Sacred Art: Church and State in Russian Orthodoxy

When we look at the nation of Russia today, it’s almost impossible to imagine how its citizens – and indeed, the world – must have experienced it just a little over a century ago: before the war in Ukraine, which passed its 1,000-day mark only a few days before I sat down to write this article; before the Soviet Union rose to power and consumed much of Eastern Europe and parts of Asia with bold, socialist realist sculptures and gray utilitarian complexes; before the October Revolution of 1917 irrevocably altered the Russian government’s relationship with its people. Though it is difficult to deny that Russia was in a dire state of economic inequality in the years leading up to the Bolsheviks’ rise to power, the sheer brutality of the affair has echoed through generations ever since – in Russian politics, on the global stage, and in the lives of countless families and citizens who suffered under the early anarchical throes of their coup.

Orrin Smith, The Senate and Synod Building and Saint Isaac's Cathedral, 1856

Most people are aware of the violent fate of the Romanov family, which is in many ways synonymous with the Bolshevik Revolution. Regardless of their strengths and weaknesses as rulers, the tragedy of their executions remains in my mind as one of the first, most horrific allusions to the century of terror that was to come. Yet, as striking as these political events may have been and continue to be, equally so has been the enduring existence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Dating back in theory to 988 AD with the Christianization of Kievan Rus’ and in practice as an independent entity to 1448 AD, when it declared autocephaly from the broader Eastern Orthodox Church, it has remained a more or less consistent throughline from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution to the present day. Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s literary masterpieces, such as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, circle with wonder and awe around the contours of this mysterious entity, as opaque to the average Russian peasant before the Revolution as it often is to onlookers today. It is as Russian an institution as they come, and as the tides of change have roiled around it, it has had to move with and against them, engaging in a dance of Church and State that mirrors that of the Russian people.

St. Sophia-Dormition Cathedral in Tobolsk, 1686 (photo by Óðinn, CC BY-SA 2.5 ca)

One could argue that maintaining the delicate balance between Church and State is the fate of any religion faced with the pragmatic realities of day-to-day earthly living – and of any government faced with an even remotely faithful population. That balance would be even further emphasized in the case of an ethnically specific religion like Russian Orthodoxy. Much like Anglicanism can never be divorced from its English roots, nor can the Russian Orthodox Church continue to exist without some concept of what it means to be Russian. But as hard-hit as many Christian sects have been over the past couple of centuries of increasing secularization, the Russian Orthodox Church has faced unique setbacks the likes of which have rendered the church’s ongoing existence as tenuous as it is miraculous.

Metropolitan Benjamin addressing the Petrograd Revolutionary Provincial Tribunal during his 1922 trial for anti-Soviet agitation

I am, of course, referring again to the Bolshevik Revolution. As surely as it upended life for countless men and women eking out a living as peasants in Russia and surrounding states, it also placed the Russian Orthodox Church in a precarious position, the likes of which Dostoyevksy could never have imagined less than half a century earlier. While the Soviets never formally outlawed most religions, they did crack down drastically on freedom of expression, which included many Russian Orthodox clergymen’s efforts to appeal to the rights of the common people against an increasingly corrupt authority. The Bolsheviks imprisoned and executed clergymen, weaponizing even insane asylums in their efforts to discredit the religion’s critiques of communist ideology. Church property and art was confiscated, and the Soviets infiltrated the church to split it ideologically from the inside. By the time World War II broke out, the mainstream church had all but capitulated to Soviet demands, and Josef Stalin was able to “revive” it as a source of patriotism for Russian citizens and troops. From then on, as recent evidence from the Security Service of Ukraine has indicated, the church collaborated closely with Soviet organizations including the KGB.

Destruction of the original Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, USSR, 5 December 1931

In the years following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church has struggled to reinvent itself out of the rubble of over 70 years of persecution. At times, it has even begun to establish itself as a force alongside the Russian government. It bickered with Constantinople to the point of schism in 2018, and it even rebuked the government regarding the war on Ukraine early in 2022 – though it has since walked back many of these claims, even referring to the ongoing invasion as a “Holy War.” 

Even so, despite the ongoing struggle, it is difficult to envision what it would look like for the Russian Orthodox Church to regain a similar place in Russian society as it held before the Soviet era. To be sure, even as recently as the year 2000 and beyond, the church has commissioned new cathedrals in its quintessentially Russian Orthodox style. But can they compete with the Soviet sculptures of recent decades? Does their beauty and ornamentation, so indicative of the hope of things beyond this world, continue to hold any weight in the face of a utilitarian regime? As with most elements of the Russian world, we on the outside – and perhaps even many of those living within the regime – are left to wonder: What is “Russia” in the twenty-first century? Is there anything left to salvage from the brutal remains of the October Revolution, or must we be content to watch the Bolsheviks wear its trappings as an empty husk? 

Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, consecrated in 2000 (photo by Alvesgaspar, CC BY-SA 3.0)

As has so often been the case across the millennia, religion brings with it the hope of preservation. Just as medieval monks in Europe scrupulously copied down the texts of the ancients, quietly working in their monasteries despite the centuries of political turmoil that typified the Catholic world at the time, so we might hope that there are those in the Russian Orthodox Church – and others in league with it – who carry with them the silent memories of days no one in our lifetimes has witnessed. The future will never look the same as the past – nor should it, and nor, I imagine, would any of the “great” Russian thinkers and writers and artists of the past have wished it so. But the fact remains: A people’s history is its identity and its foundation. If ignored or rejected, it will unfailingly return with a vengeance, even if none remain who can recognize it. As the Russian Orthodox Church continues to struggle with and against the tides of its reigning government, I hope it will come to illuminate the path to “another way” for Russia: one of reconciliation with its past and hope for a brighter future. Perhaps then we may see once again a generation of sacred artists whose work resonates with the depths of Russia’s unique religious and cultural expression.

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