The Russian Orthodox Church and nationalism after 1988

Abstract

In the two years that have elapsed since the celebration of the millennium in June, 1988, the Russian Orthodox Church, like most institutions in the USSR, has found itself battered by gale force winds of change. Like the Soviet Union itself, the Russian Church appears to have entered a period of fundamental crisis. The aim of this paper is to focus upon one pivotal aspect of that crisis: the relationship of the Russian Orthodox Church to the burgeoning nationalism of the Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldavia, and the Russian Republic.