Expanding religious borders? The new influence of some old state churches: the Russian Orthodoxy

Abstract

During the period of the Cold War, we were confronted with the fact that some state churches, in particular the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), collaborated with ‘their’ government to overcome the western rival. For instance, the Patriarch of Moscow tried to influence the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, co-operating with the KGB to this end. Since the beginning of this century, we are able to observe anew how some old churches are becoming stronger. Supported by the Russian government, the Russian Orthodox Churches are successfully fighting against the ‘new’ religions, stemming from the West – such as the Baptists, Methodists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and so-called ‘psycho-religions.’1 However, Western churches, themselves restricted by the law, are also trying to force back the newcomers and to recover ‘their’ traditional territory. Because of the validity of universal human rights that cannot be shaken in Western democracies, old churches are tempted to express their solidarity with Eastern churches in the fight against ‘the common enemy.’ Jointly, they have founded associations like the Federation europeenne des centres de recherche et d’information sur le sectarisme (FECRIS) to blacken the newcomers’ reputation and, in this way, they are willing to place religious freedom at risk, a fundamental human right, in order to recover their exclusive and highly privileged position in their respective societies. Time and again, religion is a source of conflict between states, but sometimes also a phenomenon of transnational understanding. The changing of borders through violent means often has religious dimensions, as evidenced in the Yugoslavian wars in the mid-1990s. Not only in Europe, but also in the Islamic world, the world is faced with the phenomenon of expanding borders on allegedly religious grounds. In the following article, we will explore the Russian example and that of its neighbours.