Posted on by Mark Movsesian

The Ukrainian Protests and the Orthodox Church(es)

Even casual observers know that Orthodox Churches traditionally have close ties with the state. So many in the West don’t know what to make of the fact that, in the current conflict in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church appears to be siding with the protesters. The New York Times, for example, reports that protesters running from riot police in Kiev take refuge in a historic Orthodox monastery, and that the Church’s patriarch, Filaret (above), strongly opposes the government. Filaret has stated that Ukraine should look West and join the European Union, and that President Victor Yanukovich, who recently announced that Ukraine would not agree to a long-anticipated trade deal with the EU, should resign.

To understand what’s going on, one has to know a little about the divisions within Orthodoxy in Ukraine. Patriarch Filaret is the leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyvian Patriarchate. The Kyvian Patriarchate is in schism from the main body of Orthodoxy in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, which, as its name suggests, is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. The Moscow Patriarchate does not recognize the canonical status of the Kyvian Patriarchate; indeed, no Orthodox Church  in the world does. (To make things even more confusing, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA is under the jurisdiction of neither the Kyvian or Moscow Patriarchates, but the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople).

It’s not at all surprising, therefore, that Patriarch Filaret would support closer ties with Europe and a weakening of Russian influence in Ukraine. He and his flock are likely to have more status and independence in a Ukraine that looks toward the West. This is just another example of how religious and political interests often converge. As Daniel Larison writes, it will be interesting to see if there is now a pro-Russian pushback from those Ukrainians loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate.

Posted on by annicchino · 1 Comment

Pussy Riot Goes to Strasbourg

Year by year, it becomes clearer that Russia will be an important participant in global conversations about law and religion. This is true with respect to religious law—the canons of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC)—and also with respect to church- state and religious freedom issues.

For European scholars, it will be crucial to understand how the vocal and active presence of the ROC in the courts will influence the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). I have already shown that the ROC was a key player in the Lautsi case on the display of the crucifix in Italian public schools. After the first decision in Lautsi, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the ROC’s Department of External Church Relations, clearly expressed his opinion–on the judgment, the Court, and the need for action by religious groups–in a letter to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone:

“We consider this practice of the European Court of Human Rights to be an attempt to impose radical secularism everywhere despite the national experience of church-state relations. The above mentioned decision is not the only one in the practice of the Court, which has increasingly shown an anti-Christian trend. Taking into account the fact that the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights have clearly lost touch with legal and historical reality in which most of the Europeans live, while the Court itself has turned into an instrument of promoting an ultra-liberal ideology, we believe it very important that religious communities in Europe should be involved in a discussion concerning its work”.

For these reasons, it will be interesting to see how the ECtHR decides the recently-lodged case of the Pussy Riot punk band (above), some of whose members were arrested after performing a “punk prayer” in one of the most important Russian churches. Maria Alekhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Natalia Tolokonniva were in fact sentenced to two years in prison on the charge of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”. The complaint at the ECtHR, filed one month ago, alleges that the group’s conviction amounts to a violation Convention’s guarantees of  freedom of speech, the right to liberty and security, the prohibition of torture and the right to a fair trial.

If the cases moves forward, it promises to be an important one in many regards: both for the legal arguments and standards that the Court will apply to balance (or not) the different rights at stake, but also for the position religious groups, like the ROC, take in any third party interventions before the Court.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Pussy Riot and WEIRD Values

Last week’s post about WEIRD values (that’s “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic”) drew a number of comments over at First Thoughts, where I cross-posted. Readers focused on the implications for the West’s relations with the Muslim world. It’s worth noting, though, that the clash is not limited to Muslim-majority societies. Most of the world is non-WEIRD. Events is Russia last week demonstrate what I mean.

By now, most readers are familiar with Pussy Riot, the feminist punk band that stormed the main altar of Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral to protest collusion between the Russian Orthodox Church and President Vladimir Putin. Three members of the band were convicted of “hooliganism” and sentenced to two years in prison. Last week, authorities released one of the three on appeal, in response to evidence that she had not, in fact, participated in the cathedral protest. The other two band members continue to serve their sentences.

In the West, Pussy Riot has become a cause célèbre, with human rights groups protesting the authoritarianism in Putin’s Russia. This is not surprising. From a Western perspective, the band’s punishment seems unduly harsh. Yes, Pussy Riot insulted a place of worship – one with important, and sad, historical associations – but no one was harmed. At most, the members should have been fined for a misdemeanor and let go. Within Russia, however, support for Pussy Riot is remarkably low. Although some Russians believe the band members made a valid point about church corruption and have served enough time, the large majority of Russians apparently believes the sentences were appropriate, Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Copycats

Here’s an interesting comparative law item. In a gesture of solidarity with Pussy Riot, the Russian punk band currently serving a two-year prison term for staging a “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, three masked protesters stormed Cologne Cathedral in Germany last Sunday during Mass. The protesters shouted “Free Pussy Riot” and threw leaflets at the worshipers until church guards escorted them outside. Authorities in Cologne now say they will prosecute the protesters for “disrupting the free practice of religion,” an offense with a three-year prison term under German law. “The right to demonstration cannot be set above the right to religious freedom and above the religious feelings of the congregation,” the dean of Cologne Cathedral remarked.

A couple of observations. First, as this episode demonstrates, one can’t simply dismiss the Pussy Riot trial as a symptom of dictatorship. Even in Western democracies, it is illegal to trespass on religious sites, and potential prison terms can be surprisingly harsh. To be sure, it’s unlikely the German protesters will actually serve three years; in the US, as I’ve explained, they probably wouldn’t serve time at all. And the German case differs from the Russian in that the German protesters actually interrupted a religious service. But the basic point is that trespassing on religious sites is a crime, even if one is trying to send a message about a great wrong.

Which leads to the second observation. What, exactly, was the message the German activists were sending? What was the point of disrupting Mass in Cologne Cathedral? Cologne Cathedral is not Russian Orthodox. It’s not even Orthodox. It’s Catholic. However bad the corruption in the Russian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church bears no responsibility for the Pussy Riot prosecution. It’s not like the Vatican called for throwing Pussy Riot in prison. So, really, it makes no sense to disrupt Mass in a Catholic cathedral because of what the Russian Church hierarchy allegedly did to Pussy Riot. Unless, perhaps, the message is that traditional Christianity anywhere, in any form, should be attacked. 

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

The Pussy Riot Trial and the Church-State Crisis in Russia

I assumed everything had been said about the Pussy Riot trial that ended in Moscow last week, but Rod Dreher has just posted a couple of thoughtful emails about the case from a Russian Orthodox Christian who has asked to remain anonymous. The emails are fairly long, and some of what the author says will interest only people who closely follow Orthodox Church theology and politics. Much of what he  says  is of broader interest, though. He explains that Orthodox believers in Russia feel besieged from without and within the Church: both from juvenile antics like the Pussy Riot protest and from corruption within the Russian Orthodox Church itself. The current Patriarch and his allies in the hierarchy, the author says, are reverting to an old-style Russian melding of church and state, endorsing Putin in return for money, status, and freedom from accountability. Here’s a sample:

[A]s Orthodox Christians in Russia, we are beset by both – attacks from the “outside” insulting our Church, as well as from irrational and irresponsible actions of our own clergy and even – the patriarchate’s officials. Unlike our brothers and sisters in [other Orthodox churches], we, in Russia, have no ability to ask or receive accountability from our hierarchs and primates. And this, truly has a devastating effect on the state of the Church and its reputation in Russia. Should not such problems be openly addressed outside the internet? Should not we speak of our own sins in the wake of new attacks on our Church?

If you’re interested, read the emails in their entirety.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

John O’Sullivan’s Defense of Pussy Riot

We try to give both sides of the story at CLR Forum, so here’s a link to thoughtful defense of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot by National Review‘s John O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan writes that he initially had no sympathy for the members of the band, but that he has changed his mind on reading their in-court statements. In his view, the Pussy Riot protest has been misunderstood by critics as an anti-Christian act. (It’s a misunderstanding the band’s supporters apparently share: activists cut down a memorial cross in Kiev, and Madonna stomped on a cross at a recent concert, to express their solidarity). If you read the statements, O’Sullivan argues, Pussy Riot comes across as a group of sincere and thoughtful Christians who are protesting the corruption of the Orthodox Church and its subservience to Putin.

O’Sullivan’s defense is interesting, but I don’t really buy it. The members of Pussy Riot, who have been known to stage public orgies in museums, haven’t shown a lot of interest in Christianity before. The translations of the statements I’ve seen on Rod Dreher’s site throw in a lot of stuff besides Christianity and seem, well, adolescent in their insistence on the speakers’ authenticity and intellectual importance. (Anytime speakers compare themselves to Socrates drinking the hemlock, you’ve got to be a little skeptical).  Being juvenile is no reason to be in prison, of course; the authorities should have fined the members of Pussy Riot and let them go. It’s a stretch to see them as Christian martyrs, though.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Philip Jenkins on Why He Won’t Be Donating for Pussy Riot

Over at Real Clear Religion, Baylor historian Philip Jenkins has a powerful essay on the Pussy Riot trial and the Western media’s failure to take seriously the religious provocation the stunt represented:

Putin may be a thug, and Pussy Riot might be feminist warriors for human rights, but the particular act for which they faced trial is much more controversial than is commonly reported in the West. A good case can be made that it was a grievous act of religious hate crime, of a kind that would be roundly condemned if it happened in a country that the West happened to like.

Jenkins recounts the long history of Christian persecution under the Soviets, which involved intimidation and murder on a massive scale, often accompanied by anti-Christian agitprop in sacred places. Jenkins writes:

Russia’s new religious freedom is a very tender shoot, and the prospect of future turmoil has to agonize those believers who recall bygone horrors. These fears are all the more pressing when modern-day activists seem to reproduce exactly the blasphemous deeds of the past, and even in the precise places. When modern-day Orthodox look at Pussy Riot, they see the ghosts of Alexandra Kollontai and her militiamen, or the old Soviet League of Militant Godless. Are they wrong to do so? . . .

So no, I won’t be giving to any Pussy Riot support groups.

I’ve written before that Pussy Riot has been in prison for long enough; a two-year sentence for what they did seems very disproportionate.  I’d have fined them for trespassing and let them go. But it is striking that so few in the West see the other side of the story.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 2 Comments

Update: Pussy Riot Gets Two Years

An update on a story we’ve been following. A Russian court today convicted  three members of Pussy Riot, a punk band that stormed the altar of Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral last winter to perform a “punk prayer” to protest Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, of criminal hooliganism and sentenced them to two years in prison. By Western standards, it’s a harsh and disproportionate sentence. By way of comparison, when members of a group called ACT-UP disrupted a Mass at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1989, they received only misdemeanor convictions and no jail time. Similarly, in June, a New York court convicted Occupy Wall Street protesters of trespassing on property owned by Trinity Church; again, only misdemeanor convictions and no jail time.

But Russia is different. Before we get all sanctimonious about how much better we are in the West, though, it’s worth reflecting on a couple of things. First, as I’ve written before, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour has a sad history. The Communists dynamited the first version of the cathedral as part of an anti-Christian campaign in the 1930s, and Christians remain very sensitive about it. Notwithstanding the politicization and corruption in the Russian Orthodox Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Religious Freedom: How Others See Us

Before everyone starts emailing, let me quickly say that the state of religious freedom in America is qualitatively better than in many, many other countries.  And I am not in any way equating the HHS Contraception Mandate with the sort of religious persecution that exists routinely elsewhere. (The US does not imprison and abuse people for conducting prayer meetings, for example). Given the US’s habit of issuing annual reports that condemn threats to religious freedom in other countries, though, it might be helpful at least to read what outside observers say about us. Here are two statements, one an editorial on a Russian Orthodox Church website, and the other a public letter from the Vatican, arguing that the US has its own religious freedom issues to address. Of the two, the Vatican’s is better done — the Russian veers into anti-American agitprop — though even the Vatican’s letter is itself a little vague, speaking only of “concerted efforts … to redefine and restrict the exercise of the right to religious freedom,” and ” the unprecedented gravity of … new threats to the Church’s liberty and public moral witness” in America. The implication is clear, though. The Mandate may be compromising the credibility of the US’s voice on religious freedom around the world.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Pussy Riot and the Legacy of Persecution

This week in Moscow, trial began for Pussy Riot, the feminist punk band that stormed the main altar of Christ the Savior Cathedral last winter to perform a “punk prayer” protesting the Russian Orthodox Church’s support for Vladimir Putin. (I wrote about the protest here). Prosecutors charged members of the band with “hoooliganism,” a crime that carries a seven-year prison term, and have detained them in prison for months. The long detention has created  sympathy for Pussy Riot among Western human rights campaigners and even among the Orthodox faithful, many of whom think the state has punished the protesters enough. This week, Vladimir Putin himself signaled that the state would show some leniency, telling reporters that he didn’t think the band “should be judged too harshly.”

It’s easy to dismiss the Pussy Riot prosecution as an example of typical Russian authoritarianism — the charge of “hooliganism,” so closely associated with Soviet “justice,” doesn’t help — and I’m sure that the Putin regime and its supporters in the Church hierarchy relished the chance to teach protesters a lesson. It’s not clear to me that authoritarianism completely explains things, though. Westerners may not understand the sensitivities that surround Christ the Savior Cathedral. The present building is, in fact, the second Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. The Communists dynamited the first in the 1930s as part of their campaign against the Orthodox Church (above); they replaced it with a public swimming pool. In the 1990s, with the help of donations from Orthodox faithful, the church was rebuilt, almost exactly as it was, in the same spot. The cathedral thus symbolizes for many believers the rebirth of Christianity in Russia after decades of brutal persecution. Pussy Riot has been punished enough; but the history of Christ the Savior Cathedral no doubt explains why so many Russians, even those who detest the Putin regime, resent the disrespect shown it.