The article is very good and informative. However, I'd like to comment on three passages in the article:
Would the Orthodox Church become a potent force for reform, speaking truth to the Kremlin's power? Or would it resume the role it had played over centuries of tsarist rule and again become an ornament and tool of an authoritarian state?
These questions concerned not only the church; the future shape of Russia was at stake. As Russia scholar James H. Billington, now librarian of Congress, wrote a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union: "Whether the Orthodox Church can wrest itself from the state and become the conscience of the nation will be important in determining whether Russia can discover a new, democratic and civil culture or will return to a dark and threatening authoritarianism."
One thing that I have noticed in the Western media's coverage of various religions -- not just the Orthodox Church, but of conservative religions in general -- is that it tends to measure the "goodness" of a religious body by just how "democratizing" (a.k.a Westenizing) it is. So, if a religious body is supportive of a non-Western government (especially a government that is not in sync with Washington's policies), then it can expect to be portrayed as dark, medieval, oppressive, etc. But if said religious body leads political dissent, constantly denounces the government, etc. then it is good, worthy and honorable.
Don't get me wrong here. A LOT of governments around the world -- the Russian government included -- deserve a lot of rebuking from the pulpits. There is no question that too much corruption exists in a lot of countries, and that the Churches need to speak out more openly against the evils in the nations in which they are present.
Nevertheless, permit me to ask:
does everything have to be so black and white? Do Churches have to be purely in the opposition? And why does the Western media insist on being the arbiter of what the Churches ought and ought not to do with regards to politics?
Can't a Church collaborate, for various important reasons, with a particular regime even as it seeks to change that regime from within and without? In my country, there is a phrase for this: "critical collaboration".
What makes me more suspicious is the fact that the Western media and watchdogs seem to dish out this kind of treatment only to those churches or religious groups that support governments with agendae that are not supportive of Washington's policies (Russia and Serbia, for instance). Do you ever hear the Western media criticize the Jewish Rabbinate in Israel for its silence in the face of Palestinian suffering? Do you ever hear the Western media criticize the Islamic establishments in many Arab allies of America?
Although the Russian Constitution calls for the separation of church and state, Russia's three post-Soviet presidents—Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Dmitry Medvedev—have made regular, well-publicized appearances in church, and Orthodox bishops and priests are fixtures at state functions.
This is what I really can't understand. Does separation of church and state mean that government officials can't attend Church? Does it mean that priests should be invisible in state functions? Please think about the chilling implications of this mentality. If Barack Obama can attend an Episcopal service without comment on the day of his inauguration, why should a Russian President be forbidden from attending an Orthodox service? I really cannot understand the double standard at play here.
I actually find the actions of Medvedev and Putin to be very, very mild. In comparison, my country's President is often shown by state media as attending Mass all over the country, paying respects to a lot of Catholic bishops, going on pilgrimages, receiving Church groups, giving money to Church-related organizations, etc. Our Vice President goes barefoot as an ordinary pilgrim in an annual Catholic penitential procession in Manila. Now, THAT is real coziness between Church and State! The supposedly excessive
simfonia in Russia is nothing compared to Church-State relations in many Catholic countries.
The Orthodox Church is the dominant denomination, so of course they are represented in every sphere of authority. I watch the news: They open a new artillery institute, new entrants are arriving, and there's an Orthodox priest. Why?"
In my country, the Philippines, which is an officially secular country, government offices and hospitals have Catholic chapels where Masses are regularly celebrated, and Catholic chaplains. Priests bless military hardware, and preside over a lot of military events. Catholic prayers are often recited in official government assemblies. No "ecumenical" services necessary for most cases: the Philippines is a Catholic country so people expect the dominance of the Catholic Church to be manifest everywhere. It is but natural, and the Protestants and Muslims here scarcely grumble about it. Please tell me: why can't a dominant religion act like it is dominant, so long as members of minority religions are left free to practice their faith? Is this the crazy meaning of tolerance and "separation of church and state", that every religious body -- from the majority body all the way to the small minorities -- has to act as equally tiny and inconsequential as the others?
Sorry for the rant, but sometimes the foul stench of secularism just drives me mad.
