Canonization of saints and pseudo-canonization of deceased ascetics. Problems and Solutions

In a historical context, the article carries out research on the actual, but poorly studied, problems of the institution of locally venerated saints’ canonization as a specific part of the general canonization procedure performed by the Russian Orthodox Church in accordance with the unified canonization criteria. Analyzing the process of the Eparchial Sobors of Saints formation that began in the Soviet period, the author shows that throughout its existence the Russian Orthodox Church had a clear canonical and legal mechanism of the canonization of saints for both Church-wide and local veneration, but in its history until the middle of the 20th century such an institutional formation as the “Eparchial Sobors of Saints” did not exist. The article traces the transformation of the Eparchial Sobors into a semi-legal channel, which essentially cancels the basic church definitions concerning the center of church life – the sphere of saints. Considering the establishment of a new, for the Russian Church, institution as a tribute to the revolutionary era, the author deals with the anthropological and genetic problems, characterizing the origins and essence of religious materialism and of the deep foundations that determine a person’s qualities and aspirations as depending on the image ideal. The article provides sufficient evidentiary foundation to show that the substitution of a saint image opens the way to pharisaism, as a holistic worldview system, which is seen convincing and attractive from the outside, and destructive – from the inside.

1. Damaskin (Orlovskii) archimandrite (2018), Slava i tragediya russkoi agiografii. Prichislenie k liku svyatykh v Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi: istoriya i sovremennost’ [Glory and tragedy of Russian hagiography. Canonization of saints in the Russian Orthodox Church: history and contemporaneity], Мoscow, Russia.