5 - Orthodoxy: Between Nation and Empire

Summary

There is an inherent disparity between the statist and the ideological conception of the nation (rossiiskii/sovetskii) and its ethno-cultural components (russkii). In these conditions, the Russian Orthodox Church competes with the state to regulate the immanent. These tensions emerged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the westernization policies of Peter the Great (1682-1725) and subsequently Catherine the Great (1721-1725) and have continuously pervaded the political status of religion while going through substantial transformations from the Soviet Empire until now. In the current politics since the end of the Soviet Empire, tensions over the orthodox nature of the nation have resurfaced as the state rulers tend to instrumentalize the Russian Orthodox Church for domestic and international purposes.