Believing in Russia

Geraldine Fagan

Religion and Russian State Consolidation The Russian Orthodox Church asserts itself as the definitive expression of Russian nationhood. Alternative worldviews are marginalized. The gravest consequence of this antagonism is its exacerbation of separatist tendencies among Russian Muslims, who seek to establish Islam locally in opposition to Patriarchate hegemony nationally. Far from its mystical vision, the Orthodox-centered model of Russian identity is thus failing to consolidate the modern Russian nation. Alone, this failure will not trigger widespread civil conflict or the collapse of the Russian Federation. Yet the situation could deteriorate rapidly, especially in combination with other, more potent factors such as rising social disaffection.

Since 2009 a dozen regions have eagerly pursued a Brezhnev-esque campaign against Jehovah’s Witnesses without so much as a cough of disapproval from the Kremlin. Chechnya’s bald imposition of Islamic norms in defiance of Russia’s 1993 Constitution also goes unchecked by Moscow. Regional disparity is now acute. In June 2008 the Koranic verse “There is no god but Allah” adorned the mountainside opposite Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s palace. The same month, it was forcibly removed from the outer wall of the mosque in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.1 The Kremlin’s failure to uphold its own constitutional commitment to religious freedom means there is no firm barrier against further decline. 

Religious Freedom: A Low State Priority 

The erosion of religious freedom is not due to deliberate federal preference for the Russian Orthodox Church. Rather, it is a symptom of a disinterested Kremlin absenting itself from the religious policy sphere. Few top officials yearn for Orthodox Christianity’s restoration to the status of national ideology as under the tsars. The driving impulses of today’s Russian rulers are pursuit and retention of personal wealth and influence. Since religious freedom (among other human rights and public concerns) is not one of them, it is left unregulated to the extent that it does not encroach upon the strategic interests of the elite. That freedom of conscience has not deteriorated further in Russia over the past two decades is due to a scattering of lawyers and civil society activists such as those behind the Moscow-based SOVA Centre, and benign state officials such as government adviser Andrei Sebentsov. Yet as unrelenting calls for oppression of non-establishment faiths snowball, the situation is nearing breaking point. 

An Orthodox-Centered Religious Policy 

Putin is famed for muscular rhetoric on a strong state and dictatorship of the law. But the Kremlin’s fundamental indifference to religious freedom allows junior officials to pursue an Orthodox-centered religious policy in defiance of the federal standard. Their allies in the Moscow Patriarchate have taken advantage of this situation by concentrating initial lobbying efforts for exclusive privilege at regional level. This push has garnered sufficient momentum to effect formal policy change at the federal level, most notably the 1997 federal law On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations and special access to the armed forces and state schools in 2009. Certain federal representatives now also patronize such initiatives. “It doesn’t matter that the Church is separate from the state,” Duma First Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska argued in support of the Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture course in 2005.2 Putin has occasionally moved to check Patriarchate initiatives, including the Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture course. Yet as popular resentment over the gulf between the lifestyles of the rich and powerful and ordinary citizens rises, the Kremlin is growing ever more reliant upon cynical identification with national values in order to protect the elite. While so far substantially untapped, alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church against perceived spiritual enemies is one of the few remaining mechanisms for bolstering popularity to which it has recourse. 

Ethno-Religious Tensions

 That is dangerous strategy. On a dim Saturday afternoon in December 2010, thousands of young Russians gave Nazi salutes just yards from the Kremlin’s walls. Their grievances centered upon ethnicity: rumors were sweeping Moscow that North Caucasians suspected of murdering a Slav soccer fan had bribed their way out of police detention. Ethnicity’s entrenched association with faith in Russia moved Putin to address sharpening ethno-religious polarization days later when discussing the impromptu rally during his annual televised call-in show: 

A person from the Caucasus should not be afraid to walk the streets of Moscow, and our citizens of Slavic ethnicity should not be afraid to live in the republics of the North Caucasus… . From the outset—I stress, from the outset—Russia formed as a multi-confessional and multi-ethnic state.3 

Yet Putin’s further comments illustrated the bankruptcy of the Russian state’s approach to religion more than a generation after perestroika. Their inadequacy also points to the elite’s alarming alienation from the ordinary populace. First he fumbled for tired Soviet rhetoric of the “traditional religion” paradigm, referring—in an apparent attempt to deflect resentment towards a familiar Western foe—to a claim by unspecified “theorists of Christianity” that Orthodoxy “is in many ways even closer to Islam than to Catholics.” Then, grasping for a model of interreligious harmony, he cited the ostensibly “truly brotherly” relations between Russian Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, and “other traditional” faith leaders. Even if taken to be genuinely brotherly, such leaders are hardly authorities for the nation’s rising generation, let alone those prone to engage in ethno-religious violence. 

State Treatment of Islam 

Putin’s appeals to Russia’s multi-confessional and multi-ethnic identity come woefully late. Back in 2001 the Council of Muftis of Russia had urged that, as there was no longer a part of Russia where Muslims did not live, it was vitally important they “feel any part of this country to be their homeland.”4 Subsequent warnings to Putin over prosecutions of innocent Muslims on the pretext of combating religious extremism and “Wahhabism” likewise went unheeded, for Russia’s ruling elite is oblivious to religious freedom concerns. 5 Despite blatant discrimination between faiths, Kremlin press secretary Dmitri Peskov insisted in April 2008 that in Russia “all religions are treated on an equal basis.”6 The Foreign Ministry is in still deeper denial, responding to a March 2006 US Congress resolution urging Russia to “ensure full protection of freedoms for all religious communities without distinction” by claiming that the authorities had received “practically not a single complaint” from religious organizations.7 Russia’s own human rights ombudsman was in fact then receiving some 250 such complaints annually.8 

Following the demise of enforced atheism, the diverse reality of beliefs in Russia is more distant than ever from the old pre-revolutionary messianic vision of a homogeneously Orthodox civilization. Political pursuit of that vision is consequently producing a dangerously skewed social imbalance. For evidence, one need look no further than the “Third Rome” itself. Despite Putin’s assurances during his December 2010 telethon that a new mosque would be built in Moscow, the city still had only three official mosques by 2010.9 By contrast, a construction plan for 200 new Orthodox churches in the capital spearheaded by Patriarch Kirill continues apace.10 Moscow’s Soviet-planned suburbs indeed lack Orthodox churches. But the enormous discrepancy between their provision and that of mosques—reflecting the assumption that Russia is definitively Orthodox with inconsequential Muslims and other minorities—is turning explosive. Three mosques were woefully inadequate for the estimated 100,000 Muslim worshippers who attended UrazaBayram (Eid ul-Fitr) in Moscow in August 2011, mostly packing central streets.11 

Putin and the Patriarch 

Few passive Orthodox, non-Orthodox, or atheist taxpayers object to government funding for aspects of religious activity perceived as cultural, such as preservation of historic churches or celebration of major Church festivals. Senior human rights official Mikhail Odintsov has thus suggested “cultural cooperation” to be the optimal foundation for the state’s religious policy.12 Provided such cooperation was transparent and non-exclusive, the Russian Orthodox Church could enjoy broad public approval amid conditions of true religious freedom. These are not mutually exclusive. But formidable obstacles remain. Any policy shift would mean abandoning the entrenched attitude that citizens need to be directed and protected from themselves—or, in the words of Baptist leader Yuri Sipko, “supposing that the citizens of a country with a great culture are incapable of making their own choices.”13 And in order for that shift to take place, Russia’s rulers would have to make civic rather than personal political interest their priority. 

As Putin commenced his third presidency in May 2012, Russia continued to drift in the opposite direction. Fifteen years before, Patriarch Aleksy II insisted that “Russia came to exist as a state on the basis of the Orthodox religion…and it is only on the basis of the Orthodox religion that the Motherland can regain its magnificence.”14 Seeking the Patriarchate as an ally in its drive to preserve credibility amidst rising popular resentment, the regime is increasingly drawn to the old notion that Russia is definitively Orthodox. At an extraordinary four-hour meeting with key religious leaders just weeks before the 2012 presidential election, Putin acknowledged the Orthodox Church to be Russia’s “state-forming” confession and promised to grant its wish list for privileged access to state institutions. Patriarch Kirill reciprocated by declaring Putin’s presidential candidacy to have “the best chances” and—“as the Patriarch, who is called upon to speak the truth”— lauding his role in leading Russia out of political crisis.15

 But will Putin deliver? Whether he honors his pledge to continue Medvedev’s concessions to “traditional religions” or resumes his pragmatic aloofness towards the Moscow Patriarchate will prove the key religious policy question for as long as he retains power.

Notes: 

1. Verse 28:88; Megan K. Stack, “Chechen tiger without a chain,” Los Angeles Times, 17 June 2008: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/ columnone/la-fg-kadyrov17-2008june17,0.3816252. story?page=2; Mikhail Pozdniaev, “Proverka na “pravil’nost’,” Novye Izvestiia, 9 June 2008: http:// www.newizv.ru/news/2008-06-09/91604/.
2. “Komitet Gosdumy po delam' obshchestvennykh ob”edinenii i religioznykh organizatsii vozglavil predstavitel' LDPR,” SOVA, 21 December 2011: http://www.sova-center.ru/religion/news/authorities/ legal-regulation/2011/12/d23292/.
3. “V priamom efire telekanalov ‘Rossiia,’ ‘Rossiia 24,’ radiostantsii ‘Maiak,’ ‘Vesti FM’ i ‘Radio Rossii' vyshla spetsial'naia programma ‘Razgovor s Vladimirom Putinym. Prodolzhenie’,” Russian government website, 16 December 2010: http:// premier.gov.ru/events/news/13427/.
4. Sovet Muftiev Rossii,Osnovnye polozheniia sotsial'noi programmy rossiiskikh musul'man(Yaroslavl: DIA-press, 2001), 24.
5. “Dokument: Obrashchenie vedushchikh rossiiskikh pravozashchitnikov k prezidentu RF s trebovaniem prekratit' presledovaniia musul’man v Rossii,” Portal-Credo, 10 June 2005: http://www.portal-credo. ru/site/index.php?act=news&id=34215&topic=38; “Musul'man Dagestana prosiat V. Putina otmenit' zapret na knigi Nursi,” Portal-Credo, 26 December 2007: http://www.portal-credo.ru/ site/?act=news&id=59378.
6. Clifford J. Levy, “At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church,” New York Times, 24 April 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/world/ europe/24church.html. 
7.  H. Con. Res. 190, 109th Congress, 2nd Session, 14 March 2006: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/ R?r109:FLD001:H50889. 
8.  “Opublikovan polnyi tekst doklada o deiatel'nosti Upolnomochennogo po pravam cheloveka v RF v 2005 g.,” SOVA, 11 May 2006: http://www.sovacenter.ru/religion/news/community-media/rightprotection/2006/05/d8155/. 
9. “V priamom efire;” Ignat Belovskii and Irina Reznik, “Tekstil'shchiki protiv mecheti,” Gazeta. ru, 22 September 2010: http://www.gazeta. ru/social/2010/09/22/3422028.shtml; “9/11. Moskovoskaia versiia,” Archnadzor, 11 September 2011: http://www.archnadzor.ru/2011/09/12/9-11- moskovskaya-versiya/. The Central Mosque was reportedly demolished with the approval of Mufti Ravil Gainutdin. 
10.  “Spravka: Moskovskii proekt ‘200 khramov shagovoi dostupnosti’”: predystoriia, pozitsiia mera, adresa,” Portal-Credo, 11 November 2010: http:// www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=80782. 
11.  “Dannye o kolichestve musul'man, posetivshikh bogosluzheniia na Uraza-Baqiram,” SOVA, 31 August 2011: http://www.sova-center.ru/religion/discussions/ how-many/2011/08/d22422/; “Uraza-bairam 2011 v Moskve. Sobornaia mechet,” You Tube, 30 August 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCWFB kiOdoo&feature=related; “Dannye o posetivshikh paskhal’nye bogosluzheniia v raznykh regionakh,” SOVA, 25 April 2011: http://www.sova-center.ru/ religion/discussions/how-many/2011/04/d21486/. 
12.  M. I. Odintsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ v XX veke: istoriia vzaimootnosheniia s gosudarstvom i obshchestvom (Moscow: TslNO, 2002), 11. 
13.  Predsedatel Rossiiskogo soiuza evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov Iurii Sipko, “Gosudarstvo v litse ministerstva iustitsii demonstriruet absoliutnoe nevezhestvo v voprosakh very,” Portal-Credo, 4 December 2009: http://www.portal-credo.ru/ site/?act=authority&id=1297. 
14. Cited in Wallace L. Daniel, The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006), 70. 
15.  “Vladimir Putin vstretilsia v Sviato-Danilovom monastyre s predstaviteliami religioznykh konfessii Rossii,” Vladimir Putin presidential candidacy website, 8 February 2012: http://putin2012.ru/ events/216. 

Edited, abridged excerpts reprinted with permission from Geraldine Fagan, Believing in Russia— Religious Policy after Communism (London: Routledge, 2013). 

Geraldine Fagan is Moscow correspondent for Forum 18 News Service (www.forum18.org).