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Article: The Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Aleksii II and the Russian State: An Unholy Alliance?
- Article from:
- Demokratizatsiya
- Article date:
- January 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Heldref Publications. 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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Like most present-day Russian institutions, the Russian Orthodox Church is in the process of defining a role for itself amidst the political, social, and economic turbulence of postcommunist Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church is unique, however, because it enjoys an unrivaled degree of respect and legitimacy as the embodiment of Russia's spiritual past and is invested with a national historic tradition that carries great mythical power. This respect and legitimacy have been supplied and acknowledged by the population at large and by the political elite, and have been reinforced by the collective memory of seventy years of systematic and often brutal repression suffered by ...