Serge Schmemann reports on the Russian Orthodox Church’s search for a post-Soviet identity in National Geographic Magazine:
In 1990 Alexy became the first patriarch since the Russian Revolution to be elected without the direct interference of the government. “We have managed to establish an entirely new relationship with the state,” he said, “one which never existed before.” He insisted the church had no intention of becoming a state church, noting that he banned his clergy from elected office.
But critics argue that Alexy and other senior prelates have been all too happy to accept the trappings of a state church and have done little to resist the Kremlin’s drift into authoritarianism. Although the Russian Constitution calls for the separation of church and state, Russia’s three post-Soviet presidents—Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Dmitry Medvedev—have made regular, well-publicized appearances in church, and Orthodox bishops and priests are fixtures at state functions.
This closeness has fed an impression abroad that the Orthodox Church has teamed up with the Kremlin to create a new Russian autocracy. Church officials deny this. They cite a host of differences and unresolved disputes between the church and the government, from control over religious antiquities to religious education. If the church and state are intertwined, they say, it is in a profound and complex search for a new, post-Soviet identity. In that search Russia’s imperial history offers only a partial template, and the final result is far from certain.
Still, the Orthodox Church’s favored status often works to the detriment of other denominations and faiths—especially those perceived, rightly or wrongly, as Western.
Read the entire feature here and view the supplemental photo slideshow here.