러시아 정교와 메시아니즘

Characteristics of Russian Orthodox Church and Messianism

Messianism is originally derived from the religious idea of the ancient Jewish, which has been the belief of the savior(Messiah) coming on the earth someday to save the them. Russians also has been said to have especially strong expectation for Messiah as well as Jewish and the Messianism has been developed in various forms according to each age. After receiving the Greek Orthodox belief from the oriental church, Medieval Russia had focused on the its own line against Roman Catholic to believe that only Russian Orthodox were the true christianity and selected by God to save the human beings, which has caused its own main characteristics of Russian Messianism. In the era of modem Russia, it has evolved to the consciousness of the mission that Russia should establish the mankind-wide culture by complementing the western culture under the spirit of orthodoxy, while to the birth of the political Messianism that they it should release the slavic orthodox christians from the Turkey, the Muslim by saving the western from the idea of the revolution and freedom. After the revolution, the Soviet Messianism has emerged, adapting the platform to protect the western Europe and Soviet Union against the capitalism and to release the suppressed countries from the imperialism. Even in Russia today, there are the also emergence of the new Messianism insisting to release the human beings from the nuclear crisis over the interests of the nationalism and to bring the peace to the world. It is largely divided into two characteristics of the Russian Messianism based on Russian Orthodox Church. First is the variability in the content and subject. The birth of the Russia Messianism is similar to that of Jewish. It says the center of the world saving will be Moscow that acquired the status of chosen people due to the baptism by Kief and the deterioration of the western countries. They insist that the subject of the saving world would be themselves-Russians other than the divine being of Messiah. Secondly, it has the political characteristics. From the Russian Messianism, the Orthodox Church was accepted by the Vladimir I as the ideology to combine the pagan multi-tribe type of communities into one country. Since the regime changes, the current Russia has the politically, economically and socially accumulated problems. Russia had led the one axis of hegemony during the cold war period, but it is now estranged from the center of the international relations. However, whenever faced difficulties and sufferings in the history, Russians have risen again from its strong political power by appealing the underlying Messianism.