Orthodox Identity as Traditionalism: Construction of Political Meaning in the Current Public Discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church

• Published in: Russian social science review Vol. 60; no. 3; pp. 178 - 195
• Main Author: Zhuravlev, Denis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 04.05.2019
• Subjects: LGBT rights; liberalism; Orthodoxy; political values; religion; Russian Orthodox Church
• ISSN: 1061-1428; 1557-7848
• DOI: 10.1080/10611428.2019.1625681

This article reviews the articulation of traditional political values in the contemporary discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). As an empirical basis, the article takes the ROC's official documents reflecting its position on social and political issues, the statements of various Synodal departments and Church hierarchs, as well as the statements of those representatives of the Orthodox intelligentsia, who promote an alternative agenda for Church-state dialogue. The author analyses the discursive forms deployed for the use of two key concepts, related to two markers of traditionalist worldview (opinions about liberalism, and positions taken with regard to the rights of sexual minorities), and studies the context in which these confessional ethical norms are politicized. This allows the author to move from interpreting Orthodox identity as merely a confessional/religious affiliation, expressing itself in a range of practices (attending services, etc), to an interpretation of Orthodox identity as traditionalist in the political sense of that word, involving the formation of a distinctive political theology and the politicization of confessional ideas of morality.