On September 5, 1978, Metropolitan of Leningrad and Ladoga (Novgorod), Patriarchal Exarch of Western Europe Nikodim Rotov died suddenly in the Vatican. He was only 48 years old. This death still causes a lot of controversy.
Monk from Ryazan
Boris Georgievich Rotov (as he was called in the world) was born on October 15, 1929 in the village of Frolovo, Korablinsky District, Ryazan Region. His father, Georgy Ivanovich, worked as a land surveyor in the Ryazan Provincial Land Administration, his mother, Elizaveta Mikhailovna, nee Zion, was the daughter of a priest, worked as a teacher.
In 1947, after graduating from high school, the young man entered the Ryazan Pedagogical Institute at the Faculty of Natural Sciences. But soon he secretly took monastic tonsure. After the second year, he left his studies at the pedagogical institute and on November 20, 1949, he was ordained a hieromonk, having been appointed rector of the church in honor of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Davidov, Tolbukhinsky district, Yaroslavl region. In the spiritual life, he received the name Nicodemus.
In 1950, Rotov entered the Leningrad Theological Seminary in absentia, then studied at the Leningrad Theological Academy. After that, he held various prominent church posts.
On June 21, 1960, at the suggestion of the KGB, the Holy Synod dismissed the then chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich), and appointed Archimandrite Nikodim in his place, elevating him to the rank of bishop of Podolsk. On October 9, 1963, he was appointed Metropolitan of Leningrad and Ladoga, temporary administrator of the Olonets diocese, and on October 7, 1967, he became part-time governor of the Novgorod diocese. By the way, in April 1972, together with other religious leaders of the USSR, Rotov signed a letter condemning the "slanderous activities" of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
In the same year, he suffered a heart attack. After that, the metropolitan filed a petition to dismiss him from the post of DECR chairman. On May 30, the Synod granted his request, leaving him as chairman of the Commission
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on issues of Christian unity and interchurch relations.
On September 3, 1974, Rotov received a new appointment and became the Patriarchal Exarch of Western Europe. He was then elected President of the World Council of Churches.
Death in the Vatican
Among other international contacts of the Russian Orthodox Church, Rotov also oversaw relations with the Vatican. It is believed that this was very beneficial to the Soviet leadership, which previously did not have diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The Soviet authorities were going to use contacts with the Vatican for "peaceful" propaganda and strengthening the influence on the believing part of Soviet citizens. Among Russian religious leaders, however, not all supported the rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church - many even contemptuously called "building bridges" with the Vatican "Nikodimovism."
In September 1978, Nikodim Rotov left for the Vatican at the head of the Russian Orthodox Church delegation on the occasion of the enthronement of Pope John Paul I. On the morning of September 5, he attended an audience with the Pope. Subsequently, eyewitnesses noted that during the audience, the Metropolitan looked very tired. Coffee was served to those present. At the moment when Nicodemus introduced Archimandrite Lev (Tserpitsky) to the Pope, he had a heart attack. The heart simply stopped, nothing could be helped.
The remains of the Metropolitan were taken to Leningrad and laid to rest at the Nikolskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. And on September 28, after the tragedy, John Paul I himself died, also from a heart attack.
Murder or Omen?
Subsequently, a conspiracy theory arose that they tried to poison the pontiff, in order to then lay the blame on the KGB and make the Catholic Church quarrel with the Orthodox, but by mistake they brought coffee with poison to Metropolitan Rotov.
Another version said that Metropolitan Nikodim entered into an agreement with Yu. V. Andropov. They supposedly came to the conclusion that the collapse of the USSR is inevitable, and Russia must be saved by uniting all Christian churches under the leadership of the Pope. Moreover, Nicodemus, who was first to be elected patriarch of All Russia, was going to apply for this post. But either the Masons or the Illuminati intervened, and the "project" failed.
There were also those who saw the sign of God in the strange death of the Metropolitan. “… Personally, I (and, I think, the majority of Orthodox Christians) took it as a sign of God,” wrote Archbishop Vasily (Krivoshein) in his memoirs. “Maybe even as God's intervention, as disapproval of the haste and enthusiasm with which the Metropolitan was carrying out the rapprochement with Rome.”