While some have seen the Russian Orthodox Church’s new outreach to Africa and other regions of the global South as a partnership with the Russian state to extend its influence in these countries, that partnership is far from an equal one for the church, writes Mikhail Suslov in the journal Religions (December 11). The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) caught the rest of the Orthodox world off guard when it established new alliances with African and Asian churches in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Analysts argued that the ROC was compensating for the loss of its church in Ukraine while also seeking a new paradigm as a global Orthodox church. This was seen most clearly in Africa in 2020 when the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) of the ROC established the Exarchate of Africa in competition with the Patriarchate of Alexandria, with the former claiming that Alexandria was schismatic because it recognized the legitimacy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in its break from the MP. So far, the new exarchate has shown some growth, now including 300 Orthodox communities and 230 priests, estimated to be about one-fifth of the Patriarchate of Alexandria’s flock. By 2023, the exarchate was present in 23 countries, with the majority of its clerics serving in Kenya, although Uganda has been called the “spiritual hub of the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa,” with plans to open a large gold-domed church, a cultural center, and schools.
But Suslov observes that such elaborate plans for Uganda do not match the sparse ROC presence in that country and that they are more likely the result of personal connections between Ugandan leaders and the Russian political regime. Foreign affairs experts have argued that the ROC’s presence in African countries follows in the footsteps of Russian mercenaries, pro-Russian trade policies, Russian military activity, and opposition to UN resolutions against Russia in those countries. But Suslov shows that there is in fact no African country where the ROC’s presence overlaps with all those aspects of Russian power. Furthermore, while Russia has an interest in building ties with Muslim countries, the ROC can serve little purpose in that regard. Russia and Vladimir Putin have also tried to gain support in Africa by arguing that Russian interests are opposed to colonialism, unlike Western countries, and support social justice in the developing world. The ROC has likewise adopted this anticolonial discourse, while adding its traditional values message to the agenda. Russia is indeed interested in how the ROC can serve its soft-power strategy in the world, and the church itself is claiming a global identity with the fracturing of the “Russian World.” But Suslov concludes that while the ROC is trying to “catch the tailwind of anti-colonial discourses and thereby remain relevant [in] the Russian ideological arena,…there are significant limitations [on] the practical political utility of the ROC for the state.”
(Religions, https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/15/12/1517)
