Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, MSU Religious Studies BA (2012) and MA (2014) alumna, was interviewed by Odette Yousef for a news article on NPR.org today, “Orthodox Christian churches are drawing in far-right American converts”.
Based on Riccardi-Swartz’s research on a community of mostly former evangelical Christians and Catholics who had joined the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and her recent book, Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia, Riccardi-Swartz notes that many of the converts “had grown disillusioned with social and demographic change in the United States” and sought a more secure and unchanging church. But in these congregations Riccardi-Swartz also found “strong strains of nativism, white nationalism and pro-authoritarianism, evidenced by strong admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
For those of you who were unable to attend our special guest lecture with Riccardi-Swartz in April, “(Un)Holy War: Russian Radicalism, Ukrainian Resistance, and Reactive Imaginaries Abroad”, you can read the NPR article that includes insights from Riccardi-Swartz and others here: