How God came to vote for Putin: the background to Pussy Riot

The gradual intrusion of the Orthodox Church into Russian secular life and the state is something that went largely unnoticed by the Russian public. The Pussy Riot trial is beginning to change all that The Pussy Riot affair pushed the issue of relations between society and the Russian Orthodox Church to the very top of the media and political agenda in Russia over Spring/Summer 2012. Did that media situation reflect underlying reality? Was the conflict simply the result of radical protest activity? The answer to both questions is a very obvious ‘no’. However, the collision of the Russian Orthodox Church with the ‘protest movement’ (in a broader definition, the ‘creative classes’) was, it seems, a collision foretold. All it took was one sudden turn for all the simmering contradictions to be laid bare, and for the conflict to move from its latent to active phase.


Pussy Riot's main crime was that their stunt was directed 
precisely against  authority - of the Church and of the Kremlin

This standoff is much more than simply an issue of respect for religious space and the legitimacy of punishing those who do not respect it. The Russian public is already beginning to recognise this, but it still has a lot to discover along the road that lies ahead. Ultimately, it must begin to understand the relationship between the religious and public space, how that relationship came about, and how the criminal prosecution and harsh sentencing of Pussy Riot became possible. The following article attempts to offer helpful assistance in that process. 

Communism is dead; long live Orthodoxy!

Newly free of the shackles of Soviet dictatorship, the activity of the Russian Church during the 1990s was largely focussed on recovering its lost, pre-revolutionary position. At first, this meant simply the return of those churches that had not been destroyed by the Bolsheviks. At this time, an Abbot’s main responsibility was managing construction and restoration work, alongside, of course, the organisation of worship according to standard procedures. It was only in recent years that church authorities began to encourage the clergy to pursue more active social and missionary work. 

The restoration of churches and the organisation of worship demanded huge resources. There was little point looking to raise it from the parish: although the number of parishioners increased during the 1990s, the period was largely a time of excruciating poverty for the average Russian. Not unsurprisingly, the church looked, in the first instance, to government, and in the second instance — to business. Relations with government were absolutely paramount. At the same time, however, the acceptance of church bells as a gift ‘from the Solntsevskaya gang’ serves as a vivid demonstration of the kind of enterprises the Church was prepared to engage with. 

Naturally enough, the price for financial and other assistance was political support. And given the position of the Church in society at the time, this was an especially useful resource. Since the early 1990s, the Church was consistently rated among the country’s most most trusted public institutions. This trust wasn't earned by means of any concrete action on the part of the Church. Another institute enjoying similar levels of support was the army, which was actually the subject of much criticism at the time. What Russians seemed to be placing their faith in was not institutions per se, but national symbols. The Russian Orthodox Church played, and continues to play a role as a symbol of spirituality and national identity. It is no coincidence that today's polls show that the number of Orthodox Christians in Russians outnumbers the number who believe in god... Read more: http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/sergei-lukashevsky/how-god-came-to-vote-for-putin-background-to-pussy-riot