ABSTRACT
Religion was ancient superstition and a source of refuge for the uneducated masses from the harsh realities of late nineteenth-century life. Instead religion has been a fairly ubiquitous tool in electoral campaigning to symbolise a general stance of morality, tradition, and 'Russian-ness'. Russia's constitutional commitment to freedom of religion placed the Russian Federation firmly in the liberal tradition, in contradistinction to the close control over religion exercised by the communist regime in the Soviet era. The 1990s have seen the cultivation of ever closer contacts between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state. The state has granted to the Russian Orthodox Church tax concessions in the trading of lucrative goods, notably oil, cigarettes and alcohol. Patriarch Aleksi spelt out the position in March 1998 and cited the Chechen War of 1994-1996 as an example of Church-state disagreement, noting that the Church had frequently spoken out against military action.
