The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in modern Russia

Since time immemorial, religion has played a huge role in human life. People gathered in groups and created entire tribes. Already at this stage of the development of society, man began to think about explaining all natural processes. This is how the first religions appeared, namely paganism, which later gives way to other faiths.

Nowadays the most popular trend is Christianity. It includes many branches, but the most numerous are Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox. The gaps in the number of believers are quite large. Thus, more than 220 million people belong to Orthodoxy. Catholicism has more than 1 billion followers. 800 million people are Protestants. Today we will talk about religion, which is the most widespread in the Russian state - Orthodoxy.

Story

The history of Orthodoxy goes back to the times of the Roman Empire. Then there was no concept of Catholic or Orthodox, there was a Christian. After the split of the empire into the Western, with its center in Rome, and the Eastern, with its center in Constantinople, two independent directions began to form.

The word "Orthodoxy" means "correct glorification"

There were changes in the rules of rituals and services, in the architecture of the temple, and so on. Even the simple clothes of a priest already caused confrontation between Catholics and Orthodox, not to mention the essence of the teaching itself, because it also underwent significant changes. This is how differences arose in the interpretation of certain moments of the Bible.

Orthodoxy in the modern world

If we talk about Orthodoxy and its position in the modern world, we cannot help but note the recent decline. Of the main branches of Christianity, the Eastern Church is the smallest. However, recently its role on the world stage has become increasingly stronger.

Orthodoxy is one of the three largest branches of Christianity

Thus, ancient relics taken and stolen from Russia are returned from abroad. The relationship between the heads of the Catholic and Orthodox churches is also improving. The number of followers is increasing every day all over the world. In almost every country in the world there are organizations that bring Orthodoxy to all people.

The essence of Orthodoxy

The basis or foundations of every religion is faith. Without it, no church can exist. Orthodoxy is a branch of Christianity, the essence of which lies in the Creed. The Creed is a law that cannot be changed . It was approved at the Fourth Ecumenical Council. This is a special system of the most important twelve dogmas, which are the basis of the entire teaching.

Tenets

• The first dogma speaks of God as the Father. This is the one who created everything that we are given to see. He is also called the Creator of all things.
• The 2nd dogma speaks of Jesus as the son of God, who is equal to the Father in essence.
• The 3rd dogma tells that the Son of God came down from Heaven to earth and took on a human body to save people.
• The 4th dogma talks about the sacrifice of Jesus and his death for all humanity.
• The 5th dogma tells about the resurrection of the son of God on the third day.
• The 6th dogma speaks of the ascension of Jesus into Heaven on the fortieth day.
• The 7th dogma talks about the Second Coming.
• The 8th dogma speaks of the Holy Spirit, which is equal to the Father and the Son.
• The 9th dogma tells about the holy and united Church.
• The 10th dogma talks about the Sacrament of Baptism.
• The 11th dogma speaks of the resurrection and immortality of the human soul.
• The 12th dogma talks about the eternal life of the righteous and the torment of sinners.

In addition to dogmas, Orthodoxy is based on commandments.

It is important! Commandments are religious norms or instructions that speak of moral and correct behavior. They were given to people by God through Moses, and later called Jesus.

Orthodoxy and the 21st century - what is really special about our time?

For some time, in the text about evidence of the existence of God, we described in detail the development of human thought over the centuries. There is no point in retelling this text here, but the final theses are as follows:

• The development of mass media has created an entire empire of the superconscious, which denies, if not God, then Christianity itself.
• The main values ​​in society are human justice - that is, justice understandable by human logic.
• The very idea of ​​comfort and a prosperous life becomes justice - it is such a life that is fair. The idea of ​​absolutization of human rights is one of the sides of all this.
• In the assessment of all things, man and human logic are put in first place.
• Truth, according to the conditions of mass consciousness, must either be understandable by human logic, or give a person comfort.
• Everything that does not fit into these frameworks is called outdated and incorrect.

The last thesis is the cornerstone. Religion, according to the current mass consciousness, should be understandable logically, or provide objective satisfaction.

Christianity does not fit into this code of correctness.

But what is paradoxical is that at the same time, interest in religions from other cultures increased in society. For example, from China or India. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, the English writer Gilbert Chesterton wrote in his book “The Eternal Man”: if Christianity were Indian and remained exactly the same as it is, it would be accepted with joy - just because it is from India.

The very fact that religions came from other cultures gives people an illusory impression of them. Coming to us as a kind of souvenir, they find themselves in an adapted, “lightened” form - without all the complexities of asceticism and deprivation that they actually have. Like a beautiful marble sculpture that arose by itself, and not after many years of work on it by a sculptor.

Adaptation is the best option. Most often, we are talking about compilations of religions or simply about the most superficial concepts. Religion becomes a hobby rather than a work or a way of life.

But the truth is that Christianity is precisely the same ascetic religion from the East. A religion that lies outside of time and is above time. Adapting to each era with some of its external aspects, in essence it remains a treasury of mystical knowledge that came to us from the apostles and holy fathers - from the deserts of Palestine and Syria.

Perhaps it is not so easy to feel this now - too many external cultural layers are carried within today’s Christianity. These are also the influences of Russian culture and mentality itself, which made our religion overly dramatic where it could have been done without it. This is certainly the influence of the Latin (Catholic) view of Christianity, which became especially strong in the time of Peter - at that moment Christian rhetoric seemed to have lost part of its Eastern mysticism and began to more and more resemble ethical teaching: wise, complete, but all so ethical.

This is also the influence of the modern digital era, when essentially everything and everyone has become visible. And often the words of priests and pastors, spoken specifically for their audience, become public knowledge and therefore, at best, are misunderstood, and at worst, distorted.

The role of Orthodoxy

The role of this faith cannot be overestimated. Having appeared in Rus', this denomination quickly became close to the common people. Of course, there was blood and rebellion, but soon the first white stone churches began to decorate the Russian land. The people were so deeply imbued with the spirit of Orthodoxy that later it became the basis of the national culture.

Currently, Orthodoxy is a community of autocephalous or local churches

In addition, now the dogmas and commandments of faith determined the worldview of people, their moral and value standards.

Along with it, Orthodoxy brought the first books, which, albeit slowly, contributed to the development and spread of literacy. It is also no coincidence that before the era of Peter I, education in Russia was exclusively spiritual.

Orthodoxy also played a role in politics. It was its adoption that opened the way for the Russian state to the world stage, namely, it made it possible to establish closer ties with other countries. If we talk about Russia as a kingdom, then only the one who was blessed by God himself could become king. The people believed that the true ruler comes “from God.” This greatly influenced the political course, especially during the Time of Troubles.

Important! Orthodoxy became not only a mechanism of government, but also the hope of the common people.

In the most difficult times in the history of our country, it was faith that became the rear. This is how we can talk about the period of dependence on the Golden Horde, the Time of Troubles, the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Great Patriotic War. In such times, state policy, ideology or economic policy were not important. A person needed hope or some kind of help from God, then he went to the Orthodox Church.

To consider the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Kremlin's propaganda and information wars, it is necessary to turn to the history of the Soviet Union, in which propaganda was one of the key activities of the regime. The agitation and propaganda department was created in the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the early Bolshevik period. During the years of the New Economic Policy (1921-1928), the Department of Agitation and Propaganda grew into a huge bureaucratic structure with more than 30 subdivisions dealing with the press, education, science, theater, radio, cinema, personnel training and publishing. This apparatus was so well organized that it served as a model for Joseph Goebbels when Hitler made him minister of propaganda. Nazi propaganda even used Soviet posters, changing only the text.

Why the Russian Orthodox Church is so important to Putin

But what are the objectives of propaganda? They are twofold. First, it touts the regime's achievements and benefits. Secondly, it attacks his opponents, criticizing their systems and their policies. Propaganda, therefore, carries both positive and negative content, and both of these elements are extremely important. In the Soviet Union, the positive element was simple: the USSR is the only country in the world in which the proletarian revolution successfully took place. This made the country a model for the world, the vanguard of the world movement for the liberation of the proletariat and endowed it with a global mission. The negative content of Soviet propaganda consisted of opposition to the “enemies of the working class,” that is, capitalist countries that exploit both their workers and the peoples of colonized countries. There was no place for religion in this Soviet propaganda narrative. In the words of Marx, religion was “the opium of the people,” and in the words of Lenin, “the opium of the people.” Religion was perceived as a false consciousness that must be fought. By promising paradise after death, she distracted workers from the cause of the revolution. When Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in 1961, he said that he did not see God in the sky.

Carnegie Moscow Center 10/21/2018 Observador 09/23/2018 Le Monde diplomatique 03/04/2018 The collapse of the Soviet Union changed everything. The new Russia was no longer at the forefront of the world revolution. Communism has lost its appeal. The point was not only that the USSR turned out to be far from being the kingdom of justice and equality that it portrayed itself as, but also that its economic model clearly demonstrated the failure of the idea of ​​state communism. As a result, both the positive and negative components of Soviet propaganda lost their content. How could the new Russia criticize capitalist countries if it itself was building a capitalist economy? And how could she protect the victims of colonialism if the Soviet Union was the last European country to release its colonies?

In the new Russia of Boris Yeltsin, ideological emptiness reigned. Old ideals and values ​​disappeared, and new ones did not have time to be developed. And so, amid this ideological turmoil, Vladimir Putin came to power. In essence, he began precisely with ideological questions. In 1998, Yeltsin appointed him head of the FSB, the successor organization to the KGB. In this capacity, Putin also became secretary of the Russian National Security Council. Under him, the NSS prepared a new concept of national security, which Yeltsin approved in one of his last decrees on December 17, 1999. Two weeks after that, he abdicated in favor of Putin. This concept was based on completely new ideas. For example, it argued that ensuring the national security of the Russian Federation should include “spiritual renewal” and that the state should promote the “spiritual and moral development of society.” Previously, such documents did not place emphasis on spiritual values.

As Secretary of the Security Council, Putin certainly influenced the formation of the new concept. In his autobiography, First Person, published a few months later, he asserted that “we will fight to maintain our geographical and spiritual position” (as in the text, in reality he said: “We will strive to remain where we are.” geographically and spiritually where we are,” translator’s note), and admitted that he wears his baptismal cross. Putin clearly understood how the ideological void could be filled by ensuring the Russian Orthodox Church had a central place in the new Russian identity. It was a brilliant move. With one shot, Putin killed several birds with one stone. The transformation of the Russian Orthodox Church into the central ideological support of the new Russia had a number of advantages. In a way, the church was like a Swiss Army knife, which is known to have many functions. In addition to the usual blades, other tools are built into it - a small file, a nail file, scissors, a screwdriver and a bottle opener, and so on. The same could be said about the Russian Orthodox Church. She had at least six properties useful to the authorities. Let's list them:

• Although there were not many churchgoers among the Russian population, most Russians were sympathetic to the church as a social force. Accordingly, the Kremlin could use good relations with the Russian Orthodox Church to its advantage.

• The rehabilitation of a key institution of pre-revolutionary, tsarist Russia meant that the Kremlin would not have to invent a state ideology from scratch.

• Further, the Russian Orthodox Church defended so-called traditional values, such as “family values,” “religious values,” and “cultural values.” The Kremlin could use this in its ideological struggle against the corrupt West, which recognizes and protects the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. In addition, both the church and the Kremlin disliked Western democracy, sexual minorities, and the idea of ​​universal human rights. To all this they preferred authoritarian political solutions.

• The Kremlin could exploit the close ideological connection between the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian nationalism. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Russian Orthodox Church is precisely the Russian Church. The Moscow Patriarchate considers Moscow the “Third Rome”: the spiritual center for all Orthodox believers.

• The Russian Orthodox Church has always supported Pan-Slavism, a movement based on the idea that all speakers of Slavic languages ​​should live in one country and that country is Russia. This idea fit perfectly with the Kremlin's neo-imperialist policy towards the new post-Soviet states and especially towards Belarus and Ukraine, whose legitimacy as independent states it denied.

The Church played an important role in the militarization of Russian society, becoming the support of the army and especially the Strategic Missile Forces, that is, the Russian nuclear deterrent forces, with which the Russian Orthodox Church almost entered into a symbiosis.

Russian propaganda

How did this cooperation between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church work in practice? In one word - excellent. In 2007, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that the church and his ministry “act hand in hand” and are doing “one big thing that is very necessary for the country.” During the conflict with Ukraine, the church played an important role in the psychological war that Moscow waged with Kiev before the outbreak of hostilities. For example, in the summer of 2009, Patriarch Kirill, during a ten-day trip to Ukraine, spoke a lot about the “common heritage” and “common destiny” of the two countries. During his visit to Donetsk, the patriarch was accompanied by Viktor Yanukovych, at that time the leader of the opposition Party of Regions.

Carnegie Moscow Center 09/24/2019 The Independent 07/11/2019 Observador 09/23/2018 At the same time, relations between the Kremlin and the church were not unidirectional. Already in September 2003, Putin contacted Metropolitan Laurus of New York, head of the ROCOR, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, founded by emigrants who fled Russia after the October Revolution. Putin's proposal for reconciliation between the churches was accepted, and the Act on Canonical Communion was signed in May 2007. The merger of churches brought a million believers in 30 countries under Moscow's control. In the USA alone, there was talk of a network of 323 parishes and 20 monasteries. Soon after, the Kremlin began to fight for church buildings in Western countries, which led to many court cases - in particular in New Jersey, California, Biarritz, Nice and London.

Lavrov’s statement that the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Foreign Ministry “act hand in hand” was surprisingly accurate. This is obvious from the role that the church has come to play in international forums. For example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized a speech by Kirill, then head of the Department for External Church Relations, at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2008. In his speech, Kirill spoke out against abortion, euthanasia, “extreme feminist views and homosexual views.” He also proposed the creation of an “Advisory Council on Religions” at the UN. The creation of such a council would subordinate the implementation of human rights to so-called traditional values. Kirill's speech was part of the Kremlin's offensive on human rights.

A year earlier, Lavrov had already proposed creating a similar “Council on Religions,” which would defend “religious and traditional values.” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has rejected these attempts to make human rights dependent on so-called religious, traditional or cultural values. “In no country,” she said, “has no woman, no man, and no child ever demanded the right to be tortured, extrajudicially executed, starved, or denied medical care in the name of their culture.” What is striking in all this is the unexpected ideological continuity between the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, which, just like the USSR, is mounting ideological attacks on liberal democracy, individual freedom, minority rights and the universality of human rights. The only difference is that now these attacks are carried out not in the name of communism, but in the name of true traditional Orthodox Christianity.

The Church not only supported the Kremlin's ideological offensive abroad, but also played an important role in the growing militarization of Russian society. It has established particularly close relations with the nuclear deterrent forces. In August 2009, Kirill visited the Severodvinsk shipbuilding center and boarded a nuclear submarine. Having presented the crew with an icon of the Mother of God, Kirill said that Russia's defense potential should be supported by Orthodox Christian values. “Then,” he emphasized, “we will have something to protect with our missile carriers.” Kirill's special relationship with the guardians of Russian nuclear power borders on deep personal sympathy. In December 2009, during a visit to the Moscow Academy of Strategic Missile Forces, he presented the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Lieutenant General Andrei Shvaichenko, with a pennant depicting the Holy Great Martyr Barbara, considered the heavenly patron of the missile forces. “Such a formidable weapon should only be in the clean hands of people with a bright mind, with ardent love for the Fatherland, who are aware of responsibility for their actions before God and before the people,” the patriarch said. Kirill not only sympathizes with rocket scientists, but also clearly loves rockets themselves. Under Putin, things like the blessing of the president's “nuclear suitcase” or the nationally televised sprinkling of holy water on S-400 air defense systems have become commonplace. Churches and chapels began to spring up on military bases throughout Russia.

The most ambitious project in this sense is the “Victory Temple”, which the Ministry of Defense is building in Patriot Park. This 95-meter-high cathedral should be completed by May 9, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. It will be the third tallest Orthodox church in the world. According to official data, the cost of its construction is three billion rubles, which exceeds $45 million. However, according to Novaya Gazeta, the real figure is likely to rise to $120 million, or 8 billion rubles - a huge sum for a country in which a quarter of children live below the poverty line. A thousand people constantly work at this construction site worthy of the Egyptian pharaohs. The project is supported by defense companies such as the Kalashnikov concern, which donated more than 1.1 million bricks to it. The new main army temple will be decorated with frescoes with battle scenes, including from the Soviet period. Weapons will be displayed at the entrance to the temple (“Novaya Gazeta” writes that captured weapons will be inlaid into the steps of the main entrance - approx.). Novaya Gazeta calls this “cult of war” in the church “shocking” and speaks of “some kind of temple of Mars, not Christ” (this opinion does not belong to the author of the article, but to one of the experts quoted in it - approx. trans. ). This is just one example of the rapprochement between the church and the military. You can also pay attention to the role played by Orthodox priests assigned to army units and ensuring the “spiritual security of the country.” Note that if Putin compares religion with a nuclear shield, Kirill calls nuclear weapons a means of protecting Russian “traditional values.” On these issues, the views of the Kremlin leader and the church leader appear to completely coincide.

In the West, churches advocate peace and generally support nuclear disarmament. However, the Russian Orthodox Church takes a completely different position on this issue. The Russian Orthodox Church does not criticize the new nuclear arms race. On the contrary, it supports the development of new strategic weapons. The motto of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, “After us there is silence,” hinting at the end of the world, fits well with the apocalyptic worldview of the Russian Orthodox Church, from the point of view of which any means are permitted to protect Holy Rus' and its traditional values.

How should Western countries react to this? When dealing with the Russian Orthodox Church, one should always remember that it is a “hybrid church.” On the one hand, this is the same church as most Christian denominations - with sincerely believing laymen, priests and monks. For example, in September 2021, 182 Orthodox priests and church leaders signed an open letter published on the Orthodoxy and World website demanding a review of the sentences of participants in rallies for democracy who were sentenced to long-term imprisonment. Their performance was a surprise, but this is only one side of the coin. With all this, the Russian Orthodox Church remains an instrument in the hands of the Russian government. With its help, the Kremlin expands its influence abroad, attacks democracy, undermines the universal idea of ​​human rights and oppresses its neighbors. A clear example is the aggressive position that the Russian Orthodox Church takes towards the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. When Ukrainian attempts to create an autocephalous church succeeded in January 2021 and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the Moscow church severed contacts with Constantinople. For Ukrainians, this was not only a religious victory, but also, first of all, a geopolitical one.

Global ROC?

Accordingly, Western countries should not be naive and treat the Russian Orthodox Church like normal churches. For example, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy behaved extremely naively when he allowed Moscow to buy the building of the French Meteorological Institute on the Quai Branly near the Eiffel Tower. On this plot of land with an area of ​​8 thousand 400 square meters, Moscow wanted to build a religious center and an Orthodox church. In addition to her, a number of other candidates also applied for the building, including Canada. What followed was aggressive lobbying by Russian Ambassador Alexander Orlov, who was assisted by former KGB officer Vladimir Kozhin, then head of the Russian Presidential Administration. This structure with 50 thousand employees, which was headed by Putin before becoming director of the FSB, manages not only state property in Russia, but also the property of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. For Operation Paris Cathedral, the Russians hired the French lobbying company ESL & Network, which had access to the highest echelons of the French government. As a result, Moscow won the open tender, offering 70 million euros. The French magazine Le nouvel Observateur suggested that the Russians took advantage of insider information. The new building is located near the Alma Palace, which houses the French president's postal service and 16 official apartments for members of his administration. French counterintelligence did not recommend allowing a religious organization, which, as is known, is closely connected with the FSB, into such a place. However, despite these warnings, the center and cathedral were built.

This project fits well with the Kremlin’s plans to transform the Russian Orthodox Church into a “global” church. Communism was a global ideology, and this is what gave the Soviet Union, as the leader of the communist movement, disproportionate influence in the Third World and in those Western countries where - such as France and Italy - there were strong communist parties. The merger of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was only the first step in giving the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church a global character. In this process, Russian oligarchs play an important role - both in Russia and abroad - by financing the construction of new churches and the restoration of existing church buildings. Of course, it's difficult to say whether such a strategy will work. For the modern industrial world, the communist utopia looked more attractive than the so-called traditional values. However, the Kremlin's plans should not be underestimated. It is not for nothing that “traditional values” have become the banner of far-right populist parties, which Moscow supports in an effort to undermine Western liberal democracy and the idea of ​​universal human rights.

Marcel Van Herpen is a security specialist, author of Putin's Propaganda Machine-Soft Power and Russian Foreign Policy (Lanham and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), Wars Putin's Wars—The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism (Lanham and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014) and Putinism—The Slow Rise of a Radical Right Regime in Russia”) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.