On ‘Entangled Authorities’: The Interplay Between Orthodox Religion and Politics in Contemporary Russia

Many authors and the media both inside and outside the region have contributed to a picture of Orthodox countries as stagnant states. The so-perceived evidence of a particularly close relationship between politics and religion is used to render countries with a dominant Orthodox religion as politically ‘backwards’ in contrast to Western Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world. The crucial difference, according to these readings, is that Orthodoxy’s mystical and magical traits form a main obstacle to modernization. Such views, however, fail to recognize the great diversity of political and social associations that have been made with Orthodox religiosity by Orthodox communities. Looking at countries with a significant Orthodox religious community several particularities become obvious. On the one hand, Orthodox religion is perceived to be submissive to the state authorities and largely driven by attempts to support them or to provide legitimacy to them. Although the names for this are different the guiding idea behind is the concept of caesaropapism that describes a dominant political authority that makes use of the religious realm for its own sake which is contrasted to Western Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world. On the other hand, a number of authors propose a particularly collaborative relation between Orthodox religion and politics. Sometimes this cooperation, then, is given a positive reading as the underpinning of a distinct civilization. This is the so-called harmony (symphonia) of Church and State that proposes an idealized consensus between religious and political elites. Both, the debate on caesaropapism and symphony seem to have reached an impasse. For this reason an assessment of Orthodox religion “in its own right” is demanded that, first, pays attention to different factions inside Eastern Orthodox groups and, second, addresses the agency of Orthodox communities in a more detailed perspective. In so doing, I hope to be able to provide a more accurate and detailed picture of Orthodox religion in contemporary Eastern Europe and beyond. For this reason the concept of ‘entangled authorities’ has been developed based on my ethnographic fieldwork in the Russian Federation. With the idea of ‘entangled authorities’, attention is drawn to the fact that too many different ideas have been put into one single concept. On the one hand, there has been a tendency to focus on cooperation and entanglements; and to neglect unintended consequences and conflict. Recent research, however, has shown the limits of this cooperation that is far from harmonious. Therefore it is more useful to describe the interplay between politics and Orthodox religion as a rivalry for scarce resources and authority in society. This, at times, allows for close cooperation but does not prevent conflicts and competition. In addition, at least three different forms of entanglements have been intermingled which have to be delineated and analyzed separately: personal, ideological and institutional entanglements. Only then, so it is suggested, will we be able to describe, analyze and grasp the interplay between Orthodox religion and politics more completely and more accurately.