The Orthodox alliance with the Kremlin leaves other Russian Christians under pressure
For many Christians in Russia, the freedoms of the early 1990s are largely gone. The Russian Orthodox Church, once a victim of Communist oppression, is now cozy with the Kremlin, but at a price: It overlooks the growing authoritarianism of President Vladimir Putin and human rights violations reminiscent of Soviet times.
Putin trumpets the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) as the one true faith and source of Russian superiority. He blesses new churches, and the ROC’s Patriarch Kirill proclaims Putin’s rise as a “miracle from God.” The ROC persuaded the government to pass a law in 1997 restricting the religious freedom of “foreign faiths,” and Putin pushed state-owned energy companies to invest billions into the rebuilding of churches destroyed by the Soviets....
