The Russian Orthodox Church, or more precisely its conservative top leadership, including Patriarch Kirill, is facing increasing public criticism and pressure over its close relationship with the state, extending unabashed political support to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during the recent presidential election, repression against critics, conspicuous consumption and flashy lifestyles by some of the church's prominent leaders. Is the church leadership's cultural conservatism at odds with a more culturally diverse society in Russia's major metropolitan centers? What should the right relationship between the church, the state and society be in a modern, post-industrial country that Russia is striving to become?

file photoDuring the peak of the public protests in Moscow in December 2011 to February 2012, the church initially sought to strand the middle ground between the protesters and the authorities. Patriarch Kirill, on the eve of the Russian Orthodox Christmas on January 7, made a televised appeal in which he called upon the authorities to "hear the legitimate demands of the people" and to open up a dialogue. However, in the same speech, the patriarch strongly warned against the instability and chaos that the protests might lead to, speaking of a potential collapse of the Russian state on par with the catastrophe of the Russian revolution of 1917. Other church leaders urged the faithful not to take part in the anti-Putin protests. Patriarch Kirill called the 12 years of Vladimir Putin's rule a "miracle of God" ahead of the March 4 election.

According to an April 3 report by Reuters, "The church's unequivocal support for the ex-KGB spy has angered many members of the anti-Kremlin protest movement in Moscow and other large cities, who view it as political meddling and an abuse of the church's position in society. In recent years, state TV has given a much higher profile to the church; Kirill is frequently shown in the company of Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, and the church has been granted the role of a de facto policy adviser to the Kremlin on an array of issues that affect people's everyday lives."

The church is facing perhaps the biggest controversy in the so called "Pussy Riot" case, where the collusion of the church and the state is increasingly evident in doling out a disproportioned punishment to three young women who, in a rather foolish and grotesque way, dared to challenge Putin and the church's support for him.

The case began in February, when five masked female performers from the "Pussy Riot" band clad in short dresses and multi-colored tights stormed the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, the shrine where the patriarch holds the most important services, singing "Holy Mother, throw Putin out!" Three band members, two of them young mothers, are currently under arrest, facing criminal charges and jail terms of up to seven years if convicted.

In Moscow, the public has been divided between those who denounced the jailing of the performers and the church's support for this retaliation by the government and those who said the church was justified in calling for severe punishment because the performers' act was blasphemy, deeply offensive to the religious feelings of the faithful. The patriarch himself condemned the performers: "We know that not so long ago, an act of sacrilege, spiritual wickedness was staged before these shrines of the world Christianity. Blasphemy of this scale cannot be ignored."

Even the clergy appears to be divided over the "Pussy Riot" case, with some priests openly calling for forgiveness and counsel to the young women, not jail time. Dissident priest Gleb Yakunin told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that in his opinion, "...the Patriarch is offended by the silence of the church primates after the girls' escapade in the Christ the Savior Cathedral, which was directed against Putin and against him personally. Several hundred bishops did not want to interfere, did not share his anger."
Patriarch Kirill himself has become a target in pro-opposition media outlets, whose authors question his alleged role in dealings around duty-free alcohol and tobacco imports in the 1990s as well as his alleged wealth unbecoming a monk (a pricey apartment in a historic building across the river from the Kremlin, a $30,000 Bregeut wristwatch he said was given as a gift, etc).

On April 3, the church's hardliners went on the counteroffensive. The Supreme Church Council, a body dominated by conservatives, said in a statement posted on its Web site that the Russian Orthodox Church was under attack from unspecified "anti-Russian forces" seeking to erode its authority after it threw its weight behind Vladimir Putin before last month's presidential election. "The attacks have become more prominent during the pre-election and post-election period, which shows their political and also anti-Russian motives," the statement said. The church said it was also being ostracized by "those pushing through radical liberal values" for its stern opposition to homosexual marriage, consumerism, the spread of violence and adultery. The council called on Orthodox Christians to come to cathedrals across Russia on April 22 for a nationwide prayer "in defense of the faith, desecrated sanctuaries, the church and its good name."

Why is the Russian Orthodox Church under attack in Moscow? Is it because the church leaders have aligned themselves too closely with Vladimir Putin during his presidential campaign? Or is it because the church leaders, including Patriarch Kirill, are undermining the moral authority of the church by their conspicuous personal consumption and persecution of their critics in and outside the church? Is the church leadership's cultural conservatism at odds with a more culturally diverse society in Russia's major metropolitan centers, particularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg? Is a reformation movement within the Russian Orthodox Church likely to emerge? What should the right relationship between the church, the state and society be in a modern, post-industrial country that Russia is striving to become?

Professor Nicolai N. Petro, Department of Political Science, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI

This conflict is but a small skirmish in the struggle for the soul of modern Russia. There will be many more to come.

This particular skirmish involves the question of how society should respond to three masked young women who staged a "punk prayer service" in front of the altar in the Christ the Savior Cathedral, in the area where the faithful take communion and the Gospel is read.

Setting up portable speakers they belted out crude lyrics, calling for the "Mother of God, [to] throw Putin out." Ostensibly about Putin, the stint was aimed primarily at Patriarch Kirill, who is referred to as a "bitch" who believes in Putin rather than in God, and at the Orthodox faithful, "whose chief saint is the head of the KGB" and who "crawl and bow" before their "rotten" Church leaders.

After their impromptu service was halted by church security, the young women were escorted from the premises. When they posted a clip of their performance on YouTube, however, the state prosecutor issued a warrant for their arrest on charges of hooliganism. Under Russian law the penalty for hooliganism, when accompanied by conspiracy, ranges from a hefty fine to imprisonment for up to seven years.

The case would seem to be a rather straightforward one, but unexpectedly, the women's detention became a cause célèbre. Amnesty International has hailed them as "prisoners of conscience." A few noted artists and intellectuals called for their release, saying that the incident was another example of the repression of dissent and free speech (this, indeed, has been the dominant theme in Western reporting).

The response among the Orthodox faithful has been mixed. Some have held public rallies. In cities like Krasnodar, speakers have called for the full application of the law. But there have also been public comments, even by priests, who have called upon the church to forgive, saying that the girls were merely trying to raise issues for discussion.

Senior clergy has tried to steer a middle course. It has condemned the group's actions as sacrilegious and warned that this sort of behavior should not be trivialized, particularly in the context of Soviet history. This point is not to be taken lightly. After all, it was widespread tolerance for antireligious bigotry at the turn of the century that fed the organized antireligious violence of the 1920s and the 1930s. Perhaps there is even some significance to the fact that the group chose to stage their act at the Christ the Savior Cathedral, the very same church built on public donations that Stalin had demolished in 1931 as a sign of his victory over religious superstition.

The church's critics, however, complain that the constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state has been gradually eroded. Presumably, they would like to establish a regime in which the practice of religion is neither suppressed nor encouraged, but kept quiet and out of sight, a society like America's, in which, as Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter put it, religion is "something without political significance, less an independent moral force than a quietly irrelevant moralizer, never heard, rarely seen."

But instead of meekly retiring, Patriarch Kirill has charged the Russian Orthodox Church with the ambitious task of "re-Christianizing society." While accepting the separation of church and state as a reality of modern democracy, he has said that there should be no forced separation of church and society. It is precisely the Orthodox Church's claim (or any religion's claim, for that matter) that it has a social vision that is relevant to modern Russia that its most determined critics cannot tolerate, and which makes this an epic struggle for the soul of modern Russia.

Eric Kraus, Private Fund Manager, Moscow

Totally lacking in any theological qualifications, I would prefer to avoid discussion of the spiritual qualities of the Russian church. Like the Church of England, the Russian Orthodox Church is a national church with no history of dissidence, and has traditionally supported the state. Certainly, the relative passivity of the church during the Soviet period resulted in an ambivalent attitude by society, which has nevertheless embraced religion largely as a means of reviving its pre-Soviet Russian roots, with limited concern for questions of theology or religious institutions.

Let those who are without fault shoot first ­ the seemingly endless series of child-abuse and financial scandals involving the Roman hierarchy are infinitely worse than the relatively minor peccadilloes of which the Russian church stands accused. A quick walk around the Vatican will likely convince skeptics that the purported teachings of Christ ­ poverty, humility and spiritual absorption ­ have been slightly diluted by organized religion, and not only in Russia.

More serious is the conflict between a traditionally-minded populace and church and a small, radicalized faction of city dwellers influenced by recent trends in Western Europe ­ societies which some may believe to be afflicted with signs of terminal decay. Russian society remains profoundly conservative ­ "the Pussy Riot" story begs the question: in what country did they think they are living? Perhaps one could get away with such grotesque provocation in the churches of Amsterdam or Stockholm ­ in Italy acts of sacrilege would be taken rather more seriously ­ in Riyad, they would most likely result in decapitation. In Russia, not only the church, but also a broad swath of society was offended; political protests are quite fashionable, but are not to be carried out in a cathedral. While a seven-year-long sentence would be totally disproportionate, the risk exists only in the imagination of the journalists ­ the "hooliganism" statute includes anything from spray-painting graffiti to grievous bodily harm with a broken bottle; the penalty is a function of the severity of the crime. "Pussy Riot" is likely to have a bit more time to reflect upon more appropriate venues for political protest. Perhaps they should be condemned to a course of bible study.

Simply put ­ Russia is under no compulsion to emulate the West. It has a vastly different society, history and traditions, and while the "Westernizing" faction may wish to see foreign models adopted willy-nilly, the "Slavophiles" remain in the majority. While it could be argued that for consenting adults to be allowed to engage in whatever sexual practices they happen to prefer is a fundamental human right, this does not necessarily extend to their right to propagandize, nor to any obligation for society in general to consider such behavior as normal or desirable. Russia continues to ban homosexual marriages ­ the United States continues to execute common criminals; within certain basic limits, societies must decide for themselves how to live.

Given the isolation of the anti-Putin protest movement and its increasingly desperate attempts to keep the cold embers of protest alive, it is hardly surprising that the church is targeted. The results of the presidential elections were indeed hard for the dissident faction to swallow, but by taking aim at the church, the "Facebook Generation" simply confirms its alienation from Russian society, along with its chronic inability to offer any palatable alternatives. Being "against everyone and everything" has never constituted a successful political platform.

Vladimir Belaeff, Global Society Institute, San Francisco, CA

"Public pressure" seems like a bit of an overstatement. More accurately, it would appear that the same people who have routinely expressed non-religious or anti-religious, or anti-clerical opinions have now targeted the Russian Orthodox Church in their political discourse "against Putin." Given that this discourse is mostly of the kind known as "preaching to the converted" (religious pun intentional), it is difficult to understand the practical purpose of the anti-church rhetoric, except maybe as relief-seeking catharsis for troubled minds.

Regarding the Russian Orthodox Church and the community of faithful one must always keep in mind that they are emerging from decades of the most horrible and intense persecution in modern history. Therefore, acts of mockery and hostility not only strike very justifiably sensitive nerves, but also align the authors of such attacks with communist persecutors of religion. It might not be an exaggeration to suggest that for Russia this matter is no less delicate than the subject of the Holocaust.

Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior, for example, is a memorial to the Russian dead in the War of 1812 against Napoleon. Peter Tchaikovsky's 1812 "Overture" was composed in 1882 to celebrate the consecration of this church. Soviet atheists demolished this cathedral in 1931. In the 1990s the Cathedral was rebuilt, using the original architectural design. To perform a mock "prayer" in this church, with an obvious intent to hurt and offend the Orthodox faithful, is as insulting as if it were done inside London's Westminster Abbey or the Cenotaph, or at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. Civilized political activists do not use places of worship to deliver their propaganda as mockeries of prayer. The perpetrators of this act might be glad they are not accused under section 282 of the Russian Criminal Code (which includes incitement of religious hatred in it scope) with its justifiably heavy penalties.

That insult to the worshippers, and the lack of condemnation of that action by the "anti-Putin" opposition, are perhaps the strongest catalysts for the turn of the hierarchy of the Russian Church ­ and of millions of its faithful ­ away from an earlier attentive and respectful stance toward the opposition. Since December 2011 the protest activists have been attempting to polarize Russian society, in the expectation of provoking "a Tahrir Square" in Moscow. And to some extent, the opposition has succeeded ­ it has polarized large segments of the Russian society ­ against itself.

Continuing petty criticism of the Russian Church with rumors and improvable allegations, the long-range determination of the patriarch's wristwatch brand, supposed price, and similar silliness may satisfy an introverted anti-church audience, but it has destroyed a wider appeal of the movement. Henceforth the opposition will be known as "the people who support insults of the church and of the faithful." There is a technical name for such behavior: it is called "shooting oneself in the foot."

What is the position of religion and religious worship in a "post-industrial" society? As we know, the United States is a strong attractive paradigm to the Russian liberal opposition. Therefore, perhaps the American example may be useful here. In a 2010 Gallup survey, 41.6 percent of Americans said that they attended church or synagogue once a week or almost every week. A Gallup Poll released in 2007 indicated that 53 percent of Americans would refuse to vote for an atheist as president, up from 48 percent in 1987 and 1999. There is no fundamental incompatibility between a modern developed society (like the United States) and the religious activity of a large segment of the electorate.

Keywords: Russia, Government, Politics - Russia, Religion - Russian News - Russia