The Russian Orthodox Church: Triumphalism and Defensiveness

The Russian Orthodox Church has survived more than seventy years of the most brutal and sustained attempts to eradicate religion that has ever been. Weakened but spiritually alive, it is confronted by the demands of a ravaged, exhausted society. Can it, however, find the resources and energy to respond to these demands? Jane Ellis describes the developments and problems in the Russian Orthodox Church under glasnost and especially since the new freedoms were granted following the millennium celeb…