Liberal Individual and Christian Culture: Russian Orthodox Teaching on Human Rights in Social Theory Perspective*

Abstract

The paper analyses the recent debate on human rights in the Russian Orthodox Church published as a series of articles, conference discussions and official church documents. The current Russian Orthodox vision of rights is an example of response to the dominant liberal discourse from within a spiritual tradition. Russian Orthodox authors try to combine major categories of Christian anthropology with the liberal ‘rights talk’. The purpose of the ‘teaching’ is ambiguous, because of the dual identity of the Russian Orthodox Church as a self-protecting minority and dominant cultural tradition. The paper then applies to the case the social theories of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls.