Russian Christianity and its Place in Global Christianity

Scott Kenworthy writes deeply learned, but accessible and always fascinating, books on Russian Orthodox Christianity that are always worth your time. So when I learned from him recently that he had teamed up with another author to contribute to an ongoing series, I knew it would be worth my time to read Understanding World Christianity: Russia by Scott M. Kenworthy and Alexander S. Agadjanian (Fortress Press, 2021), 311pp. 

This is part of an ongoing series of books, at least one of whose earlier publications, that devoted to India, will of course be relevant to Eastern Christians given the very great diversity of them in India. 

About this newest installment, the publisher tells us this:

Christianity is a global religion. It's a fact that is too often missed or ignored in many books and conversations. In a world where Christianity is growing everywhere but in the West, the Understanding World Christianity series offers a fresh, readable orientation to Christianity around the world. Understanding World Christianity is organized geographically, by nation and region. Noted experts, in most cases native to the area of focus, present a balanced history of Christianity and a detailed discussion of the faith as it is lived today. Each volume addresses six key "intersections" of Christianity in a given context, including the historical, denominational, sociopolitical, geographical, biographical, and theological settings. Understanding World Christianity: Russia offers a compelling glimpse into the vibrant and complex picture of Christianity in the Russian context. It's an ideal introduction for students, mission leaders, and any others who wish to know how Christianity influences, and is influenced by, the Russian context.

Understanding World Christianity: Russia

Fortress Press recently sent me their catalogue of new and forthcoming publications, and in it I spied a book co-authored by a widely respected scholar I have heard at conferences over the years: Understanding World Christianity: Russia by Alexander S. Agadjanian and Scott M. Kenworthy (Fortress, 2021), 160pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

Christianity is a global religion. It's a fact that is too often missed or ignored in many books and conversations. In a world where Christianity is growing everywhere but in the West, the Understanding World Christianity series offers a fresh, readable orientation to Christianity around the world. Understanding World Christianity is organized geographically, by nation and region. Noted experts, in most cases native to the area of focus, present a balanced history of Christianity and a detailed discussion of the faith as it is lived today. Each volume addresses six key "intersections" of Christianity in a given context, including the historical, denominational, sociopolitical, geographical, biographical, and theological settings. Understanding World Christianity: Russia offers a compelling glimpse into the vibrant and complex picture of Christianity in the Russian context. It's an ideal introduction for students, mission leaders, and any others who wish to know how Christianity influences, and is influenced by, the Russian context.

The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism

Oxford Handbooks, to a few of which I have myself contributed over the years, are always guaranteed to contain great riches. This one, set for release in late November, is no different. Unlike some other handbooks, this one has many individual chapters on Eastern monasticism--Oriental, Russian, ancient and modern, etc--and then an entire section devoted to it as well, featuring some of the leading scholars in Orthodoxy today. So it promises to be a very rich collection indeed: The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, ed. by Bernice M. Kaczynski

About this book we are told the following by the publishers:

The Handbook takes as its subject the complex phenomenon of Christian monasticism. It addresses, for the first time in one volume, the multiple strands of Christian monastic practice. Forty-four essays consider historical and thematic aspects of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican traditions, as well as contemporary 'new monasticism'. The essays in the book span a period of nearly two thousand years--from late ancient times, through the medieval and early modern eras, on to the present day. Taken together, they offer, not a narrative survey, but rather a map of the vast terrain. The intention of the Handbook is to provide a balance of some essential historical coverage with a representative sample of current thinking on monasticism. It presents the work of both academic and monastic authors, and the essays are best understood as a series of loosely-linked episodes, forming a long chain of enquiry, and allowing for various points of view. The authors are a diverse and international group, who bring a wide range of critical perspectives to bear on pertinent themes and issues. They indicate developing trends in their areas of specialisation. The individual contributions, and the volume as a whole, set out an agenda for the future direction of monastic studies. In today's world, where there is increasing interest in all world monasticisms, where scholars are adopting more capacious, global approaches to their investigations, and where monks and nuns are casting a fresh eye on their ancient traditions, this publication is especially timely.

Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Christianity

The Orthodox scholar Scott Kenworthy alerted me to the publication of this hefty and impressive collection containing chapters on Orthodoxy by James Skedros and John McGuckin as well as Scott himself--in addition to articles on Middle Eastern Christianity and much else besides of interest to the Christian East: Lamin Sanneh and Michael McClymond, eds., The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Christianity (2016), 784pp.

About this collection the publisher provides the briefest of blurbs:

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Christianity presents a collection of essays that explore a range of topics relating to the rise, spread, and influence of Christianity throughout the world.

But we are also given a detailed table of contents:

Notes on Contributors ix
Abbreviations xxi
1 Introduction 1
Lamin Sanneh and Michael J. McClymond

I. Historical Section 19
A. The Roots (50–1750 ce)
2 Jewish and Hellenic Worlds and Christian Origins 21
John J. Collins
3 The “Triumph” of Hellenization in Early Christianity 32
Wendy Elgersma Helleman
4 Ancient Eastern Christianity: Syria, Persia, Central Asia, and India 43
Scott W. Sunquist
5 Christianity and the European Conversions 54
Tomás O’Sullivan
6 Byzantium and Islam in the Mediterranean World 67
James C. Skedros
7 The Medieval Synthesis: Religion, Society, and Culture 78
Joseph P. Huffmann
8 Early Modern Missions and Maritime Expansion 96
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
9 Bibles, Printing, Books, Churches 107
Lori Ferrell
10 The Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Reformation 119
Jeffrey Klaiber

B. Issues in the Modern Period (1750–2000 ce) 129
11 The Legacy of Christendom 131
Philip Jenkins
12 Slavery, Antislavery, and Christianity: Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean 142
Christopher Schmidt-Nowara
13 Medicine, Agriculture, and Technology in the Missionary Enterprise 153
Christopher H. Grundmann
14 Schools and Education in the Missionary Enterprise 166
Norman Etherington
15 Conversion, Converts, and National Identity 176
J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
16 Church and State Relations in the Colonial Period 190
Brian Stanley
17 Ideologies, the Quest for a Just Society, and Christian Responses 200
Govert Buijs
18 The Ecumenical Movement: Why Violence, Why Not Peace? 218
Jan van Butselaar
19 Vatican II: Renewal, Accommodation, Inculturation 231
Peter C. Phan
20 Christian Revival and Renewal Movements 244
Michael J. McClymond

II. Thematic Section 263
21 Bible Translation, Culture, and Religion 265
Lamin Sanneh
22 Christianity and Interreligious Encounters 282
Martin Ganeri
23 Women in Church, State, and Society 302
Angelyn Dries
24 Worship, Liturgy, Sacraments 318
Geoffrey Wainwright
25 Freedom, Persecution, and the Status of Christian Minorities 330
John Witte, Jr. and M. Christian Green
26 Christianity and “Western Classical” Music (1700–2000) 350
David Martin
27 Music in the Newer Churches 359
Brian Schrag
28 Visual Arts in World Christianity 368
Volker Küster
29 Church Architecture Worldwide since 1800 386
David R. Bains
30 Charismatic Gifts: Healing, Tongue-Speaking, Prophecy, and Exorcism 399
Michael J. McClymond
31 Changing Uses of Old and New Media in World Christianity 419
Jolyon Mitchell and Jeremy Kidwell
32 Global Evangelical and Pentecostal Politics 432
Paul Freston

III. Christianity Since 1800: An Analysis by Regions and Traditions 449
33 The Middle East and North Africa, I: Egypt and North Africa 451
George Berbary
34 The Middle East and North Africa, II: Christians in the Ottoman Empire and in Bilad al-Sham 458
Souad Slim
35 African Christianity: Historical and Thematic Horizons 468
Lamin Sanneh
36 Christianity in Western Europe 488
Simon Coleman
37 Russia and Eastern Europe 500
Scott M. Kenworthy
38 Latin America and the Caribbean 511
Stephen Dove
39 North America 523
Amanda Porterfield
40 South Asia 535
Chandra Mallampalli
41 China 546
Daniel H. Bays
42 Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia 561
J. Nelson Jennings, Yong Kyu Park, and Antolin V. Uy
43 Christianity in Australia and Oceania (ca. 1800–2000) 575
Stuart Piggin and Peter Lineham
44 The Historical Development of Christianity in Oceania 588
Manfred Ernst and Anna Anisi
45 Roman Catholicism since 1800 605
Thomas P. Rausch
46 Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity 617
John A. McGuckin
47 Anglicanism 628
Kevin Ward
48 Protestantism 641
Alister McGrath
49 Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity 653
Allan H. Anderson
50 Indigenous and Vernacular Christianity 664
Michèle Miller Sigg, Eva M. Pascal, and Gina A. Zurlo

IV. Expansion and Secularization: A Demographic and Statistical Analysis 683
51 The Transmission of Christian Faith: A Reflection 685
Andrew Walls
52 The Demographics and Dynamics of the World Christian Movement 699
Todd M. Johnson
53 Christianity in Europe and North America: Decline, Transition, or Pluralization? 719
David Martin

Index 733

Those Tricky Corpses

A graduate student of mine working on the great St. Irenaeus of Lyons has been researching the persecution of Christians in southern Gaul in the late second century when Irenaeus was briefly--Providentially?--out of town and thus escaped being killed. He returned to find much of the Christian community devastated and the persecutors disposing of the bodies in such a way that the relics could never be found and used to pray over.

Closer to our own day, Scott Kenworthy's magnificent study The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism, and Society after 1825 revealed, inter alia, that the Bolshevik destruction of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra also entailed the destruction of relics and saints' bodies there in the hateful but mistaken belief that in destroying the relics of their faith, the supposedly superstitious and stupid peasants would in fact have that faith itself destroyed.

Christianity's despisers thus often know of the power of the dead even if Christians themselves have forgotten or refuse to acknowledge that power. A new book brings this phenomenon squarely into focus: Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton UP, 2015),

The publisher gives a detailed table of contents here, where you will note ample attention paid to the Christian East.

About this book the publisher tells us:

From its earliest centuries, one of the most notable features of Christianity has been the veneration of the saints—the holy dead. This ambitious history tells the fascinating story of the cult of the saints from its origins in the second-century days of the Christian martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. Robert Bartlett examines all of the most important aspects of the saints—including miracles, relics, pilgrimages, shrines, and the saints’ role in the calendar, literature, and art.

The book explores the central role played by the bodies and body parts of saints, and the special treatment these relics received. From the routes, dangers, and rewards of pilgrimage, to the saints’ impact on everyday life, Bartlett’s account is an unmatched examination of an important and intriguing part of the religious life of the past—as well as the present.

Secularism and Religion in Russia and Ukraine

Scott Kenworthy, author of the splendid history of Trinity-Sergius Lavra which I discussed here, just alerted me that he has a chapter in a new book edited by Catherine Wanner that is supposed to be released later this month: State Secularism and Lived Religion in Soviet Russia and Ukraine (Oxford UP, 2013 [paperback]), 304pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

State Secularism and Lived Religion in Soviet Russia and Ukraine is a collection of essays written by a broad cross-section of scholars from around the world that explores the myriad forms religious expression and religious practice took in Soviet society in conjunction with the Soviet government's commitment to secularization. The implementation of secularizing policies invariably shaped the forms of religious expression that emerged in Soviet Russian and Soviet Ukraine. Religious practices across confessional groups over time reflect the waves of intensification and relaxation of repressive practices. During the post-world War II period, which most of the essays in this volume address, repressive tactics shifted from raw coercion and violence to propaganda and agitation as the main means to suppress religious practice and belief in the public sphere. Unlike other studies that have focused on such forms of repression, the authors in this volume consider how some communities and individual believers were able to adapt their practices and beliefs to the social, political, and ideological constraints of Soviet society so as to pursue their beliefs. The volume thus offers a new perspective on Soviet secularization that moves beyond the formation of policies and decrees to consider two additional dimensions. First, the essays engage how governing mandates to suppress religion and promote a secular society were experienced by believers. Second, this approach allows the authors to illustrate the variety of secularizing polices and how they were invariably implemented across regions, over time, and in response to perceptions of local religious practice. By considering the intersection of religious practice and Soviet secularizing policies, this collection expands our understanding of religiosity in the region and illustrates how specific denominations and the believers within them adapted to the conditions set by socialist modernity.

This book reads something like a who's-who, featuring some of the most prominent names in East-Slavic historiography today, many of whom have been featured on here before: 

Introduction - Catherine Wanner

1. Subversive Atheism: Antireligious Campaigns and Religious Revival in Ukraine in the 1920s - Gregory L. Freeze
2. GPU-NKVD Repressions of Zionists: Ukraine, the 1920s - Olga Bertelsen
3. Christianity and Radical Nationalism: Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky and the Bandera Movement - John-Paul Himka
4. The Revival of Monastic Life in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra after World War II - Scott Kenworthy
5. ''They burned the pine, but the place remains all the same'': Pilgrimage in the changing landscape of Soviet Russia - Stella Rock
6. Confession in Modern Russia and Ukraine - Nadieszda Kizenko
7. Time and Space of Suffering: The Soviet Past in the Memoirs and Narratives of Evangelical Christian Baptists - Olena Panych
8. Preaching the Kingdom Message: Jehovah's Witnesses and Soviet Secularisation - Zoe Knox
9. The Revival before the Revival: Popular and Institutionalized Religion in Ukraine on the Eve of the Collapse of Communism - Victor Yelensky

The Trinity-Sergius Lavra and the Heart of Russia

I earlier noted several recent books all treating broadly the question of the relationship between monasticism and the formation of Russian identity. One of those is Scott Kenworthy, The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism, and Society after 1825 (A Woodrow Wilson Center Book) (Oxford University Press, 2010), xv+528pp.

I have finally had a chance to read it at the behest of Reviews in Religion and Theology, for which I have written a justly laudatory review. I cannot reproduce here my review of this deeply impressive book, but let me simply say that anyone who knows anything about Russian Orthodoxy and monasticism, and Russian cultural history more widely, knows the importance of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra--the heart of Russia indeed--and such an important institution has now found the important book it deserves. This, in my estimation, is church history at its best: a lucid, lavishly detailed examination of one institution (or, rather, set of institutions) through which one can clearly see and understand wider developments in Russian history, including not least the 1917 Revolution--a microcosmic view, in other words, that helpfully opens to the macrocosmic, the former helping us to more deeply understand the latter.

In addition, the second factor making this such an achievement is that Kenworthy manages something many historians do not: to be both objective in telling his story but theologically literate and sympathetic at the same time. Anyone interested in Russian history generally in this time-period, and Russian Orthodox history, as well as Russian monasticism in particular, cannot afford to overlook this superlative work of scholarship, which has already won the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer prize of the American Society for Church History.