Although male-perpetrated intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a global epidemic, research has suggested that Russian women are at a heightened risk of IPVAW compared to women in the West (Gondolf & Shestakov, 1997; Horne, 1999). The international battered women’s movement has constructed issues of IPVAW as a public concern, highlighting the ways in which macro-level social structures and ideologies contribute to gender-based violence at the micro-level and influence community-based violence prevention and intervention efforts. The purpose of this paper is to theorize the potential impact of one such institution, the Russian Orthodox Church, in shaping Russian women’s experiences of IPVAW. Implications for the development of services to address IPVAW within the Russian Orthodox community are examined.