{"title":"The Symphony is Over? The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Russian Orthodox Church–State Relations","authors":"Andrey Shcherbak, M. Ukhvatova","doi":"10.1080/10758216.2021.1994424","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have paused the alliance of the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. When the government announced lockdown measures and demanded that all churches cease services with the public, not all priests agreed to comply. The church-state crisis manifested in two divisions: between the Church and the state, between pragmatists and fundamentalists. We argue that although these cleavages posed a threat to the Patriarchate’s power, the Church managed to maintain the loyalty of most believers. Using individual-level data from the Values in Crisis project, the authors show that the ROC proved its loyalty to the Kremlin.","PeriodicalId":46824,"journal":{"name":"Problems of Post-Communism","volume":"69 1","pages":"58 - 70"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Problems of Post-Communism","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1994424","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have paused the alliance of the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. When the government announced lockdown measures and demanded that all churches cease services with the public, not all priests agreed to comply. The church-state crisis manifested in two divisions: between the Church and the state, between pragmatists and fundamentalists. We argue that although these cleavages posed a threat to the Patriarchate’s power, the Church managed to maintain the loyalty of most believers. Using individual-level data from the Values in Crisis project, the authors show that the ROC proved its loyalty to the Kremlin.
期刊介绍:
The post-communist countries are the most rapidly changing societies of Europe and Asia. For insight into this twenty-first century revolution, there is no better source than Problems of Post-Communism. Emphasis is placed on timely research covering current economic, political, security, and international developments and trends in Russia and China, Central Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Clarity and readability make the articles fully accessible to researchers, policy makers, and students alike.