Atheism and orthodoxy in contemporary Russia

This article by Archimandrite Hilarion Alfeyev offers a historical and analytical study of atheism in Russia over a period of approximately one hundred years, from pre-revolutionary Russia to the post-Soviet period. Drawing on the testimonies of Russian thinkers and clergy — Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Shavelsky, Fedchenkov — as well as personal observations, the author shows that the Revolution of 1917 was not a historical accident, but the culmination of a prior religious disintegration, largely fostered by the fusion of the Church and the tsarist State. He then analyzes Soviet atheism as a pseudo-religion of substitution, before examining the ambiguities of the post-communist Orthodox revival. The principal theological contribution lies in the warning addressed to the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church: only a Church independent of the State, capable of genuinely transfiguring souls through the Gospel, will be able to durably overcome the atheist legacy.