The Russian Bible Society and the Russian Orthodox Church

1966 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Cohen Zacek
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The West ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
National Policies ◽  
European Diplomacy

The historian Presniakov has characterized the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the reign of Alexander I, as “Russia at the crossroads” (Rossiia na rasput'i). No longer content with slavish imitation of Western Europe, Russia now began to develop a culture which would be admired and emulated by the West. Once beyond the fringe of European diplomacy, the Empire now moved to the center of that arena. Shaped by her national traditions, but involved increasingly in continent-wide trends, the Russia of Alexander I was confronted by a varied and complex set of problems, both domestic and foreign, which demanded resolution. The destruction of the Napoleonic threat, the assimilation of subject nationalities, the establishment of efficient techniques and procedures of government, the articulation and implementation of national policies in education and in economic life were among the countless tasks which faced Alexander I and his advisors. Educated Russians of the day heatedly debated the most effective means of solving the myriad dilemmas.

scholarly journals Russia’s Scriptural “Reformation” in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 73-102
Author(s):  
Barbara Skinner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Biblical Translation ◽  
The Church

The Russian Orthodox Church never experienced a movement that placed the authority of Scriptures over that of the Church, which was characteristic of the Protestant reformations in Western Europe. Nevertheless, an increased emphasis on the Scriptures and a desire to translate the Bible into the vernacular arose in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Russia. Aside from the work of the Russian Bible Society, scholars have not shed much light on this trend as it occurred within clerical education. This article argues that the episode of the Bible Society was a critical chapter within a larger story of important theological and pedagogical shifts within Russian Orthodox education and values. The roots of the Russian biblical translation effort extend back to the eighteenth century, when ethnic Russian clerical scholars gained the linguistic abilities in Greek and Hebrew to translate based on the ancient texts, and when more attention began to be paid to both vernacular Russian instruction and Scriptural study in the ecclesiastical schools. These trends flourished more deeply in the first half of the nineteenth century. Thus, although Russia did not undergo a reformation in the Western sense of the word, it underwent similar internal reforms that brought the Scriptures into a more central role in the church without undermining Church authority and tradition.

scholarly journals A.V.Kartashev on the Relationship between Russian Orthodox Parishes in Western Europe and the Moscow Patriarchate in the 1920s — 1930s

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 643-666
Author(s):  
A. V. Antoshchenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Argumentation ◽  
Complex Correlation ◽  
Revolutionary History ◽  
The Relationship

The author carries out a discourse analysis of journalistic articles by well-known Russian emigrant historian, theologian, and public figure Anton Kartashev in order to understand his attitude to the schisms of the Russian Orthodox Church caused by the Russian Revolution, and to clarify his methods for shaping his readers’ perceptions of these events. This analysis reveals a complex correlation of political, religious, and historical argumentation. From the very beginning, political arguments were pushed into the background by a statement of apolitism, which initially extended to Russian emigrants. Subsequently, he abandoned apolitism as a principle of activity in exile in order to consistently pursue a policy of intransigence with the Bolsheviks. Political argumentation remained in the background compared to historical and religious facets, since the church should not interfere in politics. He consistently historicized contemporary experiences, based on a historical perspective, to give an assessment of the political orientation and concrete actions of the hierarchs. This created an illusory opportunity to maintain the legal subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate, which increasingly depended on the Bolshevik regime. He saw the post-revolutionary history of the Russian Orthodox Church as a series of schisms that weakened it. This gradually brought a precise religious argument to the forefront in substantiating specific measures to preserve the canonical structure of Western European parishes headed by the Metropolitan Eulogius, at the break with the Synod of Bishops in Sremski Karlovtsi and with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Buddhist Devotion to the Russian Tsar : The Bicultural Environment of the Don Kalmyk Sangha and Russian Orthodox Church in the 1830s

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inoue Takehiko
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Religious Services ◽  
Religious Cultures

Inoue Takehiko’s paper analyses how the close and long-lasting relationship between Kalmyk Buddhists and Don Cossacks (in the Don Cossack province) developed during the nineteenth century. This relationship was mediated both by Kalmyk Buddhist monks and the requirements of military and religious services to the Tsar, leading to transformations in the identity of this Kalmyk group. He uses the example of the ceremony surrounding the opening of a Kalmyk Parish school in 1839 to demonstrate how both parties sought to combine their socio-religious cultures in furtherance of the alliance of their interests.

scholarly journals Religion and Economics: Can We Still Rely on Max Weber?

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-148
Author(s):  
Ivan Zabaev
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Economic Ethics ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
Potential Impact

The article, within the framework of the logic proposed by M. Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, attempts to identify the core ethical category of the Russian Orthodox Church that could function in the same way as Beruf (profession/vocation) does for the analysis of Protestantism and its potential impact on the formation of the economy. The attempt to apprehend this category relies on Weber’s works that analyze the economic ethics of world religions. In particular, an effort is made to interpret the Weberian categorization of Russian Orthodoxy as a “specific mysticism”. The texts of F. Nietzsche and M. Scheler are used to decipher Weber’s thesis. The analysis of the texts of Weber, Nietzsche, and Scheler leads to the assumption that “humility” could be the category in question. In his works on the sociology of religion, Weber used “humility” to describe “mysticism” in the same vein as is “vocation” for “asceticism”. At the same time, Weber reinterprets Nietzsche’s doctrine of ressentiment to construct the typology of economic ethics of world religions. For Nietzsche, humility is often synonymous to ressentiment. In the Weberian interpretation, the thesis on ressentiment becomes a “theodicy of suffering”. In the typology of suffering, humility was associated with contemplation, or the withdrawal from the world, that is, with everything specific for mysticism as it was understood by Weber. M. Scheler also took notice of this and criticized the thesis on ressentiment, contrasting it with humility as the basic Christian virtue. An analysis of the texts of F. Nietzsche, M. Weber and M. Scheler on the ressentiment and ethics of Christianity made it possible to propose a typology of ethics that seems to be suitable for constructing hypotheses about the (potential) influence of Orthodoxy on Russian economic life.

Solzhenitsyn and the Merger of Dissent

Worldview ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 5-8
Author(s):  
William C. Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Lunar Cycle ◽  
Single Letter ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The West ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Julian Calendar

Easter comes in Russia later than in the West. The Russian Orthodox Church, conservative to its depths in so many respects, has never relinquished its ancient loyalty to the Julian calendar—and, indeed, twice in this century it has forcefully resisted efforts to abolish the embarrassment of the thirteen-day lag in that out-of-date schema. Easter of 1972, for peculiar reasons connected with the lunar cycle, came only a week after the Western churches had celebrated the feast, but if 1972 is to be signaled out for any particular note when the histories of our times are written, it will not be for this. Instead, a single letter, circulated from hand to hand and reaching the West in April, 1972, will mark this particular Lenten season as worth remembering.

scholarly journals Pastoral Care for the Sick and the Dying

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
A. Surozhskij
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Missionary Work

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (nee Andrey Borisovich Bloom, 19.06.1914— 04.08.2003) was the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ire- land from 1957 till 2003, from 1966 till 1974 he also served as the Patriarchal Exarch in Western Europe. Honoris Causa Doctor of Divinity of Aberdeen and Cambridge Universities, Hon. DD of Moscow and Kiev Spiritual Academies for theological and missionary work. His word, broadcast by the BBC and spread by means of Samizdat was greatly valued by the believers in the USSR. His books on prayer and spirituality have been translated in many languages worldwide. From 1991 his texts are being widely published in Russia.

Parties and Factions in the Russian Orthodox Church, 1480–1580: Some Observations

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 186-194
Author(s):  
Paul Bushkovitch
Keyword(s):  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The West ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church

Abstract The existence of parties in the Russian Orthodox Church 1480–1580 does not imply parties in the sense of coherent ideological groupings, as Don Ostrowski, David Goldfrank and Charles Halperin correctly argue. Iosif Volotskii and Nil Sorskii had complementary, not rival views. The issue of monastic lands was about regulation, not confiscation, and the parties were actually “old boy networks”. The Russian story needs a Byzantine context for the treatment of heresies, monastic lands, and other issues. Byzantium had different practices than the West, and so did the Russians. Western practice and terminology is not relevant.

Review of: Chronicle of the life and works of St. Theophanes the Recluse Vyshensky. I volume. Moscow: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2016. 928 p.; II vol. Moscow: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2019. 680 p. ISBN 978-5-558-1 (общий) I том. ISBN 978-5-560-4 II том. ISBN 978-5-88017-760-8

2019 ◽  
pp. 288-295
Author(s):  
Варвара Викторовна Каширина
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Spiritual Legacy ◽  
The Way

С жизнью и творчеством крупнейшего русского богослова и духовного писателя второй половины XIX в. святителя Феофана Затворника читатель может теперь подробно познакомиться в первых двух томах Летописи его жизни и творчества. Среди отечественных богословов сегодня вряд ли можно назвать какое-нибудь другое имя, кому в последнее время было посвящено столько исследований. Ежегодные Феофановские чтения, конференции и семинары 1 свидетельствуют о всё возрастающем интересе к личности и творениям святителя. Как отметил в Предисловии к первому тому Святейший Патриарх Московский и всея Руси Кирилл, «духовное наследие святителя Феофана представляется и сегодня весьма актуальным для верующего человека. Принципы духовной жизни, сформулированные в трудах святителя “Путь ко спасению”, “Начертание христианского нравоучения”, “Письма о христианской жизни” служат руководством для тысяч и тысяч содевающих свое спасение. The life and work of the greatest Russian theologian and spiritual writer of the second half of the nineteenth century, St Theophan the Recluse, is now available to the reader in the first two volumes of the Annals of his Life and Work. Among Russian theologians today one can hardly name any other name to whom so much research has been devoted lately. Theophanes' annual readings, conferences, and seminars 1 testify to a growing interest in the personality and writings of the saint. As His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia noted in the Preface to the first volume, "The spiritual legacy of St Theophanes is still very relevant for the believer. The principles of spiritual life, formulated in his works The Way to Salvation, The Outline of Christian Morals, and Letters on the Christian Life, serve as a guide for thousands and thousands who seek salvation.

The Orthodox Church and the Russian Merchant Class. Some Personal Recollections

1956 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 185-205
Author(s):  
Serge Elisséeff
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Religious Attitudes ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Childhood And Youth ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
The Church

In the Russia of my childhood and youth, at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth, religious attitudes and practices in society as a whole were still those inherited through centuries of tradition in the Russian Orthodox Church. Traditional observances had not yet, as they were soon to be, been widely questioned or neglected. Most orthodox Russians tried to live according to the rules of the Church; but I believe that the merchant class, which included my family, followed established religious practices more strictly than other laymen. Perhaps this was because they were more traditional-minded than the bureaucracy or the aristocracy.

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