Sexually, the difference between hieromonk Kirill Ilyuhin, the former Vice Rector of Kazan Spiritual Seminary and hegumen Filaret Kuzmin of Kazan diocese is said to be in that Kirill happens to be a little bit more persistent in his romantic advances. The common strategy has been the same as ever: first thing to do is to spot a young boy among the first year seminarians, who came to study in Spiritual Seminary not because of faith but in search of “bread-earning” opportunities. It has to be a single mother’s son from a distant poverty-stricken village, a boy, who had failed to enter a university but was willing to study anything and anywhere as far as possible from the army barracks.
It is clear that such a boy of little faith would pretty soon begin to “run aground” by violating the rules of the seminary’s everyday life. Now he is caught alcohol-scented coming late from his leave to town, now he is skipping his prayer watch, now he has cigarette odor detected about him…
The following is just a matter of technique to explain it to the scared freshman all the depths of his fall, to depict to him in graphic details the inevitability of his expulsion from the seminary straight away into the army… Express your merciful forgiveness of him. Say, “But personally, I like you.” Followed by an offer of mentorship and friendship. Little reciprocal favors. Restaurants. Financial assistance. Steam bath. Alcoholic beverages. First touches. Offer of sex; “it’s not because of you, the sin is mine.” A few occurrences later, it becomes more brutal, the roles change… Spoiled lad can now be presented to friends and eventually to the Metropolitan of Kazan.
“To my protest “he is so old!”, I was explained that, nevertheless he is still willing to watch and touch.”
Hieromonk Kirill Ilyuhin was too impatient to reach the final and had forced himself on two boys even before they were yet ready to yield to him.
Soon after that, written petitions by those two boys suddenly surfaced in Patriarchy with the name of Kirill Ilyuhin in them, reporting him for sexual assault. The Patriarchy then immediately informed the Metropolitan of Kazan of the reports, which he later must have relayed to his accomplices in the seminary. Three years later, Ilyuhin has been proven guilty by a special Patriarchal commission, dispatched to the Kazan Spiritual Seminary to investigate the matter. He was removed from his post and appointed another good position in Tver diocese without any proper punishment.
At first, it looks like a typical “sexual abuse” story with a clergyman involved, but what happens in Russian Orthodox Church is far more horrible than what has ever happened at Vatican! Deacon Andrei Kuraev, a widely known Christian Orthodox theologian and proselytizer, uses his social networks blog to expose a "gay system" – a mafia-like network of homosexually-oriented priests and clergyman – within the church, fanning a scandal not unlike the one that occurred in the Roman Catholic church shortly before Pope Benedict XVI had surprisingly abdicated last year. Only in this case there is something more than a separate incident of sexual abuse in the church.
The post of bishop in Chistopolskiy diocese, one of the three dioceses of Tatarstan archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Church, had been pleasingly vacant for a certain period, shortly before this scandal revelation. The two probable candidates to the post happened to be the aforementioned hieromonk Kirill Ilyuhin, the former Vice Rector of Kazan Spiritual Seminary and his old friend hegumen Filaret Kuzmin of Kazan diocese. The two friends were secretly rivaling for the same position of Chistopolskiy bishopry.
One of the two has proved to be smarter, remembering the old sexual abuse report on his friend and rival was collecting dust in the archives of Patriarchy. It was certainly time to pull his old friend’s leg!
When the Patriarchal commission arrived in Kazan to investigate the matter in the seminary, it was a classically staged event. Its goal was to remove Ilyuhin as a possible contender for the post of the bishop of Chistopolskiy diocese. The whole affair was an inside turf battle aimed not at disclosing secret pedophiles and sexual abusers in the church, but to clear the way to one of the members of in-fighting mafia-like criminal gangs inside the church to his next promotion as a bishop. As soon as the felon crime of his had been “proved” by the Patriarch commission, Ilyuhin, rather than being committed to court and defrocked, as it is supposed to be done according to Canon law in instances like this one, he was allowed to officially resign as the Vice Rector of Kazan Spiritual Seminary. Upon resignation, he was immediately and honorably appointed to a position in Tver diocese.
Perhaps, it was intended all along to be just another ordinary reshuffling among the “gay system” participants inside the church. It certainly was not meant to be made known to the general public outside the church. The mafia inside the church worked efficiently, settling their disputes without public acclaim. But not this time.
When the sexual abuse reports became known to him, Andrey Kuraev in his social network initially praised the Patriarch commission that had been dispatched to Kazan Spiritual Seminary assuming that the time has come to support Patriarch’s initiative to crack down upon the pedophiles, which had been privately reported to him by the seminarians there before. Until then, he did dare making those allegations public. The situation inside the church with regard to the power struggle between the “gay lobbies” and other criminal elements there is such that it can only be resolved by action from above, by the Patriarch himself, or by taking separate cases to civil courts, like in those incidents when minors become objects of sexual abuse by the clerics. Alas, the whole affair has turned out to be just another turf battle between different factions inside the so called gay system within the church.
The same person, who was head of the Patriarchal commission that investigated the crime in Kazan Spiritual Seminary, was the one who initiated official hearings to remove Andrey Kuraev from the faculty of the Moscow Theological Academy on December 31. As a result, Andrey Kuraev lost his job at the Moscow Theological Academy. The direct reason for his very public removal from the faculty was his writing a post about hieromonk Kirill Ilyuhin, “who was fired for making homosexual advances to students and then transferred to a higher post in another diocese.” Since his firing, Kuraev has launched a public campaign against what he calls a “gay metastasis” in the church.
Such a dramatic reaction on the part of the clerics who had clearly violated the Canon Law and even attempted to cover the crimes of one of their fellows, is outstanding. Audacious character of the actions and the rhetoric by many members of the clergy of Russian Orthodox Church, some of whom allegedly have a reputation of gays, if not sexual predators, have brought the gay-church-related issues to the attention of many people in Russia and abroad. A number of publications have already appeared by foreign journalists, trying to make out the true origins of the newly aroused scandal around alleged powerful “gay lobby” that exists and actively covers up the widespread sexual abuse of altar boys and seminarians by Russian Orthodox Church bishops and priests.
In some of the publications, Andrey Kuraev has even been called a renegade, stressing the tensions that have flared up between the deacon, who uses his blog for daily attacks on the criminal "gay system" within the church, and the church hierarchy. Avoiding direct accusations, those attacks include testimonials by former seminarians, altar boys and clerics, who are quoted recalling their sexual encounters with bishops and ranking priests. One related how a bishop "poured almost a full bottle of vodka into me and started pawing me. That stunned me so -- I couldn't even imagine something like that -- that I even sobered up."
Given the definition of the word renegade as a person who has deserted their cause or defied convention, in case of “gay-lobby”-dominated church hierarchy and Kuraev such classification would be inaccurate. Unless of course, someone wanted to see Russian Orthodox Church as an institution that is basically characterized by homosexual-dominated membership. But that is not what Christian community is all about. And Russian Orthodox Church not in name only but in essence is orthodox Christian.
The Russian Orthodox Church considers homosexuality a grave sin, and Patriarch Kirill did make a statement that the legalization of gay marriage is a "dangerous apocalyptic sign." This stance has encouraged Orthodox Christians in Russia to propose legislative initiatives that crystallized into the law that bans "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors." President Putin is a devout churchgoer and he has publicly denounced Western-backed propaganda of sexual relations between people of the same sex, especially the one that is directed aggressively against underage children.
Even though some are trying to portray Kuraev as a gay-hater or even anti-Semite, his stance on the homosexuals in the church is based upon his principles as an orthodox Christian. His are attempts to help those young people, who have been sexually abused by clerics. He is also trying to help those people, who will yet come to church to make sure that they would not mistake the abnormality of homosexual relations that happen to take place in Russian Orthodox Church these days, let alone sexual abuses of minors there, for what is normal according to Christian values.
Besides, the growing number of members of the so called gay-system within the church as well as their growing power there might lead to spiritual implosion of the church, denigrated by the hypocrisy and spiritual vacuum of the church hierarchy. According to preliminary estimates, out of 300 bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, at least 50 have been alleged to be homosexuals and four of them had been removed by the previous Patriarch Alexy II from their services for proven sexual assaults but reinstalled later on by Patriarch Kirill.
Unfortunately, some people begin to think that quiet takeover of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy by sexual predators, homosexuals, pedophiles, and various fraudsters and criminals, including people, previously convicted for homicide, is a normal thing. Whereas, the majority of Christians become increasing wary of such creeping corruption in the church. Not surprisingly, some Western media, accusing Russian government of official homophobia, begin to see the law that bans "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors" in Russia as a factor that allegedly threatens to backfire on the Russian Orthodox Church itself, infested by homosexuals and pedophiles.
Unwillingness or inability on the part of the Patriarchy as well as the Russian government to protect children and most vulnerable people against sexual assaults and abuses by bishops and ranking priests in the church might gradually lead to denigration, vilification, and destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church as a dominant institution that unites so many people in Russia. Whereas increasingly greater part of corrupt and abusive church hierarchy behaves like criminal-minded atheists at worst or heretics at best, the greater part of contemporary Christian believers might in turn eventually end up losing their faith or grow schismatic and begin to harbor heretical beliefs.
Church’s institutional corruption has historically proven to be detrimental to all other state institutions that fail to protect this one of the nation’s most valued institution and as dangerous as corruption of the state institutions themselves.
