Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Russian culture is pretty Western anyway, isn't it? Similar historical influences, majority Christian. A lot of their music and literature influenced Western Europe and vice versa. Before the first world war and the Russian revolution there were a lot of mixing of European and Russian elites and artists.
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Definitely not. Orthodox Christianity is not Roman Catholic and never has been (it isn’t Protestant either - it’s been around pretty much since the get-go). There isn’t an Orthodox Pope; the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is nominally in charge but his influence is more or less analogous to the Archbishop of Canterbury in worldwide Anglicanism. This means the territorial Patriarchs of the Orthodox churches have a great deal of personal influence. Patriarch Kiril of the Russian Orthodox has been pushing a quite violently nationalist message that gives some serious legitimacy to what Putin is doing (so far as Russians are concerned anyway).