In this week’s Tablet …
“Let me see my son’s body”, the mother of Alexei Navalny, pictured right, pleaded yesterday. She was standing outside the Russian prison where he died on 16 February; flecks of snow were brushing against her face. She has been told the body was being held for “chemical analysis”.
Two letters which Navalny wrote from prison to Nathan Sharansky, who spent almost nine years in a forced labour camp, were released after his death.
The handwriting has a boyish exuberance but the letters are marked by a sober resilience, dry humour and a ringing moral clarity.
Navalny wrote to Sharansky last April after reading his prison memoir Fear No Evil. “Your book gives hope because the similarity between the two systems – the Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia – their ideological resemblance, the hypocrisy that serves as their essence, and the continuity from the former to the latter – guarantees an equally inevitable collapse.”
Sharansky’s reply to Navalny found its way to him. “I write to you the day before Passover. That is the start of our freedom and our history as a people,” he concluded. “I wish to you, Aleksei, and to all of Russia, an Exodus as soon as possible.”
Some years ago Navalny said in a Moscow court at the end of one of his many trials, quoting the famous words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “I call on everyone to ‘Live not by lies’. I know that it sounds naïve, and there is a certain pleasure in laughing and grinning sarcastically as I say it.
“But there is no other way. I know that when they isolate and imprison me, another will take my place. Nothing I did was unique or special. Anyone can do what I did. Live not by lies.”
Perhaps this is the clue to why Navalny decided to return to Russia from Germany in January 2021, after months of treatment following a near-fatal poisoning, in spite of knowing what was likely to happen.
In Word from the Cloisters in this week’s Tablet magazine it is recalled that Navalny, a long-time atheist who had converted to Christianity, said he had been inspired by the words, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”
Sharansky believed that Navalny was saying to the Russian people, “I am not afraid and you should not be afraid either.”
LibDem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton submitted the following parliamentary motion in the Scottish Parliament marking Alexei Navalny’s death:
That the Parliament expresses its deep sadness on learning of the death of Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist, Alexei Navalny; further condemns his being held as a political prisoner by the Russian government and commends his resilience under such horrendous circumstances; extends its sympathies and condolences to Mr Navalny’s widow and his daughter at this difficult time; acknowledges the hard, brave, and dangerous work that exemplified Mr Navalny’s career in standing up to oppression, anti-democratic populism, and authoritarianism in Russia as an example for others around the world; calls for an open and independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr Navalny’s tragic death, aged only 47 years old; urges the UK government to ensure that all those named on the “Navalny list” face appropriate sanctions; expresses a sincere hope that people around the world may one day, particularly in those countries blighted by authoritarianism, cronyism, and kleptocracy, be able to live freely and participate fully in the political process without fear or risk to their safety.
As Putin’s brutal war enters its third year, the people of Ukraine are suffering Europe’s largest displacement crisis since the second world war.
Tablet writer Henry Wilson-Smith, recently returned from a visit which took in meetings with some of charity Cafod’s partners working in the country and in neighbouring Romania.
He writes that social problems such as domestic violence and forced labour are also being aggravated by the war.
In the same issue Theo Hobson speaks to Cyril Hovorun, a Ukrainian-born Orthodox priest and scholar who has worked closely with Patriarch Kyrill (“a sympathetic human being … who has corrupted the Russian Church; the Patriarchate shares absolute co-responsibility for the war and its associated crimes”).
Tim Farron writes that Alexei Navalny returned to Russia and inevitable imprisonment out of a remarkable sense of clarity about how he should act.
In a statement during his trial, he described how he found that direction in the Bible: “It’s not always easy to follow … but I am actually trying … it’s easier for me probably than for many others to engage in politics.”
Meanwhile, Fiducia Supplicans, the Vatican document on “pastoral” blessings which can be extended to same-sex couples, is the “beginning of something”, the former Dominican friar Mark Dowd said last week.
“We gay men and lesbians and bisexuals and other people that don’t belong to the heteronormative paradigm have learned one thing, which is patience – we are part of an emerging tradition,” he told the event, hosted by the BBC journalist Ed Stourton.
Other contributors were more critical: Miriam Duignan of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research called the document “ultimately schizophrenic” while Julian Paparella said its definition of pastoral blessings was not “nearly solid enough”.
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church thanked General Valerii Zaluzhnyi “for two years of tireless struggle”, after he was dismissed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy from the command of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk welcomed Zaluzhnyi’s replacement, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, with prayers as Ukraine approached the anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of February 2022.
“People in Ukraine are being killed because they are Ukrainians,” he told an Aid to the Church in Need event marking two years of the war.
Bishop Michael Duigan of Clonfert has revealed that, aged 53, he is the youngest priest in the Diocese of Clonfert and sixth youngest in Galway, writes Sarah Mac Donald.
“Our congregations are fast declining in number and increasing in age. Our clergy are greying. Vocations are scarce,” he said.
More than 100,000 schoolchildren have signed up to take part in Cafod’s Big Lent Walk. They have pledged to walk 200km over Lent to raise money via sponsorship for people tackling extreme poverty around the world.
The television presenter Dermot O’Leary has sent a message of support to those taking part. So far Cafod has received nearly £4,000 in donations, a total of £60,000 towards a target of raising £350,000.