» 01/31/2012 12:21 RUSSIA No longer idyllic between Putin and Patriarchate. At least in appearance. by Nina Achmatova The Prime Minister and presidential candidate seems to have distanced himself from the Church, that holds out its hand to the anti-government protest movement. Experts: "This is just a strategy, the hierarchy can not do without the support of power."
Moscow (AsiaNews) - In his campaign to win a third term in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin is no longer counting on his United Russia party, or the Russian Orthodox Church. After the disappointing performance of government formation, which gained below 50% in the December 4 election amid allegations of fraud and manipulation, the Premier has completely distanced from his party.
This has not stopped him from becoming the main target of the vast protest movement which has organized the largest anti-government demonstrations in the last 15 years in Moscow. Cracks have also reappeared in his relations with President Dmitry Medvedev, with whom he has led the country in tandem over the past four years. Medvedev was forced to step down in September to leave the him highest seat in Russia with the promise of eventually covering the premiership .
Online sites related to the Russian Orthodox community, analysts and simple readers have begun to also highlight the Moscow Patriarchate’s apparent distancing of the prime minister. The former, since the anti-Putin, demonstrations began in December has sided with the people, urging the government to dialogue with the population and change. For his part, in public interventions on his election platform, the Prime Minister and presidential candidate has never made explicit reference to the Orthodox faith, as he used to do in the past, invoking it as the glue that can hold together a multiethnic Russia.
Another signal that has alarmed observers was his absence - for the first time in 20 years – at the inauguration, on 23 January, the traditional "Christmas Lectures", an event which rallies important institutional figures in Moscow throughout the Orthodox world which falls under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate for a series of meetings and conferences on topics related to the Church and society.
"Putin no longer counts on the United Russia Party, or even the Patriarchate," admitted the newspaper Izvestja Stanislav Govorukhin, director and head of the Prime Minister’s election campaign. In light of this, Alexander Lapin - head of the Orthodox organization 'People's Council' in Moscow - has suggested Patriarch Kirill start to play his role in Russian society "independently".
Alexei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Center in Moscow and an expert on religion and society, believes instead that "Putin has not moved away from the Church." Author of the book 'The Russian Orthodox Church under the new Patriarch”, Malshenko told AsiaNews that the Patriarchate "will continue to support Putin, but only in a less direct way."
"The Church - he said – has to dissociate itself from the regime's interest and now views United Russia as a den of corruption, but continues to support Putin as a man, as a national leader who wants to improve the country, but who encounters many obstacles." It is a vision rooted in the Russian mentality, the scholar said: "The king is always good, but his entourage (the nobility) is bad." "The Church wants to prove to the faithful that it is above party politics, but the hierarchy is firmly with Putin – says Malashenko - the realization of large-scale projects commissioned by Kirill, as the impulse to the mission and the most active participation in social life, are not possible without cooperation between church and state, while the authorities still have an active interest in being legitimized by the Patriarchate’s support. "
