By Kostas Onisenko
The Russian Church has expressed its views on the possible burial of the body of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin through the head of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion.
Lenin’s body is in a special mausoleum on Moscow’s Red Square and its possible burial is a topic of recent debate in Russia.
On the one hand, the Metropolitan expressed the view of the Russian Church that the location of Lenin’s body is not where it is today, as he has caused a lot of suffering to the Russians and therefore should be removed, but such a thing should be done very carefully and not immediately, as it can provoke strong reactions from people who still consider the leader of the Bolsheviks as something “sacred”.
“Specifically connected with this man is the beginning of the ‘red terror’, the beginning of the mass repression of the Russian population, and of course I believe that the Red Square is not the place for this man,” said the Metropolitan. “When we mention that the Bolsheviks blew up the temples, that they destroyed the priests, it was an encroachment of our religion.
And if Lenin’s soil is now removed from the mausoleum, it will be a violation of the faith of those people for whom Lenin’s body is a sacred relic.”
For this reason, Hilarion believes that the relevant decisions must be made very carefully and the body should be removed later, when the communist ideology will belong in the past.