Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the dismissed official representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, predicted disaster for Russia.
The priest told journalists that the situation in the country would further deteriorate due to the lack of public debate and the desire of the authorities to silence any problems,” BBC Russian Service reports. “If we try to silence any problems, we can postpone the catastrophe for a year or two, but this will make it inevitable,” Chaplin warned. “Some people believe that it is necessary to minimize public debate, ignore what is happening in the minds of people in the field of communication between people, and so we live a calmer life until the [20] 17th or 18th year. Gentlemen, this is not the case,” the priest noted. “The intercession, intended to clean up the realm of ideas, close the key issues for the present and future of the country and the world, people who think so and are engaged in political suicide - they will cease to exist,” he added. During the last six years Vsevolod Chaplin was actually the official representative of the Russian Orthodox Church. He spoke on many occasions and resonance issues and was associated with the conservative wing in the Russian Orthodox Church. On December 24, Archpriest Chaplin was removed from his post as head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations. Immediately after his dismissal, he made a number of critical statements about the Russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Kirill. “I believe that decisions in the Church – wherever it might happen - should be taken collectively, seriously, with the discussion. Now we have a lot of decisions that are made solely by Patriarch. This is wrong, this has to be changed,” said Chaplin in an interview with the BBC Russian service immediately after his release.
According to Chaplin, the Russian Orthodox Church should change its approach to the debate and to allow the existence of ideological diversity within the church.