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Report Biography “Beyond Politics?” – the Belorussian . “BEYOND POLITICS?” – THE BELORUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND REPORT THE CHALLENGE OF CIVIL SOCIETY Instituut voor Oosters Christendom ALFONS BRÜNING Institute of Eastern Christian Studies There is now more than a month of protest in Belarus. The longer the Erasmusplein 1 (17.04d) Postbus 9103 protests, which erupted after the evidently faked elections of August 9, 2020, 6500 HD Nijmegen the more virulent becomes the question of how further, and what might be The Netherlands next. Protesters seem yet to agree, that this is another post-soviet story. At times one could witness the performing of songs from the perestroika era 0031 24 361 56 03 and the immediate post-soviet period of the 1990s (the poet Victor Zoi, the [email protected] rock band “kino”), and the regime of president Lukashenko more than once had been labelled as Europe’s last dictatorship, the last bastion of Soviet September 2020 paternalism, and a buffer state between the spheres of Russia and the West. But as the former optimism of political analysts of a quasi-automatic transition from Soviet rule towards liberal democracy, widespread in the 1990s, has meanwhile disappeared, there is now also a growing uncertainty BIOGRAPHY among Belorussian protesters about the future form into which state and society would be supposed to develop. The geopolitical situation between Europe and Russia, to put it stereotypically, adds to the difficulties. Prof. dr. Alfons Brüning is lecturer Eastern Christianity (Eastern Europe) Protesters themselves seem to be aware of existing threats, as quite some at the Institute of Eastern Christian Studies/Radboud University in of the placards carried on the streets suggest, emphasizing that there shall Nijmegen and chair holder "Orthodoxy be no Maidan (allusion to the Ukrainian protests in 2013/14). There might be and Peace Studies in Europe" at the some distorted images of the Ukrainian events at work, but this message Protestant Theological University suggests that they want to avoid the impression that ideological confrontation (PThU) in Amsterdam. between East and West is behind the protest, or that any allegedly “anti- Russian” revolution or eruption of violence need to be feared.i The only thing one might possibly take for granted at the given state of affairs is that any return towards the former status quo would be unacceptable to the protesters, and also any future system that would not include strong elements of human security, human rights and rule of law, and space for civil society. Society in Belarus has changed over recent decades, but is this also true for post-Soviet Orthodox Christianity in this region. Can there be expected any constructive impulses from the churches in this situation? If there is something like geopolitics of Christianity, Belarus is situated at a precarious borderline not only between Russia and the European Union, but also between Western and Eastern Christianity. Among the protesters most probably are also many Orthodox Christians, although few of them make themselves visible as such. President Lukashenko’s rather aggressive call, that the churches should keep their own business and not interfere into politics, can be read as a sign for the actually growing importance of the churches’ voice, but also of an increasingly threatening level of confrontation.ii The probability of a more than negligible presence of Orthodox among the protesters can be derived from existing statistics. According to diverse polls out of recent years, a bit more than a half of the population of Belarus declares to be religious, and a vast majority among these religious people consists of faithful of the Belorussian Orthodox Church. Next to this majority, there is a significant minority of Roman Catholics, often with close ties to the neighbor Poland. Roman Catholicism in Belarus is concentrated in the Grodno region, with a common border with Poland. In addition, there exists a group of around 100.000 Greek Catholics, a branch of Byzantine Orthodox Christianity which since the late 16th century recognizes the Roman Pope as its head, and has been widely influenced by Roman Catholic theology and rite since then.iii The situation reflects the history of Belarus as a region on the border between East and West. Its Western parts around the city of Grodno, for example, formed a part of interwar Poland, and only after World War II became part of the Soviet Union. Belorussian Orthodoxy is closely linked to the Moscow patriarchate. It is also called Belorussian Exarchate of the Moscow patriarchate, but in canonical terms it has an autonomous status. That means that its head, the Metropolitan of Minsk, is member of the bishop’s synod of the Moscow patriarchate, whereas otherwise the church is supposed to regulate its internal affairs independently. Despite this legal framework, influence from Moscow in recent years has grown stronger. When the widely respected Metropolitan Filaret (Vakhromeev) retired in late 2013, after 35 years in charge, the implementation of his successor Metropolitan Pavel caused some unrest, as this had happened virtually without any consultation of local clerics.iv Already since 2003 there existed a concordat between the Orthodox Church and the Belorussian state, which guaranteed the legal status of the church, and underlined the need for church-state cooperation, as between government departments and branches of the church in areas of social welfare and culture, to the benefit of Belorussian society. It is worth noting, that this society in the comparatively brief text remains a completely passive entity, and any allusions to something like a civil society with independent actors and private initiatives or NGOs remain distant.v Recent research about other countries with an Orthodox majority among the believers has shown, that in case of failure of state structures vis-à-vis a crisis situation, religious communities are among the first to act as providers of human security. The nature of such responses, generally, is yet ambiguous. Religious communities have the potential to aggravate violence but also to support peace and reconciliation. On the other hand, Orthodox churches advance geopolitical state interests with an impact on the political evolution of the wider region. Belarus in many respects fits the same patterns.vi There is yet also a certain specificity in the Belorussian situation, as the Orthodox Church here has not betrayed any peculiar inner differentiation. Different from what is known from Russia, or from Ukraine before and after Maidan, one can hardly speak, for instance, of fundamentalist or nationalist subgroups of any significance within the 2 Belorussian Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, there is a certain political dimension also to the public appearance of Orthodoxy in Belarus. The Russian Church, of which the Belorussian Exarchate is a part, has rather tried to strengthen the mental ties with the “Russian World”. This concept subsumes the “canonical territory” of the Russian Orthodox Church (which virtually coincides with most of the former Soviet Union) as one cultural entity, shaped by Russian spirituality and religiously informed cultural codes. Correspondingly, and different from other Eastern European countries, there is no independent Belorussian national project that would regard Orthodoxy as an integral element. Only recently there have appeared some oppositional tendencies to this mainstream.vii But even if Belorussian Orthodoxy as a more or less homogenous whole is challenged by the current situation, responses are rather diverse, and illustrate the emergence of inner divisions. Keeping the previous situation generated by the concordat, the Orthodox Church in Belarus has apparently been badly prepared to meet the protests and react adequately. It seems to have been too much an integral part of a patrimonial, i.e. state centered and “quasi-soviet” system. The system collapsed under the combined attack of a corona pandemia handled with overt ignorance, massive election fraud and uncontrolled brutality of state organs in reaction to emerging protests. Widespread agreement with existing structures among the population faded, as the structures themselves proved to be no longer a guarantee for stability and modest wealth. These events only further shifted the accents in a general set of subsequently changing convictions among especially the younger generation of Belorussians. In February 2019, the Berlin Center for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) conducted a survey that provides insights into the political attitudes of Belarusians aged between 16 and 34, their political engagement, and their views on and experiences with other countries in the run-up to the parliamentary vote on 17 November 2019 and the presidential election due by August 2020 at the latest. The institutions enjoying the highest rates of trust, by this time, were police, army and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The president and the presidential administration, but also the churches achieved mixed results. Two thirds among young Belorussians identified themselves as Orthodox Christians, whereas only a small minority among them attends church services more often than on important church holidays, if at all.viii In early 2019 political convictions within the segment of younger aged still betrayed a high degree of basic loyalty to the regime and favor for stability. However, after recent events, one must presume, that the trust in president, police and army have declined considerably. Trust
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