ABSTRACT
Contemporary Russia is a country of rapid change. These changes, which touch all aspects of state and societal life, are also naturally reflected in the church relations with the state and society. The situation changed somewhat after 1943, when Joseph Stalin, frightened by the war and searching for the support of the Russian Orthodox Church in those difficult days for the government, met Metropolitans Sergii, Aleksii, and Nikolai in the Kremlin and promised to improve the church's position in the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev, then leader of the country, took a somewhat ambiguous position toward the church. Ogorodnikovs organization, the first of its kind, did not remain alone for long. In 1990 the Russian Union of Young Christian Democrats (RUYCD), whose leader was Dmitrii Antsyferov, and the Russian Christian Democratic Party (RCDP), whose leader was Aleksandr Chuev, split off from the Christian Democratic Union. The social position of the church only began to worked out in a quickly changing Russia.
