A great article on the myth of the Russian traditional values that some facile individuals take at face value:
The militant Russian religious conservatism of the twenty-first century, paradoxically, mirrors the Soviet anti-religious socialism of the twentieth century. Their common feature is a shameless instrumentalization of religion, with the consent of the latter. . . Russia’s invocation of “traditional values” rests on the completely secular view that moral teachings can be severed from religion; and the result is that these values have been vacated of any religious meaning and become a blunt instrument of the Russian state.
https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2023/07/90088/
Many people don’t know this but Stalin treated no foreign dignitary with the same respect and kindness that he did Patriarch Sergii Stragorodskii (the head in church parlance) of the Orthodox church in the USSR. When the Patriarch visited Stalin in the Kremlin, Stalin shocked his staffers by getting up, walking out to meet the church leader and walk him to his seat. This is a form of respect nobody got from Stalin ever. Even in the secret meeting with Hitler that some historians insist took place, I can’t imagine Stalin being so deferential.*
In return, Patriarch Sergii declared that Stalin was divinely anointed to hold power and directed every Soviet priest to praise Stalin by name during service. He also directed priests to report what they heard in confession to state police. Which they proceeded to do until 1991. I personally witnessed the public shaming of an 11-year-old classmate whose priest had informed the KGB that she attended church service which meant she was ideologically unsound.
This is the instrumentalization of religion that the linked article is talking about. And it’s no wonder that since 1991 Russian Orthodox Church continued exactly as before.
* I don’t necessarily believe that the meeting took place but there are two and a half unaccounted days in Stalin’s recorded agenda in 1939 and nobody ever explained where he was that had to be shrouded in such secrecy.
Clarissa's Blog 