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Abstract
This article reviews the articulation of traditional political values in the contemporary discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). As an empirical basis, the article takes the ROC’s official documents reflecting its position on social and political issues, the statements of various Synodal departments and Church hierarchs, as well as the statements of those representatives of the Orthodox intelligentsia, who promote an alternative agenda for Church-state dialogue. The author analyses the discursive forms deployed for the use of two key concepts, related to two markers of traditionalist worldview (opinions about liberalism, and positions taken with regard to the rights of sexual minorities), and studies the context in which these confessional ethical norms are politicized. This allows the author to move from interpreting Orthodox identity as merely a confessional/religious affiliation, expressing itself in a range of practices (attending services, etc), to an interpretation of Orthodox identity as traditionalist in the political sense of that word, involving the formation of a distinctive political theology and the politicization of confessional ideas of morality.
Notes
1. See Stoeckl Citation2016; Agadjanian Citation2017.
2. Inglehart and Welzel Citation2011: 221–222.
3. Inglehart and Norris Citation2003.
4. Osnovy 2000: IV.6.
5. Ibid., IV.7.
6. Osnovy 2008: II.1.
7. Ibid., II.2.
8. Hayes and Gearon Citation2007: 438.
9. In this sense, the attitude of the early Christian church fathers to slavery is quite illustrative (Schaff Citation2011: 82–85).
10. Word of the Holy Patriarch 2014.
11. Zhuravlev 2016а.
12. A nongovernmental organization created in 1998 on the initiative of the Moscow Patriarchate with the aim of representing the “traditional religions” of Russia in the public space: Christianity (Orthodox), Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. At present, the honorary chairman of the Council is the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill.
13. Announcement of the Inter-religious council 2015.
14. See, for example, Aquino Citation2012; Edles Citation2013; Ó Féich and O’Connell 2015.
15. Word of the Holy Patriarch 2017.
16. Report 2017.
17. Word of the Metropolitan 2017.
18. Joint statement 2016.
19. For more detail see Bogachev Citation2014; Zhuravlev Citation2016b.
20. Metropolitan Ilarion 2015.
21. For more detail on the symbolic interpretation of political narratives see Musikhin Citation2015: 132.
22. Giddens Citation2004.
23. Osnovy 2000: XII.9.
24. Ibid.
25. Michailov Citation2013: 90.
26. Speech 2017.
27. Case 2017.
28. Metropolitan Ilarion 2012.
29. Zorgdrager Citation2013: 228
30. Durkheim Citation1996.
31. Announcement of the Communications Service 2013.
32. Eliminating Discrimination 2014.
33. Announcement of the Patriarch Commission 2014.
34. Zygmont Citation2014: 128.
35. Alliance 2012.
36. For more detail see Zygmont Citation2014
37. In the sense of bishops, from the Greek. Δεσπότης—“ruler.”
38. Kuraev Citation2016.
39. Held on 2013.
40. Chapnin Citation2015
41. See, for example, Кнорре 2014; Knorre Citation2016.
42. Historian Andrei Zubov 2016.
43. My pogubim 2014.
44. “Violence is not just what we do toward the Other … Violence is the actual construction of the Other” (Schwartz Citation1997: 5).