"The ties between Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church have been tested twice this week - coincidentally on the same day, April 20, and with two very different results," says Simon Schuster in Time.

"The striking victory of the Russian Orthodox Church was the fact that the Russian Supreme Court ordered the" liquidation "of the local branch of Jehovah's Witnesses, whose missionary work the government considered" extremist "- not least because it challenged the teachings of the Orthodox clergy," Article.

"When this decision was announced, a separate scandal was unfolding in the Russian parliament because of another demand by the same ROC - even more essential for the Orthodox faith than any competition of" Jehovah's Witnesses ". A group of human rights defenders, including members of the Putin party, proposed a law calling for the burying of Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary and founder of the Soviet Union, whose body has been shown on Red Square since his death in 1924,.

The journalist points out that, according to polls, the majority of Russians favor Lenin's burial, but Putin "did nothing to fulfill the desire of the majority". On the contrary, his party angrily denied involvement in this bill.

Shuster recalls that at a meeting with his supporters in 2012, Putin "said sadly in his voice" that "after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its ruling ideology, nothing appeared on this site".

"Today it's still true. The closest to the ideology that Putin created in 17 years in power is a strange mixture of incompatible idols, Soviet and Orthodox, fighting for a place near the Kremlin wall. To please one of them, his government will gladly ban a small foreign sect, like "Jehovah's Witnesses". But Putin can not clearly stand on the side of Christians or Communists. The president must simultaneously be both, "the journalist sums up..