RAS 12 - JRL 6535
SOCIETY
6. RELIGION: THE GR0WTH OF CHRISTIAN PLURALISM
SOURCE. Religiia i obshchestvo: ocherki religioznoi zhizni sovremennoi Rossii [Religion and Society: Essays on the Religious Life of Contemporary Russia] (Moscow: Letnii Sad, 2002), especially pp. 247-382.
This volume of 22 substantial essays, produced under the aegis of the Keston Institute, presents a vivid panorama of religious life in post-Soviet Russia. (1) Moreover, the authors -- foremost among them the prominent sociologist of religion Sergei Filatov (2) -- situate the phenomena they describe within a broad historical, socio-psychological, and international comparative context. They are to be congratulated on a most impressive achievement.
Half the essays are devoted to specific religious currents or problems, such as the shifting extent of religious freedom, proselytism, and new religious movements. The other half focus on the religious situation in specific regions: northern Russia, the Volga, the North Caucasus, and various Siberian territories with ethnically diverse populations (Yakutia, Khakasia, Tuva, Altai).
Summarizing such a densely written work, close to 500 pages in length, would be a major undertaking in itself. Instead I plan to write a series of articles based on individual essays or discussing key recurring themes. One such theme is the striking growth of religious pluralism in Russia. Here I have in mind not the coexistence of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, shamanism, and other religions -- that kind of pluralism is traditional to Russia -- but the competition of diverse confessions WITHIN Christianity in a country where a single "national" Church, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), has traditionally held a near-monopoly on Christian public activity.
Christian confessions outside the ROC include many Protestant Churches of different kinds, Roman Catholicism, and also dissident Orthodox Churches, notably the Old Believers -- so that one can speak of pluralism even within Orthodoxy. (3) Some of these confessions, such as the Pentecostalists, are growing rapidly. Others -- like Baptism, gradually emerging from a closed social milieu -- are growing more slowly. But they all seem to be growing. The ROC still retains clear predominance in central Russia, but the phenomenon of intra-Christian pluralism becomes increasingly evident as one proceeds east into Siberia, where in some cities Protestant churches regularly attract larger congregations than churches belonging to the ROC.
What attracts people to Churches outside the ROC? And, even more crucially, what repels them from the ROC?
Many individuals quoted in the book describe the ROC as cold, formalistic, commercialized, hypocritical, and morally and spiritually degenerate. I was reminded of a conversation with a Russian friend who left the ROC in disgust at the local priest, who was selling off the icons and spending the proceeds on drink. She and her circle call themselves simply Christians, without further specification.
If everyone has similar reasons for leaving the ROC, different kinds of people join various other Churches for diverse reasons:
* Catholicism and Lutheranism have a special appeal for the Western-oriented intelligentsia. Lutheranism appeals to the LIBERAL intelligentsia in particular, as it is the only significant Christian confession in Russia that takes liberal positions on theological as well as social and political issues.
* Pentecostalism has the strongest mass appeal, effectively combining fundamentalist eschatological dogma with vigorous proselytizing, charitable work, and a flexible approach to external forms. (4)
* The Old Believers appeal to more traditionally minded Russians who are disillusioned with the ROC but still regard themselves as Orthodox. Their growth potential is substantial also because for many Russians Old Belief is part of their family heritage: in the late tsarist period as many as one in ten Russians were Old Believers.
The Lutherans, the Catholics, and above all the Pentecostalists are also making inroads among traditionally Moslem, Buddhist, and pagan ethnic minorities. In ethic minority regions these Churches have the advantage that unlike Orthodoxy they are not perceived as essentially "Russian" confessions. Moreover, the Pentecostalists are adept at incorporating native customs into their pattern of worship. They have established themselves on a modest scale even in such an inhospitable environment as Daghestan, where Islam is most deeply entrenched. Pentecostalism has a special appeal to Daghestani women, to whom it offers greater scope for self-expression than does Islam.
Indeed, in ethnic minority regions the ROC does not even try to compete with other Christian Churches. It no longer seeks proselytes among traditionally Moslem or Buddhist peoples, preferring to view religious affiliation as a matter of ethnic tradition rather than individual choice.
In fact, the ROC is on much better terms with Russia's traditional non-Christian religions than it is with "alien" forms of Christianity. The Catholic Church in particular is the object of widespread fear and hatred as the ROC's -- and Russia's -- "historical enemy." The activity of foreign Catholic and Protestant Churches in Russia is felt to be acceptable only when it is directed toward traditionally Catholic or Protestant ethnic minorities such as Poles, Lithuanians, and Germans. However, in practice a sharp line cannot be drawn between ethnic Russians and members of these groups, many of whom are now highly Russified and no longer speak their ethnic languages. So activities have to be conducted in Russian, and inevitably attract ethnic Russians as well. Another factor in the ongoing Russification of foreign Churches is the emigration of those groups for whom they were originally established: most ethnic Germans have now left Russia for Germany.
How far can the growth of Christian pluralism in Russia progress without sparking conflict over the official privileges of the ROC as a quasi-state religion? I cannot help thinking that the situation is bound to lead to trouble sooner or later.
NOTES
(1) The book does not aim to convey a complete picture. For instance, there is nothing on Judaism. For a different perspective on contemporary Russian religiosity, see RAS No. 1 item 4.
The Keston Institute (Oxford, UK) is the best source of objective information on religious developments throughout the former Soviet Union. Their site is at http://www.keston.org.
(2) Filatov is author or co-author of most of the essays. He also edited and compiled the volume.
(3) The Old Believers are an archaic sect that has its origin in a split in the ROC between supporters and opponents of the Church reforms of Tsar Peter the Great.
(4) The same winning combination is characteristic of Chabad (Lubavitch) Chasidism within Judaism. See Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996), Chapter 5.
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