Following the electoral victory, Orthodox leaders issued an appeal to the “tsar”. In this, Putin’s third mandate, the Orthodox Church is proposing that it act as a dispenser of religious sense in the Kremlin.
The leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church are offering to “Christianise” the Country’s government, by interpreting ethical and social issues in a nationalist tone.
“Illegal immigration must be contained through tougher rules,” the Patriarchate’s Department for Relations with Society urged: “I think most people will support these measures.”
Putin immediately guaranteed the introduction of Russian language, history and law exams for obtaining a Russian residence permit. Playing on “national and religious identity”, Putin proposed a clamp down on domestic immigration and criminal prosecution for those who violate immigration laws.
In exchange for electoral support, the Patriarchate of Moscow sent Putin a list of requests aimed at “keeping Russia a Christian country” and “continuing along the oath of peaceful development.”
Putin and Patriarch Kirill share the same vision of a mono-ethnic and mono,-religious Russia, remembering the urban guerrilla warfare that took place right below the Kremlin walls in December 2010 between nationalists and Caucasian immigrants.
The Orthodox Church trusts Putin to keep Russia Orthodox, identity-making and nationalist.
Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, spoke to Putin in person about the persecution of Christians in Countries such as Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan and India.
The representative of the Orthodox Church asked Putin, after his electoral victory, to make this issue one the priorities of his mandate.
The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, voted in Moscow, in the presidential elections, expressing the hope that “our country continues in its pacific, calm, determined and progressive development in the spiritual and material fields at the end of the elections.”
A wish which sounded rather like an appeal to Russians to avoid clashes and violence in street protests announced by Putin’s opponents and supporters. On the eve of the elections, the Russian Orthodox Church had asserted its right to intervene during the election campaign for the presidential elections, with Patriarch Kirill giving a speech in support of Vladimir Putin.
“It would be strange if the Patriarch and other Church representatives kept silent and stopped expressing their own opinion of the situation,” church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin stated in response to bloggers who have been accusing Kirill of showing too much support for Vladimir Putin, whom he met when he was still a presidential candidate last February 8th. At the time, Kirill had stressed the important role Putin played in getting Russia out of the 90’s crisis, which the Patriarch compared to World War II.
Meanwhile, to everyone’s surprise, Vladimir Putin’s wife, who had disappeared from the public scene for some time (even sparking rumours that she had entered a convent), appeared at her husband’s side ready to vote in the elections that brought him to power, making her Russia’s First Lady.
Ludmila only appeared on Putin’s side on two occasions: In February 2009 during the enthronement of Patriarch Kirill and the following May to give her wishes to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church on the occasion of his name day. Her third appearance was during the census, after a U.S. tabloid published the news that she had conceived a daughter from Putin, the beautiful rhythmic gymnastics Olympic Champion Alina Kbaieva.
A few days before the election, Russian Prime Minister Putin approved a decree that confirmed the return of religious education in schools in this huge Country.
After the “positive” experience of a pilot programme launched in 2009 in middle schools of a group of preselected regions, the subject will become obligatory as of the beginning of the next school year, news agency AsiaNews of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions reports. Elementary and middle school pupils will have to enrol on general courses on the “foundations of religious culture” or “foundations of public ethics”. Alternatively, they will have to attend a course on one of the four “traditional” religious faiths, namely Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism or Buddhism.
The initiative, which is strongly supported by the increasingly influential Russian Orthodox Church, has attracted both positive and negative criticisms. “I think it is wrong to divide children into groups according to religious faith; it could cause a lot of problems,” Ivar Maskurov commented to AsiaNews. Other criticisms were voiced against the lack of qualified teachers and suitable text books. This was confirmed by the head of the Ministry of Education for the teaching of religion, Elena Romanova. At the Prime Minister’s order, in recent days, the Ministry of Education launched training courses for teachers of religion.
The courses “should be taught by well prepared individuals or by professors of theology or by priests,” Putin said last Wednesday, in a meeting with representatives of “traditional” confessions in Russia. The pilot programme involved approximately half a million children and pupils, 20.000 teachers and 30.000 educational institutions. Putin also touched on the topic of government interference. “We do not intend to interfere in the activities of religious organisations.”
The State will not do so under any circumstance,” the PM and former Soviet secret services agent (KGB) assured. “This also goes for the self organisation within our religious communities,” Putin emphasised. According to Putin, religious educational institutions must enjoy the same rights as public schools, including access to government funding. This is also true for teachers’ salaries.
The “blessing” Putin received from the Russian Orthodox Church has contained the loss of consensus in a country that was not particularly happy with the exchange of roles between Medvedev and Putin. As people take to the streets in protest, the Orthodox hierarchies give a sigh of satisfaction.