I am a scholar of Russian religious thought with a passion for research at the intersection of theology, cultural studies, and literature. My work focuses on the historical roots of contemporary Church-State relations in Russia, particularly the reg...More
I am a scholar of Russian religious thought with a passion for research at the intersection of theology, cultural studies, and literature. My work focuses on the historical roots of contemporary Church-State relations in Russia, particularly the regulation of gender and sexuality and the promotion of Russia's global role as the guardian of traditional family values. My article on the Day of Family, Love, and Fidelity, exploring the use of Orthodox theology to promote family values in the public sphere, will be published in the journal Religion, State, and Society in Fall 2018. More broadly, I study the Russian Orthodox Church's movement towards primacy in the Orthodox world via cultural imperialism within Slavia Orthodoxa and the discourse of cultural superiority to the West. My current project explores the ways in which the Moscow Patriarchate's current battle to maintain the subordination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is predicated upon the threat to Orthodox primacy and global exceptionalism represented by an independent Ukraine given its "European" loyalties and its challenge to the maintenance of a culturally conservative "Orthodox bloc". In addition to my scholarly research, I write about issues of religion in Russia for various non-academic outlets including my blog (below) and a daily Twitter digest (@RussRLGNWatch) and am a podcast host on thew New Books Network (newbooksnetwork.com).
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