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.

Islam and Christianity in Post-Soviet Russia

The complex realities of Muslim-Orthodox interactions in Russia continue to fascinate, and to repay careful study. A recent book builds on a considerable, and ever-growing, body of literature in this area: Languages of Islam and Christianity in Post-Soviet Russia by Gulnaz Sibgatullina (Brill, 2020), 232pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

In her book, Gulnaz Sibgatullina examines the intricate relationship of religion, identity and language-related beliefs against the background of socio-political changes in post-Soviet Russia. Focusing on the Russian and Tatar languages, she explores how they simultaneously serve the needs of both Muslims and Christians living in the country today. 

Mapping linguistic strategies of missionaries, converts and religious authorities, Sibgatullina demonstrates how sacred vocabulary in each of the languages is being contested by a variety of social actors, often with competing agendas. These linguistic collisions not only affect meanings of the religious lexicon in Tatar and Russian but also drive a gradual convergence of Russia's Islam and Christianity.

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.

Russian Conservatism

It is striking but not surprising that we have both president and patriarch pictured on the cover of a book that was published in 2019 in hardcover, and in the spring of next year will come out in paperback: Paul Robinson, Russian Conservatism (Northern Illinois University Press, 2019/2021), 300pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this: 

Russian Conservatism examines the history of Russian conservative thought from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. As Paul Robinson shows, conservatism has made an underappreciated contribution to Russian national identity, to the ideology of Russian statehood, and to Russia's social-economic development. Robinson charts the contributions made by philosophers, politicians, and others during the Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods. Looking at cultural, political, and social-economic conservatism in Russia, he discusses ideas and issues of more than historical interest. Indeed, what Russian Conservatism demonstrates is that such ideas are helpful in interpreting Russia's present as well as its past and will be influential in shaping Russia's future, for better or for worse, in the years to come.

Through Robinson's research we can now understand how Russian conservatives have continually proposed forms of cultural, political, and economic development seen as building on existing traditions, identity, forms of government, and economic and social life, rather than being imposed on the basis of abstract theory and foreign models.

Saving Russian Iconography

At the end of this month will emerge a paperback edition of a lovely, important, fascinating book first published several years ago. For all those interested in Russian history, and in iconography, this book needs a place in your library: Irina Yazykova, Hidden and Triumphant: The Underground Struggle to Save Russian Iconography, trans. Paul Grenier (Paraclete Press, 2020), 224pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this: 

This dramatic history recounts the story of an aspect of Russian culture that fought to survive throughout the 20th century: the icon. Russian iconography kept faith alive in Soviet Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. As monasteries and churches were ruined, icons destroyed, thousands of believers killed or sent to Soviet prisons and labor camps, a few courageous iconographers continued to paint holy images secretly, despite the ever-present threat of arrest. Others were forced to leave Russia altogether, and while living abroad, struggled to preserve their Orthodox traditions. Today we are witness to a renaissance of the Russian icon, made possible by the sacrifices of this previous generation of heroes.

Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought

I have been delighted to be asked to contribute to several Oxford handbooks and collections over the last few years. But even before doing so I recognized how valuable these books were, which very often feature leading scholars in various fields giving a helpfully comprehensive treatment of a given area. That will be no different in a forthcoming handbook late this year: The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought, eds. George Pattison, Randall A. Poole, and Caryl Emerson (Oxford UP, November 2020), 736pp.

About this collection the press tells us this:

The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought is an authoritative new reference and interpretive volume detailing the origins, development, and influence of one of the richest aspects of Russian cultural and intellectual life - its religious ideas. After setting the historical background and context, the Handbook follows the leading figures and movements in modern Russian religious thought through a period of immense historical upheavals, including seventy years of officially atheist communist rule and the growth of an exiled diaspora with, e.g., its journal The Way. Therefore the shape of Russian religious thought cannot be separated from long-running debates with nihilism and atheism. Important thinkers such as Losev and Bakhtin had to guard their words in an environment of religious persecution, whilst some views were shaped by prison experiences. Before the Soviet period, Russian national identity was closely linked with religion - linkages which again are being forged in the new Russia. Relevant in this connection are complex relationships with Judaism.

In addition to religious thinkers such as Philaret, Chaadaev, Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Soloviev, Florensky, Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Shestov, Frank, Karsavin, and Alexander Men, the Handbook also looks at the role of religion in aesthetics, music, poetry, art, film, and the novelists Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Ideas, institutions, and movements discussed include the Church academies, Slavophilism and Westernism, theosis, the name-glorifying (imiaslavie) controversy, the God-seekers and God-builders, Russian religious idealism and liberalism, and the Neopatristic school. Occultism is considered, as is the role of tradition and the influence of Russian religious thought in the West.

Here, also, is the table of contents on which you will recognize many names featured, reviewed, or interviewed on here over the years:

FOREWORD, Metropolitan Hilarion Of Volokalamsk
INTRODUCTION

PART I HISTORICAL CONTEXTS
1: Christianity in Rus' and Muscovy, David Goldfrank
2: The Orthodox Church and Religious Life in Imperial Russia, Nadieszda Kizenko
3: The Orthodox Church and Religion in Revolutionary Russia, 1894-1924, Vera Shevzov
4: Russian Religious Life in the Soviet Era, Zoe Knox

PART II THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
5: The Theological-Aesthetic Vision of Metropolitan Filaret, Oleg V. Bychkov
6: Russian Orthodox Thought in the Church's Clerical Academies, Patrick Lally Michelson
7: Petr Chaadaev and the Slavophile-Westernizer Debate, G. M. Hamburg
8: Slavophilism and the Origins of Russian Religious Philosophy, Randall A. Poole
9: Nihilism, Victoria Frede
10: Dostoevsky, George Pattison
11: Tolstoy, Caryl Emerson
12: Vladimir Soloviev as a Religious Philosopher, Catherine Evtuhov

PART III THE RELIGIOUS-PHILOSOPHICAL RENAISSANCE, 1900-1922
13: God-seeking, God-building, and the New Religious Consciousness, Erich Lippman
14: Theosis in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Religious Thought, Ruth Coates
15: The Liberalism of Russian Religious Idealism, Randall A. Poole
16: Sergei Bulgakov's Intellectual Journey, 1900-1922, Regula M. Zwahlen
17: Pavel Florensky: At the Boundary of Immanence and Transcendence, Christoph Schneider
18: The Personalism of Nikolai Berdiaev, Ana Siljak
19: The Name-Glorifiers (Imiaslavie) Controversy, Scott M. Kenworthy
20: Judaism and Russian Religious Thought, Dominic Rubin

PART IV ART IN RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
21: Russian Religious Aesthetics in the First Half of the Twentieth Century, Victor V. Bychkov
22: 'Musical Metaphysics' in Late Imperial Russia, Rebecca Mitchell
23: Furor Liturgicus: The Religious Concerns of Russian Poetry, Martha M. F. Kelly
24: The Icon and Visual Arts at the Time of the Russian Religious Renaissance, Clemena Antonova

PART V RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT ABROAD
25: The Way, The Journal of the Russian Emigration (1925-1940), Antoine Arjakovsky
26: Berdyaev and Christian Existentialism, George Pattison
27: Lev Shestov: The Meaning of Life and the Critique of Scientific Knowledge, Ramona Fotiade
28: Sergius Bulgakov in Exile: The Flowering of a Systematic Theologian, Fr. Robert F. Slesinski
29: Semyon Frank, Philip Boobbyer
30: Lev Karsavin, Martin Beisswenger
31: Varieties of Neopatristics: Georges Florovsky, Vladimir Lossky, and Alexander Schmemann, Paul L. Gavrilyuk
32: 'The Work': The Teachings of G. I. Gurdieff and P. D. Ouspensky in Russia and Beyond, Steven J. Sutcliffe And John P. Wilmett

PART VI RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN SOVIET RUSSIA
33: Alexei Losev: 'The Last Russian Philosopher' of the Silver Age, Sr. Theresa Obolevitch
34: Religious Thought and Experience in the Prison Camps, Andrea Gulotta
35: Seeking God and Spiritual Salvation in Russian Cinema, Alina Birzache
36: Mikhail Bakhtin, Caryl Emerson
37: Alexander Men and Russian Religious Thought in the Post-Soviet Situation, Katerina Kocandrle Bauer And Tim Noble

PART VII ASSESSMENTS
38: Tradition in the Russian Theological World, Rowan Williams
39: The Influence of Russian Religious Thought on Western Theology in the Twentieth Century, Paul Valliere
40: The Tradition of Christian Thought in the History of Russian Culture, Igor I. Evlampiev

Russian Orthodox Nationalism in the Gorbachev Years

It is hard for me to believe that we are coming on the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Gorbachev years. But here we--almost--are. A book released in January of this year looks at a perennial theme in Eastern Christianity: the role of nationalism during a unique period. Sophie Kotzer, Russian Orthodoxy, Nationalism and the Soviet State during the Gorbachev Years, 1985-1991  (Routledge, 2020), 188pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

This book examines how the Russian Orthodox Church developed during the period of Gorbachev’s rule in the Soviet Union, a period characterised by perestroika (reform) and glasnost (openness). It charts how official Soviet policy towards religion in general and the Russian Orthodox Church changed, with the Church enjoying significantly improved status. It also discusses, however, how the improved relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the state, and the Patriarchate’s support for Soviet foreign policy goals, its close alignment with Russian nationalism and its role as a guardian of the Soviet Union’s borders were not seen in a positive light by dissidents and by many ordinary believers, who were disappointed by the church’s failure in respect of its social mission, including education and charitable activities.

Old Believers in Imperial Russia

In 2008, Roy Robson published Old Believers in Modern Russia. This was followed, in 2011, by R.O. Crummey's Old Believers in a Changing World. Crummey had, in 1970, published another work looking at the role of apocalyptic in the life of the Old Believers.  

Now, in 2018, we have what appears to be a fresh take written by Peter De Simone and set to appear this July: The Old Believers in Imperial Russia: Oppression, Opportunism and Religious Identity in Tsarist Moscow (I.B. Tauris, 2018), 272pp.

About this book we are told:

"Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will be no fourth."

So spoke Russian monk Hegumen Filofei of Pskov in 1510, proclaiming Muscovite Russia as heirs to the legacy of the Roman Empire following the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. The so-called "Third Rome Doctrine" spurred the creation of the Russian Orthodox Church, although just a century later a further schism occurred, with the Old Believers (or "Old Ritualists") challenging Patriarch Nikon's liturgical and ritualistic reforms and laying their own claim to the mantle of Roman legacy.

While scholars have commonly painted the subsequent history of the Old Believers as one of survival in the face of persistent persecution at the hands of both tsarist and church authorities, Peter De Simone here offers a more nuanced picture. Based on research into extensive, yet mostly unknown, archival materials in Moscow, he shows the Old Believers as versatile and opportunistic, and demonstrates that they actively engaged with, and even challenged, the very notion of the spiritual and ideological place of Moscow in Imperial Russia.

Ranging in scope from Peter the Great to Lenin, this book is essential for all scholars of Russian and Orthodox Church history.

Church Slavonic Making a Come Back?

Though it's long been a staple of Eastern self-presentation, and sometimes of Eastern polemics against "the Latins," the notion of Eastern Christian liturgy always being in the "vernacular" is of course rather problematic when one considers the widespread usage of Church Slavonic in Russia especially. Whose "vernacular" is that, exactly, in 2016? What does the continued usage of Slavonic entail not just liturgically but also ritually, psychologically, and politically? Treating these questions is a book published this month for the first time in paperback by Brian P. Bennett, Religion and Language in Post-Soviet Russia (Routledge, 2016), 214pp.

Having first appeared in 2011, this book is summed up thus by the publisher:

Church Slavonic, one of the world's historic sacred languages, has experienced a revival in post-Soviet Russia. Blending religious studies and sociolinguistics, this is the first book devoted to Church Slavonic in the contemporary period. It is not a narrow study in linguistics, but uses Slavonic as a passkey into various wider topics, including the renewal and factionalism of the Orthodox Church; the transformation of the Russian language; and the debates about protecting the nation from Western cults and culture. It considers both official and popular forms of Orthodox Christianity, as well as Russia's esoteric and neo-pagan traditions. Ranging over such diverse areas as liturgy, pedagogy, typography, mythology, and conspiracy theory, the book illuminates the complex interrelationship between language and faith in post-communist society, and shows how Slavonic has performed important symbolic work during a momentous chapter in Russian history. It is of great interest to scholars of sociolinguistics and of religion, as well as to Russian studies specialists.

We are also given the table of contents:

1. Introduction 2. Religion, language, religious language 3. Az, buki, vedi: the ABC’s of religious literacy 4. Translator, traitor? the debate over liturgical language 5. Logos: Slavonic letterforms and the graphic environment 6. From Marx and Lenin to Cyril and Methodius 7. Scripting Russian history: alphabet mysticism and conspiracy theory

Russian Architecture

Whatever one thinks of the ugliness of the geopolitics and war-making of the current Russian regime, there is no detracting from the often staggering beauty of much of Russian church architecture, liturgy, and iconography. I have many lavishly illustrated coffee-table books about Russian churches and architecture, and many more about Russian iconography--to say nothing of CDs of Russian liturgies, all of which are lovely indeed.

A book just released at the end of last month takes us to the ends of the earth in exploration of some recondite architectural masterpieces: William Craft Brumfield, Architecture at the End of the Earth: Photographing the Russian North (Duke, June 2015), 256pp.

About this book we are told:

Carpeted in boreal forests, dotted with lakes, cut by rivers, and straddling the Arctic Circle, the region surrounding the White Sea, which is known as the Russian North, is sparsely populated and immensely isolated. It is also the home to architectural marvels, as many of the original wooden and brick churches and homes in the region's ancient villages and towns still stand. Featuring nearly two hundred full color photographs of these beautiful centuries-old structures, Architecture at the End of the Earth is the most recent addition to William Craft Brumfield's ongoing project to photographically document all aspects of Russian architecture.

The architectural masterpieces Brumfield photographed are diverse: they range from humble chapels to grand cathedrals, buildings that are either dilapidated or well cared for, and structures repurposed during the Soviet era. Included are onion-domed wooden churches such as the Church of the Dormition, built in 1674 in Varzuga; the massive walled Transfiguration Monastery on Great Solovetsky Island, which dates to the mid-1550s; the Ferapontov-Nativity Monastery's frescoes, painted in 1502 by Dionisy, one of Russia's greatest medieval painters; nineteenth-century log houses, both rustic and ornate; and the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Vologda, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in the 1560s. The text that introduces the photographs outlines the region's significance to Russian history and culture.

Brumfield is challenged by the immense difficulty of accessing the Russian North, and recounts traversing sketchy roads, crossing silt-clogged rivers on barges and ferries, improvising travel arrangements, being delayed by severe snowstorms, and seeing the region from the air aboard the small planes he needs to reach remote areas.

The buildings Brumfield photographed, some of which lie in near ruin, are at constant risk due to local indifference and vandalism, a lack of maintenance funds, clumsy restorations, or changes in local and national priorities. Brumfield is concerned with their futures and hopes that the region's beautiful and vulnerable achievements of master Russian carpenters will be preserved. Architecture at the End of the Earth is at once an art book, a travel guide, and a personal document about the discovery of this bleak but beautiful region of Russia that most readers will see here for the first time.