Apocalyptic Imagination and Civic Practices of Orthodox Fundamentalists in Contemporary Russia

Abstract

Fundamentalists in the Russian Orthodox Church see contemporary state institutions as sources of threat because of their fragility and unreliability. Thus, in response, they engage in ritual and political actions aimed at restoring the spiritual unity of the Russian people (sobornost) that would allow the monarchy to be restored and resume the God-given mission of the Russian Orthodox Church to delaying the apocalypse. In this article, the author reveals the ways the concept of an averted or delayed apocalypse shapes fundamentalists’ approaches to institution and network building as alternatives to existing public institutions, which they consider incapable in the face of the approaching End Time. The author distinguishes between anti-systemic fundamentalists (those unwilling to have anything in common with the existing sociopolitical system) and symbiotic fundamentalists (those involved in provisional cooperation with state agencies). Anti-systemic fundamentalists insist on Russians’ verbal repentance for the sin of abandoning their mission of averting the Apocalypse; sometimes they live in walled communities. Symbiotic fundamentalists are building networks or communities that do not necessarily imply living together. Using these communities as a tool, symbiotic fundamentalists hope to rebuild the spiritual unity of the Russians. They envision their activities as repentance by works that in the future would allow the Orthodox monarchy to be restored and to resume the God-given mission of the church.

Introduction

Fundamentalism is commonly defined as a reactionary movement directed against the elements of modernity perceived as threats to previously dominant, or traditional institutions and values¹; at the same time, fundamentalists selectively utilize other elements of modernity.² Orthodox fundamentalism in Russia can be defined in the same way, with the clarification that in a post-Soviet society, values and institutions are more clearly “neo-traditional,” reflecting how fundamentalists invent a past that they seek to relive.³

I have written elsewhere that fundamentalism is not a particular type of religiosity, but a religiopolitical ideology that uses political means to achieve sacral goals.⁴ Orthodox Christian theology envisions the ultimate goal of a human being as divinization (Greek theosis) or restoring likeness to God. Fundamentalists insist that a pious life, which includes following both moral regulations and observing rituals, is virtually impossible in contemporary society, which is organized in such a way that committing sins becomes not only possible but even unavoidable whether intentional or not.⁵ They also point out that permissive society makes a truly Christian upbringing of children impossible because moral restrictions cannot be maintained outside the home. Lamentations of this sort are also common among non-fundamentalist believers, who for the most part have no choice but to adjust to existing social norms and practices. Unlike non-fundamentalists, however, fundamentalists are ready to create new, theosis-friendly social conditions that would promote individual divinization. Thus, in this article, I consider people and groups to be fundamentalist if they support the idea that the entire social and political life should be transformed to enable collective salvation.

Academic publications on fundamentalists in Russia often discuss their apocalyptic imagery.⁶ Some authors ask whether the apocalyptic expectations of post-Soviet fundamentalists are sincere or nothing but a reflection of social frustration or “compensating social trauma”—the collective psychological impact of the USSR’s collapse and the subsequent economic shocks.⁷ Alexey Beglov describes several outbreaks of eschatological expectations in Russian history, each caused by a major social crisis, including the enormous changes between 1990 and 2000.⁸ Alexander Panchenko wrote that “the collapse of the USSR meant not just a socioeconomic and political crisis, but also the death of the Soviet ‘universe of meanings’ as such.”⁹ Even without mentioning the reintroduction of capitalism, Russian society suddenly became open to the outside world and to its latest innovations in the spheres of gender, family, morality, transnational migration, and interfaith communication, among others. My interviews with some fundamentalists confirm that this abrupt breakdown of social order was actually the end of their world: “Why did I join [the movement]? Everyone remembers the dark, roaring nineties; there were so much of lawlessness, of humiliating the faith, of insulting the feelings of the believers. I saw all this, and I understood that something had to be done, that I should not just be sitting.”¹⁰

Fundamentalism is a social protest movement, and the crucial factor in its development “is not religion itself but social conditions.”¹¹ At the same time, people’s reaction to unfavorable conditions and personal psychological crises can take different forms. What is specific to fundamentalists is not their motives for joining a protest movement but the type of movement they came to choose. Some fundamentalists are prosperous and fully adapted to the market economy, while others have struggled in the post-Soviet economy. There is also a generational dimension: some activists chose fundamentalist ideology well before the early 1990s, while younger participants simply do not remember that period. I see fundamentalism as a social movement with a strong religious identification: people may join this movement because of social or personal frustration, but what they do and how they do it is conditioned by their religious beliefs.¹²

Fundamentalists can be understood as a rhizomatic milieu that embraces people with diverse ideological orientations and life trajectories. At the same time, their social backgrounds are similar: they were born in middle-income urban families and mostly have practically oriented and specialized higher education (engineering, computing, exact and natural sciences); a significant proportion of people older than forty were former military.¹³ Most fundamentalists have ordinary, to-pay-the-bills jobs, often not reflecting their education (as is true for many Russian citizens). Either they affiliate with loose groups without fixed membership or participate independently in various activities. It is nearly impossible to keep track of group affiliations because fundamentalist organizations are unstable and often dissolve or re-from as a different group with the same circle of supporters.

In what follows, I explore the ways the concept of an averted or delayed apocalypse shape fundamentalists’ approaches to institution and network building as alternatives to existing public institutions, which they consider incapable in the face of the approaching End Time. My objective is not to monitor individual fundamentalist groups and their trajectories, but rather to illustrate common characteristics typical of the fundamentalist milieu. The groups discussed are not necessarily the most significant or largest, and some no longer exist; however, all were chosen as representative examples of such groups. Indeed, groups are nothing but hubs where like-minded people meet each other, and their concentrated effort allows for the milieu’s organized activism.¹⁴ In recent years most fundamentalist communications take place on the web, including YouTube, the largest Russian social network VKontakte, and closed groups in popular messaging apps. Information posted on different resources becomes part of a self-reproducing copying/sharing process. As a result, as Stefan Wray has written, “a reader, a user, an audience member of a resistant web site can connect easily to another such site and in this way can rhizomatically and nomadically travel through a territory of cyberspace that has been occupied by a series of interconnected resistant web sites.”¹⁵ Spatial closeness of participants is less important than before, because sympathizers are able to browse through activities of different groups and to choose their degree of participation.

Estimating the number of fundamentalists or measuring their popularity would require major quantitative research, which has not yet been conducted by scholars but is also beyond the scope of this article. At the moment, fundamentalists in Russia stay outside of the electoral process (although some groups are called parties); there is scarcely any participation in the public political rallies organized by fundamentalist parties and movements. At the same time, most fundamentalist activities take place outside the field of electoral and public policy. Marginal subculture groups with extravagant appearances and ideologies, such as members of the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers, who conspicuously grow facial hair and wear traditional folk dress, are more noticeable. Those activists whose outward appearance is comparatively less stereotypical are more likely to be involved in building invisible civic, nonpolitical networks in the Weberian sense (for example, networks uniting rehab centers in various regions of Russia), but these ostensibly nonpolitical activities are inevitably political due to their antagonistic engagement with the world outside the milieu.¹⁶

My study of these groups involved analyzing open electronic and printed sources dedicated to ideologies and practices of fundamentalists and conducting ethnographic fieldwork: in-depth recorded interviews¹⁷; conversations unrecorded or written in shorthand; participant and nonparticipant observation of spaces and events created by fundamentalists, such as educational courses, presentations of books, and debates. In the case of anti-systemic groups whose members do not communicate with people from the outside, I relied for the most parts on visual sources available on the web. The research is limited to people and groups that declare themselves part of the Russian Orthodox Church. Many fundamentalists envision the church as having no divine grace, but they refuse to split with it formally, declaring instead that it is the patriarch who split from the church, because they believe his beliefs to be heretical.¹⁸ Fundamentalist believers are often non-commemorating (nepominaiushchie)—they do not refer to Patriarch Kirill as the Great Lord and Our Father, and they celebrate liturgies at private homes, using special antiminses, supposedly delivered from Mount Athos. However, not all fundamentalists are non-commemorating, and many admit to participating, at least sporadically, at ordinary divine services.

The ideological diversity of the fundamentalist milieu makes it difficult to generalize about the groups’ concepts because every group, and even every person, may profess a unique ideology. Many times, I observed fierce ideological disputes between fundamentalists, mostly concerning their evaluation of the Soviet past: while a significant part of the fundamentalist milieu regards it positively and supports some socialist ideas (for example, the Black Hundreds, the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers), there is also a strictly anti-communist stream solidarizing with the White movement¹⁹ (the Russian Imperial Movement, the Great Russia Party). What unites fundamentalists is not that they adhere to one coherent ideology, but that most consider specific topics important and use shared terminology when discussing them.²⁰ This also facilitates mutual recognition among these individuals. Another method of mutual recognition is based on participation in fundamentalist events, as accessing information about their timing and location typically requires involvement in a network.

Apart from what can be designated as discursive unity, the fundamentalist milieu is united by informal connections that can be spotted only during fieldwork.²¹ I found that fundamentalists, in spite of their ideological and organizational differences, share a specific set of ideas (such as Orthodox monarchy, katechon, sobornost), any of which may be pivotal for a given person or group, remaining peripheral for the others.²² From my experience, individuals and groups appealing to Orthodoxy to validate political activities, but sharing virtually none of these ideas, such as Bozhia Volia and its former leader Dmitrii Tzorionov, are not fundamentalist. Alternatively, not all fundamentalists share other significant concepts, such as monarchism.

Avertive Apocalypticism: Ideological Aspects

Orthodox fundamentalists in Russia are post-millennialists: they believe that the Second Coming of Christ will occur after a period of his indirect earthly reign. Apart from biblical sources, including the book of Revelation, they rely on other multiple and diverse sources.²³ One of them is represented by unwritten vernacular beliefs extensively studied as folklore.²⁴ Although most of the fundamentalists I interviewed do not originate from religious families, they often admit having village-born grandmothers from who they first learned about Orthodoxy in its vernacular form.²⁵ Another source of apocalyptic beliefs is the printed works of ecclesiastical and paraecclesiastical authors that create a set of mediating narratives between the biblical text and its contemporary interpretations.²⁶ Such treatises, popular in the pre-Soviet era, were preserved by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad and returned to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union with the help of religious dissidents and émigrés, such as Vladimir Osipov and Mikhail Nazarov. The third source of fundamentalist eschatology is represented by diverse Soviet publications about spirituality and religious culture,²⁷ about Zionism,²⁸ and some other topics (books and films about heroic partisans, for example). Finally, post-Soviet fundamentalists experienced multiple influences from abroad—from the alarmist publications of conservative Western Christians²⁹ to mass cultural production (such as post-apocalyptic Hollywood movies).

The idea of katechon, a delayer who “restrains” the Antichrist and thus postpones the tribulation (2 Thessalonians 2:7), as understood by fundamentalists, makes their apocalypticism avertive—that is, maintaining that the “apocalypse may be averted or forestalled if believers engage in specific spiritual or ritual actions.”³⁰ The katechon moves the Last Judgment forward, securing more time for humankind to repent and straighten itself, thereby avoiding the apocalyptic rule of the Antichrist. Such a position was articulated by Aleksandr Shtilmark: “Let me express a seditious thought: if all people on Earth are Orthodox, if these Orthodox people do not commit mortal sins, some terrible sins, there will be no Apocalypse.”³¹ Many other fundamentalists think that the Apocalypse is delayable but not avoidable, or that the Orthodox world in general and Russia in particular have a chance to escape the rule of the Antichrist.

Fundamentalist positions on the person or group that embodies the nature of the katechon vary from the Orthodox monarch to the Orthodox state, the Russian people, or just Russia without further clarifications.³² Konstantin Dushenov, who up to his death in February 2024, remained one of the most respected personalities in the fundamentalist milieu following his three-year term in prison, claimed that after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the function of the katechon “was inherited by Moscow, the Third Rome and the Russian people.”³³ For people close to Dushenov, the monarch performs this function because he is mystically connected with his people (a parallel to the theological concept of the church as a mystical body with Christ as its head). The people (narod) here represent not a political nation composed of equal citizens, but a spiritual body united by conciliary unity (sobornost). Narod is supported by the mother of God: many fundamentalists accept that she invisibly occupied the empty throne of Russia in 1917 and manifested her new role by sending the Derzhavnaia (She Who Reigns) icon to the faithful.³⁴ The mother of God is sometimes also envisioned as the katechon: she provisionally guards the country until the Orthodox monarchy has been restored. To show how all these visions coexist within the fundamentalist milieu, I offer from my fieldnotes a conversation between several participants of an educational project organized by the Russian Imperial Movement:

“Irina: Can we say that Russia herself now is the katechon?

Anna: The Theotokos.

Pavel: No, because Russia is no more. It is hidden; only separate Russian people exist. … But Anna is right too.³⁵

For most fundamentalists, the idea of averted apocalypse requires restoring or strengthening the katechon, thus providing the ground for messianic claims. The restoration is conditioned by the return of the tsar: the new monarch will signify resurrection of Russia; he will also command the armed resistance to the power of the Antichrist and win. Fundamentalists see the period in Russia between the early twentieth and the mid-twenty-first centuries as a transition from tsar the redeemer (Nicolas II) to tsar the victor. In the fundamentalist imagination, both are Christ-like figures, possessing semi-divine, supernatural qualities. That is why in 2017 the fundamentalist milieu, without exceptions, took part in the protests against screening the movie Matilda, directed by Aleksei Uchitel (Figure 1), seen (not just by fundamentalists) as an attack on the saint, the monarch, and Christ the Lord. On the basis of the script and trailers, fundamentalists were convinced that the film, which depicted an affair between Nicolas II and ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaia, presented a blasphemous image of the tsar.

Figure 1. Fundamentalists participating in a protest against the film Matilda, August 1, 2017. Photo credit: Anastasia Mitrofanova.

Because of their veneration of tsars, within the church, fundamentalists were often labeled tsarebozhniki (tsar-worshipers), drawing a clear boundary between them and the mainstream.³⁶ Although now some scholars continue using this label as a synonym for fundamentalism, the participants of the movement perceive it as a pejorative name: “No ‘tsar-worshippers’ exist in nature, and none of the Russian monarchists would ever have an idea in his head to replace Christ, who redeemed all the human race, with Tsar Nicolas the Second.”³⁷ A similar statement was made by the First Assembly of non-commemorating believers: “Venerating Saint Tsar Nicolas, we specially point out that we have One and Only Redeemer—Our Lord Jesus Christ.”³⁸

The state is seen by fundamentalists as a threat. It is a threat to citizens’ money by being able to steal bank savings as it did in the 1990s,³⁹ or to their families through the system of juvenile justice. The state is also dangerous because of its fragility and unreliability, as can be observed in its inability to hold down crime, control the appetites of big business, or reduce population decline.⁴⁰ Anti-state sentiments of contemporary fundamentalists are amplified by the influence of previous generations of believers who experienced state-induced persecutions. Because this dysfunctional state is not able to restrain the Antichrist, the people (narod) must contribute to the restoration of the monarchy, and by doing so, they play, at least in part, the role of delayer. Viktor Shnirelman rightly considers this appeal to people’s political activism a secularization of the theological concept of the katechon. ⁴¹

Initiating a proper Land Council (sobor) to summon the tsar would require the spirit of sobornost, which fundamentalists see as problematic for the atomized Russians of today: “Now the population is totally corrupt; nothing can occur but tyranny. There should, indeed, be a transition period, and not for one generation, by the way. Two generations, meaning fifty years, sounds the most optimistic. … And they, their society, might be able to hold the Land Council in accordance with all the canons, and to elect a God-pleasing monarch. Now this would be just a provocation; it would be extremely harmful to hold the Land Council and to elect the monarch right away.”⁴² Summoning the tsar thus becomes a goal for some distant future; while in the present fundamentalists envision restoration of genuine Orthodox Russianness as their immediate task.

Some fundamentalists practice collective verbal repentance (sobornoe pokaianie) for the sin of regicide,⁴³ or articulate their repentance in some different way, for example, using contemporary techniques of advertising. In 2017, Sergii (Ruslan) Aliev—businessman, sportsman and philanthropist (half-Azeri and half-Russian)—erected four hundred billboards throughout Russia proclaiming, “We call the Russian people to repent!” Earlier an anonymous sponsor placed similar billboards with the message “Forgive us, Sire!” Others argued that collective verbal repentance was needless or even harmful: “to alienate people from genuine repentance, they [enemies] offer all these masochist variations: to tear a shirt, to kneel, to crawl in the mud before that icon of Nicolas, and so on. Naturally, normal people feel distracted by this; but they are distracted not just from this variation they offer, but from the very idea of repentance.”⁴⁴ Instead of collective repentance some interviewees confirmed repenting privately, for example, while being on pilgrimage. Some stated that repentance should be practical, not only verbal: it “should consist of changing the socio-political system in accordance with the principles of Orthodoxy.”⁴⁵

Fundamentalists are normally not hostile to those other faiths that they see as historically rooted on the territory of Russia (as compared to what they consider sects, faith groups with either Western or Eastern origins) and demonstrate no intention of exterminating them. Moreover, some fundamentalists are ready to recognize representatives of other religions as allies: “everything what is traditional today; what, at least, tries to live in accordance with God’s commandments … they resist the apostate globalist world. They can be Muslims, Buddhists, or the Orthodox.”⁴⁶ Although officially Judaism in Russia is also seen as a historically rooted, or traditional faith, its evaluation by fundamentalists is more complicated. The older generation still holds anti-Semitic views, inherited from the conservative ideology of the earlier period. Alternatively, the younger generation—especially people whose political education took place in nationalist groups—pays much less attention to Jews as a threat, focusing instead on Central Asians migrating to Russia.

Explaining how the transition from the existing state to the Orthodox monarchy may start, fundamentalists emphasize not using any form of violence (revolution, guerilla, or terrorism). Vladimir says, for example, “I do not accept revolution of any sort. It goes without saying that I accept [only] evolution.”⁴⁷ These are not just words. There was only one case of alleged fundamentalist armed assault in Russia: in 1999 two men, belonging to the fundamentalist milieu, attacked a police station in the town of Vyshnii Volochek (Tver oblast) in order to get weapons and killed three officers.⁴⁸ Reluctance to attack the state can be explained by lack of resources, but fundamentalists also never committed large-scale attacks on private citizens (although occasional cases of street fights between fundamentalists and their opponents do occur). In 2017, a Christian state—Holy Rus’ group publicly threatened to set ablaze theaters screening Matilda; later, however, it was revealed that this group did not exist, and—what is more important in this case—that its speakers were never part of the fundamentalist milieu.⁴⁹

Absence of large-scale fundamentalist violence that would be comparable with, for example, jihadist terrorism, is conditioned by opportunities to implement other strategies of averting the apocalypse. Here I draw a line between two loose groups: the first—anti-systemic fundamentalists—does not want to have anything in common with the existing sociopolitical system; the second—symbiotic fundamentalists—is ready for tactical cooperation with the state.

The Number of the Beast: Anti-systemic Fundamentalists

Anti-systemic fundamentalists often form encapsulated communities headed by self-proclaimed monks and nuns or charismatic clerics at odds with the church after being defrocked, banned, or decommissioned. They are notorious for their fierce rejection of numbered identification cards and state social services that imply centralized registration of citizens such as vaccination or what is called maternity capital (a federal payment to women having more than one child).⁵⁰ For example, my interviewee Elena carries no documents that would contain machine-readable codes or biometric data. During the pandemic, anti-systemic fundamentalists vehemently opposed vaccination, wearing medical masks, and other sanitary measures.⁵¹ It has been noticed by Kathy Rousselet that by opposing state control over personal affairs of citizens fundamentalists skillfully use the liberal rhetoric of human rights and liberties.⁵² This can be seen from Elena’s comments: “They [parents] are not against the vaccination as such, they do not trust the vaccine’s composition and quality … Here’s someone coming to you. He says that he thinks that no one has power over his body … We cannot just take someone: like it or not, I will do something to you. I can convince him. If I have convinced him, it’s all right; if not—some other means are needed.”⁵³

These fundamentalists want to escape the system. They hide in remote abandoned villages trying to save their souls during the reign of the Antichrist, and destroying passports is a prerequisite for not being found and returned. A handbook on survival in the time of the tribulation warns: “Life will also be hard in villages; but it will be unbearable in cities. Cities will turn into stony traps for people; in the countryside one will be able to survive somehow.”⁵⁴ The same stance may be found in Elena’s interview: “I think that not now, but, probably, in ten years, or in twenty, or in fifty, but, basing on the ongoing technological progress and on degradation of society we are facing, I think that—maybe not in the same sense as the Amish—but still, life in villages, or in some Orthodox settlements will be inevitable. I do not know if it is going to be successful … But, I suggest, it will be needed for survival.”⁵⁵

Anti-systemic fundamentalists, in my experience, refer to the Amish community or conservative Protestant compounds in the Unted States as their models. However, their communities bear only superficial resemblance to isolated settlements of Western Christians because this way of life for post-Soviet fundamentalists is not traditional in any meaningful sense. Most of them, including the charismatic leaders, are not descendants of pious rural families, but urbanites, who converted to Orthodoxy in their adulthood. The closest analogies to their communities in the West are those set up by new religious movements such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness or the Family.

Anti-systemic groups are hard to spot: they leave few digital traces and become visible only in case of a clash with the system, which happens often. Below I give two examples.⁵⁶

In 2008 a widowed Hieromonk, Vasilii Novikov (1949–2010), created an Orthodox community in the name of She Who Reigns icon at a village near Tula. Its core consisted of monastic women without passports, but the community was regularly attended by lay city-dwellers. Vasilii was a renowned monarchist and organized collective acts of repentance; he was also hostile to everything that resembled communication between Orthodoxy and other faiths. On July 25, 2016, the community, by the decision of the Tula oblast court, was declared an extremist organization and banned.⁵⁷ Several videos with the sermons of Vasilii were included on the federal list of extremist materials. The group was given legal assistance from the other anti-systemic fundamentalists. As a result, their case was brought to the Supreme Court of Russia, which confirmed the decision of the oblast court on March 16, 2017.⁵⁸ This case marked the first anti-extremist court decision in Russia against an Orthodox group; it remained the only one until January 27, 2023, when Shemahegumen Sergii Romanov was sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly delivering extremist public sermons.⁵⁹

Hieromonk Evstratii (defrocked priest Veniamin Filippov, a medical doctor and a widower with three children) declared that “We are not people of this world” and that his flock renounced the state law because it contradicts the Orthodox faith.⁶⁰ His followers, mostly urbanites, destroyed their documents, including passports, and initially settled in an abandoned village in Kostroma oblast. They bought houses for cash, without concluding the transaction officially and withdrew their children from schools. The local authorities were concerned; it was reported that the children of at least one woman had been forcefully taken from their mother. According to media reports, they were not able to sustain their living and became dependent on the aid from the local authorities.⁶¹ Eventually the community had to leave for the remote village of Cherepanovo in Perm oblast, but this was not their final destination. Faced with the harsh conditions of Cherepanovo, Schemahegumen Daniil (formerly Evstratii) again led his followers to a new settlement, this time in the less remote and warmer Vologda oblast.

The anti-systemic fundamentalists’ hostile attitude toward the state, their practices of self-identification (signatures of several witnesses certify the identity between a person and a photograph), and their preference for homeschooling⁶² are reminiscent of the sovereign citizenship movement in the West.⁶³ However, according to their sympathizers, fundamentalism implies sovereignty not of individuals, but of communities: “It is not like the sovereign, separated citizen, like in the West, particularly the Anglo-Saxons … Here the point is in profound sobornost.”⁶⁴ Sobornost means that anti-systemic communities exist not just to survive the tribulation but to perform an important function in averting the apocalypse. Their repentance practices and endless prayers contribute to the resurrection of the Russian people and the return of the tsar: “Yes, the times and the seasons are in God’s power, and He is able to restrain the victorious coming of evil, but what is needed is our repentance.”⁶⁵ Orthodox fundamentalists have no concept of rupture and do not expect to avoid the tribulation. They suggest that at best their communities would not fall under the power of the Antichrist and that “for the sake of the elect,” the days of suffering would be shortened for the whole of humankind (Matthew 24:22).

The idea of sovereignty from the state attracts a noticeable number of wealthy and successful entrepreneurs who share the ideology of anti-systemic fundamentalism without implementing it. They declare that machine-readable documents are the prototype of the Seal of the Antichrist, but keep their passports, social security cards, and other digitalized identification documents. For example, although the owner of Russian Milk, Ltd., Vasilii Boiko-Velikii, prescribed crossing out bar codes on the dairy items produced by his company, the codes are still being printed (Figure 2). Boiko explained that the firm “has to put bar codes on its packages, because without it we could have been selling our production only at farmers’ markets, not in stores.”⁶⁶

Figure 2. Russian Milk, Ltd., cheese with the bar code crossed out. Photo credit: Anastasia Mitrofanova.

Other opponents of digital documents and codes provide equally naïve explanations (if any) for using what they verbally renounce. For example, Diomid, a former bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church used to admit that he possessed a Russian domestic passport (presumably with satanic symbols): “I am living in the state border zone! One cannot make one step without a passport here; or one is arrested and put into a cooler.”⁶⁷ Some public figures declaring that biometric passports are satanic (for example, Sergii Aliev, Aleksei Dobychin) do not conceal that they regularly attend Mount Athos, and hence, carry not just valid domestic passports, but also passports for foreign travel. Believers, who left the community of Schemanun Nikolaia, publicly announced that she had a medical policy, that her aide possessed a regular passport, and even that she kept commodities with bar codes at home.⁶⁸

How selective fundamentalists are in their rejection of modernity can be illustrated by the fact that anti-systemic communities extensively use the Internet to spread their word. Schemahegumen Daniil Filippov compared using the web with grabbing an enemy’s gun on the battlefield: “We are partisans under an occupational system.”⁶⁹ By contrast to people whose declarations against digital codes look like a role-playing game, many believers are ready for physical suffering, or even death, in the absence of adequate medical treatment. Leaders, too, risk their lives: for example, in spring 2014, Aleksei Dobychin, who has a well-known website, Moscow—the Third Rome, declared that the conflict in eastern Ukraine was a metaphysical attack of the Antichrist on the Holy Rus’ and left for Donbass to fight.⁷⁰ (He returned in July 2014, when Igor Strelkov’s paratroopers had left the city of Slaviansk.) These people definitely undergo some sort of personal tribulation.

Independently of how sincere individual believers may be, fundamentalist escape from the corrupt world is unrealizable. Writing about the millenialist Christian Right in America, Michael Barkun argues, “the more radical the withdrawal, the greater the likelihood that those who withdraw will be tempted to ignore, circumvent, or violate the complex network of laws and regulations that governs a modern society. … Conflicts between withdrawing millenarians and the administrative state are inevitable.”⁷¹ Anti-systemic fundamentalists understand the problem. Elena was uncertain about the perspectives of isolated settlements, but added that “another way of non-acceptance, of not being part of the system … I do not know, it means just to change the whole system as such … At the moment we do not see, how [we could do it].”⁷²

Wars and Rumors of Wars: Symbiotic Fundamentalists

Symbiotic fundamentalists are those who negatively evaluate the escapism of anti-systemic communities, as well as their obsession with digital documents. They understand that isolated communities cannot protect their settlers from the unwanted attention of state authorities, or from criminals, as well as from the influence of the outside world. “Every citadel falls,”⁷³ said Roman Telenkevich, head of a paramilitary organization, ENOT Corp.⁷⁴ In Sergei’s opinion, the Orthodox should fight instead of running away: “If I knew for sure that there was no hope, that, as they say, last hope had died, I would probably also take this position. But so far hope is living and … I want to hope that it is still possible somehow to achieve an Orthodox society that would actually live in accordance with God’s truth.”⁷⁵ Kirill labeled the practice of withdrawal delusion: “The country is occupied, but we do not leave the country; we fight for liberation. It is the same: the church is occupied, and we fight for liberation. … An Orthodox person should fight for the society where the rules, laws and norms are established, which correspond to the Orthodox vision of the world.”⁷⁶

Communities of symbiotic fundamentalists are commonly not headed by clerics, although priests sometimes play active parts in them. Normally, they do not imply living together and look more like networks. Some symbiotic fundamentalists prefer not to mention communities, which they associate with isolated settlements; instead, like Andrei Saveliev, they speak about “human relations” grounded in the spiritual sphere.⁷⁷ It is, in my opinion, a matter of terminology: Roman Telenkevich also used information environment as a synonym for community. ⁷⁸

Symbiotic communities do not necessarily cooperate with state agencies. Some of them are extremely hostile to the state, but, unlike anti-systemic fundamentalists, they do not break ties with the socio-political system; they carry documents and use public services. Most fundamentalists are also involved in educational and propagandist activities; in my opinion, they have enough connections to society as a whole to be called symbiotic. What is true is that even symbiotic fundamentalists do not intend to become part of the system; they are building a parallel set of institutions, which, in case the of major socioeconomic troubles, would be able to attract people’s loyalty from the state. At the moment, however, these institutions are too weak, and fundamentalists are forced to work hand-in-hand with the state. Functionally, they parallel their communities with Orthodox fraternities that emerged in the seventeenth century in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to serve as mediators between Orthodox dwellers and Catholic state authorities.⁷⁹

Although symbiotic communities seem more transparent that anti-systemic ones, it is hard to access their inner life and to learn about them more than they find appropriate to place on the web. These communities are often militarized and involved in what is commonly known in Russia as the military and patriotic upbringing (voenno-patrioticheskoe vospitanie) of youth, as well as related activities such as teaching martial arts and survival tactics.⁸⁰ This upbringing may take the following three forms:

1. 1. Paramilitary training for children, youth, and adults through the system of military and patriotic clubs, camps, and regular war games. This training can also take the form of sport exercises, without a visible military component. This is the largest part of fundamentalist activism. It is often supported by the state and socially approved because paramilitary activities are seen as contributing to the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents and drug addicts, as well as socializing orphans and children from families in crisis.

2. 2. Protecting public order together with state agencies or without them. This practice partly descends from the Soviet principle of citizens’ responsibility for countermeasures against antisocial behavior and crimes. The website Russian Community warns that community members responsible for protecting order should always stay in the framework of law and be in contact with the local authorities and police.⁸¹ Nevertheless, fundamentalists demonstrate relative sovereignty from the state by employing a legal concept of civil arrest, in which a group makes a civil arrest of some alleged criminals and then calls the police. Involving the police is an important part of such operations, because otherwise activists risk being accused of illegal detention.

3. 3. Participation in real combat actions, for example, during armed conflicts. Obviously, this side of activism is the most covert and provokes mutual accusations inside the fundamentalist milieu of being employed by state security agencies.

Paramilitary and militia groups in Russia often attract scholarly attention.⁸² It is important to note that not all such groups align with the fundamentalist milieu. Some nationalist paramilitary and militia groups are formally non-religious or openly declare themselves pagan. However, those emphasizing their Orthodox affiliation are likely to espouse fundamentalist discourse. While exceptions exist, I have yet to identify Orthodox paramilitary groups that are not fundamentalist.

I attended several activities in the urban Cossack community Spas (Savior), which has a relatively long history. It was initiated in 1996 under the leadership of a professional teacher Igor Lizunov. In 1998 the community was given part of a ruined Belkino manor near the city of Obninsk (Kaluga oblast).⁸³ The community restored a dilapidated barn and built some new facilities, including a domestic church, the Church of the Savior Not-Made-by-Hands (Figure 3). In the main hall of the community building one can see a large icon of the mother of God (She Who Reigns). Spas runs multiple projects: educating children, youth, and adults; rehabilitating drug addicts; and even taking care of a huge park on the manor grounds. For the children there is a school of traditional culture, where they can experience the practices of Russian rural life (for example, children make clay toys) (Figure 4). Community members do not reside together (except people in the rehab programs): it is a network community. Its members are not involved in discussing apocalyptical ideas but can be identified as fundamentalists based on their community-building strategies and underlying motivations such as the concept of collective salvation.

Figure 3. Spas, an urban Cossack community in Obninsk (Kaluga oblast). Photo Credit: Anastasia Mitrofanova. The striped pillar is traditionally used in Russia to mark borders. Its inscription reads “The Holy Rus,” symbolizing a boundary between sacred land and the profane.

Figure 4. Toys depicting rural life made by students at the Spas community’s school of traditional culture. Photo Credit: Anastasia Mitrofanova.

Working with addicts and children from crisis families guarantees all sorts of public support for the community.⁸⁴ In 2015, Spas won a presidential grant for noncommercial organizations involved in social work and was able to purchase a device for xenon therapy, at the time, the only one in the oblast. Igor Lizunov explains how the community establishes symbiotic relations with the municipal authorities: “Our value is that we voluntarily take some responsibilities; by doing this we help the administrative authorities … For example, we tell them that we are ready to educate [children], even without payment; just give us some specific municipal status … This gives us a possibility to participate in the city’s social policy.”⁸⁵ In the last decade, the activities of Spas have formally become secularized; the organization even replaced its previous logo (an icon of Christ) with a neutral picture of a tree. However, the community’s internal life continues to be grounded in Orthodox rituals.

Most symbiotic fundamentalists see military traditions as a universal remedy for all social illnesses. All activities of Spas are based on Lizunov’s original educational system, continuing what he defines as the traditions of the Russian warriors. Obviously, offering a military and patriotic upbringing (together with other activities, such as rehabilitation) is used as a recruiting point that attracts people into fundamentalist networks or communities. Moreover, armed squads are declared to be necessary to protect the communities and to keep order inside and outside them.⁸⁶ Other reasons for the militarization of communities are directly related to the apocalyptic imagery. Paramilitary training is seen as a natural source for building the spirit of conciliary unity (sobornost), which is expected to result in the resurrection of the Russian people as a mystical body able to summon the monarch, although for symbiotic fundamentalists monarchy is hardly an achievable ideal. They focus not on repentance, but on restoring the unity and morality of the Russian people. Many publications on this topic were anonymously placed on the website of ENOT Corp.⁸⁷ ENOT Corp declared that “There can be no Tsar for an atomized mass of individualists … to become the people, this social mass needs to be naturally structured with the help of community principle [obshchinnost].”⁸⁸ The leaders of the organization publicly stated that military and patriotic upbringing was an instrument for “creating the new Russian people”⁸⁹ through “the formation of a correct world outlook.”⁹⁰ Inside the Spas hall, there is a plaque featuring a quotation from St. John of Kronstadt that reflects a similar perspective on the situation: “The Russian people, you have forgotten that you are Russian!” While having in mind a higher goal of averting the apocalypse, symbiotic fundamentalists concentrate on the interim task of educating and organizing the Russian people. This task makes part of them cooperate with the state, but they emphasize that their loyalty is temporary.⁹¹ The leaders of ENOT Corp have acknowledged that “we need not to act against the state … first of all, [we need] to create a comfortable environment for the existence of our comrades-in-arms … Not a symbiosis [with the state] … we are building mutual relations with it.”⁹²

Paramilitary activities have two additional apocalyptic dimensions. First, multiple publications declare that military skills are needed because after the restoration of the Orthodox kingdom, the Russian army is expected to be at the forefront of the global armed resistance to the Antichrist. For example, Konstantin Dushenov frequently spoke about the third world war between Russian-led Christian forces and the global anti-Christian dictatorship.⁹³ Tatiana Gracheva, in her popular book “The Holy Rus’ against Khazaria,” foresees a military conflict between the would-be Russian Orthodox empire and the world government of the Antichrist.⁹⁴ This war will include combat behind enemy lines; this is one of reasons why symbiotic fundamentalists put so much effort into learning survival skills (for example, camping in a winter forest with the simplest equipment).

Second, survival and urban guerilla warfare are envisioned to be characteristic of the transition period. Sergei confirmed that he personally knows people involved in survival preparations, but he was evasive in explaining why they do it: “No one wants it; hope dies last. God willing, this will bypass. Nevertheless, everyone is preparing … What to do, where to run, what to grab, and how to survive. Roughly speaking, [how] to eat a little mouse, to cook a little worm. Roughly speaking, everybody is preparing … The crisis of power; it is here. The transition period, I suggest, will be hard; the 1990s have shown this to us. God willing, it will be over without major catastrophes.”⁹⁵ The transition, thus, is imagined within a framework of avertive apocalypticism: symbiotic fundamentalists expect to experience a period of local tribulation, followed by political transit from the existing system to national dictatorship that presides the coming of the tsar.

Conclusions

The apocalyptic vision of fundamentalists is undeniably religious, steeped in biblical imagery. However, their apocalypticism also contains a worldly dimension: it reacts to significant global social and political challenges that breed distrust of the state, perceived as a weak and unreliable actor. These challenges include the collapse of the USSR, globalization, the pandemic, and evolving perspectives on gender and family. For fundamentalists, their familiar world is disappearing, and they are navigating an apocalyptic environment shaped by human-made, politically influenced catastrophes. This worldview seemingly justifies passivity and indifference and may contribute to some fundamentalists’ pursuit of self-isolation from mainstream society. In reality, however, the concept of the katechon, someone or something able to delay, if not fully avert, the apocalypse serves for fundamentalists as a tool of empowerment. It does not simply add a messianic aspect to their apocalyptic imagery, but also allows creating “viable alternatives to secular institutions and behaviors.”⁹⁶ In the context of an incapable state, it is the people (narod) who take responsibility for averting the apocalypse. Fundamentalists also stress the need for a profound transformation within narod itself, urging it to recognize its mission to become the katechon. Basically, fundamentalist communities and networks aim to facilitate this transformation; the fact that they fulfill certain crucial social functions that state institutions neglect is largely incidental.

While some fundamentalists withdraw from society or declare such intentions, their anti-systemic communities and networks also develop functional alternatives to state institutions, such as independent methods for citizen identification within governmental bodies. Due to their distinctive way of life, anti-systemic fundamentalists accept that they will remain a minority, echoing the apostle Luke’s reference to the “little flock” (Luke 12:32). Nevertheless, they attract external supporters who admire their model of Christian living, even if they themselves are not prepared to abandon their comfortable urban lifestyles for remote, resource-scarce villages without running water. However, isolated communities face significant threats from state authorities, beyond accusations of extremism or interventions in family affairs. The primary challenge lies in the allure of the outside world, which offers countless attractions that few can resist. Consequently, anti-systemic fundamentalism risks deteriorating into either a playground for wealthy individuals like Boiko-Velikii, an ethnographic open-air museum, or a refuge for those with severe psychological challenges.

Those who do not view withdrawal as a viable solution use the concept of the katechon as a basis for establishing networks of ostensibly non-political initiatives, some of which operate successfully. These civic initiatives, however, lack the strength to achieve sovereignty independent of state institutions, necessitating a degree of symbiosis with the state. The most successful symbiotic organizations, such as Spas, make it easier for their sympathizers to navigate what they perceive as apocalyptic times. The emphasis on high militarization, seen as essential for restoring authentic Russianness, places these communities in a gray area between legality and illegality, heightening their vulnerability to state actions. Some symbiotic communities have shifted their focus from paramilitary exercises to sports; for instance, the community Sorok Sorokov (Forty Forties—a reference to the number of churches in Moscow) has entirely abandoned military trappings.⁹⁷

The substantial amount of unpaid social work performed by some symbiotic fundamentalists enables their participation in political decision-making at the municipal level, and occasionally even at the regional level. The prospect of advancing their agenda at the federal level remains uncertain, largely due to the functioning of the Russian political system. While some degree of pluralism is feasible at the grassroots level, independent actors at the national and regional levels encounter formal and informal obstacles that distance them from decision-making processes, which are perceived as the prerogative of higher authorities. This neopatrimonial system known as the “power vertical”⁹⁸ tolerates fundamentalists, as well as other grassroots civic activists, as long as they assist state bodies in addressing social issues. However, it rigorously restricts their political participation, even at the municipal level, occasionally subjecting them to trials and various accusations.

It is essential to recognize that the goal of fundamentalists is not to integrate into the existing socio-political system but to transform it toward collective salvation. The fundamentalist milieu maintains a skeptical stance toward the state, and recent events over the past two years have not notably increased its level of patriotism. Symbiotic fundamentalists adapt to the evolving reality by offering new types of social services to the state. For instance, Spas provides psychological consulting for the family members of mobilized citizens, thereby strengthening their position as reliable partners of the state. Meanwhile, anti-systemic fundamentalists maintain their original stance of sharply criticizing state policies and the positions of ecclesiastical hierarchies.