State-Confessional Relations in Russia in a Pandemic: Challenges and Answers

The article discusses the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the rhetoric of Russian representatives of traditional religions (Islam and Orthodoxy). As a context of this process, the author defines the contradictory trends taking place in society: trust / distrust of the state and religious institutions; strengthening / weakening of rationalism and trust in science, in particular medicine. The author used the concept of “biopolitics” by Michel Foucault, the concept of “anthropocentric authoritarianism” by David Chandler, the concept of the crisis of “prevailing globalization” by Jean Baudrillard as a methodology. In general, according to the author, despite the manifestations of fundamentalism in Orthodoxy, religious leaders supported the state’s position to quarantine and restrict the access of believers to churches, did not reject the scientific explanation for the pandemic, and proceeded from ideas about the social responsibility of the church, public solidarity, and the general fate of the entire population of Russia. At the same time, in the situation of an indefinitely long pandemic and the associated economic crisis, traditional religious structures have to find a middle path between modernists and fundamentalists in their ranks, as well as develop their own position in relation to the inevitable strengthening of state control over citizens.