2010 Articles

The New Emperors? Post-Soviet Presidents and Church-State Relations in Ukraine and Russia

Gvosdev, Nokolas K.

Twenty years ago, the theme of this conference, “Power and Authority in Eastern Christian Experience” would have been considered by many to be of interest primarily to historians and theologians, but not particularly relevant to the political discourse underway in many of the countries which traditionally formed part of the Eastern Christian world. As the Soviet Union began to collapse, its own constituent republics and the countries of the Eastern Bloc, comprising the historic core of the Eastern Christian world, began looking to the West, and particularly the United States, for their political models. The last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, attempted to emulate Western “economic and political practices” rather than turning to pre-Communist traditions and models.