Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia

Description

From sermons and clerical reports to personal stories of faith, this book of translated primary documents reveals the lived experience of Orthodox Christianity in 19th- and early 20th-century Russia. These documents allow us to hear the voices of educated and uneducated writers, of clergy and laity, nobles and merchants, workers and peasants, men and women, Russians and Ukrainians. Orthodoxy emerges here as a multidimensional and dynamic faith. Beyond enhancing our understanding of Orthodox Christianity as practiced in Imperial Russia, this thoughtfully edited volume offers broad insights into the relationship between religious narrative and social experience and reveals religion's central place in the formation of world views and narrative traditions.

Acknowledgments
A Note on Spellings and Dates
Introduction: Faith and Story in Imperial Russia. Heather J. Coleman
1. The Miraculous Healing of the Mute Sergei Ivanov, 22 February 1833. Christine D. Worobec
2. The Miraculous Revival and Death of Princess Anna Fedorovna Golitsyna, 22 May 1834. Christine D. Worobec
3: Monastic Incarceration in Imperial Russia. A.J. Demoskoff
4: Letters To and From Spiritual Elders (Startsy) Irina Paert
5: Sermons of the Crimean War. Mara Kozelsky
6: The Diary of a Priest Laurie Manchester
7: "Another Voice from the Lord": An Orthodox Sermon on Christianity, Nature, and Natural Disaster Nicholas Breyfogle
8: Ukrainian Priest's Son Remembers His Father's Life and Ministry Heather J. Coleman
9: Akathist to the Most Holy Birth-Giver of God in Honor of Her Miracle-Working Icon Named "Kazan" Vera Shevzov
10: A Nineteenth-Century Life of St. Stefan of Perm (c. 1340-1396) Robert H. Greene
11: Written Confessions to Father John of Kronstadt, 1898-1908 Nadieszda Kizenko
12: An Obituary of Priest Ioann Mikhailovich Orlovskii Laurie Manchester
13: Not Something Ordinary, But A Great Mystery: Old Believer Ritual in the Late Imperial Period Roy R. Robson
14: Orthodox Petitions for the Transfer of the Holy Relics of St. Stefan of Perm, 1909 Robert H. Greene
15: Dechristianization in Holy Rus? Religious Observance in Vladimir Diocese, 1900-1913 Gregory L. Freeze
16: Petitions to the Holy Synod Regarding Miracle-Working Icons Vera Shevzov
17: Missionary Priests' Reports from Siberia Aileen Friesen
18: Petitions to "Brother Ioann" Churikov, 1914 Page Herrlinger
19: Archimandrite Toviia (Tsymbal), Prior of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra: Memoirs and Diaries (Selections) Scott M. Kenworthy
20: From Ignorance to Truth: A Baptist Conversion Narrative Heather J. Coleman
Glossary and Abbreviations
Further Reading
List of Contributors
Index

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Former Soviet Union
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• URSS
• General officer
• Russia
• Orthodox
• Christianity
• General
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 03 septembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253013187
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY IN IMPERIAL RUSSIA
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY IN IMPERIAL RUSSIA
A SOURCE BOOK ON LIVED RELIGION
EDITED BY HEATHER J. COLEMAN
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
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2014 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Orthodox Christianity in imperial Russia : a source book on lived religion / edited by Heather J. Coleman.
pages cm
Some materials translated from the Russian.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01313-2 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01317-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01318-7 (ebook) 1. Christianity - Russia. 2. Christianity - Russia - History - Sources. 3. Christian life - Russia. 4. Spiritual life - Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov . 5. Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov - Russia. 6. Sermons, Russian. 7. Miracles - Russia. I. Coleman, Heather J., [date] editor of compilation.
BR 935.5. O 78 2014
281.9 47 - dc23
2014001386
1 2 3 4 5 19 18 17 16 15 14
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Spellings and Dates
Maps
Introduction: Faith and Story in Imperial Russia Heather J. Coleman
1 The Miraculous Healing of the Mute Sergei Ivanov, 22 February 1833 Christine D. Worobec
2 The Miraculous Revival and Death of Princess Anna Fedorovna Golitsyna, 22 May 1834 Christine D. Worobec
3 Monastic Incarceration in Imperial Russia A. J. Demoskoff
4 Letters to and from Russian Orthodox Spiritual Elders ( Startsy ) Irina Paert
5 Sermons of the Crimean War Mara Kozelsky
6 The Diary of a Priest Laurie Manchester
7 Another Voice from the Lord : An Orthodox Sermon on Christianity, Science, and Natural Disaster Nicholas Breyfogle
8 A Ukrainian Priest s Son Remembers His Father s Life and Ministry Heather J. Coleman
9 Akathist to the Most Holy Birth-Giver of God in Honor of Her Miracle-Working Icon Named Kazan Vera Shevzov
10 A Nineteenth-Century Life of St. Stefan of Perm (c. 1340-96) Robert H. Greene
11 Written Confessions to Father John of Kronstadt, 1898-1908 Nadieszda Kizenko
12 An Obituary of Priest Ioann Mikhailovich Orlovskii Laurie Manchester
13 Not Something Ordinary, but a Great Mystery: Old Believer Ritual in the Late Imperial Period Roy R. Robson
14 Orthodox Petitions for the Transfer of the Holy Relics of St. Stefan of Perm, 1909 Robert H. Greene
15 Dechristianization in Holy Rus? Religious Observance in Vladimir Diocese, 1900-1913 Gregory L. Freeze
16 Petitions to the Holy Synod Regarding Miracle-Working Icons Vera Shevzov
17 Missionary Priests Reports from Siberia Aileen Friesen
18 Petitions to Brother Ioann Churikov, 1914 Page Herrlinger
19 Archimandrite Toviia (Tsymbal), Prior of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra: Memoirs and Diaries (Selections) Scott M. Kenworthy
20 From Ignorance to Truth : A Baptist Conversion Narrative Heather J. Coleman
Glossary and Abbreviations
Further Reading
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK HAS BEEN A TRANSNATIONAL AND COLLECTIVE effort from its inception, and it is a pleasure to thank the many people who have made it possible.
My first debt is to the contributors who responded so enthusiastically to my initial proposal and have shaped my thinking about lived Orthodoxy in imperial Russia. I thank them all for their interesting contributions, but also for help in conceptualizing the project, for reading drafts of the introduction, for answering innumerable questions about Orthodox theology and practice, and for helping to solve various translation puzzles.
I am grateful to colleagues in Russia who assisted with the acquisition of copies of archival and published documents and images, including Alexander Polunov and Ksenia Sak in Moscow, Pavel Rogoznyi, Irina Poltavskaia, and Boris Kolonitskii in St. Petersburg, Oksana Mykhed in Kyiv, and the very helpful staff of the State Archive of Vladimir Oblast.
Contributors first presented their work to one another at a workshop, Faith and Story in Imperial Russia, held at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, on October 1-2, 2010. I am grateful to the Canada Research Chairs Program, as well as the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta, for sponsoring that event. Mariya Melentyeva provided logistical support and linguistic advice during and after the gathering. Even her family in Kharkiv got involved in sorting out the mysteries of nineteenth-century Ukrainian agricultural implements and other translation challenges! Many thanks to Melanie Marvin of the Department of History and Classics for all her help with travel and local arrangements for the colloquium. I would also like to thank cartographer Michael J. Fisher for his careful professionalism.
Janet Rabinowitch at Indiana University Press was enthusiastic about the project from the start. I am grateful for her sound advice and for shepherding the manuscript through the contract stage. Many thanks also to the anonymous readers, Paul Valli re and Patrick Lally Michelson, for their attentive reading of the manuscript and their valuable and encouraging comments. After Janet s retirement, Dee Mortensen took over the project with grace. I thank her, production editor Michelle Sybert, and copyeditor Candace McNulty for their careful work to prepare the manuscript for publication.
And finally, because they are the ones I really get up for in the morning, I would like to thank my husband, Fran ois B gin, and our children, Nicolas and Anne, for their support and love.
A Note on Spellings and Dates
WE HAVE PRESERVED THE GEOGRAPHIC TERMS IN THE FORM they are given in the sources. Thus, Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv or Kharkiv are rendered as Kiev or Kharkov in the text. Where a standard English-language form is accepted, such as for the Dnieper River, we have followed it. For simplicity, soft-signs in place names have been dropped.
All dates are given in the Julian Style used in prerevolutionary Russia. In the nineteenth century, these dates were twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar used in western Europe and North America.
Biblical quotations are rendered in English using the Revised Standard Version. The psalms were numbered differently in the Russian Bible. We have indicated this where relevant.
Maps

Map 1. European Russia in 1900. Michael J. Fisher, Cartographer.

Map 2. The Russian Empire in 1900. Michael J. Fisher, Cartographer.
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY IN IMPERIAL RUSSIA
INTRODUCTION
Faith and Story in Imperial Russia
Heather J. Coleman
STORIES LIE AT THE HEART OF EVERY FAITH, OF EVERY FAITH community, and of every individual s religious identity. Each religious tradition shares a central story that explains, orders, and thereby gives meaning to, the universe. A set of narratives of the collective experience of that story becomes the basis for religious communities, whether denominational, national, or local. And individuals develop their religious identities as they use these public stories to make sense of their own autobiographies. 1
This collection invites readers to explore how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century-Russians lived out Eastern Orthodoxy - a major Christian tradition that is relatively little known in Western scholarship and culture. Through both public narratives such as sermons, lives of saints, hymns, and clerical reports, and personal stories of faith told in diaries, memoirs, miracle tales, and confessions, the documents offered here provide new insights into the lived religious and social experience of imperial Russia.
Everyday life in imperial Russia comes alive in these texts. They are religious narratives but in most cases they also document social and political and cultural history, affording a new window into a dynamic society undergoing an accelerating and wrenching modernization. In the century before the revolution of 1917, the imperial Russian government grappled with the challenges presented by the economic, social, and political modernization of its European competitors. Despite continual - and frequently secret - efforts at reform, the two brothers who ruled Russia in the first half of the nineteenth century, Alexander I (r. 1801-25) and Nicholas I (r. 1825-55), never fully came to grips with the real need for structural transformation of their empire s increasingly archaic serf-based social and economic system and autocratic political order. Such fundamental change would come only after the humiliating debacle of the Crimean War (1853-65), which provided the impetus for the Great Reforms of the 1860s and 1870s, undertaken by Nicholas s son, Alexander II (r. 1855-81). This comprehensive program of state-directed modernization emancipated the serfs in 1861 and launched a series of further reforms to deal with the consequences of this great transformation in such spheres as education, local administration, the judicial system, the military, and the church. Virtually all the fundamental institutions of the land were overhauled, except the autocracy itself. Alexander II s son, Alexander III (r.1881-94), in vain sought to stem the change, tamp down the growing unrest, and even undo some of the reforms.