Sitnikov A. Pravoslavie, instituty vlasti i grazhdanskogo obshchestva v Rossii [Orthodoxy, Institutions of power and civil society in Russia]. St. Petersburg: Aleteya Publ., 2012, 248 p.

Alexey Sitnikov's work, written on the basis of his doctoral dissertation, is devoted to "analyzing the influence of Orthodoxy on the formation of government institutions, stratification structure and the formation of civil society in Russian society" (p. 9). This is one of the first comprehensive and systematic studies of this issue in Russian science. The author draws on an extensive literature and a diverse source base; analyzes the works of domestic and foreign scientists; shows contradictions and trends in the development of church-public and church-state relations.

The relevance of this research is beyond doubt: if we agree with the author and recognize that Russian society in recent years has been undergoing a process of socio-political transformations aimed at gradually building democratic institutions and developing civil society, then the question naturally arises: what influence does Orthodoxy have on this process as a cultural tradition and the Russian Orthodox Church as the most a large and influential religious association? Does Orthodoxy itself have the resources to facilitate these transformations, or is it, on the contrary, due to its historical, doctrinal and other features, doomed to be a brake and obstacle to development in this direction? In a sense, this question can be perceived as part of a more general problem of the compatibility of religion and political modernity, at least-

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at least in those aspects that relate to the desacralization of power, de-hierarchization of the social structure, the development of horizontal mechanisms of self-organization, etc.

The book begins with a chapter that deals with theoretical issues and research methodology. The author has chosen the approaches and the conceptual framework used in European and American religious studies. The author believes that the methods developed by Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, and Pitirim Sorokin, as well as Peter Berger, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jurgen Habermas to study religion and its impact on government institutions and civil society can be used when addressing the Russian reality. Based, in particular, on the ideas and terminology of P. Bourdieu, the author of the book develops a model of the influence of Orthodoxy on the construction of social reality and the development of a legitimate vision of the social world, legitimation and justification of power.

However, there is an obvious gap in the theoretical and methodological part: there are almost no attempts to adapt Western concepts to Russian realities.

In particular, it is not enough to simply describe the concepts of "religious market" and "pluralization" by Peter Berger or "post-secular society" by Jurgen Habermas, as it is done in the section "Peculiarities of the religious situation in Russian society", and then conclude that "the use of the conceptual apparatus developed by them to describe the religious situation in Russia It makes it possible to identify essential features of the situation of confessions, state-church relations, and religious behavior of the population " (pp. 29-30). It is necessary to operationalize these concepts to specific Russian realities: can the religious situation in Russia really be described in the language of the "religious market"? Are we really dealing with "pluralization" in the Western sense? Can we talk about the formation of a "post-secular society" in Russia in the sense in which Habermas uses this concept? All these questions hang there even without an attempt to answer, which somewhat reduces the significance of the theoretical and methodological chapter of the study.

Next, the author begins a systematic analysis of the influence that Orthodoxy has on the world.

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it has and has had an impact on the development of government institutions. The author's diagnosis as a supporter of democratic transformations is disappointing: Orthodoxy offers society a model of religious legitimation of power with its characteristic monocentrism and sacralization of power relations. This is due to the fact that until 1917 the Russian Orthodox Church was united with the state and understood its position and relations with the authorities accordingly. The categories of Orthodox social teaching were based mainly on ideas borrowed from Byzantine thought, in which there could be no differences established in Europe in the XVIII-XIX centuries between the state and society. The ideal of a sacral, uncompetitive and strictly hierarchical model of state governance was traditionally inherent in Russian Orthodoxy and was approved by it as a divinely established one. The Church maintains this institutional order even today in its social teaching. Among the social ideals of Orthodoxy, there is no democracy, civil society, or competitive political culture. This corresponds to the church tradition that has developed over many centuries of existence in a system of this type, where it is assumed that the existing system of power and its specific bearers are established from above, fair and unchangeable.

The next important conclusion of the author is that the Orthodox model of social order is increasingly in conflict with the growing socio-political transformations of Russian society. Drawing on the data of various studies, the author shows that due to socio-economic development in Russia in recent years, the formation of the middle class with its inherent independent economic behavior, values and political demands has taken place. The middle class, which is concentrated in the largest cities, is not currently dominant, but is becoming an important social force. Because of this, the paternalistic political culture loses its monopoly, and the prerequisites for the emergence of a democratic culture arise. The values of self-expression begin to crowd traditional attitudes, and a demand for democracy and a liberal model of relations between citizens and the state is being formed. In the development of these trends, traditional political attitudes are right-

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Slavia will eventually turn out to be unacceptable for a part of society, especially for the middle class.

The development of political institutions in the modern world has led to the separation of the state and civil society. The state has given up control over the moral, religious and cultural spheres. Civil society has taken over the regulation of moral and spiritual life. The ruler was no longer perceived as a sacred and God-chosen figure, leading his subjects to transcendent salvation. The modern model of legitimation of power seeks to desacralize the bearer of supreme power as much as possible and see him as a regularly replaced employee who is accountable to his constituents. On the contrary, the ideal of the symphony of Church and state proclaimed by the Russian Orthodox Church unwittingly introduces an element of sacredness into the understanding of supreme power. An attempt to implement a symphonic model of church-state relations is in demand in a non-competitive power system that needs pseudo-monarchical legitimation.

Analyzing the practice of state-church relations, the author comes to the conclusion that Orthodoxy in its relations with society, as a rule, seeks to rely on government institutions, appeal to their help and protection, but this practice contradicts the democratic norms of the modern world, which assume that the influence of religion depends not so much on interaction It depends as much on the state's position and authority in civil society as on the degree of development of its own religious communities.

Further, Alexey Sitnikov examines the activities of Orthodox parishes and other associations of believers, their place in the structure of Russian civil society. Based on well-known studies of parish life, the author describes various types of activity of communities and organizations of believers. At the same time, it is noted that the idea of the church remains as a rigid hierarchical system, the fundamental principle of which is obedience. Therefore, the life of the majority of those who define themselves as Orthodox has little to do with the parish.

Associations of believers, including parishes, are one of the elements in the structure of civil society, they defend their traditional values and ideals, the right to live in accordance with their beliefs.-

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wait for it. In the modern state, the church inevitably becomes an organization of civil society, but the leadership of the church continues to strive for close ties with the state out of inertia. The hierarchy does not consider it necessary to develop and maintain a diverse network of groups and associations created by ordinary believers. On the contrary, this is seen as a certain danger for the church hierarchy. The leadership of the church, wishing to make it an influential organization, seeks not so much to develop parishes and other associations created by ordinary believers as contacts with government representatives, seeks their support and believes that the influence of the church is directly proportional to its connection with the state, that it can be a significant organization only thanks to the authorities (p.210).

The author's general conclusion is disappointing: Orthodoxy and the course towards democratization and the formation of civil society at this stage are incompatible. Orthodoxy has a hindering and preserving influence on the development of government institutions. Moreover, the author does not seem to have any vision of how to overcome this incompatibility, except for some optimistic and in fact poorly supported hints that " modern democratic values shared by the middle class are likely to be in demand by a significant part of the faithful. There will be a need for a certain "reversal" of the social doctrine of Orthodoxy in the direction of the preferences of the dominant social group of believers " (p. 148).

We will not enter into a polemic with the author on the pages of this review. In the end, this work is valuable precisely because of the sharpness of questions and provocative answers. Therefore, we will simply limit ourselves to two remarks. First, the author does not address the question of how much and in what sense can we speak about the influence of Orthodoxy on the institutions of power, the "stratification structure" and the formation of civil society. After all, as the author himself notes, Orthodoxy and, in general, the degree of religiosity have little influence on the socio-political consciousness of Russians (p.105), with the exception of a few purely symbolic moments - for example, the desire to see an Orthodox president at the head of the state or the general disapproval of cultural liberalism. More or less significant relationship between religious affiliation-

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It can be traced only among highly ecclesiastical Russians, who, according to the calculation methodology used by the author, are only about 2% of the population. Even some of the trends mentioned by the author towards a new symphony of state and church (or rather "synodalization", as Mikhail Shakhov put it) do not in themselves confirm the existence of any significant influence (with the exception of a kind of "exchange of gifts" - administrative and financial benefits in exchange for ideological support).

Secondly, the author tends to describe Orthodoxy and Orthodox Christians as a single and consistent whole, which in general tends to deny the impending socio-political transformations. At the same time, almost no account is taken of the fact that within Orthodoxy itself there are different ideological currents and different actors, some of which are well aware of the challenges that Orthodoxy faces in modern conditions and are trying to carry out the necessary reflection in this direction.4
However, we will allow ourselves not to expand on these topics here and conclude our review by highlighting the fundamental and even provocative questions that arise from our research: are there really no resources in the past and present of Russian Orthodoxy that can, if not contribute to political modernization, then at least not hinder it? Is Russian Orthodoxy really doomed to remain a hostage to traditional ideas about power, society, and the individual that are rooted in the Byzantine heritage? And what, in this case, awaits the Russian Orthodox Church if the transformations of society that the author is viewing do occur?

3. See Shakhov M. O. Clericalization of Russia: myth or reality?//National interests. 2002. N 5 (22). pp. 58-61.

4. As an example of an analysis that takes into account this multi-dimensionality of modern Orthodoxy, we will refer to the works of K. Plug. See in particular: Plug K. European Integration and Russian Orthodoxy: Two Perspectives in the framework of the Multiple Modernity Paradigm // State, religion, and Church in Russia and abroad. 2012. N 1 (30). pp. 57-82.

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