June 28, 2000

For five days in late May, a diverse group of scholars and church leaders from Russia, Britain, the United States and Canada gathered in Moscow to discuss “The Rebirth of Religion and the Birth of Democracy in Russia.”

The conference was supported by a grant from the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, and was organized with the assistance of St. Andrew’s Biblical-Theological College in Moscow. A volume of papers presented at the conference is being prepared for publication both in English and in Russian.

Conference participants included representatives of the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant communities of Russia and scholars in several fields of the humanities and the social sciences who have conducted research on issues of religion and politics.

A few observers were also invited to attend the conference, held at Uzkoe conference center from May 25-29, 2000, and to participate in conference discussions. The principal organizer of the conference was David Hoekema (above), professor of philosophy and former academic dean at Calvin College, who has been involved in a variety of Russian-American scholarly, cultural, and ecumenical exchanges in recent years. Alexei Bodrov (below), Rector of St. Andrew’s Biblical-Theological College, served as conference co-coordinator.

Hoekema and Bodrov will work together to select and edit conference papers for publication. Conference presentations addressed a broad range of themes related to the present religious and political situation in Russia. One such theme centered on the necessity of building a strong civil society as the basis for constructive political change and the potential contribution of the church to this goal. Philip Walters, head of research at the Keston Institution (U.K.), observed that the isolation and polarization imposed on the church under Communism created fear and suspicion toward many of the church’s potential allies, domestic and foreign. These factors must be overcome in order to strengthen the churches and build democracy on the local level.

Corwin Smidt, Paul Henry Professor of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College, reviewed demographic data concerning Russians’ fear of the dislocation that may result from economic and political freedom. The experience of other societies, he and others observed, indicates that these fears are misplaced and that religious life and democratic institutions benefit each other. Stephen Hoffmann, professor of political science at Taylor University (USA), spoke of the importance of the church as a mediating institution in society, particularly in its educational role. The patristic concept of symfonia (“harmony”) between church and state remains attractive to many Russian Christians, observed several of the contributors, but at bottom it represents little more than nostalgia for the monarchist past. Another important element in Orthodox ecclesiology, the concept of sobornost (“conciliarity”), offers a more appropriate basis for resolving current conflicts within the church and between church and state, they suggested.

Dmitri Pospielovsky, professor of history emeritus at the University of Western Ontario (far left in photo on left), observed that although the Western church is hierarchical in principle it has fostered the growth of democratic political structures in the modern era. Paradoxically, the Eastern church, committed in principle to conciliarity and governed by council rather than Papal decree, has tolerated a succession of authoritarian or totalitarian political regimes in Russia and elsewhere. According to Father Veniamin Novik, faculty member at St. Andrew’s and author of a recent study of religion and human rights in Russia, it is necessary for the church to renounce the exaggerated collectivism of Russian culture, which has bred absolutism and tyranny from Peter the Great through Lenin and Stalin, and to embrace instead a Christian personalism in which respect for individual freedom is uppermost.

Alexandre Filonenko, associate professor of philosophy at Kharkov State University (Ukraine), argued that political change in Russia must be grounded in a philosophy of receptiveness and vulnerability, as proposed by the major figures in Russian Christian humanism such as Vladimir Solovyev and Sergei Bulgakov. Irina Yazykova, chair of the Department of Christian Culture at St. Andrew’s, cited many practical examples of the need to join traditional and liberal values in Russian society. Ignorance, passivity, and inadequate education are important barriers to renewal of church and society in Russia today, according to several conference speakers. Father Vsevelod Chaplin, Secretary of the External Church Relations Committee of the Moscow Patriarchate, advocated a role for the church as partner of the state in matters of education, social service, and preservation of national culture. Today, he cautioned, both clergy and laity suffer because of serious shortcomings in theological education.

Father Sergei Hackel, director of a BBC radio program on Russian affairs, noted the persistence of absolutist patterns of government in Orthodoxy and called on church leaders to take up once more the reformist program of the Russian Orthodox church council of 1917-18, whose recommendations for decentralization and democratization were abandoned in the climate of repression that followed the October Revolution.

Alexei Zouravsky, chair of the Department of History and Theory of Religion at St. Andrew’s, cited recent surveys in which many Russians identify themselves as Orthodox, yet deny that there is a God and hold bizarre misconceptions concerning the Bible and the history of the church, such as believing that the apostles Peter and Andrew--but not Judas--were Russian. The popular image of Russia as predominantly Orthodox is accurate only in the most superficial sense, many speakers emphasized, when only one to three percent of the Russian people attend church regularly. Russia today is a secular nation and becoming ever more so. Islam, Zouravsky added, is the second largest religion in Russia, with fifteen to twenty million followers. Patterns of migration and religious change, he speculated, may bring Islam to dominance in Western Europe, while the center of Christianity may move from Europe and America to Asia and Africa.

Several conference speakers sought to identify factors that facilitate or impede change in the Russian church. Beth Admiraal Reitsma, doctoral candidate in Russian politics at Indiana University (USA), applied rational choice explanatory models to the adoption of the 1997 law restricting activities of “foreign” religious groups in Russia and concluded that they are inadequate. Anatoly Krasikov, president of the Association for Religious Freedom and head of the Center for Religious and Social Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, observed that fears of foreign influence are misplaced: it was only through “foreign missionaries” from Constantinople that Christianity came to Russia, after all, when Prince Vladimir, illiterate himself, imposed both Christian belief and universal education on the pagan population of Rus a millenium ago. Yet throughout Russian history both church and state have cast individual rights aside for the sake of collective goals. Never having experienced the religious wars of Western Europe, said Krasikov, Russia has turned on itself instead, and Stalin learned many lessons in repression from the church.

Citing Father Alexander Men, a revered church leader who was murdered in 1990, Krasikov called for “a spiritual culture” as the only basis of true freedom. Father Vladimir Federov, president of the Interchurch Partnership and faculty member at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, cited several factors that hinder revival in the Russian churches, including popular ignorance, pessimism, “maximalism” (the focus on grand gestures rather than small steps forward), and several varieties of fundamentalism, both religious and political. In order to restore the church to a position of respect and influence in Russian society, he argued, we must begin with repentance and humility, acknowledging the mistakes of the past, and must actively pursue dialogue with non-Orthodox Christians in Russia and abroad. Marina Shishova, director of the Interchurch Partnership, voiced the hope that openness and education will contribute to revitalization of both church and society.

The Interchurch Partnership enjoys the active support of the Russian Orthodox Theological Academy, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and other state-supported educational institutes, and it has undertaken a variety of programs and publications for education and ecumenical outreach, with a special focus on programs for journalists and managers. Regrettably, such cooperation remains rare, and suspicion and misunderstanding often hinder interchurch dialogue, many speakers noted.

Alexei Yugin, a faculty member at St. Andrew’s who has been active in ecumenical discussions as a lay representative of the Catholic church, summarized recent discussions of the Carta Oecumenica drafted at a gathering of European church representatives in Graz. Although it was intended as a basis for ecumenical cooperation, he said, its language is unacceptable to Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic believers. Observers ask whether Europe is in a post-ecumenical or a pre-ecumenical era, but perhaps the answer is “both.” Unfortunately the soil for such discussions in Russia is so poor that “the seeds of ecumenism have produced only tares–and mutated tares, at that.”

Yet the dramatic changes that the Second Vatican Council brought to the Roman Catholic Church, and the example of Russian Orthodox participation in earlier cooperative ventures such as the 1986 World Day of Prayer in Assisi, give reason for hope that the future may bring reform and greater cooperation. The relationship between democracy and religion contains inherent tensions, several speakers argued. Eileen Barker, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, distinguished between the mere fact of plurality in religious belief systems and the political ideal of pluralism, which is characterized by mutual respect. The former, she noted, does not guarantee the latter. The effects of state-imposed secularism under Communism will linger for many years; but there is also a danger of returning to the ideology of a state church, in which dissent is viewed not as heresy but as treason and nationalism is conflated with orthodoxy.

David Hoekema, conference organizer and professor of philosophy at Calvin College, cited historical tensions between advocates of liberal democracy and church authorities, and he argued that the emphasis of the Reformed churches on the social and cultural relevance of the Gospel and on the deeply divided nature of humankind--totally depraved and yet infused with divine presence–offers an important complement to Orthodox perspectives on the individual and society. The decline of religion in Russia, argued Father Innokenty Pavlov, a faculty member at St. Andrew’s and host of a weekly radio program on church affairs, came about not so much because of state-imposed atheism but because of the weakness and increasing secularism of the church. But there is hope for the renovation of the church through Scriptural study, prophetic witness, and faithful prayer, and the Russian church may provide an example of renewal that will be influential around the world. Several guests invited to attend conference sessions added important observations during the discussion period that followed each paper.

Among them were Larry Ort, professor of philosophy and education at Spring Arbor College (USA); Krister Sairsingh, a professor at St. Andrew’s; Nancy Sairsingh, an instructor at Russian State University of the Humanities; and Malcolm Rogers, special representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury currently assigned to church liaison work in St. Petersburg. Since the purpose of the conference and the planned anthology are scholarly rather than practical, no positions were proposed for adoption by the participants. Nevertheless, in a closing conference session, there was general assent to the following seven “points of convergence”:

(1) The Russian Orthodox Church has both the opportunity and the obligation to provide leadership to Russian society in order to address critical moral and political issues.

(2) The present structure and leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church are not well suited or fully prepared for this role.

(3) The role of the laity in Russian religious life must be transformed, with the clergy acting as catalysts.

(4) Repentance is a necessary first step before renewal can occur.

(5) Higher levels of education for clergy and laity, and more thorough and systematic critical analysis of the social situation, are essential.

(6) Religious revival in Russia can also be a democratic renewal.

(7) Russia has the potential to lead a global movement in which spirituality and politics reinforce each other, and orthodoxy and pluralism exist in harmony.

The conference’s location at Uzkoe, a grand neoclassical country home located within a large municipal forest preserve, provided many opportunities for informal conversation during mealtimes and on walks in the surrounding forests. The location was also symbolically significant, for it was in this very building that Vladimir Solovyev died exactly 100 years ago. Many conference speakers voiced the hope that the Christian humanism of Solovyev would soon bear fruit, as church leaders and members come to embrace the goal of a political order in which individual freedom is protected, diverse religious practices flourish, and a complex network of social and political structures nourishes a sense of shared responsibility.

--written by David Hoekema

Contact Phil de Haan.