The characteristics of interaction between Russian Orthodox Church and Russian state: an institutional analysis

The problem of identifying the nature of church-state relations is determined by the fundamental changes in the contemporary Russian society which affected both state and Russian Orthodox Church. The author reviews the interaction between Russian Orthodox Church and Russian state through the prism of new institutional theory. The most important ideas of new institutional economics in political science are considered as an attempt to analyze the activities of social and political institutions under review. The research focuses on formal (laws, documents, regulations) and informal (preferences) rules of state-church interaction. Such relations are exemplified in the contemporary Russian society, considering the fact that Russian Orthodox Church is both religious and social institution. The author concludes that there is a trend towards the deformalization of the state-church interaction rules set by the state.