“My grace is enough for you: for where there is weakness, my power is shown the more completely.” (2 Cor. 12:9)
The recovery of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Communists’ long-lived effort to minimize it is a remarkable and inspiring testament to the invincible power of Christ. But it must be understood that this event, and the corresponding spiritual revolution that swept Russia, occurred concurrently with profound suffering of the Russian masses during the period 1992 to 2007.
And bear in mind that this new, additional suffering, which I present as Godly suffering, was endured on top of previous massive suffering associated with Stalinist purges and World War II.
At the moment that Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Russians turned to America with big, wide, admiring eyes. I was, myself, living in Moscow at the time and will always remember the look of euphoria that I saw on peoples’ faces. For many years, Americans had broadcast behind the “Iron Curtain” via Radio Free Europe “throw off the yokes of tyranny.” The Russians had, at last, done just that. And of course, everyone assumed that the Americans would help them. Richard Nixon himself lobbyed then President George Bush to support the free-market ruble. (17) But that didn’t happen.
The USA itself did nothing to help. The International Monetery Fund (IMF) agreed to provide loans to Russia, but with very harsh terms effectively including a waiver of any claim to the formerly Russian lands within the Ukrainian Socialist Republic and of course with the usual requirements for “privatization” and “free market reform” according to “economic shock therapy.” (18)
Russia was thus forced to stumble forward under an imposed Western economic model. Whereas the pre-communist Russian state had been integrally involved in church finance, the post-communist state immediately after the fall had no means with which to directly support the Church. Moreover, the western-style post-soviet constitution of Russia, which came into effect in 1993, formally imposes a separation of church and state. But the state did provide the Church with special tax breaks whereby it was allowed to sell products such as fish and even cigarettes tax-free. (19) The state further did what it could to return Church properties that had been confiscated by the communists (although this was possible only for a fraction of the total). (20) The Church was thereby able, on its own, during the period 1992 to 2013 to increase the number of active parishes from 6,893 to 33,489 and the number of priests from 6,674 to 29,183. (21)
All of this was achieved at a time when the parishioners these new priests served were deeply economically deprived: The IMF-imposed privatization program (22) unfolded concurrently with a 43.5% drop in GDP from 1990 to 1998, and with associated widescale unemployment, drop in wages, and severe austerity of living standards for the masses. (23) The life expectancy for Russian men during this period dropped from 63.5 to 57.5 years. (24) The exchange rate of rubles for US dollars rose from 125 in July 1992 to 5921 in August 1998, at which point rubles were “revaluated” at the rate 1000:1. (25)
Notably, wealthy American Christians not only did nothing to help the Russian Orthodox church re-emerge, they rushed in with Baptist, Evangelical, Mormon and miscellaneous Protestant “missionary” programs literally trying to supplant the church that was the historic foundation of Russian civilization. This “free-for-all” continued unchecked until late 1997, when the Russian Duma finally instituted a new law on “Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations.” This acknowleged the “special role of Orthodoxy in the history of the state” and protected the interests of Russian religious organizations which had been in place “for at least 15 years.” (26)
It is precisely because of economic deprivation that “sobornost” managed to survive in the explanted Western “individualist” consumer economy. “Sobornost” still exists in Russia today because Russians still have a long way to go before their level of material well being reaches that of Americans. Predictably, though, “sobornost” would disappear if Russian economy attempted to emulate the “Reagan economic miracle””cult of individualism.” But because there remains strong support for “sobornost” on spiritual grounds, there remains hope that Christian principles can be maintained in future Russian economic development.
Notes:
(17) “Nixon says Bush must do more to help Russia,” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1992. (In English)
(18) “Russia and the IMF coming to terms,” CRS report for Congress, 94-284 E, March 25, 1994
(19) Russian Orthodox Church at the beginning of the 21st century, S.G. Osmachko (2013) (in Russian)
(20) The Russian Orthodox Church in Modern Russia, M.I. Bezborodov (2013) (in Russian)
(21) Ibid
(22) Thus arose, as a consequence of the West’s own actions, the culture of oligarchs that eventually became the “Putin-dominated” “system” that is so much disparaged by the same West.
(23) Realeconomik: The hidden cause of the great recession (and how to avert the next one), Grigori Yavlinsky (2011) (In english)
(24) “The micro consequences of macro-level social transition: How did Russians survive in the 1990s?,” X. Zhang and S. Hwang Social Indicators Research (2007) 82: 337–36 (in english)
(25) Russian Economy in Transition (1990s – XXIst century) Problems and Prospects, M.A. Ignatskaya (2006) (In Russian)
(26) Russian Orthodox Church at the beginning of the 21st century, S.G. Osmachko (2013) (in Russian)
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