Date of Birth: July 2, 1958 A country: Russia Biography:

In 1982 he graduated from the screenwriting department of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography with a degree in Literary Work. In the same year he entered the labor force, then a novice.

In 1995, he was elevated to the rank of abbot and appointed abbot of the Sretensky stauropegic monastery.

In 1998 he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite.

In 1999, he was appointed rector of the Sretensky Higher Orthodox Monastic School, which was later transformed into.

Since March 2001 - Chairman of the monastery farm - agricultural production cooperative "Resurrection" in the Mikhailovsky district of the Ryazan region.

In 2004, he graduated from Sretensky Theological Seminary as an external student.

By order of the President of the Russian Federation of March 16, 2010, to the composition of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Culture and Art.

Place of work: Commission for Interaction of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Museum Community (Head) Place of work: Church-Public Council for Protection from the Threat of Alcohol (Co-Chairman) Place of work: Dormition Pskov-Pechersky Monastery (Vicar) Place of work: Patriarchal Council for Culture (Chairman) Place of work: Metropolis of Pskov (Head of the Metropolis) Diocese: Pskov Diocese (Ruling Bishop) Scientific works, publications:

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) upon his naming as Bishop of Yegoryevsk.

• “Pskov-Pechersk monastery”, received in November 2007 on the XII International festival Orthodox cinema and television programs "Radonezh" (Yaroslavl) Grand Prix;
• "The Death of an Empire. Byzantine lesson", which received the Russian Film Academy Award "Golden Eagle" for 2009.

Awards:

Church:

• 2008 - Order of St. Sergius of Radonezh II century;
• 2008 - Order of St. equal to book Vladimir III Art. “in consideration of the work in restoring unity with the Russian Church Abroad”;
• 2010 - Order of St. Nestor the Chronicler (UOC);
• 2017 - St. blgv. book Daniel of Moscow, 1st class;
• 2019 - Rev. Sergius of Radonezh III Art.

Secular:

• 2003 - National Prize named after. P.A. Stolypin “Russian Agrarian Elite” in the category “Effective Land Owner” and special sign“For the spiritual revival of the village”;
• 2006 - award “Best Books and Publishing Houses of the Year” “for publishing religious literature”;
• 2007 - Order of Friendship “for services in preserving spiritual and cultural traditions, great contribution to the development of agriculture”;
• 2008 - award " Best book year 2007";
• 2008 - “Izvestia” award from the Izvestia newspaper;
• laureate of the national award “Person of the Year” for 2008 and 2009.

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The name of Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) constantly attracts the attention of the Russian political press. Some consider him almost a “gray eminence” dictating his will to Vladimir Putin, others believe that constant communication with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill, a wise-thinking Orthodox confessor, is enough for the President of the Russian Federation.

However, returning to the name of the Orthodox preacher Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), I would certainly like to note that he is a very smart and perspicacious modern man, who acutely feels responsibility for the fate of his people and the Fatherland, a monk who has taken on very serious obligations to God.

History of the emergence of monasticism

Christian monasticism is a community life that begins from the moment when a person, of his own free will, renounces all worldly goods and begins to live according to certain rules, where the vow of chastity, modesty and complete obedience is always observed.

The first Christian monk was St. Anthony the Great, who lived in Ancient Egypt in 356 BC. e. He was not a poor man, but he sold all his property and gave the money to the poor. And then he settled not far from his home and began to lead a hermit’s life, spending all his time in tireless prayer to God and reading the Holy Scriptures. This served as an example for other hermits, who began to settle in their cells near him. Over time, communities of this kind began to appear throughout Central and Northern Egypt.

The emergence of monasticism in Rus'

In Rus', the appearance of monasteries is associated with the year 988, the time when the Spassky Monastery was founded near the city of Vyshgorod by Greek monks. Around the same time, the Monk Anthony brought Athonite monasticism to Ancient Rus' and became the founder of the famous Kiev Pechersk Lavra, which would later become the center of all religious life in Rus'. Now St. Anthony of Pechersk is revered as “the head of all Russian churches.”

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov). Biography. The path to monasticism

Before accepting monasticism, he was Grigory Alexandrovich Shevkunov. The future archimandrite was born into a family of doctors in Moscow in the summer of 1958. As an adult, he entered VGIK at the Faculty of Screenwriting and Film Studies, from which he successfully graduated in 1982. After graduating from the institute, he becomes a novice of the Holy Dormition Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, where in the future his fate was most decisively influenced by ascetic monks and, of course, the kindest and most holy confessor of the monastery, Archimandrite

In 1986, Gregory began his creative journey by working in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate, which was headed by (Nechaev). It was during these years that he worked on studying all historical facts and documents about the emergence of Christian Orthodoxy and the lives of holy people. For the millennium of the Baptism of Rus', Gregory prepared a huge number of religious and educational films, in which he himself acted both as an author and as a consultant. Thus, a new round is gaining momentum in the atheistic life of Soviet citizens, leading to knowledge of the true canons of Christian Orthodoxy. And at the same time, the future archimandrite is busy reprinting the Ancient Patericon and other patristic books.

Acceptance of monasticism

In the summer of 1991, Grigory Shevkunov became a monk at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, where he was christened Tikhon. During his service at the monastery, he took part in the discovery of the relics of St. Tikhon, which were buried in the Donskoy Cathedral in 1925. And soon he becomes the rector of the courtyard of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, located in the buildings of the ancient. It is definitely worth noting one feature that Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) has: where he serves, his true purpose and firmness of convictions are always felt.

Life of an Archimandrite

In 1995, the monk was ordained to the rank of abbot, and in 1998 - to the rank of archimandrite. A year later, he becomes the rector of the Sretensky Higher Orthodox Monastic School, which was later transformed into a theological seminary. Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) always talks about great love and gratitude.

Then, together with his brothers, from 1998 to 2001, he repeatedly visited the Chechen Republic, where he brought humanitarian aid. He also actively takes part in the reunification process of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR). From 2003 to 2006, Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) was a member of the commission for the preparation of the dialogue and the act of canonical conversion. Then he receives the post of secretary of the Patriarchal Council for Culture and becomes the head of the commission for interaction of the Russian Orthodox Church with the museum community.

In 2011, Archimandrite Tikhon was already a member of the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as a member of the Board of Trustees of the St. Basil the Great Charitable Foundation, academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and a permanent member of the Izborsk Club.

The archimandrite has a number of church awards, including the Order of Friendship for the preservation of spiritual and cultural values, awarded to him in 2007. His creative works you can admire. And conversations with Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) are always very lively, interesting and understandable for any person.

Film "Monastery" Pskov-Pechersk monastery"

It is impossible to ignore the amazing and unique work of its kind, which is called “Monastery. Pskov-Pechersk monastery. Grigory Shevkunov shot this film in 1986 with an amateur camera, when he was not yet Archimandrite Tikhon, but was just a graduate of VGIK. After graduating from high school, he went to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, where he spent 9 years of novitiate with Elder Ion (Krestyankin) and later accepted

main topic The film is dedicated to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, which is known to the Russian Church for preserving the eldership. This is the only monastery that has never been closed, even during Soviet times. Until the 30s, it was located on the territory of Estonia, so the Bolsheviks did not have time to ruin it, and then the war came. By the way, many elders and ministers of this monastery were at the front.

The then future Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) collected a lot of photo and video materials in his archive of the monastic life of the brethren. In the film, he shows the places that are most dear and significant to the monk’s heart, one of which is a special miracle created by God - the caves in which 14 thousand people were buried during the entire existence of the monastery. When you enter these caves, you are surprised that there is absolutely no smell of decay there. As soon as a person dies, after three days this smell appears, but after the body is brought into the caves, it disappears. This phenomenon still cannot be explained by anyone, not even scientists. This shows the spiritual peculiarity of the monastery walls.

Love for the Pskov-Pechersk brethren

The life story of Elder Melchisidek, one of the most amazing associates of the monastery, which Grigory Shevkunov tells about, is striking. Looking into his eyes, you understand that this is a real ascetic, confessor and prayer book, who was in the war, then came to the monastery and worked as a turner. He made lecterns, arks and crosses with his own hands. But one day he had a stroke and the doctor pronounced him dead. But Ioan (Krestyankin), who was the spiritual father of all the brethren and about whom Archimandrite Tikhon also wrote a lot in his stories, began to pray for Father Melchisidek, and a miracle happened. After some time, the old man came to life and began to cry. After this, he accepted the rite of tonsure into the schema and began to pray to God even more intensely.

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) later recalled that he once asked Elder Melchisidek about what he saw when he was dead. He said that he found himself in a meadow near a moat, in which there was everything that he made with his own hands - these were kivots, lecterns and crosses. And then he felt that the Mother of God was standing behind him, who told him: “We expected prayer and repentance from you, and this is what you brought to us.” After this, the Lord brought him back to life again.

In his painting, the future Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) also shows the wonderful elder Feofan, who was also in the war and lost an arm there. He said that he always followed the orders of his commander, but, thank God, he did not have to kill people. He has many awards and orders. Now he is all meekness, charm and love.

There are countless stories of this kind in the monastery. When you look at the modest life and constant work of the monks, everything seems very gloomy and gloomy, but their kind attitude and care for every person, sick or healthy, young or old, is striking. After the film you are left with a very warm and bright feeling of peace and tranquility.

Book "Unholy Saints"

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) dedicated “Unholy Saints” to the great ascetics with whom he had to live and communicate in monasteries. With what love and care he writes about everyone, openly, without lies and without embellishment, with humor and kindness... Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) describes his mentor Jonah especially touchingly. “Unholy Saints” contains a story about how a huge number of parishioners turned to their confessor for healing of soul and body, and he always found words of reassurance for everyone, instilled hope in everyone, begged many to take care, and warned some of the dangers. During the Soviet years, he spent many years in prison and exile, but nothing could break his faith in God and the joy of life on Earth.

Film “The Death of an Empire. Byzantine lesson"

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) dedicated the documentary film “The Death of the Empire” to the 555th anniversary of the fall of Byzantium and Constantinople.

This is not just medieval history; there is an absolutely clear parallel between the problems of Byzantium and modern Russia. Empires may be different, but the problems are often the same. What could have destroyed such a powerful and culturally developed Byzantium? As it turned out, the main global problem was the frequent change of political directions, lack of continuity and stability state power. Frequently changing emperors began to lead their new policy, which often exhausted the people and weakened the country's economy. In the film, the author describes this simply brilliantly, and we must give him credit for such talent. On this occasion, there are also quite interesting sermons by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), which he reads to young seminarians and parishioners.

About Putin

Be that as it may, today, according to Archimandrite Tikhon, Russia is experiencing its new rebirth, it may even perish, it is quite possible to create a powerful, prosperous empire, first of all, an empire of spirit and patriotism.

On the one hand, it is constantly threatened by Islamic terrorism, on the other, someone is trying with all their might to impose total American hegemony with their own laws on it and the whole world.

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) says this about Putin: “Those who truly love Russia can only pray for Vladimir Vladimirovich, who by God’s providence has been placed at the head of Russia...”

Tikhon Shevkunov looks too elegant and does not really fit into the image of the Orthodox monk that Dostoevsky introduced into Western ideas. His beard is scruffy, but only slightly; the chin is too sharply defined; and his head of thick, shoulder-length hair is too thick. His television performances are too polished to live up to the image of the mad, self-flagellating hermit in The Brothers Karamazov. Father Tikhon is the picture of a movie star with characteristic self-confidence - and he even looks a little like Russell Crowe.

If Dostoevsky’s monks sit in their unheated cells, then Tikhon cannot be called a recluse. When I interviewed him in December, he had just returned from China and was planning to travel to Latin America soon. The whitewashed walls and onion-like domes of the Sretensky Monastery in central Moscow, led by Shevkunov, are not an island of spiritual reflection, isolated from the modern world.

If you call the monastery, the switchboard operator will answer you. Need WiFi? No problem. Enter the outbuilding and you will see the largest publishing house of the Russian Orthodox Church. Go to the Internet, and there you will find the most famous and very popular Orthodox website, Pravoslavie.ru, created in 2000.

“They only recently got electricity on Mount Athos, but in Sretenskoye all the monks have iPads,” laughs Tikhon’s friend Evgeniy Nikiforov, who heads the Orthodox radio station Radonezh, referring to the Greek monastery, which by the standards of the Orthodox faith is the gold standard of asceticism and privacy. “Of course they need these iPads for preaching work,” he begins to speak seriously when he notices that I am writing down his words.

Father Tikhon enjoys influence in the church much greater than befits his modest title of archimandrite. This is mainly due to his connections in the Kremlin. One story is constantly told about him, which Shevkunov neither confirms nor denies: that he is a confessor of Vladimir Putin. The only thing he talks about is that one day Putin (most likely at the time when he headed the FSB secret service - and he headed it from 1998 to 1999) appeared at the gates of the monastery. Since then, these two people have openly and very publicly maintained connections with each other, and Tikhon accompanies Putin on trips around the country and abroad, deciding church problems. However, according to persistent rumors, it was Tikhon who led the former KGB colonel to the Orthodox faith and became his confessor, or godfather.

Father Tikhon appears to be very knowledgeable about Putin's religious life: in 2001, he gave an intriguing interview to a Greek newspaper, declaring: “Putin is truly an Orthodox Christian, not just in name. This is a person who goes to confession, receives communion, and understands his responsibility before God for the high service that has been entrusted to him, and for his immortal soul.”

It also seems that Tikhon has influence - he almost single-handedly leads an anti-alcohol campaign in Russia, achieving amazing results: just before the New Year, the Russian parliament banned the sale of alcohol after 11 pm.

When I persistently begin to ask about the real extent of his influence, Tikhon answers sharply, saying only that he and Putin know each other well. However, the priest refuses to answer the question of whether he is Putin’s confessor. “You can believe these rumors if you want, but I’m definitely not the one spreading them,” he says. You won't find the word "Putin" in Shevkunov's autobiography, Unholy Saints, which became a literary sensation in Russia last year and the top bestseller of 2012, beating even Fifty Shades of Gray in Russian translation.

Whatever the answer to the question about the confessor, the Kremlin considers it useful not to deny anything in this regard. "This is a very personal question," says Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, "and I just don't know." Although he confirmed that Tikhon is “very popular” and that Putin and Shevkunov know each other well. “No one can know for sure whether he is a confessor or not. If someone knows that you are a confessor, then you are no longer a confessor.”

Father Tikhon studied at the Institute of Cinematography. In 1982, at the age of 24, he was baptized and found himself in the unique position of a very influential person, like others historical figures, who were in close proximity to the state authorities, who listened to them. True, he insists, and not without reason: “I am not Cardinal Richelieu!”

Strictly speaking, he is right, says Evgeny Nikiforov. “There is not a lot of specific information in our confessions. You simply say, “I stole” or “I committed adultery.” You can add a few specific details, such as how many times this happened, how often it happened. But you don't have to go into detail. If some foreign intelligence service captured Tikhon's father and tortured him, he would be able to tell them very little.

St. Petersburg priest Georgy Mitrofanov says the fashion for confessors has only recently emerged among the Russian business and political elite. “This is an interesting phenomenon that appeared when rich Russians began to join the church.”

“Most people do not have a personal confessor. The majority confess in crowded churches, doing it as if on an assembly line. The rich want something personal, and some see this as a form of psychotherapy,” says Mitrofanov. “However, the confessor in this case finds himself in a very vulnerable position, since they begin to depend very much on their intercessor.”

Priest Mitrofanov doubts that Putin has a real confessor, “other than himself.” He says that several years ago he asked Father Tikhon if he was Putin’s confessor, to which Tikhon answered in the negative. “But that was a long time ago, and a lot could have changed since then,” Mitrofanov notes.

The connection between Putin and Father Tikhon seems strange for a number of reasons, but the first and main one is historical. Visitors to the Sretensky Monastery may not see the unremarkable stone cross unless they specifically look for it. It stands in a garden adjacent to one of the white walls of the monastery. Monks in robes look after him, and women in headscarves kneel before him, looking as if they have found eternal bliss. “The cross was erected in memory of Orthodox Christians who were tortured and killed in this place during the years of unrest,” it is written on a bronze plaque installed on the side.

The cross was installed on this site in 1995, and it seems to exist in tragic symmetry with the building located just one block from the monastery at the other end of Bolshaya Lubyanka Street. This is the headquarters of the former KGB, an organization that, in its various incarnations, shot and imprisoned more than 300,000 church employees in the name of the official atheism that reigned in the country since 1917. In Soviet times, the Sretensky Monastery, dating back 600 years from the day of its creation, was closed and the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) barracks were located there. It is said that its territory was often used for executions.

A lot has changed today. The building on Lubyanka, which houses the KGB's successor Federal Security Service, today has its own Orthodox chapel. The newly opened and reconstructed Sretensky Monastery became a symbol of the awkward alliance between the church and its former persecutors. It is the center of a spiritual renaissance in Russia's ruling circles, which are disproportionately populated by the former KGB operatives who flooded the Kremlin 12 years ago, following Putin.

According to Father Tikhon, now we should not dwell on the devastation caused to the church by the organization that actually rules Russia today. He believes that this should not become a reason for public confrontation in society, but there is no particular need to hide it. It is like a stone cross in the garden of a monastery - visible only to those who look for it.

Father Tikhon says he will never come to terms with the Soviet period in Russian history. And yet, he does not believe that contemporaries should be held responsible for the crimes of the NKVD and the KGB. “They have nothing to do with this. It’s like blaming an American soldier for what happened in Vietnam,” the priest said.

Instead of looking for those to blame, Father Tikhon wants to create a single arch of historical Russian statehood from the 70-year Soviet past. According to him, while working for the Soviet state, many of these KGB officers were actually serving Russia. “The intelligence officers I knew did their job on behalf of Russian state“, he says, “and it would be absolutely wrong to say that they are guilty of repression.”

Needless to say, such views are held by a minority in the church, especially among the rank and file of the clergy, who were previously classified as dissidents. However, such views are welcomed and even cultivated by the Kremlin leadership, which is striving with all its might to atone for its atheistic past and take advantage of the reputation of the church. According to a 2010 survey, the church is the second most trusted institution in Russia, despite the fact that only a small number of Russians regularly go to church. Falling popularity ratings and the rise of street protests in Russia have put Putin in a rush to take control of the church, according to Geraldine Fagan, an analyst who studies religious freedom in Russia and recently wrote a book, Believing in Russia. .

“Russians identify themselves with the Orthodox Church as the only major social institution that has survived and survived this country’s turbulent history. So Putin wants to take advantage of Orthodoxy's image of permanence and resilience at a time when his own legitimacy is eroding,” Fagan says. Sretensky Monastery is at the very center of such efforts. The head of a Moscow public relations firm once jokingly called this monastery “the ideological directorate of the Kremlin.” But in fact, this is no joke.

Once imbued with ideology from top to bottom, Russian political life has been exposed to comprehensive doctrines and programs for centuries. Therefore, many believe that the uncomfortable vacuum that was left after the disappearance of communism is now beginning to be filled by politically charged and active Orthodox Christianity, which Father Tikhon supports. Shevkunov himself denies that he is someone's ideologist, but this label has stuck firmly to him, especially after 2008, when he became the director and protagonist of the documentary film and controversial political parable about the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, “The Death of an Empire. Byzantine lesson." This film was shown three times on central television in prime time.

Hardliners in Russia are fascinated by the idea that Russia is the “third Rome,” heir to the Orthodox greatness of the fallen Byzantium. And the main message of the film strengthens this historical connection, while simultaneously justifying the anti-Western worldview in historical terms. The Fall of an Empire glosses over the role of the Ottoman Turks, who captured Constantinople in 1453, and argues that Byzantium was rotten from within, succumbing to the ideological predators of an envious West.

The film states that instead of preserving traditions, Byzantium began reforms at the behest of Western (Venetian) bankers, who in the film wear carnival masks with very long noses, so that everything is clear who is who. The individualistic culture of the West weakened Byzantium's resolve and destroyed its hierarchical values. Society has lost faith in its rulers.

The film caused a scandal among liberals, who called it an example of eccentricity and obscurantism. Today, he would not make any impression on the airwaves, which are dominated by paeans to state power, historical revisionism, and accusations against Kremlin opponents who allegedly carry out subversive activities with foreign money. In other words, Tikhon was a little ahead of his time. But he is now finding it difficult to draw attention to himself amid the political elite's sweeping shift toward conservative nationalism and xenophobia that began after Putin returned to a third presidential term last May.

According to the Russian constitution written in 1993, Russia is a secular state. But she recently flirted dangerously with religious law, bizarrely condemning the punk band Pussy Riot, whose members became global martyrs after they were sentenced to two years in prison (one was later released) for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”

The prosecution documents allege that the three defendants in balaclavas, who performed the punk prayer “Virgin Mary, drive Putin away!” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, violated articles 62 and 75 of the Council of Trulla, which was held in the seventh century under Emperor Justinian. According to these articles, the sole and the pulpit in Orthodox churches Only priests can go up. Although the judge’s verdict in this case did not contain any reference to the canons of the Trullo Council, he nevertheless mentioned as expert opinion decision of the fourth century Council of Laodicea, according to which "the solea and ambo have a special religious significance for the faithful."

Many in the church believe that the state has gone overboard in its zealous cloak of ecclesiastical authority, and that the scandal has created a quarrel between senior clergy such as Patriarch Kirill and dissenting clerics, many of whom are pushing for reform. “These medieval canons have nothing to do with state law,” says priest Mitrofanov. “They simply used the church as an ‘ideological cover’, just as Soviet courts used communist ideology to justify their decisions.”

Innokenty Pavlov, who left the church in 1993 and became a well-known liberal opponent of the Orthodox establishment, doubts that there is anything other than political expediency behind the new piety of Russian leaders.

“Our leaders seem to have learned something useful from their class on scientific atheism,” he laughs. - Voltaire said that if God does not exist, he must be invented. So they thought it was a good idea and decided to bring it to life.”

Even Father Tikhon signed a petition calling for Pussy Riot's prison sentences to be reduced. He sharply criticizes the group's behavior, saying: "The state has to react to this, otherwise it simply is not a state," and also, "If they did this in Westminster Abbey, they would definitely get a prison sentence." At the same time, Shevkunov notes: “But two years is too long.”

Apparently, having realized that he is going too far with his uncompromising image, Father Tikhon has recently been trying to show the softer sides of his nature. It raises money for the monastery's children's center, which cares for 100 disabled children and is jointly funded by the monastery and the state.

"If you're looking for a 'symphony' of church-state power, this is it," says Father Tikhon, using a fifth-century Byzantine term for theocratic rule. “This is an example of how church and state work together for the benefit of the people.”

There is no better evidence of Father Tikhon’s recent softening than his autobiographical book “Unholy Saints and Other Stories.” It is dedicated mainly to the memories of the older generation of clergy, Tikhon’s teachers. Shevkunov in this work presents a rather subtle, nostalgic portrait of a time when life was simpler. Unlike the film, there is no boastful jingoistic nationalism in the book, and there is no political propaganda for the current regime. This is a fairly well-written and compelling piece about the life of monks in the Soviet Union.

In fact, Father Tikhon was inspired on his long path to the heights of secular and spiritual power in Russia by the terrible impressions of spiritualistic seances in 1982. Then he studied at the Institute of Cinematography and his name was Georgy Shevkunov. The decision to be baptized in the pre-perestroika Soviet Union was not easy to make. But Shevkunov had good reasons for this.

While practicing spiritualism as an amateur, he and a group of friends showed an interest in the occult. They found out that with the help of a few candles, a tablet and the right location, they could “establish contact with completely incomprehensible, and yet absolutely real entities” from the world of spirits, as Shevkunov writes about in the book. New acquaintances introduced themselves as Napoleon, Socrates, or even Stalin. But suddenly something terrible happened.

One day, a group of friends managed to get in touch with the 19th century writer Nikolai Gogol - or so it seemed to them. But he was in a terrible mood, and the youth recoiled in horror when Gogol, in a fit of extreme irritability, told them all to commit suicide by taking poison. They rushed out of the room, and the next day they went straight to the church, where they were sharply reprimanded by the priest. The stupid youth did not actually come into contact with Gogol, the clergyman said. They were simply victims of a clever prank. Most likely, some small demon did it. He advised them all to be baptized.

People from Tikhon's generation were researchers of everything spiritual, and because of this, many of them were attracted to Christianity. The Soviet ban on religion made it even more attractive - a kind of forbidden fruit. Evgeny Nikiforov, who is over fifty, laughs today, remembering the eccentricities of the generation of the 1980s.

“First we studied yoga, then we learned Sanskrit, then we read the New Testament. At that time everything was one for us. And only later did we mature spiritually,” he says. - Nobody knew anything. The KGB even thought that karate was a religion. We watched films with Bruce Lee and thought it was some kind of mysticism. Can you imagine?

According to Father Tikhon, what attracted him to Christianity (besides the attempt to escape from devilish possession) was that one thought became obvious to his generation: “all the great people of the world and Russian history” - he names Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Kant, Goethe and Newton - “ all those whom we trusted, whom we loved and respected, they all thought about God “completely differently than we do.” On the other hand, “those who did not inspire any sympathy” - Marx, Lenin, Trotsky - “all these revolutionary destroyers who led our state to what it became, they were all atheists.” For him, the choice was clear.

Soon after his baptism, Shevkunov settled within the walls of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery - this former hermitage monastery in northeast Russia (as in the text - approx. transl.). It was one of two active monasteries remaining in the country by the 1980s, out of nearly a thousand monasteries that existed before the 1917 revolution. In 1991 he was tonsured a monk with the name Tikhon, and in 1995 he became archimandrite of the Sretensky Monastery.

Tikhon's autobiography is devoted mainly to the "unholy saints", whom he calls his teachers. These people suffered much more from the Soviet regime than he did. The confessor of Father Tikhon himself, the now deceased Archimandrite of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery Ioann (Krestyankin), had his fingers broken during interrogation by the NKVD in 1950, and then sent to the Gulag for five years.

“Thank God, I didn’t have such serious conflicts as my predecessors,” Tikhon says today. - In the 1980s we did not have such repressions; they could ruin your professional life, prevent you from studying, prevent you from getting a prestigious job, but nothing more.”

But although there is an occasional hint of anger in his prose, Unholy Saints is written in a calm, forgiving spirit, and is mostly concerned with personal recollections of the various quirks and endearing foibles of the older generation of priests. Critics say the book is notable for what it doesn't say: that in addition to clashes with authorities, the clergy often compromised. Many accuse the priests of working for the KGB, which essentially oversaw appointments to church hierarchy until the end of the 1980s.

No one knows more about this painful page in the history of the church - the collaboration between high-ranking clergy and the KGB - than former priest and liberal reformer Gleb Yakunin, who was excommunicated in 1997 partly because he criticized it. Speaking about the supernatural success of Tikhon’s new book, Yakunin admits that he and his wife liked “Unholy Saints.” At the same time, according to him, there is only “half the story”, and its positive half. He dismissively calls the book “socialist realism” (meaning the socialist school of official art devoted exclusively to depicting happy and contented workers and peasants).

Yakunin himself served five years in prison in the 1980s. In 1992, at the insistence of then-President Boris Yeltsin, Yakunin received access to the archives of the fourth department of the fifth directorate of the KGB, which dealt with religious groups, and spent a month studying the agents' reports. He never received a file with the names of the agents, and he was able to find out their identities only by comparing the agent nicknames and the contents of their reports with official information about the activities of high-ranking clergy.

For example, he found intriguing records of the travel itineraries of agent Mikhailov, who, according to his reports, traveled to New Zealand and Australia in February 1972, and in Thailand in January 1973, where he participated in meetings of the World Council of Churches.

Comparing these records and the news from the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, Yakunin discovered that at that time such trips were made by a certain Archimandrite Kirill, who worked in the church department of external relations. In 2009, after four decades of climbing the ecclesiastical ladder, the burly, gray-bearded Kirill became patriarch of the Russian church. The Church claims that Kirill was never an employee or agent of the KGB. Representatives of the patriarch declined to comment further.

According to Yakunin, the KGB penetrated so deeply into the ranks of the church that “literally the entire episcopate was recruited as informants.” There is no incriminating evidence on Tikhon’s father indicating his connections with the KGB - he was too young to become an attractive target for recruitment. However, the people he writes about were compromised by such connections. For example, in the mid-1980s, he worked for two years as an assistant to Father Pitirim, who headed the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate. Yakunin calls him by the pseudonym that the KGB allegedly assigned to Pitirim - “Abbot.”

“I respect Father Pitirim, and I would not like to throw stones at him,” Father Tikhon says somewhat ambiguously on this topic.

20 years later, the compromises the church made are still the subject of painful debate within its circles. Instead of expelling the former agents, the church expels from its ranks those who raised this issue, in particular the priest Yakunin.

“The Russian Church created Russia,” says Father Tikhon. - Russia can sometimes be an obedient child, and sometimes a child who rebels against his parents. But the church has always felt responsible for Russia.”

Charles Clover is the Moscow bureau chief of the Financial Times.

Archimandrite Tikhon, aka Georgy Alexandrovich Shevkunov, was born in 1958. Graduated from the screenwriting department of the All-Union Institute of Cinematography. Soon after graduating from VGIK, he went to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, where he was a novice for nine years, and then took monastic vows. He returned to Moscow and worked in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Ten years ago, Shevkunov first appeared in print as one of the ideologists of the fundamentalist direction of the Russian Orthodox Church, publishing the article “Church and State,” in which he openly expressed his attitude towards democracy. “A democratic state,” quotes Father Tikhon from Free Lapse Breau, “will inevitably try to weaken the most influential Church in the country, bringing into play the ancient principle of “divide and conquer.” This statement seems important due to the fact that the Russian media call Father Tikhon the confessor of President Putin, that is, a person who influences the worldview of the leader of the state.

In church circles, Tikhon is spoken of as a well-known intriguer and careerist. The certified film screenwriter took the first step in his brilliant church career shortly after his return to Moscow from the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery in 1991. Then he initiated a scandal around a fire in the Donskoy Monastery, where he lived. According to investigators, the cause of the fire was a drunken monastery watchman who fell asleep with a lit cigarette. Shevkunov accused Western intelligence agents sent to us under the guise of believers of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad of “malicious arson.” (By the way, now “foreigners,” despite the long-standing scandal, support Father Tikhon. According to rumors, they see him as the main candidate for the post of the next Patriarch of All Rus'.) They say that the certified screenwriter himself is not averse to taking the highest church post in Russia.

There is also information about Tikhon’s father’s connection with the KGB. Perhaps these connections subsequently helped him get to know Vladimir Putin better. One of the parishioners of the Sretensky Monastery is a close friend of Father Tikhon, Lieutenant General Nikolai Leonov. He served in the KGB from 1958 to 1991. In the 60-70s he worked in the First Main Directorate (PGU) of the KGB of the USSR, and was deputy head of the department. (In the 70s, Putin also served at PSU.) Tikhon (Shevkunov) and Nikolai Leonov are on the editorial board of the Russian House magazine, which is published at the Sretensky Monastery publishing house. Leonov is a political commentator on the program of the same name, which airs on the Moscovia channel, and Shevkunov is also the confessor of both projects - the magazine and the television show. Among the frequent guests of the Russia House are representatives of Russian National Unity (RNU) and the Black Hundred.

Father Tikhon is also known for more global projects. He was one of the activists in the movement for the canonization of the royal family. He led a “crusade” against the tour of magician David Copperfield in Russia, informing the congregation that “the magic tricks of this vulgar American Woland” make the audience “dependent on the darkest and most destructive forces.” And his most famous project is the fight against “satanic” barcodes and individual taxpayer numbers (TIN). In the barcodes and tax identification number, according to Father Tikhon, the “number of the beast” is hidden - 666. In addition, the universal accounting system subjects the Orthodox to total control by the secular, anti-Orthodox, from Tikhon’s point of view, state. His article “Schengen Zone”, dedicated to this “global problem”, was published in the RNU publication “Russian Order”. Despite the fact that Father Tikhon denies his connection with the Russian Nazis, their views are very, very close.

Here are the holy father's thoughts on censorship. “Censorship is a normal tool in a normal society, which should cut off everything extreme. Personally, of course, I am for it - both in the religious area and in the secular area. As for state censorship, sooner or later society will come to a sober understanding of the need for this institution. Let us remember how Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in his youth scolded censorship and did not rhyme it except with the word “fool”. And later he advocated censorship.” Tikhon’s last phrase, however, baffled researchers of A.S. Pushkin. Well, Pushkin didn’t write something like that!

Tikhon was one of the first to congratulate Putin on his “ascension” and then publicly rejoiced at Yeltsin’s timely departure, condemning the “era of Yeltsinism.”

Father Tikhon hides the story of his acquaintance with Putin. But he advertises his closeness to the first person in every possible way. There is talk in church circles that the rumor that Tikhon is the president’s confessor was started by Tikhon himself. The certified screenwriter himself does not confirm this rumor, but does not refute it either - he flirts: “What are you trying to make of me as some kind of Richelieu?” Nevertheless, journalists from Moscow publications confidently wrote from Tikhon’s words that “Vladimir Putin constantly confesses to him. It is he who instructs the president in spiritual life.”

In any case, certified screenwriter Tikhon actively takes advantage of his real (or imaginary) closeness to the president. As they say, now even the Patriarch himself is afraid of him.

In 2017, the abbot of Sretensky Monastery, Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov, almost surpassed Patriarch Kirill in terms of mentions in the media.

He is still called Vladimir Putin's confessor, despite the fact that he denies his closeness to the president. He is persistently called a competitor of Patriarch Kirill and is credited with the role of one of the “customers” in the case of director Kirill Serebrennikov. Zoya Svetova looked into how a student of the screenwriting department at VGIK turned into a major church figure over the course of 35 years, whose influence on the Kremlin is legendary.

A black cassock, smoothly parted dark-ash hair with gray hair, a neat beard - Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov of Yegoryevsk meets me in his spacious office at Sretensky Seminary. Having learned about my arrival, he quickly ends the conversation, and his visitors hastily leave the office.

Not Putin's confessor

“What should we call you: Father Tikhon? Vladyka Tikhon? - I ask.

“I’m not yet used to being called Vladyka, call me Father Tikhon, (ordained bishop in 2015 - Z.S.) he offers democratically and invites you to sit on the leather sofa. He sits down opposite me in a chair, puts two iPhones on top of each other on the coffee table. He doesn’t turn them off, he just turns down the volume, and throughout our conversation both iPhones literally explode with text messages. Father Tikhon asks to bring us herbal tea. I look around. Photos of the Pskov-Pechersk Elder John Krestyankin with Father Tikhon himself, the collected works of Dostoevsky. Above the desk is a huge, bright painting that fills the entire wall - a rural landscape, reminiscent of the cover of Shevkunov’s book “Unholy Saints.” We agreed on an interview for two months - at first Shevkunov refused me quite sharply. I texted that I would like to talk to him because I was writing an article about him: “I know that several articles about me have been ordered now. Even a movie. I will not be able to give an interview now, regardless of the topic. Take action,” he wrote in response.

I replied that he was mistaken, no one commissions me to write articles. He wrote: “God will forgive you. Do your thing." But when I asked him to talk about my mother, the religious writer Zoya Krahmalnikova, who was sentenced in 1983 to a year in prison and five years of exile for publishing collections of Christian reading “Nadezhda” in the West, Shevkunov still agreed to talk.
We talked about mom and Soviet religious dissidents for about ten minutes, and then for about another hour about everything. The result was an interview published on Radio Liberty. Shevkunov urgently asked me to send the text, because he carefully edits all his interviews.

When I received the endorsed text of the interview, it turned out that Vladyka made several very interesting points that say a lot about his attitude to important issues of Russian life.

I asked him if he really showed President Putin Kirill Serebrennikov’s film “The Apprentice,” which led to the emergence of a “theater case” and the arrest of the artistic director of the Gogol Center, Kirill Serebrennikov.

- Gossip, gossip. I didn’t watch this film by Kirill Serebrennikov, I didn’t watch anything he did.

- Well, do you know that there is such a director?

- Yes of course I know.

- How do you know if you didn’t watch anything?

“When they told me that I had banned his performance, I, of course, took a more serious interest in who he was. But even before that I heard about him. I watch very few movies now. It’s good if I have time to watch one film a year.

— “The Apprentice” is a very tough anti-clerical film.

- I know, I know the plot, they told me about it, I read it somewhere in an article.

- But you've never seen him? And they didn’t show it to Putin?

- Are you kidding me?

- I'm telling you what they say.

- You never know what they say.

- Then explain why?

- Because they are liars and gossips.

- To harm you?

- No, just to chat and create the appearance of being informed. Did I show it to Putin? I have nothing to do! Bullshit! You say that I vaguely assessed Venediktov’s statement (Wediscussed With him statement Venediktova O volume, What supposedly Shevkunovsent on play "Nureyev" their monks, which play Notliked it, And Shevkunov complained Medinsky — Z. WITH. ) I respect Venediktov as a professional. Our positions with him differ radically, but he is, of course, a great professional, what can I say. And he created such an amazing, so to speak, radio station hostile to me personally.

Vladimir Medinsky (left) and Tikhon Shevkunov. Photo: Yuri Martyanov / Kommersant

— Hostile because she is an atheist?

- No, atheists, Lord! Today he is an atheist, tomorrow he is a believer.

-Who are your enemies then?

- Enemies of my beliefs. They have one belief, I have another. I’m not saying that they should be liquidated, shot, or banned. There are opponents, tough opponents. Here I call tough opponents enemies. Tough opponents can reach the point of hostility. What is enmity? This is an irreconcilable attitude towards one position or another. Right? And every person is God’s creation for us. And we should in no way transfer onto a person hostility towards one or another of his ideas, a worldview that contradicts ours. We can criticize and denounce his ideas and disagree with them. I absolutely definitely said: “Alexey Alekseevich Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy, is lying.” Dot. As people say: “He lies like he bakes pancakes.”

- And he answered you?

— The guys showed it to me, I asked them to track it. He said: “I don’t know how to bake pancakes.”

After Shevkunov’s editing, the entire fragment about Alexey Venediktov disappeared from the interview, but remained on my voice recording.

Another very interesting fragment also disappeared from the interview:

— Don’t you think that today’s FSB officers are the successors of the NKVD and KGB?

- I don’t think so. I know several FSB employees. I know a man who worked in intelligence. He is much older than me, I respect him endlessly. This is Nikolai Sergeevich Leonov, lieutenant general, our intelligence officer. Of course, they did not participate in all these repressions. And even more so modern law enforcement agencies.

— Did they behave rudely?

- No. They came for an unknown reason and were looking for traces of Khodorkovsky’s money. They came to me as a journalist. And one of the employees, reading out the report of the search at my mother’s, said that he knew those investigators who conducted a search at our house almost forty years ago.

— These are probably their teachers. Now, to tell a current employee, as I know them and imagine them, that you are the direct heirs and continuers of the work of Yagoda and Yezhov, I won’t be able to turn my tongue.

— Why not Andropov’s followers, for example?

— As far as I know, Andropov is respected by many. Many are categorically against it. Young guys who came to military service to protect the peace and security of the state. I don’t like, for example, that some people have a portrait or bust of Dzerzhinsky.

- And Stalin?

— I’ve never seen Stalin. But I don’t like Dzerzhinsky, I can say this, but this is their personal business. You know, it's determined by deeds.

— So it doesn’t bother you that repressions of anti-dissidents are taking place in Russia?

- I see, of course, that some cases are being initiated. Cases, including those under the article “violation of public order”. According to articles of the Criminal Code, but people say that in fact this is political persecution. You need to understand these things, I don’t know. If there really was some kind of unauthorized demonstration under political slogans, yes. Well, the guys were detained and released. As I understand it, this is a normal practice throughout the world. If someone hit a policeman or threw a stone at him, this is already an article of the Criminal Code. You can spare this person if he falls under amnesty and so on. This is where the law comes into play. I can sympathize with him, but at the same time say: “Listen, you are going out, “you have to go out to the square,” remember? Come out, it’s a duty of your conscience, but there’s no need to throw stones!”

Communication with Father Tikhon raised many questions in me: is it true that he has not seen Serebrennikov’s film “The Apprentice” and is it true that he knows Vladimir Putin very little? Does he really believe that the enemies of the Church are ordering films and articles against him, wanting to weaken the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on society?

Student "Whispers"

The future bishop and abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, in the world Gosha Shevkunov, after graduating from school in 1977, he entered VGIK in the screenwriting department of Evgeny Grigoriev (authorscript films "Romance O lovers", "Three day Victor Chernyshev" — Z. WITH.) and to Vera Tulyakova, the widow of the writer Nazim Hikmet. As his fellow students say, Gosha entered without any cronyism. His mother Elena Shevkunova, a famous doctor, founder of a laboratory for the diagnosis and treatment of toxoplasmosis, dreamed of her son going to study as a doctor, but Gosha chose cinema.

Gosha Shevkunov (right) and Andrey Dmitriev, 1977. Photo: Dmitriev’s personal archive

“He grew up without a father, read Dostoevsky, wrote well, I remember him as a frail boy with burning eyes,” recalls Shevkunova’s classmate, screenwriter Elena Lobachevskaya. — For Gosha, Evgeny Grigoriev was like a father. Paola Volkova gave lectures at VGIK then (coursesuniversal stories arts Andmaterial culture — Z. WITH.) , philosopher Merab Mamardashvili. Gosha borrowed Solzhenitsyn’s books from me. And master Evgeny Grigoriev told us in class that Solzhenitsyn is a great Russian writer, and Gosha listened to him attentively.”

Another classmate of Shevkunov, writer Andrei Dmitriev, was one of his close friends during his student years. Over time, their paths diverged: Dmitriev now lives in Kyiv and has no plans to come to Moscow. Shevkunov called him during the events on the Maidan, asking what was happening there. He hasn't called since then.

“He is my godfather. I was baptized even before he became a monk. This person is very dear to me, despite our fundamental difference in views. Gosha is one of the most talented people I know. Either the great-grandson or grandson of the Socialist-Revolutionary, who was preparing an assassination attempt on the Emperor. His mother was an outstanding Soviet epidemiologist, but they lived in a small apartment in Chertanovo and, as Gosha said, he worked in some kind of construction team, and one of the guys who worked with him persuaded him to enter VGIK. The guy failed, but Gosha passed. He was so naive and pure, like Candide. Quite sincerely he told me in my first year in 1977: “Let’s publish a magazine.” I explained to him: “This is impossible.” He didn't understand:

- Why?

“They’ll put you in prison,” I said.

He didn't believe me.

Gosha came up with different stories. For example, I remember he wrote a script about Ilya Muromets, there was also some story about a man who sits in his apartment and manipulates other people, there was something about Nightingale the Robber.”

Dmitriev could not remember the plot of Shevkunov’s thesis. One of the VGIK employees said that she was called “Driver.” This is a story about a man at a crossroads who does not know how to live. In the script there is a scene with a pigeon, when the hero breaks its neck after catching it on the windowsill. It was not possible to confirm that this was exactly the plot of Shevkunov’s graduation script: VGIK was not allowed to read the manuscript.

Screenwriter Elena Raiskaya, who studied a year older than Shevkunov, remembers him well, although she did not communicate with him much: “He was smiling, soft, quiet. When I found out that he later devoted himself to the Church, I was not surprised. He was always like this - detached, enlightened, as they say, not of this world.”

Olga Yavorskaya, another VGIK graduate, has slightly different memories of Father Tikhon: “He came to our dormitory, and we called him Gosha Sheptunov. I think it’s not without reason.”

However, Andrei Dmitriev does not believe that he could have been recruited at the institute: “I don’t know that, he was the Komsomol organizer of the course, we collected contributions together, and then drank them away together. I’ve never heard anyone call him “Sheptunov,” maybe this myth developed later.”

Gosha Shevkunov was fond of Baptists and went to services with Dmitriev. And then Dmitriev, who lived in Pskov as a child, told a friend about the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, and in his fourth year Shevkunov went there in search of God.

Pskov-Pechersk Lavra. TASS photo chronicle

Novice Gosha Shevkunov

“Then there was only one Moscow-Tartu train, it stopped in Pechory, one night Gosha got off the train and knocked on the monastery gate. They let him in, and so he became a novice,” recalls Dmitriev.

In the book “Unholy Saints,” Shevkunov writes a lot about the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, about the monks, and about his life in the monastery. Dmitriev says there is a story that is not written about in the book: “He lived in a monastery and wrote his graduation script. The governor was Gabriel, a tough man and, apparently, Gosha resisted this totalitarian monastic system. He had chronic pneumonia since childhood, and then weighed 49 kilograms. And Gabriel sent him to a punishment cell, where he had to sleep on a stone bench, and one day his mother came to the monastery. She was generally against his monastic tonsure, and when she saw how bad his condition was, she was afraid. She turned to his teacher Vera Tulyakova, begging her to get her son out of the monastery. Tulyakova called Bishop Pitirim, who then headed the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate, and asked to take Gosha Shevkunov to Moscow: he was a professional filmmaker and could be useful. The date of the millennium of the baptism of Rus' was approaching, and Gosha could make films. Finding himself in the publishing department of Bishop Pitirim, he quickly entered into a very serious circle, and only visited Pechory on short visits.”

Archimandrite Zinon, one of the most authoritative masters of Russian icon painting (V 1995 year behind contribution V church art received State Prize RF— Z. WITH.) in the mid-80s he lived in the same Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. He tells a completely different version of Shevkunov’s placement in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate: “He worked for a long time in the monastery on a cowshed, he didn’t like it, and, obviously, his patience was running out. He told me that one day the governor asked him to give a tour of the monastery to some KGB officer and his wife (according to another monk, to whom Shevkunov told the same story, he was giving a tour not to a KGB officer, but to some prominent party member and his wife). So, the wife of this officer asked what kind of education he had. When I heard that he graduated from VGIK, I was horrified that a person with such an education was sitting in this hole. She asked her husband to arrange a handsome novice for Bishop Pitirim. This is how Gosha ended up in Moscow. He said that his mother was an unbeliever and did not agree for him to go to a monastery. She allowed her son to take monastic vows, but only in Moscow.” Many years later, Shevkunov’s friend Zurab Chavchavadze said in an interview that Elena Anatolyevna Shevkunova was baptized at the end of her life and took monastic vows.

Another monk, who lived in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery during the same years, recalls that Gosha already boasted of his connections in the KGB.

Father Zinon does not rule out that Shevkunov could have been “recruited” back at VGIK: “I think it’s possible. One day he came running to my studio very excited: “A KGB major has come with me, and he wants to see how you paint icons, can you accept him?” I tell him: “You know how I feel about this public.” How could you, without warning me in advance, promise a person that I would accept him? I won't talk to him." He snorted: “You pushed a man away from the Church.” And from then on he stopped all communication with me.”

Sergei Pugachev (second from left), Sergei Fursenko, Yuri Kovalchuk, Vladimir Yakovlev, Vladimir Putin and Tikhon Shevkunov (from left to right), 2000s. Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

"Eavesdropper Gosha Sheptunov"

Georgy Shevkunov remained a novice for almost ten years and did not take monastic vows. Already being the abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, he told his parishioners that he decided to become a monk, almost running away from the crown, leaving his bride, who was considered one of the most beautiful girls in Moscow. One of his friends says that the future archimandrite had an affair with a famous actress, but he preferred a monastic career: as if one of the elders predicted that he would become a patriarch in the future.

Be that as it may, once in Moscow, the VGIK graduate and novice began to pursue a successful church career.

“He always liked social intrigue,” recalls journalist Evgeny Komarov, who worked in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate in the late 80s. — Gosha didn’t really work in any specific department of the publishing house, he communicated directly with Pitirim, was his “guardsman,” as he himself said. Accompanied him at bohemian parties, communicated with visiting Western bishops. He couldn’t drink even then: he got drunk quickly. There was a sense of admiration for those in power in him. We jokingly called him not “novice Gosha Shevkunov,” but “overhearer Gosha Sheptunov.”

Another former employee The publishing department of MP, on condition of anonymity, says that in the 90s, KGB officers began to visit them, Shevkunov willingly communicated with them. He said that we need to cooperate, because only the special services can protect the country from Satanism and Islamism, that the KGB is the force that can keep the state from collapse.

In 1990, he published a policy article in the Soviet Russia newspaper, “Church and State,” in which he argued: “A democratic state will inevitably try to weaken the most influential Church in the country, bringing into play the ancient principle of divide and rule.”

In August 1991, he was ordained a hieromonk.

“Shevkunov had a difficult transition from being a party animal to a church-bureaucratic position. He was in charge of cinema under Bishop Pitirim, then served as a hierodeacon in the Donskoy Monastery, everything went smoothly, and then he realized that he needed to change his status,” says Sergei Chapnin, a journalist and former executive editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The beginning of the 90s was the time when the Russian Orthodox Church returned churches that had been taken away during the Soviet era. In 1990, Father Georgy Kochetkov was appointed rector of the Vladimir Church of the Sretensky Monastery. The head of the parish, Alexander Kopirovsky, says that at that time the community of Father George numbered about a thousand parishioners, there was constant catechesis, they tried to equip the temple. But in November 1993, Patriarch Alexy decided to transfer the monastery to Hieromonk Tikhon Shevkunov, who was going to create a metochion there at the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery.

“Apparently, there was a political motive here,” says Kopirovsky. “Sretensky Monastery is located on Lubyanka, and, probably, those who worked nearby did not like the proximity to our community at all: we were engaged in catechesis, and foreigners came to us.”

The Kochetkovites served in Russian, and in the Russian Orthodox Church they were called new renovationists. The parishioners of Father George themselves considered the eviction from the Sretensky Monastery a “raider takeover”; the patriarch’s decree appeared only after the Cossacks, who actively supported Father Tikhon Shevkunov, came to the temple to drive out the Kochetkovites.

“When Shevkunov drove Kochetkov out of the Sretensky Monastery, he realized that he needed a systemic media resource. This is how Alexander Krutov appeared in his orbit with the “Russian House,” says Sergei Chapnin. — He realized that he needed professional analytics, Nikolai Leonov appeared. And through Leonov (Nikolai Leonov - head of the analytical division of the KGB of the USSR - Z.S.) he entered the KGB circle.”

Former senator and banker Sergei Pugachev says that it was he who introduced Tikhon’s father to future President Vladimir Putin in 1996. At that time, Putin held the position of deputy manager of the presidential administration. Once Pugachev brought Putin to a service at the Sretensky Monastery. After that they began to communicate.

Sergei Pugachev and Lyudmila Putina during a pilgrimage to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, mid-2000s. Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

Spiritual Advisor to the President

“I have known Tikhon since the 90s. We were very friendly,” the ex-senator recalls. - He is a real adventurer. In the 90s, he was a terrible monarchist, friends with the now deceased sculptor Slava Klykov, monarchist Zurab Chavchavadze, Krutov, editor-in-chief of the Russia House. At the same time, he is very Soviet: he loves Soviet songs, cries to the “Slavyanka” marches. Forces the choir of the Sretensky Monastery to perform Soviet songs. He has a vinaigrette in his head: everything is mixed up there. He has, in my opinion, a terrible trait for a priest: veneration of rank. For example, Nikita Mikhalkov is his idol. When he sees it, he is speechless.”

At the end of 1999, in the “Canon” program, Shevkunov told the story of how Putin’s dacha near St. Petersburg burned to the ground, and the only thing that survived was pectoral cross. They began to talk and write that Father Tikhon is Putin’s spiritual father. Today he says that this is not so, and he “has the good fortune to know the president quite a bit.” And in the early 2000s, the status of “spiritual father of the president” suited Shevkunov quite well. In August 2000, Sergei Pugachev, together with Shevkunov, took Putin to Elder John Krestyankin at the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. And in 2003, it was he, and not Patriarch Alexei, who accompanied the president on a trip to the United States. And there Putin conveyed to the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad the Patriarch’s invitation to visit Russia. This was the beginning of the unification of the two Orthodox Churches, divided after 1917, which for many years were considered hostile to each other.

“He gave Putin a very powerful, literally imperial experience - thanks to Shevkunov, Putin played a major role in the unification of the Church Abroad with the Moscow Patriarchate,” says Sergei Chapnin. “I have no doubt that Putin is grateful to Shevkunov for having a chance to make history as a unifier of the Churches. Putin attracted anti-Soviet activists to his side (the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad - Z.S.), revived the Church, became the president of not only Russia, but also Russians in the diaspora - this is a very serious intangible capital that Putin could not have received without Shevkunov. I think that the president appreciates this and is grateful to Shevkunov. And Shevkunov carefully takes advantage of this.”

Now Shevkunov heads the commission to investigate the murder of the royal family and is responsible for ensuring that the Investigative Committee recognizes as authentic the Ekaterinburg remains, which should be solemnly buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg in the summer of 2018.

Sergei Pugachev says that in the Kremlin, next to Stalin’s former office, Boris Yeltsin opened a house church. According to the ex-senator, once in this 15-meter room, Father Tikhon Shevkunov gave communion to Vladimir Putin. “I was against it,” recalls Pugachev. “Putin was late for the service, and the confession lasted half a second.”

It was Shevkunov who oversaw the construction of the temple at Putin’s residence Novo-Ogarevo in the village of Usovo. This was confirmed by Deacon Andrei Kuraev, who once came there with Shevkunov.

Among Shevkunov’s spiritual children are former Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, Governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko, head of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, head Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, KGB general Nikolai Leonov, TV presenter Andrei Malakhov, State Duma deputy and editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Culture” Elena Yampolskaya, who was also the editor of Shevkunov’s book “Unholy Saints”. Yampolskaya became famous for her recklessly uttered maxim: “Two forces can hold Russia over the abyss. The first is called God. The second is Stalin."

Tikhon Shevkunov and Vladimir Putin. Photo: Valery Sharifulin / TASS

"His target is the Orthodox Taliban"

Lina Starostina first came to Father Tikhon with her son more than 20 years ago, back at the Donskoy Monastery. Then she followed him to Sretensky. “He had incredible power of prayer,” Lina recalls. — People lined up to see him for confession at the Donskoy Monastery. He is very humane, always understands your circumstances, always communicates in a friendly manner, without rudeness. He is not a money-grubber, he is calm about comfort, but he has bad taste. Worship supplies can cost a lot of money. He willingly helps those in need.

I remember how during one of the sermons Father Tikhon said that the Lord had finally given Russia a believing president, and now it was possible to build an Orthodox state. As I understand it now, his goal is the Orthodox Taliban, the Orthodox empire. He is a man of ideas. His main idea: if you do not cooperate with the authorities, then the Antichrist will come and destroy the Church. If Father Tikhon was asked who to vote for, he always answered: you know who. His sermons were sermons of love for one's neighbor and for enemies - as it should be according to the Gospel. At the same time, he called Catholics and those who support gays as enemies.”

Lina Starostina left the parish of Sretensky Monastery in 2014, when one of the parishioners said that Father Tikhon supported the annexation of Crimea and the entry of troops into Ukraine, and another priest did not bless her to go to a rally against the war. A month ago, when Shevkunov said that the Investigative Committee should check the version of the ritual murder of the royal family, Lina wrote him an open letter, which was published on the website « Achilles":

"I that the most Jewish, which more 20 years was near, V monasticarrival. Now— That You big And influential face, Not only V MP, take ithigher, A Then, quarter century back… To me trusted first The veil (sew — Z. WITH.) And altarpiece vestments, Not was more workshops, And I crawled Houses onknees, afraid come on on sacred textile, When sewed her. AND You servedliturgy on this throne, Not was seizures disgust?

AND Veil Easter, first Easter. When You opened us Royal gate, How entrance V Paradise, You already Then disdainful those, To why touched my hands? Icould be from these, No? Not felt? Instructed to me restorestole old man Joanna Krestyankina, You every year put on her beforeGreat fasting, came out on Chin forgiveness, she Not strangled you? You Sosincerely asked forgiveness from myself And all brethren monastery, A All— after allsuspected?

For what You lied to me, When I asked you 20 years back:

— Father, write And They say, What Jews kill Christian babies. ButI, my loved ones And familiar, This unthinkable!

You they said Then — calm down, No, Certainly.

You taught us: » Our struggle Not against flesh And blood, A against spirits maliceheavenly».

Isn't it Not You repeated us, What » is our fatherland — Kingdom God's» ?

» Check yours heart, main criterion — Love To enemies. Bye You readyto pay evil behind evil, You Not You know Christ» .

How You could quit serious accusation mine blood brothers And sisters, after Togo, How thousands, tens thousand buried V Baby Yaru, there And mygreat-grandfathers? After Togo, How many from Jews were baptized, become priestscontrary to everyone And everything. After murders father Alexandra Me? How many once Youprayed behind me And mine family, A you overpowered doubts? You knew O myancestors And were silent?

If All these years suspicions poisoned your monastic feat, Sorry.

When— That You talked: Church must be persecuted, to cleanse yourself Andbe Faithful, A With ami built tombs to the prophets, together With their Notrepentant murderers.

Time are changing, And from favorites « elite" You you can become persecuted Anddespised.

If What, Come under my shelter, at us You you will V security, Welet's divide piece, even If He will the last one".

At the birthday party of Sergei Pugachev's ex-wife Galina. Tikhon Shevkunov (far left) and Nikolai Patrushev (second from right). Photo: personal archive of Sergei Pugachev

Church businessman

Sergei Pugachev financed Shevkunov’s projects for many years: he gave money to the publishing house, to the collective farm “Resurrection” in the Ryazan region and to the monastery in which the monks of the Sretensky Monastery live. After the screening of the film “The Confessor” by the Dozhd TV channel at Artdocfest, Deacon Andrei Kuraev shared his knowledge about this monastery, to which ordinary people are not allowed entry: “This monastery is a closed organization where no one is allowed except VIP guests.” Father Andrei confirmed that a helipad was specially built at the monastery so that VIPs “could come and communicate with the monks.”

Receipt from the Sretenie store

At the Sretensky Monastery there is a large bookstore and a cafe “Unholy Saints”. According to the register of individual entrepreneurs, income from trade in the store goes to the account of the individual entrepreneur monk Nikodim (in the world Nikolai Georgievich Bekenev), who has the right to trade in retail goods jewelry, wholesale ceramics and glassware, restaurants and dozens of other types of economic activities). The big question is: why was it necessary to open IP to a monk who, by definition, takes a vow of poverty? Why not entrust the management of economic activities to a lay person?

However, monk Nikodim has long been Father Tikhon’s confidant. He is a member of the Patriarchal Council for Culture, where Shevkunov is chairman. It was on his instructions and blessing that Nikodim acted as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of the curators of the exhibition “Forbidden Art 2006” Yuri Samodurov and Viktor Erofeev in 2010.

According to the SPARK database, Georgy Shevkunov himself owns 14.29% of the shares of the Resurrection collective farm. In 2015, the company's profit amounted to about 7 million rubles.

Shevkunov also owns a share in the Russian Culture Foundation, which in turn owns the Russian House publishing house. According to SPARK, the Fund’s net loss is 104 thousand rubles. Father Tikhon also owns a share in the Return Fund, where the Minister of Culture Medinsky and his deputy Aristarkhov previously had their shares.

No other information about Shevkunov’s shares or property was found in open sources.

A check from the Sretenie store, issued by IP Bekenev N.G (Hieromonk Nikodim Bekenev, resident of the Sretensky Monastery)

Effective manager

IN last years Two large projects occupied Father Tikhon Shevkunov - the construction of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in the Sretensky Monastery and the exhibition “My History” in different regions of Russia.

The temple was solemnly consecrated on May 25, 2017. It took three years to build, and all this time fierce disputes surrounding the construction did not subside. Many architects were surprised that the temple turned out to be so huge, and for its construction several historical buildings had to be demolished; in addition, the design competition was won by an unknown designer Dmitry Smirnov, who has no architectural education.

“When our methodological department received a project for a gigantic temple on the territory of the Sretensky Monastery, I strongly opposed it,” says Deputy General Director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums, architectural historian Andrei Batalov. “I believed that the temple in the name of the new martyrs should be extremely modest and contain allusions to the catacombs in which priests and hierarchs served in the name of persecution.”

Batalov’s opinion changed after Shevkunov invited him to the Sretensky Monastery. Batalov saw that the parishioners did not fit into the old small church and were standing on the street. He agreed with Father Tikhon that the temple should “mark the feat of the new martyrs and become a sign that it is impossible to destroy Christianity in our country.” Architect Ilya Utkin, who is famous for his temple buildings, also participated in this competition, but his project was rejected. He says that when Shevkunov presented the competition projects to Patriarch Kirill, he “pointwise” led him to Dmitry Smirnov’s model, which was later recognized as the winner.

“From an architectural point of view, this project presented a completely impossible picture. There was a feeling that in an open field there was such a fairy-tale tower, with blue skies and golden domes. Unprofessional work done by absolute amateurs,” architect Utkin assesses the winner.

Father Tikhon met Yuri Cooper, who had lived between Paris and Moscow since the 70s, in Voronezh, where he arrived together with the Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev. Cooper designed the new building of Voronezh drama theater. “Avdeev recommended me to Shevkunov, and he invited me to the temple construction project,” says Cooper. — I only made the outer part of the temple. Dmitry Smirnov was my assistant. He is not an architect, but a computer scientist. I refused to do the interior of the temple. What Tikhon proposed to do inside the temple turned out to be very tasteless, a kind of space for the nouveau riche, there is nothing religious there. All the walls are covered with terrible frescoes.”

Yuri Cooper says that his friendly relations with Shevkunov have cracked, and Dmitry Smirnov, after the construction of the temple, never mentioned his last name in any interview or said that he participated in this project: “Dmitry has no education, he is a computer scientist , who worked with me for many years. Tikhon lured him over, and now he does all the projects with him.”

I asked Yuri Kuper if Shevkunov was an anti-Semite, because he is sometimes spoken of as a nationalist and Black Hundred. “No, nothing like that happened. He offered to become my godfather,” said the artist.

Shevkunov came up with the exhibition “Russia - My History” and spent the whole of 2017 traveling with them throughout Russia. These projects will continue next year. The initiative group to nominate Vladimir Putin for president, as is known, met precisely at this exhibition at VDNKh in Moscow.

The Ministry of Education and Science suggested that university rectors use these exhibitions to organize extracurricular activities for students and to retrain history teachers. This initiative outraged members of the Free Historical Society. They turned to the Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva with open letter, demanding a public professional examination of these exhibitions.

And the Center for Anti-Corruption Research and Initiatives “Transparency International - R” became interested in financing exhibitions: “Since 2013, almost 150 million rubles have been allocated for the creation of exhibition content alone through the system of presidential grants, through subsidies from the Ministry of Culture - 50 million rubles, technical support for exhibitions cost 160 million, and 1.5 billion was spent on the construction of the pavilion at VDNKh, where the exhibition is now permanently located (This without accounting regional costs, But, For example, construction one exhibition complex V Saint— St. Petersburg it worked out V 1.3 billion rubles — Z. WITH. ). In addition, exhibitions are actively financed by Russian business,” says Center expert Anastasia Ivolga. — The budget funding received is absolutely not competitive, that is, in fact, in 2013, a specific network of organizations was created for a specific idea of ​​a specific person, which were guaranteed financial support for several years in advance. It’s quite difficult to imagine another similar structure that could so easily secure active support both in Moscow and in the regions, and in four years easily grow into a federal-scale project.”

Tikhon Shevkunov at the presentation of the book “Unholy Saints” as part of the XXIV Moscow International Book Fair at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. Photo: Maxim Shemetov / TASS

The Man in the Shell

Since 2000, when, at the instigation of Shevkunov himself, one of the journalists stated that Father Tikhon is Putin’s confessor, he has been called, “Lubyansk archimandrite”, “confessor of His Majesty”, “confessor from Lubyanka”. True, he himself was in no hurry to refute his closeness to the head of state, receiving certain dividends from the status of “spiritual father.” His book “Unholy Saints” has already gone through 14 editions and is published in millions of copies, translated into several languages. In an interview with RBC, Shevkunov said that he earned about 370 million rubles from the sale of books and invested them in the construction of the temple. The film “The Byzantine Lesson” he shot in 2008 cemented his image as an anti-Western and obscurantist. Sergei Pugachev claims that Shevkunov is now afraid of his own shadow:

“A few years ago he came to me in London and begged me: “Let’s go into the forest, otherwise Western services are listening to me everywhere.” He was used to listening to the FSB. But his anti-Western idea has reached a new level. He repeated: “The Westerners want to destroy our country.” Some kind of stream of consciousness. In general, he looks like Igor Sechin. Only in a cassock. Ministers sit in his waiting room for hours. He bathes in it and is very afraid of losing it. If he doesn’t like something or someone, he can become very tough.”

Journalist and publisher Sergei Chapnin calls Tikhon Shevkunov the main interpreter of Russian history for the authorities. “He tells the president what a great country he runs. Starting with the film about Byzantium, he creates a new “author’s” mythology, using modern political language, which is quite understandable to those who sit in the Kremlin, says Chapnin. — In the film “The Byzantine Lesson,” he explained for dummies the history of the fall of Byzantium and the insidious role of the West. And he soon decided that in doing so he had found the key to the history of Russia. Unlike many bishops, he is interested in all this. Sometimes he says reasonable things, but when you listen to how the accents are placed, it becomes scary - the desire to find Bishop Tikhon’s enemies does not leave him.”

Historian and researcher of the Russian Orthodox Church Nikolai Mitrokhin explains why Shevkunov was not ordained bishop for so long: “He is the bishop for relations with the FSB, I think he was, as it were, the representative of the FSB in the Church. And it was precisely for this reason that he was not made a bishop, although he deserved it according to formal indicators 15 years ago. And they did it with difficulty now. The church people don’t really like FSB people, and they especially don’t promote such ambitious characters.

His entire biography is in modern period indicates his obvious connections with the FSB. He has some pretty serious money and good connections with the FSB. The street where the Sretensky Monastery is located, this street, by agreement with the FSB, is its street. He destroyed the French school that stood on the territory of the monastery and erected his own gigantic temple. It is clear that he did not do this with income from the publishing house. He got some money somewhere.”

“FSB officers like to have their own priest, who has been stuck in the same place for 25 years,” says Mitrokhin. “They feed him as best they can, provide him with help and services. He strongly coincides ideologically with them, with their ideological vision of the world and everything else. I rewatched the film “The Byzantine Lesson”. This is an ideal presentation of the textbooks used to study at the FSB Academy, only in a historical analogy: a conspiracy, an irreconcilable enemy, pressure on the authorities and the state through internal factions. Logic of the KGB Institute textbook. I read what they wrote about Soviet history.”

The editor-in-chief of the Kredo.ru portal, Alexander Soldatov, believes that Patriarch Kirill did not want to ordain Shevkunov as a bishop out of jealousy: his consecration was pushed through by the presidential administration,” he is sure.

“According to the statutes of the Moscow Patriarchate, a candidate for patriarch must have experience in managing dioceses. Shevkunov does not have such experience, and he has not yet been given the episcopal see. But, if necessary, the charter will be rewritten,” continues Soldatov.

A friend of Shevkunov’s youth, writer Andrei Dmitriev, divides his friends and acquaintances into “people of the shell” and “people of the ridge.”

“It doesn’t mean that a person with a backbone is strong; a backbone can also be weak,” Dmitriev explains his theory. “It doesn’t mean that the shell protects; the shell can be frail.” Mayakovsky was a man of the shell, because he could not live on his own. This is either the party, or the Brik family, or someone else.

Shevkunov is one of the brightest people of the era, he cannot live without a shell, he has always been looking for this shell. But the armor is powerful and spiritual.”

“Shevkunov symbolizes the conservative wing in the Russian Orthodox Church,” says one of the priests on condition of anonymity. — He is a pragmatist and a romantic at the same time. His main idea is that Russia is an Orthodox country, and church-going security officers are correct security officers. He really loves the Church more than Christ, and it is dangerous if ideology and faith at some point come together, and faith is reduced to ideology.”

And yet, how can friendship with the security officers and the glorification of the new martyrs fit into one head?

Father Joseph Kiperman, who met with novice Gosha Shevkunov at the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery in the late 80s, offers his explanation: “From the very beginning, the Chekists planned to build a Soviet church so that the parishioners would be simply Soviet people. They wanted to keep the appearance of the church, but change everything inside. Tikhon is one of them Soviet people. The devil’s latest idea: to mix everything so that both Ivan the Terrible and St. Metropolitan Philip are together. There were both new martyrs and their tormentors, who suddenly turned out to be good, because political Orthodoxy sees both Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin as saints, and Stalin as a faithful child of the Church. This confusion is the devil’s latest know-how.”