Russia in Global Affairs

The situation with religious minorities in many respects reflects the logic of the political process of recent decades in Turkey. The social base and the core constituency of the ruling AKP are people of conservative views or even supporters of religious nationalism. For this part of society, nationalism and Islamic identity are interrelated and complementary notions.

Autocephalous churches are not quasi-state autonomous religious organizations operating exclusively within the space of church relations, but an intricate complex of institutions incorporating state and civil society and operating in a common political space.

Without secularization understood as the meaninglessness of religion, religious convictions and practices, modernization in politics, law and science would not have been possible.