Pope Francis and Leonid Sevastyanov, head of ‘The ‘World Union of Old Believers’. Anti-Russia with the blessing of the Pope. It seems that the Old Belief nowadays is becoming one of the trends with regards to subversive activities against Russia
A week before the meeting of the two presidents in Alaska, main state mass media of Russia suddenly reported in concert that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump could allegedly meet in Vatican. In addition, all reports made reference to a certain ‘head of the World Union of Old Believers’, a Leonid Sevastyanov: “The head of the World Union of Old Believers has named a possible meeting place of Putin and Trump’ (news agency RIA ‘Novosti). ‘The head of the World Union of Old Believers’ Sevastyanov: ‘Vatican can become a meeting-place of Putin and Trump’ (Vesti.ru)
HISTORY OF ‘MISPERCEPTION’
Multimillion Russian audience was was puzzled: where this Leonid Sevastyanov came from and what can ties the ‘head’ of Old Believers Leonid Sevastyanov with the catholic Pope? And who is, in fact, this ‘new face of the Russian Orthodoxy’ trying to settle the world military conflict?
Yet, Church people in Russia heard some time ago about Leonid Sevastyanov, ‘right hand and purse’ of metropolitan bishop Ilarion (Alfeyev), former head of the Department for External Church Relations (DEChR) of the Russian Patriarchy who, just several years ago, was regarded all but second person in Russian Orthodox Church after Patriarch Kirill.
(We would like to remind our readers that ‘the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, at its resulting meeting in 2024, relieved metropolitan beshop Ilarion (Alfeyev) of his heading the Budapest-Hungarian dioses and sent him to ‘retirement’ determining the Church of Peter and Paul in Karlovy Vary as the place of service for the of one of the most well-knowns patriarchs. The Synod pointed out ‘incongruity of his relations with closest circle and his way of live with the image of a monk’.
Alfeyef and Sevastyanov were regarded as close friends as early as from their student time in spite of great difference in age.
Leonid Mikhailovich Sevastyanov was born in 1978 in the town Rostov-on-Don, he comes from a family of Old Believers of the co-called ‘Belokrinits consent’ thanks to the village Belaya Krinista in the Northern Bukovina where Russian ‘schismatic’ moved to in the end of XVIII century at the invitation of Austrian emperor Joseph II (now it’s Chernovets region).
Stefan Fedorovich (1872–1944), the grandfather of Leonid Sevastyanov, came from Don’s Cossacks, from the Old Believes’ hamlet Podstepny, Cossack village Yesaulovskaya. After serving in the army, the grandfather settled in Rostov-on-Don and became senior parish clerk in the Old Believers Vvedensky cathedral.
Two finger cross making of old believers and father of Sevastyanov
Mikhail Stefanovich (1928-2005), the father of Leonid Sevastyanov, was born in Rostov-on-Don. During the war, the mother of Mikhail had been forcibly moved to Germany from where she returned only in 1945 when Stefan Fedorovich was no longer alive. After the war, the Old Believers’ bishop Veniamin (Agaltsov) brought Mikhail nearer to himself, consecrated him as lector and made him his cell-attendant.
In 1966, Mikhail graduated from the History School of the Kabardino-Balkaria University. Soon he became close with the dissident group of ‘Jakunina-Eshliman’, members of which were also the priest of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexander Men and the Old Believers priest Yevgeny Bobkov. After the publication of the famous ‘Open letter’ of this group, the KGB subjected to repression all people related to it. Mikhail was arrested and deported to the town Ust-Ilimsk in the Irkutsk region. In 1969, he was once more arrested and was sentenced to two years imprisonment allegedly for selling antique Old Believers’ books. In 1984, the father of Leonid Sevastyanov served as preceptor in the Rostov Old Believers community.
His son Leonid, a young graduate from a Rostov high school, the Old Believers metropolitan Alimpiy (Gusev) sent to Moscow to study at the Moscow Religious Seminary and gave him also a letter of introduction addressed to the president of the Department for External Church Relations metropolitan Kirill (Gundyayev). Thus, as early as in 1995, the 17-year Old Believer Leonid Sevastyanov personally got acquainted with the current Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. And at first, all went very smoothly.
‘Simultaneously, the Patriarch sent me to study in Rom, to the Gregorian University, said Leonid Sevastyanov in the interview with the media outlet The European Times. – ‘where I went in 1999 under the auspices of the monastic community in the town Bose, in the North of Italy. I also studied in Rome using the monetary means of that very community under the leadership of Enzo Bianchi. Then I continued my education in Georgetown University in Washington thanks to the stipend of the American Bradley Foundation. I worked there as chaplain, as well at the World Bank.
Leonid Sevastyanov returned to Moscow five years later, in 2004, and at once showed stubbornness of his character: ‘… I didn’t want to work in the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchy. On that basis we had lack of understanding with the metropolitan Kirill who, at that time, headed this structure which, and this misunderstanding, one can say, has continued up until now’.
PREMIUM CAR FLEET OF METROPOLITAN ILLARION ‘FROM GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN’
Strait after the enthronization, the Patriarch Kirill moved the president of the Department for External Church Relations the bishop Illarion (Alfeyev), an old friend of Leonid Sevastyanov from the time of their mutual studies at the Religious Seminary, into his own previous position. The Old Believer, who received his education abroad, becomes officially an assistant of the bishop Alfeyev, and he also manages the Gregory the Theologian Foundation with the bishop Ilarion being one of the founders of it. In fact, with the help of the money coming from this foundation was supported the ‘ministry of foreign affairs’ of the Moscow Patriarchy, starting from the fleet of prestigious foreign cars of the president of the same department.
Fleet of prestigious foreign cars of the bishop Ilarion (Alfeyev). In 2011, Grigory Varerievich Alfeyev (born 1966) acquires a ritzy black Audi A8L, in 2014 an even more dressy white Mercedes G63 AMG, in 2015 another black Audi A8L, in 2916 a black Mercedes S 350D 4MATIC and in 2017 a black jeep Hyundai Genesis
‘In 2009, after the metropolitan Kirill had been elected and the metropolitan, and Ilarion had been appointed president of the Department for External Church Relations, I created and headed the Gregory the Theologian Foundation ‘, said Leonid Sevastyanov in an interview with The European Times. He sponsored the activities of the Department, as well as creation and restauration of buildings and lodgments, as well as extra-church postgraduate and doctoral studies. He also controlled its day-to-day activities.
Simultaneously with church activities, Leonid Sevastyanov was always engaged in business. So, according to the telegram-channel ‘Intuistiya podskazhet’ (Intuition will Suggest), he, ‘from 2004 up to 2014, managed the consulting firm Stratinvestru in tandem with the French businessman Emmanuel Gout who also was largely present in Italy and Iran. The two consultants worked on telecommunications and media contracts between Europe and Russia, with such clients as the channel Canal+ and the international tourist and publishing group Lagardere. After 2014, the activities in the same direction were continued within the framework of the new organization ‘Gut, Sevastyanov and Partners’ (Gspart) which also mentioned among its clients the Russian firm ‘Rosatom’; it worked as well in the field of air transport and energetics.
It was Gut who allegedly gave Leonid Sevastyanov a nudge to creation in 2019 of the World Union of Old Believers. ‘The idea was, writes the telegram-channel, ‘to establish formal frameworks for its influence at the cross-road between business, religion and diplomacy, and also to give institutionalized basis for Sevastyanov’s relations with the Pope.
It was Leonid Sevastyanov who ‘laundered’ the pope from the reputation of supporter of the Ukrainian nationalists after Francis had received and treated kindly in Vatican the widows of fighters of the Nazi-battalion ‘Azov’**. They had met with the Pontific after a general audience during which the Pope, in accordance with the tradition, allocates time to special guests.
‘OLD BELIEVERS HAVE BEEN ALWAYS CLOSER TO THE WEST’
During many years, the metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeyev) was ‘a constant ‘partner’ of Vatican. In Church sphere he was reputed as sort of ‘crypto-catholic’, leader of the liberal wing of the Russian Orthodox Church. For instance, the well-known French theologian Jean-Claude Larchet, as early as in 2009, compared the ideas of Ilarion with followers of the Unite Church, i.e. with Greek Catholic.
In 2011, the head of the Department for External Church Relations transported his assistant and Old Believer to Vatican where Leonid Sevastyanov osculated the hand of the previous Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict XVI, Leonid Sevastyanov (to the right), metropolitan Ilirion (Alfeyev) (at the back)
Then followed years of active contacts. And then, in March 2023, Leonid Sevastyanov said in an interview with the Italian media outlet Ilmessaggero: ‘Old Believers have been always closer to the West’
‘… With Pontific, I have long relations. The ties of friendship: for me, he is as a spiritual father. Although I am myself an Orthodox Christian. Yet, it is wrong that I am near the Kremlin and Putin. Of course, I am well-known, but I have no relations with them. In previous months, I was invited to the Lower Chamber of Parliament, but I refused to step across the threshold. When I say something through mass media, being the head of the World Union of Old Believers, I have a large resonance’, said openly Leonid Sevastyanov in that March interview.
Thus, not all Old believers, contrary to the wide spread opinion, are all convinced anti-westerners. Moreover, some of multiple representatives of the Old Belief are rather ready to deny Russian identity of their compatriots lapsed into ‘Satanic Nikon sin’.
In 2017, Leonid Sevastyanov officially addressed the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church as the head of the Charitable Gregory the Theologian Foundation’ with an appeal ‘to install as soon as possible a common faith bishop’. At the same time, he proposed to introduce democratic order in the Church life: ‘I call out to bring back the community into the center of the Church life, to bring back elections of bishops and priests. As the priest must serve the community, and the community doesn’t have to serve the priest’.
The Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, as it’s is easy to figure out, didn’t react to the initiative of the Old Believer and liberal. Then Leonid Sevastyanov made a certain ‘knight move’ and officially proposed, ‘the candidature of the metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeyev), the head of the Department for External Church Relations for the role of a common faith bishop’. Still, the metropolitan prudently refused from the new position and said: ‘We, brothers, are not yet ripen to elect’.
Simultaneously, Leonid Sevastyanov pushed his own ‘ideology’ in anti-Church mass media, in particular, in the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta’**, the mouthpiece of the non-systematic opposition, as well as in the Internet outlet Credo.Press which belonged to the so-called ‘alternative Orthodoxy’ (it was closed in 2022, after the begin of the Special military operation).
“So, in 2018, an article emerged in ‘Novaya Gazeta’** written by the assistant of the president of the Department for External Church Relations with a rather strange title: ‘Orthodox block-chain’. Russian Orthodox Church must refuse of vertical model of management’. In this article, Leonid Sevastyanov proposes to embed into the Church life openly revolutionary changes: ‘Under current Russian Orthodox Church, the first that must be done in order to transit to ‘block-chain’ is to resurrect elections of Episcopate. In the Third Rome, among Old Believers themselves, the bishop is people’s representative, and he is not descent from somewhere above. Under current conditions, the center of spiritual life is not in the bishop, who is the same member of the society as any other layman, but in parishes, monasteries and Evangelical groups… This being said, as a church is considered each specific community, as well as the totality of communities’.
Ideological manifesto of Leonid Sevstyanov published in the newspaper ‘Novaya Gazeta’
It was at the same time that the portal Credo.Press publishes an interview with Leonid Sevastyanov in which he declares: ‘The year 2018 passed under the banner of resurrection of Old Belief, yet within the Russian Orthodox Church they continue to infringe the rights of Old Believers, of coreligionists. The Old Belief as a traditionally one existing both outside the Russian Orthodox Church and within Edinoverie – are, according to my views, ideological engine of the nearest future’.
In this interview, Leonid Sevastyanov, being officially president of the Department for External Church Relations’ of the Moscow Patriarchy, said; ‘Old Belief can become a new ideological power in Russia’
The Episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church could not not to respond to such declarations and accusations of its employee. He was asked to free all his positions in Church. But the offended Old Believer at once interpreted his differences with Moscow Patriarchy in his own manner.
‘In connection with the fact that I didn’t support the break with Greek Churches in 2018, and my indignation regarding an unworthy attitude of the Moscow Patriarchy towards Old Believers, he said trying to justify himself in the interview with the European Times, ‘the financing from our part was stopped’, and I quitted the Foundation. In 2018, only one World Congress of Old Believers took place, at which I presented the concept of the World Congress. This concept was approved by the Union, and in 2019, I created the organization the World Union of Old Believers. From that time on, I have been actively dealing with promoting religions freedom for all inside the country’.
‘SENSATION OUT OF THIN AIR’
This ‘World Union of Old Believers’ was registered by the Russian Ministry of Justice in July 2019 as a public non-commercial organization (non-religious), its full name is ‘The World Union for Defense of Rights and Interests of Old Believers and their organization ‘Russian Faith’. The statute of the organization envisages only fife forms of non-religion activities: ‘Activities of professional member organizations’, ‘Forms of publishing activities’, ‘Creation of films, video films and television programs’, ‘Activity in the field of law’ and ‘Activity connected with organizing conferences and exhibitions’.
Extract from the United State Registry of Legal Entities (EGRYul) with regard to the World Union of Old Believers’
Its executive director and cofounder is Leonid Sevastyanov, and other co-founders became the autonomous non-commercial organization ‘The Center of Conservation and Popularization of Russian cultural and spiritual values ‘Biryuch’, with the end-owner of which being Vadim Yakunin, a well-known big businessman. In the rating of entrepreneurs of Forbes he takes 83th position with the capital of 1,7 billion U.S. dollars. Yakunin also owns the pharma holding ‘Protek’ with the drugstore ‘Rigla’ being part of it.
Metropolitan Ilarion (in the center), Vadim Yakunin (to the right)
By the way, the drugstore oligarch was the second, after metropolitan Ilarion, cofounder of the Gregory the Theologian Foundation, and he kept this position after quitting the foundation of Leonid Sevastyanov.
Visualization of Leonid Sevastyanov’s business in Russia
Obviously, both Yakunin and Sevastyanov are united by common Old Believers’ roots. One of their mutual ‘project’ caused scandal in scientific circles: in 2019, a sensational news emerged in mass-media: ‘Old Believers have found out in their coffers a unique book – ‘Russian Chronicler’ – the original of the well-known book ‘Tale of Bygone Years’ describing previously unknown history of Ancient Rus. ‘The old manuscript’ was not only discovered but also ‘’republished by its new owner the Maecenas Vadim Yakunin’.
It turned out that, according to the news agency RIA Novosty, ‘the manuscript had belonged to the Old Believers family the Sevastyanovs, and before that – to the Bishop of Astrakhan and Stavropol Mefody’. The PhD of church history Vladislav Petrushko in the interview with the agency Ria Novosti said that ‘you shout treat the ‘publication’ about ‘Russian Chronicler’ cautiously’. According to the professor, the question is about ‘a sensation overblown out of the thin air’. We would like to add that this scoop was overblown by the Maecenas Yakunin and PR specialists Sevastyanov pursuing their own purposes. From that time on nobody has ever mentioned this founding.
…In the same year 2019, the congress of the Russian Orthodox Old Believers Church officially ‘distanced itself’ from Sevastyanov’s ‘all-planetary’ union’ and issued a provision ‘About activities of public non-religious organizations’ in which it is said that the World Union of Old Believers ‘cannot express attitudes on behalf of the Church. Then the head of the Russian Orthodox Church of Old Believers the metropolitan Kornily (Titov) complained to the Russian Ministry of Justice saying that ‘the Union of Old Believers, for some reasons, acts on behalf of all Old Believers’; and the president of this union Leonid Sevastyanov participates in political activities - he publishes articles in liberal media outlets ‘hence compromising the authority of the Orthodox Old Believers Church’.
In response to the complaint of the Russian Orthodox Old Believers Church, Leonid Sevastyanov threatened to sue the Old Believers metropolitan for slander. He also shamelessly said that the Union does not participate in politics, does not support any candidate during elections, but ‘is dealing only with activities allowed to a public organization in compliance with its own statute’. Well. In such a case, we will consider that regular meetings of Leonid Sevastyanov with high-ranking American and British politicians and also with representatives of secret services are also regarded as its ‘statute activities’.
CROSS-POLLINATION OF ‘FLOWERS OF EVIL’
For instance, Leonid Sevastyanov, on his pages in social media, bragged that he had nearly friendly relations with Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state of the USA (2018-2021) and director of the CIA (2017-2018). He was sent into ineffable joy by the fulsome flattery of this American Russophobe. “This is very cool to be the president of the World Union of Old Believers’.
Secretary of state Mark Pompeo and Leonid Sevastyanov
On his website ‘Russian Faith’ (Русская вера) Leonid Sevastyanov told in detail about his presence at the ceremony of inauguration of the 46th president of the United States in January 2021 and he personally congratulated Joe Biden.
At the end of 2023, at the height of Biden’s ‘crusade’ against Russia, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, for some reason, once again hyped up the Old Believer and sectarian. It reported that Leonid Sevastyanov, on instruction from the Pope, carried out unofficial meetings, in particular, ‘with the Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a representative of the Parliamentary majority of the Republicans in Senate’.
Pope’s ‘messenger’ Leonid Sevastyanov near the building of the State Department
For many years the relations of the ‘main Old Believer of the world’ have been not cut off with the ‘great master of ‘The Great Order of Mark Master Masons’ and the Provincial Great Middlesex Lodge’, i.e. with the prince Michael of Kent, representative of the British royal family and professional military intelligence officer (among them, as is known, there are no formers).
Leonid Sevastyanov and prince Michael of Kent
In August 2025, at the British Embassy in Moscow, took place a festive ceremony in honor of the Birthday of the king Charles III, to which, of course, was invited also Leonid Sevastyanov. By the way, Natalia Golysheva-Deis, native of the Russian town Arkhangelsk, who, according to the investigative project Underside, ‘lives now in London and works as producer at the company Geyser Media. In her portfolio there are BBC, Radio Liberty, EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, Veon (the owner of Kievstar’ and Mike Pompeo, ex-foreign secretary, became a member of its Board two years ago). Of particular interest is that this multifaceted dame has been actively disseminating in media space ‘works about Old Believers in Russia as carriers of ‘real spirituality independent of the state’.
The film about Old Believers produced by Natalia Golysheva-Deis for BBC, ‘logically complements the project of another guest on Sofia Embankment, of Leonid Sevastyanov, the head of the ‘World Union of Old-Believers’ whose close contacts with Western secret services, including with the head of the British MI6, cause concern in our editorial board, as a minimum’.
Leonid Sevastyanov with the British ambassador Nigel Casey
Cross-pollination of ‘Flowers of Evil’ brought to Leonid Sevastyanov sweet portions of foreign nectar.
POPE’S NOBLEWOMAN TOPLESS
For instance, at the end of 2024, the Pope officially conferred a title of nobility on Leonid Sevastyanov and his wife. ‘This is hereditary nobility. That is, my children and their children will also be noblemen’, explained the sectarian and Old Believer in a commentary with the news agency RIA Novosti.
In the Grant of the Pope Francis, it is said that this nobility is to coincide with the Jubilee year as the Roman-Catholic Church has declared the year 2025 as Jubilee year.
The Grant of the Pope pertaining conferring a title of nobility on Leonid Sevastyanov and his wife
The Old Believer was married in 2012, his wife, Svetlana Davidovna Kasyan, was born in 1984 in the town Batumi (Georgia), and she calls herself a Yazidis.
(Yazidis is an ethnic and confessional group of the Kurds, their religion is Yazidism which includes in itself elements of Islam, Nestorianism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism)
She graduated from a musical school in the town Aktobe (Kazakhstan); she also studied at the Moscow Conservatory, sang at the Bolshoi Theatre and in the Ekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre. Nowadays, the singer is part of the Opera group of the Musa Djalil Tatar Theatre.
Svetlana Kasyan, Leonid Sevastyanov and Pope Francis
Svetlana Kasyan has been always ready to brag not only with her voice, but also with her body. For instance, in 2017, she participated in an erotic photo session for the men’s magazine Maxim. Everybody who is interested in sexual charms of the wife of the main Old Believer of Russia can satisfy his curiosity; in social media, there are lots of Svetlana Kasyan’s photos topless in lacy panties.
Pope’s noblewoman Svetlana Kasyan - topless in lacy panties (photo of the magazine Maxim)
In the words to the singer, with the help of her body she tried ‘to attract attention of the public to the art of opera’. And, in general, as she affirms, ‘demonstrating of a beautiful body is not a sin, but a virtue’. Perhaps, the Pope shares this attitude who conferred on her the title of nobility and awarded with the Order of St, Sylvester.
In any case, according to the women’s magazine Voice, not her body, but her voice made an impression on the American ambassador Michael McFall (engrained Russophobe) who later became a fan of the singer and invited her to make a concert at the American Embassy in Moscow’. Swetlana Kasyan also put on a charitable concert at the British Embassy in Moscow. The monetary means was spent on reconstruction of the Anglican St. Andrew church.
Apart from that, as Voice wrights, ‘her 35th anniversary Svetlana Kasyan celebrated in Vatican at the invitation of the Pope and received from his as present a part of the Shroud of Turin that raised protests from the part of Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church’.
All this, so it seems, is part of a certain ‘peace project’ which, as Leonid Sevastyanov put it in the interview with the media outlet Ilmessaggero, ‘the Pope entrusted me and he wants that this project will be most widely known among Russian people’ In consists of five points, and at the end, is, obviously, signed by the Pope, with whom I have a long lasting relations’. ‘I gave to my latest son the name of Francis, like his own’, pointed out the president of the self-proclaimed ‘The World Union of Old Believers’.
We would like to remind once more of the phrase from this interview: ‘It means that you have no relations with the Patriarch Kirill?’ asked journalists ‘the head of the World Old Faith’. “Exactly, answered Leonid Sevastyanov. ‘For me it is important to push forward Old Believers’ reality, which has the history, parallel to the history of Patriarchy, but it was developed on other values’
IN THE NAME OF ‘DEEP PEOPLE’
L.R., a high-ranking officer of the Russian Service of External Intelligence (SVR) told us about real values of a part of Old Believers.
‘At the end of 1990s, the CIA and MI6 started working out subversive operations in Russia with the use of the so-called ‘deep people’, said the former intelligence officer. ‘CIA operatives were designating as ‘deep people’ several million descendants and followers of ‘priestless old-believers’ (they differ from their coreligionists Old Believers from the Russian Orthodox Old Believers (Old-Rite) Church). Traditionally, they, the priestless, dismiss state and church authorities in Russia’.
‘’Followers of the priestless church always hated both tsar and official church, that is why they allegedly served as pillars of the Bolsheviks in the process of eliminating the monarchy. They did crushed Orthodox churches willing to construct communism as sort of Kingdom of God on Earth’. The majority of ‘priestless’ Old Believers lived in the industrial center and in Northern regions, in the Urals and in Volga region. And nowadays, Western secret services, according to L.R., plan ‘to help ‘priestless Old Believers’ to carry out revenge of the 300 year old schism by destroying the state and church authority’.
Of course, on the one side, this concept of ‘deep people’ may seem strange, mythical, dragged in by the head and shoulders. But, of the other side, it’s impossible to deny that Old Believers, a special people, exist until now and represent by itself a hidden force. For instance, in 2021, the defense minister Sergey Shoigu reported that Old Believers living in hard-to-reach places take part of the program of training of units of Special Operation Forces of the Defense Ministry.
And in 2017, the commander of the Central military area Vladimir Zarudnitsky told the news agency TASS that ‘Siberian Old Believers taught more than 700 servicemen how to survive in the mountainous taiga’. ‘The Siberian Old Believers live separately, points out the same report, ‘for more than three centuries they have been keeping customs and traditions of their ancestors. The attitude towards outside visitors is impassive, but they are not invited to visit local homes…’
About other kind of ‘skills’ reported priests of the Russian Orthodox Church. For one, the well-known preacher Daniil Sysoyev, killed by a Muslim extremist, wrote, in particular, in the article entitled ‘Myths about old believers’: ‘In all wars that Russia fought, beginning with XVII century, Old Believers were trying to oppose our country… The sole war during which Old Believers rose to the defense of our country was the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, and this happened because the authority of that time comprised of Godless men. I think that after that, everyone who wants that out country resurrect, will think about whether it is worth to pay favorable attention to Old Believers’.
Father Daniil Sysoyev also accuses Old Believers of financing the Bolshevik revolution. ‘A colossal role was played by Old Believers’ capital also in preparation of the Russian Revolution. It is known that financing of fighters was carried out not only by Jewish banks but also by Old Believers’ (for instance, the Morozovs).
‘OLD BELIEVERS’ MENTALITY’ IN ACTIVE SERVICE WITH CIA
A scientific study of the real role of the part of Old Believers in Russia’s political life was carried out in 2000 by Alexander Pyzhikov, doctor of historical sciences, professor of the Moscow Pedagogical State University, assistant minister of Education (2003-2004), laureate of Yegor Gaidar Prize. In his book ‘Roots of Stalin’s Bolshevism’, the professor remarks that the majority of communists-workers were ‘offshoots from Old Believers milieu’, and he directly names Old Believers, the priestless, as ‘irreconcilable rebels and a buttress of Josef Stalin in his struggle against Trotskyism’.
To be sure, Leonid Sevastyanov posted on the website of his union ‘Russian Faith’ the interview with professor Pyzhikov. Moreover, he put it under the title ‘Soviet team – priestless, and Russian Orthodox Church is a foreign one’.
The priestless ‘are those without whom there would have been no party, no us. Commit it to memory’, remembered the professor his long-standing conversation in 1980s with an old superior at the History Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. ‘We deal with a milieu which only outwardly is called Orthodox but has nothing to do with it’, said professor Pyzhikov about the priestless as object of his scientific interest.
‘But isn’t it too radical to say that Bolshevism came out of Old Belief?’ asks the journalist posing this question to the scientist. ‘I am mentioning not acting Old Believers’, confirms professor Pyzhikov confidently. ‘I am talking about people who have come from the Old Believers’ milieu. To put it crudely, man’s soul is formed from the age of seven. In particular, in Old Believers’ community a person from the age of seven is put in a ‘circle’, in the system of collective responsibility, as it was customary. At this age is created the foundation with which a person will live his whole life. Something that was put in yearly ages will stay. The mentality of Old Believers is characterized by certain qualities which are understandable to all even without me…’
Quite surprisingly, about special qualities of ‘Old Believers’ mentality’ has started to talk even the famous intellectual Slavoj Zizek. World mass-media called him using such epithets as ‘the most popular philosopher of modern times’, ‘guru of Western left thinking’, ‘greatest European intellectual’, ‘iconic figure of philosophy’ and so on and so forth. On the website of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he is named as ‘the brightest philosopher of our time’.
In the spring of 2024, this ‘guru’, in the interview with the British TV presenter Piers Morgan, he proposed ‘to equip Ukraine with atomic weapons’. This ‘big name’ also said that ‘the Russians today are worse than Arabs’, that ‘the Russians are nationalistic fanatics nowadays’ and so on. A scandal broke out which was followed by such commentaries: ‘A mad Nero of our times: infantile king of philosophy Slavoj Zizek calls upon the West to deliver nuclear weapons to Ukrainians!’
Screenshot of the article by Slavoi Zizek ‘Pervert-fundamentalists’
Against this ‘anti-extremist’ background, Slavoj Zizek publishes an article entitled ‘Pervert-fundamentalists’. ‘Insane Nero of our times has called to resurrect ‘Russian spirituality’ with the help of Old Believers who, traditionally, ‘reprove authoritative state power’, and with their help to defeat ‘the perverts who rule today at the Kremlin’.
‘The brightest philosopher’ pointed out that Old Believers struggled against reforms of Peter the Great, they never trusted the unity between church and state’, and at present they can stand up against ‘Putin’s regime’ that ‘has nothing in common with authentic Russian Spirituality’.
This piece was published on the website of ProjectSyndicate that sponsors Soros’ ‘Open society’**, European investment bank, foundations of Bill and Melinda Gates**, Heinrich Böll**, Friedrich Ebert**… All these organizations are engaged in anti-Russian operation of Western secrete services.
The Old Faith, so it seems, is becoming today one of the trends of subversive activity against Russia. But ordinary Old Believers are not guilty of it from any point of view. They have nothing to do with special values of the ‘World Union of Old-Believers’ which ‘has been always closer to the West’ than to Russia, and it is acting with the blessing of the Pope and on behalf of ‘deep people’ invented in the CIA.
Author: Alexey Chelnokov
See the Russian version at: «Подрывной элемент. Реванш старовера-сектанта Севастьянова»
* Foreign agents, extremists; ** Extremist terrorist organizations, undesirable organizations activities of which are prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation
