Render Unto Caesar …? The Russian Orthodox Church’s Social Activities and Its Perception in the Context of World Politics

The relevance of studying the social work of the Russian Orthodox Church in the context of assessing the role of religious institutions in global politics is determined by the expanding scope of their activities and the growing significance of non-state actors in political processes and international law-making. The Russian Orthodox Church’s commitment to supporting the Russian state and society has led to a distorted perception of the nature of church-state relations, generating a paradox of politicized interpretations of the Church. This article aims to characterize the trend toward partial étatisation of church-state relations through the lens of the Russian Orthodox Church’s social activities. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were addressed: 1) to clarify the interplay between state and ecclesiastical institutions in the contemporary world; 2) to refine the concept of social work as applied to church institutions; 3) to identify the legal and institutional foundations of church-state cooperation in Russia. The study employs formal-legal and institutional methods, synthesized within a systemic framework. Research materials include official documents of the Russian Orthodox Church, statements by its hierarchs, and regulatory legal acts issued by Russian public authorities. The analysis revealed the following: 1) the involvement of religious associations in the political life of society is inevitable due to the blurred nature of political boundaries in the modern world, however, this does not equate to actual participation in shaping state policy, which requires a religious association to possess factual, rather than nominal, subjectivity. It was also found that étatisation in the context of state-church relations can be viewed as a process of convergence of the actors' positions on socially significant issues; 2) at the present stage the concept of social work performed by church institutions is broadening. This is due to the impact of virtually any activity of these institutions on the extra-ecclesial space and the possibility of evaluating this activity from socially-oriented perspectives; 3) the existing regulatory legal framework for state-church cooperation does not prohibit the Russian Orthodox Church from engaging in political activity but rather establishes the boundaries of what is permissible. It is argued that the expansion of the institutional basis for interaction between the actors reflects a societal need for a moral assessment of the processes observed in the modern world. The analysis demonstrates that the expansion of the Church’s social activities may be perceived as politicized by foreign observers due to the proximity of state and ecclesiastical positions on key current issues. However, in reality, rather than indicating partial étatisation of church-state relations, it instead reflects the modernization of the Church’s social doctrine in response to emerging challenges. The effectiveness of church-state cooperation in the social sphere is driven by the evolving institutional framework of this partnership, while attempts to interpret the Church’s support for Russian society in the current political climate as institutional politicization fail to account for the essential nature and objectives of its mission.

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