The Russian catechism of Metropolitan Tikhon

From the 2026/2027 school year, the ‘Fundamentals of Russia's moral and spiritual culture’ will be introduced as a new subject in Russian schools. The drafting of the textbook has been entrusted to the Metropolitan of Crimea, known as Putin's ‘spiritual father’.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - From 1 September 2026, a new subject will be taught in Russian schools, ‘Fundamentals of the Moral and Spiritual Culture of Russia’ (abbreviated as Odnknr), with the aim of teaching the traditional ‘universal human’ values that underpin all religions.

The specific textbook for this subject, a veritable ‘Russian catechism,’ will be prepared by the Metropolitan of Crimea, Tikhon (Ševkunov), known as Vladimir Putin's ‘spiritual father.’ The text will be drafted by the Moscow State Pedagogical University, which has asked the Moscow Patriarchate for guidelines, entrusted to the metropolitan-publicist, filmmaker and writer, as officially announced by the press service of the Ministry of Education.

The manual will not only be an exposition of abstract principles, but will be illustrated and explained with ‘examples from the lives of great men of Russia’. In recent years, the new subject had been included in topics concerning the “Culture of the Peoples of Russia” and “History of Our Region” depending on the location of the school, but these variations had been criticised directly by Patriarch Kirill (Gundjaev) of Moscow, who urged that “specific teaching of values should not be excluded from middle school classrooms”.

During the “Christmas Readings” in February, the patriarch announced with great satisfaction that his request had been accepted, involving all history teachers in the teaching of “moral and spiritual” subjects, precisely to highlight the most meritorious aspects and figures of Russian history.

Metropolitan Tikhon will not only be the main advisor and inspiration for the new textbook, but will also act on the basis of his recent appointment, decided directly by President Vladimir Putin, who has included him in the new working group on children's and youth education, which brings together representatives of all relevant state bodies.

The director of this commission is the deputy head of the presidential administration, former Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko, together with presidential adviser Andrei Fursenko, former Minister of Education, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko.

The group is tasked with establishing the necessary measures to “create a single educational environment” in all organisations involved in education, reviewing and revising all school curricula from primary and secondary schools to vocational schools and higher education.

In previous versions of “Culture of the Peoples”, according to the reviews, a “harmful” interpretation of the Romanov dynasty, from the 17th to the 20th century, had been given, and in the new programme there will no longer be the expressions “rule of law” and “civil society”, considered merely “Western influences” on the final and “degrading” phase of the state of the emperors, now too closely related to Western dynasties.

This is one of Metropolitan Tikhon's most typical assessments, which he often repeats as “Russia can only exist in the imperial dimension”, like that of the 16th- and 17th-century monarchs starting with Ivan the Terrible.

As already announced by Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov, Russian history will be rewritten according to “moral and spiritual” principles dating back to the times of Kievan Rus', excluding the concept of “colonisation” of the Slavic tribes “of the plains”, the so-called Poljani, who are contrasted with the Drevljani, anticipating the division between Poles-Ukrainians and Russians, according to the description in the ancient Chronicle of Nestor.

This definition has become classic in Russian scholarly texts since the 19th century, and even more so in Soviet times, and will now be replaced by the term osvoenie, 'appropriation', to indicate a process whereby the Russians expanded into territories that were still empty or uncivilised, without therefore violating the rights of other populations, but bringing “authentic values”, while “colonisation” will be attributed only to Western kingdoms and nations.