On the Issue of the Religious and Cultural Identity of Russian Protestantism

Abstract

The vast territory of Russia, located in both western and eastern hemispheres, developed within both western and eastern historical and cultural contexts. In the 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union with its communist ideology, the fall of the “Iron Curtain,” and westernization, the question of the sociocultural and religious identity of Russia became more urgent than ever.1 At such a crossroads, Russia had to determine its subsequent path of development, including the path of its religious life.2 The Orthodox Church greatly influenced the formation of Russian statehood and culture. The history of Russia has been primarily perceived by the majority of its population as the history of the establishment and preservation of their Orthodox identity.3 It is, therefore, not surprising that Orthodoxy is often claimed today as a symbol of national religious and cultural identity, a “truly national religion,” designed to erect a barrier to all “foreign faiths” incompatible with the spirit of Russian culture.4 The use of Orthodox mythologems, such as “Holy Russia, keep the Orthodox faith!,” “There is no Russia without Orthodoxy,” and “Being Russian means being Orthodox,” has been revived. Under these conditions, as identity is asserted within the framework of ethnic, cultural, and confessional roots, any extraneous influences on the emerging Russian ethno-cultural space are sometimes perceived as alien and undesirable.