Putin Critic Alexei Navalny Found Purpose In Christianity
The slew of tributes after Alexei Navalny’s death earlier this month justly lauded his personal courage, political convictions and the loyalty of his family. Yet curiously for someone who was almost certainly martyred, his deep religious faith was absent from most of the obituaries written about him.
Navalny had been incarcerated at the IK-3 penal colony north of the Arctic Circle located about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) north of Moscow. His death was announced by the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District on Feb. 16, igniting speculation that he was killed on orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Navalny’s speech during his 2021 trial, shortly after his return from exile, was moving and principled — not least for how often he drew on the rich language of the gospels. He quoted the “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” verse from Matthew 5:6, calling it “more or less an instruction to activity.”
READ: Russians Use Faith To Protest Invasion Of Ukraine Despite Risks
Yet his convictions were uncomfortable for a lot of his supporters. Navalny’s shift away from atheism was a fairly recent development in his short life, and as he acknowledged, it made him a source of “constant ridicule” among other anti-corruption activists, many of whom, in fine ex-Soviet style, he described as “militant atheists.”
Yet there seemed to be little evangelical fervour about Navalny. In an interview with Open Democracy, he said that his friends accused him of being a “sham Orthodox” who didn’t know much about the nuts and bolts of his own denomination. He conceded that he didn’t attend services very often and didn’t tend to advertise his beliefs.
Despite saying he didn’t want to make “political capital” out of his religion, his trial highlighted how much it informed his activism. His embrace of faith, he stated, had given him “fewer dilemmas” due to the Bible providing a guide for what to do. He felt this made a life in politics easier than for his peers, adding that “I did as required by the instructions, and did not disobey the commandment.”
Those words now have a haunting quality to them. Like many of history’s dissidents, Navalny perhaps knew he wouldn’t see middle age (he was 47 when he died). Was his conversion a sign of a burgeoning dissident movement within Russian Orthodoxy, one where principled actions might mean more than proximity to state power?
Christian activists are a small but vocal group who have often provoked Putin’s wrath, part of a tradition of Russian intellectuals like Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky who have seen the gospels as a vehicle for resisting autocracy. They include evangelical pastor Stanislav Moskvitin, who spent 18 months in a penal colony, and blogger Yegor Zhukov, who was put on trial for his views and has since disappeared. Notably, such Christian dissidents in Russia are not Orthodox.
Was Navalny just an anomaly? The picture seems mixed.
Theologian Paul Gavrilyuk said that beyond a few brave dissenters, “there is absolutely no rising against Putin within the Russian Orthodox Church,” adding that “their silence emboldens Putin.” He also maintained that “Navalny’s faith doesn’t seem to have influenced his moral vision.”
Former Russian Orthodox priest Andrey Kordochkin, now based in the Netherlands, doesn’t completely agree. Threatened with suspension for speaking out against the war, he now runs a fundraising platform to support priests in Russia who have been defrocked for their anti-war views and are struggling financially.
He highlighted for Religion Unplugged how at the start of the invasion, 300 priests signed a petition condemning the Kremlin’s actions. He said that Navalny’s life and work draw attention to a Christian tradition in Russia not monopolized by the views of Patriarch Kirill.
“While he was in prison he was forced to be in a cell with a criminal who had a bad smell and whom he was expected to threaten and physically assault. This was to put pressure on him, but he talked instead about what Jesus would do,” he said. “He showed the man kindness. You have to come from a position of faith for that. It’s different from the faith based on fear and terror shown by Putin.”
Most Orthodox believers don’t speak out, he added, for fear of reprisal and of inflaming tensions in their communities. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist. This made Navalny’s stance all the more courageous.
“He went to jail rather than stay safely in the diaspora. When he did that, the thought that came to me was Christ’s descent into hell. That’s a powerful image in Orthodox theology,” Kordochkin said.
Cyril Hovoroun, a U.S.-based Ukrainian theologian who used to work for the Russian church, argued that those in the church who disagree with Putin now “find inspiration in Navalny’s death. They describe it in religious terms as a martyrdom.”
One hopes that even the most hard-boiled atheist would not begrudge Navalny the comforts of faith when he realised his old nemesis had got him at last.
Back in 2021 Navalny expressed hope that the Orthodox church in Russia could act as a mediator between the people and the state. He recognized this was unlikely; but if his demise tells us anything, it’s that moral courage in Russia’s mother church isn’t totally dead. On the contrary, we might see a resurrection yet.
Jan Dollbaum, co-author of the book “Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?” perhaps epitomizes what the fusion of faith and politics meant for this man who was once considered Russia’s last great hope:
“He saw Jesus as ‘a politician’ whose capacity to speak to people can inspire today’s activists, even if it made many of his fellow liberals uncomfortable,” Dollbaum said.
Maddy Fry writes about politics, religion and pop culture, with bylines in The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, Time, The New Statesman and The Huffington Post. She also enjoys drinking stout, listening to U2 and telling you why you are wrong about the Star Wars sequels.