This paper investigates the role of the Day of Family, Love, and Fidelity in the deployment of Russian state family policy since 2006. It argues that the holiday is emblematic of a cooperative, rather than synchronous, relationship between Church and state in the promotion of pronatalism and so-called “traditional family values”, and highlights the ways in which public discourse around the holiday intentionally obscures internal contradictions within the dominant family ideologies of both institutions.

The article explores the relationship between the patronage of monasteries and territory control in Greater Armenia in the second half of the 9^th century based on the study of three cases. The first is the foundation of the Monastery of Sevan by Princess Mariam Bagratid and the renowned ascetic Maštoc‘ in 871. It is suggested that this and other monastic foundations around Lake Sevan (Gełark‘unik‘ territory) were a means of extending Bagratid influence, if not yet full control, on this neighboring region ruled by the Siwnids.