num_pages: 280
description: This provocative study examines the role of todays Russian Orthodox Church in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Russia has one of the fastest-growing rates of HIV infection in the world80 percent from intravenous drug useand the Church remains its only resource for fighting these diseases. Jarrett Zigon takes the reader into a Church-run treatment center where along with self-transformational and religious approaches he explores broader anthropological questionsof morality ethics what constitutes a normal life and who defines it as such. Zigon argues that this rare Russian partnership between sacred and political power carries unintended consequences: even as the Church condemns the influence of globalization as the root of the problem it seeks to combat its programs are cultivating citizen-subjects ready for self-governance and responsibility and better attuned to a world the Church ultimately opposes.
language: English
title: HIV is God's Blessing: Rehabilitating Morality in Neoliberal Russia
publisher: University of California Press