Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Jeremy Bransten, Religion and Tolerance, RFE/RL, October 26, 2004

Many of the countries in which the Orthodox Church has a significant following were devastated by communism and by the interethnic conflicts that followed its collapse. Some say the church is uniquely poised to help these societies rebuild, but others question whether Orthodoxy itself — and its historical ties to nationalism — may be part of the problem. In this first of a two-part series on the Orthodox Church, RFE/RL examines this unique link between church and state.
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Aleksii II accuses the Vatican of “stealing souls” on its territory.

A leading bishop in Russia denounces the import of Western human rights values as an “alien concept.”

In Serbia, the Orthodox clergy rallies behind ultranationalist politicians. A senior churchman rails against the West’s “devilish lust for power.” Another calls for the creation of a “Greater Serbia.”

Are these isolated examples of the abuse of faith, or is there a natural — and sometimes toxic — link between Orthodoxy and nationalism?

Putin’s Reunited Russian Church - TIME, May 17, 2007

Nationalism, based on the Orthodox faith, has been emerging as the Putin regime’s major ideological resource. Thursday’s rite sealed the four-year long effort by Putin, beginning in September 2003, to have the Moscow Patriarchate take over its rival American-based cousin and launch a new globalized Church as his state’s main ideological arm and a vital foreign policy instrument. In February press conference, Putin equated Russia’s “traditional confessions” to its nuclear shield, both, he said, being “components that strengthen Russian statehood and create necessary preconditions for internal and external security of the country.” Professor Sergei Filatov, a top authority on Russian religious affairs notes that “traditional confessions” is the state’s shorthand for the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Church’s assertiveness and presence is growing — with little separation from the State. The Moscow City Court and the Prosecutor General’s Office maintain Orthodox chapels on their premises. Only the Orthodox clergy are entitled to give ecclesiastic guidance to the military. Some provinces have included Russian Orthodox Culture classes in school curricula with students doing church chores. When Orthodox fundamentalists vandalized an art exhibition at the Moscow Andrei Sakharov Center as “an insult to the main religion of our country,” the Moscow Court found the Center managers guilty of insulting the faith, and fined them $3,500 each. The ROC had an opera, based on a famous fairy tale by the poet Alexander Pushkin, censored to the point of cutting out the priest, who is the tale’s main protagonist. “Of course, we have a separation of State and Church,” Putin said during a visit to a Russian Orthodox monastery in January 2004. “But in the people’s soul they’re together.”