Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

In the summer of 2019, in many regions of Russia, protest movements arose, caused by the discontent of a certain part of the population with the political situation in the country. The protests were triggered by the elections to the Moscow State Parliament, to which no opposition candidates were allowed. The current protest movement was distinguished by the fact that religious discourse began to be included in the essentially political rhetoric. After the fall of the Soviet Union, most religious leaders in Russia supported democratic change, and for two decades traditional religions have been a pillar of the political regime in Russia. However, due to the fact that in today’s Russia many democratic mechanisms no longer function, and in the intellectual space there is an ideological vacuum, more and more Russian citizens are turning to religious rhetoric and religious organizations in the hope of supporting people’s initiatives. This paper describes how appeals to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, Islam, and other religious traditions of Russia are used in the modern protest movement. The study also highlights how various religious traditions of Russia can become a consolidating factor in helping to normalize the democratic process in the country.