The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the State-Church Relations in Russia

Abstract

A conservative turn in Russian politics has made the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) a key beneficiary of the new policy. Within the framework of Peter Berger's theory of desecularization, the ROC increased its influence through an alliance with the Kremlin. This made it possible to move smoothly from the model of «selective cooperation» to the model of «state religion», according to the classification of state-church relations proposed by Kristina Stoeckl. By early 2020, the ROC was perhaps at the height of its political influence. However, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have paused the strong alliance of the Kremlin and the ROC. When the government announced lockdown measures and demanded that all churches cease services with the public, not all priests agreed to comply. The church-state crisis manifested in two divisions: between the Church and the state, between loyalists and fundamentalists within the ROC. We argue that although these cleavages posed a threat to the Patriarchate’s stability and power, the church leaders managed to maintain the loyalty of most believers. The authors show that the ROC proved its political loyalty to the Kremlin. Using individual-level data from the Values in Crisis project, the effect of religiosity on the support of government public health measures is explored. The findings reveal that higher religiosity is associated with higher levels of political loyalty. However, the COVID-19 crisis illustrates that the illusion of an equal partnership between the state and the church vanished.