.

The irony is that the priest himself does not mind using some of the latest technology tools - not only does he own and use the passport himself, he also offered churchgoers to send their confessions to him by email.

In Russia Orthodoxy does not have the status of an official religion but traditionally the Orthodox Church and the State have been pretty close and the religious authorities often have strong opinions on the politics here and actively engage in lives of citizens. Lately I have noticed that the Church has started building an image of progress-friendly institution in Russia. For example, we have even been told that Russian priests now have special dating websites where girls willing to marry a priest can get to know their potential husbands (Orthodox priests are not under the vow of chastity unlike Catholic ones).

It looks like the situation with Diomid is yet another move to make sure the Church is considered to be less gloomy than it has always been. Of course it is not good to witness anyone’s life destroyed for the sake of progress but I think it is still encouraging to see even the most ancient institutions slowly adopting the latest technologies.

Via (in Russian)

Image credit - Vesti.ru TV channel