The Russian Orthodox Church in Contemporary Russia: Structural Problems and Contradictory Relations with the Government, 2000–2008

Niklolay Mitrokhin The Russian Orthodox Church in Contemporary Russia: Structural Problems and Contradictory Relations with the Government, 2000-2008 THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH, OR ROC, IS THE LARGEST CENTRALIZED religious organization in th e post-Soviet space. According to the Patriarch Aleksy II, the late leader of the ROC, the Church in Russia as o f June 2008 had 14,290 parishes, w hich is approxim ately 50 percent of all Russian-registered religious organizations. In this paper we will exam ine the principal social developm ents th at have been taking place w ithin the Church in the first years of the twenty-first centuiy. The num ber of people actually involved in the activities of the Church in contem poraiy Russia is debatable. Some Church represen­ tatives and activists from sym pathetic social and political organizaThe author thanks the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) for the 2005-06 scholarship that allowed this study of fundamental questions concerning the current state of the Russian Orthodox Church. social research Vol 76 : No 1: Spring 2009 289 tions say that more than 80 percent of Russia’s population is Orthodox Christian. This is sometimes followed w ith the qualification that these people m ight not have been christened but are considered Orthodox Christians on the basis of culture. Recording all representatives o f Orthodox culture in Russia as mem bers of the ROC is not th at convincing. Sociological surveys and polls conducted in the past two decades by various polling services— Yuri Levada A nalytical C enter (Levada-Center), Public O pinion Foundation (FOM), and the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM)—present a clearer picture. About 55-60 percent of Russian citizens considered them selves Orthodox Christian w hen asked about th eir religious identity. In all likelihood, this is th e approxim ate percentage of people christened into Orthodoxy in the country, but the particular question of christening has not been exam ined by the polling services and the Church itself does not have this statistic. Some people w ho have been christened into Orthodoxy do not consider themselves Christians; on the other hand it is not rare that a person who has not been christened considers him- or herself Orthodox. (In Russia, christening as a rule takes place in infancy before a person becomes fully conscious.) However, considering oneself an Orthodox Christian does not necessarily m ean that the person som ehow participates in Church activities or knows its basic dogma. In Russia it is widely held th at it is enough to be christened and believe in one’s heart, including having a Bible and icons at home, while regarding the Church as an institution and priests as its organizers as unnecessary extras. According to data from the M inistry of Internal Affairs, only 3.3 percent of the popu­ lation attends Easter service, the m ost im portant Church holiday. Moreover, in m ajor cities this figure fluctuates som ew here around 1 percent. According to our calculations, about 0.5 percent o f the population attends church services on a regular basis—at least once a m onth. Less than 7 percent of the population periodically attends church services and participates in some mass formal expressions of Orthodox Christian religiosity, such as the veneration o f relics and 29 0 social research icons that travel around Russia, collection of holy w ater at Epiphany, or the purchase of religious literature. Judging by polls of clergymen conducted by my colleagues and I, less than 10 percent of couples m arry in a church and only approxim ately 30 to 40 percent of the deceased depart into the next world w ith an Orthodox Christian burial service. Even then, the burial service is often adm inistered w ithout the body being present, w hich is convenient from the relatives’ point of view but contradicts the official position of the clergy, which insists on having the deceased brought to church or a priest attending the burial. THE CHURCH AS AN INSTITUTION Formally, the ROC has a hierarchical structure. At the bottom of the pyramid are the parish com m unity and monastery. From the point of view...