Tag Archives: russian orthodox

Russian Orthodoxy in the Soviet Union

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During my research regarding religion in the Soviet Union, and specifically Russian Orthodoxy, I have been gleaning incredible amounts of information that I previously had not known about the topic.

An aspect of Russian Orthodoxy that I had not been aware of was how divided clergymen within the Church actually were. My previous belief was that there were only two sides to the argument about religion within the Soviet state: the Communists in charge who opposed it, and the religious leaders who supported it. Much to my surprise, I found that at least on the side of church leaders, there were many factions within the faith that splintered the church and lessened its effectiveness as a defender of faith in the Soviet Union. For example,  Furthermore, I found that the Soviet government often used the multiple factions against each other. By turning the various groups on each other, the Soviet regime ensured that no one group would become too powerful to be an actual threat against the Soviet Union. They did this by showing favortism to one group or another, or offering certain benefits to groups that sided with the government instead of the rest of the church leaders.

I think the reason that I found this aspect to be particularly interesting was that I assumed that the Soviet leaders, in wanting to eradicate religion in their nation, turned solely to the more brutal methods of exile or even execution. While this was true in some cases, Soviet leaders realized how truly intrinsic church leaders were to Russian society, and that by eradicating them, they faced the wrath of the Russian people. Therefore, they used more subtle means of erasing religion from Russian life. Through the promotion of science over religion, anti-religious propoganda, the reeducation of youth, and even through the rebranding of church sanctioned holidays and ideas, the Soviet Union effectively succeeded in over time lessening the importance of religion within Soviet society.

Russian Orthodox Activists Protest Evolution Theory

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I’ve gotten a little behind on blogging (sorry Qualls!) but not for lack of interest. If anything, this course is getting increasingly interesting for me, I’m going to be pretty upset when its over and done with… typical nerd problems.

For my first “catch up” blog posting, I wanted to talk about the article that was sent out last week about Russian Orthodox activists and their protest at a museum. The article, written by Gabriela Baczynska, talks about how religious activists associated with the Russian Orthodox Church put up banners and leaflets that were against the evolution theory at a museum named for Charles Darwin. The author noted that the movement, while peaceful, was surprising in how bold it was.

However, I wonder how much of an actual movement this protest represents. Yes, this was a grand gesture of the church’s negative opinion regarding secular traditions, but is this the sentiment of a majority of Russian Orthodox Christians within Russia? Or is this merely a small faction of the faith creating a publicity stunt? Through further research, I found a quote from an interview of Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin about the protest. Chaplin refused to condem the activists, saying that “…it was a little more agressive than it needed to be.” Granted, the original article also states that “About two-thirds of Russians consider themselves Russian Orthodox and the church has gained influece since the 1991 collapes of the Soviet Union…”

What can one draw from the vague phrase “gained influence”? What does that actually entail? And with the statistic of two-thirds calling themselves Russian Orthodox, does that mean every person included in the study is as devout as those who staged this protest? How does one measure devoutness in religion? It isn’t a black and white study, there are too many gray areas to consider when discussing religion.

That’s why I don’t put too much faith in statistics such as these, because there are so many aspects of studies not factored in; it is too general of a topic. All these are questions that I hope to answer with my research paper on Russian Orthodoxy in the Soviet Union. Reading articles such as this make me want to pursue the topic further, and try and gain some answers. One fact can definitely be drawn from this event however; that conditions between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government are far from ideal, and tension between the two groups is fairly noticeable.