Western countries have yet to learn to view the Russian Orthodox Church as an instrument of influence. However, some countries are already capable of recognizing this form of influence and countering it.
This is according to an analytical review of the Russian Orthodox Church’s foreign policy prepared by journalist and religion expert Ksenia Luchenko.
According to the author, Western countries have learned to regard Russian television channels, foundations, and “compatriot centers” as instruments of influence. No such approach has been applied to the Church.
“A parish community cannot simply be expelled through diplomatic means, while freedom of religion provides a priest with more reliable protection than the Vienna Convention provides a diplomat. The effectiveness of this channel of influence is therefore due not so much to Moscow’s exceptional skill as to a ‘blind spot’ in the perception of host societies. Activity presented as religious is not, by default, perceived as political,” the journalist notes.
However, she says, the examples of Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania show that some countries are already capable of recognizing this form of influence and countering it. Yet these responses remain fragmented, nationally focused, and uncoordinated. There is no comprehensive EU-level approach specifically targeting the church infrastructure of the Moscow Patriarchate. It is precisely this lack of coordination, rather than invisibility as such, that explains why this channel continues to function overall.
Luchenko believes that the Russian Orthodox Church’s lack of a clearly defined foreign policy strategy is itself a source of its resilience.
“When a parish in Sweden is built with funding from a Russian state corporation next to a reserve military airfield, each individual element of this arrangement may be entirely legal and explicable. The Russian state does not so much manage this system as take advantage of the fact that it exists, while the system, in turn, makes use of state resources,” she notes.
According to the author, the Russian Orthodox Church’s infrastructure abroad is best understood as an intermediate layer of Russia’s external presence. Formally separate from the state and legally protected, it regularly intersects with the spheres of diplomacy, culture, and intelligence, yet cannot be reduced to any one of them.
“Created to carry out the foreign policy objectives of the Stalin era, this structure survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and replaced the ideological framework of the ‘struggle for peace’ with that of ‘traditional values.’ There is no reason to believe that it will not survive the current regime as well.
Democratic states therefore face the task of learning to identify and document the Russian Orthodox Church’s foreign policy activities and, where necessary, restrict them without infringing freedom of conscience,” the report states.
We previously reported that U.S. Helsinki Commission Chairman and Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, along with several other lawmakers, introduced the “Countering Russia’s War on Faith Act.”
According to Regina Elsner, a researcher of Eastern Christianity and ecumenism at the University of Münster and a doctor of theology, the Russian Orthodox Church has become one of the key institutions of mobilization and propaganda.
We previously reported that Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I condemned attempts to use religion to justify violence.
