The Secret Confessions of Father Kuksha: Russian Orthodoxy in the Age of Putin
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In April 2019, an anonymous priest in the provinces of Russia created a social media account on Telegram called “Father Kuksha”. Every few days, for the next three years, this cleric ruthlessly and hilariously satirized the religious and political life of the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church.
He created a fictional persona, the eponymous Father K, and chronicled his adventures as a priest in a brilliant series of posts ranging from ribald stories to mock diary entries to fake “leaked” documents from the diocesan chancellery.
Altogether, Father K’s digital intervention adds up to the most eloquent and stinging indictment of the Putin-era church available today. At the same time, it also serves as a unique micro-history of the ROC in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In the book, Griffin translates and contextualizes Father Kuksha’s literary creations for an Anglophone audience. In so doing, he sheds light on the hidden life of a dissident priest in Russia, a man trying to keep his faith in a church that has become, in the recent words of Pope Francis, “the altar boy of Vladimir Putin”.
