Turns of Soviet Faith

The Russian Church and its relationship to the Putin regime continue to attract considerable attention in this time of on-going war against Ukraine and geopolitical machinations by Russia in Syria, and now Iran. A recent collection sheds light on the nature of Orthodoxy in Russia in the post-Soviet world: Alexander Agadjanian, Turns of Faith, Search for Meaning: Orthodox Christianity and Post-Soviet Experience (Peter Lang, 2014), 321pp.

About this book we are told:

The book examines deep shifts in the religious life of Russia and the post-Soviet world as a whole. The author uses combined methods of history, sociology and anthropology to grasp transformations in various aspects of the religious field, such as changes in ritual practices, the emergence of a hierarchical pluralism of religions, and a new prominence of religion in national identity discourse. He deals with the Russian Church’s new internal diversity in reinventing its ancient tradition and Eastern Orthodoxy’s dense and tense negotiation with the State, secular society and Western liberal globalism. The volume contains academic papers, some of them co-authored with other scholars, published by the author elsewhere within the last fifteen years.

Contents: Russian Orthodox Church – Eastern Christianity – National identity – Religious practices – Religion and human rights – Church-State relations – Post-Soviet religiosity – Globalization, religious pluralism – Traditional and liberal values. Further details may be had here.