INTERVIEW — Aug 9, 20:48
Interviewee: 34 years old, male, main language Russian, speaking in English, lives in Germany, Ukrainian nationality.
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Interviewer: Question one: when you hear the word cult, what comes to your mind?
Interviewee: All those smaller church denominations with a charismatic leader and their own little special lore — something that usually exploits vulnerable people, gullible people, you know — extracts resources and sex from them, depending on the type of cult.
Interviewer: Okay, yeah, very good. Do you have a specific example in mind — like, the first one that would come to your mind?
Interviewee: I mean, honestly, all of them do that — even the ones that are religions do it, okay. So, you know — it's like this: the difference between cult and religion, in my opinion, is as superficial as the difference between dialects and languages. You know — the ones have armies are called languages [nodding to the saying "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy"]. So I think it's the same: as soon as the cult becomes very, very big, it's no longer called a cult, but more of a religion. But the nature is always the same. So a religion would be a cult for you, kind of, because they also have, at their inception, charismatic leaders — then they die and become saints, or prophets, or Jesuses, or Muhammads, and so forth, or Buddhas. But it always starts with some dude — there's always a dude somewhere, or a lady, in some other ones, okay. But, yeah, it's a system of belief that spreads and exploits the gullible.
Interviewer: So, like — you've mentioned a lot of different — yeah, I'm sorry —
Interviewee: No, no, it's exactly what I need, right?
Interviewer: You've mentioned a lot of different attributes — do you have in mind a specific group, or something specific, that would fill all of these attributes you mentioned? Like — you want an example?
Interviewee: Yeah, like — Scientology, the Church of Scientology, yeah. Like Mormons, yeah. Or, like, this guy — Osho, or whatever the fuck he has. That's probably it. So, I mean, there's a lot of them — like, I'm listening to podcasts about them sometimes, but I don't know their names, because they're also not memorable, you know, right? But, you know, like — the Westboro Baptist Church is one I've seen a show about.
Interviewer: what do they do —
Interviewee: something nasty, something really nasty.
Interviewee: But yeah, like — there is, nominally, some kind of difference between religions and cults, but I think it's a superficial difference, and it's like — you know, just size-based, and length of time — you perpetuate yourself in history — but there's no fundamental difference, I think. Yeah, it's just — every cult is a future religion, unless it dies out before it has a chance to become a religion. Yeah, yeah.
Interviewee: I know Jehovah's Witnesses — I mean, their religion now used to be a cult.
Interviewer: And because, like, all of the examples you gave me — I mean, you started by, I think, immediately putting it close to religion. So, like, when we start talking about the cult, it's kind of the immediate link you make?
Interviewee: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah — for me, it's, uh, it's kind of — every cult is a larva of a future religion-butterfly. Yeah, I think you cannot skip to religion without it first becoming a cult, okay. I think these twelve fucking disciples walking around and speaking in tongues were culty at the beginning, and now, nobody — everybody's just taking this shit for granted these days. Okay, there were these twelve weird dudes, they just walked the earth and spoke in tongues — culty as shit, in my opinion.
Interviewer: So it's mostly, like, you have a negative association with.
Interviewee: Yes
Interviewer: Absolutely, okay, have you ever encountered a cult in your life?
Interviewee: Well, I've been a member of a religion.
Interviewer: Oh, really?
Interviewee: Yeah, yeah, I'm actually still a subdeacon of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Interviewer: Really?
Interviewee: Yeah, I mean, I'm not, like, a practicing guy — yeah, since I was 19 or so — but they never expelled me. So, technically, I'm still the guy who's allowed to, you know, wipe the blood of Christ from your lips after you consume it.
Interviewer: Out of all these things you mentioned about cults in general — like, how many — which ones would apply to this, like, the Orthodox Church that you were part of?
Interviewee: All of it.
Interviewer: All of it?
Interviewee: Absolutely, all of it.
Interviewer: So which ones — you said central leader?
Interviewee: Check.
Interviewer: exploitation?
Interviewee: Check.
Interviewer: getting money, and sex?
Interviewee: Check, check.
Interviewer: Please check.
Interviewee: Well, I mean, it's not — the Russian Orthodox Church is not as known for sex scandals as, let's say, the Catholic Church, but it doesn't mean they're not there. Like, we have next to no clue what the f*** is going on in those monasteries. Yeah, but I would be shocked to discover that — whenever there's a power imbalance, people start touching each other in inappropriate places. And this is a strictly hierarchical system, so, of course, there's going to be power imbalances, and whenever there's a power imbalance, there's going to be exploitation. Yeah, it can be just your boss at work, it can be your military commander, it can be your church commander — your cult commander — but as long as you make people unequal, and somebody's going to be a little afraid to tell you when you touch me on my nipples — you might eventually touch me on my nipples. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my opinion.
Interviewer: Yeah, you understand —
Interviewee: And I just — I cannot give specific links to specific cases of this kind of behavior in the Russian Orthodox Church, but I have certainly heard of this in life in general.
Interviewer: Yeah, yeah, of course.
Interviewee: Yeah, there was one known subdeacon — no, no, not subdeacon — deacon, Andrei Kuraev, that's been expelled from the Russian Orthodox Church for actually being a pain in their ass. He raised this subject specifically — that we should stop pointing fingers at Catholics for being pedophiles and whatever, because we have our own hands kind of dirty too. And then they expelled him — it's really smart, dude, yeah, crazy. And he left the church too — well, he wasn't actually kicked out of the church for this specifically, but I think he was mostly not on board with, like, all the invasions of other countries that the Russian Orthodox Church otherwise stands by. Yeah, so I think that's the main reason they divorced him, not because of the sex stuff.