MOSCOW -- For centuries, he has been called one of
the most villainous of the many villains in Russian history, a blood-soaked
tyrant who murdered his son, created the country's first secret police
force and personally took part in its massacres. Even the name by which
he came to be known tells bluntly of his legend: Ivan the Terrible.
Try telling that to Zhanna Bichevskaya. A famous folk singer since Soviet times, she now performs loving ballads to the memory of the czar and agitates on state-owned radio for him to be canonized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church. Her eyes fill with tears as she expounds on his holiness. On her latest CD, released last summer, she extols
the 16th-century ruler as a warrior who served the church and worked to
"decimate Russia's enemies." She has personally handed a copy of the new
CD to Patriarch Alexy II, leader of the church. On it, she sings that Ivan
has been "crowned by God with a sacred halo."
Bichevskaya is not an isolated fan of the czar, who
historians say killed thousands of his own people. She is merely one of
the more prominent converts pressing the Russian Orthodox Church to declare
him a saint.
Indeed, what makes this Ivan the Terrible revisionism most notable is how hard the church hierarchy is fighting it. Alexy took the unusual step of blasting the idea of sainthood for Ivan, calling it "madness" for the church to equate "murderers and martyrs, lechers and saints." The church canonization commission is now marshaling historical evidence to prove why Ivan the Terrible cannot be a saint, according to a member of the panel. While publicly dismissing Ivan's supporters as a fringe
movement, church leaders fear it is turning into a popular cause among
the millions of people who have returned to the Orthodox church in the
dozen years since the Soviet Union collapsed. Their enthusiasm taps a deep
strain of mystic nationalism that has proved a powerful force at odds with
the country's official turn toward integration with the West.
"They believe the canonization of Emperor Nicholas
II gives them reason to hope for canonization of Ivan the Terrible," said
Vladislav Tsypin, a religious scholar and member of the canonization commission.
"But there are no real parallels between the two. Nicholas II was a victim
of terror, and Ivan the Terrible was an organizer of terror."
Tsypin ticked off some other facts that would make Ivan a candidate for church condemnation, not sainthood: his seven marriages (the Orthodox Church allows no more than four) and his alleged involvement in the murder of Metropolitan Filip, who denounced Ivan's terror and was eventually canonized for his sacrifice. The religious scholar doesn't bother to mention Ivan's
reported childhood predilection for throwing animals off roofs or gruesome
grown-up practices such as ordering up tortures to duplicate biblical accounts
of the sufferings of hell.
At many religious gatherings in Russia, Ivan's supporters circulate through the crowd, handing out glossy printed cards with an icon of Ivan as a saint on one side and a prayer to him on the other. There's also a CD-ROM mustering evidence for their cause, such as a 16th-century fresco in one of the churches of the Kremlin. It depicts the czar with a halo over his head. "This idea has come to be very popular among simple believers," said Chapnin, the editor of the Orthodox paper. He and others say its success is grounded in the "naive ignorance" of Russian churchgoers about their own history after decades of Soviet repression and point out that those behind the movement are openly challenging the authority of Alexy. Many Ivan backers also support sainthood for Rasputin,
the charismatic monk who gained power over the last czar's family and was
famed for his orgies as much as his religious preaching.
"In the history of the Orthodox church, the praising
of a new saint always comes first from the respect of simple people," the
singer Bichevskaya said in the interview. "Only when the process reaches
its zenith does the church have no choice but to accept it. Right now,
we are educating people so they will pray to Czar Ivan."
Today, she expounds her brand of religious nationalism twice a week on the state-owned Voice of Russia network. Rants against wealthy "oligarch" business leaders compete with calls to take back the Orthodox church from what she calls a corrupt hierarchy. "They call us schismatics," she said, her blond hair covered by a heavy black hood, her frosted pink nails matching her frosted pink lipstick. "They call us destroyers of Orthodoxy." Bichevskaya is disdainful of the patriarch, whom she called "just a boss," surrounded by a Soviet-style set of privileged appointees. ("The church Politburo," she said dismissively.) She said she receives "bags of mail" after each broadcast in which she mentions Ivan. "They thank me, they're asking me to send icons, prayers of Ivan the Terrible." On the one hand, she doesn't deny that Ivan took part in atrocities. On the other, she says that all the "dirt" about Ivan was made up by Catholics. Asked about her favorite part of her new Ivan the Terrible song, she cited its ending: At this most perilous hour
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