Traditional values for Russian church more important than Gospel , Norwegian expert says

The Russian Orthodox Church plays into the notion of a cultural gap between traditional Russian values and what they see as the liberal West. Religion expert Vebjørn Horsfjord concludes in his book ”Global Christianity - current trends” that these values have become almost as important as the Gospel to the Russian Orthodox Church.

According to Horsfjord, the ties between the Russian Church and the Russian government have become stronger and stronger. The professor of religion, philosophy and ethics at the Inland University College says to Vart Land that that the interests of the Church and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, have become increasingly overlapping.

With these interests, Horsfjord does not mean to say that the Church is the driving force behind the invasion of Ukraine. “One must distinguish between the military action in Ukraine on the one hand, and the desire to keep Ukraine and Russia close together on the other hand”, he emphasises.

Autonomy of the family

The main similarity between the Russian Church and Putin is that they cultivate “traditional values.” These values are often associated with anti-LGBT and general scepticism of equality between women and men and the rights of children”, Horsfjord clarifies. “The idea is the autonomy of the family without too much state intervention.”

For example, the government made same-sex marriage legally impossible in 2020. That was something that the Church embraced. Furthermore, the Church favoured liberalising the legislation on violence in close relationships. It asserted that the state should have less power to intervene. Horsfjord: “In practice, men and fathers should have greater opportunity to beat children and wives.”

Even though Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, stated in an official document that the Church should not take sides in political debates, he himself showed to be in favour of Putin during the election of 2012.

The bond between Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church also shows itself in the events concerning Ukraine, Horsfjord believes. “Putin talks about a sphere of political influence, while the Church talks about a canonical territory. They both have an overall interest in the ties between Russia and Ukraine being close.”

“Patriarch Kirill one of the main theoreticians of the Russian world theory”

The French Historian Antoine Arjakovsky seems to confirm Horsfjord's reasoning. In La Croix he argues that the Russian Church, and in particular Patriarch Kirill, is "one of the main theoreticians of the "Russian world", the ideology invoked by the Russian president to invade Ukraine."

According to Arjakovsky, the Russian Orthodox Church firmly believes that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine belongs to its canonical jurisdiction, which the Ukrainian Church challenges. On several occasions, the latter attempted to make itself autocephalous. The Russian Orthodox Church saw these attempts as threatening. It maintained that Patriarch Kirill should be the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Arjakovsky: "The rivalries between the Orthodox Churches have shaped the history of the two nations and justified the hegemonic attitude of Vladimir Putin."