Relics to Order?

Olga Shcheglova (Boris Bidyaga)

SOVEREIGN APOCRYPHA

RELICS TO ORDER?
Mini-Play

PREFACE
A brief note for readers unfamiliar with the context: Alexander Nevsky and Dmitry Donskoy are medieval Russian princes revered as saints of the Orthodox Church for military victories centuries ago; today the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church jointly promote their relics as war talismans for troops fighting in Ukraine — a practice this play treats as literal, physical fact. “Denazification” is the term the Russian government has used since 2022 to justify its invasion of Ukraine, though Ukraine has a democratically elected, non-fascist government. The play also assumes an unusually close, at times indistinguishable, relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy and the state.

Characters:
• God
• Archangel Gabriel
• Prince Dmitry Donskoy
• Patriarch
• Father Feofan
• Colonel
• Captain
• Aide
• Soldier

SCENE 1
The Russian-Ukrainian front. A staff post in the frontline zone. A Colonel of the Russian Armed Forces reports over a secure line — his voice calm, rehearsed.

Colonel:
— Your Holiness, permission to report… Alexander Nevsky… has been partially… lost in a bombardment.

Patriarch’s voice (from the receiver, alarmed): — Lost how?! Those are the relics of the holy prince, patron of the ground forces!

Colonel (covering the receiver, whispering to the Aide):
— He’s asking how it happened.

Aide (shrugging):
— What’s there to sweat about? Look at the field — it’s covered in corpses. Bones everywhere, like a butcher’s shop. Every size, every kind. Something for everyone. And the best part — completely free.

Colonel (into the receiver, brightly):
— Your Holiness, permission to report: the threat has passed, the relics have been… identified and recovered after the strike.

Patriarch’s voice:
— Thank God! How did you manage it?

Colonel (watching a soldier indifferently shoveling remains found within thirty meters of the crater into a sack):
— Well… by Divine Providence, Your Holiness. The Lord lent a hand.

(the Soldier briskly brushes the dirt off his latest find and inspects it with distaste.)

Soldier:
— Captain, sir, how are we supposed to tell which one’s the prince and which is… other folk?

Captain:
— Nobody’s going to check ID. Just grab something bigger, more solid-looking. Wrap it up neat in a cloth, and that’s that.

Soldier:
— And what if it’s not him at all? What if it’s some convict from Penal Colony No. 5 out of Magadan?

Captain:
— If it’s lying near the crater, there’s a chance it’s him. And if the chance isn’t zero, then that’s what goes in the report: the holy Prince Alexander Nevsky. Can’t you see the logic?

Soldier (wrapping the find in the cloth):
— Yes sir, Captain. The logic is flawless.

SCENE 2
In the Abode of God

Gabriel:
— Lord… them… You won’t believe it!

God:
— What now?

Gabriel:
— They lost the relics. During a bombardment. Then, at the blast site, they gathered up whatever came to hand and, cool as you please, filed a report saying it’s Alexander Nevsky.

God (irritated):
— First they put the saint on the payroll without asking, as patron of the ground forces. Now, with the original employee lost, his post is randomly filled by a rapist and murderer pardoned by the President. And all of it under the brand “Alexander Nevsky.”

Gabriel:
— Truly so. The post is vacant — finding a couple of suitable bones on a battlefield is no problem at all.

God:
— The most astonishing part is I have nothing to object to, formally speaking. Who’s going to check? The Patriarch? He’ll get the sack, say “thank God, it miraculously survived” — and that’s the end of it. No scandal between the ministry and the patriarchate. No publicity. All neat and tidy.

Gabriel:
— Isn’t this blasphemy, Lord?

God:
— The blasphemy was putting a dead man on staff in the first place. This is just… a “personnel reshuffle” within an existing vacancy. Even sainthood now runs on the principle of interchangeability. The original Alexander Nevsky is lost — the position is filled with a locally-produced generic. Their famous slogan “no one is irreplaceable” has apparently made its way into the holy of holies.

Gabriel:
— What shall we do?

God (waving hand):
— Nothing. I’ll drop the Patriarch a hint, in a dream, sometime, that the degree of authenticity might be worth double-checking. As for those down below… well, let them venerate the relics of rapists and murderers now.

SCENE 3
In the Abode of God

Gabriel:
— Lord, it’s happening again.

God (distantly):
— What again?

Gabriel:
— Remember Prince Dmitry Donskoy? The one who defeated Mamai in thirteen eighty?

God:
— I remember. A fine warrior. He’s been resting, well-deserved, for nearly seven hundred years. What about him?

Gabriel:
— He’s been dug up.

God:
— What do you mean, “dug up”?

Gabriel:
— Literally. A slab cracked in the cathedral, restorers went to look — and there’s a sarcophagus. Declared relics. And, as usual, that fellow from the Kremlin came to inspect it personally.

God:
— And?

Gabriel (skimming a scroll):
— Said: “a miraculous discovery.” Prayed. Ordered part of the relics to be sent to the front. To Ukraine. Because servicemen, you see, “are begging to venerate them.”

God:
— Say that again.

Gabriel:
— The relics. To the front. For victory.

God:
— Gabriel, are you telling me that a warrior, a victor, who seven hundred years ago rightfully retired from earthly passions — is now being dragged back to war? By force, no less? In the form of bones in a reliquary?

Gabriel:
— Exactly so, Lord.

(At this moment, Dmitry Donskoy himself materializes nearby, looking thoroughly displeased.)

Donskoy:
— Lord, how is this even possible?

God:
— Dmitry Ivanovich. How did you find out?

Donskoy:
— Actually I’ve been aware of it since the moment that slab cracked. I simply hoped it would end with restoration. And now my guardian angel informs me that my bones have been slated for a procession into the trenches. Decided by whom? On what grounds? Excuse me, I’ve spent seven hundred years in peace and grace, and now I’m being forcibly mobilized?!

God:
— Dmitry, I fully and completely share your indignation.

Donskoy:
— I already won one war! And what a war! The Battle of Kulikovo! And now I’m being dragged into another one — a dubious one at that, going on four years now and reeking to high heaven. And there are rumors that the relics of the revered Alexander Nevsky have already been lost there!

Gabriel:
— True enough. In July. The column came under fire.

God (grimly):
— Everyone already knows how these adventures end sooner or later — and still they stubbornly put my saints in the line of Ukrainian drone fire.

Donskoy:
— That’s precisely what outrages me most! Not that I was dug up — with the restoration, fair enough, these things happen. But that my victory over Mamai is being used for the purposes of some “denazification” — I find this thoroughly distasteful, mostly because I have no idea what it even is, and had I been alive, I would never have taken part in it. I defeated Mamai so that Rus’ would stop paying tribute — not so that seven hundred years later my bones would be carted around like a talisman on an armored vehicle, while people hide behind my name to conduct some shady business or other.

God (with reproach):
— Naturally, it’s outrageous that no one asked Dmitry whether he consented.

Gabriel:
— They don’t ask the dead. To them, saints are just errand boys.

God (didactically):
— The fact that the man won a victory seven hundred years ago does not mean he can be kept on permanent contract indefinitely. Dmitry Ivanovich’s service — like that of Alexander Yaroslavich — is over. If Russian servicemen want talismans, let them find themselves a wooden duck and leave in peace the remains of the man who has already finished his war and retired with honor.

Donskoy (relieved):
— Thank You, Lord. At least someone understands that this is, in essence, nothing but serfdom.

God:
— Gabriel, make a note of it. And see to it that next time they cart him off, he’s returned home whole and intact.

SCENE 4
The Patriarchal Residence. The Patriarch sits at his desk; before him, his secretary for special assignments, Father Feofan.

Patriarch:
— Father Feofan, there’s a matter… They called from the front. Reported that the relics of Alexander Nevsky “miraculously survived” a bombardment.

Father Feofan:
— Thank God.

Patriarch (sighing):
— Thank God, indeed. But tell me, Father Feofan, I’m curious: how is it possible that for the second time running, everything “miraculously survives” exactly when it should have been irrevocably destroyed?

Father Feofan (cautiously):
— Providence, Your Holiness. Divine Providence.

Patriarch:
— Providence? Very well. Except this providence, as I’ve noticed, preserves each time exactly as much as is needed to wrap in velvet and report up the chain. No more, no less.

(Pause.)

Patriarch:
— You understand me, Father Feofan. I’ve known you thirty years. Tell me plainly: what actually lies in those “miraculously surviving” crates?

Father Feofan:
— I wouldn’t dare to guess, Your Holiness.

Patriarch:
— Well, I will. I think whatever was lying near the crater is what’s in there. And here’s what I say to you: since such a… “miraculous” practice has taken hold at the front, I see no reason we shouldn’t take the same pragmatic approach ourselves.

Father Feofan (warily):
— In what sense, Your Holiness?

Patriarch:
— In the sense, Father Feofan, that I imagine our altar storage room has something… unremarkable… of no particular value lying around.

Father Feofan (after a pause, understanding):
— There is such a thing. Been sitting there since the nineties. There was some business once about the relics of a minor local saint, in some remote diocese, but they never quite sorted out whose they were. Canonization fell through, the matter died. But the crate stayed.

Patriarch:
— There! That’s exactly what I meant. A replacement set.

Father Feofan:
— I beg your pardon?

Patriarch:
— They have import substitution; we have holiness substitution. A generic. Different composition, same effect. The active ingredient is the consumer’s faith. And that remains unshaken, since there’s no telling a fake from the original by appearance. If they demand Alexander Nevsky’s relics again tomorrow, the double goes. Part of Nevsky’s relics is already lost. Part of Saint Matrona of Moscow’s is already lost. This cannot go on.

Father Feofan:
— A double?

Patriarch:
— Yes. From some remote diocese. Nameless. Modest. Let him serve the Motherland: he never got his canonization, at least let there be some use out of him.

Father Feofan (doubtfully):
— And if someone has doubts?

Patriarch:
— No one will have doubts, Father Feofan. If the label says “Alexander Nevsky,” then it’s Alexander Nevsky inside. Are they going to order forensics? That would be blasphemy in itself — we won’t allow it.

Father Feofan (doubtfully):
— Forgive me, but this sounds an awful lot like deception.

Patriarch:
— A pious fraud is a well-known principle. In this particular case, it’s not merely applicable — it’s necessary. Tell me, Father Feofan, when it comes to salvation, which matters more — the salvation of a person, even of millions of people, or the salvation of a holy relic? (Pause.) People, Father Feofan, are a renewable resource. Relics — Alexander Nevsky’s, for instance — are unique. The Church has no moral right to expose them to the danger of destruction.

Father Feofan (uncertainly):
— But the ethics of it, Your Holiness — what about the ethics? The believer thinks he’s venerating the original! And we’re slipping him… a counterfeit, a fake.

Patriarch:
— The true purpose of this whole business with the relics is to fuel the fire of a soldier’s prayer. An excellent catalyst, no question. And what matters here is precisely the prayer — its strength, its sincerity. But the point is, that soldier’s prayer, regardless of whose bones they actually are, is addressed in any case to Alexander Nevsky — not to some nameless corpse lying in the reliquary. The only thing that matters is that the consumer’s faith in the authenticity of the relics remain firm and absolute. That the “Alexander Nevsky” brand stay recognizable and inspire trust. Which is why we devote the closest attention to the outward appearance and adornment of the reliquary. The contents are secondary. (Pause.) This is an entirely acceptable, workable approach, Father Feofan.

SCENE 5
In the Abode of God

Gabriel:
— Lord, you won’t believe what the Patriarch’s pulled off!

God:
— I know. He swapped them.

Gabriel:
— Exactly. He’s hidden the genuine Alexander away in a vault — better safe than sorry — and now some obscure skeleton from storage will go to the front, unearthed back in the nineties, not even canonized.

God (with a smirk):
— Down there, they now have two forgeries running in parallel. The military swaps the bones on the spot, to hide the fact the relics were lost. The Patriarch swaps the bones in advance, so that if worse comes to worst, the military lose not the authentic Alexander but some obscure preacher out of the altar storage room.

Gabriel:
— So in the end, what comes back from the front is… bones belonging to God knows whom, swapped twice over in the process?

God:
— Exactly. The system is not simply built on lies. Lies are oozing from its every crack. One lie naturally breeds another. Yet, no conflicts or self-exposures arise — the system has learned to masterfully iron out distortions, smooth over rough edges, and eliminate irreconcilable contradictions from within. From a moral standpoint, this whole hideous construction is structurally perfectly logical and self-consistent.

Gabriel:
— It’s all rather sad, Lord.

God:
— What’s sad is that if they’d simply reasoned soberly — “Maybe we shouldn’t cart dead men’s bones off to war to protect the troops, and take up something constructive instead?” — this entire chain of forgeries would never have existed. But there’s nothing to be done about it now: when there’s neither military technology nor moral fortitude left, all that remains is to fight the war with relics and holy water.

#OrthodoxMilitaryPutinism