From victim to persecutor: The Russian Orthodox Church after Pussy Riot

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-145
Author(s):  
Hanna Stähle
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katya Tolstaya

The Pussy Riot performance and the ensuing case posed a challenge not only to power structures in Russia, but also to scholars studying post-traumatic post-Soviet Russia. The case exposed the complex of ideology, image- and myth-forming on all societal levels, not least regarding the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and church-state relations. This essay proposes a kaleidoscopic approach in order to ask how to get to the real persons beyond the images. At the same time it discusses epistemological limits of scholarly engagement with the ‘other’ by scrutinising the question of objectivity and normativity in the humanities and the deficit of approaches like the insider/outsider dichotomy and the linguistic and narrative turns. Given the heterogeneity of present-day Orthodoxy, there is no identifiable Orthodox ‘other’ or ‘insider’; and this leads to the question how to define ‘Orthodoxy’ itself. The essay thus identifies a paradox which is yet to be solved.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Vaissié

The arrest of the members of Pussy Riot, their imprisonment and their trial has attracted great interest worldwide, and some commentators pointed out that the young women in this feminist punk band could be considered as the heirs to the Russian dissidents. The article explores this link further and shows that the action which made this feminist punk band famous can indeed be seen as a continuation of the combat of dissidents who, as of the mid-1960s, fought for the genuine independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from the State, and who denounced the infiltration of the Church by the KGB, an infiltration that the Church itself has never publicly condemned. Therefore the various predecessors of Pussy Riot include an archbishop, priests, lay people such as Solzhenitsyn, young hippyish intellectuals and – already – feminist believers.


2001 ◽  
pp. 91-100
Author(s):  
Yu. Ye. Reshetnikov

Last year, the anniversary of all Christianity, witnessed a number of significant events caused by a new interest in understanding the problem of the unity of the Christian Church on the turn of the millennium. Due to the confidentiality of Ukraine, some of these events have or will have an immediate impact on Christianity in Ukraine and on the whole Ukrainian society as a whole. Undoubtedly, the main event, or more enlightened in the press, is a new impetus to the unification of the UOC-KP and the UAOC. But we would like to focus on two documents relating to the problem of Christian unity, the emergence of which was almost unnoticed by the wider public. But at the same time, these documents are too important as they outline the future policy of other Christian denominations by two influential Ukrainian christian churches - the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. These are the "Basic Principles of the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to the" I ", adopted by the Anniversary Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Concept of the Ecumenical Position of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, adopted by the Synod of the Bishops of the UGCC. It is clear that the theme of the second document is wider, but at the same time, ecumenism, unification is impossible without solving the problem of relations with others, which makes it possible to compare the approaches laid down in the mentioned documents to the building of relations with other Christian confessions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 91-99
Author(s):  
Donald Ostrowski

The early modern Russian government and Russian Orthodox Church identified as one of their main duties the ransoming of Russian Christians from Muslim Tatar captors. The process of ransoming could be an involved one with negotiations being carried on by different agents and by the potential ransomees themselves. Different amounts of ransom were paid on a sliding scale depending upon the ransomee’s social status, gender, and age. One of our main sources for the justification of this practice was the Stoglav (100 Chapters) Church Council in 1551, which discussed the issue of ransom in some detail. The Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649 specifies the conditions and amounts to be paid to redeem captives. Church writers justified the ransoming of Christian captives of the Muslim Tatars by citing Scripture, and they also specified that the government should pay the ransom out of its own treasury.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document