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Article: Free fall: religious pluralism in Russia.(behavior of Russian Orthodox Church)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- July 29, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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One cannot call the religious situation in contemporary Russia stable. There are divisions not only between different religions or Christian confessions, but within the Russian Orthodox Church. These intra-Orthodox divisions are even more serious and dangerous in their consequences than are interconfessional ones.
The problem is that the Russian Orthodox Church, the church of the majority in Russia, is strongly politicized. This reflects political life in Russia, where just a few years ago we had only one political party. Today there are several dozen different parties. Although this situation is not unique to Russia, we lack experience living in a pluralistic ...