Is the Orthodox Russian Church in cahoots with Putin?

LessThanPerfect2016 said:

He's an Orthodox Christian if that's what you mean? Otherwise, if you're asking if the ROC is being used as a tool for political means I would hope not though I'm sure there are elements in the west that would make that accusation.

Truth is I doubt many know for sure, and those who do likely would never confirm or deny anything. I'd say look at the ROCs actions, and measure them up to the Fathers, the Canons, and the actions of the Church throughout the ages.

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Chesterton said:

Have any specific examples?

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TheLostCoin said:

I've been wanting to reply to this thread for a while, but I haven't had the time to do it.

In every society in existence, there exists two levels of administration in society - a formal level and an informal level, where the informal level are decisions made on a more personal, familial, and "informal" level - for example, hiring someone because they are family, knowing somebody who works in a University, donating money to get some benefit in return, constructing a building for a friend, making a legal decision because the victim is a known friend, etc. The formal level is where decisions are made based in the institution's rules and policies - for example, hiring someone based on their qualifications alone, admitting somebody to a university based on their qualifications, making a legal decision based on the objective facts, constructing a building for efficiency alone, etc.

In Russia, this rings true too - but corruption is so high in Russia that formal decisions are rarely made in comparison to informal decisions, such that the institutions of Russia could not effectively function without these informal connections. Everything is almost run on the informal level; one Russian film that tries to address this problem is the film "Leviathan," where a mayor takes advantage of his connections to the police and legal team to steal a man's property, and uses that property to build a Cathedral due to the Bishop's connection to the mayor. Even if it's a bit exaggerated, this problem - "Sistema" or "The System" in Russian - is a massive problem in Russian society with no clear solution, especially considering that Putin has only enabled this problem to continue to grow; but it's been a problem that has existed since the Soviet Union, as the Soviet Union's institutions were so inefficient and bureaucratic that informal connections were the only things that allowed society to get moving.

At a formal level, there is separation from Church and State in Russia. However, there are informal connections between the Russian government and the Russian Church, which work together to support each other, especially because the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government have ideological similar goals - moral conservatism, religiosity, nationalism - to such an extent that each entity's existence help each other legitimize each other. The Russian government uses it's authority to make the Russian Orthodox Church legitimate, by having the President attend Russian Orthodox occasions of Pascha, the celebration of the Baptism of Rus, wearing an Orthodox cross when he is shirtless, etc., and the Russian Orthodox Church uses it's authority to make the Russian government legitimate. The film "The Priest" and "The Island," which are both Russian Orthodox films, have a clear propaganda element to both of them, where the heroes are patriots to the Soviet Union because "that's our Motherland." In the Island, the Crime the monk committed was that he let his comrade, out of fear of his own death get murdered in war against the Germans in World War II, when he should've given his life for the Motherland. Again, these connections at the informal level began during the Soviet Union, when the Soviet government infiltrated and seized control of the Russian Church with the election of Patriarch Sergius, after the death of St. Tikhon.

There isn't always a one to one relationship; for instance, many Russians wanted to canonize Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a Soviet girl (and image of Russian patriotism) who was murdered, had her breast cut out, and even possibly raped by the Nazis, who allegedly gave a call to arms before she died against the Nazis. However, the Russian Orthodox Church has refused her canonization because there's no evidence that she was Russian Orthodox rather than a Soviet atheist, and there are questionable things about her story. Moreover, the Russian Orthodox Church has constantly pushed the illegalization of abortion to Putin, and he has constantly refused such a plan. Nonetheless, besides these minor ideological scuffles, the Russian Church and the Russian government tends to - at the informal level - still legitimize each other due to have far more in common than not.

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