Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies (Oct 2005)
Любовь без Удовлетворения: Русская Православная Церковь и Российская Армия
Abstract
The Russian Orthodox Church has positionned itself before the State and society as an organization representing the religious interests of the largest part of the Russian population.For this reason, during the first half of the 90’s, the Church has requested the possibility to perform pastoral and missionary activities in social spheres closed to her during the Soviet period. The Russian Army and the power ministries were among them. But having received the right to work in these institutions, the Church proved itself unable to fulfill its task, although it found a “common language” with military leaders on “patriotic upbringing” and “fight against spiritual agression”. The incapacity of the Church to meet the army leadership’s expectation to improve the morale of soldiers and sergents and, at the same time, the low level of religious culture among servicemen gave ground to growing mutual dissatisfaction.
