The dialectic of the relationship between charisma of power, one of the patriarch and one of the tsar, between that of religious power and that of political power, constitutes a long-standing factor in Russian history. In the 20th century, the vicissitude of relations between the Patriarchate and the Kremlin experienced a dramatic page in its history during the Bolshevik experiment. 1917, the year of revolutions, had marked for the Orthodox Church the beginning of a new era. A deep rupture had occurred. Paradoxically, within the framework of a regime that postulated and pursued the elimination of religion from communist society, with the turn in religious policy desired by Stalin in 1943, the patriarchal institution was accorded a role, albeit within a framework of heavy subjection to political power. The dialectic between the upper echelons of political and religious power was passed on to post-communist Russia to contend with new dynamics. The Orthodox Church's prominence in Russia's public life developed under the sign of a recovered role as guardian of Russian identity and guarantor of the legitimacy of power. Reactions between the Patriarchate and the Kremlin experienced a new season, in which longstanding cultural paradigms, Soviet heritage, ecclesiastical dynamics and political processes were intertwined within the framework of the travails of post-Soviet Russia.