Is the Russian Orthodox Church In Danger Of Becoming A State Stooge?

My knowledge of Russian Orthodoxy is not vast. Usually I sort of have negative feelings based on

(1) Current Russian Orthodox Attitudes toward Catholics in Russia , and
(2) My brief flirting contacts on the Internet with the American Russian Orthodox( The Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia ) formed after the Revolution whose many members (at least on the net and are often converts) seemed to have a very anti Catholic and exasperating attitude such as even questioning the validity of my baptism.

Needless to say the future of the Orthodox Church in Russia is very important for reasons to many to list. Just a few would include Christ's great mandate to Evangelize, social ills in Russia, the rising Islamic population in Russia, various ecumenical concerns, and as we saw in recent headlines what is the Russian Orthodox Church going to be saying and doing as to what appears a revival of Russia's new expansionist tendencies.

All this is wrapped up with concerns that the New Russia Orthodox Church looks a lot like the old Orthodox Church in some of it worse aspects. That is being a too loyal servant of the State.

The New Republic examines these questions in book review of The Prop of the Knout Russian Orthodoxy- Resurgent: Faith and Power in the New Russia. The reviewer is Leon Aron, director of Russian studies and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Leon to say the least is not a fan of this book mostly because it seems to wander down thousand different detours( interesting ones but still detours) and never seems focused on the main point. As the reviewer puts it the book should be renamed " Brief History of the Russian Orthodox Church from Its Alleged Founding by St. Peter's Elder Brother, St. Andrew the First-Called, to the End of the Soviet Union, with the Accounts of Its Ritual and Liturgy, Its Struggle with the "Latinized Christianity" of Catholicism, Its Survival Under the Golden Horde, the Moscow Tsars, and Soviet Communism, and a Few Intimations of the Direction It Might Take in Post-Soviet Russia Presented as a Series of Vignettes and as Quotes from the Speeches of Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II."

Still it sounds interesting and one does pick up the horror of the revolution in some detail and including the Church's past (hopefully just past) alliance with the KGB.

While the book has its faults it appears the reviewer does a good job of sorting framing the issues of concern.