Book Review

The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics, by Irina Papkova, Oxford University
Press: New York and Woodrow Wilson Center Press: Washington, DC, 2011, xiii +
265 pp. US$65.00, ISBN 978 0 199 79114 9 (hardback)
In The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics, Irina Papkova offers a signicant con-
tribution to scholarship on post-Soviet churchstate relations. Specically, her book
provides much-needed insight into the complex issue of the inuence of the
Russian Orthodox Church on federal policy and the voting patterns of Russian citi-
zens. Papkova accomplishes this goal while remaining extremely clear and logical
in coalescing a vast amount of innovative research and rich source material and
presenting a powerful and innovative argument: that most assessments of the pol-
itical inuence of the Church are greatly overstated. The books introduction func-
tions as an accessible and up-to-date literature review, showing many of the merits
and limitations of similar studies in the past. It also traces the history of generaliz-
ations of Orthodox Christianity as anti-modern and anti-democratic, from Max
Weber and Arnold Toynbee to Samuel Huntington, with weighty implications in
many elds, including the study of religion (p. 6). Chapter two provides a detailed
analysis of the ofcial statements and positions of the Russian Orthodox Church on
a series of political issues, which is deduced from an ofcial Church document
called the Social Concept as well as public speeches. The political issues considered
include the ideal form of government in Russia, the role of the Church in govern-
ment and in economic and social development, freedom of religion and public
expression, questions regarding ethnic minorities and xenophobia, and views on
capitalism, globalism and the West (p. 21). This list of issues serves as a barometer
for the ofcial political stance of the Russian Orthodox Church and how its position
differs from the political opinions of many members within its ranks, which
Papkova classies into three basic ideological forces: liberal, traditional and funda-
mentalist. Her rst conclusion in Chapter two is that the ofcial political stance of
the Russian Orthodox Church is not as anti-democratic, anti-market and anti-
Western as is often assumed.
By comparing the ofcial Church stance with these three unofcial ideological
positions using the aforementioned list of issues, the author avoids oversimplifying
Russian Orthodox political views by simply equating them with the formal pos-
itions pronounced by Church authorities. The liberal faction of the Church is
described as markedly pro-Western and supportive of liberal democracy, the tra-
ditional faction as advocating a political ideology of Orthodox statism, and the
fundamentalist faction as clearly xenophobically nationalist (p. 19). Papkova pro-
vides sufcient explanation and justication of her use of these three categories as
roughly parallel[ing] the situation within contemporary Russian politics and she
Religion
iFirst, 2012, 14
ISSN 0048-721X print/ISSN 1096-1151 online/12/0000014 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2011.623108
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allows for future congurations based on changing situations (p. 20). Papkova
argues that there is most overlap between the traditionalist perspective and the of-
cial political position of the Church, but there are some marked differences, namely
that the ofcial position is less anti-Western and anti-market in its pronouncements.
The fundamentalist ideology also has a signicant impact on Church adminis-
tration as this faction struggles to assert itself as the face of Russian Orthodoxy
to the world and inuence the policies of the state and high-ranking bishops. For
instance, Papkova shows that during the turn-of-the-millennium controversy
over apocalyptic interpretations of taxpayer-identication numbers, the fundamen-
talist faction was able to inuence the public statements of the Church, which was
desperately trying to avoid a split in the Church, and also circumvent ecclesiastical
authority by directly appealing to politicians.
Chapters three and four explore several other major issues in post-Soviet reli-
gious history, such as the debate over religious education in public schools, the
question of whether to censor media on moral grounds and the perceived social
threat of totalitarian sects (i.e. New Religious Movements) in Russian society
(p. 77). Papkovas analysis of these issues makes it abundantly clear that the
Russian Orthodox Church is not univocal in its political views and has liberal, tra-
ditionalist and fundamentalist variants that try to inuence the Churchs ofcial
position and regional and federal policies. Using these issues and a wealth of rel-
evant data, Papkova successfully argues the main point of her book: that, with
the exception of a 1997 law restricting the activity of non-traditional religions
on Russian soil, the Russian Orthodox Church has had very little impact on
federal policy because many of its members do not follow its political lead in
their voting. This relative failure of inuence has been caused by the Churchs div-
ision along ideological lines, which has prevented a unied front on any issue
except for the restrictive 1997 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associ-
ations, which echoed sentiments widely present in Russian society (p. 116).
Contrary to popular (and scholarly) opinion, Papkova maintains that the Russian
Orthodox Church does not have a powerful direct political inuence on federal
policy and the votes of many of its members. She is careful to point out that this
does not deny the countrywide cultural importance of the [Church] or its political
importance in many regions of the Russian Federation (p. 191). Rather, the Church
acts as a source of national identity and as a link to the glories of the past in a
symbolic and cultural role that is valued as a social and cultural institution but
not central to the political considerations of many of its members (pp. 190, 191,
200). The favorable attitudes and public displays of many political leaders
towards the Church are partly explained by the fact that the state has clearly
been integrating Orthodox symbolism and cultural capital into both the construc-
tion of its own legitimacy and the construction of a viable post-Soviet national
identity (p. 189).
In Chapter ve, Papkova shows that many Russian politicians have paid lip
service to the importance of Russian spirituality but understand this word funda-
mentally differently from how it is understood by church authorities. Spirituality is
often conated with culture, education and science by politicians and this de-
nition is accompanied by an idiosyncratic understanding of the function of reli-
gion as the source of economic, scientic and patriotic potential (pp. 164165,
174). The various uses of the term spirituality in Russian political discourse is
one of the books many interesting ndings that is highly relevant to the study of
2 Book Review
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religion generally and has promise as a separate study. The book ends with a fas-
cinating discussion of competing campaigns for the canonization of saints, such as
the Soviet new-martyrs, Ivan the Terrible and Grigorii Rasputin, as well as the
relationship of these movements to the wider political goals of their champions
(p. 193).
Papkova reaches a number of unexpected conclusions by approaching her topic
with a methodology that employs document analysis, interviews, original survey
research, and breakdowns of existing sociological data and government statistics
(p. 15). This eclectic methodology is one of the strongest assets of the present
work (p. 14). It allows Papkova to shift among a number of approaches to make
her argument successfully, moving among detailed analyses of the Russian Ortho-
dox Churchs ofcial political statements, personal observations from eldwork
that further illustrate her points and questionnaires and interviews with individ-
uals from many political and social backgrounds. For instance, Papkova describes
the pamphlets that can be found in various Orthodox churches in Moscow, some
pro-monarchist, others pro-democratic, and still others apolitical in nature. Such
attention to signicant detail complements more comprehensive large-scale
studies, as the books focus zooms in and out to provide a very complex picture
of the religious reality both on the ground and in the courts in Russia. In another
example of this methodological success, by surveying 792 students in a variety of
universities the author shows that, while actively Orthodox students in Orthodox
universities are more likely to have conservative political views, this is most likely a
result of the particular institutional cultures at each university rather than an inu-
ence of the ofcial political views of the Church. Papkovas close analysis of the
results of this survey is admirable and the enormous scope and variety of her
sources shows her to be an extremely thorough researcher.
On a more critical note, Papkova describes the use of the language of spirituality
in Russian politics as confused and based on the interests of political parties rather
than related to the spiritual role of the church in sanctifying Russian society
(p. 164). This would seem to be a matter of perspective. The language could be con-
sidered confused when viewed from the ofcial position of the Russian Orthodox
Church, but, alternatively, it could be seen as a redenition of the term based on
different political aims. Two fundamentally different projects are being described
by the single term spirituality as these rival versions struggle for dominance in
the Russian political scene. In other words, rather than being a confused mistake,
the spirituality described and promoted by many politicians may be understood
as an intentional revision of the spirituality of Church ofcials and a proposed
replacement. The books description of spirituality seems unintentionally to
assume the Churchs understanding of the term when the meaning of the term
itself is being contested. Additionally, both understandings of spirituality are
invested with concerns of power so that the divide Papkova describes between pol-
itical aims and spiritual aims in dening the term is not nearly as clear as page 164
seems to imply.
The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics manages to elucidate an extraordinary
amount of material in just over 200 pages of text and presents a powerful, well-
formulated argument with widespread implications. One could not ask for more
in a book of its kind. Papkova has provided what will surely be a controversial
and lasting work for Russian Studies, the study of religion and politics, and the
study of religion in general. By disrupting traditional tropes about the political
Book Review 3
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stance and inuence of the Russian Orthodox Church, this book will be a constant
source for future scholarly engagement and elaboration.
Christopher D. L. Johnson
University of Alabama (USA)
E-mail: christopher.d.johnson@ua.edu
2012, Christopher D. L. Johnson
4 Book Review
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