Sergei Chapnin
Sergei Valeryevich Chapnin (born June 7, 1968, Moscow, RSFSR, USSR) is a Russian journalist, publisher, editor, and church and public figure. He is a religious scholar and senior research fellow at the Center for Orthodox Studies at Fordham University. He is the author of publications in church and secular media on current issues of state-church relations, the mission of the Church in the modern world, the theology of the image, and the "theology of communication." From 2009 to 2015, he was the managing editor of the "Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate"; since 2014, he has been the editor-in-chief of the almanac of contemporary Christian culture "Gifts".
Quotes about Chapnin
[edit]- In an interview of January 20 that “Bitter Winter” readers will recognize as both bold and overdue, Sergei Chapnin delivers a harsh critique of the current state of the Russian Orthodox Church. Once a senior insider, serving as the editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, deputy chief editor of the Church Herald, lecturer at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, and secretary of the Inter-Conciliar Board, Chapnin now shares his views from exile as the director of communications at the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University in New York. His statements reflect deep experience and feelings of betrayal.
“The Russian Orthodox Church has effectively stopped being part of the Christian world and has become a tool of power,” he states. Chapnin refers to it as a “spiritual catastrophe.” He argues that the Church no longer follows the Gospel but instead supports war, repression, and violence. “The Church of Russia is no longer Christian.”- Massimo Introvigne, "The Church Has Fallen: Chapnin Declares Moscow Patriarchate “No Longer Christian”", Bitter Winter (February 4, 2026)
