Putin's Role In Reviving Orthodox Church Is Examined

Today's Moscow Times carries a long article on Russian President Vladimir Putin's role in the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church. The article is part of a series on Putin's legacy as his presidential term draws to a close. Here is an excerpt:

Under Putin, government officials have become more pious --at least outwardly --and have deepened their contacts with the church hierarchy, according to both supporters and critics of the church..... The apparent rise of clerical influence has alarmed secular critics, who charge that it threatens the separation of church and state mandated in Russia's 1993 Constitution. "Soon the church will be represented in all the places where there used to be cells of the Soviet Communist Party," said Vitaly Ginzburg, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and outspoken critic of the church. "It wants to be everywhere." Yet at the same time, Putin has restrained some of the church's more controversial initiatives, such as an effort to add an Orthodoxy class to the nationwide school curriculum....