scholarly journals Russian Orthodox Clergy and Laity Challenging Institutional Religious Authority Online: The Case of Ahilla.ru

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Staehle
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Moral Voice ◽  
The Media

With the rise of new computer technologies, scholars of religion and media came to raise questions of how digital communication affects institutional forms of authority. In the digital realm, a number of alternative platforms emerged that empower religious communities to partake in the production of religious narratives outside organized religion. Ahilla.ru is a recent example of such an alternative place facilitated by digital technology. Founded by a former Russian Orthodox priest in February 2017, the website is a response to the politics and official rhetoric of Orthodox Church hierarchs who appeared ever more comfortable in conflating religion and politics and presenting themselves as the moral voice of the nation. Since his enthronement in 2009, Patriarch Kirill has centralized and hierarchized the Church, widening the gap between the episcopate and the low-level clergy and laity. Criticism of institutional religious authority that provides space for the articulation of alternative views of Orthodox faith and identity is at the core of Ahilla.ru. Ahilla.ru merits special attention, as it emerged not outside but within the Russian Orthodox Church and poses a challenge, via digital media space, to the dominant discourse articulated by Orthodox Church authorities and Russian mainstream media. This article seeks to answer the question of how online communication enhances media non-professionals to reflect upon their experiences within institutional religious settings and makes these experiences—previously unmediated and unknown—part of the media discourse.

scholarly journals Religious Outlook in Times of Deep Mediatization. A Case Study of the Print Media of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Łukasz Fajfer
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Official Journal ◽  
Main Stream ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Narratives ◽  
The Church

<p>This paper discusses the religious outlook of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland constructed in its official journal. Starting point for the discussion is the social-constructivist approach to mediatization highlighting the role of media in the construction of social reality. In accordance with this approach the question is asked how the Church uses its printed media to construct (reimagine) its religious outlook. In order to answer this question the most important topics, motives and phrases published in issues of the official journal of the Church are identified and grouped into analytical categories. In this way a matrix of distinctive features of an Orthodox outlook is created and analysed. The analysis in this article shows that this outlook mostly consists of references to history and rituals. The other important features include topics such as: religious leaders, myths and heroes. This paper shows that the construction of religious outlook is not influenced by the media narratives of main stream media since the topics such as Brexit and refugee crisis do not appear in the journal.</p>

scholarly journals A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Елизавета Валерьевна Родионова ◽  
Юлия Паулевна Байер
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Saint Petersburg ◽  
Religious Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Church

Hjarvard in his work “Mediatization and religion” noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to control public representations of religion in the media. The difficulty is that religious media, religious journalism, and “banal religion” speak very different languages. During the pandemic, a debate broke out among believers and non-believers about whether to close churches and parishes on the quarantine period. By the decree of the Patriarch, all services in churches were to be performed without the participation of the parishioners. The secular media did not stay away the discussion either. In our study, we analyse a number of texts (articles) from three major news portals: Fontanka.ru (regional level, Saint Petersburg), the newspaper "Arguments and Facts" (Federal level) and the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" (regional level, Moscow). Articles were analysed for the period from March 15 to June 15, 2020. The main working hypothesis was the assumption that the image of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in the secular media would change depending on the actions of the Church itself during the pandemic, but in general it would be reproduced rather in a negative way. The content analysis of the data confirmed this hypothesis, both for the media and for their audience. The desire of the ROC to perform services during the pandemic was considered in the media as a wrecking activity that threatens the lives of parishioners. Also The Russian Orthodox Church in the pandemic intensified the process of digitalization of interaction with parishioners

Christian unity: the search for ways to achieve

2001 ◽  
pp. 91-100
Author(s):  
Yu. Ye. Reshetnikov
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
The Press ◽  
Christian Unity ◽  
Future Policy

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.

Ransoming Russians from Tatars: Justification and Practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 91-99
Author(s):  
Donald Ostrowski
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Sliding Scale ◽  
The Government ◽  
Modern Russian

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.

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