Marriage and Family in Putin’s Russia: State Ideology and the Discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article has a clear and logical connection between the parts. The selection of the sources is really strong. However, it seems that it approaches different issues from a specific point of view. This gives the impression that the approach is somehow unilateral. Thus, themes concerning Church are attempted to be interpreted in secular terms. This leads to an oversimplification of the role of the Church in society.

Author Response

Thank you for your review. Indeed, the comment is valid. Although there are also theologians in the team of authors, our perspective is primarily appropriate for political science and security studies and may therefore seem one-sided. We do not claim that such a perspective is the only possible one, but we think it may prove valuable in interpreting the discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church. For the sake of clarity, we have added in the abstract and in the introduction an explanation that we have adopted this particular research perspective, which of course is not the only possible one.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is very well structured, with a well-defined method and clear conclusions. I really enjoyed it and resonated many times with the ideas presented.

Author Response

Thank you for your kind review.

Reviewer 3 Report

In lines 115-122, the definition of "ideology" is somewhat unclear and is at odds with other understandings of ideology that may be more helpful to the article's thesis. For example, in a Marxian sense, ideology is not so much about worldview as it is the superstructure that sanctifies and reinforces the base or structure of a given society. This understanding of ideology seems in line with what Putin is trying to reinforce, but, most important, this fits with the language of "hegemony" and "sacralization" used later in the article. 

In lines 349-350 there is mention that the Soviet attitude towards homosexuality was one of "bourgeois decay," and that this was the basis of it being made illegal. While technically accurate, it is also true that under Vladimir Lenin homosexuality was legal in the early Soviet Union and that it is specifically Stalin and Stalinization that identified it with "bourgeois decay" and criminality. 

Regarding Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev and his philosophically confused understanding of the concept of "secularization," the author(s) might want to look at Monge, "Neither Victim nor Executioner" published in Religions in 2017. 

Author Response

In lines 115-122, the definition of "ideology" is somewhat unclear...

• We fully agree with this comment. We have added a clarification.

In lines 349-350 there is mention that the Soviet attitude towards homosexuality...

• Thank you for this remark. Yes, it is indeed an oversimplification on our part. We are aware that in the early days, the Bolsheviks were extremely liberal on sexual matters. We have amended the paper.

Regarding Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev...

• Thank you for your suggestion. We have added this reference.

We are grateful for your kind review.

Reviewer 4 Report

The submitted article discusses the contemporary discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church on marriage and family from the perspective of the impact of religious tradition and state ideology, thus shedding new light on one of the studied post-Soviet developments linked with this religious institution. The association of the chronological frame of the analysis with the tenure of Patriarch Cyrill is properly justified. 

The text has a clear structure. Dealing with a less studied aspect of the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in society, the article has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the study of the role of religion in state policy in the sphere of family. In the presented draft, especially important is the authors' emphasis on the securitization of marriage and family issues in Putin’s Russia and the ROC’s involvement in this enterprise.  

At the same time, the text suffers some serious problems. They are commented on below.

First, there is a discrepancy between the content of the article and its title. In practice, the discussion on the Church’s discourse regarding the issues of marriage and family is limited between lines 438 and 666. In short, the authors have dedicated less than 30 percent of their analysis to the problem defined in the title, while 2/3 of the article discusses the state ideology and policy on marriage and religion. From this perspective, the authors need either to change the title or to edit the text in line with the title.

In the second case, the authors need to pay more attention to the Church’s discourse. At this point, their analysis of the Church’s discourse on family and marriage is predominantly limited to statements made by Patriarch Cyrill. There is no analysis of the public statements of Feodor Luk”yanov, the priest in charge of the Patriarchal Commission on the Issues of Family, the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood. The analysis also does not comment on documents and publications of church conferences dealing with family issues.

Besides, the greater part of the analysis deals with pre-2014 documents (i.e. a better-known development) and then it jumps to the early 2020s. In this way, little is said about the period from the occupation of Crimea and the fake referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In this respect, the article needs a serious update.   

Furthermore, the authors should clarify whether the Church has presented some theological arguments in support of the traditional family and marriage. In this respect, the article contains general references to the religious tradition, but this tradition needs to be outlined. The way in which the analysis is presented, the readers will learn a lot about Russia’s state ideology, but will not be able to receive a clear view of the Russian (or Orthodox?) religious tradition. Similarly, the text refers to the ROC’s concepts of marriage and family in general. Is there anything specific about Russian Orthodoxy’s approach to these issues? Can the authors provide more details about them? 

Another point of concern is the discussion on issues relating to demography and abortion, which sounds somehow outdated. In this regard, the authors could benefit from a recent publication by Pål Kolstø (2023) “The Russian Orthodox Church and its fight against abortion: taking on the state and losing,” Religion, State & Society, 51:2, 153-173, DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2190290. In the last week of September 2023, the Russian Orthodox Church also proposed a shortening of the period during which women would be allowed to have abortions. This development needs also to be taken into consideration. 

 

Finally, the expose suffers some fragmentarity. Sometimes, it looks like a patchwork of related analyses in which logical connection is not always clear. For example, in the case of lines 130-156, the switch from a debate on ideology to a reflection on biopolitics is not explained. What is the logical connection? Furthermore, in the case of lines 32-33, the sentence is not finished. It also seems that there is a missing quotation from the speech of the Patriarch. 

The English is generally good but there are some grammatical issues that require proofreading by a native speaker. 

Author Response

1. Regarding the title, we fully agree with your comment. The title has been corrected.

2. We agree with the comment that there is no in-depth analysis of church discourse in the article. In the revised version, we have added more references to the Commission's activities. However, the scope of our article does not include an exhaustive discussion of all the statements made by ROC representatives on marriage and family, which would probably require writing a book. Rather, we want to juxtapose the most representative statements with the political discourse in Putin's Russia and bring out interesting parallels. To remove this ambiguity, we have added a remark in the abstract and in the introduction that our reflection is mainly conducted from the perspective of political science and security studies. Furthermore, we have added in the introduction that we are primarily limited to the statements of Patriarch Kirill. We do not pretend to show the totality of the ROC's activity on the issue of marriage and family, but only aim to point out the convergence of political and ecclesiastical discourse.

3. In our view, there has been no fundamental change in the ROC discourse on the issues discussed in the article after 2014.  However, we have added references to several statements from that period.

4. Indeed, the article does not present an in-depth theological reflection. Nevertheless, as we have already mentioned, it does not have such a purpose. The purpose of the article is to compare the political and ecclesiastical discourse, including, in particular, how the ROC discourse fits into the ideologisation and securitisation of marriage and family issues in Russia. We certainly did not indicate this clearly enough in the original version of the article, so we have now added the caveats in the abstract and introduction. 

5. Thank you for pointing out an interesting article by Pål Kolstø. In addition, we have referred to the proposals for legislative changes put forward by the ROC in 2023.

6. We have corrected the beginning of the introduction. However, we think the shift from ideology to biopolitics is logical. Russian biopolitics is an important element of the ideology of Putinism, as we tried to show in the article.

Thank you again for your extremely insightful review and valuable comments.

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for your concise answers. You have perfectly addressed my previous comments. I appreciate the visualization of the changes made. The edited title is in harmony with the content. The clarification added about the theoretical premises of your analysis has the potential to inspire further research and scientific discussion. I especially appreciate the additional investigation you have accomplished to include the latest developments in Russian state ideology and the Church's discourse on the issues of family and marriage. I believe your article will be widely used by other scholars working in the same field. Congratulations on your brilliant analysis!

The authors are fluent in English but their phrasing seems to be influenced by their native languages. The text is ready for publishing but minor proofreading by a native speaker will make it perfect. In my opinion, the quality of the article deserves such perfectionism.