Putin's election rekindles Orthodox Church debate
Vladimir Putin's election to a third term as Russian president has
spurred debates about civil society and church-state relations within
the Russian Orthodox Church since charges of vote fraud set off mass
protests following last December's parliamentary elections.
Andrei
Desnitsky, a theologian who supports demands for fair elections, said
that growing political activism among Orthodox Christians is a positive
outcome of the situation.
"Politically active Orthodox, who have
finally begun to discuss with each other how to connect their political
position with their faith, have gained from this," he wrote on
Pravmir.ru (the English-language version is Pravmir.com), a Russian
Orthodox news and analysis website on March 6.
