Orthodox Revivalism in Russia

Orthodox Revivalism in Russia PDF Author: Milena Benovska
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000203859
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Orthodoxy has achieved a large scale revival in Russia following the collapse of Communism. However, paradoxically, although there is a high level of identification with Orthodoxy, there is in fact a low level of church attendance. This book, based on in depth ethnographic fieldwork, explores the social background and moral attitudes of the "little flock" of believers who actively participate in religious life. It reveals that the complex moral beliefs of the faithful have a disproportionately high impact on Russian society overall; that among the faithful there is a strong emphasis on striving for personal perfection; but that also there are strong collective ideas concerning religious nationalism and the synergy between the secular and the religious.

Orthodox Revivalism in Russia

Orthodox Revivalism in Russia PDF Author: Milena Benovska
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000203859
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Get Book Here

Book Description
Orthodoxy has achieved a large scale revival in Russia following the collapse of Communism. However, paradoxically, although there is a high level of identification with Orthodoxy, there is in fact a low level of church attendance. This book, based on in depth ethnographic fieldwork, explores the social background and moral attitudes of the "little flock" of believers who actively participate in religious life. It reveals that the complex moral beliefs of the faithful have a disproportionately high impact on Russian society overall; that among the faithful there is a strong emphasis on striving for personal perfection; but that also there are strong collective ideas concerning religious nationalism and the synergy between the secular and the religious.

Religion and Identity in Modern Russia

Religion and Identity in Modern Russia PDF Author: Juliet Johnson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351905147
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Focusing on the roles of Russian Orthodoxy and Islam in constituting, challenging and changing national and ethnic identities in Russia, this study takes Tsarist and Soviet legacies into account, paying special attention to the evolution of the relationship between religious teachings and political institutions through the late 19th and 20th centuries. The volume explicitly discusses and compares the role of Russia's two major religions, Orthodoxy and Islam, in forging identity in the modern era and brings an innovative blend of sociological, historical, linguistic and geographic scholarship to the problem of post-Soviet Russian identity. This comprehensive volume is suitable for courses on post-Soviet politics, Russian studies, religion and political culture.

Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent

Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent PDF Author: John Garrard
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691125732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent is the first book to fully explore the expansive and ill-understood role that Russia's ancient Christian faith has played in the fall of Soviet Communism and in the rise of Russian nationalism today. John and Carol Garrard tell the story of how the Orthodox Church's moral weight helped defeat the 1991 coup against Gorbachev launched by Communist Party hardliners. The Soviet Union disintegrated, leaving Russians searching for a usable past. The Garrards reveal how Patriarch Aleksy II--a former KGB officer and the man behind the church's successful defeat of the coup--is reconstituting a new national idea in the church's own image. In the new Russia, the former KGB who run the country--Vladimir Putin among them--proclaim the cross, not the hammer and sickle. Meanwhile, a majority of Russians now embrace the Orthodox faith with unprecedented fervor. The Garrards trace how Aleksy orchestrated this transformation, positioning his church to inherit power once held by the Communist Party and to become the dominant ethos of the military and government. They show how the revived church under Aleksy prevented mass violence during the post-Soviet turmoil, and how Aleksy astutely linked the church with the army and melded Russian patriotism and faith. Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent argues that the West must come to grips with this complex and contradictory resurgence of the Orthodox faith, because it is the hidden force behind Russia's domestic and foreign policies today.

The Russian Orthodox Church, 1917-1948

The Russian Orthodox Church, 1917-1948 PDF Author: Daniela Kalkandjieva
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317657764
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This book tells the remarkable story of the decline and revival of the Russian Orthodox Church in the first half of the twentieth century and the astonishing U-turn in the attitude of the Soviet Union’s leaders towards the church. In the years after 1917 the Bolsheviks’ anti-religious policies, the loss of the former western territories of the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union’s isolation from the rest of the world and the consequent separation of Russian emigrés from the church were disastrous for the church, which declined very significantly in the 1920s and 1930s. However, when Poland was partitioned in 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Stalin allowed the Patriarch of Moscow, Sergei, jurisdiction over orthodox congregations in the conquered territories and went on, later, to encourage the church to promote patriotic activities as part of the resistance to the Nazi invasion. He agreed a Concordat with the church in 1943, and continued to encourage the church, especially its claims to jurisdiction over émigré Russian orthodox churches, in the immediate postwar period. Based on extensive original research, the book puts forward a great deal of new information and overturns established thinking on many key points.

Russian Church in the Digital Era

Russian Church in the Digital Era PDF Author: Hanna Stähle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000420949
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
The Russian Orthodox Church, the largest and most powerful religious institution in Russia, has become one of the central pillars of Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism. While church attendance remains low, the religiously inspired rhetoric of traditionalism has come to dominate the mainstream political and media discourse. Has Russia abandoned its atheist past and embraced Orthodox Christianity as its new moral guide? The reality is more complex and contradictory. Digital sources provide evidence of rising domestic criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church and its leadership. This book offers a nuanced understanding of contemporary Russian Orthodoxy and its changing role in the digital era. Topics covered within this book include: • Mediatization theory; • Church reforms under Patriarch Kirill; • Church–state relations since 2009; • The Russian Orthodox Church’s media policy; • Anticlericalism vs. Church criticism; and • Religious, secular, and atheist critiques of the Church in digital media. Using contemporary case studies such as Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer, this book is a gripping read for those with an interest in media studies, digital criticism of religion, religion in the media, the role of religion in society, and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Holy Rus'

Holy Rus' PDF Author: John P. Burgess
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300222246
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
A fascinating, vivid, and on-the-ground account of Russian Orthodoxy's resurgence A bold experiment is taking place in Russia. After a century of being scarred by militant, atheistic communism, the Orthodox Church has become Russia's largest and most significant nongovernmental organization. As it has returned to life, it has pursued a vision of reclaiming Holy Rus' that historical yet mythical homeland of the eastern Slavic peoples; a foretaste of the perfect justice, peace, harmony, and beauty for which religious believers long; and the glimpse of heaven on earth that persuaded Prince Vladimir to accept Orthodox baptism in Crimea in A.D. 988. Through groundbreaking initiatives in religious education, social ministry, historical commemoration, and parish life, the Orthodox Church is seeking to shape a new, post-communist national identity for Russia. In this eye-opening and evocative book, John Burgess examines Russian Orthodoxy's resurgence from a grassroots level, providing Western readers with an enlightening, inside look at the new Russia.

Stalin's Holy War

Stalin's Holy War PDF Author: Steven Merritt Miner
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807862126
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Histories of the USSR during World War II generally portray the Kremlin's restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church as an attempt by an ideologically bankrupt regime to appeal to Russian nationalism in order to counter the mortal threat of Nazism. Here, Steven Merritt Miner argues that this version of events, while not wholly untrue, is incomplete. Using newly opened Soviet-era archives as well as neglected British and American sources, he examines the complex and profound role of religion, especially Russian Orthodoxy, in the policies of Stalin's government during World War II. Miner demonstrates that Stalin decided to restore the Church to prominence not primarily as a means to stoke the fires of Russian nationalism but as a tool for restoring Soviet power to areas that the Red Army recovered from German occupation. The Kremlin also harnessed the Church for propaganda campaigns aimed at convincing the Western Allies that the USSR, far from being a source of religious repression, was a bastion of religious freedom. In his conclusion, Miner explores how Stalin's religious policy helped shape the postwar history of the USSR.

The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought

The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought PDF Author: Caryl Emerson
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198796447
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 753

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Book Description
A comprehensive collection exploring the role of ideas, institutions, and movements in the evolution of Russian religious thought, Contains cutting-edge scholarship that expands understanding of one of the richest aspects of Russian cultural and intellectual life, Considers the influence of Russian religious thought in the West and the role of religion in aesthetics, music, poetry, art, film, and the novel, An authoritative reference for students and scholars Book jacket.

Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia

Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia PDF Author: Heather J. Coleman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253013186
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book 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.

Memory Eternal

Memory Eternal PDF Author: Sergei Kan
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295978062
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 712

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Book Description
As a native speaker of Russian with eighteen years of fieldwork experience among the Tlingit, Kan is uniquely qualified to relate little-known material from the archives of the Russian church in Alaska to Tlingit oral history and his own observations.