How much power over Putin does the Russian Orthodox Church actually have?

[Quixote1818]

I never know what to think about some of these sources.

[iemanja]

1. None

The Church exists to propagandize for the state.

Sorry, I can't take seriously any video with a computer voice.

[wryter2000]

2. Putin doesn't care about religion

And the church has no power to hurt him

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. That was taken from a Daily Express article, which isn't a great source anyway

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1596876/Vladimir-Putin-crisis-Kremlin-Russian-Orthodox-Church-Ukraine-Kirill-latest-news-vn

The "Putin's grip on power under threat" is hype; the article is mainly about the Ukrainian churches that were still part of the Russian Orthodox church at the start of the war leaving to go to the Ukrainian Orthodox church, which is independent of Moscow - not surprising. A few priests in Russia are speaking out against their Patriarch Kirill's support for the killing, but it's not many, and they could be in danger if they are too loud.

[Renew Deal]

4. I've heard that it's the other way around.

That the church work this way to avoid repression. What would happen if the church came out against the war?

I don’t know what the story is. They could also be like American evangelical hypocrites.

[Igel]

5. "Power over" is a misnomer.

It's more like "support offered."

In a different system, power over somebody means the ability to order them, coerce them. The ROC's power is through persuading, supporting, validating. Withholding those would weaken Putin only slightly, in some smallish sectors.

What it *would* do is de-license one of the arguments validating the attack on Ukraine--it's to stop heresy and restore spiritual and cultural unity to Greater Rus', help restore the Russias.

Even the new Cathedral of Christ the Savior wasn't built with government support (albeit probably with the donation of government land). Quite a thing to see, and just across a major road from the Kremlin.

[Ilsa]

6. I remember a podcast about a russian orthodox priest being a spy for

the KGB. Not that they all are, but I don't trust them if they aren't willing to place the sanctity of their beliefs over the despotism.

[haele]

7. Very little, they're fellow travellers.

He's a disciple of Alexander Dugenan, a Neo-Pagan "Slavic Nationalist". The Russian Orthodox Church, however, had been an outlet agency - franchise, actually - of the KGB since Brezhnev's time at the very latest. It was easy for Putin to bring the ROC patriarch into the FSB once the Soviet fell.

Haele

[TwilightZone]

8. If you don't know anything about the source...

it would probably be better not to post it.