5. Conclusion
Putin’s Russia depends on the reconstitution of select components of the past. Today’s Russia draws upon an assemblage of ideas from the past that envision Russia as the guardian of traditional moral rigor, defended by Church representatives as a safe haven for those who feel threatened by the secular humanism preponderant in the West. The promotion of gender differentiation and complementarity, in which the male rules over submissive females has ascended to the heights of Russia’s ideological platform. This ideology celebrates Putin as a contemporary icon of masculinity, a strong man who seeks power, exercises it with cold calculation and brutality, and justifies the use of power by appealing to the masculine responsibilities of protecting rights and defending people.
Patriarch Kirill’s cultivation of the Russian World ideology that emphasizes traditional moral rigor proved to be a convenient and compatible foundation for Putin’s reign. The Russian World would restore Muscovite dominance over Eurasia, one Moscow had held during the Soviet era, while justifying brutal measures employed to protect adherents of the Russian World from demonic threats from the West. The tactics used to eradicate these threats symbolize the classic form of bellicose masculinity: men apprehending women, publicly beating them, and organizing armies to crush their enemies outside of their borders, despite the wailing of Russian mothers whose sons died in the campaign. It seems ironic that the ruling regime of post-Soviet Russia would turn to such brutal measures against its neighbors in the wake of seventy years of violent Soviet persecution of the people. It is tragic that these measures find support in the resurgence of traditional patriarchy in Russia’s Orthodox Church.
Author
Nicholas Denysenko serves as Emil and Elfriede Jochum Professor and Chair at Valparaiso University. He previously taught at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles (2010–2017). His most recent books are The People’s Faith: The Liturgy of the Faithful in Orthodoxy (2018), and The Orthodox Church in Ukraine: A Century of Separation (2018). He is a deacon of the Orthodox Church in America, ordained in 2003.
Address: Valparaiso University, 1400 Chapel Drive, ASB 306, Valparaiso, IN 46383.