A Study On Orthodox Factors In Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy

This paper is to study Russia’s foreign policy from the perspective of diplomatic culture,and the specific goal is to study an important part of Russian diplomatic culture—the influence of the Orthodox Church on Russian foreign policy.The formulation and implementation of a country’s foreign policy is often affected and restricted by various factors.For foreign countries,especially those with established state religions,religious factors are an important factor that cannot be ignored.Since the end of the Cold War,with the development of political multi-polarization,identity politics has gradually entered the room,and has derived a global religious revival phenomenon;At the same time,various religious groups have become more and more active,and the interaction and interweaving with political life has gradually become a common practice.As a brand-new diplomatic form,religious diplomacy is and will exert more and more significant and far-reaching influence on international politics.However,the prevailing norms of international relations and a series of international treaties and agreements have excluded religious diplomacy from the diplomatic system for a long time.The discussion of diplomatic power often defaults to the diplomatic professional departments and professional diplomats of the country,and the research on the influence of religion on foreign policy has been historically absent.Although the Cold War pattern between the United States and the Soviet Union has gone with the collapse of the Soviet Union,Russia,as the main successor of the Soviet Union,is still one of the most important international actors in the international community and plays an important role in this century.Especially in recent years,the willingness to participate in international affairs has been continuously enhanced,and its foreign policy orientation has increasingly become a hot research field in the field of international politics.As a reflection of a nation’s foreign thinking and values,diplomatic culture has considerable stability and continuity.It is like an invisible hand,which will control and influence the foreign policy and foreign exchanges at that time relatively stably in different periods.A deeper understanding of Russia diplomatic culture is conducive to a deeper understanding of the spiritual factors hidden behind Russian foreign policy,and also has important theoretical value and significance for grasping and predicting the development trend of Russian diplomacy.In order to make a thorough study of Russia spiritual culture,religious factors are an inseparable subject,as a western slang says: The United Kingdom and United States talk about sports,the France about romance,and the Russians about faith and God.As Graham put it: "The Russians are always on their way to a place where they might find God.” In the history of Russia’s foreign exchanges for more than one thousand years,Russia’s diplomatic culture not only shows its historical continuity,but also has a unique history of evolution,which can be seen in the accumulation and changes of different times.As the state religion of Russia,Orthodox Church plays a special and important role in Russian diplomatic culture.It can be said that it is the outline of Russia diplomatic culture.Only by deeply studying the Orthodox Church can we have a more accurate grasp of Russia diplomatic history and foreign policy.This paper intends to study the Orthodox factors in contemporary Russia foreign policy,introduce the existing international religious diplomacy theory,and explore the diplomatic factors in international politics: This paper reviews the history of the development of the Orthodox Church in Russia,explains the motivation of the Orthodox Church’s continuous influence on Russia’s foreign policy from the structural and process dimensions,and looks forward to the future development trend of the interaction between the church and the state in Russia,as well as the inspiration for China’s diplomatic work.