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Orthodox Christianity, Civil Society, and Russian Democracy
Demokratizatsiya, Summer 2005 by Marsh, Christopher
The data analyzed here indicate that there is only the weakest association between Orthodox religiosity, on the one hand, and civic and democratic values, on the other. It appears that Orthodox Russians are not significantly less engaged in civic life or less committed to democracy than other Russian citizens. In fact, the opposite may be true. Understood this way, the picture looks quite different than that offered by other analysts who have seen in their findings evidence of diminished civic behavior among Russian Orthodox believers. For example, in their analysis of similar phenomena, Hesli et al. found that nonreligious Russians were more likely to take part in a variety of political activities, leading them to conclude that Orthodox Russians are more subjectthan civic-oriented.
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These findings are in line with several others who have argued that Orthodox Russians, as a group, have been somewhat laggard in exhibiting a robustly civic orientation, and that "much of the traditional 'subject orientation' of Russia's political culture is directly traceable to the prevailing religion."15 Such conclusions may be premature or even downright off the mark. Not only does rigorous statistical analysis fail to show evidence of this, Russian Orthodox Christians are not as necessarily passive (and I include here submissive to the Church hierarchy itself) as some suggest. After all, in the waning days of the monarchy and the early days of the Soviet period, the Russian Orthodox Church was anything but submissive to political authority, as it sought to reform itself under the tsar and then fought for its survival against the Bolsheviks.16 Although such thoughts may reflect the prevailing trend in studies of Russian political and religious history, the relationship between Orthodoxy, civil society, and democracy is more nuanced than some present it to be. Probably the safest conclusion that scholars on the subject can reach at this point is that offered recently by Buss: "The spirit of the Orthodox religion does not appear to have an elective affinity with any type of political regime, but to be indifferent towards all."17
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author thanks Peter Berger, Elizabeth Prodromou, Inna Naletova, and James Warhola for their comments, suggestions, and general insights offered over the years to the topics at hand. The author also acknowledges the generous support received from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
NOTES
1. Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 29-30.
2. Michael Radu, "The Burden of Eastern Orthodoxy," Orhis 42, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 283-300.
3. Elizabeth Prodromou, "Paradigms, Power, and Identity: Rediscovering Orthodoxy and Regionalizing Europe," European Journal of Political Research 30, no. 2 (September 1996): 125-54.
4. Much of the preliminary discussion here necessarily draws heavily on my related investigation of attitudes toward religion and politics contained in "Russian Orthodox Christians and Their Orientation toward Church and State," Journal of Church and State 47, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 545-61.
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