- Since 2021, the Russian Orthodox Church has established an expanded presence in Africa, in competition with the Greek Orthodox Church in Alexandria, Egypt.
- Facing condemnation from the West since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has sought to expand its influence in Africa with soft power in addition to a military presence in the form of first the Wagner Group and now Africa Corps.
- In addition to spiritual guidance, the Russian Orthodox Church, through two dioceses in North Africa and South Africa, will provide humanitarian assistance and education with the aim of expanding Russian influence.
- The Russian Orthodox Church does not appear to be aiming for mass conversion of Africans and is likely to have more influence on leadership elites. Until more is known of its impact on US security interests, a wait-and-see attitude is perhaps the best approach.
When European imperial powers expanded their actions to conquer new regions and grow their spheres of influence in the 19th century, Africa, due to its wealth in natural resources, became a prime location for colonial exploitation. While colonialization devastated traditional African societies and economies, European leaders cited the "white man's burden," a philosophy consisting of the "Three C's of Colonialism: civilization, Christianity, and commerce," as the moral justification. Using the church to justify exploitation, though, began well before the 19th century. Throughout the 15th century, the Roman Catholic Church, in a series of edicts, gave Europe's Catholic nations the right to take control of other lands, to subdue their people, and convert them to Christianity. One of the most influential of these edicts, or papal bulls, was Inter Caetera, issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493: one year after Christopher Columbus's arrival in what became known as the Americas, giving Spain carte blanche to lands in the so-called New World. These new lands became known as terra nullius, Latin for "empty land," a concept applied to any land not already occupied by Christians. This meant it was considered free for the taking by Christian-Europeans, regardless of the population already there or the level of advancement of their civilizations.
Thus, the Bible has accompanied the sword in the voyages of exploitation throughout the centuries and around the globe, Africa included.
On December 29, 2021, the Russian Orthodox Church announced its decision to form the patriarchate Exarchate of Africa, with two dioceses: the South African Diocese with twenty-four countries under its jurisdiction and the North African Diocese with thirty-one countries. Given the Church's overt support for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, this move evokes unfortunate images of the 15th century Doctrine of Discovery, which wreaked havoc on indigenous civilizations from Africa to North America to Asia, forming the building blocks of white supremacy and Manifest Destiny. The Russian Orthodox Church's actions in Africa is a part of Putin's broad strategy to build influence in Africa with every available tool, not unlike the earlier actions by European colonial powers.
The Russian Orthodox Bible Comes to Africa
According to the January 19, 2022 issue of the Orthodoxy Cognate Page of the Pan-Orthodox Christian Society, the Russian Orthodox Church "will support the population of Africa with humanitarian aid and vaccines in addition to spiritual patronage." Using such gifts, rather than theological persuasion, the Russian Orthodox Church is winning allegiance from priests and parishes from the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which covers all of Africa. Unlike the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Alexandria, which looks after Eastern Orthodox Christians in Africa, totaling approximately 1.3 million , the Russian Orthodox Church has 82.9 million in Russian alone. The Church in Russia does not have the long history of the Greek Orthodox Church, but for centuries it has been one of the most powerful bodies in orthodoxy and commands power beyond most religious denominations. It is closely linked to the Russian state and functions as a de facto arm of the government.
Russia, facing global pushback over its invasion of Ukraine--including a rift between the orthodox church in Ukraine and other Patriarchates--has turned its eyes to Africa, expanding links with African governments and propping up regimes that support Russia. This was first done primarily through the Wagner Group, a private military company that has now been rebranded as the Africa Corps. However, beginning in 2021, Russian Orthodox bishops and priests have been traveling to Africa in search of new opportunities in the form of commercial contracts and of priests who they attempt to persuade to switch their allegiance from Alexandria to Moscow.
The Implications of this Move
Many people, including a number of Africans, don't think of Orthodox Christianity in missionary terms. Generally they view Orthodoxy in ethnic terms: Russian, Greek, Serbian, or Arab. For example, when Bob Wekesa, director of the African Center for the Study of the United States at the University of the Witwatersrand, was queried for this article, he responded that he was unaware of it because he hadn't followed religious affairs. This was despite the formation of the South African Diocese on December 29, 2021. The Russian Orthodox Church has had a parish in Johannesburg since 1999, and according to the official web site of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, plans have been underway since 2021 to build a cathedral in Johannesburg for a diocesan center. In addition, the first Russian Orthodox parish in sub-Saharan Africa was established in 1998, at Midrand in Gauteng.
Despite this activity, though, when one looks at the presence of Orthodox Christianity in Africa, this lack of knowledge--and interest--can be understood. "Most analysts of Russia's presence in Africa would miss this development," said Wekesa. "Because it is not the most publicized of Russia's strategy in Africa."
While Orthodox missionaries were as active as Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries in the 19th century, after 1917, Orthodox churches suffered a period of persecution and disruption, limiting their engagement in global missionary expansion. While the global population of non-Orthodox Christians more than quadrupled between 1910 and 2017, the Orthodox population only doubled to around 260 million, with 76 percent living in Central and Eastern Europe (including Greece and the Balkans). The Orthodox population in sub-Saharan Africa has risen from an estimated 3.5 million in 1910 to 40 million in 2010, accounting for 15 percent of the global Orthodox population. Of this population, though, 36 million live in Ethiopia and 3 million in Eritrea. Among the rest of sub-Saharan African Christians, Orthodox Christians are a small minority. Eritrea is the only African country with an Orthodox majority. Ethiopia's Orthodox Christians account for about 43 percent of the country's population.
Demographically, therefore, Orthodox Christianity probably does not get much attention outside Ethiopia and Eritrea, and outside Africa, few people give it any attention at all.
The fallout of Russia's war in Ukraine could very well be changing this.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Egypt--which has a 2,000-year history on the African continent and spiritual jurisdiction over Orthodox Christians throughout Africa--expressed opposition and was joined by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In retaliation, and in an effort to expand influence in Africa to make up for the loss of support in other parts of the world, the Russian Orthodox Church, through the establishment of the two previously mentioned dioceses, began efforts to attract priests away from Alexandria.
According to a July 27, 2023, report from the Russian news agency Interfax, the Russian Orthodox Church opened more than 200 parishes in Africa between December 2021 and July 2023. In addition to the spiritual, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said, "it has been possible to start implementing many humanitarian (and) educational projects." The Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa, according to Moscow, was founded in response to requests from African Orthodox clergy after the Patriarch of Alexandria sided with the Orthodox Church in Ukraine following the Russian invasion. In meetings with African leaders during the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, on July 27, 2023, Kirill said the goal of the expansion was to contribute to the strengthening of Russia-Africa ties; to improve the people's welfare; and to build new schools, water wells, electric substations, hospitals, and cultural centers wherever parishes are open.
The Church's actions are clearly aligned with Putin's goal of expanding Kremlin influence in Africa. Suppressed under the Soviet communist regimes, the Orthodox Church has experienced a revival of influence since Putin came to power in 1999 and has unofficially replaced Marxism-Leninism as a kind of state religion, with Putin often supporting the Church's conservative-social policies. It is becoming a key component of the Kremlin's exercise of soft power in Africa, promoting many conservative and anti-Western positions that are shared by a number of Africans, Christian or not, such as opposition to same sex marriage, LBQT rights, and the like. In all of its official announcements relating to Africa, the church has stressed the non-religious aims of providing assistance to local communities. While Kirill denounces the corruption of the Patriarch of Alexandria and claims that it deprives Africans of spiritual guidance, the Russian Orthodox Church does not confine its guidance of its new African flock to religion, but seeks to guide Russia-Africa relations as well. It has also aided Moscow's recruitment of Africans for paramilitary service in the war against Ukraine.
The aforementioned points make assessing the Church's activities in Africa in a purely religious context extremely difficult. The Russian Orthodox Church's expansion in Africa cannot be looked at without considering its relationship to Russian state interests. It is financially supported by Kremlin-backed entities, and its expansion serves as a form of soft power to influence African politics and religious dynamics. Its expansion, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, aims to challenge the existing Orthodox churches in Africa and to promote conservative, anti-Western alliances. It appears to be more about enhancing the Russian image and expanding state influence than religious conversion.
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American and Western policymakers need to explore the Church's activities in more depth in order to better understand how it is using religious and cultural influence to strengthen Russia's global position by weakening the West's position in Africa. Until more is known, however, it is advisable not to overthink the Church's impact on US security interests in Africa or, for that matter, on Africa itself.
"It appears that the Russian Orthodox Church will not aim to have a large following," Wekesa said. "Given that Christian evangelicals, linked to American evangelicals, as well as mainstream churches such as the Catholic and Protestant churches, are well grounded on the continent." Wekesa went on to say that the orthodox practices face an uphill task in converting Africans. "I deduce that the Russian Orthodox (Church) will aim to capture a small elite tied to the top echelons of governments in pursuit of opaque Russian interests rather than winning large congregations."
While it might be a stretch to label the Church's actions in Africa as "malign," it behooves policymakers to consider them as "concerning." The difficulty, though, is how to craft an effective response. The Church's expanding influence among African Orthodox Christians appears to be based on their belief that the West--including the United States--takes a patronizing view of Africa and Africans. Thus, assessing US policies and actions in that light might be a good place to start.
While the religious impact of the Russian Orthodox Church's activities in Africa are not likely to be far reaching, their influence on African leadership, particularly of some of the more autocratic states, could be significant, and must be viewed in that light. Until the aim and impact is better understood, the best response to the Church's presence for the moment might be no response at all.
Charles A. Ray, a member of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Africa Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, served as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Republic of Zimbabwe.
