... assessing the standards of religious freedom remains Western-centric. It seems to be less and less adequate for the nations representing distinct civilizations, whose historical experience is connected with the traditions of coexistence of different religions and denominations within one state. There is some strange irony in the fact that all of these countries – Russia, China, India, and the multi-confessional states of the Middle East – are on the list of “countries of concern” in American ...
Sanctions against Patriarch Kirill make the conflict between Russia and the West a clash of religious values
The UK Treasury has published another list of Russian individuals subject to financial sanctions. Along with 11 other Russians, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill is included. The use of restrictive measures against Patriarch Kirill represents is a new stage of escalation in relations between Russia and the West. Sanctions may affect the foreign activities of the Moscow Patriarchate...
... situations is the controversial blasphemy case with Jakarta's first non-Muslim and ethnic Chinese governor, Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, sentenced to
two years
. The relations between dominating Islam with big political influence and minority religions remain tense, which diminishes Indonesia’s global reputation regarding the protection of its religious minorities.
Indonesia is the nation with the
largest number
of Muslims, but according to constitution, the Republic of Indonesia is not ...
The Current Situation Demonstrates the Failure of both the Phanar and Moscow Models, and their Revitalization Appears Unlikely
The conflict surrounding the Orthodox church in Ukraine has moved irrevocably beyond the purely intra-ecclesiastical agenda. Experts, political scientists, and journalists have plunged headlong into the subtleties of canon law, the history of intra-Orthodox relations and discussions of the psychological profiles of the church hierarchs. As a rule, they consider the situation...
2016 will inevitably be a very special year in the modern history of Christianity: on February 12, a truly landmark meeting was held between the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Pope in Cuba; and in June, the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church will take place.
The Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia will hardly have a better time to play the “meeting of the millennium” card. Regardless of the meeting’s agenda, the very fact that it is taking place allows Kirill...
On October 28, 2014, RIAC held expert meeting "Islam in Russia and Post-Soviet Space: Demography, Ideological Trends, and Politics" with participation of RIAC Deputy Program Director Timur Makhmutov, Assistant Professor of the Department for Modern Russian History at Russian State University for Humanities Sergey Markedonov, Chair of Carnegie's Center for Religion, Society and Security Alexey Malashenko, and Senior Researcher at RAS Institute for African Studies Naima Neflyasheva.
The discussion...
As it soon became clear, the meeting in Marrakech coincided in time with the completion of the first phase of the Arab Spring, which proved to be a disaster: instead of moving over from authoritarianism to democracy, the region swung towards new forms of authoritarianism, which were only slightly covered with a fig leaf of the expression of people’s will. A month and a half before the events in Egypt, these tendencies were only beginning to take shape in Marrakech. But the unconventionality...
