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Liberal Individual and Christian Culture: Russian Orthodox Teaching on Human Rights in Social Theory Perspective*

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 38; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09637491003726570

1465-3974

Alexander Agadjanian,

Religious Freedom and Discrimination

Abstract Abstract The paper analyses the recent debate on human rights in the Russian Orthodox Church published as a series of articles, conference discussions and official church documents. The current Russian Orthodox vision of rights is an example of response to the dominant liberal discourse from within a spiritual tradition. Russian Orthodox authors try to combine major categories of Christian anthropology with the liberal 'rights talk'. The purpose of the 'teaching' is ambiguous, because of the dual identity of the Russian Orthodox Church as a self-protecting minority and dominant cultural tradition. The paper then applies to the case the social theories of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. Notes 1 The main text is Osnovy ucheniya Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi o dostoinstve, svobode i pravakh cheloveka (The Bases of the Russian Orthodox Teaching on Dignity, Freedom and Human Rights) (Osnovy, 2008 Osnovy. 2008. Osnovy ucheniya Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi o dostoinstve, svobode i pravakh cheloveka http://www.mospat.ru/index.php?page=41597 (last accessed 14 December 2008); English translation at http://www.mospat.ru/en/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/ (last accessed 26 January 2010) [Google Scholar]). Earlier reflections on related matters can be found earlier in another important church document, Osnovy sotsial'noi kontseptsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi (The Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church) (Osnovy, 2000 Osnovy. 2000. "'Osnovy sotsial'noi kontseptsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi'". In Yubileiny Archiyereisky Sobor Russkoi Pravoslavoi Tserkvi, 13–16 avgusta 2000: Materialy, 329–410. Moscow: Izdatel'sky Sovet Moskovskogo Patriarkhata. http://www.mospat.ru/ru/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/; English translation at http://www.mospat.ru/en/docu ments/dignity-freedom-rights/(both last accessed 27 January 2010) [Google Scholar]). (The translations in this article are from the original Russian, although official English translations of both documents exist (see Osnovy, 2000 Osnovy. 2000. "'Osnovy sotsial'noi kontseptsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi'". In Yubileiny Archiyereisky Sobor Russkoi Pravoslavoi Tserkvi, 13–16 avgusta 2000: Materialy, 329–410. Moscow: Izdatel'sky Sovet Moskovskogo Patriarkhata. http://www.mospat.ru/ru/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/; English translation at http://www.mospat.ru/en/docu ments/dignity-freedom-rights/(both last accessed 27 January 2010) [Google Scholar]; Osnovy, 2008 Osnovy. 2008. Osnovy ucheniya Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi o dostoinstve, svobode i pravakh cheloveka http://www.mospat.ru/index.php?page=41597 (last accessed 14 December 2008); English translation at http://www.mospat.ru/en/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/ (last accessed 26 January 2010) [Google Scholar]).) Relevant issues were also treated in a number of conceptual articles published in the late 1990s and the early 2000s; then in a series of discussions in the mid-2000s, of which the most interesting was a round table on 1 July 2004 at the Moscow Danilov Monastery entitled 'Svoboda i dostoinstvo lichnosti: pravoslavny i liberal'ny vzglyady' ('Freedom and Personal Dignity: Orthodox and Liberal Visions') (Svoboda, 2004 Svoboda. 2004. 'Svoboda i dostoinstvo lichnosti: pravoslavny i liberal'ny vzgliady' (round table organised by the Radonezh Society, 1 July). Radonezh: Pravoslavnoye obshchestvo (bratstvo): analiticheskoye obozreniye, 149(special issue) 26 August, http://www.radonezh.ru/new/?ID=2164 (last accessed 2007); printout in possession of the author [Google Scholar]). There was also a short Deklaratsiya o pravakh i dostoinstve cheloveka (Declaration on Human Rights and Dignity), approved by the World Russian Congress (Vsemirny Russky Narodny Sobor) in April 2006 (Deklaratsiya, 2006 Deklaratsiya. 2006. Deklaratsiya o pravakh i dostoinstve cheloveka X Vsemirnogo Russkogo Narodnogo Sobora http://www.mospat.ru/index.php?page=30728 (last accessed 2 January 2010) [Google Scholar]). The Congress was set up in 1993, and according to its charter its head is, ex officio, the patriarch of the ROC. 2 There is much evidence in the writings of Patriarch Kirill and others of a clearly expressed will to interact with the secular and liberal world. An active participatory strategy is a crucial stance of Kirill's party within the ROC, as reflected not only in the text of the Bases of the Social Concept, where the world-renouncing position is polemically and consistently rejected (Osnovy, 2000 Osnovy. 2000. "'Osnovy sotsial'noi kontseptsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi'". In Yubileiny Archiyereisky Sobor Russkoi Pravoslavoi Tserkvi, 13–16 avgusta 2000: Materialy, 329–410. Moscow: Izdatel'sky Sovet Moskovskogo Patriarkhata. http://www.mospat.ru/ru/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/; English translation at http://www.mospat.ru/en/docu ments/dignity-freedom-rights/(both last accessed 27 January 2010) [Google Scholar], chapter I and passim), but in the very fact that the documents of 2000 and 2008 were produced at all. Not only is classical world renunciation rejected as a strategy, but the very secular principle of private, or privatised, religion is criticised. Instead, there is a strong desire to bring religion back to activity in public life (see Agadjanian, 2003 Agadjanian, A. 2003. 'Breakthrough to modernity, apologia for traditionalism: the Russian Orthodox view of society and culture in comparative perspective'. Religion, State and Society, 31(4): 327–46. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). 3 A common reference is to Casanova (1994 Casanova, J. 1994. Public Religion in the Modern World, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), but there have been a number of other studies registering this trend, including early reactions to Muslim revival, such as Kepel (1994 Kepel, G. 1994. The Revenge of God : the Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. [Google Scholar]), debates around desecularisation (Berger, 1999 Berger P. L. 1999 The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics Washington, DC Ethics and Public Policy Center/Grand Rapids, MI, W.B. Eerdmans [Google Scholar]), debates around deprivatisation (Beyer, 1994 Beyer, P. 1994. Religion and Globalization, London: Sage. [Google Scholar]) and even the idea of clashes of religiously defined civilisations (Huntington, 1996 Huntington, S. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon & Schuster. [Google Scholar]). 4 See Elie Wiesel's definition of human rights as a 'world-wide secular religion' (Wiesel, 1999 Wiesel, E. 1999. "'A tribute to human rights'". In The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Fifty Years and Beyond, Edited by: Danieli, Y., Stamatopoulou, E. and Dias, C. J. Amityville, NY: Baywood. [Google Scholar], p. 3), and Michael Ignatieff's as 'the lingua franca of global moral thought' (Ignatieff, 2001 Ignatieff, M. 2001. Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 320). 5 In some of his earlier pronouncements Kirill was more positive towards the concept of human rights, saying that the concept of human rights and individual liberties had 'a spark of Divine truth' (Gundyayev, 1999 Gundyayev, K. 1999. 'Obstoyatel'stva novogo vremeni'. NG-Religii, 26(May) [Google Scholar]); later he even called the concept of human rights 'one of the most powerful, positive ideas of the modern world' (Gundyayev, 2005 Gundyayev, K. 2005. "'Universal'noye i samobytnoye v kontseptsii prav cheloveka'". (speech at the conference 'Religiya v sovremennoi sisteme mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii', St Petersburg, 30 September, http://www.mospat.ru/archive (last accessed 21 January 2010) [Google Scholar]). I think that Kirill's ideas reflect the fundamental ambivalence which I describe later. He swings from more positive to more negative assessments of human rights and back, partly because he is predominantly a pragmatic political rather than a theological thinker. I would say that the overall trend has been towards a more negative view, in line with the evolution of the Russian political context to a more nationalist and anti-western position, and along with the parallel evolution of the ROC's self-affirmation as the national institution par excellence. 6 This understanding of freedom is in line with discussions found in earlier publications on the subject, which are in fact at times much harsher in their critique of the 'liberal ethos' and, specifically, of the liberal meanings of dignity and freedom. The liberal ethos is called, for example, a 'universal non-spiritual culture grounded upon fallen man's unlimited freedom which is conceived as the absolute value and the measure of truth' (Osnovy, 2000 Osnovy. 2000. "'Osnovy sotsial'noi kontseptsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi'". In Yubileiny Archiyereisky Sobor Russkoi Pravoslavoi Tserkvi, 13–16 avgusta 2000: Materialy, 329–410. Moscow: Izdatel'sky Sovet Moskovskogo Patriarkhata. http://www.mospat.ru/ru/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/; English translation at http://www.mospat.ru/en/docu ments/dignity-freedom-rights/(both last accessed 27 January 2010) [Google Scholar], XVI.3). Liberalism, writes Metropolitan Kirill, places 'fallen man', who 'abides in sin', at the centre of the 'anthropocentric universe' (Gundyayev, 1999 Gundyayev, K. 1999. 'Obstoyatel'stva novogo vremeni'. NG-Religii, 26(May) [Google Scholar]). This 'unlimited freedom' is in fact the 'emancipation of the sinful individual, and therefore the release of the sinful potential of the human person. The free person can reject anything that binds him, everything that prevents him from the affirmation of his sinful self' (Gundyayev, 2000a Gundyayev, K. 2000a. 'Norma zhizni kak norma very'. Nezavisimaya gazeta, 16(February) [Google Scholar]). Freedom in this case equals 'freedom of sin', 'self-will' (svoevoliye); the human self becomes an autonomous subject of individual rights divorced from reference to the divine (Osnovy, 2000 Osnovy. 2000. "'Osnovy sotsial'noi kontseptsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi'". In Yubileiny Archiyereisky Sobor Russkoi Pravoslavoi Tserkvi, 13–16 avgusta 2000: Materialy, 329–410. Moscow: Izdatel'sky Sovet Moskovskogo Patriarkhata. http://www.mospat.ru/ru/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/; English translation at http://www.mospat.ru/en/docu ments/dignity-freedom-rights/(both last accessed 27 January 2010) [Google Scholar], IV.7). Liberalism is an emancipation of the human being from the divine image (Nikiforov and Markish, 2004 Nikifirov, Ye. and Markish, M. 2004. 'Tam gde dobro pod zapretom'. Analiticheskoye obozreniye, 9 151, http://radonezh.ru/analytic/articles/ (last accessed 25 December 2006) [Google Scholar]). According to Nataliya Narozhnitskaya, liberalism's last and now dominant 'stage of degeneration' is libertarianism, a manifestation of apostasy (Svoboda, 2004 Svoboda. 2004. 'Svoboda i dostoinstvo lichnosti: pravoslavny i liberal'ny vzgliady' (round table organised by the Radonezh Society, 1 July). Radonezh: Pravoslavnoye obshchestvo (bratstvo): analiticheskoye obozreniye, 149(special issue) 26 August, http://www.radonezh.ru/new/?ID=2164 (last accessed 2007); printout in possession of the author [Google Scholar]). Igor' Shafarevich says that this extreme liberalism/libertarianism goes as far as negating the reproduction of life through its acceptance of the rights to abortion, homosexual union and euthanasia (Svoboda, 2004 Svoboda. 2004. 'Svoboda i dostoinstvo lichnosti: pravoslavny i liberal'ny vzgliady' (round table organised by the Radonezh Society, 1 July). Radonezh: Pravoslavnoye obshchestvo (bratstvo): analiticheskoye obozreniye, 149(special issue) 26 August, http://www.radonezh.ru/new/?ID=2164 (last accessed 2007); printout in possession of the author [Google Scholar]). 7 Here certainly we can sense an allusion to the scandal caused in Russia by antireligious works of art, in Russian versions of cases which in other parts of the world related mostly to blasphemy against Islam. On the most celebrated case, the 'Danger: Religion!' art exhibition, see Agadjanian (2006 Agadjanian, A. 2006. 'The search for privacy and the return of a grand narrative: religion in a post-communist society'. Social Compass, 53(4): 169–84. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 8 Patriarch Kirill himself has said, quite radically, that the presumptions about freedom as 'both the goal and means of human existence' and about the 'absolute value of the human person' are common to liberalism and Christianity (Gundyayev, 2000b Gundyayev, K. 2000b. 'Cherez garmonizatsiyu liberal'no-svetskogo i religiozno-traditsionnogo podkhodov k resheniyu mezhetnicheskikh i mezhreligioznykh problem' (speech at the 'I Mezhreligiozny mirotvorchesky forum'), Moscow, 13–14 November. Politika, 43(December) http://www.politika-magazine.ru (last accessed 26 January 2010) [Google Scholar]). Andrei Kurayev has stressed the Christian origins of the freedom of religion (freedom of conscience), which is the source of all other individual freedoms (Svoboda, 2004 Svoboda. 2004. 'Svoboda i dostoinstvo lichnosti: pravoslavny i liberal'ny vzgliady' (round table organised by the Radonezh Society, 1 July). Radonezh: Pravoslavnoye obshchestvo (bratstvo): analiticheskoye obozreniye, 149(special issue) 26 August, http://www.radonezh.ru/new/?ID=2164 (last accessed 2007); printout in possession of the author [Google Scholar]). Duma deputy Sergei Popov has pointed out that the main liberal idea (sometimes called the 'harm principle'), that freedom may be limited only by another's freedom, is simply a form of the 'golden rule' of Christian ethics, 'do not do to others what you would not wish done to yourself''; he has also said that the ideas of democracy and pluralism come from the same source (Svoboda, 2004 Svoboda. 2004. 'Svoboda i dostoinstvo lichnosti: pravoslavny i liberal'ny vzgliady' (round table organised by the Radonezh Society, 1 July). Radonezh: Pravoslavnoye obshchestvo (bratstvo): analiticheskoye obozreniye, 149(special issue) 26 August, http://www.radonezh.ru/new/?ID=2164 (last accessed 2007); printout in possession of the author [Google Scholar]). 9 Some prefer to see liberalism and Christianity as 'two opposed religions', with the 'religion' of liberalism aggressively targeted against Christianity (Shafarevich and Osipov at the 2004 round table (Svoboda, 2004 Svoboda. 2004. 'Svoboda i dostoinstvo lichnosti: pravoslavny i liberal'ny vzgliady' (round table organised by the Radonezh Society, 1 July). Radonezh: Pravoslavnoye obshchestvo (bratstvo): analiticheskoye obozreniye, 149(special issue) 26 August, http://www.radonezh.ru/new/?ID=2164 (last accessed 2007); printout in possession of the author [Google Scholar])): if liberalism is an apostasy, a deviation, there can be no way for Christians to negotiate with it. It is interesting that Metropolitan Kirill has sharply criticised this type of nihilism: defending 'harmonisation', he said: '… some forces propose rejecting the concept of human rights and declaring it the biggest foe of the traditional Christian consciousness. The millennial Church tradition, however, suggests that we deal differently with various systems of views that contain some sound thoughts close to Christian ideas. The church's principle has always been a careful collecting of the smallest grains of truth scattered within the human experience of learning' (Gundyayev, 2005 Gundyayev, K. 2005. "'Universal'noye i samobytnoye v kontseptsii prav cheloveka'". (speech at the conference 'Religiya v sovremennoi sisteme mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii', St Petersburg, 30 September, http://www.mospat.ru/archive (last accessed 21 January 2010) [Google Scholar]). Yet in spite of his 'harmonisation' strategy Kirill himself has at times been very ambivalent, agreeing that liberalism reflects an apostasy that goes back to three sources: the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and late medieval Jewish philosophy (Gundyayev, 1999 Gundyayev, K. 1999. 'Obstoyatel'stva novogo vremeni'. NG-Religii, 26(May) [Google Scholar]; restated in Gundyayev, 2004 Gundyayev, K. 2004. 'Pravoslaviye i liberalizm: protivostoyaniye ili dialog? Mitropolit Kirill o "pravakh cheloveka"' (interview, 26 August). Analiticheskoye obozreniye, 149 http://www.reshma.nov.ru/alm/pr_sov/pravoslavie_liberalizm.htm (last accessed 14 December 2008) [Google Scholar]). 10 This passage, with its failure to oppose the death penalty directly and to recognise the supreme value of life, was sharply criticised by many commentators on the document. 11 Here we may compare earlier direct criticism of democratic competitiveness by Fr Vsevolod Chaplin and Metropolitan Kirill (see Chaplin, 2005 Chaplin, V. 2005. "'Pravoslaviye i obshchestvenny ideal segodnya'". In Predely svetskosti, Edited by: Verkhovsky, A. 162–69. Moscow: Informatsionno-analitichesky tsentr 'Sova'. [Google Scholar]; Gundyayev, 2005 Gundyayev, K. 2005. "'Universal'noye i samobytnoye v kontseptsii prav cheloveka'". (speech at the conference 'Religiya v sovremennoi sisteme mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii', St Petersburg, 30 September, http://www.mospat.ru/archive (last accessed 21 January 2010) [Google Scholar]). 12 'Traditional' in this case refers to the semi-official classification used in Russian public discourse: 'confessions' in this context include Christian denominations and some non-Christian faiths. I will not speculate here as to which confessions and religions the document might intend to be included in this case. There is an extensive literature on the notion of 'traditional religion' and its implications for legal, political and interreligious practices. 13 Moreover, the ROC not only seeks to assert these 'corporate interests', but also is able to do so, for it is supported by some political elites, increasingly so since the early 2000s, with the rise of the Putin regime: the latter is actively seeking foundational national building-blocks, powerful symbolic references affirming the continuity of the Russian tradition, and therefore Orthodoxy becomes a part of the political culture consensus. 14 See for example the Russian language of the 2008 document and other similar texts: in its vocabulary and phraseology it is a modern, secular Russian language, only occasionally including traditional Orthodox terms and expressions; it is totally different from the standard language of contemporary theological, moral, hagiographical and pastoral texts, which are replete with Slavonic and old Russian elements referring to biblical and liturgical traditions. 15 So for example Metropolitan Kirill: 'Of course, as an Eastern Orthodox bishop, I would be very happy if the whole world were to become Orthodox! But today people should be given the right to live according to their own values … each civilisational paradigm and each model may coexist with others' (Gundyayev, 2004 Gundyayev, K. 2004. 'Pravoslaviye i liberalizm: protivostoyaniye ili dialog? Mitropolit Kirill o "pravakh cheloveka"' (interview, 26 August). Analiticheskoye obozreniye, 149 http://www.reshma.nov.ru/alm/pr_sov/pravoslavie_liberalizm.htm (last accessed 14 December 2008) [Google Scholar]). 16 Habermas warns about the difficulties involved in translating concepts from religious to secular language: he writes, for example, that when the idea that human beings were created 'in the image of God' is rendered through the notion of 'human dignity' there is a risk of losing the original connotation of man having been created. Nevertheless, he concludes optimistically, 'the core of its semantic content need not be lost' (Habermas, 2009 Habermas, J. 2009. 'Again religion and the public sphere: a response to Paolo Flores d'Arcais'. The Utopian, 12(February) www.the-utopian.org (last accessed 25 June 2009) [Google Scholar]). 17 In all these articles and speeches Habermas develops a new positive approach towards the legacy of religions. He has been strongly criticised for this new position as being blatantly contradictory to his own previous view that in liberal democracy all 'comprehensive doctrines' (such as world religions) must be excluded from the democratic consensus (see criticism in Flores d'Arcais (2007 Flores d'Arcais, P. 2007. 'Le tentazioni della fede (undici tesi contro Habermas)'. MicroMega, 7 http://temi.repubblica.it/micromega-online/ (last accessed 20 January 2010) [Google Scholar]) and Habermas' response to this (Habermas, 2009 Habermas, J. 2009. 'Again religion and the public sphere: a response to Paolo Flores d'Arcais'. The Utopian, 12(February) www.the-utopian.org (last accessed 25 June 2009) [Google Scholar])). 18 See similar discussion on the excesses of individualism in Putnam (2000 Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon & Schuster. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and in a special issue of Hedgehog Review (Bellah, 2002 Bellah, R. 2002. 'The Protestant structure of American culture: multiculture or monoculture?'. Hedgehog Review, 4(1): 7–34. [Google Scholar]; Etzioni, 2002 Etzioni, A. 2002. 'Individualism – within history'. Hedgehog Review, 4(1): 49–56. [Google Scholar]). 19 As I have noted above, in comparison with some of the previous texts I have studied the 2008 document tries to soften the opposition between individual and collective rights. They are said to be interrelated. I think that the ROC cannot deny the individual, personalistic aspect of the theological language of dignity and freedom, and the recognition of this language is by itself remarkable. Yet undeniably the authors' goal is to address, first of all, the community; in the final analysis collective or group values certainly dominate. 20 In an earlier text Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, who has been active in the discussion on human rights, put forward a much more radical idea of an 'organic'symphonia between church, nation and state, 'the ideal of a people-organism (narod-organizm), the whole conciliar body (sobornoye telo) …' whose differentiation into individual actors, involved in competition, is undesirable and should be rejected as a direct product of the 'world damaged by sin' (mir, povrezhdenny grekhom) (see Chaplin, 2005 Chaplin, V. 2005. "'Pravoslaviye i obshchestvenny ideal segodnya'". In Predely svetskosti, Edited by: Verkhovsky, A. 162–69. Moscow: Informatsionno-analitichesky tsentr 'Sova'. [Google Scholar], 2007 Chaplin, V. 2007. 'Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov', prava cheloveka i diskussii ob obshchestvennom ustroistve'. Interfaks, 16(October) http://www.interfax-religion.ru (section 'Analitika') (last accessed 26 January 2010) [Google Scholar]). 21 This idea about moral vocabulary as a 'translation tool' was shaped in conversation with Aleksandr Kyrlezhev. 22 Even though, remarkably, he distances himself from liberalisms of Kant and John Stuart Mill, because, according to Rawls, both these thinkers advanced 'the comprehensive doctrines' with ultimate truth claims, which are to be avoided, as are religions, in building an 'overlapping consensus'. 23 See Filaret Bulekov's strong defence of a culturalist reinterpretation of rights: 'Whatever the adversaries of the so-called "cultural relativism" would say, today the traditional concept of human rights should be correlated to the fact of cultural differences, their irreducibility to one legal denominator'. He further defends collective rights as cultural rights par excellence (Bulekov, 2006 Bulekov, F. 2006. 'Evolyutsiya ponyatiya prav cheloveka: poisk dialoga'. Tserkov' i vremya, 4(37): 15–24. [Google Scholar], pp. 20–21).