Five points on which Maxim based in the Scriptures

Philosophical Sobor "The Great Russian Rectification of Names"

Session 10 “Russian Theology of War”

I would like to say a few words about my memories of getting to know Maxim and about how I met him.  As it is now customary – via Telegram. People often subscribe to each other's channels and read them. This happened long before the special operation, in 2020 or 2021. I came across Maxim's channel while browsing through patriotic channels that write about Donbass.  I visited it once or twice, and was struck by the fact that a simple guy from Donetsk raised technological topics and read books, on the one hand – the books on strategy and war tactics. He criticized, and quite harshly, organization of fortifications and supplies in the Donetsk area, for example (as he was there at the positions).  This is a common story – there many who pointed a critical finger, and I would have passed by his channel, yet once I noticed that his every morning started with reading of the Holy Scripture.  In one funny picture, he sat feet up in a chair, and in front of him was a Bible open to the psalm "The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?" (Psalm 26).

"That's interesting!" I thought.  His comment to the photo was: "My morning starts with reading of the Holy Scriptures". For many years I have been teaching Scripture at the academy, and, of course, this got my attention. “Wow, that’s possible!”  I marveled.  Later it turned out that the post was not a random one:  he was deeply and truly interested in the Holy Scriptures, and after the beginning of the war, in spring, I met him in person in Donetsk. I brought drones, generators and other things and was busy with delivering them to the troops and seeing the guys. I contacted him, too. It came to my mind he should know who needed what. I always prefer to hand everything over – not to warehouses, but straight to the front line.  We spent something like four hours together, as far as I remember. Shellings followed one another. We were sitting in the city center, and, in that first meeting and discussed various things. Of course, he quickly switched to the Holy Scriptures, and I found an amazingly grateful listener in him. As soon as I started speaking on some theological topics... In the process, calls interrupted us, and we broadcast something to Spas TV – there were reasons for distraction.  But after some seconds Vladlen was all ears again. If only all students could, with attention like his, listen about the difference between Monophysitism and Monothelitism, or the nuances of interpreting the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, or how something should be translated in Greek. Another funny thing: I had a chevron like this on velcro. Once, in an army store, I noticed a chevron with a famous phrase: "Come and take it" - molon labe. This laconic answer the Spartan king gave to the Persian one. I translated the phrase for Maxim and explained him what it meant. After an hour, I realized that all that time his eyes were on the chevron, and I gave it to him. As I understood, he hid it and never wore on his shoulder.  As I understood, these chevrons are passed from hand to hand there, and he was afraid someone could take it away out of curiosity.  He took the chevron with Spartan helmet and inscription on it, and then he said: "How great, Father Alexander, that you know Greek! I wish I know it, too!" After that first meeting I understood that he needed some profound education – he only finished a technical school. So I told him: "Try our St Tikhon's University. It’s not only a seminary, you can study at the academy, too." "Is it possible?", he asked.   And I said, "Of course! You can take a part-time course, why not?" I answered. Frankly, I had little faith in his success, but he clung to the idea it, asked me for contacts, came and passed the entrance exam.  With very decent 78 points he got for History of Russia he was the best of all applicants. Of course, he had some gaps in his knowledge; Vladyka Savva, for example, could have taught him canon law. There was room for development, but he had a desire to study the Holy Scriptures and know the Lord.  Non-scholastic study of Scripture and the Word of God were interwoven in him.  He kept insisting that the Word of God goes right into the heart.  In this sense, he was unique, of course, and I feel really sorry for having lost such a warrior.  We have no such analogues so far, both a warrior and a student of a theological university, who reads the Scriptures sincerely every day.  Before this meeting, I revisited some of his posts about how he used the Holy Scriptures in his life.  After all, it is crucial not only to read the Scripture, but to apply it directly to one's life, moral choices, and so on.  While scrolling through his Telegram, I noticed his truly deep, philosophical approach to some Scripture-based issues. I thought: "How about my breaking them down into certain points?" Of course, I do not claim it to be an exhaustive analysis, but it is work with the sources that obliges.  As a result, I got the feeling that Maxim had formed quite a complete image not only of war, but, first of all, of the spiritual battle, of which Alexander Dugin spoke. The second thing is the confrontation in the area of man's handling of the Word. The source of the Word is God, on the one hand. On the other hand, there is the Antichrist, the father of lies.  The modern world is entangling a man in the net of lies and propaganda, which is clearly manifested in the disinformation war. Those who live in Ukraine have been caught in this net.

Let me try to highlight those five points on which Maxim based in the Scriptures.  The first one is the issue of freedom. Unexpectedly, Maxim offered – I don't think he ever read the personalists, or maybe he did, I don't know – but he did offer a definition of personality and referred to just the right place in Scripture –  the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 58. "I am," the Scripture says.  That is, I can be whoever I want to be.  People of strong faith can change the reality around them; but there are also people who even find it difficult to move to another city. Russia gives us the opportunity to change reality.  You can catch crabs in Kamchatka, go to an ancient monastery, join the creative class in Moscow, or look for a mammoth in Yakutia.  You can feel like a pirate, travelling through Africa with a Kalashnikov, or become a war hero.  How many generations of Russian men wanted to go under the tanks?  Now they have this opportunity. It is a simple but an amazing definition of freedom, including war and defence of the Motherland, seen as a free choice of an individual, no matter what. I am not going to mention all of them.

The second issue deals with lie and its source. He grasped the idea about the devil being the source of lies.  He wrote: "The Antichrist can do nothing but imitate God, since he is unable to invent anything of his own" – and it is a very important thing for the modern world. And yet, he was not inclined to the dualistic picture of Russia all light and clear and West is all dark.  Darkness can penetrate the soul of any one; the battle goes, first of all, at the personal level, and then it reflects itself in the structure of everything – say, army or bureaucracy.  Several of his posts gave a profound analysis of the role Old Testament prophets played in denouncing of lies. He wrote, for example: "The prophet Jeremiah (he pronounced "Yeremiah", and this disclaimed he read the Scriptures, but never had a regular course) has been prophesying unpopular ideas for the whole Israel.  He was doing it alone. He had no supporters. The prophet was constantly persecuted, and the most harmless thing that happened to him was sitting in a pit of mud with no water."  This is what he says about our internal lies when poor preparation for special military operation had showed up.  Like many of those who fought people fighting in Donbass back then, he suspected that Russia was not appropriately prepared for war.  This was obvious from the way our defence was being built, from the supply of volunteers in the LDPR, from many other things. In this connection, he used the image of prophet to give an unusual analysis for the problem of lies and truth. He writes: "Reading the Holy Scripture and drawing parallels. 3rd Book of Kings, 22nd chapter. Syria and Israel are about to start a war. Nothing has changed in thousands of years...

The king of Israel and the king of Judah are going to march together.

"5. Also, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, «Please inquire for the word of the LORD today»"...".  Well, as we all know, many false prophets appear to say nice things: "They said: "Go up, for the Lord will deliver him into the hand of the king"."

Maxim writes: "In short, the kings gathered various political scientists, analysts and experts of those days. For a long time, they received grants for their activities and a trouble-free life. In our modern view, they were to think on political processes and offer impartial opinions on their trends. Yet, in ancient times, it was thought as receiving some "word from God".  Prophets (i.e. experts) had to read the Torah, fast and pray, and God delivered His word to them. 

The war is about to begin.  A word from God is really needed. But the expert prophets do not want to lose their places, and blunt lies masks failures in their analyses, which, frankly, they never conducted properly.

Let's read further. 

For an impartial assessment, they decided to address to a little-known prophet called Micah. He was a strange expert, who said unpopular things. They didn't even accredit him to the press conference: what for?  He will talk rubbish again! But the king's press service decided to invite Micah, as if they had real democracy. 

While waiting for him, the experts were entertaining the king.

And then comes Micah:

"I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd. And the LORD said, «These have no master. Let each return to his house in peace.”

The consequences were not long in coming. Information harassment towards Micah started, experts began to beat him right in the studio: 

"24. Now Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near and struck Micah on the cheek, and said, «Which way did the spirit from the LORD go from me to speak to you?"

The story of Micah is well known. Maxim writes, "It is not easy to be God's prophet. A prophet of God will not be fed with chocolate bars, coffee and fish in prison, while being filmed." 

In other words, this was a life lesson which he learned from the Holy Scripture and he himself, in fact, often said unpopular things in his Telegram channel as well as in the State Duma. He felt that he could "lose likes" and audience, but he said that we were to spread the word of truth.  That was his outstanding service, his unique service as a war correspondent. Not all war correspondents, for fear of losing their accreditation or favour of higher army chiefs, tell the truth and give a bravura picture instead.  Maxim was much braver; that's why people listened to him.  As for information war, he had an important idea, he polemicised with Margarita Simonyan, agreeing on some points, supplementing on others.  "In the beginning was the Word, in the end will be the Digit," Margarita writes. And he said that the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation writes what the digit will be like, and describes a perfect digital community. The main feature of this society is the rejection of God's commandments, the worship of the Antichrist.  To get into a person's mind, to know and control person thoughts is the main plan of the Antichrist, thoughtcrime.  But the Lord already knows all our thoughts of the heart; He does not need digital tricks or processing.  Maxim put it straight: "Any attempt to control a person's thoughts comes from the devil.  This is for you, government officials!" He said this with the audacity of a prophet, and then added (and the post was released on New Year's Day): "What should I wish for the New Year?  I think, I will join the Apostle John: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen””. He understood the eschatological aspect, too.  But we were not to lay down the weapons of truth.

In the context of war, he made some clever remarks on the time. According to the Apostle Paul's letter, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil." (Eph. 5:15-16). Then he reasons: the days are evil. Future may differ a lot from what we dream it to be. And he refers to himself. As he himself says: "My brilliant (I won't be afraid of that word at all) post of 30 APRIL 2022. We are FIVE months away from mobilisation in Russia.....  As the Scripture says: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" As we remember, at that time many people had illusions about our little victorious special operation.  Maxim had no illusions, and he wrote against all the wishes.  "The worst censorship now is not the state one.  Everyone is afraid of what people will write in the comments. Many hated me for posts like this, but as Apostle Paul wrote: 'For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.' (Gal.1:10)." 

Finally, the fifth point I highlighted is his discourse on victory. He writes a lot about it, many people write about it, but he seems to have found very reasonable words: "I wanted to remind the brothers of the words from the Scripture: "...the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force" (Matthew 11:12). Victory is not like mold that appears by itself in a corner.  Victory must be won. Nothing happens without daily effort. Victory will not come just because we have a big country and we are Russians. Yes, God is with us, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't follow the rules He has set.  We need to urgently change everything old, outmoded, even if it is a very "sacred cow".  The Apostle Paul wrote: "...forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead" (Phil.3:13).  Let the Word of God be firmly planted in our heads." In this simple language he tried to actualise the Holy Scripture, and I think his conclusions of a simple man, a militiaman, a volunteer, a man who went the way of a prudent robber – a prisoner in jail sentenced for a rather unpleasant trespass – to a man who had changed and repented under the influence of faith and the word of God. Not only he repented, but also opened the way and light for others in many ways and became an amazing phenomenon of a lay Christian.  Understanding his place, not getting ahead of people with theological education, he quoted the Holy Scriptures boldly. To us, his example seems to be very important and unique. It is hard to come to terms with the fact that Maxim is gone, but the Lord knows better whom and when He will take away.  It is quite possible that Lord called Maxim at the peak of his life. Well, we should think about the philosophy of war in various categories – both in terms of reflection and in terms of practice, biblical and our national history. And the ground truth that Maxim was conveying.

Father Alexander (Timofeyev) is a Doctor of Theology, priest of the Church of the Presentation of the Robe of the Most Holy Mother of God in Blachernae in Leonov, Moscow

Translated by Daria Mochalova, edited by Tatiana Kamyshnikova