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The religio-political strategies of the Russian Orthodox Church as a ‘politics of discourse’*

We frequently hear misgivings expressed in the West, and in Russia itself, about the fact that Orthodox Christianity might become a new state religion or state ideology for Russia, if indeed it has not already done so. Liberal circles in Russia talk about the far-reaching influence of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) over public life, and in the western press this is pretty well the universal view. Cited as evidence, for example, is the recent court case against the art exhibition 'Ostorozhno, religiya' in Moscow which resulted in the organisers being fined (Sapper et al., 2004, pp. 48 51; Schumatzky, 2005; Voswinckel, 2004). Some even see the 1997 law on religion as showing the influence of the ROC, in that it succeeded in having its own special status written into the law. At the same time, however, other researchers argue just the opposite: the ROC does not exercise influence over political life, but Russian politicians have been instrumentalising the ROC when they have found it useful to do so, while generally paying no attention to it. In the view of Kathrin Behrens (2002, p. 370), for example, 'the real influence of the ROC on political processes and political actors depends on how far its own interests coincide with those of the political classes and in particular with those of the decision-makers in the state'.