Tikhon Sretensky Monastery. Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov): Cynicism is a disease of professional Orthodoxy

He is an influential bishop, a possible future patriarch and confessor of Putin, a member of the Athos and Izborsk clubs. He is friends with Sechin and Mikhalkov, and is lobbying for Vasilyeva’s candidacy. Minister of Culture Medinsky waits for him in the corridor for several hours. He is an ideologist of extreme church fundamentalism and a master of hardware games. He is Tikhon Shevkunov, the protagonist of the documentary film “The Spiritual Man” by Sergei Erzhenkov and Vladislav Pushkarev.

Listen to the parable: There was a certain owner of a house who planted a vineyard, surrounded it with a fence, dug a winepress in it, built a tower and, having given it to the vinedressers, went away. When the time for fruit approached, he sent his servants to the vinedressers to take their fruit; The winegrowers seized his servants, beat some, killed others, and stoned others.

CHAPTER FIRST. Parable of the Evil Vinegrowers

Back in the nineties, he would receive the nickname Lubyanka Father - for the spiritual nourishment of the security officers. And more than twenty years later, on Bolshaya Lubyanka, on the site of the executions, the second largest temple in Moscow, the Cathedral of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, will appear, which the Lubyanka priest will solemnly open together with Vladimir Putin, also a former security officer.

God doesn’t care what language people address him in—Church Slavonic, Russian or Chuvash. And for parishioners this is important - to comprehend the meaning of the sacrament through the letter and the word. Father Georgy Kochetkov is one of the few in the Orthodox Church who brings the good news in Russian.

“Until 1937, services were held in Russian, then everyone was shot. The authorities were very careful that people in the church did not understand anything. He came, lit a candle and left."

The Preobrazhensky Brotherhood grew out of an environment of religious dissidence. The end of the 80s, the intelligentsia discovers churches that were destroyed and desecrated by the security officers.

“Everyone wanted to find a spiritual way out of the Soviet impasse, and many least expected to find it in Christianity and Orthodoxy. And they found it!”— art critic Alexander Kopirovsky shares.

But this freedom did not last long - about 2-3 years. And then there was October 1993 and the shooting of the White House. Reactionaries, pushed to the periphery of political life, began to play a noticeable role in spiritual life. It was revenge. The priest who supported Perestroika, who gathered around him academicians with “liberal” beards, as the president would one day say, was a serious irritant for them.

“It will be a courtyard of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery”“, - said Tikhon, and behind him immediately the mighty figures of Cossacks and Black Hundreds with banners at the ready appeared - go and argue with them.

“Father Krestyankin advised him to find some kind of monastery in Moscow in order to open a courtyard of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, because the economic situation, if you remember in the early 90s, had changed a lot,” says journalist Sergei Bychkov. “What do you want - Soviet people, even if they are in robes, they are accustomed to the methods that were accepted then,” adds Alexander Kopirovsky.

The rioters threw icons and books out of the temple, and Georgy Kochetkov was accused of Judaizing heresy - they say he conducts services in Russian and his royal doors are wide open.

Alexy II takes the side of the conservatives and declares Kochetkov’s parishioners “neo-renovationists” - this is like now typing the word liberal and ruining a person’s biography. The personnel decision is to transfer Kochetkov to the Church of the Assumption in Pechatniki, and appoint Shevkunov as abbot of the Sretensky Monastery.

“It’s true that when we were forced to leave, Tikhon Shevkunov said that it wouldn’t be for long, that we’ll ask you from there too.”, says Father Georgy Kochetkov.

Alexander Shtilmark retired, became a young father and softened his temper. In this gray-haired, fluffy family man, belted with a Tolstoy sash, it is difficult to recognize the founder of the Black Hundred at first.

The fighters, battered by life, meet with the old asset in Shtilmark's apartment. After prayer - tea with cheesecakes and the usual conversations about who should be imprisoned and who should be shot. A point-blank look, a click of the shutter and a machine-gun burst of leaden words: “I’m not talking about Serebrennikov, who was caught there with millions. I would seriously shoot you.”

In the second hour of the conversation, when the cannonade has ceased, we move on to the main thing - whether Shevkunov hired them to resolve property disputes: “Maybe in business they are dividing spheres of influence, dividing tents, yes, maybe. If Tikhon Shevkunov would do this, they are my competitors, I will kick them out. Well, it's just not even serious. This is some level, well, I don’t know. Sorry. This idea, this is what they hired, this is the level of discussion of some idiots on the Internet"

I ask about the last meeting with Shevkunov. Suddenly, as if casually, it turns out that the abbot of the Sretensky Monastery helped with the examination of the exhibition “Beware of Religion!” Answer: “He gave a very competent expert opinion, on the basis of which a verdict was passed on Samodurov and Erofeev.” “If Father Tikhon somehow influences Putin, then it’s worth falling on your knees and begging that nothing new would happen otherwise.”, Shtilmark added.

The resolution of the conflict between Shevkunov and Kochetkov came in 1997. Mikhail Dubovitsky, a supporter of Shevkunov, was appointed the second priest in the Church of the Assumption in Pechatniki, as an assistant to Father George. During one of the services, Dubovitsky came out of the shadow of Father George and did not recognize the Eucharist he had celebrated. The service was interrupted, Dubovitsky was asked to take off his vestments. Then he locked himself in the altar and began to call for help from there, allegedly the renovationists were beating him. Dubovitsky was taken to the hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. And from the Sretensky Monastery, which is only two minutes on foot, organized Shevkunov Cossacks and exalted grandmothers came running. A fight broke out between parishioners of two churches.

Father Georgy Kochetkov: “As the policeman who came told us, when they were just going to the temple, they received a call from the police station and said: just don’t touch the young priest. That is, it was an action that was also coordinated with the police. Then we learned that people from the Sretensky Monastery, most likely Father Tikhon himself, came to see the police chief.”

After an internal church investigation, despite the doctor’s conclusions and many other pieces of evidence, Kochetkov was found guilty.

“Either Shevkunov himself, or someone on his behalf came and said: we need to help free the temple from the Kochetkovites,”- says Vyacheslav Demin, a Cossack ataman, one of the participants in that provocation, after which Kochetkov was banned from serving. The church-going intelligentsia did not call him anything other than a scumbag and a criminal; some even associated him with the murder of Alexander Men.

“No one understood that Lubyanka was supervising us, they just lead us and direct us, either here or there. And this is where my acquaintance with Tikhon Shevkunov begins. Apparently, then he began to actively cooperate with this civilization, and it nurtured him very much,”- Demin adds.

There are two flags in Demin’s room - American and Ukrainian. This is his political position. Demin has already moved to the USA for six months. Disillusioned with both Russian nationalism and the church of the Moscow Patriarchate, whose interests, as it seemed to him then, he was defending.

Shevkunov stated: “I will vote for Putin for such and such reasons. I can testify, as a priest, that this man confesses and receives communion at least several times a year.” “Great, great,” Demin comments on the video with Shevkunov, - excellent material for the Chekist church. How clearly everything is lined up for them, how well everything works for them, how they receive communion. I look at Shevkunov - he has aged. He used to be such a lively guy, he ran around young. And now, of course, he is already such a venerable, seasoned bishop.”

Father George did not go into schism, he remained faithful to the Moscow Patriarchate, although it was not easy. The ban on service was lifted three years later. Now he serves on Sundays at the Novodevichy Convent.

— You and Father Tikhon communicated personally, and I may have a non-standard question: does he believe in God?

Father George: In some, of course, he believes, in which - I don’t know. It is very difficult for me to say for sure that this is Christ, that we have one God, that we have one faith. It would be very difficult for me to, say, take communion together and celebrate the Eucharist together. I did this once at the request of the patriarch in 1994, and when he told me at the altar, as is customary, “Christ is among us,” I thought about what to answer. And I answered, not “There is and will be,” as it should be according to the service book, but “I hope that it will be.” Father Tikhon didn’t like this, but what can you do, you can’t lie before God.

CHAPTER TWO. Unholy Saints

A boy from Chertanovo, which is, for a minute, the other end of Moscow, his mother, the head of the laboratory for the treatment of toxoplasmosis, wanted Gosha to enter medical school. But a friend asked to support him in the entrance exams and go with him. And here’s the irony of fate: my friend didn’t get in, but Gosha succeeded. Scriptwriting department, workshop of Evgeny Grigoriev.

Zurab Chavchavadze is 15 years older than Shevkunov. A descendant of emigrants who returned to Russia and a graduate of VGIK, it was friendship at first sight.

Zurab Chavchavadze: “ We met him in Diveevo. He has not yet defended his diploma at VGIK"

Having defended his diploma, Gosha goes to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, from where he returns as Tikhon.

“And then Elena Anatolyevna began to panic, since her dream was about his career, about future grandchildren whom she could babysit. I know that Gosha was left without a father very early, so she put all her strength and hopes into Gosha. I understood everything, but I was powerless to help her with this, poor thing.”, says Zurab Chavchavadze.

Shevkunov's quiet, reclusive life and active nature do not get along well. Having looked around a little, he finds application for the knowledge acquired at VGIK - he makes film and photo chronicles of the monastery in order to preserve for history the image and voice of John Krestyankin, a seer who was considered great during his lifetime.

It was at the instigation of Tikhon Shevkunov and oligarch Sergei Pugachev that Vladimir Putin decided to meet with the elder at the beginning of his first presidential term. In the Orthodox community, this meeting will become surrounded by legends - patriotic sites will write that the last prophet of Russia blessed the president with no less than the Feodorovskaya icon of the Mother of God, with the words “Come with God!”

“Father John did not make the slightest impression on Putin, he said: “Funny old man.” When he left the cell, he said: “Funny old man.” Moreover, he personally asked me to attend. I thought he would lock himself there with him, if possible, and would not leave his cell for at least an hour. But in a minute the date is over."- says Sergei Pugachev.

Sketches from the life of the monastery and its inhabitants will form the basis of the collection of stories “Unholy Saints”. Tales about priests, mothers and miraculous healings, such popular stories were once published in Trinity Leaflets and were encouraged by Chief Prosecutor Pobedonostsev, who “stretched owl’s wings over Russia.”

All the heroes of Shevkunov’s stories are positive. Even when they act meanly and collaborate with authorities, like the abbot of the monastery Gabriel Steblyuchenko. A creature of the KGB, a man of such a tough and unbridled disposition that he earned the nickname from the brethren - the archbandit.

“He created such a detachment, like these Red Guards, orthodox ones. That is, these were the ones who informed him. He began to expel the most active monks", says Alexander Ogorodnikov. Tikhon Shevkunov and Ogorodnikov followed parallel courses - both studied at VGIK, sinned a lot, and then fervently believed. “People who tried to understand why they lived on earth at all, they somehow began to ask more spiritual questions,”- says Ogorodnikov.

Then their paths diverged. Shevkunov began to rise higher and higher in the church hierarchy, and Ogorodnikov went to a camp, where he spent a total of 9 years: three years for parasitism and six for anti-Soviet agitation. And so in 1987 they met - the freed confessor and monk Tikhon. Alexandra's brother Rafail introduced them. The book Unholy Saints devotes several chapters to him.

Alexander Ogorodnikov : “It so happened that I communicated with him very little, because he was mainly associated with Hieromonk Raphael. But I know that he listened to my stories with great interest. They asked me about the zone and so on, how it was, I told him, he was very interested in it, he listened to it carefully. I talked about some wonderful incidents that happened to me: about how they “broke” me, about all these repressions.”

Hieromonk Raphael, Alexander’s brother and one of those whom Shevkunov calls his spiritual guide, introduced them. Expelled from the monastery because of his dissident brother, Raphael soon died in a car accident. The book devotes several chapters to him: “Father Raphael began to castigate the Soviet regime. I was alarmed and hinted to the priest that the phone could really be tapped. So Georgy Alexandrovich has already been scared half to death.”

Soviet power collapsed - and Shevkunov invited Ogorodnikov to the presentation of his book. I asked on the sidelines if he had lied a lot? Ogorodnikov answered honestly. Since then they have not seen each other again.

“This Sergian piety, which seems to permeate this book, despite the lively scenes, it seemed to show those on whom their career depended that he was his own person - he understood everything. Have you noticed that there is not a single condemnation of GB in this book? It’s as if it’s like this, you know, it’s like it’s not there,”— Ogorodnikov shares.

Alexander organized and runs a shelter for the homeless. Foreign volunteers helped with the construction - both money and hands. “I can’t see homeless children, I’m trying to do something, in my very humble strength, in order to somehow help. This is our duty, we owe it, our generation, these are our children. If not us, then who?”— he explains.

For the last few years, refugees from southeastern Ukraine have been living in the shelter. Here, in Russia, their yesterday’s like-minded people turned out to be of no use to them; a dissident extended a helping hand.

Alexander rarely appears in Moscow; he spends most of the year in his house on the Volga. There he receives journalists, writers, documentarians, mostly foreign. Several books have been written about his confessional feat abroad, but not a single one in Russia yet.

Alexander Ogorodnikov: “The fact that I was sitting, and not alone, in the zone, seems to raise the question: why did you, for example, somehow bypass this? If they were asked these questions: what would you do in defense of persecuted Christians? They mentioned, for example, my name or the name of Yakunin, or other participants in the seminar, what did they say? They said that they were sitting for their own affairs, that is, as if they had nothing to do with us. They basically abandoned us."

November 1991, Donskoy Monastery. The governor is away, there are three people in the monastery: the watchman, monk Tikhon and his friend Zurab Chavchavadze, who says: “We chatted for an hour, I see that he wants to sleep, in my opinion. I said goodbye and left. When I left the monastery, I opened the gate, suddenly I saw a car approaching the gate, a huge fire truck almost drove in. And some fire major there says to me: “Are you on fire here?”

In May 1991, as soon as monastic life was resumed at the Donskoy Monastery, the monks asked for the blessing of the patriarch to begin searching for the relics of St. Tikhon, but were refused. And then on November 18, a fire suddenly broke out in the Maly Donskoy Cathedral. The attackers threw a Molotov cocktail right at the window of the temple - this is according to Tikhon Shevkunov. Actually, there are a lot of strange things in this story. Judge for yourself. November 18 is the day of Tikhon’s accession to the patriarchal throne. When Gosha Shevkunov was tonsured, as you probably already guessed, he received a name in honor of the patriarch. In one of his interviews, he recalled that shortly before the fire in the Donskoy Monastery, he received a telegram from Vasily Rodzianko, where he wrote to him: “You will soon meet Tikhon.”

Shevkunov called the arson of the temple sabotage and blamed parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, calling them agents of foreign intelligence. But it is not clear why foreigners would set fire to the tomb of Patriarch Tikhon, whom they themselves canonized in 1981 - long before the Moscow Patriarchate did so. Be that as it may, we will never know the truth about that fire. All archives have been destroyed - the police responded to our request.

“In the morning we stood on the ashes, inside the temple there was a smoked wooden hiccup, burnt icon cases. Less than a few days later, repairs had to be done again. Well, we took this as a direct instruction - look for it,”— told Shevkunov . The prophecy of Vasily Rodzianko, if it really happened, came true: Tikhon met Tikhon: “When they lifted the lid of the coffin, I boldly, God forgive me, put my hand in there, with a blessing, and simply grabbed the man by the hand, by the shoulder, the living shoulder. I screamed: “Here! Here!". That's it - close it, close it."

The resurrection of Lazarus, the multiplication of loaves - what is this if not a miracle? “Wherever God wants, the order of nature is defeated.” But the consciousness of modern man is so structured that faith in ancient legends is no longer enough for him; he wants a miracle here and now.

Tikhon Shevkunov: “All those who loudly applauded Pussy are loudly applauding Leviathan.”

And a graduate of the screenwriting department understands this like no one else. Shevkunov is a member of the Patriarchal Council for Culture and often speaks out about the work of Russian directors: “Here is your Orthodoxy, here is your culture, here is your history, here is your statehood, this is what it has come to. Eat."

Several interlocutors told Dozhd that the bishop repeatedly spoke unflatteringly about Kirill Serebrennikov during meetings with Putin. Surveillance of the director was established at the beginning of the year, sources close to the FSB said, and the bishop’s dissatisfaction could have influenced the decision to begin operational actions.

“I learned that I was being monitored much earlier than from the case materials. The waiters said: “You have a tape recorder under the table.” That is, I knew about it,”— Kirill Serebrennikov said these words in the Basmanny court. And the fact that he was under surveillance, and for more than one year, was known not only by his friends, but even by those with whom Kirill periodically communicated, as well as the fact that the powerful Bishop Tikhon was a possible customer of his persecution.

Tikhon Shevkunov himself refused to comment, but here is what his friend Zurab Chavchavadze said: “Kirill Serebrennikov and Tikhon - where are the common points in general? What's wrong with Kirill Serebrennikov... What about vulgarity in his so-called art? Of course, Father Tikhon will never accept this. “I don’t see a normal person at all who would come to the Bolshoi Theater to look at genitals.”

Officers from Lubyanka - both active and retired - can often be found in the nearby Sretensky Monastery. For intelligence general Nikolai Leonov, Shevkunov became both godfather and confessor. “I was an atheist, naturally, unbaptized, with almost 50 years of experience in the CPSU. And the question is, who will baptize me? Father Tikhon then says: “I will baptize you.” Because Father Tikhon explained that when you are baptized, all the sins that you have accumulated during this time are removed from you,” he says.

When Igor Smykov retired from the police, he immediately made the sign of the cross. For several years now, he has been touring the country with the icon of Tsar Nicholas and making flights with it along the sacred state borders. His very name symbolizes the bond between the church and the security forces. Smykov presented Shevkunov with the Order of the Holy Passion-Bearer Nicholas, and was at a meeting of the monarchist circle. Everywhere you look, there are familiar faces: Chavchavadze, Malofeev, Borodai, General Reshetnikov. Is that the Major General of the Religious Service, Father Zvezdoniy, is missing.

The icon - the same one with which Natalya Poklonskaya went to the Immortal Regiment rally - was the first to cast myrrh in the Sretensky Monastery. November 7, exactly on the day of the October Revolution, during the service of Father Tikhon. Again miracles, and that’s all!

On September 3, during a visit to Yekaterinburg, Shevkunov spoke out against the film “Matilda,” calling it slander. And already on the night of September 3-4, Denis Murashov rammed the cinema where the premiere was supposed to take place. The day before, as the prince himself admitted, he participated in the liturgy at the Church on the Blood, which was conducted by Shevkunov.

“It is no coincidence that such a gigantic completely social explosion arose with the film “Matilda”, because perhaps this will also be somehow built in (maybe it is already uncontrollable), at least initially, perhaps this was also built into the attraction public interest in the history of the royal family, perhaps it should have resulted in recognition of the royal remains in a few steps,”- says Sergei Chapnin, former editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate.

It will be a beautiful production: the centenary of the execution of the Romanovs, the fourth term and the All-Russian religious procession. Take a more comfortable seat.

Sergei Pugachev: “In the story with Matilda, he does not hide his position. Father Tikhon is, after all, a normal Soviet person who was a pioneer, an October student, a Komsomol member, that is, he sincerely believes in this. But unfortunately, this comes out rather strange. Soviet style."

CHAPTER THREE. Tombs of the Prophets

We meet with Sergei Pugachev in Nice. The perimeter of the park was cordoned off by bodyguards with walkie-talkies; they were asked not to take them into the frame - and they wouldn’t have fit in.

Sergei Pugachev: “He calls me and congratulates me on the holidays. I hope he remembers. By the way, he tells me that he remembers and prays.”

Pugachev was a parishioner of Shevkunov and the first sponsor of the Sretensky Monastery. After his departure abroad, Father Tikhon was ordained bishop, and this is a direct path to the patriarchal throne.

Sergei Pugachev: “Without false modesty, he is, of course, glad that he is already a bishop, he has patriarchal ambitions, obviously.”

1996, the future president had just moved to Moscow. Pugachev and Putin are driving in the same car past the Sretensky Monastery.

Sergei Pugachev: “Well, I introduced Father Tikhon to Putin. We arrived at the Sretensky Monastery. There was a service, I think it was an evening service, I don’t remember now. And we met at the all-night vigil. After that, we communicated quite a lot, bringing Tikhon to Putin’s dacha, on church holidays, and so on. That is, Putin really loved to listen to the choir of the Sretensky Monastery".

Lyudmila Putina became a parishioner of the Sretensky Monastery. And here is a photo from the birthday of Pugachev’s wife, at the same table - Sechin, Patrushev and Shevkunov. Introduced by a banker into Putin’s inner circle, Bishop Tikhon quickly got used to it.

Sergei Pugachev: “Putin naturally has no confessor. At least in my opinion, Putin is an unbeliever.”

True, Shevkunov himself is in no hurry to dispel these rumors about spiritual mentoring. No matter how much the journalists questioned him, the bishop, coy, avoided a direct answer.

Sergei Pugachev: “Many ministers dream of getting to see him - this is already something like this.”

— When was the last time you talked to him?

Sergei Pugachev: Well, I don’t know, he’s paranoid, he thinks he’s being overheard, and in general it’s dangerous to talk to me. I spoke out. He remained silent, said okay, I’ll call you back, come on, now it’s inconvenient, back and forth. Medinsky has been sitting in the waiting room, waiting for two hours.

Shevkunov became an important political figure after the unification of churches. The negotiations took place in America. For the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, this was a kind of viewing party - foreigners wanted to make sure that the Moscow Patriarchate had changed and repented of the sin of Sergianism. In addition to Shevkunov, the delegation included priest Georgy Mitrofanov, a supporter of White Russia - this was a very calculated political move.

Georgy Mitrofanov : “When you ask me whether someone used me for political purposes during this dialogue, I can only say one thing: I was and remained, and remain a cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is no coincidence that Archimandrite Tikhon accompanied President Putin at a meeting with the leaders of foreign churches even before the reunification. Well, any state strives to expand.”

As soon as the act of canonical communion was signed, everything returned to normal. And now the publishing house of the Sretensky Monastery is publishing panegyrics to Patriarch Sergius, and speakers of the Russian Orthodox Church, while cautious, are talking about his canonization.

Sergey Chapnin : “It became obvious that a new empire was being built. And this new empire naturally needs a unified church. He realized that he was not just the ruler of Russia, but he was restoring the torn fabric of the past, and Tikhon played a key role in this.”

“The Russian people know nothing else but how to build empires”, Shevkunov once said. The Empire, in its new version, is omnivorous, it makes no difference to it whether it is white or red. This is how a complex syncretic cult of Orthodoxy and Bolshevism emerged. “Most of us lived in the Soviet Union. Yes, it was Russia, distorted in some ways, but it was real Russia. Our president said correctly that anyone who does not mourn the destruction of the Soviet Union has no heart,”- he said.

In 2005, the Russian national idea turns to dust. In the Donskoy Monastery, to the sounds of the revived Soviet anthem, the white general Denikin and the philosopher Ilyin are buried. This act, as conceived by the authors, including Shevkunov, symbolizes historical reconciliation.

Quotes from Ilyin scattered throughout public speeches, beloved ruler Alexander III (his portrait, by the way, hangs in the ruler’s office), sacred Korsun. You might think that Shevkunov personally gives a short course in history to Putin.

Opening of the monument to Vladimir. A symbolic response to Ukraine. The scriptwriter is still the same. Now there are three Vladimirs in Russia - one lies in the Mausoleum, the second sits in the Kremlin, and the third stands right opposite.

Sergei Pugachev : “He is, in fact, a failed director, therefore... or rather, an accomplished director, even to a greater extent than Nikita Mikhalkov. Mikhalkov never dreamed of such fame; he never became such a pillar of power. And Father Tikhon is such a pillar of power.”

Village Krasnoye, Ryazan region. This could be an episode of Sorokin's book. Chairman of the collective farm "Resurrection" and bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church rolled into one. The head of the village administration, Kamalutdin Pashayev, shows us the property of the Sretensky Monastery: “They just wanted to completely fence themselves off with a solid concrete fence, and then, when the population became outraged, naturally, they fenced it off with a mesh.”

Several collective farm fields, a cascade of ponds, a theological seminary and a monastery on the site of the restored estate of General Ermolov - the total area of ​​the farm is more than 30 hectares. And the Niva rests against the fence. Next - barbed wire and an angry dog. We can only get into Shevkunov’s residence with a blessing, which we have been denied.

When the camera is turned off, the village head is much more talkative. There are so many guests that you only have time to patch up the roads for their arrival and drive the entire village out for a cleanup day! Putin was also going to come, but at the last moment plans changed.

Orthodoxy with fists. This is the personnel reserve of the Sretensky Monastery, first-year seminarians. They don’t jump off cliffs like future governors yet, but they have already learned how to take a stance.

Around the monastery, its own “golden mile” immediately formed - cottages of retired security officials. By the way, the managers of the Resurrection collective farm come from the Stavropol FSB.

2013, transcript of a speech to readers, discussions about censorship: “I have a good attitude towards censorship. I believe that reasonable censorship, correct censorship, of course, should exist.” And this is a quote from P a programmatic article for fighters against the Taxpayer Identification Number and other fundamentalists - the article is called “Schengen Zone”, it was published in Barkashov’s newspaper “Russian Order”: “What struck me in New York was the disproportionate number of numbers, 666.”

Uberization also affected the church. The patterns on the façade of the Temple of New Martyrs and Confessors were not cut out by master carvers—they were printed on a 3D printer. For the sake of the new dominant, several historical buildings were demolished. The center of Moscow has seen nothing like this - it itself has turned into one big monument to suffering. Architectural suffering.

Sergey Chapnin: The idea of ​​reconciling Soviet history and the history, respectively, of the Russian Empire arises.

The architect of the new temple was 32-year-old Dmitry Smirnov, who had never built a single church before. His portfolio includes decorations for the “Star Factory” and country houses for Russian officials. He says that winning the competition came as a complete surprise to him.

Dmitry Smirnov: By the way, a day later I started reading about the monastery in general and found out that it was my birthday on the day the monastery was founded. It was so cool.

In parallel with the construction of the temple, Smirnov developed the design of historical exhibitions. Thanks to Shevkunov, I became a church member.

Dmitry Smirnov: Before that, the last time I was in church was for my baptism.

—What struck you most? Maybe Vladyka recommended some book to you?

Dmitry Smirnov: “Unholy Saints”, in fact, if you read, heard, I listened to the audiobook, it is presented quite interestingly, in very human language, that is, so interesting. Plus, I listened to a couple of sermons from the bishop. That is, what he said there, I don’t remember now, really, but at that moment when I listened to it, I had something inside me, some kind of feeling.

—Have you read the lives of these new martyrs?

Dmitry Smirnov: Well, a little bit. In fact, nothing much has been written about them.

- Who are confessors, do you know?

Dmitry Smirnov: Can not say. To be honest, I’m not strong in theology, to put it mildly.

“Many of these people are still alive.

Alexander Ogorodnikov: We were taken to the KGB headquarters here, on Lubyanka, Colonel Shilkin looked at me thoughtfully and said: “Sasha, we don’t want to make new martyrs.”

Alexander Ogorodnikov decided to go to Moscow to look at the new Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors. It was built in his honor, after all.

Alexander Ogorodnikov: I do not maintain relations with Tikhon. All those hieromonks whom he gathered around him, who were around Hieromonk Raphael, my deceased brother, then they all quietly left. The church must be free. This is its main condition. Outside of this, she loses her charisma and the right to a free voice. I don't want to say it's fake, but it looks like a big beautiful toy. I might feel like a stranger at others' celebrations, you know? Naturally, no one invited it when it was opened, although these people still exist. It would seem that they are still alive. An Orthodox security officer is a worthy figure. Who are we? There they thought about the country, about the Motherland, defending the country from the invaders, from the “fifth column”. And we are this very “fifth column”.

Georgy Kochetkov: This could be a symbol of overcoming what was done at Lubyanka or in the name of Lubyanka for a long time, when our people and our church were destroyed, and this is exactly what the people who glorify churches are hiding. These tombs are built for the prophets, but the prophets are killed.

In an interview with Dozhd, Tikhon Shevkunov refused: “I know that your TV channel is currently filming a film in which its customers and authors pay special attention to my humble person. But this fact cannot in the least change my decision regarding the impossibility of our cooperation under the current circumstances.”

ARCHIMANDRITE TIKHON (SHEVKUNOV) - CONFESSOR OF PRESIDENT PUTIN?

The mysterious person of the new president is becoming closer and closer to the people. He has already introduced himself as “son”, “student”, “intelligence officer”, “democrat” and “family man”. But the only source from which one can glean meager information about the president’s preferences, habits and views is the collection of his interviews “In the First Person. Conversations with Vladimir Putin,” recently released by Vagrius, has a significant gap. Until now, no one has spoken about the relationship of the former security officer with the church and its hierarchs. This important and completely unknown side of Putin’s life is revealed to us thanks to the fact that a clergyman has been found who is his... spiritual father. Let us remember: the tsar’s confessor often determined the fate of the Russian empire.

So, Putin’s confessor is a certain Archimandrite Tikhon, abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, located in the center of Moscow - on Lubyanka, half a kilometer from the building of the FSB of the Russian Federation, which in itself is symbolic. Let's start with a short interview conducted by an FLB correspondent:

- Yes, for the first time in my life. I have never voted: neither for Brezhnev, nor for Yeltsin. I voted for Vladimir Putin because I know him personally. Putin is a believer, an Orthodox man. And for a shepherd, casting a vote is the same as making a guarantee. I really like one quality about him - he does not strive for power at all. In any case, the policy that he pursued as prime minister is absolutely acceptable to me.

- Don’t you think that Russia has chosen a person whom it does not know at all?

-Who does she know? Yavlinsky? Zhirinovsky? Dzhabrailova? Putin just had time to show himself and prove himself - he did things for six months.

- Putin is a career KGB officer, an atheist by definition. How did you find a common language with him?

- I will not give any details about the circumstances of our acquaintance. I will say one thing: Putin is a sincere believer and knows God. He himself understood very deep questions of existence, as Dostoevsky wrote: “Maybe for some it looks funny - his faith.”

Archimandrite Tikhon, in the world Georgy Aleksandrovich Shevkunov, was born in 1958, graduated from the screenwriting department of VGIK. He was a novice of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, worked in the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate... In 1991, one of the buildings of the Donskoy Monastery, where Shevkunov lived, burned down. According to investigators, the cause of the fire was a drunken monastery watchman who fell asleep with a lit cigarette. It seemed like an ordinary everyday incident, but Father Tikhon decided to show “political vigilance.” In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, he accused Western intelligence agents represented by believers of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad of “malicious arson.” True, he refused to name them: “There is such a word,” he reminded, “comfortable silence.”

What Father Tikhon meant by “comfort in silence” - one can only guess. Perhaps it was this, as well as “vigilance,” that helped him make a brilliant career in the Moscow Patriarchate - first to head a large Moscow monastery, and then to take into his care the soul of the President of Russia.

It was not without reason that Shevkunov refused to tell our correspondent the circumstances of his acquaintance with Putin. For any clergyman, mention of his informal relations with the intelligence services is an indelible stain on his cassock. The archimandrite walked through the steps of his career side by side with former KGB generals, who, obviously, “led” him to the future president of the country.

One of them, Lieutenant General Nikolai Leonov, is together with Shevkunov on the editorial board of the Russian House magazine. Leonov was born on August 22, 1928 in the Ryazan region. From 1958 to 1991 he served in the KGB system of the USSR, at one time he was known as the “curator” of Fidel Castro and the ideological inspirer of the entire “revolutionary fire” that raged for a long time in Latin America in the 60-70s, was the deputy head of the First Main Directorate (in which Putin also served in those years), head of the Analytical Directorate of the KGB of the USSR. Immediately after the events of August 1991, he submitted his resignation. In recent years, he worked together with Leonid Shebarshin (the last head of the PGU KGB of the USSR) in the so-called Department of Economic Security - an office that initially played the role of a kind of generalized security service for many large Russian banks (Promstroibank, Inkombank, etc.), during the reign of Primakov in The White House prepared for him draft government regulations and concepts for economic programs...

Under the mask of “the furious father Avvakum,” a fanatical fighter against new heresies, which Shevkunov put on himself, hides a completely ordinary person with his inherent weaknesses. Knowledgeable people talk about his penchant for abusing strong alcoholic drinks (a vestige of his bohemian youth?). The abbot drives around in a government-class armored Audi-8 and likes to waste money in expensive restaurants...

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 Alexei 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 officers. 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. 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. He told me quite sincerely 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, 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; he 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 of the MP publishing department, on condition of anonymity, says that in the 90s, KGB officers began to visit them, and 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 his 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 of the 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 She 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 maliceunder heaven».

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 trading in a store goes to the account of an individual entrepreneur, monk Nikodim (in the world Nikolai Georgievich Bekenev), who has the right to trade in retail jewelry, wholesale ceramics and glass, run restaurants and dozens of other types of economic activity). 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 recent years, two large projects have 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 the 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 addressed the Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva with an 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 in recent times 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-Pechersk 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 these 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.”

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 Alexei 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 officers. 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. 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. He told me quite sincerely 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, 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; he 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 of the MP publishing department, on condition of anonymity, says that in the 90s, KGB officers began to visit them, and 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 his 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 of the 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 She 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 maliceunder heaven».

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 trading in a store goes to the account of an individual entrepreneur, monk Nikodim (in the world Nikolai Georgievich Bekenev), who has the right to trade in retail jewelry, wholesale ceramics and glass, run restaurants and dozens of other types of economic activity). 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 recent years, two large projects have 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 the 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 addressed the Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva with an 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 in recent times 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-Pechersk 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 these 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.”

Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) is 60 years old. NEZYGAR tells how it all began.

From the biography:

"Metropolitan Tikhon (in the world - Georgy Aleksandrovich Shevkunov). Born in Moscow on July 2, 1958. From a single-parent family. In 1975 he graduated from school in Moscow. In 1982 he graduated from the screenwriting department of VGIK with a degree in literary work on the course of playwright Evgeny Grigoriev.

From VGIK he is friends with Mikhalkov, Chavchavadze, and many other intellectuals. During my final years at VGIK I became interested in Russian Orthodoxy. On the advice of the Lavra confessor Onufry (now a permanent member of the Synod and head of the UOC), he went in 1982 as a novice to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, where he periodically lived and worked until 1986.”

Here you will hear the opinions of people who know Father Tikhon or have come into contact with him.

The early part of the biography of Father Tikhon can be called the search stage. Unlike many clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, his family was not a church member. Gosha Shevkunova was raised by her mother, a microbiologist by profession.

Coming to Orthodoxy, as people who know Shevkunov say, was an internal rebellion, an attempt to find a new world, endowed with meaning and mysticism; a world that for the artist Shevkunov was supposed to become the antithesis of the gray and insipid Soviet world.

“Gosha Shevkunov has gone through a lot in life. You can probably say that he is a keen man. He was looking for himself. And if we speak now from the position of the Church, he experienced many sins that stuck in him. But he always fought against it, broke himself , and he is a very strong person."

“He loved and he killed the love in himself. At some point he became afraid of himself and decided to suppress his personal self. Orthodoxy became the ideal basis.”

“I don’t know whether it was the awareness of his own otherness or the fear that in real life, he, a simple boy, would not be able to compete with the golden youth. Of course, many classmates and acquaintances perceived this as capitulation, as weakness. But it turned out that Gosha Shevkunov turned out to be smarter, he left the world and stood above it."

Father Tikhon, and this must be remembered, comes from the “diaspora of the Moscow intelligentsia.” It may seem surprising, but Metropolitan Tikhon of Pskov has no theological education at all - he did not graduate from either a theological school or a theological academy.

“The entire spiritual basis of Father Tikhon is a mass of intellectual myths about Orthodoxy and Orthodox Russia.”

The capital boy Grisha initially did not understand and did not know big Russia. However, he did not even know what the Church was.

"For him, at first it was some kind of fairy tale, and then it captivated him. Orthodoxy, which was actually prohibited for young people, was a challenge for Gosha (Shevkunov), it was a front, it was a rebellion. Against the background of the wretched Soviet leaders, the young guy recognized absolutely incredible people - novices, with tragic stories, and with a very strong moral core. The truth for them was only the truth."

Father Tikhon was lucky in that his teacher was Father John (Krestyankin), who imbued him with some meanings and meanings. But in general, Shevkunov’s Orthodoxy is completely home-grown, invented, superficial and cinematic.

“Please note, Shevkunov does not join the Zagorsk Lavra, he does not go to study at the theological academy. No, he does not openly conflict with the system. He leaves for a monastery in Pskov to understand himself, but at the same time leaving a path of retreat. Understand - he always leaves himself an escape route."

They say that Father Tikhon is similar to his opponent Patriarch Kirill. Both of them put on an external effect, acting as a form of communication with the world. It is always important to follow the agenda, adapt to the atmosphere, and artistically manipulate listeners and interlocutors.

For Volodya Gundyaev, the path to the Church was predetermined. His father was a rector, his elder brother was considered one of the best students of the Leningrad Academy and the favorite of Metropolitan Nikodim.

It is no coincidence that it was noticed that both Father Tikhon and Patriarch Kirill know Orthodox dogmas very poorly, I do not understand the works of the holy fathers: they read little spiritual literature - they simply do not have enough time for all this.

But all this is not important to them. Orthodoxy for them is of a purely applied nature.

From the biography of Father Tikhon:

"In 1986, Metropolitan Pitirim takes him to Moscow to the Publishing Department. Georgy Shevkunov, in Pitirim’s team, is preparing anniversary celebrations associated with the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus'. He writes scripts, prepares films, primarily for foreign audiences. In Moscow he becomes a resident of the Donskoy Monastery ". According to Shevkunov, during this period his contacts with KGB officers began. In 1988, he was offered to become a seksot, he refused. In 1990, Metropolitan Alexy (Roediger) was elected patriarch. The new patriarchal team included many of Shevkunov’s acquaintances. In 1991, "He was tonsured a hieromonk at the Donskoy Monastery. In 1993, he was appointed rector of the Moscow metochion of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery."

In 1992, Hieromonk Tikhon, during construction work, “discovered” the relics of Patriarch Tikhon in the Donskoy Monastery. From this moment on, he becomes a recognizable person. Thanks to Krestyankin, he enters the patriarch’s social circle, becomes his de facto assistant. He meets and makes friends with the patriarch’s assistant, Andrei Kuraev, and the owner of Mezhprombank, Pugachev.

Patriarch Alexy II will introduce Tikhon to Pugachev.

“Pugachev was always considered as a kind of backup and a possible alternative to Abramovich in the Administration; he was close to the patriarch and decided many of his affairs.”

“It is a big mistake to believe that supposedly since the 90s Tikhon has become some kind of leader of conservative and right-wing forces. Father Tikhon was extremely loyal to Patriarch Alexy, he was an absolute authority for him, like Krestyankin. In those years, the Church was going through a very serious breakdown, the reactionary part "The church united around Metropolitan John of St. Petersburg. Patriarch Alexy was looking for an alternative to this. The young, intelligent and perceptive Father Tikhon was an excellent option for a moderate conservative in Moscow."

“Patriarch Alexy II loved Father Tikhon for his energy, passion and captivating sincerity.”

“After Father Tikhon actually “expelled” the renovationist community of Kochetkov from the Vladimir Cathedral - and the patriarch did not like Kochetkov, was jealous of him for the love of the intelligentsia, Alexy II significantly strengthened the position of Father Tikhon. He receives the blessing to create the Sretensky Monastery and the patriarchal appointment as abbot.”

“Everything happened by itself - young Tikhon in Moscow literally intercepted the agenda of the old clergy. Before the elderly Metropolitan John in St. Petersburg had time to give any speech, Father Tikhon was already gushing: he was for the restoration of the monarchy, and against the INN, and for the Russian idea, and for the Russian world. Tikhon was global in his speeches, but all this globality was rather soft and virtually disappeared."

“It is known that the patriarch did not like KGB officers and did not want to have anything to do with them. For this, he had his father Tikhon - such a liaison officer with the Lubyanka. Shevkunov then became friends with many officers, most of them were from the Foreign Intelligence Service, such as for example General Leonov."

Father Tikhon tried to make the most of any media resources. “Of course, he was a professional. The director did not die at heart. He understood what television was and how to work with the camera and the viewer. He became close friends with the former Soviet television star Alexander Krutov and created the Russian World publishing house with Pugachev’s money, which he created with Zhelonkin and Tolstoy TV channel Moscovia".

Somewhere in 1997 or 1998, Father Tikhon met Vladimir Putin. There are several versions of how this happened. According to one, Tikhon was introduced to the future president by General Leonov; according to another, the acquaintance took place thanks to the banker Pugachev.

In August 1999, Putin's father dies in St. Petersburg. Vladimir Spiridonovich suffered from cancer and died seriously. “Pugachev and Father Tikhon came to my father’s funeral. Putin was very touched by this.”

It was from this moment that journalists began to call Tikhon “Putin’s confessor.”

“In fact, Tikhon has never been the President’s confessor. He confesses either to the monks of the Valaam Monastery, or on occasion while visiting churches. No one has information about the President’s sins except God.” Most often the President is professed by the governor of the Valaam Monastery, Pankratiy, an ardent reactionary and mystic. “Father Pankratiy has a very difficult relationship with both Tikhon and Patriarch Kirill.”

After Putin becomes President, Father Tikhon will have a global project to unite the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. “With this plan in 2000, Tikhon captivated everyone - the young President, the old Patriarch, patriots, and liberals. Few believed that Shevkunov would succeed. But he succeeded and Tikhon entered the President’s inner circle.”

The unification of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was a powerful reputational project. The Moscow Patriarchate dreamed about this, but did not know how to approach the solution of the issue.

The idea was old, and Patriarch Alexy the First and Pimen were involved in it. But the conflicts were very strong.

The ROCOR, in fact, was much more conservative than the ROC both in its views and in its interpretation of Orthodox dogmas.

“It was a clot of anti-Sovietism, anti-communism, anti-ecuminism, the fight against Freemasons and Jews, faith in the Holy Emperor Nicholas. They accused the official patriarchy of the sin of symphony with the communist state, in cooperation with the special services. It was very difficult to build a dialogue.”

Many people were involved in the unification project - there were structures of the Russian Orthodox Church, and emigrants, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Foreign Intelligence Service (the new director Sergei Lebedev, a friend of the President in Germany, worked for 2 years as a representative of the Foreign Intelligence Service in the USA before his appointment and had an idea of ​​​​the problem).

But the main driver of the unification was Father Tikhon.

Firstly, there were unofficial contacts with the Russian diaspora in the USA and Europe. Father Tikhon was seriously helped by his friendship with Zurab Chavchavadze, the representative of Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich in Russia, a relative of Patriarch Ilia II.

Chavchavadze was also a relative of Prince David Pavlovich Chavchavadze, grandson of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, who was killed in 1919 in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Through him, Tikhon met the princes Golitsyn, Boris Jordan, and Sergei Palen. Sergei Kurginyan would later call all of them descendants of Abwehr and Wehrmacht officers. And all of them will form the basis of the Konstantin Malofeev Foundation, who will become the son-in-law of Zurab Chavchanadze.

"Connections were found with the Nikolaevich (Romanov) branch and Michael of Kent."

All of them participated in the unification process in one way or another.

But Father Tikhon’s main idea was brilliant. He came up with the idea of ​​“intercepting” all the control nodes of the ROCOR.

It was about both financial and managerial issues.

The first ones were helped by connections with Archpriest Pyotr Kholodny. Since 1993, he has been treasurer of the ROCOR Synod of Bishops. He held this position until 2005.

“Kholodny was an interesting investor. He came to manage the finances of the ROCOR at the most critical moment. In fact, he saved the ROCOR from bankruptcy. He built interesting connections with Moscow. It is known that Kholodny invested almost the entire capital of the ROCOR in shares of Norilsk Nickel. It was somewhere $75 million."

“Since 2000, Peter worked as a sales consultant for Norilsk Nickel, then, from 2001, as the general director of the Norimet holding, the exclusive distributor of Norilsk Nickel in international markets.”

Peter Kholodny is the grandson of Protopresbyter Alexander Kiselev, confessor of General Vlasov and the ROA.

“In fact, the Synod of the ROCOR at some point was faced with a fact - all the money was transferred to Russia.”

“Later, Pyotr Kholodny left the ROCOR, they say that there was some kind of conflict. He returned to Norilsk Nickel. He worked together with Movchan in the Third World company.

In July 2001, there was a revolt among the leadership of the ROCOR. Metropolitan Vitaly, who had led the ROCOR since 1986, was retired. It was he who took a tough position against unification with the Russian Orthodox Church MP.

In addition, Metropolitan Vitaly accused the members of the Synod, Mark and Alypius, of collaboration and collusion with Moscow.
“You must understand who Father Tikhon is. He is a good strategist. He calculates everything and builds complex schemes. It would be difficult for him to conflict with Metropolitan Clement, but with Kirill there was a whole program of behavior.”

“Patriarch Kirill appointed him head of the Patriarchal Council for Culture, President Medvedev - a member of the Presidential Council for Culture. Under Medvedev, Father Tikhon knocked out the idea of ​​​​implementing the “My History” project. Do not forget that under Kirill, Father Shevkunov became a bishop.”

“Many people around the patriarch said that Father Tikhon was the initiator of the conflict between the patriarch and Yuri Shevchenko (the story of nanodust). The rumors about cohabitation with Lydia Leonova, the story with the clock, the story of Pussy and the campaign against the blue lobby in the Russian Orthodox Church are all supposedly the work of Father Tikhon"

But not everyone agrees that Pussy’s story is connected with Father Tikhon. “This is not his idea. But Father Tikhon criticized the patriarch and asked to commute Tolokonnikova’s punishment.”

According to the source, “Father Tikhon tried to minimize contacts with the security forces. In 2009, his friend Pugachev received citizenship in France and left Russia. Shevkunov has two partners - the Rotenberg brothers - through the massage therapist Goloshchapov and Malofeev.”