Russia in Global Affairs

The relations of the so-called Rest with the collective West changed in time, moving from competition to confrontation to an open conflict that effectively breaks the current international arrangements. In short, this is a Grand Split.

The ongoing debate over Russia’s place in world politics is a natural continuation of the historical, cultural, and philosophical experience of the late 19th century—the time when the country’s imperial statehood was in its prime but which also brought into light the problems that several decades later would lead to dramatic events in the last century.

What do societies expect, and what are they afraid of in the new era? And what obligations does this impose on the states? On October 20, 2020 the Valdai Discussion Club opened its 17th Annual Meeting with a session titled “Struggling With Pandemics: How the World Is Composing Itself.” Moderator: Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs. To find out what the experts spoke about and what conclusions they came to, read the review by Timofei Bordachev, programme director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

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.

There are also good sides to the current dispute: it proves that every Orthodox Church, however big and influential it is, has limits to its influence and power. This will hopefully lead to the restoration of conciliarity, the strongest and most attractive feature of the Universal Orthodox Church.

What were relations like inside Ukraine’s Orthodox community before the moment when the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople supported the idea of a national Church? Russia in Global Affairs put this and other questions to Vladislav Petrushko, Doctor of Ecclesiastical History, and Professor at St. Tikhon Orthodox University.

As the global landscape falls apart into fragments, institutions malfunction in various spheres, and major demographic shifts and migration flows sweep the world, any change in the religious balance can cause great upheavals.

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

The only problem is that Orthodox canon law is extremely archaic (largely dating back to the times of Ecumenical Councils), confusing and ambiguous, and there is no generally recognized authority in the Orthodox world that could provide firm, reliable and binding interpretations of this law.