Burden or Blessing? Russian Orthodoxy and the Construction of Civil Society and Democracy (Orthodox Church in Russia)

Part 1

Conceptual Apparatus

CHAPTER 1

The Ambivalent Role of Orthodoxy in the Construction of Civil Society and Democracy in Russia Christopher Marsh, Baylor University

The range of obstacles that have been identified by scholars, policymakers, and pundits as burdening Russia’s transition to democracy and the free market is dizzying and seemingly endless. From the country’s authoritarian past and the debilitated state of the nation’s social fabric to rampant corruption and President Putin’s latest reform initiative, cause for pessimism is apparent virtually everywhere one turns. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Russia’s religious heritage has not gone without its share of blame. Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Samuel Huntington proclaimed that “the cultural division of Europe between Western Christianity…and Orthodox Christianity and Islam” was reemerging, and that “the eastern boundary of Western Christianity in the year 1500” was “the most significant dividing line in Europe.”1 Huntington not only predicted that the Orthodox world would clash with the rest of Europe, but that Orthodox societies seemed “much less likely to develop stable democratic political systems.” In a similar vein, Michael Radu later announced the “burden of Eastern Orthodoxy,” arguing that the Eastern Churches were only interested in promoting nationalism, and could not contribute in any meaningful way to the construction of civil society and democracy in post-Communist Europe.2 Not only are such scholars quick to determine that Russia’s Orthodox religious tradition has nothing to contribute to the country’s transition to democracy and the free market, they also argue that it will actually serve as an impediment to these processes. These are not the only voices in the debate, however. There exist other accounts, written by scholars with intimate knowledge of the Orthodox tradition and a more nuanced understanding of the history of religion in Russia. Scholars such as James Billington, Nikolas Gvosdev, and Nicolai Petro, 1

Burden or Blessing? for example, have identified positive attributes in Russia’s religious heritage, focusing on the role of religion as a mobilizing force, Orthodoxy’s traditions of a symphonic ideal between church and state, ecclesiastical elections, and the conciliar principle of sobornost’.3 The historical record is actually quite clear on the matter – Russia has a history of democratic decision-making that can be traced deep into the nation’s history, as far back as the sixth century.4 The church itself, moreover, was a central institution that employed elections to fill ecclesiastical posts. As for the much-touted subservience of the church to the Russian state, almost without exception it is overlooked or ignored that the elimination of the Patriarchate and the establishment of the Holy Governing Synod by Peter the Great in 1721 was actually a reaction to initiatives taken by the church during the seventeenth century as Patriarch Nikon sought to bring the state to heel. It is important to bear in mind, moreover, that Peter’s actions were largely influenced by Western thought and even specific recommendations.5 Peter’s church reforms, therefore, broke with the Orthodox tradition of church-state relations and were an adoption of a more Protestant approach. The fact remains, however, that neither approach is an example of the symphonic ideal, where the church and state work together in harmony, with the monarch ruling the secular realm and religious leaders guiding spiritual matters. While setting the historical record straight is an important and necessary task, it is not the primary objective of the current project. The concern of the authors assembled here, rather, is to address the question of whether or not Russia’s Orthodox religious tradition will serve as a burden or a blessing in the construction of civil society and democracy in post-Communist Russia. In seeking to arrive at a balanced and unbiased set of conclusions, the voices contained in this volume range from the pessimistic to the optimistic, with most suggesting that the record is mixed and what one sees depends on where one looks. In order to set the stage for this discussion, in the pages that follow I offer the reader a brief survey of some of the concepts we use to examine the state of Russian civil society, its economy, and the progress being made in the area of democratization. Orthodoxy and its Relationship to Civil Society, the Market, and Democracy in Russia The actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin following the massacre at Beslan have led to a deluge of negative assessments of the prospects 2

The Ambivalent Role of Orthodoxy for democracy and freedom in Russia. The fate of democracy in Russia, however, rests upon more than the establishment of democratic institutions and the holding of free and competitive elections. Russia also needs a citizenry that is interested, active, and politically efficacious. Only engaged citizens joined together in a civil society can serve as an effective check on the power of the state, whose power has grown exponentially under Putin’s leadership. Russian society, therefore, needs to develop democratic values and a body of citizens who not only follow events and participate in formal political and informal civic activities, but who also make informed choices about the country’s future. To complicate the situation even further, the experience of democratizing states around the world shows that new democracies also require performing market economies to sustain democratic governance. A decade into the process of post-Communist market development indicates that, although the rudiments of a market economy have been laid and considerable progress has been made in certain areas, alongside the prosperity of Moscow boulevards there exist alleyways of stagnation, inefficiency, and poverty. Civil Society in Russia Civil society can be understood as the relatively autonomous realm that rests between the state and the private sphere.6 It may also be conceived of as “institutional and ideological pluralism, which prevents the establishment of a monopoly of power and truth, and counterbalances those central institutions which, though necessary, might otherwise acquire such monopoly.”7 At its core, civil society is composed of a “set of diverse non-governmental institutions which is strong enough to counterbalance the state and, while not preventing the state from fulfilling its role of keeper of the peace and arbitrator between major interests, can nevertheless prevent it from dominating and atomizing the rest of society.” Where private individuals come together to cooperate and work collectively to bring about public goods, civil society can be said to exist. Expressed in other terms, civil society also relates to freedom, a fact that has remained largely outside of the discourse on Russia’s postSoviet transformation despite its importance. Certainly there has been a plethora of work documenting specific areas of freedom, such as freedom of the press and freedom of religion, along with the more general discussion of civil society in Russia. But all forms of liberty have 3

Burden or Blessing? at their core the same source – “freedom of the individual from society – more precisely, from the state and from all such compelling social bonds,” as Russian Christian philosopher Georgy Fedotov explained almost a half century ago.8 Fedotov argued in his émigré writings that “freedom in this sense is simply a setting of limits to the power of the state in terms of the inalienable rights of the individual.” It is a limiting of the power of the state that allows an autonomous realm between the state and the private sphere – a civil society – to emerge. Civil society in Russia has been in a constant state of flux since it first raised its collective voice during the perestroika period. Hudson recently argued, however, that civil society is developing in Russia today, and expressed “cautious optimism” that civic groups have become a permanent feature of Russian political life.9 Based on analysis of survey data on social networks and civil society in Russia, Gibson has also shown that social networks and civic attitudes among Russians are facilitating the country’s democratic transition.10 Churches and religious life are also important actors in civil society, and they are significant sources of social capital and can facilitate civic involvement through such means as charitable events, church-sponsored fairs (yarmarki), and social networks. Given its particular history, with a Christian tradition stretching back more than one thousand years and seven decades of militant atheism in its more recent past, churches are an excellent indicator of civic and religious involvement in Russia. After all, the church was systematically attacked in the Soviet Union, and the vast majority of churches were destroyed or converted to state property during the Communist period. Between 1989-1999, however, believers fought to reclaim and rebuild their old parishes, with the number of Orthodox churches in Russia rising from approximately 7,500 to 19,000 during this period,11 indicating the vitality of civic and religious life. Russia’s Market Transition As if the challenges facing the development of civil society in Russia weren’t daunting enough, evidence suggests that democracies require functioning market economies to survive and prosper. To further complicate the situation, civil society itself is seen as critical for the economic prosperity of societies. The development of civil society and a functioning market economy in Russia, therefore, are inextricably linked to one another. 4

The Ambivalent Role of Orthodoxy As the above discussion indicates, Russia emerged from the ashes of Communism in unique circumstances that may have left it without the requisite levels of civil society and social capital deemed necessary to sustain market institutions and democratic governance. But will markets help build the requisite levels of civil society necessary to maintain democratic governance? Or, will markets fail to develop due to the weakness of civil society and the paucity of social capital? Despite the sheer enormity of the task and many setbacks, the Russian economy today has stabilized and is experiencing significant growth. In short, Russia has successfully completed the first phase of the world’s most daunting economic transformation. As a Western investment agency recently noted, “competitiveness in Russian domestic industries has improved, macroeconomic stability has been achieved, and a basic market environment has been created.”12 While on the whole Russia has made substantial progress in developing a market economy, the process is taking place in a highly differentiated manner with some regions of the country and certain segments of the population achieving better results than others. Several scholars working on market reform in post-Communist societies have identified the strength of civil society as a positive factor in that process. Additionally, several scholars have identified social networks as significant factors for the development and functioning of market mechanisms in Russia. Quite interestingly, Dinello has also shown that Russian Orthodoxy and its positive orientation towards society plays an important role in developing an equitable market economy in Russia, a point also made by Gvosdev.13 The Russian Orthodox Church recognizes the pivotal role is has to play in the country’s economic transition. In February of 2004 it launched a conversation at the Eighth All-World Russian People’s Council on the relevancy of Orthodox social teachings for market activity. The result was a “Collection of Moral Principles and Rights of Business (khoziastovanie),” which urges Russian businesspeople not to break their contractual agreements, not to defraud others, and not to withhold pay from their employees.14 While guidelines such as these are certainly welcome – and indeed long overdue – close examination of the role of the church and civic organizations in Russia indicates that such institutions play complicated roles in a post-Communist economic transition. When it comes to market development, perhaps the kind of resources offered by a civil society may actually hinder market development in certain ways. For example, while soup kitchens and the charitable activities of churches and other 5

Burden or Blessing? social institutions may alleviate economic hardship, they do not necessarily promote market activity. Such institutions may also foster barter relationships and other non-market activities, that although promoting short-term economic sustainability, may actually hinder market development in the long term, and thus they may actually be barriers to economic growth. While this may be the case, this is only one small piece of the puzzle, and it is not likely to derail economic reform in Russia. The Question of Democracy Perhaps our primary concern here is with Russia’s transition to democracy, a process that has proven much more difficult than most observers and participants had hoped. Russia’s democratic track record, moreover, is far from unblemished, and the country’s path to democracy has been a bumpy one. From Yeltsin’s dismissal of the parliament in October 1993 to the electoral improprieties associated with his reelection in 1996, Russia’s experiment with democracy certainly began with a rocky start. Following Yeltsin’s resignation in favor of his protégé Vladimir Putin, the country does not seem to have changed course drastically in the new millennium, as Putin has carried out a slow but steady limiting of civil liberties and the independent media, coupled with his own electoral irregularities. According to most accepted definitions of democracy, Russia still has a way to go before it is a consolidated democratic society. Robert Dahl offers a flexible set of criteria by which to assess democracies. To begin with, control over governmental decisions must be constitutionally vested in elected officials who are chosen and peacefully removed in relatively frequent, fair, and free elections. Additionally, practically all adults have the right to vote, and most adults also have the right to run for public office. Dahl’s definition sets itself apart from earlier attempts to define democracy by arguing that citizens must have an effectively enforced right to freedom of expression, including criticism of officials, the conduct of the government, the prevailing political, economic, and social system, and the dominant ideology. Moreover, they also must have access to alternative sources of information that are not monopolized by the government or any other single group. Finally, they must have an effectively enforced right to form and join autonomous associations, including political associations, such as political parties and interest 6

The Ambivalent Role of Orthodoxy groups, that attempt to influence the government by competing in elections and other peaceful means.15 Based on these criteria, Russia’s record is far from unblemished. The potential elimination of numerous elected posts, including governors and mayors, along with widely-documented questionable activity during all of Russia’s post-Soviet elections, violate democracy thus understood. Equally disconcerting, Putin’s attack on independent media outlets moves Russia even further behind in its path to democracy. Despite such developments, the fact that Russia continues to operate within a democratic institutional framework, although one that is often pushed to and sometimes beyond its limits, is not a bad track record for a country that has struggled for centuries in its attempt to make a transition to democracy. The goal of the Decembrists in 1825 and many of the protesters and strikers in 1905 and 1917 was democracy, and although the outcome remains uncertain, the historical chance to construct a democratic society in Russia is not yet over. It is perhaps no surprise that Russia does not meet the definitions of democracy offered above, but what becomes obvious is that the real question regards the degree to which it is democratic and whether or not it will become democratic in the decades to come. Although this is not our primary concern here, we are interested in assessing the role Orthodoxy is playing in this process. Each of the contributors to this volume has much to offer and should provide the reader with a balanced account of the progress made in Russia’s transition to democracy and the obstacles that still stand in its way. Notes 1

Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Foreign Affairs 72, 3 (Summer 1993): 29-30. 2 Michael Radu, “The Burden of Eastern Orthodoxy,” Orbis 42, 2 (Spring 1998): 283-300. 3 James Billington, “The Case for Orthodoxy,” New Republic 210, 22 (May 30, 1994): 24-28; Nikolas Gvosdev, Emperors and Elections: Reconciling the Orthodox Tradition with Modern Politics (Huntington, NY: Troitsa Books, 2000); Nicolai Petro, The Rebirth of Russian Democracy: An Interpretation of Political Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). 4 Christopher Marsh, Russia at the Polls: Voters, Elections, and Democratization (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2002). 5 Dmitry Pospielovsky, The Orthodox Church in the History of Russia (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), 111-112.

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Much of the discussion presented here comes from: Christopher Marsh, “The Challenge of Civil Society,” in Stephen K. Wegren, ed., Russia’s Policy Challenges: Security, Stability, and Development (Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2003), 141-158. 7 Ernest Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals (New York: Penguin, 1994), 3-4. 8 Georgy Fedotov, “The Christian Origins of Freedom,” in Ultimate Questions: An Anthology of Modern Russian Religious Thought (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977), 285. 9 George Hudson, “Civil Society in Russia: Models and Prospects for Development,” Russian Review 62, 2 (2003): 212-213. 10 James Gibson, “Social Networks, Civil Society, and the Prospects for Consolidating Russia’s Democratic Transition,” American Journal of Political Science 45, 1 (2001): 51-69. 11 Nathaniel Davis, A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy (Boulder: Westview Press, 2003). 12 Ernst & Young International, Ltd., Doing Business in the Russian Federation (Moscow: Ernst and Young, 2002), p. 5. 13 Natalia Dinello, “Russian Religious Rejections of Money and ‘Homo Economicus’: The Self-identifications of the ‘Pioneers of a Money Economy’ in Post-Soviet Russia,” Sociology of Religion 59, 1 (1998): 45-64; Gvosdev, 2000, 123-132. 14 Nikolas Gvosdev, “A New Decalogue for Russian Business,” Acton Commentary, February 18, 2004. Available at: http://www.acton.org. 15 Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).

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CHAPTER 2

Civil Society, Russian Orthodoxy, and Democracy: Theoretical Framework/Conceptual Clarification Zoe Knox, Rice University

The idea of civil society remained in the background of political theory for much of the twentieth century. It was revived in the context of the activities of Solidarity, the Polish independent trade union, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was appropriated by political commentators observing the dramatic changes in the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s; the extensive use of the concept to describe the transformations led to the observation that “a veritable ‘cult of civil society’ seized liberal analysts of these developments.”1 Civil society has since been used in a diverse range of contexts. This paper will argue that there is a need to elucidate how, as a theoretical construct, the concept of civil society is useful for the examination of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and the construction of democracy in Russia. It establishes that the term civil society is useful in three different, but intimately linked, ways: as a term denoting a society that accommodates social self-organization independent of the state; as a term denoting a state of affairs in the religious sphere characterized by interaction between different denominations and religions; and as a term denoting a particular kind of dynamism within Church structures. This paper aims to demonstrate how applying the concept of civil society in these three ways can overcome the shortcomings of many Western analyses of the Russian Orthodox Church, and can offer a balanced assessment of the role of the Church in Russia’s democratization process. Shortcomings of the Literature Political scientists seeking to understand the social, cultural and political transformations in Russia often overlook religion. For example, a major study of post-communist Russian politics contended that the infrequency 9

Burden or Blessing? of Orthodox Church attendance indicated widespread indifference toward religion. The same survey that led three eminent political scientists to conclude that there was a high level of trust in the Orthodox Church also led them to assert: “In parallel with secularization in Western Europe, Russians have increasingly become indifferent to religion rather than dividing between believers and anticlerical secular groups.”2 There is ample evidence to support the contention that church attendance is a poor indicator of levels of religious practice and adherence.3 Furthermore, the Orthodox Church’s significance in Russia is demonstrated by leading politicians consulting with Orthodox dignitaries, continued polemics about the Church’s role in mainstream (and peripheral) media, religious themes in art and literature, and the constant presence of the Church in discussions of the nation’s historic path: past, present and future. The extent of Orthodoxy’s influence should not be as readily dismissed as some political scientists propose. Another shortcoming of commentary on Russian Orthodoxy derives from Western analysts’ predilection to reduce the Church’s influence to that of its conservative and xenophobic elements. Journalists are particularly prone to paint the Church as a monolithic body, one that uniformly does not support liberal democracy. It is true that the traditionalist current, which emphasizes powerful authority and limits on pluralism, is strong, both within and outside Church structures. The statement in an editorial in The Times (London), however, that “The Russian Orthodox Church is in the grip of extreme nationalists and antiSemites” is overblown and reduces the movement among reformist clergy and laity for changes to Orthodox life to inconsequence.4 Another example is British journalist Victoria Clark’s long chapter on Russia in her book on Eastern Orthodoxy in modern Europe. Each Orthodox adherent she encounters, from prelate to priest to starets, is a Russian national chauvinist, or anti-Semitic, anti-Western or anti-Catholic.5 The salience of internal Church dynamics, and especially the convictions and activities of the reformist wing, is habitually overlooked in Western analyses of Church life. This emphasis on nationalists obscures the contribution of reformist elements. Likewise, the impression that there are but a handful of laity promoting Orthodoxy as a tolerant, ecumenical and intellectual faith is misleading.6 Evaluations of the Church’s influence tend to focus on the Moscow Patriarchate, that is, the Church’s institutional form. Lay activism, including the initiatives of clergy separate from Church control, or opposing the Church leadership’s decrees or directives, is an increasingly important influence. Examining Russian Orthodoxy through the prism of civil society strives 10

Theoretical Framework/Conceptual Clarification to restore some balance in assessments of the Church and democratization by appraising the agenda and influence of reformist elements, both within and outside the Church. Re-Emergence of the Term The concept of civil society re-emerged in Eastern European literature in the late 1970s and 1980s, when the transformation of Polish dissent was heralded as the end of revisionism and the rebirth of civil society.7 The activities of Solidarity brought the concept of civil society to the fore of discussion about state-society relations. In 1982 Andrew Arato wrote of Polish dissidents who were divided on most issues: “One point, however, unites them all: the viewpoint of civil society against the state − the desire to institutionalize and preserve the new level of social independence.”8 In this understanding, the shift from disconnected dissident activity to organized opposition marked the birth of civil society. In the context of the Soviet Union, discussion of civil society centered on the debate over whether or not Gorbachev’s reforms heralded the emergence of civil society. In 1988 S. Frederick Starr proclaimed the USSR to have significant elements of a civil society, citing the proliferation of unsanctioned economic and social activity of an anti-regime nature as evidence that the state was unable to form, control or successfully disseminate social values.9 Geoffrey Hosking and Vladimir Tismaneanu identified social movements overtly opposing Soviet-style communism’s environmental and militaristic policies as the rebirth of civil society.10 In this understanding social awareness, social concern and independent organization were the defining features of a civil society. Moshe Lewin emphasized the social relations fostered in Soviet cities as key to the development of civil society. This resulted in spontaneous activity which was beyond the control of the regime.11 In each of these understandings, the shift from fragmented dissent to organized, communicative oppositional associations marked the reemergence of civil society. In 2002 and 2003, articles published in Western academic journals on civil society in Russia have examined different models of civil society in the post-Soviet context;12 the development of civil society since the demise of Soviet Marxism-Leninism;13 prospects for civil society’s development under President Vladimir Putin;14 trade unions and civil society;15 case studies of civic engagement at the local level;16 and the 11

Burden or Blessing? activities of non-governmental organizations,17 just to name a handful of topics. It is not hard to see how engaging the term without conceptual clarification must befuddle those following the scholarship on Russia’s post-Soviet trajectory. It is important to clarify how the concept of civil society is useful for assessing the Church’s role in the democratization process, and how it can be used to overcome the shortcomings of the existing literature outlined above. “Three Spheres” of Civil Society There are three spheres within which the role of the Orthodox Church can be evaluated and its contribution to the construction or the obstruction of civil society in Russia assessed. Analysis of the Church’s contribution to the construction of democracy is facilitated by the examination of, to use Jean L. Cohen and Andew Arato’s terminology, the “sphere of associations”.18 Considering the Church, or rather the governing body of the church, the Moscow Patriarchate, as one association among the many operating – and competing for influence – in the new Russia enables an evaluation of the Church’s significance in the democratization process. Orthodoxy’s influence in this first sphere of civil society can be evaluated by assessing the Moscow Patriarchate’s role in the social and political life of the country. The Church leadership seeks to instill values and norms in society to create a social and political consensus based on Orthodox doctrines and traditions (see Glanzer and Kljutcharev’s contribution to this volume). In this respect, it is not especially different from other bodies seeking to gain power and influence in Russia. The influence of religious bodies in the “sphere of associations” deserves special attention because religious bodies have a special role to play in a country’s social and political life. Where a theological perspective or public pronouncement or policy initiative coincides with social and even political mores orientated toward constructive, inclusive and tolerant relations between associations, a religious group may contribute to the construction of civil society. Religious institutions thus have the potential to contribute to the construction of civil society by promoting conditions and sentiments conducive to its consolidation. Likewise, religious institutions espousing principles that are xenophobic, anti-pluralist or chauvinistic can obstruct the formation of civil society. Russian Orthodoxy’s role in the construction of democracy can also be evaluated by examining the Church’s role in the second sphere of civil 12

Theoretical Framework/Conceptual Clarification society: the religious field. The success of the Patriarchate’s campaign in the early to mid-1990s to implement restrictive religious legislation in Russia is demonstrative of Orthodoxy’s leverage on matters that extend throughout the entire religious domain. The Patriarchate is therefore uniquely positioned to influence attitudes which shape the religious sphere. The way the Church operates in the pluralist religious environment and how it interacts with other religious bodies determines its influence on the religious sphere. Orthodoxy’s “unofficial” or non-institutional influence can be determined by examining the activities of lay associations which promote ecumenism and tolerance, or conversely those which promote xenophobic sentiments or intolerance toward non-Orthodox faiths. Those groups united in the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods, for example, speak in the name of Orthodoxy, and so also have an impact on Orthodoxy’s contribution to the construction or obstruction of civil society. The contribution of lay activism to the emergence of civil society can be evaluated through the laity’s work in social, political and charitable organizations, and also through the initiatives of reformist clergy, who seek to make Orthodoxy more “transparent” and accessible. Russian Orthodoxy can therefore influence Russia’s religious sphere in numerous, even conflicting, ways. The third sphere of civil society, the narrowest sphere, comprises the Church structures themselves. Of interest here are the dynamics within Church structures; the way that dialogue and decision-making is conducted among prelates and clergy, and those initiatives and agendas of nonconformist clergy which deviate from the doctrines and practices laid down by the Patriarchate (see, for example, the analysis of three Moscow parishes in Daniel’s contribution to this volume). For example, the Church leadership has made attempts to limit the extent to which alternative visions of Church life and different understandings of Orthodoxy are aired by disciplining non-conformist priests. This diminishes freedom of speech within Church structures. Freedom, tolerance, a plurality of opinions and the opportunity to air competing visions of Orthodoxy are essential if civil society is to exist within the church itself. It should be noted that this application of civil society to internal Church structures does not seek to judge Orthodox canons. This is essential to avoid charges of Western-centric evaluation. For example, that the Patriarchate affirms that Old Church Slavonic remain the language of the liturgy is not relevant here. The debate over whether Old Church Slavonic or vernacular Russian is more appropriate for modern 13

Burden or Blessing? services is pertinent because it reveals how demands to change the language of the liturgy are received and negotiated by the Church leadership. This is indicative of the extent to which dissenting voices are mediated within Church structures. Each of these three spheres is important for the assessment of the Church’s impact on the construction of democracy because the Church is a complex body, which has a variety of influences. It is neither a paragon nor an enemy of civil society in modern Russia, as some commentators would have us believe. Conclusion The resurgence of the concept of civil society in political discourse has ensured that civil society remains at the forefront of discussion about post-communist democratization. This paper has emphasized how employing the concept of civil society as a methodology can overcome the major shortcomings of the existing literature on the Orthodox Church in Russia. Three spheres of civil society have been proposed in order to overcome reductionist explanations of the Church’s contemporary role. Orthodoxy’s impact on civil society can only be established by examining its influence in three domains of civil society: in the social and political arenas, in the religious sphere, and within Church structures. This offers a picture of the Church as being multi-layered. Given the Church’s opportunity for influence outside the religious sphere, there is the potential for the Orthodox Church as a whole to be a constructive, active participant and integrative force in Russia’s transition. It also, however, has the power to provoke division and conflict. Elements both within and outside the Church speak in the name of Russian Orthodoxy, and invoke this religious tradition to bolster their claims to act as Russian patriots, or pious Christians, or traditionalists. Each of them contributes to Orthodoxy’s overall part in the democratization process. Recognition of the roles of these diverse – and sometimes diametrically opposed – elements are rare, and so too are balanced assessments of Orthodoxy’s multi-faceted influence. Engaging the concept of civil society enables analysts to evaluate Russian Orthodoxy’s role in a balanced way, and so recognize the Church’s myriad influences in post-Soviet Russia.

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Theoretical Framework/Conceptual Clarification Notes 1

Roger D. Markwick, “An Uncivil Society: Moscow in Political Change,” in In Search of Identity: Five Years Since the Fall of the Soviet Union, ed. Vladimir Tikhomirov (Melbourne: Centre for Russian and Euro-Asian Studies, University of Melbourne, 1996), 40. 2 Stephen White, Richard Rose and Ian McAllister, How Russia Votes (Chatham: Chatham House Publishers, 1997), 65. 3 See, for example, Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 185. 4 “A Church’s Shame: Russian Christians Should Lay their Tsar to Rest,” The Times, 20 June 1998, 23. 5 Victoria Clark, Why Angels Fall: A Portrait of Orthodox Europe from Byzantium to Kosovo (London: Macmillan, 2000), 299-322. 6 See Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, “Christianity, Antisemitism, Nationalism’: Russian Orthodoxy in a Reborn Orthodox Russia,” in Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, ed. Adele Marie Barker (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 423. 7 Jaques Rupnik, “Dissent in Poland, 1968-78: The End of Revisionism and the Rebirth of the Civil Society’, in Opposition in Eastern Europe, ed. Rudolf Tokes (London: Macmillan, 1979). 8 Andrew Arato, “Civil Society Against the State: Poland 1980-1981,” Telos 47 (1981): 24. 9 Frederick Starr, “Soviet Union: A Civil Society,” Foreign Policy 70 (1988): 26-41. 10 Geoffrey Hosking, The Awakening of the Soviet Union (London: Heinemann, 1990); Vladimir Tismaneanu, “Unofficial Peace Activism in the Soviet Union and East-Central Europe,” in In Search of Civil Society: Independent Peace Movements in the Soviet Bloc, ed. Vladimir Tismaneanu (New York: Routledge, 1990); Vladimir Tismaneanu, Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel (New York: The Free Press, 1992). 11 Moshe Lewin, The Gorbachev Phenonmenon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). 12 Henry E. Hale, “Civil Society from Above? Statist and Liberal Models of State-Building in Russia,” Demokratizatsiya 10, 3 (2002). 13 Alexander N. Domrin, “Ten Years Later: Society, ‘Civil Society’, and the Russian State,” The Russian Review 62 (2003): 193-211; Marcia A. Weigle, “On the Road to the Civic Forum: State and Civil Society from Yeltsin to Putin, Demokratizatsiya 10, 2 (2002). 14 George E. Hudson, “Civil Society in Russia: Models and Prospects for Development,” The Russian Review 62, 2 (2003): 212-222. 15 Paul Kubicek, “Civil Society, Trade Unions and Post-Soviet Democratization: Evidence from Russia and Ukraine,” Europe-Asia Studies 54, 4 (2002): 603625.

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Burden or Blessing? 16

Ivan Kurilla, “Civil activism without NGOs: The Communist Party as a Civil Society Substitute,” Demokratizatsiya 10, 3 (2002): 392-401; Yelena Shomina, Vladimir Kolossov and Viktoria Shukhat, “Local Activism and the Prospects for Civil Society in Moscow,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 43, 3 (2002): 244-271. 17 Sarah L. Henderson, “Selling Civil Society: Western Aid and the Nongovernmental Organization Sector in Russia,” Comparative Political Studies 35, 2 (2002): 139-168; John Squier, “Civil Society and the Challenge of Russian Gosudarstvennost,” Demokratizatsiya 10, 2 (2002): 166-183. 18 Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992), ix-x.

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CHAPTER 3

Failing Freedom: Parties, Elites and the Uncertainty of Religious Life in Russia Beth M. Admiraal, King’s College

By most accounts, Russia is loitering somewhere in the muck of “managed democracy”, “delegative democracy” or “postcommunist authoritarianism”, where both democracy and liberal democracy appear vulnerable. As the democratic ideal calls for freedom of religion, it would be remiss to overlook the effect of managed democracy for religion in Russia. In particular, I argue in this paper that one aspect of managed democracy – a weak party system – has had detrimental consequences for religious freedom. The position of the Russian administration towards religion and religious freedom remains unsettled and unsettling. Early in his tenure, President Putin’s remarks about the role of religion in public life were confusing, if not contradictory. A few examples are in order: In 2000, at an Orthodox service the day before Orthodox Christmas, celebrated on January 7, Putin proclaimed first that “Orthodoxy has traditionally played a special role in Russian history” but later noted that Orthodoxy is an unbending spiritual core of the entire people and state.”1 The first statement gives Orthodoxy a historical role; the second gives Orthodoxy both a cultural and, remarkably, a political role. From the perspective of democratic norms, his latter comment is controversial, even if we acknowledge the tendency of speakers to use poetic language that resonates with the audience: to say that Orthodoxy is the “spiritual core” entails that the non-Orthodox of Russia are (at best) second-class citizens, if citizens at all. The week following Orthodox Christmas, Putin issued his first National Security Policy, parts of which contained pointed references to religion. The thrust of Putin’s religious policy was in its blows at ‘outside’ religious groups. “Threats to the national security and interests of the Russian federation . . . are created by the economic, demographic, 17

Burden or Blessing? and cultural-religious expansion of neighboring states into the Russian territory.” The preservation of the national security called for “counteracting the negative influence of foreign religious organizations and missions” and “resistance to economic, demographic, and cultural and religious expansion on the part of other states onto the territory of Russia.” Putin’s security doctrine, while it left open the position of the state towards minority groups, excluded members of ‘foreign’ religious groups from full membership in the Russian nation. At this point it appeared certain that Putin was aiming at a durable relationship between nation and religion that firmly cemented the central role of Orthodoxy in the Russian nation and, furthermore, that he was awarding the church territorial status. More recently, Putin has appeared cautious in his religious rhetoric. As Nikolas Gvosdev noted in a recent article, while Putin “is comfortable publicly displaying his Orthodox identity, he also seeks to reassure members of other religious groups as well as nonbelievers that he is the president of all Russians” and draws upon “the shared values of all of Russia’s traditional religions.”2 At the same time, Putin still promotes the cultural role of Orthodoxy for Russianness: “One must not draw a line between culture and the church,” he said during a visit earlier this year to an orphanage. He then continued, “Of course, our church is separated from the state. But in the people's souls everything is together.”3 Putin no longer seems inclined to find an overtly political role for Orthodoxy, though its historical-cultural relevance is still oft-noted. Putin’s administration has been far more unpredictable in its religion-speak. The Education Department, the Interior Ministry, and the Nationalities Ministry are only a few departments that have received press coverage for undemocratic statements on religious groups and religious life. In September of 2000, directors of higher education across the country received a letter from the Education Ministry outlining a wide range of accusations against foreign religious organizations and calling on educational establishments to take measures to prevent the infiltration of such religious groups into the schools. In one of its more outrageous claims, the letter accused 700 religious groups of military espionage and separatist activity. The letter was signed by the deputy minister, Yelena Chepurnykh. More recently, the department issued a license to a Roman Catholic school on the condition that its rector be replaced. The Interior Ministry, since it received authority for dispensing visas, has denied visas to many foreign religious workers who had not experienced problems with previous applications. In December 2002, accounts of a draft report on religious extremism prepared by a working 18

Failing Freedom group under the supervision of Nationalities Minister Vladimir Zorin and Chechen administration head Akhmat Kadyrov appeared in the press. The draft, as leaked to the press, focused primarily on radical Islam but also mentioned a sharp increase in the number of religious groups in general, asserting that their activity constituted a security threat. There was specific mention of Roman Catholics, whose activities were causing “tension,” and of Jehovah’s Witnesses. These ministries, in sum, lack a coherent vision for religious matters. While Putin, as of late, has expressed fewer illiberal views on the role of religion and religious freedom, his administration still confounds his message with inconsistent, incoherent discourses. Religious Discourse and Parties One might wonder why the Russian administration fails to offer a cohesive program for religious freedom and a coherent construction of the relationship between nation and relation. More broadly, one might question why the consolidation of human rights, particularly religious freedom, fails to find consistent support among state elites in Russia. Most celebrated explanations of the enigmatic nature of Russian elites, particularly of Putin, revert implicitly to rational choice explanations. Russian elites are taken to be self-interested actors who seek to ‘buy’ votes or power by appeasing different constituents with audience-tailored messages. This explanation does have some plausibility – it suggests that democratic claims sometimes pay and sometimes do not – but it fails to explain why Russian elites, as opposed to elites from other democracies, are not forced to bring a consistent platform on religion and the nation to bear in the election season and while in office. It seems that Russian elites do not suffer politically for the inconsistency or undemocratic character of their political remarks. Ironically, Russian elites breach the norms of religious freedom in their discourse in part because of democracy, as it has developed in Russia. In particular, the Russian political party system, a natural outgrowth of democratic governance, has underserved its role in structuring distinct beliefs among elites and in forming an opposition to the executive on matters of the nation. Instead of focusing our attention only on selfinterested politicians, it is equally vital to look at institutions that constrain choices by forming an opposition. The importance of opposition provided by party systems has not been fully appreciated. The leading culprits, in this respect, are those 19

Burden or Blessing? who advocate the adoption of consociational arrangements to contain conflict and ensure respect of minority rights.4 Consociational arrangements are a set of rules designed to include all major political players in the decisionmaking process. The consociational institutions are designed to bridge highly divided societies and increase the prospects for a healthy democratic polity. Limiting competition, however, has serious ramifications for the long-term life of a democracy. The fundamental problem with constricted competition is that it undermines the creation of a credible and vigorous opposition. As Valerii Solovei, a leading Russian expert on social movements, asserts, in “democratic societies, power and opposition represent two sides of the same coin. Their simultaneous function, cooperation and contestation, form the core of the political process.”5 “Within system” oppositions serve a variety of important functions in democratic states. Most critically, opposition groups facilitate the peaceful transfer of power among political groups in the wake of elections,6 but they also serve as a check on the discourse and practice of the state, in the election cycle and between elections, by voicing opposing positions on policy fronts and participating in debates on these topics. The crux of my argument, then, is that a strong party system can disclose the state’s discursive and behavioral practices by formulating responses, forcing debate, and laying out an opposition platform. Even discursive practices of the state that are not voiced in the legislative or electoral process but are communicated by the state directly to the public, at times a very small segment of the public, are most easily opposed by parties. A watchful media and international groups can also play a role in checking the discourse of the state, but within-system institutions, i.e. the party system, retain more internal legitimacy, pack more electoral punch, and are better situated to respond with an opposing platform. Party systems marked by programmatic parties that show continuity from election to election are essential for holding the state accountable in its discourse, articulating an oppositionist position or strategy and committing the state to an opposing position. The political space becomes defined and positions are more readily attributed to each group or individual contesting for power. The issue of nation and religion becomes a topic for Habermasian discourse, a discourse that centers on the values and morality of decisions (though it may be unreasonable to expect it to meet the Habermasian ideal a conversation free from power struggles and hierarchies, and prevents a scramble by elites to adopt a position on the issue that will reap the most benefits, post hoc. We can expect to see little debate on the proper church-state relationship and 20

Failing Freedom religious freedom when political parties are weak and elites gain too much autonomy. Thus, we can say that a weak party system, by failing to inhibit inconsistency in the administration, is indirectly responsible for undermining the nation building process and the development of liberal democracy. In a strange twist of fate, then, certain types of democracies (i.e. those with weak party systems) can be detrimental to the development of human rights. Despotic states with opposition at any level, such as the level of civil society, have shown stronger commitment to religious freedom than states with weak parties and weakness in other sources of opposition.7 In democracies, the best way to ensure a discursive commitment to religious freedom may be to support a competitive party system. The Case of Russia How has this scenario played out in Russia? In looking for evidence of party system competitiveness, it is vital to examine the system during and between elections. As an electoral matter, the loss of opposition in Russia’s party system is transparent from the gradual escalating strength of pro-Kremlin parties. In 1993, Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar's party, Russia's Choice, won 5 percent of the vote. In 1995, the party that backed President Boris Yeltsin, Our Home Is Russia, fared better, pulling in 15 percent. In 1999, the Kremlin's hastily assembled Unity party clinched 23 percent, putting it head-to-head with the Communist Party. In early 2002, the balance of power shifted strongly in favor of Putin's Kremlin when Unity merged with a former rival, Fatherland-All Russia. Now tagged as United Russia, the new centrist party controlled over 140 of the Duma seats, more than any other faction. In the 2003 parliamentary elections, United Russia, having received Putin’s blessing, managed around 40 percent of the vote. A second Kremlin-creation, Rodina, performed well, garnering about 8 percent of the vote. The latter two parties are not only pro-Kremlin, they are new to the political scene, indicating a dearth of party continuity in the system. This electoral recounting, though, does not tell the full story. In the Duma, few parties have consistently advanced a platform that played the foil to the Kremlin’s double-speak. Unity had unusually great influence in the Duma after the 1999 election. Soon after the election, many deputies switched alliances to back Unity. In an extraordinary move, Unity formed a loose alliance with the KPRF, granting its members key 21

Burden or Blessing? committee posts in return for their support. The KPRF became significantly more moderate in its economic programs as a result.8 Other major winners of the election – most significantly, The Fatherland-All Russia bloc, the SPS, and the LDPR – began singing pro-Putin chants, discrediting their commitment to their own agendas.9 The Fatherland-All Russia bloc lost a full third of its Duma representatives to other parliamentary factions. Even the LDPR kowtowed to Putin, despite Zhirinovsky’s candidacy in opposition to Putin. His party, LDRP, once the hard-nosed pro-Russian, anti-semitic party, became a vocal supporter of Unity and Putin, voting in favor of Putin’s proposals more than any other party for the year 2001.10 McFaul notes that all of Russia’s parties gravitated toward the center in this election.11 In a comparison of party platforms, another Carnegie scholar found convergence among party positions for nearly every major issue.12 Both the Fatherland-All Russia bloc and the SPS acted less like a party than a coalition of officially independent political organizations, some with close connections to Yeltsin’s government and others in obvious opposition to it; attempts to turn it into a party after the election led to serious rifts within the coalition. Today, the popular kid on the block, United Russia, prides itself on its lack of ideology. In summary, since the late-Yeltsin era, nearly every party has been unwilling to appeal to the electorate with an articulate party platform and to retain a commitment to any platform once in power. The end result, I contend, is that no single party has had both significant influence in the Duma and a strong commitment to a platform that could force the state into developing a consistent construction of the nation and religion and point out the inconsistencies in the discourse of the administration. The low levels of competition within the Russian party system, evident in both the lack of long-term stability of parties and their inability to articulate and maintain a platform in office, leave Putin and his administration without an opposition to constrain their discourse. They are not forced to express overtly a normative commitment to religious freedom or a sustained vision for the relationship between state, nation and religion. Even though Putin, himself, has advocated more consistently for religious tolerance in recent times, he has failed to forge a long-term vision on religion for his administration. There are considerable reasons to be concerned by the double-speak of the Russian administration. The consolidation of human rights in postcommunism is highly dependent on the willingness of the enforcers to endorse human rights as a valued commodity and to execute the laws and rules accordingly. Their willingness to promote religious freedom 22

Failing Freedom depends on the position of religious freedom that they endorse, both as norm-bearing agents and as rational beings. In fact, in Russia, as well as other post-communist states where religious freedom has failed to develop religion fully, the problem lies not in the laws – most of them very similar to one or more Western democratic laws – but in the execution of the laws. The way in which the nomenklatura are encouraged to view the nation and the relationship between nation and religion will impact the way they manage religious organizations and religious freedom within the state. Discourse theory tells us that linguistic cues from elites indicate to the enforcers which underlying principles they ought to use in administering the laws. Simply put, the lack of cues from the administration to lower level bureaucrats – the nomenklatura – for how to construe the relationship between religion and nation and how to envision religious freedom leave these enforcers with no guiding framework for interpreting and executing laws on religion. When the administration fails to offer a coherent program for religion in the public sphere, the nomenklatura will act on other cues or on other motives, many of which do not consistently uphold religious tolerance as a valued end. Notes 1

“Putin nadeetsiya chto Pravoslaviye ukrepit Rossiyu,” Interfax, Moscow, 6 January 2000. 2 Nikolas Gvosdev, “Vladimir Putin’s Faith,” UPI, 24 February 2004. 3 “Vladimir Putin: Pravoslavnaya—eta chast nashye kulturii,” Portal-credo.ru, 7 January 2004. 4 See Lijphart, Politics in Europe: Comparisons and Interpretations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969) and Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977). 5 Valerii Solovei, “Politicheskii konformizm na grani kholuistva,” Literaturnaya Gazeta, 24 May 2000. 6 For Samuel Huntington, the peaceful transfer of power is at the heart of the democratic process and a sign that a new democracy is consolidated. The turnover of the reigns of government indicates a strong commitment to the democratic process by the major political actors. See Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 266-68. 7 For example, Zimbabwe and Singapore are considered religiously free while still maintaining semi-despotic structures.

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Burden or Blessing? 8

Robert G. Moser, Unexpected Outcomes: Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Representation in Russia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001), 152. 9 Stephen E. Hanson, “Instrumental Democracy: The End of Ideology and the Decline of Russian Political Parties,” in The 1999-2000 Elections in Russia. Their Impact and Legacy, eds. Vicki L. Hesli and William M. Reisinger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 163-185. 10 This was reported in an article by Chinyaeva in the Jamestown Foundation (2002) and reproduced in Johnson’s Russian List (JRL), May 2001. 11 McFaul, “Russian Electoral Trends,” 49. 12 See Tatyana Krasnopevsteva, “Comparing Party Platforms,” Russia’s 1999 Duma Elections: Pre-election Bulletin No. 1. (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 2 December1999).

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Part 2 Church – State Relations CHAPTER 4

Unity in Diversity: Civil Society, Democracy, and Orthodoxy in Contemporary Russia Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The Nixon Center

The above title is derived from a letter written in 2003 by Patriarch Aleksii II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, where he stated, “Unity in diversity is a richness with which Russia has been endowed by the Lord.” This formula was originally developed as part of Trinitarian theology to reconcile multiple persons within a single divinity, and was later applied in an ecclesiastical sense to explain how multiple languages, cultures and practices could co-exist within a single church. It is also useful, however, in understanding how the Russian Orthodox Church today copes with questions of pluralism and democracy. Why does it matter what the Russian Orthodox leadership thinks about democracy and civil society? It is because religion plays a unique role in civil society, since religious leaders speak to two constituencies. The first is to members of their specific faith community. Even accepting the lowest estimates of those who consider themselves to be active members of the church, this means that the Russian Orthodox Church is the single largest national non-governmental actor in the Russian Federation with over 10 million active members, far outstripping any political party or other voluntary association. A democracy cannot consolidate if the major civil society actor in the country views its worldview as being antithetical to that of democracy. The second constituency is to members of the general public. Religious leaders often function not only as leaders of a specific faith community but as public intellectuals, especially when they are expected to provide moral or cultural answers. For the absolute majority of Russian citizens, even those who do not consider themselves believers or active members, the Russian Orthodox Church is seen as the conveyer of national values, morals, and culture.

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Burden or Blessing? Democratic institutions cannot take root in a society that views democratic values as alien to the national culture. Either the national identity must be changed in order to accommodate democracy, or democracy will fail to plant lasting roots into the society. It is interesting that two extremes in Russian political life – extreme Westernizers and extreme Eurasianists – both contend that democracy is antithetical to Russian culture. For the Westernizers, in order to be modern, Western, and democratic, Russia must cease being “Russian.” For the Eurasianists, Russia cannot become a democracy and remain uniquely Russian at the same time. Both have turned to the Orthodox Church for support of their positions. To the surprise of many both within Russia and without, for the last fifteen years the mainstream of Russian Orthodoxy has accepted and in some cases even blessed moves toward the creation of a civil society and political democracy. Some have put forward an explanation that this is simply a reflection of the church’s traditional subordination to political authority – accepting the new state of affairs because this is what first Mikhail Gorbachev and then Boris Yeltsin wanted. Others have argued that the church’s acquiescence has been merely tactical; that vocal proponents of an autocratic monarchy and a totalitarian society reflected the “real” Orthodox view. But it does seem that the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church is in fact prepared to recognize that civil society and democracy are in fact compatible with Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Church and Civil Society Orthodox Christianity – like Talmudic Judaism and Sunni Islam – is a religion which looks to tradition to legitimize action. Unlike Protestant Christianity, possessing an ahistorical approach to the primary sources, allowing for re-interpretation or re-invention, Orthodox thinkers, like lawyers in a common law setting, must locate precedents in which to situate their conclusions. This is done either with an appeal to previous historical practices, or by presenting an approach which is said to be aligned with or in accordance with the mindset of the Tradition, what in Greek is termed as “phronima.” And something which might be seen as an innovation can gain greater acceptance through repetition. So the church – and here I refer to the church in an institutional sense of those people and institutions whose acts are seen as setting the norm, rather to the church in a theological sense of the royal priesthood of all believers – 26

Unity in Diversity can adapt and reshape traditions if authoritative figures promote the acceptance of new interpretations of traditional values. While one can speak about Orthodox ethics and theology, many formulations can be vague and are subject to interpretation and clarification. While the Russian Church may appear monolithic to outsiders, there is a good deal of internal debate and the church lacks a papal structure capable of imposing a single interpretation in the absence of a widely-held consensus. In recent years, debates over the canonization of the imperial family, and even the final text of the 2000 “Bases of the Social Conception of the Russian Orthodox Church” led to compromise formulations.1 The Russian Orthodox Church, a as an institution, is one of the largest Christian organizations in the world, in terms of membership and geographic scope. Unlike more ethnically and territorially compact bodies such as the Roman Catholic Church of Poland, the Lutheran Church of Sweden, or the Orthodox Church of Georgia, the Russian Orthodox Church’s heterogeneity has led to some degree of regional and sectoral differentiation. Linked to this is the fact that after the collapse of the USSR and the introduction of a multiparty system, there was no single party or group that could speak authoritatively on behalf of Orthodoxy. Orthodox activists, intellectuals and lower clergy gravitated to different political and social movements. On a variety of critical questions – especially related to economic and political reform – there was no clear position that could be defined as being “Orthodox,” especially when factoring in the experience of other Orthodox communities outside of Russia (such as in Greece or Cyprus) or the evolution of Orthodox thought in the Western diaspora. Even when there was a clear social or ethical position, usually expressed in terms of an ideal outcome, there could be significant disagreement on the best way to achieve that goal. In the early 1990s, therefore, the Russian Orthodox leadership made a critical decision to abandon any effort to create a unified “Orthodox” social and political movement and instead accepted the notion that there could be an acceptable range of social and political opinions that fell within Orthodox parameters. This removed the institutional church as a political competitor and instead established the church as a more neutral arbiter. This immeasurably strengthened the church’s role as one of the leading forums for debate and discussion over the future of Russia. It is here that the Orthodox Church has helped to shape the development of civil society. The church not only possesses a developed intra-church network of parishes and dioceses, schools, newspapers, 27

Burden or Blessing? pilgrimages, economic outlets, councils and meetings, but has taken the lead in developing all-Russia civil society fora that interface with other religious groups and “secular” society. Indeed, the Orthodox Church has attempted to position itself as the coordinator for civil society. Thus, in its Social Doctrine, the Church calls for “peace and cooperation among people holding various political views.” A spokesman for the patriarchate, V. Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin, pointed out in November 1999 that the Orthodox Church in contemporary Russian society sees its role as promoting “a dialogue of public forces and their leaders in the interests of uniting its forces in service to the fatherland and the nation.”2 Since 2001, the Russian Orthodox Church has also offered its assistance to the European Union as an “important institution of civil society” capable of sponsoring a dialogue with the public on all types of social questions. Endorsement of civil society has not been merely tactical. The Orthodox Church also theologically accepts the definition of civil society as the “space” between the state and government and the family, a collection of autonomous actors. The Social Doctrine notes: Christian socio-governmental ethics demands that a certain autonomous sphere should be protected for a person where his conscience might remain the “autocratic” master, for it is free will that ultimately determines salvation or destruction, the way to Christ or the way away from Christ. Thus, the right to belief, to life, to family, is what protects the inherent foundations of human freedom from the arbitrary rule of outside forces. These internal rights are complimented by and ensured by other, external ones, such as the right to freedom of movement, to obtain information, and to create property both to possess and utilize. The Church has also accepted that political power in Russian society is bestowed via election, following the ancient maxim that “glas naroda, glas Bozhii” (the voice of the people is the voice of God). When Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk sent a congratulatory message to Vladimir Putin after his 2004 re-election as president, the prelate noted, “Your re-election … by a general majority of votes is clear witness that the citizens of our country support the course you have chosen for the renewal and strengthening of Russia, increasing her authority on the international arena and the creation of an honorable standard of living for our people.” 28

Unity in Diversity Yet the church endorsed no one platform or candidate. It instead encouraged citizens to make that decision. Patriarch Aleksii, prior to casting his own ballot, released this message: “Every citizen, believer and nonbeliever, young and old: all should take part in voting. Everyone should make known their own will, and give their vote to that candidate who, in their own opinion, is worthy to stand at the head of Russia for the next four years.”3 This echoes his message for the 2000 elections, when he also invoked the notion of personal responsibility to encourage Russians to vote: “ … every citizen, especially the Orthodox, is called to assume responsibility for ... the country and the people, for their present and their future. ... The Lord has placed their fate in the hands of the people, who are endowed with the divine-resembling freedom.”4 It is very true that the Russian Orthodox Church is not comfortable with complete pluralism and absolute liberty. The Church maintains that “universal” moral norms and tradition should place limits on the exercise of freedom. In December 1999 the patriarch stated: We should realize that the God-given, age-old moral norms are not mere words. Their violation leads to a collapse of the individual personality, society, and the state. But their observance brings harmony and peace not only into the social realm, but also into the human heart. Russian Democracy or Managed Pluralism? Universal morality is often best expressed, in the church’s view, through long-standing traditions and cultures. Thus, it has a view of civil society which gives predominance to the established traditions of the Russian people. In January 2003 Metropolitan Kirill labeled the Orthodox a “decisive majority” of Russian society, and said that “the stability of society depends on how relations between the majority and various minorities develop.” This leads to a vision of “managed pluralism” for state and society, where the number of options made availability is consciously limited, usually for the sake of stability or consensus in society. Those outside of Russia may not be satisfied with the “managed pluralism” offered by the Russian Church’s vision of a democratic society, one that limits the range of acceptable political behavior and discourse. Others may also charge that emphasis on consensus prevents 29

Burden or Blessing? genuine political competition. Nonetheless, the Church has played an important role as a moral voice, reminding Russia’s post-Soviet leadership that they are, in fact, accountable for their stewardship of the public trust. By sketching out an Orthodox understanding of politics, a further step has been taken in ensuring that the democratic reforms introduced during the last decade can become firmly rooted in the public square. This process is likely to continue, and perhaps even accelerate, in the coming years. Notes 1

This document, popularly referred to as the “Social Doctrine,” contains the current stance of the Russian Orthodox Church on a wide variety of issues, from church-state relations to bioethics. While it is an authoritative document only for those Orthodox Christians who fall under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, its interpretation of Orthodox tradition in light of modern conditions has found a good deal of acceptance among other Orthodox Churches. The complete text of the document is contained on the website of the Moscow Patriarchate, at http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/sd00r.htm. 2 Very Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin, “Active Neutrality,” in Nezavisimaia Gazeta, November 10, 1999. 3 “The Most Holy Patriarch Took Part in the Voting for the President of Russia,” press release of March 14, 2004. 4 “Television Appeal of the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’ Aleksii II in Connection With the Elections for President of the Russian Federation,” March 25, 2000.

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CHAPTER 5

Orthodoxy and the Societal Ideal Vsevolod Chaplin, Moscow Patriarchate – Russian Orthodox Church∗

In the years following the demise of totalitarian regimes, Russia and other Eurasian nations have witnessed an unprecedented flourishing of Orthodox thought. In Russia alone, the relationship between the Church and society is discussed each year in hundreds of books, thousands of newspaper and journal articles, at dozens of conferences, and in a multitude of Internet publications. This issue is often brought up by Church officials, Orthodox clergy, theologians, sociologists, politicians, members of Orthodox social movements, physicians, artists, religion scholars, military leaders, popular singers, and members of many other vocations and walks of life. Orthodox Christians are wrestling with issues related to the role of the Church and the place of traditional moral and spiritual values in today’s society and political structure. Unfortunately, Western society is not aware of the progress being made in Russia, perhaps due to a lack of translated materials. This paper presents the results of the Church’s involvement in the discussion of social issues and the contributions this dialogue can make to the challenges facing the world today. Democracy Can Further the Mission of the Church Having experienced totalitarianism and state-imposed atheism, Orthodox Christians view democracy as capable of furthering the mission of the Church. Only a handful of Orthodox believers reject democracy because, in their opinion, it does not leave room for the God-given authority of the tsar. Freedom of speech and conscience provides an avenue for preaching the Gospel and expressing the Orthodox position on social issues. Democratic mechanisms allow Orthodox Christians to influence the government through their participation in elections and civil activism. In the past few years Church officials, enthusiastic clergymen, and 31

Burden or Blessing? Orthodox social organizations have caused significant changes in the way politicians view such issues as pornography, television violence, sex education in public schools, moral climate in prisons, business ethics, and so on. As Russia moves towards the development of a civil society, spirituality and morality are entering the public arena. This process is taking place partly because issues of importance to Christians are voiced in election campaigns and the national political dialogue. In the early 1990s, Russia had witnessed the rise of moral nihilism and dissoluteness. As the official communist morals began to lose their grip on the people, they were replaced by an ideology of personal freedom and success at any cost. In a time of redistribution of national property, the economy was dominated by “wild capitalism,” characterized by an uncontrollable thirst for material gain. The tyranny of immoral techniques prevailed in politics making it possible for a person without a clear agenda to be elected to any government position. This was accomplished by pouring funds into television ads and eliminating political opponents through “media wars.” Schools and mass media were permeated by propaganda of sexual immorality, financial gain as the sole purpose of life, and the success of prostitutes and leaders of the criminal world. Ideals of patriotism, community, family, faith, and social justice became unspoken taboos. Everything that had to do with social morality was dismissed as “a remnant of the communist past.” Unfortunately, this ideology found many supporters in society. People were so tired of totalitarian government control that they were willing to accept anything different from the dull reality of the Soviet lifestyle. It was not until the mid-1990s that most Russians began to realize that the nation was headed down a path of self-destruction. Much of this change of perspective can be attributed to the influence of the Church whose clergy and laity have continually reminded the society of the dangers of having an extreme gap between the wealthy and the poor as well as the importance of personal morality, social responsibility, and peaceful and legitimate resolution of political, economic, and international conflicts. The Church was able to carry out its social mission and voice its concerns largely because of the freedom of speech and newly-established democratic principles. The Orthodox Societal Ideal and the Issue of State Governance Numerous Western politicians and scholars have rightly argued that Orthodox Christians perceive democracy as an acceptable political 32

Orthodoxy and the Societal Ideal system rather than a societal ideal. Due to the recent resurgence of Orthodox social thought, members of the Orthodox Church are becoming increasingly bold in advocating this view. What is the crux of the above mentioned view of democracy? First of all, it advocates the doctrine of the preference of God-sanctioned authority. This doctrine is based on the Biblical narrative, the Church tradition, and the Fundamentals of the Social Conception of the Russian Orthodox Church, a document which systematically outlines the approach of just one of the branches of the Orthodox Church to social issues. This document proposes that the highest form of governance is the Old Testament rule of judges who acted in accordance with Godsanctioned authority rather than through the use of coercive force. Monarchy is presented in the document as the second-best type of societal structure. While maintaining the idea of God-given authority, monarchy replaces God’s direct governance with the rule of a human person. Finally, contemporary secular democracy is viewed as yet another type of governance which rejects the religious nature of authority and declares the government’s independence from God. The only type of societal structure viewed more negatively than democracy is anarchy. Thus, the preferred type of governance, according to the Church’s view, is God-sanctioned authority which recognizes its religious mission. The society is also expected to take seriously its religious mission because in the Russian and Byzantine Orthodox traditions nations are viewed as unified communities of faith. A society which rejects Godgiven authority and promotes autonomy from God is, to put it mildly, far from ideal. This is the reason why it is problematic for an Orthodox Christian to accept as the norm the destruction of the religious foundation of the societal ideal, the exclusion of religion from public life, and the confinement of religion to the private realm. The second reason why it is unlikely that the Church would ever come to view democracy as an ideal political system is because democracy is rooted in competition. The Orthodox Church has purposefully stayed away from participation in political campaigns, court arguments, and market competition. The Church’s ideal is the nation as a living organism, a unified body that sees disagreements as unnatural and unhealthy. The New Testament ideals of community, unanimity, and rejection of competition influence the lives of Orthodox Christians and shape their view of society. It does not make any difference whether Orthodox Christians constitute a majority or a minority, whether they shape an Orthodox nation or represent an insignificant group. They consider themselves to 33

Burden or Blessing? be a people of God, a Church community which has the right to protect its peculiar social structure. In a country where Orthodox Christians are a majority, they should have the right to shape the essence of public life while ensuring the rights of minorities. In a case where Orthodox Christians constitute a minority, they strive to protect their subculture, which allows them to follow their social preferences. It may surprise Western Christians, but in this aspect of their views Orthodox believers are more similar to Muslims and Orthodox Jews. Societal, political, and religious pluralism as well as competition stand in stark contrast to the goal of the Orthodox ideal of “sobrati rastochennaya,” or to “gather the scattered,” meaning to unite people regardless of their ethnic, political, and social differences. Orthodox Christians are convinced that this goal is in agreement with the spirit of the Gospel, and any movement toward this ideal is viewed as a positive social development. Once this principle is understood, it is easy to see why the leadership of the Orthodox Church calls for moderation in political dialogue, peaceful resolution of international conflicts, and rejection of extreme methods of economic competition. Perhaps it would not be an overstatement to suggest that the Orthodox influence is partly responsible for the Russian people’s lack of respect for political pluralism, parliamentary debates, aggressive court hearings, and media wars. Finally, another aspect of Orthodox consciousness which affects the perception of the societal ideal is its eschatology. Social optimism, faith in the progress of the human race independently from God, or the drive to establish God’s Kingdom on earth is uncharacteristic of Orthodox Christians. The Orthodox tradition takes seriously the apocalyptic prophesies which warn Christians that good men will gradually depart from God and evil will increase. Orthodox Christians realize that the victory will not be achieved until Christ returns to earth. Moreover, continual secularization of public life, dominance of godless ideologies, escalating violence and disease, and other facts of recent history strengthen the views of Orthodox Christians. If the Book of Revelation is to be taken seriously, the world cannot be significantly improved. Thus, it should not surprise anyone that Orthodox Christians are often skeptical about the social changes which improve people’s economic conditions but fail to draw them nearer to God. A society in which earthly interests of sinful Man are given preference over God and His Truth cannot be viewed positively by an Orthodox believer.

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Orthodoxy and the Societal Ideal On the Threshold of the Values Debate Western colleagues have repeatedly tried to convince members of the Orthodox Church that the above mentioned “peculiarities” of the Orthodox societal ideal will disappear as East European nations reach a higher stage of social and economic development. However, in the last 15 years these nations have witnessed a renaissance of a distinctive Orthodox thought in theological, political, academic, and literary circles. Furthermore, such authoritative scholars as Gerhard Robbers point out that religion is making a comeback into the center of social life not only within but also outside the Orthodox world. America and Russia are drawing closer to each other not simply because Russia is becoming more like the United States. To the contrary, the immanent threat of terrorism has awakened Americans to the reality that the rest of the world had been dealing with. What proved to be a logical response to the terrorism threat was an emphasis on religious motivation in domestic and foreign policy. The same emphasis on religious motivation is evident in Islamic nations, Korea, Japan, and even Europe. It is possible that radical secularism is characteristic only of those societies that are experiencing what Anna Akhmatova wittingly called “vegetarianskiye vremena” (vegetarian times). Conrad Rizer once said that the crucial issues in the age of globalization are those that concern power and values. Indeed, the increasingly interdependent global community is characterized by a quick exchange of ideas and the clash of societal ideals whose proponents fight to achieve political, military, and informational dominance in the world. In the context of an ongoing ideological struggle, the issue of the role of religion in government and society becomes especially important. It is not a mere coincidence that the so-called “question of hijabs” has become a point of contention in France, Belgium, Germany, and Turkey. It appears that advocates of radical secularism are trying to escape from history by attempting to resolve a serious worldview debate with a series of desperate bans. According to a statement by the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mustafa Ceric, secularists are experiencing a crisis of arguments. A merely administrative approach to resolving these issues will prove to be a temporary solution. Russia is also experiencing a dialogue about religion’s role in public life. This discussion is primarily fueled by members of the liberal intelligentsia who embraced the persecuted Church under the Soviet regime but have now come to oppose it. For instance, Lev Levinson, a 35

Burden or Blessing? human rights activist, in a 1997 article in Express-Khronika entitled “There is No Sex in Holy Russia,” discusses the Church’s stance on sexual immorality and accuses Orthodox clergymen and laity of obscurantism. Levinson calls Orthodox believers “gendarmes for Christ,” “professional witch hunters,” “the great inquisitors,” and so on. In contrast to the Church’s teaching, Levinson promotes “intentional sexual freedom” which is, in his view, “a necessary component of political, economic, and ideological liberty.” The role of religion in the military and in public schools, partnership between government and religion, the Christian influence on business ethics, the limits to the use of religious symbols in disrespectful works of contemporary artists, and the possibility for Church values to be represented in politics – these are some of the issues being hotly debated today. Perhaps an important question to answer is whether it is possible to avoid the struggle between the “world of faith” and the “world of disbelief,” a war being promoted by Osama bin Laden. Orthodox Christians do not wish for this war to continue. Their desire to build a harmonious society extends beyond their immediate communities and into the world as a whole. However, in order to avoid what Samuel Huntington has called the “clash of civilizations,” proponents of all worldviews, including secular humanists, must give up their ambitions of achieving a monopoly on societal structure and recognize the right of each group to its distinctive way of life, values, and aspirations. A true plurality of social structures in the global community, in which no one would impose their model of government and society, may be the answer to a peaceful coexistence of nations, religions, worldviews, cultures, and societal ideals. Notes ∗

Translated from the Russian by Konstantin Petrenko.

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CHAPTER 6

The Resurgence of Russian Orthodoxy and its Implications for Russian Democracy Irina Andre Papkov, Georgetown University

A decade and a half after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the political and economic transformation of its largest successor state, the Russian Federation, has not been resolved to the satisfaction of transition scholars. Arguably, the major task facing Russia analysts today continues to be to define the type of political system that has replaced communism in what remains a highly important geopolitical space. Did the freewheeling democracy of the Yeltsin era give way to a semiauthoritarian regime? Has Vladimir Putin succeeded in creating a sort of neo-Soviet political system under the trappings of what has become known as “managed pluralism?” Or is Russia, however falteringly, a democracy? The debate is not an academic one. At the turn of the millennium, Russia appeared on the brink of irreversible economic and social collapse, leading many experts to predict the disintegration of the state.1 Yet, six years after the default of 1998, the Russian economy has recovered and continues to grow at unprecedented rates; the war in Chechnya, while grinding on, has not led to a general Caucasian uprising against the federal authorities. Moreover, the Putin government has succeeded in implementing a series of reform packages aimed at ensuring that future economic growth does not remain hostage to high oil prices. In short, Russia has stabilized and is increasingly in a position to actively reassert its influence in the CIS region as well to exercise a greater degree of flexibility in its relations with the rest of the world. The issue then becomes to understand the continuing evolution of the political system that has served as the context for this admittedly unexpected outcome – an economically resurgent, democratic Russia is a much more attractive partner for the United States than a Russia that presents a successful authoritarian alternative, which, taken together with

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Burden or Blessing? the Chinese experience, may seriously undermine the proposition that democracy and the market are part of the same indivisible package. I will not argue here that Russia is a consolidated democracy. I will, however, propose that, for all of the alarm bells in the Western press and despite Colin Powell’s concerns to the contrary, the prospects for Russia’s descent into an autocratic abyss are less significant than one would gather from a surface analysis focusing solely on current events. However, the type of regime that is emerging is unlikely to be one that will be fully recognizable as a democracy modeled on the Western European or American secular state. In part, the trajectory of the Russian political system will be conditioned by a factor often noted but not fully appreciated: the cultural dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church and its close but uneasy relationship with the government. It is a truism that the collapse of communism resulted in the radical restructuring of the Russian economic and political context. It also resulted in an equally radical restructuring of the permitted value system – the reintroduction of religious freedom after eighty years of official atheism represented a cultural shift whose magnitude and potential impact on the political system was not immediately recognized. Despite vigorous competition from other religious denominations, the Russian Orthodox Church has managed, over the last fourteen years, to capture and solidify a hegemonic position as the dominant national religion, whose renaissance can be quantitatively observed through the thousands of reopened or newly built churches, monasteries and educational institutions. If in the early 1990s the heightened profile of the Orthodox Church in Russian life could be treated as a sociological curiosity whose importance paled in the face of ostensibly more important socioeconomic issues such as privatization and democratization, it is no longer possible today to analyze Russia’s trajectory without taking the religious question seriously. Fourteen years of effective catechization and social activism, together with a consistently high level of media coverage, have contributed to making the Orthodox Church the most highly respected actor within Russian society today, far outranking the government and the army as the institution garnering the trust of most Russians, whether believers or not. Furthermore, the explosion of religious publications, Orthodox parish schools, gymnasiums, sermons and other forms of outreach have had the effect of radically changing the demographic of church attendees; around the year 2000 priests began to notice the startling fact that the majority of parishioners were no longer old ladies but young adults, many of them with a higher education. 38

Implications of the Russian Orthodox Resurgence Thus, there are indications that the upcoming generation of leaders is a generation that has been profoundly shaped by the upsurge of Orthodox religiosity, as Orthodox values have begun to penetrate societal discourse to an extent unimaginable even five years ago. Here, it is appropriate to consider the bankruptcy of Western-style liberal ideology to the Russian context, demonstrated most recently by the utter failure of the liberal opposition to muster anything resembling a coherent alternative to the pro-Putin political juggernaut during the 2003-2004 electoral cycle.2 Wholesale adoption of the liberal political and economic package appeared to have resulted in a decade of chaos; this perceived failure led naturally to a reorientation of Russian political thought towards domestic sources of ideology – in the twenty-first century, seeking answers in the national historical experience has become respectable, and no longer the exclusive provenance of such eccentrics as Vladimir Zhirinovskii. In this atmosphere, the Orthodox Church, capitalizing on its traditional role as the caretaker of “truly Russian” culture, has clearly captured a leading role in the formation of a post-Yeltsin set of values that are increasingly shaping the ways in which Russia’s political and cultural elites think about the ideal political and economic system. The question then becomes whether or not there is some quality to so-called “Orthodox values” that might be conducive to the flourishing of democracy in Russia. The instinctive reaction to this question among many Russia scholars is an emphatic “of course not.” They point to the fact that the Orthodox Church has traditionally been a pillar of autocracy in Russia, to such an extent that it was regarded as the “handmaiden” of the pre-revolutionary tsarist state. Moreover, it is argued that for most of the communist era the church hierarchy submitted to the atheist state, declaring communism’s goals compatible with the Orthodox worldview, in sharp contrast to the staunchly pro-democratic ideology of the Catholic Church in Poland. Finally, the argument goes, since 1989 the Orthodox Church has demonstrated a pattern of intolerance towards religious pluralism and an unwillingness to accept a political system in which the religion is legally separate from the state. With the shift of power from a nominally Orthodox Yeltsin to the actively practicing believer Putin, the Church has been accused of succumbing to the temptation of lobbying for a fundamentalist Orthodox state, leading the faithful away from democratic ideals towards something resembling a theocracy. In short, there are plenty of familiar arguments to suggest that the Orthodox Church is an anti-democratic institution; in that case, if, as I propose, the Russian elites are increasingly likely to be guided by at 39

Burden or Blessing? least the rhetoric of Orthodox values, the prospects for democracy surviving in Russia are weak indeed. It is true that the current official attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church towards democracy, as expressed in the Social Doctrine adopted in 2000, is openly skeptical of the ability of this type of government to bring Russia’s citizens the social and material well-being it promises.3 Enumerating possible forms of government and the Church’s assessment of each of them, the Church praises theocracy as the highest attainable form of human association. Democracy, in contrast, is regarded as better only than anarchy. The drafters of the doctrine apparently view the Church as the locus of a monolithic culture, which seeks to bring everyone towards unity and civil consensus, a state of affairs not possible under democratic conditions that by definition encourage the voicing of opposing views. In this conception, a one-party system is more inherently acceptable to Orthodoxy than a multi-party democracy. Given the apparent effort by the Putin administration to transform the propresidential party Edinstvo into the permanent party of power, this view takes on particularly ominous connotations for Russia’s political trajectory. An exclusive focus on the Social Doctrine risks obscuring a number of important aspects of Russian Orthodoxy that may contribute to a more positive outcome for Russian democracy. First and foremost, the idea that the official policy view of the Russian Orthodox Church towards democracy has always been negative does not stand up against the historical record. The Republic of Novgorod is conventionally pointed to as an example of early Russian democracy; what is often missed is the fact that the prince of Novgorod was not the only elected leader – the Orthodox Archbishop of the city-state was also elected directly by the people. During the Muscovite era, the Patriarch and other bishops played important roles in the composition of the periodic Zemskii Sobor, an elected assembly that would gather at important political junctures to pass legislation and, on one notable occasion in 1613, to elect the first Romanov Tsar.4 Moving to the modern era, popular portrayals of the preRevolutionary church as one of the willing pillars of Russian imperial autocracy have been successfully debunked by historical scholarship in recent decades.5 It is true that Peter the Great abolished the Patriarchate and instituted lay oversight over church affairs, in effect turning the Orthodox church into part of the imperial bureaucratic apparatus. The clergy, however, regarded this state of affairs as an unnatural situation of captivity, from which by the end of the 19th century the Church actively 40

Implications of the Russian Orthodox Resurgence sought to free itself. Caught up in the Revolutionary ferment of 1917, the hierarchy insisted on the convocation of an elected Council made up of both clergy and laypeople, whose purpose was to institute radical reforms that would redefine the relationship of the Church to the state, monarchical or otherwise, first and foremost by reinstituting the Patriarchate and providing the Church with its own independent leadership structure. It is important to note that, conceptually, the Church Council of 1917 was timed to coincide with the aborted Constitutive Assembly that was supposed to determine the shape of post-autocratic Russia. Significantly, the Church invited Kerensky to the opening session of the Council, at which time leading bishops welcomed him and other members of the Provisional Government in terms that left no doubt as to their positive attitude towards democracy and indeed joy at the fall of the oppressive tsarist regime. Even after the fall of the Provisional Government, the Church refused to support pro-monarchist forces in the civil war, condemning the Bolsheviks only when it became clear that the policies of that party were aimed at the extermination of the Church. It is also worth recalling here that the Russian Orthodox Church belongs to a much larger international community of Orthodoxy, represented by a total of eighteen “Local” Orthodox Churches, usually organized along ethno-national lines. As a member of this larger community, the Russian Church is bound to consider external practices in the formulation of its own internal policies. For the Orthodox Church as understood in this broad sense, neither the support of nor opposition to democracy has ever been an issue of defining dogmatic importance. Indeed, the experience of the other Orthodox communities provides the Russian Church with numerous examples of majority Orthodox populations living successfully in democratic conditions: the Greek Orthodox Church happily coexists with a democratic state in Greece, as do the Romanian, Bulgarian, and Georgian patriarchates with the governments of their respective countries. The extent to which Orthodox values might be compatible with political democracy may also be examined from the perspective of the Church’s own governing structure. Though strongly hierarchical, the Church is ultimately organized along conciliar principles: major questions of dogma and official policy are debated by councils, at which decisions are made based on majority vote. The councils are also responsible for the election of bishops to fill vacant dioceses. At least in theory, an organization that recognizes elections as an integral part of its own operations cannot reject this same principle when it comes to secular politics without risking a debilitating internal crisis. Finally, the 41

Burden or Blessing? decision of one council is always open to revision in the future. In this respect, although the 2000 Council approved the Social Doctrine’s clauses concerning democracy, a future council is fully entitled to overrule them and to put forth its own vision of the ideal government type. For the moment, though, the Social Doctrine of 2000 represents the official view of the Russian Orthodox Church on democracy, as well as on a whole host of social issues ranging from terrorism to equitable income distribution. Admittedly, the above-mentioned negative characterization of democracy in the document is a cause for concern. However, a closer reading reveals two aspects of the Social Doctrine that suggest that, despite its conservatism, the Church is not going to openly lobby for the imposition of an authoritarian government, and may in fact find itself in opposition to the state if Putin or his successors actually attempt to formally impose non-democratic rule. First, the Social Doctrine does not call for the Orthodox faithful to actively oppose democracy by staging a theocratic revolution; rather, believers are asked to recognize that this form of governance is a reflection of the general sinfulness of society. Second, and more importantly, the Doctrine contains another clause that has made the federal government extremely uncomfortable: recognizing the negative consequences of its collaboration with the KGB during the Soviet era, as of 2000 the Church claims the right to call for civil disobedience should the government act in a way that the hierarchy considers unjust.6 This last point is particularly important. There is strong evidence to support the claim that the viability of a democracy is ensured by the flourishing of a meaningful civil society that engages the state over questions of justice and serves as the generating force of constructive opposition to government policies.7 Analysts of Russian civil society have increasingly come to characterize the Orthodox Church as the largest and most influential non-governmental actor – if this is the case, the civil disobedience clause in the Social Doctrine obligates it to counterbalance the state in a manner that may result in a surprisingly positive democratic outcome.8 Even if the political situation in Russia deteriorates to the point where there is no check against the executive coming from the legislative or judicial branches, the Orthodox Church may, theoretically, provide a modicum of balance against unbridled autocracy through appealing to the conscience of the ruler/ruling class and, if necessary, calling for civil disobedience; the likelihood of this occurring is strengthened by the centuries-old tradition in which the Church has viewed itself as the check against strong personal rule. 42

Implications of the Russian Orthodox Resurgence In this scenario, then, attempts on the part of Putin to behave as an outright authoritarian run the ruler risk of encountering a powerful social force ready and willing to oppose him. Taken in this light, the on-going canonization of thousands of victims of the communist regime can be, in part, read as an explicit expression of the Church’s desire to keep alive the memory of what a full-blown authoritarian regime can result in. There are increasing signs that the government is fully aware of this and is preparing to act out its authoritarian proclivities by clamping down on the Church itself, seeking to transform the clergy once more into an arm of the bureaucracy as it had been for two centuries under the Russian Empire.9 In the end, I would like to suggest that thinking about the political trajectory of the Russian Federation requires rejecting the currently dominant Putin-centered approach and considering deeper processes ongoing in the Russian political and social scene. First, limiting the analysis of whether or not Russia is on the slippery slope towards authoritarianism to a guessing-game based on Putin’s actions obscures the fact that sooner or later his administration will be succeeded by a generation of leaders whose values will have been formed largely in the post-Soviet era. It then becomes crucial to understand the content of this new value system: To the extent that it has been partially informed by an increasingly powerful Orthodox Church it becomes necessary to grapple with the attitudes of this institution towards democracy. Characteristic of most issues in the still unsettled Russian landscape, it is impossible to ascertain with certainty that the Church is a pro-democratic force. However, on balance the conservative tendencies within the organization are, I propose, outweighed by institutional factors that may, in the end, make the Russian Orthodox Church an unexpected guarantor of a Russian-style democratic society. Notes 1

For example, speaking at Georgetown University in the fall of 1999, Paul Goble of Radio Free Europe expressed his belief that the renewed violence in Chechnya signaled the imminent disintegration of the Russian Federation. 2 Christopher Marsh, Helen Albert, and James W. Warhola, “The Political Geography of Russia’s 2004 Presidential Election,” Eurasian Geography & Economics 45, 4 (2004): 262-280. 3 Available online: http://www.mospat.ru/chapters/conception/

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Burden or Blessing? 4

The Orthodox Church was also involved in the elections of Boris Godunov and Vasili Shuiski. 5 See, in particular, G. L. Freeze, “Handmaiden of the State,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36, 1 (1985). 6 Noteworthy here is an interview with Georgii Poltavchenko, the President’s Representative for the Central Federal Okrug, in which he laments the fact that the Church saw the need to include this clause in the Social Doctrine. “Tserkov’ mozhet effektivno uchavstvovat’ v reshenii vazhnyh gosudarstvennykh voprosov: Beseda s Polnomochnym predstavitelem Preszidenta Rossii v Tsentral’nom federal’nom okruge Georgiem Sergeevichem Poltavchenko,” Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii 2 (2002): 71. 7 On links between civil society and democracy see, for example Iris Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 8 Nikolas Gvosdev, “‘Managed Pluralism’ and Civil Religion” in Civil Society and the Search for Justice in Russia, eds. Christopher Marsh and Nikolas Gvosdev (Landham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002), 83. 9 At the 2004 symposium, from which this collection of essays comes, Lawrence Uzzell and Andrei Zubov – two scholars with very different approaches to the issue – expressed their concern that the state was preparing to bring the Orthodox Church to heel, as it were.

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CHAPTER 7

Centralization of Power, Fragmentation of Belief: Statist Relativism in Post-Soviet Russia Lawrence A. Uzzell, International Religious Freedom Watch

The February 9, 2004 issue of Novaya Gazeta included a warning of the “danger to society now coming from the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.”1 It reported increasing complaints “that the Church is acting more and more aggressively toward the populace.” Is that “danger” genuine, and if so how serious is it? Will state favoritism toward the Patriarchate become so systemic that post-Soviet Russia essentially turns into a theocracy, with Orthodox Christianity replacing Marxism-Leninism as the compulsory state ideology? My reading of the evidence has led me to two conclusions; the first is widely accepted, the second I expect to be controversial. The first is that state discrimination in favor of the Moscow Patriarchate is already common; that articulate elements within Russia’s political and cultural elites are working to increase and consolidate such discrimination; and that some of these elements would indeed like to make Russia a theocracy. My second, more debatable thesis is that this process has already passed its peak; that the current pattern of discrimination has more to do with buying off clergy of various faiths as useful interest groups than with imposing a monolithic belief system; and that there is no serious chance of the Russian state’s becoming a theocracy. The present model of church-state relations is one in which the state favors not just the Moscow Patriarchate but other religious factions as well. I use the word “factions” rather than “religions” because the forms of discrimination that we now see are not based on theological boundaries; the state favors some Baptists over other Baptists, some Jews over other Jews, and the Sovietized Moscow Patriarchate over all rival claimants to the country’s Orthodox Christian heritage. The state makes these distinctions on the basis of its own political interests, not any religious creed; in order to benefit from state discrimination a religious 45

Burden or Blessing? faction must accept that the state’s interests come first and must avoid challenging the state on issues that the latter considers important. The focus is not on promoting a moral or spiritual vision of the good life, but on providing financial or regulatory advantages to those clerics who agree to play by the state’s rules. The whole system might be summed up under the label “statist relativism.” Statist relativism meets resistance from two very different kinds of Orthodox believers. There are those who really believe in the 1993 Russian Constitution’s guarantee of individual freedom of choice in religion, including the freedom of a Tatar or Uzbek to accept Orthodoxy as well as that of a Slav to reject it. At the opposite pole are groups such as the Union of Orthodox Citizens (Soyuz Pravoslavnikh Grazhdan, or SPG). The Union’s press secretary recently attacked a key official of the Putin administration for encouraging what he calls “Russian Islam,” i.e. a moderate version of Islam that would not be threatening to Russia’s social and political institutions. He called the very idea “anti-Orthodox.” While that vision may fairly be called theocratic, its political appeal seems to depend more on secular nationalism than on classic, patristic Orthodox teachings. The SPG’s co-chairman is Sergei Glaziev, a professional economist and one-time Communist deputy known for his criticisms of Yeltsin’s and Putin’s free-market reforms. Even though some of the SPG’s proposals are too maximalist for the Moscow Patriarchate to endorse publicly, there remains a substantial overlap between their policy agendas. Both want further statutory restrictions on religious minorities; a national program of Orthodox catechization via the state schools; a far more sweeping return of lands and buildings confiscated from the Church by the Soviet state; the return of confiscated art objects and other valuables still held by state museums; and more tax exemptions for the Church’s agricultural and business activities. How much concrete progress have they made? Much has been written about the trend away from religious freedom in Russia since the mid-1990s; there can be little doubt that disfavored religious organizations have faced increasing difficulties. What perhaps deserves more emphasis is that the pattern of discrimination and repression is not what one would expect from an Orthodox Christian theocracy. There has been virtually no correlation between the degree to which a religious entity disagrees with Orthodox doctrines and the likelihood that the state will crack down on that entity. For example, exotic groups such as the Moonies have not faced significantly greater difficulties than Protestants or Roman Catholics. The frequent violations of religious freedom look more like those of England under King Henry 46

Statist Relativism in Post-Soviet Russia VIII than like those of Calvinist Geneva. The primary agenda is not to stamp out heresy but to promote the material and ideological interests of the state. The would-be theocrats’ greatest victory came in 1997, when they enacted a law which on paper severely restricted the rights of all religious bodies which had been suppressed by the Soviet regime before the dawn of the Gorbachev reforms. The implementation of that law, however, soon proved to be comparatively mild in practice. Restrictions on religious freedom have since grown tighter, but those who support the law in its full rigor still have good reason to be dissatisfied. Geraldine Fagan, of the Forum 18 News Service, wrote a useful overall survey last July of the current state of religious freedom in Russia.2 She emphasized the lack of a coherent, systematic nationwide policy, pointing out that “when decisions are made which violate believers’ rights, they are largely informed by the political agendas and personal loyalties of local politicians. The particular nature of a religious belief seems to play little role in restrictions – such as visa bars being imposed – groups being far more likely to be targeted if they are dynamic and visible, whatever their beliefs.” Despite the Putin administration’s drive to centralize decision-making on other issues, she noted that “Russia still has no centralized state body dealing with religious affairs… Religious freedom concerns are consequently resolved in an ad hoc manner, if the Kremlin is involved at all, or are more usually left to government departments and/or regional administrations.” Proposals for a coherent state policy on religion have continued to be discussed since then, and the Putin administration’s key decisionmakers have continued to ignore them. The Putin administration’s lack of action gives little ground to think that the would-be theocrats of the Moscow Patriarchate are dictating its decisions. In 2002 the Russian parliament considered a proposal to return to the Moscow Patriarchate all the real estate, including monastic farmlands, which had been confiscated from it by the Soviet regime. When it became clear what huge areas of land were at stake – as many as 7.4 million acres – the idea was dropped. The Patriarchate suffered another defeat in the spring of 2003, when the Duma rejected legislation which would have allowed religious organizations to gain full ownership, free of charge, of buildings and lands used for religious purposes. The Putin administration opposed the bill. Compared with the land and tax questions, the place of Orthodoxy in the state schools has provoked much more public debate – and that debate has been much more passionate. In late 2002 Minister of 47

Burden or Blessing? Education Vladimir Filippov proposed a new subject for Russia’s public schools – “Foundations of Orthodox Culture.” Though ostensibly a neutral history of the undeniable contributions of Orthodox Christianity to Russian history, art, music, literature, etc., the new course and its associated textbook were denounced by their critics as a thinly disguised attempt to indoctrinate children into Orthodox dogma. The proposed curriculum drew vigorous opposition not only from secular human-rights activists but from Russia’s Muslim leaders. Ravil Gainutdin, the country’s most influential mufti, stated publicly that he and his coreligionists “were alarmed by the fact that the Ministry of Education approached this question unilaterally, recommending all schools to introduce the study of the foundations of only one of the traditional religions. This could lead to serious conflict.”3 It soon became clear that resistance to the new curriculum was strong enough to keep the Moscow Patriarchate from winning a nationwide, monopoly position for itself in which Orthodox catechization would be compulsory. The Patriarchate’s Metropolitan Kirill met with leading representatives of Russia’s other recognized “traditional” faiths in the spring of 2003, and all agreed that schoolchildren should be offered a voluntary course on the “Foundations of Religious Doctrines,” in which a single textbook would provide information on Islam, Buddhism and Judaism as well as Orthodoxy (see chapter 8 in this volume for more on this issue). The Moscow Patriarchate seems to have made more progress with the Russian armed forces and security agencies than with the school system. Its main focus, as far as one can tell from the outside, is on using the armed forces not as a vehicle for proselytizing or evangelizing nonOrthodox servicemen but as yet one more source of subsidies for itself. Just as it has concentrated on reclaiming and restoring church buildings all over Russia, the Patriarchate has given a high priority to installing Orthodox chapels on military bases; as of April 2003 the Defense Ministry calculated the number of such chapels to be 37. The Patriarchate has also sought to revive the formal institution of military chaplains. Russian nationalism is a fundamental component of the Moscow Patriarchate’s current worldview – especially among priests who are attracted to working with the military – and this of course makes it easier for the Church and the “siloviki” to find a common language. At a June 2003 seminar for Orthodox priests working with soldiers, it was simply taken for granted by the participants that there was a direct correlation between the Orthodox religiosity of conscripts and their willingness to 48

Statist Relativism in Post-Soviet Russia serve in the army – and they clearly thought that this was a good thing. The public campaigns by human-rights activists for the rights of conscientious objectors, or against the deadly practice of “dedovshchina” or violent hazing within the military, have received virtually no support from the Patriarchate. In fact, the Patriarchate’s public statements about issues such as a young man’s duty to accept military conscription or about atrocities against civilians in Chechnya could often be mistaken for press releases from the Ministry of Defense. Even more clearly in its interaction with the military than other areas of church-state relations, the Moscow Patriarchate seems satisfied to accept the role of junior partner. Nevertheless, there are areas of potential friction. Anticipating the subsequent attempts to introduce Orthodox teachings into the publicschool curriculum, in 1996 the army began to open departments of “Orthodox culture” in some of its military academies. The defense ministry’s exclusive focus on formal ties with the Orthodox Church has led to public protests; mufti Ravil Gainutdin asked, “Does our army really consist only of Orthodox Christians?”4 By the end of the 1990s, opinion polls suggested that the interest of military officers in religion was falling. One survey found that some 39 percent of senior officers opposed the idea of military chaplains, and 41 percent opposed the creation of religious parishes within military bases.5 These figures are strikingly high given that the high command had consistently supported cooperation with the Patriarchate. The formal institution of a military chaplaincy has yet to move beyond the stage of discussion, so in that area the Russian military is still more “secular” than that of the United States. Even more secular are Russia’s mass media. Orthodox activists have tried sporadically to ban television programs which they find particularly offensive, such as the film “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Nearly all such attempts have failed. The Church’s near-total lack of influence is especially striking in light of the decline of the media’s independence in other respects. In recent years all the nationwide television networks have come firmly under the Putin camp’s control, but Putin’s people have made no visible effort to use that control to promote Orthodox Christian moral or aesthetic standards. As one commentator observed last year in an essay for the liberal Moscow daily Nezavisimaya gazeta, “In spite of its flirtations with the Russian Orthodox Church, the political elite of Russia is in fact oriented toward completely different ideals and values. One of the most convincing proofs of this is the un-Orthodox – to put it mildly – flavor of most of the mass media.”6 49

Burden or Blessing? To a remarkable degree, what I call “statist relativism” has been largely accepted by the Patriarchate itself. For example, the “law of birth” – the idea that an ethnic Russian should be considered “Orthodox by birth” even if he has never been baptized – in effect substitutes a crudely ethnic concept of Church membership for the Orthodox faith’s own historic canons. As the commentator Aleksandr Soldatov put it, this novel doctrine “excludes proselytism ‘in both directions’: the Russian Orthodox Church refrains from missionary work among, for example, those who are ‘traditionally’ Muslims in return for their not trying to attract ethnic Russians to Islam. By this interpretation, religion is deprived of its most important attribute – faith in the absoluteness and universality of the revealed truths which it confesses, i.e. faith that these truths are ‘for all’ and not only ‘for our culture.’ Religion is thus transformed into a collection of ‘myths and legends of the peoples of Russia.’”7 The Patriarchate’s current emphasis on the ethno-cultural component of Russian Orthodox Christianity is understandable, and it is that emphasis which most easily enables the Church to appeal to the tens of millions of ethnic Russians who identify themselves as “Orthodox” though they never go to church and often do not even believe in God. But in the long run, as religious-studies scholar Nikolai Shaburov said, the ethnic emphasis erodes “the very understanding of what it means to be Orthodox….Orthodoxy for many citizens is now only a marker of cultural identity….The fact that more than half of the populace call themselves Orthodox is merely a result of the post-communist fad of ‘Russianness.’ With the further growth here of capitalism, which by its very nature is international, this ‘ethno-confessional complex’ will melt away. The genuinely Orthodox Russians…number 3 to 5 percent.”8 The partnership between the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate is not only an unequal one, but one in which the inequality will probably grow even more pronounced in the years ahead. The bishops were not willing to criticize Boris Yeltsin or his policies even when both were deeply unpopular, and it is not likely that they will suddenly begin to defy a president who has tighter control of key institutions than any Russian or Soviet leader since the 1980s. Though the Patriarchate will continue to provide its symbolic blessing at presidential inaugurations, it will of course play no role in choosing Putin’s successor. The Kremlin on the other hand, with its growing tendency to treat all social institutions as extensions of the state, will almost certainly meddle in the decision about who will succeed Patriarch Aleksi.9 The threat to a free 50

Statist Relativism in Post-Soviet Russia and robust civil society is all too real – not because the Church is swallowing the state, but vice versa. Notes 1

“Bozhii promysel: Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov kak khozyaistvuyushchii subyekt,” Novaya gazeta, 9 February 2004. 2 Geraldine Fagan, “Russia: Religious Freedom Survey,” Forum 18 News Service, Oslo, Norway, 29 July 2003. Available online: http://www.forum18.org/. 3 Quoted by Nikolai Mitrokhin, “Russkaya pravoslavnya tserkov i postsovetskie musulmane,” polit.ru, 18 November 2003. 4 Sergei Mozgovoi, “Siloviki blagochestiya,” Otechestvennye zapiski, 1 (2003) 5 Ibid. 6 Mikhail Shakhov, “Klerikalizatsiya Rossii ne grozit,” NG-Religiya, 18 February 2003. 7 Quoted in Aleksandr Soldatov, “Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov na puti k monopolizatsii ‘dukhovnogo prostranstva Rossii,” Otechestvennye zapiski, 1 (2003). 8 “Liudi otvernutysa ot Pravoslaviya, yesli Pravoslavie ne otverntusya ot vlasti,” Novaya gazeta, 12 January 2004. 9 For a recent example of an unsuccessful attempt by the state to meddle in a religious body’s internal decision-making, see Geraldine Fagan, “Old Believers Summoned by Ex-KGB Before Church Leadership Election,” Forum 18 News Service, 17 February 2004.

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CHAPTER 8

Russian Orthodoxy, the Russian Ministry of Education, and Post-Communist Moral Education Perry L. Glanzer, Baylor University and Gregori Kljucharev, Russian Academy of Sciences

The fall of the Soviet regime brought numerous changes and challenges to Russia’s public school system. One of the most important concerned the matter of vospitanie, variously translated as upbringing, moral education, or character education. In 1991, the Russian Ministry of Education disbanded the communist program of moral education including the communist youth organizations and compulsory ethics courses. As a result, Russia’s public school administrators and teachers found themselves in a moral vacuum that many perceived had tragic results. They wanted to fine new sources of vospitanie they convey within a public education system that now accommodated ideological pluralism. The emerging ideological pluralism in the country and in the public schools also posed a dilemma for the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The ROC welcomed the demise of communism’s monopoly over education, which allowed it to rebuild its own forms of Christian moral education by starting Sunday schools and independent religious schools. Yet, the ROC now faced a new challenge with regard to Russia’s public schools that it had never faced. Would the Ministry of Education allow a religious or ROC contribution to vospitanie in public schools? Moreover, would the ROC attempt to recapture the influence it enjoyed over public education before the Revolution or would it seek a different role in Russia’s pluralistic system of education? The evolution of the answer to these questions is the subject of this paper. Russian Orthodoxy and Moral Education in Post-Communist Russia Desperate for help with moral education, the Russian Ministry of Education initially turned to whoever would offer them aid. For instance, 53

Burden of Blessing? in the early 1990s it approved curriculum and training provided by two groups, a group of Evangelical Protestant para-church agencies, denominations, and colleges known as The CoMission and a group affiliated with Sun Yung Moon’s Unification Church, the International Educational Foundation (IEF). The foreign groups, unlike the ROC, possessed the resources to produce a new curriculum and the volunteers to provide the training necessary to implement it. Though they initially welcomed these groups, the Russian Ministry of Education never envisioned supporting a particular branch of Christianity. Therefore, the Ministry of Education mandated that classes in moral education take place as part of a voluntary, supplemental curriculum and not part of the mandatory curriculum. Families could then choose the type of vospitanie they wanted for their children. Any church-state problems, the Ministry believed, would be solved by the voluntary nature of the supplemental classes. The ROC’s response to the presence of foreign religious groups in Russian public schools varied. The ROC clearly and consistently stated its opposition to the involvement of the Unification Church in the schools. By contrast, the Church initially established a cordial relationship with the CoMission and even approved its curriculum. When the ROC learned that the CoMission was interested in converting teachers and planting Protestant churches, however, its attitude changed. The ROC leadership then successfully encouraged Russian Ministry of Education officials to rescind their official protocol with the CoMission in 1995. Soon after the fall of communism, the Church leadership also continually contended that the ROC deserved a special relationship with Russian public schools. The ROC eventually set forth its official position at the 2000 Jubilee Council of Bishops in the Basic Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church. The document states, “From the Orthodox perspective, it is desirable that the entire educational system should be built on religious principles and based on Christian values.” Nonetheless, it begrudgingly acknowledged the secular public school system and claimed it was “willing to build relations with it on the basis of human freedom.” Moreover, the document cautions against the use of the system to promote anti-religious or pagan worldviews and indicated a preference for what we can call the public and structural pluralism options: The Church believes it is beneficial and necessary to conduct optional classes on Christian faith in secular schools, at the request of children or parents, and in higher educational institutions. The 54

Post-Communist Moral Education church authorities should conduct dialogue with the government aimed to seal in the legislation and practice the internationally accepted right of believing families to the religious education and upbringing of their children. To this end, the Church has also established Orthodox institutions of general education and expects that they will be supported by the state.1 At many points, the vision articulated by the ROC appears to support a robust civil society and the idea that the child, in the words of a famous U.S. Supreme Court decision, “is not the mere creature of the state.” Some important ambiguities in the document, however, raise questions about the ROC’s intentions. Although the ROC supports the right of other religious schools to be funded, its Social Concept never specifies whether the ROC supports optional classes on the Christian faith for Protestant or Catholic groups or if it supports religious education classes for Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist groups. Furthermore, with regard to vospitanie, the document articulates a vision of cooperation that is closer to the Orthodox Church’s past ideal of symphonia than to a vision of public equality or public pluralism. It claims: School is a mediator that hands over to new generations the moral values accumulated in the previous centuries. School and the Church are called to co-operation in this task. Education, especially that of children and adolescents, is called not only to convey information. To warm up in young hearts the aspiration for the Truth, authentic morality, love of their neighbours and homeland and its history and culture is a school’s task no smaller but perhaps even greater than that of giving knowledge. The Church is called and seeks to help school in its educational mission, for it is the spirituality and morality of a person that determines his eternal salvation, as well as the future of individual nations and the entire human race. In another place the document suggests that one of the areas of cooperation between church and state concerns “spiritual, cultural and patriotic education and formation.” Zoe Knox claims such parts “refer to the Orthodox Church and do not extend to other faiths” and that “the Patriarchate does not want other faiths to influence educational curriculum…”2 If this claim is true, the ROC not only longs for public funding of Russian Orthodox schools and voluntary after-school 55

Burden of Blessing? religious classes, but it also wants some sort of religious minimalism in Russia’s public school. It is on the subject of the degree of plurality acceptable to the Church that the Orthodox vision and the Russian Ministry of Education’s vision initially showed the most tension. The Ministry of Education’s Shifting Strategy By the late 1990s, however, the Russian Ministry of Education once again changed its approach to moral education. In 1998, it demonstrated a desire to return to a centralized government program of vospitanie by reinstating the Administration of Upbringing Work. In September 1999, it published the Program for the Development of Upbringing in the Russian System of Education for 1999-2001. According to the Program, the state needed to clarify its role in relation to the upbringing work of parents, nongovernmental organizations and other aspects of society. Interestingly, the Program did not even mention the ROC as a source of vospitanie. Moreover, the Program continually acknowledged the need to respect and support a “diversity of upbringing systems.” The acceptance of both civil society and pluralism appeared to be at least one new reality that remained in Russia’s approach to moral education. During this time, however, the ROC continued to offer to help with vospitanie in Russian public schools. Eventually, the Ministry of Education rewarded its persistent knocking on the public school door. On July 4, 1999, a letter issued by the Russian Ministry of Education signaled an official change in attitude toward the ROC. It set forth the possibility of “offering religious organizations the opportunity to teach children religion on an extracurricular basis in facilities of state and municipal educational institutions.” Later, the ROC and the Russian Ministry of Education sponsored a set of joint meetings to make this possibility a reality. Vladimir Filippov, the Russian Minister of Education, commented on this partnership at the end of his presentation during the 2000 Christmas readings: I should like to express my confidence that joint efforts on the part of the schools and the church, these two primary, mutually reinforcing pillars of spiritual life in our Fatherland, will ensure the enhancement of the level of education and spirituality of society on a high level in keeping with the needs of the individual, the needs of the country’s future, and the enduring ideals and values of Humanity and the Orthodox faith.3 56

Post-Communist Moral Education Filippov and the Ministry of Education eventually supported these words with concrete actions. On October 22, 2002, at a church-state conference the Russian Ministry of Education introduced a new course called “Fundamentals of the Orthodox Culture” into the core curriculum. Filippov officially introduced the class to regional offices and administrations of education through a letter that included a sample of course content. It outlined an eleven-year curriculum for the course. The course outline’s authors recommended that, ideally, children would study the material for 544 hours over those eleven years. They also advised schools to invite priests to serve as the teachers of the course. According to Filippov’s letter, regional officials and principles would have the option of including the course in the required curriculum. The introduction of the course produced a storm of controversy. For example, Aleksey Volin, deputy head of the Russian governmental administration, argued: It is dangerous to introduce classes in Orthodox religion in a multiconfessional and multiethnic country like Russia…. As a secular state, the Russian Federation should not allow any religious teaching in a state school. I think this document reeks of the Middle Ages and obscurantism.4 Critics also pointed out that the suggested outline of the course imitated an Orthodox theology course taught in ecclesiastical seminaries. Consequently, they maintained, “under the guise of a secular religious studies discipline, children will receive a purely confessional theological education.”5 Certainly, it did not demonstrate neutrality toward various religious groups. At one point, the curriculum stated, “The graduate of the ninth grade should be able to explain…distinctives of the apocalyptic notions of destructive religious sects.” Consequently, critics maintained that the textbook forced Orthodoxy on people through the required curriculum instead of merely providing it through private schools. Vladimir Filippov later issued a response to critics in the form of a new order further defining the subject. He clarified that the curriculum was not obligatory but would only be taught as an elective subject and would require the consent of the parents.6 Despite the Ministry of Education’s strong support for the initiative, opposition to the course remained strong. Lyubov Kezina, Head of the Moscow Department of Education, has consistently opposed the teaching of the course. Moreover, the St. Petersburg and Ekaterinburg districts also have not supported the initiative. Nonetheless, newspapers have 57

Burden of Blessing? reported support in other districts. At this time, the extent to which the course will be implemented in other regions or who the teachers will be remains to be seen. Civil Society, the Orthodox Church and Russian Public Education: Points of Unity and Tension Currently, the Russian Ministry of Education and the ROC exhibit both agreements and disagreements about the best vision for the relationship between religion, morality and education in Russia’s public system of education. Clearly disagreement exists over the funding of religious schools directly. Despite ROC statements, the Russian government does not fund religious chools. With regard to religious instruction in public schools, however, both the Ministry of Education and the ROC agree. The Russian Ministry of Education supports the possibility of religious groups offering religious education in voluntary classes outside the required education program. In addition, the joint efforts regarding the Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture class demonstrate that both groups are seeking to work together with regard to religious and moral education. At most points, both visions appear consistent with certain Western concepts of civil society. The Ministry of Education vision incorporates a broad conception of civil society in that it seeks to include both secular and religious groups and organizations. Families can choose a form of religious education. The voluntary nature of the programs, one can also argue, protects a family’s right choose the comprehensive vision of the good in which they want to train their children. In contrast, approaches to moral education as used in America’s public schools often only focus upon finding common moral teachings within a secular framework. When it comes to the question of justice and civil society, the main tension with both the Ministry of Education and the ROC visions concerns the degree to which both groups will attempt to show favoritism toward Orthodoxy and/or allow religious classes by other groups. Both groups clearly believe that the history of Russia necessitiates that Russian Orthodxy needs special attention. For example, Leonid Grebnev, Deputy Minister of Education, noted at a January, 2004 academic conference on the topic, “The Study of Orthodox Culture in Secular Schools,” 58

Post-Communist Moral Education There is an opinion that since Russia is a multi-denominational country it is therefore unacceptable to emphasize one religion even if it played a significant role. However, if Russian is the required language then why not introduce everyone to Orthodox values regardless of their religious affiliation.7 The ROC social document also reinforces this view. What appears unclear is the degree to which the Ministry of Education and the ROC will allow other religious groups to influence moral education in the required curriculum or to offer supplemental education classes. If the partnership between the ROC and the Russian Ministry of Education ends up promoting state-favoritism toward Orthodoxy, we would argue that such a situation could begin to foster an unjust civil society. In addiition, the ROC may also find its cause and reputation undermined by this partnership. As a general rule, state support often translates into loss of popular support for the state-supported church. Moreover, this close partnership, as such close partnerships between church and state often do, may mute or dilute the Orthodox Church’s prophetic voice to the state. Since this state favoritism toward Orthodoxy may also fail to nurture a just civil society, this situation could undermine the Orthodox Church’s public witness with regard to matters of justice. Overall, it still remains to be seen to what extent the ROC will maintain, in Evert van der Zweede’s words, “a fundamentally different vision of society and of the good life than the one imaginable within the framework of civil society,”8 or whether the Orthodox Church will support including a plurality of religious approaches to vospitanie in the public schools. Notes 1

Basic Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, XIV.3. All quotes are taken from the English translation of the document found at the ROC’s official website: (http://www.mospat.ru/chapters/e_conception/). 2 Zoe Knox, “The Symphonic Ideal: The Moscow Patriarchate’s Post-Soviet Leadership,” Europe-Asia Studies 55 (2003): 582. 3 Vladimir Filippov, “The Russian system of education at the turn of the millennium: the acquisition of spirituality’,” Russian Education and Society, 43 (2001): 14. 4 “Russian official criticizes proposed Orthodox studies in schools” BBC Monitoring International Reports, 15 November 2002.

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Burden of Blessing? 5

O. Nedumov, “Russian schools cease to be secular: church and government workers force children to study Orthodox theology,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 18 November 2002. 6 The Russian Ministry of Education, Informative message (Order) N 14-5287ин/16 of 22.10.2002. 7 “The Orthodox Culture will be in the core curriculum of secondary schools,” Izvestiya, 28 January 2004, 12. 8 Ernst Van der Zweede, E., “‘Civil Society’ and ‘Orthodox Christianity’ in Russia: a Double Test-Case,” Religion, State and Society 27 (1999):30.

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Part 3

Civil Society

CHAPTER 9

The Church and the Struggle for Renewal: The Experience of Three Moscow Parishes Wallace Daniel, Baylor University When the Orthodox Church experienced a renaissance in the last years of the Soviet state, top church officials saw the parish as the key to that rebirth. As the fundamental religious unit of the Church, the parish offered a concrete means to rebuilding the Church’s role in Russian society. In theory, the parish provided a connection to a people searching for new moorings in a sea of chaos. In such circumstances, strengthening the parish became a vital, tangible form for establishing a sense of community and hope at the most elemental level of the Church and the society. This paper will explore these efforts, the hopes and expectations such acts of reconstruction entailed, the difficulties they encountered, and the tensions, both within the Church and within society, they provoked. The paper will contend that these efforts suggest both the possibilities and the limitations of the development of civil society in Russia. My study deals with such interrelated issues by exploring three Moscow parishes and the individuals who led them. By relating biography, religion, and history, such an approach will examine the stories of the leaders of these parishes, the dilemmas such leaders confronted, their efforts to rebuild their parish communities, and their differing views about the past and the future. My main subjects and their parishes include: Fr Georgii Kochetkov and his former parish of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Pechatniki; Mother Serafima and her parish at the famous Novodevichy monastery in Moscow; and Fr Maksim Kozlov and the parish at the University Church of the Sacred muchenitsy Tat’iana at Moscow University. The Parish: The Church in Civil Society In the early 1990s, as the Orthodox Church began to recover its voice and its own sense of identity, Church leaders focused on the parish as a 61

Burden or Blessing? central part of this process. It was at this time that Metropolitan Kirill attempted to define the most pressing issues facing the Church. He spoke in detail about the revival of parish life in Russian towns and villages, especially where a sense of community hardly existed and “people did not know each other.” Such conditions created a moral and spiritual vacuum, a sense of isolation, and the “lack of any center.” Metropolitan Kirill especially underscored the importance of rediscovering a sense of “miloserdie” (compassion) and of charity. “We must have,” he said, “a revival of these elements; they are essential characteristics of a Christian community,” qualities that had to be implanted at the center of the parish.1 Children, the elderly, and the infirm were among the most vulnerable people in Russian society, and in recreating the parish community, Metropolitan Kirill believed, concern for them ought to be the organizing principle. In articulating such principles and needs, Metropolitan Kirill and other Church leaders expressed in 1990 what might be called a rudimentary social doctrine of the Orthodox Church. Their principles also related to the development of civil society; the charity, compassion, energy, community, and social action they proposed to nourish and encourage are key elements in the creation of social capital. But whether the theoretical statements and goals these leaders voiced could be effectively put into practice remained an open question. The three Orthodox parishes in Moscow that are the subject of my discussion differed not only in their leadership but also in their purposes and operations. Located in various parts of the city, they appealed to diverse groups of people, spoke to different social needs, and interpreted the Church’s mission in varied ways. Looking at the Church’s religious heritage, they aspired to recover different aspects of that past, seeing in diverse parts of Church tradition elements on which to build, to reconnect, and to retell their own stories. Stories, as historian and geographer David Lowenthal has superbly shown, are never immutable, set in stone, or fixed forever in the imagination, but are always alive, changing, and part of the present.2 The nature of the worshippers was distinctive. Most of the people who attended worship services in Kochetkov’s church were young; by my estimate eighty to ninety percent of the congregation of about three hundred in a typical service were between twenty and forty years of age; a few people are older and children are also present. As in other settings, women made up a large percentage of the worshippers, perhaps about sixty-five percent. Socially and intellectually, most of the people clearly belonged to the intelligentsia; their dress was not working class and a 62

The Church and the Struggle for Renewal large number of them carried either sacred texts or theological works. Many of the members knew each other. These people had already created a bond, and they participated as members of an urban community. These were not isolated individuals but were united by their gathering and their outward displays of friendship. For Fr Georgii, decentralization and greater independence must be coupled with a new vision of society and the world. He sees the sources for such a vision in Orthodoxy’s own theology – in which the workshop, the school, and the parish are icons of the Trinity, and in which, through the Trinity, all forms of oppression and injustice are opposed. Russia now needs this commitment more than ever, he has written, beset, as it were, by nihilism, loss of community, extreme individualism, internal devastation, alienation, lack of respect for human life, the crushing of all traditions, and trampling down of “refined and higher values.” The Church cannot ignore such conditions. It had to counter this nihilism, this “flight from life,” with values that lay at the core of the Orthodox faith.3 At Novodevichy Monastery, the community to which Mother Serafima relates, in many ways, is similar. According to Mother Serafima, a large number of the women who visit the monastery come seeking help with the brokenness and social dislocation they have to live with nearly all the time.4 The problems they bring to her provide clear testimony of the suffering that many Russian women have to bear within their families. The daily visits that they make to the monastery speak to the intense demoralization that presently characterizes parts of Russian society: “Many women come here asking for help and needing counsel,” Mother Serafima said, “because they don’t have the means to live or because their husband or son often gets drunk and treats them badly. Sometimes these women simply ask me to bless or pray for them – to give them strength to deal with their hardships.” Some of the women who come face difficult practical decisions in trying to survive in the harsh economic realities of present-day Russia. Many of these women are financially destitute and often are tempted to sell their apartments to gain additional funds. Mother Serafima and her nuns counsel them: “I try to get them to think beyond the moment and consider all the consequences; I always ask them ‘What will you do after you sell? Where will you live?’ It is often obvious that these women do not have any place to go and will have to live in the railway station, the city gardens, or the metro.” Sometimes women come to the monastery searching for food or needing protection from their husbands; a few come to learn about religion. But, according to Mother Serafima, “by far 63

Burden or Blessing? the largest numbers of women who seek me out do so because of instability in their families.” When the parish at Moscow University began operation in the early spring of 1995, it had little more than an empty space in which to build. By the early summer, the parish numbered about sixty-five people, a steady increase that to Fr Maksim Kozlov signified hope. As the parish became better known, he was convinced, as it rebuilt trust and strengthened its educational program, its constituency would expand. In 1995, the majority of the church’s active participants came from the faculties of philology and history – especially from classical philology, Asian languages and history, Russian language and literature, and Russian history. Several other members belonged to the mathematics faculty. But the church had made little headway among members of the philosophy and science faculties. Father Maksim expressed confidence that this would change as the church developed greater contact with these faculties. “We have found,” he said, “that interest in our parish especially among the students has developed as a kind of chain effort.”5 As for university students and faculty, the parish seeks to create a religious community within the university. This kind of community is known as a “home parish,” and it differs from others described earlier in this study that encompasses surrounding neighborhoods. Unlike them, the missionary activity of the “home parish” operates only within the university itself.6 As Father Maksim explained, the sermons in the church and all of the church’s activities – the pilgrimages to historical sites, the special lectures, and studies of religious art – are geared specifically to this community. In each of the Moscow parishes, their leaders attempted to rebuild certain traditions and memories, and to rebuild on the basis of these traditions and memories. In Fr Georgii Kochetkov’s case, part of that tradition lay in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He particularly focused on the Church Council of 1917-1918 and its passage of several resolutions, including, in April 1918, the Regulation of the Parish, which established the parish as an autonomous unit. The 1918 regulation gave priests greater personal security, making them no longer servitors of the state but servitors of the local people. The regulation further stipulated the duties of the associate laymen, attempting to give the parish more unity and stability and to establish it on the basis of sobornost’. It was the intent of the Council to bring the Church closer to the people, an effort that required translation of doctrine and instructions to them in language that could be readily understood. To make services more comprehensible, the Regulation of the Parish allowed the use of the 64

The Church and the Struggle for Renewal Russian language in the reading of the liturgy and in other parts of the service. Other acts, previously denied, were admitted into practice, including reading the Psalms in Russian and opening the tsar’s gates in the iconostasis, innovations aimed at making the Church’s message more accessible.7 In recovering this part of the “chain of memory,” in reclaiming the spirit of earlier Councils, Kochetkov aspired, in fresh ways, to confront the social and spiritual dislocation of a postcommunist, urban world whose daunting challenges, he passionately believed, demanded creative approaches. In contrast to the forms of worship at Novodevichy Monastery, the recovery of memory related both to personal and to economic concerns. Early in the twentieth century, Novodevichy had a large number of craft activities that supported the monastery’s social services. These craft activities offer promising sources of economic renewal. But the main problem is that these crafts have to be almost totally recreated, since they too have not been practiced since the monastery’s closure in 1926. Rebuilding the crafts of the monastery Mother Serafima sees as one of her greatest challenges. She has made plans to organize several craft shops. She intended to establish a sewing center for the monastery to make clerical garments. She also intends to create a small bakery to produce bread for the services. In these activities, the model she uses is based on the Convent of the Dormition in Pyukhtitsa, Estonia, where her mother lived, and the convent at Kolomenskoe, which produces porcelain and embroidered cloth. “We are going to develop such possibilities,” she emphatically said. “Right now we are only in the initial stages, but we are going to work hard on these craft activities.” At one time, she reminded me, the monastery was economically selfsufficient; it had a very sizable economic base that enabled it to perform its religious functions without fear of collapse. Presently, that economic base existed only in memory. At Moscow University, the recovery of memory has similarities to Novodevichy’s, but also has some significant differences. Fr Maksim was concerned about economics and in particular its underlying assumptions and values. He aspired to re-create a religious-philosophical tradition that had been nearly forgotten for most of the twentieth century. Chief among this tradition was a certain perspective on the ethics of work. He gives this subject a great deal of attention in his teaching, because he believes that neither the former Communist understanding of labor nor the current free-market perspective offers the necessary values on which Russia can build its future. 65

Burden or Blessing? Each of the three Moscow parishes attempted to stimulate a dialogue over the future, and each confronted major challenges and, often, opposition. In Kochetkov’s case, the conflict centered on the relationship between his parish and the Church hierarchy and between two rival visions of Church authority. According to Sergei Averintsev, a leading philologist and poet and a member of Kochetkov’s parish, the Church had to overcome its distance from the people; while preserving its traditions, it had also to make its message understandable to a population yearning for spiritual meaning. It had to bring directly to them the spiritual benefits that Orthodoxy offered, in contrast to the doctrines of historical materialism that the Soviet state had proclaimed.8 While she would recognize little connection between herself and Kochetkov and would reject such an assertion, Mother Serafima, too, focused on the psychological problems of Russian society as its primary issues. The Novodevichy she hoped to rebuild stood in opposition to the values she saw emerging everywhere in the city. In present-day Russian society, the two groups at each end of the age spectrum, the elderly and the young, have experienced the greatest social dislocation, and Mother Serafima’s mission related particularly to them. But, in addition, she was concerned with the whole tenor of life and the personal values that are presently shaping Russian society. The renewal of parish life, she believed, requires a different set of commitments, including the rebuilding of “miloserdie,” a concept that, to her, is central to those commitments. In contrast both to Kochetkov and Mother Serafima, Fr Maksim Kozlov believes the Church had to look primarily inward – rather than outward – at its own traditions and heritage. Fr Maksim signed the 1994 letter of church leaders who voiced strong objections to Kochetkov’s attempts to modernize the language of the Church.9 Rather than introducing what Fr Maksim calls “heretical innovations,” he believes the most important task is to “renew and cleanse the original roots of the Church” that lie “at the core of our religious life.” Instead of reshaping these principles to fit present circumstances, Fr Maksim maintains that the Russian people must first be taught the central teachings of Orthodoxy which, he argues, are “poorly understood in our society.” The revival of parish life does not require any specific Church innovations but rather well trained, committed priests who can help people understand what the Church had been teaching for centuries. The key to the future of Christianity and to Russia’s social and moral well being, according to Fr Maksim, lies in recruiting and educating such priests. 66

The Church and the Struggle for Renewal Conclusions The experiences of the three Moscow parishes lead to several conclusions about the Orthodox Church and its struggle for renewal. Throughout the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet state, many observers described Russia as a country sliding gradually but assuredly into disintegration. There is a more hopeful, countervailing story, however. During the 1990s, the Church in Russia responded vigorously to many of the challenges it faced. Seeking to restore Orthodoxy’s spiritual mission, it has tried to rebuild parish life, restore churches and monasteries, contribute to rebuilding Russia’s national identity, and create a new social doctrine. It has supported the governments of both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, while seeking to retain an independent voice. In establishing hospitals, providing food for the hungry, opening libraries, operating schools, reclaiming its rich spiritual and cultural heritage, the Church has exhibited a great deal of dynamism. The three parishes examined here exemplified not lethargy, but vision and energy. Meanwhile, within the Church hierarchy, pressures for unity and discipline remained extremely strong. These pressures were particularly evident in the case of Fr Georgii Kochetkov, whose activities incurred the wrath of many powerful members of the Church hierarchy and provoked charges of heresy. The church Kochetkov led attempted to reach across denominational and national boundaries in order to strengthen parish life. But the Kochetkov case also challenged the notion of unity and its discipline. By calling for more independence and greater parish autonomy, Kochetkov came into direct conflict with the principle of hierarchical control. His case brought to the forefront the question of whether the Church would be an institution disciplined from the top or would be an organic entity, open to change and growth, searching for new means of expression. The individuals whose stories are told in this study are all people who provide a bridge between Russia’s Communist past and its uncertain future. All of them, having been shaped by that past, have struggled against parts of it, have sought to reclaim other aspects, and have tried, in very different ways, to build something new. Their various legacies, if honored, will serve to strengthen Russia’s moral and religious foundation and aid in the building of social capital and, hence, of civil society.

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Burden or Blessing? Notes __________________________ 1

Metropolitan Kirill (Gundyrev), “Tserkov’ v otnoshenii k obshchestvu v usloviiakh perestroika,” Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkii, February 1990, 36-37. 2 David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 362, 396. 3 “Prikhod, obshchina, bratstvo, tserkov’,” Pravoslavnaia obshchina 3, 9 (1992): 29-30, 32; S. Smirnov, “Storozh! Skol’ko nochi?” Khristianskii vestnik (1997): 57-59; I. B. Eshenbakh, “Teoriia i opyt obshchinnoi zhizni,” Pravoslavnaia obshchina 1 (1992): 49, 54. 4 Interviews with author, Moscow, 3 June 1995 and 23 June 1997. 5 Interviews with author, Moscow, 6 June 1995 and 25 May 2001. 6 “Domovaia tserkov’,” Tat’ianin Den’, July 1995, 2. 7 Fr Georgii Kochetkov, “Pravoslavnoe bogoslovskoe obrazovanie i sovremennost’,” Pravoslavnaia obshchina 6, 24 (1994): 95, 99; “Preodolenie raskola mezhdu svetskim i dukhovnym v cheloveke i obshchestve,” Pravoslavnaia obshchina 3, 21 (1994): 57; Nikita Struve, Christians in Contemporary Russia, trans. Lancelot Sheppard and A. Manson, 2nd ed., revised (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967), 31; Nicolas Zernov, The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 199. 8 Aleksandr Kyrlezhev, “Ponimaet li bog po-russkii? Spor o iazyke bogosluzheniia,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 21 April 1994, 5. 9 “Tserkov’ protiv modernizma,” Russkii vestnik, 28 February 1994, 9.

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CHAPTER 10

The Church of the Icon of the Kazan’ Mother of God on Red Square: A Symbol of Unity for Russian Society Brigit Farley, Washington State University and Ann Kleimola, University of Nebraska

The Church of the Icon of the Kazan’ Mother of God stands near the northern entrance to Moscow’s Red Square, the city’s historic center. It is at the edge of Kitai-Gorod, a district once known for its trading rows, booksellers and icon stalls. The area was also home to churches and monasteries, government offices and the university, and residences of both elite and merchant families as well as clergy, government clerks, and more ordinary urban dwellers. The Red Square area was always a place where the sacred and the secular, the commercial and the official, the spiritual and the material interests of Muscovy met, cooperated, and collided. The building of the Church of the Icon of the Kazan’ Mother of God on Red Square both commemorated the Russian victory in the Time of Troubles and symbolized the renewal of national life. Its dedicatory icon was a new focus of veneration in Muscovy in the early seventeenth century. The icon had appeared miraculously in Kazan’ in 1579, but its cult spread only in the “national liberation” phase of the Time of Troubles, when the icon became the palladium of Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii and his contingent from Nizhnii Novgorod. But from the time of its first appearance in Moscow the icon seemed to be, and was acknowledged as, miracle-working or wonder-working. After the liberation of Moscow the icon remained with Pozharskii, who placed it in a special chapel in his renovated parish church in Lubianka. The history of the church dedicated to the Kazan’ icon is still cloudy. According to tradition it was built with funds donated by Pozharskii, and this version continues as the common explanation. Yet Pozharskii does not seem to have had any particular association with the 69

Burden or Blessing? church. He was buried in the family resting-place, the Spaso-Evfim’ev Monastery in Suzdal’. His will left bequests to 22 monasteries and 15 churches, some in Moscow and Iaroslavl’, but the Kazan’ church is not mentioned among his beneficiaries, even though the church had been completed and consecrated several years before his death. Instead the building of the church seems to be a direct result of royal patronage, part of an effort to secure the new Romanov dynasty. Tsar Mikhail, like his predecessors on the throne, built churches to express gratitude for heavenly assistance in the successful outcome of events important to the state and the royal house. The timing of the temporary transfer of the icon to a favorite Romanov church, probably in 1632, and then the construction of the new church both suggest a connection with the beginning of the Smolensk war with Poland-Lithuania and the desire for the icon’s protection. The new home for the Kazan’ icon was built where Nikol’skaia Street enters Red Square. The original plan for a single-altar masonry church was altered to include a side altar or chapel that directly commemorated the Smuta victory. Kitai-gorod was freed from the Poles after a decisive Russian attack on 22 October 1612, the feast day of St. Abercius, bishop of Hieropolis, to whom the side altar was dedicated. The church was consecrated on 15/16 October 1636, the eve of the fall holiday of the Kazan’ icon. The church inventory of 1771 notes that the local row of the iconostas included an icon of the Saviour facing the venerable Mikhail Malein and the Hieromartyr Feodor of Perge in Pamphylia, the patron saints of tsar Mikhail and his father, Patriarch Filaret. The icons in the iconostas had fine silver frames, which testify to the magnificence of the interior adornment. Following the royal example, many distinguished families made donations to the church. For Tsar Mikhail and his family it seemed increasingly clear that the Kazan’ icon symbolized the protection of the Mother of God not only over the Russian state, but especially over the new royal dynasty. At the end of the 1640s Mikhail’s son Aleksei, who shared his father’s and grandfather’s perception of the church as a focus of family pilgrimage, added another side altar, the chapel of the Kazan’ miracle-workers Gurii and Varsonofii. And the birth of Aleksei’s heir, Dmitrii, during the night of 21-22 October 1648, on the eve of the icon’s holiday, was taken as new evidence of the special protection of the Queen of Heaven over the royal dynasty. On the heir’s first birthday Aleksei decreed that henceforth the holiday would be celebrated in all towns, every year. From that time widespread reverence for the icon spread throughout 70

A Symbol of Unity for Russian Society Russia, but remained linked particularly to the Kazan’ church in Moscow. The church in Moscow was thus closely tied to the larger society. It was located amidst government offices, royal menageries, and the herb gardens of the Pharmacy Chancellery, near the trading rows and the Lobnoe Mesto, site of public announcements, and near the courts. Just down the street from the Kazan’ church, right beside the entrance to Red Square, was the chapel built by the Resurrection Gates in 1669 for another wonder-working icon, the Iverskaia Mother of God, which also became a center of popular devotion in Kitai-Gorod. Notations from numerous guidebooks to Moscow shrines and antiquities, as well as memoirs, record that the Iverskaia chapel never closed and it was possible to pray at the wonder-working icon at any time of day or night. The Iverskaia icon frequently was taken out for prayer services, for visits to private homes, and for religious processions. The church and the chapel came to set off a sacred space that adjoined and served governmental, commercial, and residential areas. From the beginning the Kazan’ church attracted special attention from both Muscovites and visitors. Services there were believed to play a major role in ensuring divine protection for the population. Religious processions “to the Most Pure Kazan’ [Mother of God]” were considered “big” processions, with the patriarch and the tsar leading the way from the Kremlin Dormition Cathedral through the Spasskie gates to the Lobnoe mesto and then on to the Kazan’ church. At the Lobnoe mesto small processions were separated off, which with the blessing of the patriarch went around the walls of Kitai, Belyi, and Zemlianoi goroda. They subsequently met the patriarch at the end of the liturgy in the Kazan’ church and returned together to the Dormition cathedral. Religious processions around the walls, with which all Moscow was consecrated, continued until 1765, when they were suspended “until further orders” because the walls were broken or walking was dangerous. From that time processions marched only from the Kremlin to the Kazan’ church. Until 1798 the holiday of the icon of the Kazan’ Mother of God was only a religious celebration. On Oct. 24, 1798, Emperor Paul ordered it also be a civil holiday, with no explanation except “as a sign of long-due respect for the day.” The transfer of the capital to Petersburg probably saved the church from destruction. Even though the ceremonial use of the Red Square area expanded in connection with coronations and other public processions, the imperial insistence on parade spaces remained focused largely on the 71

Burden or Blessing? northern capital. Over the centuries the church underwent renovation and reconstruction. After the fire of 1737 its original appearance was lost. The alterations of 1742-1743 included replacing the wooden roof with iron. Instead of a tent roof over the west doors they built a bell tower. The chapel of Gurii and Varsonofii was removed in the second half of the 18th century, as part of a street-widening project. The Averkii chapel was renovated in 1825, and the church in 1850. A 1917 guidebook to Moscow reported that the exterior of the church offered “nothing in particular.” The interior likewise contained nothing of any age. By the time of the Revolution the seventeenth-century church was hidden beneath later layers. Its spiritual legacy, however, had not dimmed. Despite the close connection between the dynasty and the growth of the cult of the Kazan’ icon, the church did not achieve its lasting fame as a Romanov site. Instead it remained a parish church serving a much wider community, and it retained its primary association with the Smuta, national liberation, military victory, and the extension of divine favor over the Russian land. The year 1917 presaged significant changes in the life of the Kazan’ church. That year marked the victory of the Bolshevik regime, by definition an enemy of Old Russia. It also witnessed the beginning of a fateful association between the church and the man destined to become the century’s most celebrated restorer, P.D. Baranovskii. Born in Smolensk region in 1892, Petr Dmitrievich Baranovskii became devoted to Russian starina as a teenager, when he experienced an epiphany upon viewing the Church of the Presentation at the nearby Boldinskii Monastery. Determined to spend his life preserving such beauty, Baranovskii moved to Moscow and enrolled at the city’s Archaeological Institute just before World War I. But the events of 1917 cast a shadow on his calling. In its first years the Soviet government made several moves inimical to cultural preservation, and its leaders resolved to remove “monuments to the tsars and their deeds without historical or artistic merit.” But the Central Restorers’ Workshop, with which P.D. Baranovskii would be affiliated, was authorized to continue its work. Upon his return from army service in 1918, Baranovskii took on jobs in Iaroslavl,’ the Solovetskii monastery and the northern Dvina region. He returned home to establish Russia’s first open-air museum of architecture at Kolomenskoe in 1922 before beginning work on prominent Moscow buildings. The Kazan’ church continued to serve its neighborhood as a working church, but it had changed so much over the centuries that its architects would not have recognized it. Dismayed parishioners called on 72

A Symbol of Unity for Russian Society Baranovskii to undertake its restoration. Baranovskii believed that restoring the church to its l7th-century appearance would reaffirm its association as a smuta church for a new generation of Muscovites emerging from their own time of troubles. “Without the past,” he often said, “there can be no future.” He began work on the church in 1925, ripping away the 19th-century exterior and touching up what turned out to be the intact 17th-century core. He had achieved considerable success by 1928 when representatives of the country’s new leader, Joseph Stalin, forced him to stop. The beginnings of the Stalin era augured ill for both Baranovskii and the Kazan’ church. The five-year plan’s first targets were Moscow’s monasteries and convents, then parish churches. Ominously, the Kazan’ church’s neighbor, the Iverskaia chapel, perished in this round of destruction. These developments preceded the announcement of a master plan for the “socialist reconstruction” of Moscow. After the December 1931 destruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the plan’s provisions for improved public transport doomed several historic churches, the venerable Sukharev tower and the 16th-century KitaiGorod wall. Red Square would see the most significant change, becoming a showcase of socialist achievements and a necropolis for the regime’s fallen heroes. It would first be widened to serve the anticipated hordes of demonstrators and Lenin Mausoleum pilgrims, a scheme that imperiled St. Basil’s Cathedral, the Resurrection Gates, and the Kazan’ cathedral. In late 1930, the press launched an aggressive campaign against the Gates. A delegation of restorers sought out Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin’s man in charge of Red Square, to inform him that the Gates’ removal would fatally distort the area’s aesthetics. Kaganovich replied famously, “My aesthetic requires the accommodation of multiple columns of demonstrators, crowding into Red Square simultaneously to pay homage to the father of the revolution.” The Gates came down in June. The future of the Kazan’ church was clouded. It was closed after the termination of Baranovskii’s restoration and had suffered the loss of its unloved bell tower in the Militant Atheists’ campaign to silence church bells. Yet it remained standing. At various times it served as a cafeteria for metro construction workers, a storage space for the History Museum, and even a communal apartment building. Throughout this period the church was always supposed to be the next casualty. But the pace of reconstruction inexplicably slowed and the church appeared reprieved.

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Burden or Blessing? Baranovskii was not so lucky. While some colleagues made an accommodation with the Stalinist assault on the past, Baranovskii became a one-man crisis team. If he learned that an historic building was under threat, he tried to forestall its destruction. Buildings, even parts of buildings, had been moved successfully in America, he told the authorities. When rumors reached him of the impending demise of St. Basil’s cathedral, for centuries the most revered structure on Red Square, he dropped everything to rush to the Mossovet (Moscow City Council) headquarters. “This scheme is both idiotic and criminal,” he told the assistant presiding officer. “You can do with me what you wish.” This impolitic outburst won St. Basil’s an inexplicable reprieve, even as it guaranteed Baranovskii’s arrest and banishment to a camp in Mariinsk. Upon his early release in the spring of 1936, Baranovskii returned to Moscow region. Forbidden to live in the capital, he settled in nearby Aleksandrov. But he could not stay away from Moscow, where the fate of the Kazan’ church remained unresolved. On his first visit, he approached Red Square with trepidation. Cheered by a glimpse of the church’s silhouette, he quickly realized that his enthusiasm was premature. On the eve of its tercentenary the Kazan’ church was in a pitiful state, partially collapsed and doomed. Baranovskii suffered the cruel indignity of witnessing the purposeful destruction of his best work. In the years that followed Baranovskii maintained a punishing schedule, working on restoration projects throughout the USSR. His activism played a key role in the creation of VOOPIK, the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Monuments of History and Culture, one of the first citizen action groups in Soviet Russia. But he never stopped thinking about the Kazan’ church. At his 90th birthday celebration, a failing Baranovskii turned over his Kazan’ archive to O.I. Zhurin, a likeminded young associate. Both men understood that Zhurin would use it to rebuild the church if conditions ever permitted. The rise of Gorbachev in 1985 offered hope. Talk of “perestroika” of Russian society led to extensive discussion of the “perestroika” of Moscow itself. Leading newspapers, notably Moskovskaia Pravda, devoted several articles per week to historic streets and buildings, acquainting Muscovites with what they had lost. Inevitably popular attention focused on Red Square. Zhurin and other Baranovskii friends gradually came to believe that they had a chance. Their task would not be easy. The leadership of the Lenin Museum also had plans. In December 1986 the director showed a journalist the blueprint for an extension that would co-opt the entire space between 25 October street and Revolution Square. All buildings on the block would 74

A Symbol of Unity for Russian Society be rebuilt or restored to reflect their original appearance and linked to the expanded Museum. The extension was to be completed in 1995, in time for V.I. Lenin’s 125th birthday. Members of the Kazan’ church committee knew the score: if the Lenin Museum succeeded, there would be no hope of reconstruction. Early in 1987, led by the noted scientist I.V. Petrianov, they brainstormed a campaign. With neither official sanction nor disposable income, they relied on social capital. In Moscow S.V. Korolev organized hundreds of Muscovites to deluge the city and federal governments with letters requesting permission to restore the church. Other groups handed out leaflets describing the project. The Moscow VOOPIK staged “Baranovskii evenings,” highlighting the role of the Kazan’ church in the life of Moscow. The political climate increasingly came to favor the Kazan’ backers. Gorbachev urged the country to remember its past, while the press continued to highlight the damage inflicted upon Moscow’s historic core. By 1989 even the venerable Mossovet acknowledged that previous plans for the capital were no longer viable. A moral and spiritual renaissance would be required for a truly “reconstructed” citizenry, and that could only begin with the regeneration of historic Moscow, first and foremost its old churches. Once the Lenin Museum extension lost favor, Petrianov and Korolev decided to secure official sanction. In early 1989, Petrianov’s scientific renown gained him access to V.A. Medvedev, head of the ideological division of the CPSU Central Committee, who had jurisdiction over Red Square. Petrianov scored a major coup for the Kazan’ project when he casually unveiled a portrait of the church as it looked in the 17th century and told its eventful story. “Medvedev could not hide his amazement at the history of this church,” Petrianov recalled later. “He seemed stunned by it; he examined it from every angle and asked many questions. “The fate of the Lenin museum did not come up, but Petrianov believed that he and Medvedev “understood each other perfectly.” A few weeks later, the Moscow VOOPIK received permission to start restoring the Kazan’ church. The committee quickly began the essential task of raising the necessary funds, constructing a symbolic wooden chapel and requesting donations. Money poured in from throughout the country, mostly in small increments. Presently the Moscow city government joined the bandwagon. Impressed by the

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Burden or Blessing? obvious popularity of the initiative, it pledged financing to offset any shortfalls. In November 1990 the city witnessed the laying of the church cornerstone by Patriarch Aleksii II. Zhurin immediately went to work, making full use of the Baranovskii archive. He finished in time for the celebration of the winter Kazan’ feast day in November 1993 and watched President Yeltsin and Patriarch Aleksii II preside over the consecration of his handiwork. Truly, Moscow had resurrected its shrine. The citizens who resurrected the Kazan’ church had a clear idea of the significance of their achievement. They spoke of a triumph for justice over injustice, of light overcoming darkness, of Holy Moscow’s victory over another infidel invader. They waxed rhapsodic about a partial return of sorok sorokov, the Moscow of countless golden-domed churches. And they recalled Baranovskii, the spiritual father of the resurrected church. However, a decade later its meaning for a new generation is uncertain. Will it resume its former role as a smuta church, perhaps becoming the physical foundation of a new Russian patriotism? Will it be viewed as a testament to the power of an engaged citizenry? Or is it doomed to be the backdrop of endless Kodak moments? These are the questions that will inform the next chapter of the history of the Kazan’ church – and of Russia.

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CHAPTER 11

Orthodox Yarmarki as a Form of Civic Engagement Inna Naletova, Boston University

Today one can say without doubt that the old image of the Orthodox Church as an institution drawing people away from social participation does not reflect reality. In spite of decades of forced passivity, the church is involved today in a wide range of civic initiatives. Even though the Orthodox tradition emphasizes prayer and sacraments rather than community life, Orthodox believers are not necessarily socially withdrawn. Several studies conducted in recent years show that Orthodox Christians are actively engaged in the life of local communities and are concerned about social and economic processes in the country. There is a noticeable positivism in their attitude toward traditional forms of collective action, such as street festivals, public celebrations of state and national holidays, and community projects. Through personal contact and participation they influence their neighbors’ attitudes toward nature, work, and community. An example of this is the Orthodox yarmarka (fair) movement. These fairs are places of exchange for goods and services that relate in some way to Orthodox life in Russia today. But yarmarki are about more than just trade, they provide a meeting place between different social realms. As such, they have an important potential for establishing crossreligious and cross-cultural bridges. Moreover, they show the civic and cultural power of Orthodoxy and its ability to work outside the church’s institutional framework. Finally, they also demonstrate an interest on the part of the “outside” world to have religious beliefs openly present in the public arena. Such Orthodox fairs are not a new phenomenon. Fairs had been held in St. Petersburg in the early 20th century, but ceased to exist after the Revolution. The roots of this tradition can be traced back to the 13th century, however, when the first rural fairs emerged at the intersection of main roads, near city walls and monasteries. The fairs re-emerged at the beginning of the 1990s. The range of products presented at an Orthodox 77

Burden or Blessing? yarmarka spreads far beyond the typical objects of the church service. One can find there various preserves, vegetables, homemade cheese, and even beer and wine. Products from the villages are also available, along with gardening tools, blankets, samovars, and many other items whose connection to Orthodoxy is far from obvious. Everything offered for sale at these fairs is connected in some way, however, to monasteries and churches or to Orthodox tradition, history, or social life. The products may also simply have been “blessed,” “approved by the church,” “made by believers,” or even “passed through Orthodox hands.” Today Orthodox fairs are a movement of national scale with a core of regular participants, a recognizable set of symbols, and their own civic/cultural traditions. These include rewarding the best participants and giving donations for the poor and sick. They are also utilized to promote educational, cultural and other civic activities. For example, many activities are promoted and advertised at yarmarki, with many materials and announcements posted on the walls inviting visitors to take part in pilgrimages, church processions, building and restoration projects and even summer camps. Also of significance is the fact that the process of economic exchange at the fairs serves the purpose of communication, dialogue, and cultural exchange. Yarmarki offer to visitors an opportunity to learn about the church, but in a very informal way, as visitors can engage in conversations with priests, monks and nuns in a comfortable environment, and there is no pressure for visitors to become Orthodox or even believers of any other faith. One can freely come and go and take an interest in the religious life of the yarmarka or stay indifferent to it. In this way, the secular and sacred realms of society are able to communicate with each other not as aliens or enemies, but as neighbors and fellow-citizens. Religious Practices at Yarmarki Religious practices at Orthodox fairs are neither suppressed nor concealed, and this is so despite the fact that the fairs take place in secular settings, such as exhibition halls, outdoor markets, and cultural centers. Working at the fairs, priests, nuns, and monks are their traditional attire; priests in their brightly colored church garments with crosses, nuns and monks in their long, black robes. Women parishioners have their heads covered with kerchiefs, their dresses decorated in traditional designs, an unusual sight in a city context. At the center of the 78

Orthodox Yarmarki market hall, a priest conducts prayer at the beginning and end of the fair. The opening ceremony often culminates with a procession around the market while participants are blessed with holy water. While selling their products, sellers like to learn about customers’ needs and interests, and they may offer their customers a prayer to use or an icon to buy. Also, in a friendly conversation, they might suggest to visit a sacred place, to talk to an experienced priest, and even to visit an elder. An important form of communication at the fair is the writing of notes requesting prayer services. Customers may request prayers to be performed by priests or by brothers and sisters in a certain monastery, in front of a specific icon, at a particular time, and for a particular occasion. There could be made specific requests related to the circumstances of one’s life, for example prayers for love, for increased wisdom, for those traveling by air or sea, etc. Prayers can also be read against alcohol addiction, against thieves, and even against insects in the house. Quite frequently one can see priests at fairs performing blessings and anointments, and even in some cases accepting confessions. Several times a day short prayers are read in response to customers’ requests with the focus on their specific concerns. These practices are adjusted to the market situation and require less concentration and less time than the practices performed in churches, yet they are more individual, situational and responsive to the neophytes’ sense of faith and also more sensitive to a religiosity hidden in national traditions and customs. An impression might be created that religious practices performed at the fairs are “new,” “non-traditional,” or “unchurchly,” i.e. they deviate from canonical norms. This is not true, however, as similar practices are performed during Orthodox pilgrimages, church processions and other occasions in which believers gather outside the church and the religious tradition enters the public sphere. Orthodox fairs are also known for wonder-working icons brought there from monasteries and churches. The icon of Donskaya Mother of God, for example, was brought to a Moscow yarmarka from the Tretiyakov Gallery in 2003. Kept in the museum for several decades, it was finally returned to believers, though only for a few days. The line of people waiting their turn to venerate the icon did not cease during the whole week of the yarmarka’s activity. Every monastery or parish community brings for sale objects representing their local religious tradition. These might be bottles filled with blessed oil or water taken from holy springs, or even stones collected from the top of saints’ graves. One can buy photographs of famous priests and elders, records with their voices, and books about 79

Burden or Blessing? miracles happening near their graves. The objects of veneration might not be always accepted in the common church veneration, yet they do not contradict church practices but instead contribute to a common message, offering an enriched sense of holiness. Business Ethics In order to see the specific features of the ethical environment created by Orthodox fairs, one has to keep in mind the country’s grime social and economic situation in which the fairs have emerged. Russian society throughout the 1990s, as economists have described it, was depressed, lacking solidarity, humanity, tolerance and trust, and having a weak ability for self-organization and suffering from the predominance of a narrowly utilitarian outlook. The economic reforms led people to the expectation that they would always be tricked, and this created a situation of extreme individualism and social irresponsibility. The market turned into a political fight between mafia groups, and property was perceived as nothing but theft. Nevertheless, an ancient form of trade organization such as the Orthodox fairs was able to gain popularity and compete with modern city markets. The qualities that became most important for the fairs’ success were a direct personal communication between producers and customers, strong emphasis on the natural, village-type and hand-made products, stress on national and cultural traditions, and the possibility to practice Orthodoxy openly and publicly. Many small and medium-sized business organizations are willing to participate in the Orthodox fairs, but not everyone can use the authority of the church to promote one’s business. A certain level of public recognition is necessary to become a regular participant at a fair. Trust is a distinctive feature of Orthodox fairs, and is supported by a combination of two factors: relation to the church (the institution perceived in Russia as having a high degree of trust), and the absence of middlemen, since products are sold there by the producers themselves. Communication and an atmosphere of respect also create a rich potential for networking. The fairs help beginners to promote their business, to get acquainted with colleagues and customers, and to familiarize themselves with the market situation. Coming to the fair, businessmen do not always expect to earn a significant profit, rather they try to use the chance to make their products known to people and establish a circle of clients. The fairs’ extensive cultural program 80

Orthodox Yarmarki (particularly consultations with Orthodox specialists from different fields) fits into the business context. Orthodox fairs can also be seen as the religious world’s response to the need of modern individuals for communication, for simply having someone to talk to and to share one’s feelings with in a comfortable and friendly environment. Mutual help is also promoted at the fairs, as people are encouraged to care for the religious, cultural, and social needs of others. Nuns and monks there carry donation caps. Large monasteries help smaller ones to rent space at the market, while companies help local churches collect money for reconstruction work. Meanwhile, city sponsors assist provincial participants in exhibiting their products. It is usual for participants to stay during the fair not in hotels but in churches or with friends. Since many of the fairs’ participants have to travel long distances to attend yarmarki, they are performing a kind of pilgrimage. The opportunity to visit historical sites changes the lives of the people who otherwise have little chance to see the world. The map of business contacts overlaps with that of sacred places and pilgrim roads. The spirit of entrepreneurship connects Russia’s regions to each other. Regions develop their unique local qualities and a sense of inter-Orthodox connectedness in which the communities from the former Soviet Union, Serbia, Greece, and even the United States are included. Conclusion Orthodox yarmarki are neither a coperation of business partners, nor a well-organized structure like a department store. It is neither a bazaar, nor a spontaneous gathering. It has little in common with groups of formal membership, like clubs or parties. Rather, it is a broad cultural and civic movement based on a sense of religious and national belonging and a common cultural background. It is a movement of Orthodox believers from all over the country willing to participate in a civilized type of economic exchange in cooperation with business organizations from outside the sphere of the church’s direct influence. To be a part of church-oriented society is an important motivation to engage in an Orthodox fair – more important than the motivation to gain profit. Orthodox fairs have managed not only to survive in the modern economy, but also to revive a traditional mode of economic exchange and to offer to modern Russia an alternative system of business relations. The rising popularity of the fairs during recent years, including their 81

Burden or Blessing? expansion from the capital to the provinces and their successful development in different spheres of the economy – not to mention their expressive religious atmosphere – together demonstrates the need in modern society for such an alternative, church-based economic space. Orthodox fairs also form a civic movement in the modern economy and beyond. The movement is inspired by the need to organize an economic environment based on civilized, cultured relations between people, relations guided by religious values, cultural traditions, and ethical principles. At Orthodox yarmarki, the elements of piety and beauty and practicality and profitability come close to each other. The realms of the religious and the secular thus overlap, their boundaries become merged. This environment spreads beyond the sphere of the economy. The fair’s participants and visitors are involved not only in business exchange, but also in exchange in a cultural and religious sense. Non-believers have a chance to better know believers, while the latter (including those who have chosen the monastic life) have to find a common language with those who never go to church.

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CHAPTER 12

The Orthodox Church Seeks to Place Itself in Russian Society Philip Walters, Keston Institute

The Russian Orthodox Church is seeking to place itself in Russian society. It is anxious to be where it wants to be or feels it should naturally be, while avoiding being placed somewhere by others at their choice. This study focuses on the Basic Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church (hereafter, the Social Concept), adopted by the ROC in 2000. The Social Concept affirms a desire to engage with the world, but this is constantly questioned in the text. The Social Concept is in fact defensive in tone, in terms of defending a community; but it fails adequately to define that community. I argue that this failure is symptomatic of the existential crisis currently facing the ROC. The predominant theme in the Social Concept is that contemporary society is degraded as the result of the rise of irreligious individualism. The Social Concept does argue for the uniqueness and dignity of the individual; but this is subordinate to the main aim, which is the protection of traditional identity (variously and inconclusively defined) through resistance to globalization, liberalization and secularization. The Church’s Place in Society, the State, and the Nation The Social Concept sees the main goal of the ROC as religious and moral and educational work, as a unifying and reconciling power in society. In 1991, the ROC enjoyed the support of 75 percent of Russia’s population – 2.3 times the percentage defining themselves as religious believers. In 2002 62 percent of the population placed confidence in the ROC, higher than the percentage accorded to state institutions, the mass media, trade unions or political parties.

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Burden or Blessing? The ROC continues to say that it does not want to become a “state church” again. However, it seems that it has difficulty envisaging itself fulfilling its responsible role in society without the support of state structures, and cooperation agreements have been signed between the ROC and various Russian national ministries. The section “The Church and the State” in the Social Concept does not discuss the principle of separation of church and state, and it may well be difficult for the ROC fully to embrace this concept. Even though the ROC is not involved in politics, politicians of all kinds are nevertheless all too ready to use the ROC and its symbols in support of their own programs. This tendency is reinforced, paradoxically, by the extremely secularized nature of Russian society. More Russian citizens claim to be members of the ROC than say they believe in God. Given this faith vacuum the ROC today is very vulnerable to appropriation for a variety of nonreligious ends, chiefly by nationalist, chauvinist and protectionist groupings. According to Orthodox doctrine, Orthodox churches are “local”; that is, they serve a particular geographical area. The Orthodox Churches have tended to become identified with particular nation-states; according to Orthodox doctrine, however, maintaining that ecclesiastical jurisdiction is determined ethnically rather than territorially constitutes the heresy of “phyletism.” Does the ROC today see its religious constituency in terms of an ethnic community or in terms of the people (or peoples) living in a particular geographical area? The answer seems to be that while there is pressure from “Orthodox” nationalists, the ROC itself thinks primarily in terms of its “canonical territory.” Others in Russia, however, seek to define Orthodoxy as a traditional religion in terms which imply a systematic local association with ethnicity. In Belgorod oblast’, for example, located in southern central Russia, the home of traditional peasant piety, most Orthodox clergy subscribe to the old tsarist formula for the ideal state structure: “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and National Identity.” Defense of “Diversity” – But of What Kind? The Social Concept, inter alia, undertakes a defence of the concept of “diversity.” That it should do so seems counterintuitive. But what kind of “diversity” do the authors of the Social Concept have in mind? The idea of “diversity in danger” is particularly developed in the section of the Social Concept dealing with international relations and globalization, 84

The Church Seeks to Place Itself which in the eyes of the Moscow Patriarchate is a secularizing neocolonial agenda which will impose an unacceptable uniformity, based on materialist consumerism. There is an irony here: the “American” system thinks of itself as nothing if not pluralistic and favouring individual self-realization; but the Moscow Patriarchate perceives the “globalising” agenda as leading inevitably to the erasure of all differences. However, the “diversity” defended by the Social Concept is not diversity at the level of the individual. The Social Concept calls for “efforts to protect the identity of nations and other human communities.” In the Social Concept the “uniqueness of personality” and the “dignity of the human person” are asserted. However, these phrases are absent from the sections dealing with the nation, the state and other traditional concerns. Moreover, the discussion is not couched positively, in terms such as “human rights,” but negatively: the individual is seen as needing to be protected against an expanding godless civilization. Incidentally, it should be noted that the Social Concept criticizes the concept of “freedom of conscience,” which is seen as a symptom of “society’s loss of religious aims and values, of mass apostasy and de facto indifference to the activity of the Church and to victory over sin.” This kind of understanding of “freedom of conscience” must raise questions about the attitide of the ROC to a multiconfessional state. Diversity is asserted, then, not at the level of the individual but at the level of some form of community with its own coherent moral structure. In the wake of September 11th, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk spoke of the need for “a transition to the peaceful coexistence of various value systems – religious, philosophical, cultural. There are many such systems in the world… it cannot be permitted that only one of them should dominate and be considered ‘pan-human’… .” What, Then, is the Nature of the Desired Community? It is not clear what kind of community represents the ideal for the ROC. What is its size? What boundaries does it coincide with? Cultural? Ethnic? Territorial? Denominational? All these definitions of the desired community are invoked throuhout the Social Concept, frequently as if they were synonymous and interchangeable. The Social Concept and Russian Orthodox spokesmen frequently refer to “cultures,” sometimes assigned to “various social groups” or seen as determined by the historical period in which they are formed, but 85

Burden or Blessing? sometimes referred to as “national cultures.” Is, then, the nation the chief repository of culture and therefore the community which is to be defended, despite the fact that phyletism is a heresy? In the Social Concept, the section on the nation comes second only to the introduction; and the document does indeed seem to identify “local” churches with nations: “The Orthodox Church, though universal, consists of many Autocephalous National Churches.” Nevertheless, the section ends with the rejection of nationalistic excesses, and we have already seen that the ROC is not anxious to identify itself too closely with Russian nationalists and does not claim that the Russian Orthodox faith is exclusively for ethnic Russians. The conclusion must be that the message of the Social Concept about the relationship between Orthodoxy and national identity is confusing. According to the Social Concept, in the world today the word “nation” can mean either “an ethnic community” or “the aggregate citizens of a particular state.” The Social Concept deploys both meanings. As noted earlier, the ROC seems to want to avoid identifying itself with a nationalist and chauvinist agenda, and (when objecting to “proselytising,” for example) speaks in terms of “canonical territory.” It would thus appear to be thinking of itself as the natural spiritual home for all citizens of the Russian Federation rather than for ethnic Russians alone. Nevertheless, the point remains ambiguous, as in passages such as the following: “when a nation, in civic or ethnic terms, is fully or mainly a mono-confessional Orthodox community, it may, in a certain sense, be regarded as a community united by faith – as an Orthodox people” (italics added). The Russian Federation is home not only to a large number of different nationalities but to a wide range of religious confessions. What is the attitude of the ROC to this religious plurality? The ROC champions the rights of “traditional religions” in Russia, and by these it usually means Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism Some clearly think of these ‘traditional religions’ in terms of their being associated with a particular area (or areas) of “traditional compact settlement” of their adherents. One suspects, however, that this is not the main criterion, which would seem to be that so-called “traditional” religions are in fact those that present no threat to each other. When we hear the word “traditional” we should in fact think “non-competitive.” The ROC fears proselytising or sheep-stealing, and particularly by neoProtestants and Roman Catholics. It is indicative that the denominations the ROC feels happiest to live with are all non-Christian ones.

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The Church Seeks to Place Itself According to the Social Concept, “While respecting the worldview of non-religious people and their right to influence social processes, the Church cannot favor a world order that puts in the center of everything the human personality darkened by sin… the Church seeks to assert Christian values in the process of decision-making on the most important public issues both on national and international levels.” The full pathos of this passage becomes apparent when one considers that many in the ROC consider a whole swathe of Protestant denominations as harmful sects which might even come under the heading “non-religious”; it seems that in the Social Concept the word Christian means, implicitly, Orthodox. How does the ROC believe that the “problem of proselytising,” as it sees it, is to be resolved? According to Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk, by “basing mission on the fundamental principle of early Christian ecclesiology: the principle of the local church. This stipulates that the church in a given place shall be fully responsible for its people before God.” Once again, however, the implications remain ambiguous. In the case of Russia, is it only the ROC which is the “local church,” or do other Christian denominations share this responsibility too? Metropolitan Kirill goes on to imply that they might – “missionary efforts from abroad should be made in each place as support and assistance to the local church or local churches” (italics added) – but the practical experience of many non-Orthodox denominations in Russia during the 1990s would give them ample grounds for believing that the answer is basically “no.” The ROC and Internal Pluralism I argue that lack of clarity in ROC utterances about the nature of the community to be defended basically arises out of the failure of the ROC to address the concept and consequences of religious pluralism, and that one reason why it has failed to do so is that pluralism within the ROC itself is discouraged. The ROC is run centrally by the Moscow Patriarchate, and within that by the Holy Synod, which is in turn organized by the so-called “Small Synod” – the patriarch and the four metropolitans resident in Moscow. Thus it is that the real power to take decisions in the name of the whole church rests in the hands of a fourman informal body. The imposition of central control in the church is a response to a feared lack of unanimity, and underlying this is fear of schism in the church.

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Burden or Blessing? Until 2000, the highest authority in the ROC was theoretically the “Local Council” (Pomestny Sobor), a large assembly bringing together bishops, priests and laypeople. Enthusiasts for a Local Council invoke the Council of 1917-18, the last to be held before the Bolsheviks came to power, and which took many decisions on church life including the restoration of the Patriarchate. At the Bishops’ Council (Arkhiyereisky Sobor) of 2002, however, the assembled prelates decided that Bishops’ Councils would henceforth be the ROC’s highest decision-making body. Important issues affecting church life are thus no longer to be submitted to open debate by representatives of the whole church membership. It is also significant to note that it was the Bishops’ Council of 2000 which promulgated the Social Concept. What Happened to Sobornost’? The doctrine of sobornost’ was developed by certain Russian Orthodox thinkers from the 1840s. It is based on the insight that human social relationships are analogous to the relationship amongst the three Persons of the Trinity. It has been explicated as “individual diversity in free unity.” It is also translated as “conciliarity,” and has been invoked in the context of calls for the convening of a Local Council as a distinctively Orthodox organ. Orthodoxy, it is said, resists the vertical authority structure of the Roman Catholic church, and, likewise the horizontal, individualistic pietism of the Protestant church. One feature of the Social Concept is particularly puzzling. Sobornost’ would appear to be an obvious and potentially very useful conceptual tool to use in the shaping of an Orthodox social doctrine. Yet no reference is made to it. Why should this be? One reason would seem to be that the authors of the Social Concept felt it inopportune to give prominence to a doctrine which endorses the legitimacy of the Local Council the ROC seems to have decided never to convene. A deeper explanation, however, lies in the very fear of pluralism and schism referred to above. There are various different interpretations of the implications of sobornost’. According to most Orthodox theologians, conciliarity is ultimately hierarchical. The three Persons of the Trinity are interrelated in a way which is the model of conciliarity, but nevertheless the Father presides, as the origin of Trinitarian life; the Son and Spirit are like his two hands.

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The Church Seeks to Place Itself In the 1920s, the schismatic Renovationist movement in the ROC was to a large extent a movement of the lower (“white”) clergy seeking to take church leadership from the higher monastic (“black”) clergy. In this endeavour they sought to reinterpret sobornost’ in terms of collective decision-making at the clergy level. The experience of the Renovationist schism caused deep trauma in the ROC and its spectre continues to haunt the hierarachy today. The 1917-18 Council of the ROC included not only “black” and “white” clergy but laypeople, too. In Russia today there are numerous lay political and social movements which claim to be Orthodox in inspiration; some of them are “owned” by the ROC. Yet there is fear among the hierachy about pressure for democratization within the church. Again, the concept of sobornost’ is invoked. Some theologians argue that Khomyakov’s sobornost’ was modelled on rural peasant collectives, and that lay representation at Council level is an aberration, creating the impression that the laity have different interests than clergy. In exile in the 1930s, Nikolai Berdyayev, Fedor Stepun, and others developed a type of Orthodox personalism, interpreting sobornost’ to emphasize individual freedom and creativity, so that the concept was opposed to “impersonal collectivity.” This was in line with contemporary Existentialism and in response to the sweeping collectivistic conformity of Bolshevik Russia. At the other extreme, sobornost’ is invoked by churchmen and laypeople alike in Russia today who are opposed to “Western” individualism. The conservative and chauvinist Metropolitan Ioann of St. Petersburg (who died in 1994) held that “the honeyed lie of ‘pluralism’ and ‘freedom’ … conceals within itself a deadly poison that destroys the spirit of conciliarism (sobornost’) of the Russian people as well as the power of the State.” The leader of the Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov, has argued that “Russia is the keeper of the ancient spiritual tradition: its fundamental values are sobornost’ (collectivism), the supreme power of the State, sovereignty, and the goal of implementing the highest ‘heavenly’ ideals of justice and brotherhood in earthly reality.” He thus unites within a single sentence phrases imbued with religious meaning, words taken from the vocabulary of nationalists and key words from communist jargon. Russia: A De Facto Pluralist Religious Environment A prevalent assumption in ROC discourse is that Russian history and culture have been shaped exclusively by Orthodoxy. The reality is rather 89

Burden or Blessing? more complex: one has only to recall the role of Lutherans and Lutheranism in Russian public life since the sixteenth century. What is indisputable, however, is that the Russian religious landscape today is increasingly pluralistic. To highlight just one development, in Siberia and the Far East Protestant denominations are proliferating. The Social Concept contains no sections dealing with pluralism, civil society or ecumenism. In my view the ROC cannot deal coherently with these and similar issues because its impliict understanding of the nature of “the Church” makes this impossible. Throughout the Social Concept and other discourse by the ROC one is constantly aware of the presence of the “default” understanding that in Russia “the Church” means “the Russian Orthodox Church.” In the words of one commentator in 2000, “In principle Orthodoxy cannot consent to play the role of just one component in a global postmodern system and submit to its ideology: this is against the spirit of the Church…” Symptomatic is the ROC’s concern about “proselytising,” which cannot be an issue in open civil societies, where democracy, with its “organised uncertainty,” is based on citizenship rather than national identity and tested by its attitude to minorities. The Social Concept is the first effort by an Orthodox Church to articulate its position and role in society, and as such to be welcomed, but it seems to me that its major weakness is a failure to recognise the fact that the ROC is just one element in an increasingly pluralizing society.

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CHAPTER 13

Religiosity, Politics, and the Formation of Civil Society in Multinational Russia James Warhola, University of Maine

The connection in Russia between the formation of a civil society, the country’s multinational character, and religion is exceedingly complex. Each of these issues is multifaceted, and since each represents a major dimension of Russian identity, that complexity is only compounded. Concern for the political unity and stability of post-Soviet Russia had been a persisting theme. Yet aside from the doleful yet exceptional case of Chechnya, the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation now appears quite solid. What role has religion played in Russia in this regard? And what of the connection between religion and the formation of civil society and democracy in post-totalitarian Russia? President Putin offered revealing commentary during a visit to the Solovetsky Monastery in August of 2001. There he remarked on the role of religion in multinational Russia, in which the principle of equality of all nationalities: must be made the backbone of Russia’s domestic and foreign policies. “God has saved all nations,” Metropolitan Illarion once said. If so, all nations are equal in the eyes of God. This simple truth has been the nucleus of the Russian state system, making it possible to build a strong multi-ethnic state. Evidence shows that these sentiments enjoy a broad base of popular support. This is all the more remarkable given the seven decades of concerted state-sponsored efforts to eliminate religion from Russia. But do these sentiments translate into a firm base for the emergence of civil society? Inasmuch as the religious aspect of civil society was perhaps the domain in which Soviet totalitarianism most directly attacked traditional 91

Burden or Blessing? Russian society, religion may likewise now be the key to the entrenchment of civil society. Identity, Religiosity, and Civil Society Although the predominant locus of religious identity in Russia is with Russian Orthodoxy, this identification does not necessarily possess a theological or even religious character. Sociologists Furman and Kaariainen explain that: Eighty-two percent of all Russian respondents called themselves Orthodox…. This shows that the number of Orthodox is much greater than the number of believers (42 percent). Fifty percent of nonbelievers called themselves Orthodox and 42 percent of atheists did the same…. it is clear that such “ideological” Orthodoxy has only a very indirect relation to religious faith.1 This seemingly incongruous blend of characteristics regarding identity is nonetheless consistent with Russia having the lowest level of attendance at worship services of any country in Europe. While the proportion of religious believers has increased significantly, attendance at worship services has increased much less. Nikolas Gvosdev has discerned an important connection between President Putin’s regime of “managed pluralism” and the role of religion, particularly Russian Orthodoxy, in Russia’s identity. This connection occurs within a social context characterized by a rather tolerant, accepting spirit that is very much consistent with the norms of civil society. Anti-Islamic sentiments are not particularly widespread in the Russian Federation, despite the Chechen conflict, the USSR’s involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and the highly selective but substantial engagement of Russia with the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism.” Research by Furman and Kaariainen indicate that over 60 percent of the population of Russia expresses a “good” or “very good” assessment of Islam, despite an “Orthodox consensus” of values and identity across nationality groups and across religious orientations. Other religious groups tend to be either positively assessed or are regarded rather neutrally. Recent sociological data suggest that an attitudinal basis for civil society in Russia exists regarding religious tolerance and acceptance. Some religious groups (such as Baptists or Jehovah’s 92

Religiosity, Politics, and the Formation of Civil Society Witnesses) tend to be viewed negatively by the public, but this does not necessarily signify a culture of intolerance or religious disrespect. The connections among religion, ethnicity, and the emergence of civil society in Russia are highly complex. In assessing them, therefore, it is useful to distinguish between positive and negative aspects. The Positive Russia is generally characterized by religious freedom. In terms of the broad sweep of Russian history, there is a greater plane of religious freedom today than ever before, except perhaps the period from 1991– 1997. That era culminated in passage of the “Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Association” in October 1997, which some view as a legal foundation for governmental interference. Indeed the year 2003 witnessed governmental treatment of religious matters that would almost certainly not have happened in a Western democracy: the expulsion of a Roman Catholic bishop and four priests, the restriction and/or expulsion of several scores of religious workers, etc. The U.S. State Department’s Annual Report on Human Rights was critical of numerous violations of religious liberties, although that report was disputed by the Russian government. Perhaps most importantly, however, these cases do not reflect an anti-religious disposition of the political regime that is specific to an ethno-religious group, nor do they represent the same magnitude of challenge to religious freedom posed by either the Soviet or the tsarist regimes. Furthermore, a “stabilized” religiosity has emerged in Russia. Far from being politicized in a manner that would directly threaten civil authority’s claim to sovereignty or threaten national unity, religion in Russia appears to be having the large-scale effect of reinforcing a sense of civic unity. Furman and Kaariainen further argue that this “stabilization” has been simultaneous with a political stabilization, with the two trends integrally connected. Although one could dispute their finer points, the fact is that with the obvious and important exception of Chechnya, Russia has largely avoided inter-communal (ethnic or religious) violence, fragmentation, and religious warfare. This stabilization is also characterized by a remarkably high level of public trust in religious institutions, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church. In and of itself this does not indicate the emergence of a civil 93

Burden or Blessing? society, but if religious institutions embrace and foster the values essential for a civil society, and those institutions are deeply trusted and respected, then the prospect of those values being further entrenched is obviously enhanced. An ecumenical spirit regarding tolerance and acceptance of others’ faiths is also in evidence, although one might call it “hegemonic ecumenism” by the Russian Orthodox Church. This spirit also generally manifests itself in a willingness to work with the leadership and followers of other faiths for the common good. The Second InterReligion Peace-Building Forum in Moscow (2-4 March 2004) is emblematic of this spirit. President Putin noted the significance of the forum for fostering a harmonious spirit among the various nationalities and religious groups of the region, as did (then) Foreign Minister Ivanov. The formation of the new Interreligious Council of CIS may well augment this ecumenical spirit and indirectly contribute to the strengthening of civil society. Some have dismissed or minimized such activities as reminiscent of the ostensibly church-sponsored “peace movements” of the USSR but the evidence can be interpreted otherwise. It would seem that an institution with the deep well of citizens’ public trust and goodwill such as that held by the Russian Orthodox Church might in fact have a decisive influence on the overall social climate regarding the maintenance of inter-ethnic and inter-confessional peace. Conversely, such a widely respected and trusted institution could have an immensely powerful influence on the population in terms of fostering a spirit of animosity. Fortunately, the Orthodox Church and other major religious institutions have chosen the former path, and if the population’s high level of trust and respect for the Church is because of that stance, then that speaks very well for the mass psychology regarding the strengthening of civil society. Finally, recent surveys also reveal an ecumenical and civic spirit by Protestants toward their Orthodox cobelievers. Another positive aspect is that Russian political leaders consistently emphasize the importance of religion as a source of social and political virtues. This is obviously a complete reversal from the Soviet period, and is done even by leaders of the Communist Party. While emphasizing the principle of a secular state, politicians of nearly every political camp have been remarkably similar in their public pronouncements on the positive, socially constructive influences of religion. Perhaps this is political opportunism, as they are keenly aware of the public’s overwhelmingly positive disposition toward the Orthodox Church. But in any case their public declarations of support for the higher principles of 94

Religiosity, Politics, and the Formation of Civil Society civility embedded in the major religious traditions of Russia would seem to augur well for the entrenchment of civil society regardless of shortterm political motives. Finally, ethnic conflict has not been the norm in Russia since 1991 despite the obvious exception of Chechnya. During the Yeltsin years and into the Putin administration, ethnic relations were complex and were handled much differently than they had been under the USSR. Yet Yeltsin’s handling of ethnic relations largely by means of bi-lateral treaties, and Putin’s “reassertion of vertical authority” have each been done in a manner that managed to avoid violent confrontation, again with the obvious exception of Chechnya and related acts of terrorism elsewhere in Russia. Ethnic conflict had been in general global decline during the 1990s despite cases of particularly horrific communal warfare (Rwanda, Bosnia, etc.). According to Gurr, whose research tracks patterns of ethnic conflict, a global “regime of managed ethnic heterogeneity” began emerging in the 1990s, which “consists of a widely articulated set of principles about intergroup relations in heterogeneous states, a repertoire of strategies for institutionalizing the principles, and agreement on both domestic and international policies for how to best respond to ethnopolitical crises and conflicts.”2 Can such a “regime of managed ethnic heterogeneity” emerge in Russia, despite the Chechen conflict? For the time being, the positive forces of religiosity in the Russian Federation noted above appear to have the upper hand in helping to create a climate of tolerance, civility, and even national unity elsewhere in the country. The Negative Of course, Russia also faces monumental social problems that are thwarting the further entrenchment of civil society. Recent evidence suggests that criminality, and particularly organized crime, are getting worse despite the Putin regime’s best efforts to contain them, and these are perversely intertwined with “managed pluralism.” Both are also integrally related to ethnicity and oligarchic politics, particularly at the regional level, and especially in the ethnic regions. Further, substance abuse, domestic violence, inadequate health care infrastructure, homelessness, and neglected children all abound in Russia and undermine prospects for an entrenchment of civil society. 95

Burden or Blessing? Russia’s declining birthrate is not as bad as was predicted prior to the 2002 census, but it is nonetheless viewed as problematical by political and religious leaders. President Putin mentioned the issue in his very brief 2003 end-of-year address, although couching the data in positive terms: “One particularly pleasing fact is that more new Russian citizens were born this year in comparison with last year. This is a good sign.” Patriarch Alexii II has also addressed the issue publicly, tying it in with the issue of abortion, which will probably not assume the divisive proportions it does in America, but could if the official line of the Orthodox Church were taken as a political stance by the majority of the population who are nominally Orthodox. Thus the degree of civil society in Russia is problematical. Alexander Domrin considers that there is no civil society in Russia because of the “human crisis of monumental proportions.”3 William Odom sees a “path-dependency” in Russia’s development that makes Russia a “sick bear” with little possibility of transition to fully developed civil society and democratization. Others, such as Christopher Marsh and Nicolai Petro, see much evidence for the potential, at least, of a vibrant civil society, and in fact some evidence that such has been occurring. It seems to this author that a significant measure of civil society has in fact emerged in Russia, and religious institutions have been an integral part of this process, even if the pluralism of Russia is somewhat “managed” by the Kremlin, and religion is characterized by a “hegemonic ecumenism” of the Russian Orthodox Church. Finally, the matter of trust among citizens has long been viewed as a critical indicator of the well-being of society, particularly its capacity to self-govern. Recent surveys indicate that the population of Russia expressed the least amount of trust in their respective parliament of all the countries of the “new Europe.” Furthermore, trust in other political institutions was not much higher, reflecting perhaps a shallow basis for civil society. The 2002 official Census itself was marked by a climate of a basic lack of trust in the regime. Fortunately, however, this pervasive lack of trust does not appear to be ethnic-specific. Further, the Russian Orthodox Church is the most trusted institution in Russian society. Furman and Kaariainen recently offered that “Russian Orthodoxy not only is the leading religion, but also is the most trusted organization compared to other community and government institutions … This is the direct expression of the ‘pro-Orthodox’ consensus that has arisen in the society.” The question is whether this “pro-Orthodox consensus” will serve as the basis for a vibrant civil society; despite the negative trends, 96

Religiosity, Politics, and the Formation of Civil Society the positive traits of Russia’s intersection of religiosity and ethnicity noted above certainly give grounds for hope. Conclusion Four scenarios regarding the future of Russia appear most likely. First, the emergence of a vibrant civil society, coupled with political institutions favorable and sufficiently flexible to settle the ethnic issues that are part and parcel of governing a large, diverse modern country. Moreover, the continuation is likely of a “stabilized” religiosity that is tolerant and increasingly characterized by mutual good-will and flexibility in working with other faiths on resolving Russia’s monumental social problems. Ethnic and/or religion-based political parties are probably not very useful in this process, although ethnic and/or religious associations are crucial to a vibrant civil society; the key factor is of course civility among such groups and also toward the state, and here the role of religious virtues could be critical. Secondly, if Furman and Kaariainen are accurate about a “stabilization” of religion and politics, then entrenchment of managed pluralism and hegemonic ecumenism by the Orthodox Church is probably the most likely scenario. Russia’s current economic robustness may well reinforce this. Another possible scenario is the emergence of “semiauthoritarianism” similar to that of most of the post-Soviet republics (e.g., Central Asia, Belarus, Ukraine). Such regimes possess some democratic characteristics, but “rely on authoritarian practices to maintain power.”4 Given the “anti-terror” climate of the early 21st century, such regimes have ample pretext for governing in this manner, and Russia may follow suit. Finally, Russia could experience a descent into classical authoritarianism, with little if any civil society, and a reversal of the gains made in democratization. To the extent that the political culture of Russia is incurably “state-centric,” then a return to an authoritarian approach to religion by could be seen not so much as a reversion to the viciously anti-religion disposition of the Soviet regime, but rather to a longer-term pattern of an imbalanced “symphonia” in which the state is the more influential force. Such a regime, however, would not function effectively in the post-modern world. In any case, the positive traits 97

Burden or Blessing? outlined above give little reason to believe that such a course lies ahead for Russia, with “hegemonic ecumenism” by the Russian Orthodox Church within a context “managed pluralism” the much more likely outcome. Notes 1

Dimitri Furman and Kimmo Kaariainen, “Orthodoxy as a Component of Russian Identity,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 10, 1 (2002). 2 Ted Robert Gurr, People Versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2000), 277-78. 3 Alexander N. Domrin, “Ten Years Later: Civil Society and the Russian State,” Russian Review 62, 2 (2003): 193-211. 4 Marina Ottaway, Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003).

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