Religious Conflict in North Ossetia-Alania Threatens to Undermine Moscow’s Policies in North Caucasus

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 1 – A conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the traditional faith of the North Ossetians has broken out with renewed vigor as the republic prepares to mark the 1100^th anniversary of the founding of the Alania state, a state so important to Ossetian thought that in 1993, nationalists insisted Alania be named to the republic.

            Alania, a medieval kingdom in the North Caucasus roughly coterminous with Circassia and North Ossetia that had its capital in Magas, which is now in Ingushetia, was not Christian but followed a traditional animist faith. Support for that faith remains high, but talking about it undermines the borders in the region and Moscow’s efforts to rope in South Ossetia.

            (The best explication of this complicated and still sensitive history is provided by Victor Shnirelman in his 2007 article, “The Politics of a Name: Between Consolidation and Separation in the Northern Caucasus,” Acta Slavica Iaponica, 23: 37-73. It is available online at

src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/23/02_shnirelman.pdf.)

            The current upsurge in the conflict began when the local Russian Orthodox archbishop, Leonid, criticized the head of North Ossetia-Alania, Vyacheslav Bitarov, for lacking respect for Orthodoxy because of his supposed support for the traditional national religion (akcent.site/mneniya/6586).

            The archbishop’s comments were then attacked by several commentators, and then 300 believers from the region published an open letter to Patriarch Kirill in which they said that they no longer recognized” the archbishop as their spiritual leader because of his attacks on the Ossetian nation.

            Roman Lunkin, a specialist on religious affairs at the Moscow Institute for Europe, says that this is hardly the first time that such a conflict has broken out, but that it is serious both for the republic and for Moscow. In North Ossetia-Alania, many followers of the traditional faith remain angry that the Orthodox have taken over their religious sites without acknowledgement.

            “The presence of Orthodox icons in holy places and groves is something the pagans consider a sacrilege,” the religious specialist says. And support for their position is far greater than for traditional religions in Mari El or Sakha, although pagans in those republics have received more attention in the recent past.

           

            The civil authorities in North Ossetia-Alania have not been able to smooth this over, Lunkin adds; but they must make an effort because the clash between the Orthodox and the followers of the traditional faith creates serious problems for “the nationality policy of the center in the regions.” 

            Not only does it threaten to exacerbate tensions concerning borders in the North Caucasus by elevating the idea that North Ossetia-Alania has justified claims to far more territory than is now within its borders, but it also complicates Moscow’s task in dealing with South Ossetia, the republic that broke away from Georgia with Russian help in 2008.