The Secularism of Putin’s Russia and Patriarch Kirill’s Church: The Russian Model of State–Church Relations and Its Social Reception

Abstract

The Russian Federation is a secular state, and the church is separate from the state. Nonetheless, during Putin’s rule, a seemingly desecularising transition has taken place in Russia. This transition can be observed on legal, ideological, and social levels. This article presents the characteristics of a new secular-state model that has developed in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We claim that the evolution of the public role of religion in Russia and the state’s attitude towards religion cannot be considered in any way a symptom of the post-secularisation tendencies observed in some Western societies. Desecularisation in Russia takes place only at the verbal level. However, this façade desecularisation conceals a profound secularisation of religious institutions and organisations, understood as their total subordination to state policy objectives and, thus, their becoming elements of the state structure.

Keywords

• Russian Orthodox Church
• state–church relations
• church and politics
• Vladimir Putin
• Patriarch Kirill
• Russo–Ukrainian war