Enthroned as Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ in 2009 by the Synod of Bishops, Patriarch Kirill has presided over a period of dynamic change and development in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Under his leadership, the Russian Church has increasingly carved out a role as an influential and engaged actor in Russian society, asserting the place of tradition and spiritual values as essential components on the road toward a sustainable state and societal modernisation.
Countering the perceived national humiliation and chaos of the 1990s, Russia under President Vladimir Putin gained in strength and international standing. Yet for all the increased socio-economic well-being, there emerged a sense that such pragmatism was insufficient to truly stem the centrifugal tendencies pulling Russian society apart, rooted in separatist divisions, elite disorientation, and a lack of consensus about the identity and direction of the post-Soviet nation. Both Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill have compared the post-Soviet period to the ‘Time of Troubles’ [smutnoye vremya]; the decades of the seventeenth century characterised by an undermining of spiritual identity, state weakness, and overshadowing external influences. Prohibited by the 1993 Constitution from having an official ideology, the state lacked a sterzhen [lit. backbone, ground]; a sense of the shared meaning and unifying rationale that bind a society, and provide stability. Self-interest trumped collective endeavour, guided by a prevailing mood of cynicism and breezy utility, which disparaged talk of values and cultural worth as naive and delusional.
Hegemonic narrative
Sections of the Russian elite became persuaded that a modern civil society needs a coherent and consolidated sense of itself and its boundaries; an hegemonic narrative that can inoculate against political and ideological threats, which might destabilise a state and set it loose from its moorings when faced with challenges. A state needs to win the loyalty and esteem of its citizens by standing for ‘something’ with which the citizenry can identify; that is capable of inspiring creative engagement with political ideas, transcend pragmatism and return ‘meaning’ to national life.
