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Separate Church & State in Russia? — Why the Two Are So Connected
I have recently written about how Putin uses the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) to justify his illegal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In this post, I wanted to look at this issue further and explain why politics, nationalism, and the State become interconnected in the first place.
Let me explain.
First, let’s discuss nationalism, what I mean behind the term, and then let’s connect it with the Chuch and State more broadly.
What is Nationalism?
In my view, the term ‘nationalism’ is best defined by Ernest Gellner’s seminal definition, as “the political principle which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent.”
In line with this definition, nationalists believe that each nation has the right to demarcate between those who can and do belong to the political and national unit and those who do not.
Nations are further defined by a shared culture, “a system of ideas, signs, associations and ways of behaving.”
All these factors must be united by a shared recognition of belonging to one nation.
According to the political scientist, Barbara-Ann J. Rieffer, ‘religious nationalism’ is when…
