Mihail Suslov, The Utopia of ‘Holy Russia’ in Today’s Geopolitical Imagination of the Russian Orthodox Church: a Case Study of Patriarch Kirill
Journal: PLURAL History Culture Society
Year: 2014

The paper focuses on the myth of ‘Holy Russia,’ as restored and promoted by the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev), and explores the new imagining identities and spatial configurations generated by this myth. While before ‘Holy Russia’ was a metaphor, associated with relics, deposited in Russian monasteries and churches, Kirill ‘geo-politicized’ it, informing it with practical political meaning, and as such it is viewed as including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and on many oc