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The New Russia
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the new Russian state that
emerged from its ashes is in the process of restoring its traditional identity and
the place of the Russian Orthodox Church. And while the church suffered
immensely during the Soviet period and was heavily politicized in its obligatory
service to the state, it nonetheless shared with the Russian Communist Party a
traditional fear and antipathy toward the West—the church feared Catholicism,
while the Communist Party, based on Marxism-Leninism, saw the West as the
bastion of capitalism. Both were vividly aware of the history of attacks from the
West on Russia, designed to overthrow the Russian state.
Cultural attitudes endure. Not surprisingly, we see again within the new
Russian Federation a resuscitation of those same fears, suspicions, and
antipathies toward the West, shared anew with a reinvigorated Orthodox Church.
The post-Soviet Russian state quickly embraced the Orthodox Church again as a
symbol and integral part of Russian nationalism. The church still possesses a
magnetic liturgical power to stimulate nationalist feelings—the old blend of
religion, salvation, ethnicity, and nationalism.
Contemporary Orthodox fears of the West have not been without foundation.
Emotions were intensified when Western Roman Catholic and Protestant
missionaries rushed into Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union to fill the post-
Soviet spiritual vacuum by seeking to convert Orthodox believers to Catholicism
or Protestantism. Considerable Western funds were devoted to facilitate the
conversion of Orthodox believers at a time when economic hardships in the
former Soviet Union were severe. The Russian patriarch accused Rome of
attempting in effect to buy conversions and maintain their centuries-old goal of
penetrating the Orthodox world to establish the dominance of Catholicism. One
Western observer in Russia commented:
Here in the capital, as well as in St. Petersburg and other large Russian
cities, it is difficult to miss the parade of preachers, proselytizers, para-
churchmen and visiting gurus streaming in from the United States,
Western Europe, Korea and India. Their messages wallpaper subway
stations, line mailboxes, pepper the airwaves and draw the curious to
campus crusades…. It is hardly surprising that many Russians feel
exposed and unprepared for the foreign “god-bearers.” Some would like
to curb the religious flood, if not to dam it up totally. Recently the Russian

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parliament unveiled two amendments to the religious freedom act that
echo these sentiments.
At a World Council of Russian Peoples in 2001, several speakers noted the
spread of alien religious beliefs and cults in Russia. The Russian Parliament
passed bills restricting the freedom of foreign proselytizing in Russia—aimed at
Western Christianity, not Islam. Most Russians strongly supported this defense
of the native faith against outside influences, whose goals and intentions were
suspect. The Orthodox Church therefore makes it difficult for Catholic,
Protestant, and especially Evangelical churches to proselytize in Russia, open
churches, or organize. Once again traditional national religion becomes a key
vehicle for cultural pride and nationalism; this phenomenon entirely parallels the
role such pride plays in the Muslim world when the Muslim community
confronts a rich and powerful West, similarly perceived to be operating to
weaken Islam. This is not about religion, but about identity, tradition:
Proudly, [the Orthodox Church] points to a 1,005-year-old tradition of
faith, liturgy, music, saints and iconology. While that does not necessarily
make it a state church, many within Orthodoxy see themselves as the state
religion. They argue that Russia can only be Orthodox and that
historically it has been a state church.
The Russian state is thus revivifying its nationalism, national traditions, and
glories in particular through the magnificent cultural vehicle of the Russian
Orthodox Church.
Christian themes are now restored to the once-atheist Soviet political scene;
few politicians in the post-Soviet period fail to invoke the importance of
religious values. Grigory Yavlinski, the head of the political movement Yabloko,
commented that “lack of faith is the prologue to corruption and bureaucracy,
which produce terrorism…. Economic reforms in a nation that does not believe
in God are totally impossible.”
The writer Valery Ganichev, chairman of the Russian Union of Writers,
proclaimed his fears that “Russia is cloning the cells of immorality that it
grasped from Western culture” and called for popular demand that the
government “help save the nation from depravity.” These tensions were further
reinforced by the bitter so-called Uniate controversy, still ongoing, between
Catholicism and Orthodoxy over who should control the Nestorian and

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Monophysite churches in Ukraine and Belorussia—an issue now inevitably
entangled in the geopolitical struggles between Russia and the West.

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