‘The Russian Orthodox Church has Not Been for a Long Time “a Church of the Babushkas”' – and Elderly Women who Do Attend aren’t like Those of Soviet Times, Legoyda Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 7 – One of the most widespread misconceptions about the Russian Orthodox Church, Vladimir Legoyda says, is that its services are still dominated by grandmothers as was the case in Soviet times. Not only are there many younger Russians present, but the grandmothers today aren’t the grandmothers of a generation or two ago.

            Consequently, the head of the ROC MP department on relations with society and media says, such elderly women do not set the weather as they did in the past. Many who did in the 1980s have died off, and those who have come in place of them have had very different life experiences (business-gazeta.ru/article/691871).

            That often isn’t recognized by outsiders or even by some in the church, who continue to view Russian Orthodoxy in the ways it was presented by anti-religious Soviet propagandists or by those in the West who share that view because of their conviction that religion is a thing of the past.

            That is just one of the observations Legoyda makes in the course of a 6500-word interview he gave to Kazan’s Business-Gazeta portal. Among others that are noteworthy are the following:

·       “Today’s freedom of the Church in the taking of decisions is unprecedented because we do not experience any pressure on internal processes,” a claim that in face constitutes an admission of how much government pressure it has experienced in the past.

·       The fact that 70 to 80 percent of Russians identify as Orthodox Christians but only 18 percent attend services shows how much room there is for growth by the church.

·       The reason the Patriarchate devotes so much attention to building churches is that most Russians live in places where in Soviet times there were no churches at all.

·       “Russia is going against the all-European trend where churches are closing, being sold or used not only for services.”

·       Russia is also the leading force opposing those who want to reduce religion to only a personal one. The ROC MP believes and the Russian government agrees that its social dimension is just as important.

·       A clear example of this is the role of the Orthodox church in reviving the values that animated the Russian Army before the Bolshevik revolution, values like honor and a devotion to duty that the Russian state is as interested in as is the Patriarchate.