Šventieji politikos aktoriai

ENIn Lithuania, the name of Grigorij Rasputin (1869-1916) became important in 2002-2004 trying to find a parallel between the aforementioned person and one of Rolandas Paksas' advisors. During R. Paksas' impeachment and subsequent dismissal the political system of the country met quite a number of challenges. At that time a hot issue was the relations between the state and the religion as an organisation and the religious devotion of the highest state officials. This essay tries to address the aforementioned collision that provokes a question over the criteria for an adequate assessment of the clairvoyant's role in politics. This is also an attempt to discuss a specific catholic phenomenon, namely, the venerable or saint politicians. This reminds about a few state figures, famous for their prophetic characteristics and, at the same time, secret advisors of past influential politicians. The paper asks to what extent issues may become the political discussions against the cases of legitimising belles-lettres texts as valuable pieces for political analysis. If this style of legitimisation is adopted the question arises whether the issues deliberated by the so-called prophets can be treated as having no value. The examples of two figures that combined prophetic and political roles - the father Joseph of Paris (1577-1638) and Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) - allow to claim that these people acting in the political dimension were rather Machiavellian rulers than saints.