A Moralist International Under Arms? Russia’s Role in the Global Culture Wars, Prior to and During Its War With Ukraine

Kristina Stoeckl is a full professor of sociology at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome.

In the decade preceding Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, from roughly 2012 until 2022, the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian politicians, state diplomats, and civil society organizations financed by Kremlin- or church-affiliated entrepreneurs worked in unison to create the image of Russia as the defender of “traditional values” in Europe and in the world.

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Religious Conservatism in War-Time “Culture Wars”: Does the Same Stance on Values Represent an Elective Affinity with the Geopolitical Agenda of the Russian Federation?

Alar Kilp is a lecturer in comparative politics at the University of Tartu.

When Churches in Central and Eastern European countries take conservative positions (either alone or jointly in the form of all-Church councils) on “culture wars”[1] values relative to family and reproductive issues as well as sexual and gender identity, the overlap with “traditional values” promoted and weaponized by the Kremlin—which includes both Russia’s political leadership and the Patriarchate of Moscow—is often obvious.

In Russia, the promotion of traditional values has an “elective affinity” relationship, where conservative positions promoted by a religious actor (the Russian Orthodox Church) and the geopolitical agenda of the Russian Federation can intuitively and coherently be associated with each other in the way Max Weber used the term elective affinity (Wahlverwandtschaft) for the perceived associations between economic behavior and religious doctrine.

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Orthodox Churches in the Baltic States Torn Between Moscow and Constantinople

Sebastian Rimestad is a research associate (Heisenberg-Fellow) at the Institute for the Study of Religions, Leipzig University (Germany).

The rhetoric of the Russian Orthodox Church concerning the ongoing war in Ukraine is not only a thorny issue for the Orthodox bishops and faithful in Ukraine but also presents an especially tricky dilemma for Orthodox Churches in the Baltic States. In Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Orthodox Church is primarily the religious home of the post-Soviet Russian minority, although there are vocal and influential Orthodox actors in all three states who do not identify as Russian.

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