Russian Alternative Spirituality During the First Year of the War

Stanislav Panin holds a PhD in Philosophy from Moscow State University and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Religion at Rice University.

During the past year, religious communities in Russia have expressed the whole spectrum of views concerning the war in Ukraine, ranging from unconditional support to implicit or explicit opposition. Several publications, including my own post for this blog, documented reactions of alternative religious and esoteric groups to the current political situation.

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Cisnormativity and Christiannormativity at the Strasbourg Court: Reflections on Gender and Religion

Eugenia Relaño Pastor is Assistant Professor in the School of Law, Complutense University, Madrid (Spain), and Cooperation Partner in the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Germany). [1]

Europe is suffused with Christianity, or at least memories of its past influence.

—Andrew Higgins[2]

Those searching to have their gender legally recognized by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Strasbourg Court) and members of religious minorities who pursue equal rights and privileges enjoyed by dominant religious groups may not apparently share much in common. However, the following post sheds light on the similarities in the demands coming from gender and religious minorities. An initial examination unveils three common features shared by gender and religious minorities in searching for effective freedom: (1) the bias embedded in heteronormative laws and traditional church-state relations, (2) the experience of intersectional forms of discrimination, and (3) a self-determination approach to gender and religion.

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Reactions of Russian Religious Minorities on the Aggression Against Ukraine

Stanislav Panin holds a PhD in Philosophy from Moscow State University and is a Doctoral Student in the Department of Religion at Rice University.

For years Russian authorities worked to establish control over the public sphere and to suppress independent political parties, media, and non-profits. This control and suppression extend to religious associations; in the past decade, Russian authorities put great effort in prohibiting independent religious movements that were reluctant to profess their unconditional allegiance, had extensive international connections, or were otherwise perceived as a potential threat.

The current events in Ukraine, called “the Russian aggression against Ukraine” by the United Nations and a “special military operation” in Russian official jargon, provided a justification to tighten the restrictions. On 4 March, Russian authorities introduced new laws that made illegal “discrediting the actions of the Russian military,” “calls against the use of the Russian Federation military,” and “calls for political and economic sanctions against Russia.”

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