Polyphony of Russian Church: State Factor, Public Demand, and Challenge of Pandemic

The widespread idea about the Russian Orthodox Church as an institution incapable of development needs to be substantially modified The conservatism inherent in the Church should not be confused with reactionism, which is not its immanent attribute Moreover, it is possible to talk about the internal polyphony of the Church, which incorporates a fairly wide range of views Historically, the Russian Orthodox Church has been distinguished by an extremely high degree of adaptability, the ability to integrate different traditions even in such conservative areas as worship, but in the Soviet years it was "encapsulated" and largely turned into a hermetic structure with the focus on preserving tradition The current situation in the Russian Orthodox community is characterized by a huge gap between the number of "nominal" and "practising" believers At the same time, the low and diffuse mass religiosity is compensated and, so to say, replaced by the increased activity of the practising minority and priests But the active minority in the Russian Orthodox Church is heterogeneous and is split into several groups, the most important of which are conservatives and pragmatists The internal polyphony of the Russian Orthodox Church was clearly visible during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic The situation touched upon the church-state relations, as well as the question of the role of confessions in modern society, rather than boiling down to the usual confrontation between liberals and conservatives The pandemic not only exacerbated the contradictions between pragmatists and conservatives, but also led to the serious disagreements between the state and the Church that looked up to its influential conservatives in the decision-making process However, since the Church as an institution is not ready to oppose state power, the prevailing model of relations between them is likely to remain, although it may become less idyllic