Moscow Patriarchate Diverges from Kremlin on Traditional Values, ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 29 – The Moscow Patriarchate so often slavishly follows the Kremlin line on issues like Putin’s war in Ukraine that it is sometimes ignored that the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church diverges from the Putin regime on key issues – and that this divergence may even lead to heightened tensions between the two.

            According to the editors of Nezavimaya Gazeta, “the Russian Orthodox Church and the state do not fully agree on the issue of traditional values,” with the Moscow Patriarchate insisting that Orthodoxy must dominate them while Putin insists on a much broader and more secular approach (ng.ru/editorial/2026-01-29/2_9426_red.html).

            This difference has been thrown into high relief at a conference of religious leaders where Patriarch Kirill spoke and where a message from President Putin was read out to the delegates, the editors say. Kirill said any efforts to “introduce young people to traditional Russian spiritual and moral values without recourse to the Orthodox faith and culture are untenable.”

            And he called for Russian priests to play a more active role at all levels of the Russian educational pyramid from pre-schools to universities. For Kirill, the paper said, Russian traditional values come from “only one Christian denomination” – Orthodoxy – which although the largest is not the only “traditional” religion in Russia.

            Putin in contrast emphasized that “Russian traditions are formed at the intersection of these spiritual systems” and that the worldview he and his government want to promote is “crowned by civic virtues, primarily patriotism,” rather than coming from a single religious center.

            “The country’s leadership and its multi-ethnic society are interested in maintaining interreligious harmony,” the editors write. The ROC MP “takes part in this dialogue of religions, but recently, they continue, the Patriarchate like some in the government and society have exhibited “a certain bias towards promoting the hegemony of the main confession.”

            The ROC MP wants to go further than the regime in this regard and clearly hopes that by taking a tough line on this issue while remaining loyal on almost all others it will be able to push Putin into adopting an even more Russian nationalist position, something that have serious consequences given the rising share of non-Russians and non-Orthodox in the population.