Moscow. May 6. INTERFAX - Moscow Patriarchate considers that achievements of the USSR including a victory over the Nazis can not justify the crimes of Stalin.
“Stalin created inhumane system, and nothing can justify it: neither industrialization, nor atomic bomb, neither the maintenance of state boundaries nor even a victory in the Great Patriotic War, because it was not achieved by Stalin, but by multinational people,” – Deputy Chief of Division of External Church Relations abbot Philip (Ryabykh) wrote in the letter to the chief editor of the newspaper “Zavtra” Alexander Prokhanov published on the site of the Division of External Church Relations of Moscow Patriarchate (DECR).
This letter Father Philip sent on behalf of the Chief of Volokolamsky DECR Metropolitan Hilarion. Previously, A.Prokhanov addressed Archbishop Hilarion with the letter, which requested him to explain his view on the role of Stalin in history, expressed in one of the articles.
According to the priest, the regime created by Stalin, “was based on terror, violence, suppression of the human person lie and snitching. This regime devoured itself since executioners became victims, its success was temporary”.
“Glorification of atheists and their management methods can not become a rallying point for the peoples of historical Russia. On the contrary, it divides our society," said Father Philip.
According to him, the victory in the Great Patriotic War “was won by our people not due to the leadership of Stalin.”
"Authoritative historians express opinion, that it was his fault that we had innumerable victims and laid on the altar of victory, millions of lives of our fellow citizens on account of ill-considered pre-war domestic policy," was said in the letter.
Making comments on the words of A.Prokhanov about the fact that Stalin restored “great Russian space”, the priest said that he “as the leader of all peoples and times” lay “time bomb”, and redrew "Great Russian space" as he wanted creating artificial boundaries between former Soviet Republics.
“As a result of Stalin's policy, we reap the fruits of extremism, nationalism and xenophobia. Now Russian Orthodox church is only one connecting link on the territory of historical of Russia (present-day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the other now independent states). Experiment of national-territorial division of the former Russian Empire, gave rise to the question of separation of united country and end of its existence in the early 1990's,” was said in the letter.
Its author expressed the hope that the discussions conserning the recent history of the country “will be conducted in a civilized manner and will not separate a single nation into two warring camps”.
