The following is a review of Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy, a study of the role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in shaping the nuclear arms program for the Russian Federation written by Dmitry Adamsky and published by Stanford University Press (2019).
I approached this surprisingly accessible book with perhaps a unique perspective. I have no background in the complexities and horrifying potentialities of nuclear weapons and the political policies behind their creation and use. My interest in this book was to explore two quickly diverging paths of Orthodoxy. One path is that of the statist—the Church in a collaborative relationship with government in the “Byzantine model.” The other path is that of the stateless—the Church existing in a polity but in a pre-Constantine relationship with government. In his analysis of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the Russian nuclear defense community, Professor Adamsky chronicles the alarming merger of the missions of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Federation and its nuclear armed forces.
Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy analyzes the relationship between the ROC and the Russian armed forces in three evolving periods: the Genesis Decade (1991-2000); the Conversion Decade (2000-2010); and the Operationalization Period (2010-2020). Continue reading