Tikhon (Shevkunov)

Bishop Tikhon in 2016

Bishop Tichon ( Russian Тихон ; born July 2, 1958 as Georgij Alexandrowitsch Schewkunow , Russian Георгий Александрович Шевкунов in Moscow ) is Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and a popular writer. He is Metropolitan of Pskov and Porchow . He is often referred to as the personal confessor of Russian President Putin .

Life

In 1982, Shevkunov graduated from the Moscow State Film School .

Monk and bishop

That same year, he was baptized and went into the cave monastery in Pechory in the Pskov Oblast . His confessor during his novitiate was Archimandrite Ioann Krestiankin (1910-2006). In 1986 he was transferred to the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate, where he was subordinate to Metropolitan Pitirim . His first assignment there happened in connection with the thousand-year celebrations in memory of the Christianization of the Rus . In 1991, he put in the Donskoy Monastery , the monastic vows from. He took on the name Tikhon , after the patriarch Tikhon , and was appointed Hierodeacon at the same time , and one month later Hieromonachus . In 1993 he became head of the newly established Moscow Metochion of the Pskov- Pechory Pechory Cave Monastery. In 1995 he was ordained a hegumen by Patriarch Alexius II , and in 1998 he received the rank of Archimandrite.

In 1999 he was appointed rector of the Sretensky Spiritual Seminar, which he completed in 2004 by correspondence. In 2010 he became a member of the Russian President's Cultural Council . Since March 2011 he has been a member of the Supreme Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. On October 22, 2015, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church appointed him Bishop of Yegoryevsk , Vicar of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and Head of the Western Vicariate of Moscow City. Two days later he was ordained Bishop of Yegoryevsk by Patriarch Kyrill I.

In 2018 the Holy Synod appointed him Metropolitan of Pskov and Porchow.

Author and film director

In the first years of perestroika Tikhon published several articles, including a polemical contribution against occult healing practices , which was published many times.

Tikhon has written numerous books, including a children's book Father Serafim (2002) about Seraphim von Sarov . His collection of stories about saints, published in English under the title Everyday Saints and Other Stories , achieved the highest sales success in Russia in 2012.

His film Fall of an Empire. Byzantine Lesson won the 2008 Golden Eagle , the Russian equivalent of the American Golden Globe Award , for best documentary film . The film deals with the fall of Byzantium and presents the Renaissance as an unrestrained evil controlled by the West.

Relationship with Putin and political positions

Tikhon has had personal acquaintance with President Putin since 1999 and has accompanied him on numerous domestic and international trips. Whether he is also the spiritual advisor ("Duchownik") of the Russian president is neither confirmed nor denied by him or by Putin. The controversial former banker Pugachev claims to have introduced the two men.

Tikhon is considered to be extremely conservative. He supports the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation .

Awards

• 2008: Order of Friendship
• 2016: Great Russian Literature Prize

literature

• Walter Laqueur : Putinism: Where is Russia going? Ullstein, Berlin 2015. ISBN 978-3-8437-1100-5

Web links

• Rudolf Bennmaier: Archimandrite Tichon and his integral nationalism in Putin's Russia . 5th October 2015

Individual evidence

1. ^ Walter Laqueur: Putinism
2. ↑ The Holy Maria Dormition Cave Monastery ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Short biography (Russian)
4. ↑ Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) celebrates farewell Liturgy at Sretensky Monastery , accessed June 2, 2018.
5. ^ Walter Laqueur: Putinism
6. ↑ Putin and the monk FT Magazine, January 25, 2013
7. ↑ President's Mistake Forbes, January 3, 2015 (Russian)
8. ↑ Head of the Republic of Crimea (Russian)