The Moscow Patriarchate urges the state to give moral evaluation of tsar family shooting

19 June 2008, 16:35

Moscow, June 19, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church believes that the Russian state should give moral evaluation of Nicholas II and his family shooting in the year of its 90th commemoration.

"Until the state says that the tsar family's murder was a crime, until it gives moral evaluation to the actions of those who gave, approved and executed the command to shoot them, those who took the tsar family into custody, who kept them under arrest, until it is done on the level of symbolically important state decisions and on the level of clarifying this question in public mind, Russia will be moving to the future with difficulty if it doesn't get rid of historical blurs on its conscience, " deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said answering the questions of journalists in Moscow.

He disapproved of those who urged Russians to repent in the sin of regicide. "I am against ceremonies of national repentance," the priest said. " Man bears the impress of original sin that is washed out when he gets baptized, but any talks of family or national sins which we have to repent in contradict the teaching on salvation."

Fr. Vsevolod is convinced that "the wound from executing the tsar family in public conscience should be healed."

He regrets there is "reticence" in the question of attitude to the shooting of the tsar family and "there are people who say openly: no need to return Nicholas II his good name, no need to condemn Bolsheviks."

According to the priest, these people "are losing arguments because society comes to know the truth that the Bolshevik leadership was a criminal organization and it were not people who brought them to power."

The more society learns, the more questions arise such as "how to treat this criminal organization and everything it did and how to treat its heritage," the Church's representative noted.

"Perhaps, Russia had to correct many mistakes: World War I, social and economical problems... But the Red Terror didn't improve anything, there's no problem that can justify Bolshevik's criminal activities in Russia," Fr. Vsevolod stressed.

Summing up he said, "Russia can't go to the future with free conscience, if we think that what Bolsheviks did is normal."

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