Staunton, December 1 – A new study by three Moscow sociologists finds that Russians who take an active part in religious life are simultaneously more loyal to the Kremlin than atheists but more prepared to participate in protests and politics, a finding that is sparking new interest in the religious as a political resource by various parties.
The study, by Maria Mchedlova, Elena Kofanova and Aleksandr Shevchenko of the Institute of Sociology, is available as “Orthodoxy and Loyalty” (in Russian), Rossiya Reformiruyushchayasya: Yezhegodnik 18 (Moscow, 2020), p. 264-298 at isras.ru/files/File/ezhegodnik/2020/Mchedlova_final.pdf.
That academic work is now attracting broader attention because Sergey Obukhov, secretary of the KPRF Central Committee, has raised the possibility that his party should reach out to Orthodox believers for support in the upcoming Duma election, a notion Andrey Melnikov of NG-Religii has now explored (ng.ru/ng_religii/2020-12-01/9_498_opposition.html).
Melnikov spoke with Aleksey Makarkin, a Moscow political technologist, and Roman Lunkin, a specialist on religious affairs at the Moscow Institute of Europe, about the article and about the interest of the communists and other political parties in winning support from among believers.
Makarkin said he was not surprised by the sociologists’ findings. The composition and attitudes of Orthodox believers today are very different than they were 25 years ago. On the one hand, they view the state as their own; but on the other, because they do, they do not stand apart but are quite prepared to make demands of it.
Moreover, he says, in a country where civil society is very weak, church groups are training grounds for the kind of social activism that few others take part in. Religious communities who demand land for their churches have gained experience which they may now put to other uses.
Lunkin for his part agrees. Religiously committed people are prepared to be more active, he says, and this includes not just Orthodox Christians but other groups as well. And while the overwhelming majority are loyal to the powers that be, that loyalty is ever less passive and ever more demanding that the authorities take the position of the religious into account.
He points to the case of Oksana Ivanova, an Orthodox activist who unsuccessfully ran for the Yekaterinburg city council as a Just Russia candidate. After her loss, she posted in social networks what can only be described as a manifesto about the future of religious believers in Russian political life.
“Yes, I did not win,” she acknowledged. “But the theme of religion in politics has achieved a glorious victory. After we came on the political scene, United Russia felt compelled to distribute Orthodox calendars, the communists found a believing candidate, and even Yabloko put forward a candidate not indifferent to the church, negative but nevertheless.”
In this election, Ivanova says, “only the LDPR preserved its religious neutrality, and it received the lowest share of the vote.” The future is in the hands of the Lord, she says; and in those of his believers here and now.
Ivanova did not come out of nowhere, of course, Lunkin continues. She was an activist for the church in the fight over whether to build a cathedral in a public park in the center of Yekaterinburg. It was precisely there that she honed her political skills that she has now used in more conventional politics.
Ten days ago, this new role of religious life in Russian politics was reaffirmed by Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev’s announcement that he was creating a new social movement, to be called Tsargrad, to put forward religious candidates in the upcoming Duma elections.
It is entirely possible, Melnikov says, that the powers that be are behind this movement and hope to use it to channel religious passions back into support of the ruling party rather than allow them to be taken up by the systemic opposition as has been the case in recent months. But that effort may or may not work.
Lunkin says that “the good news for the authorities is that no none of the Orthodox has gone over to the opposition let alone to the communists. The bad news, however, is that the priorities can change in a diametrically opposite direction if the authority of the state and president are undermined – as is happening now in Belarus.”
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