A Borderland Mission: The Russian Orthodox Church in the Black Sea Region

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mara Kozelsky
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Northern Coast ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Old Believers

Turning to the Russian Empire’s southern borders, Mara Kozelsky assesses Orthodox missions in the provinces of “New Russia” on the northern coast of the Black Sea with a focus on the work of Archbishop Innokentii (Borisov) in the mid-nineteenth century and his attempts to strengthen Orthodoxy in this ethnically and confessionally diverse region. Kozelsky argues that Orthodox leaders saw the Orthodox faith, rather than language or culture, as the key to assimilation into the empire, but that they respected the juridical stature of Muslims and various Protestant groups and worked around rights given to Catholics after the 1847 concordat with Rome. Some success came of Innokenty’s efforts among the Russian sectarians and Old Believers, but mission work among the Crimean Tatars and Protestant colonists were largely fruitless. In the end, “Christianizing” the region came not so much from individual conversions as from reconstructing the region’s Christian past and promoting large public celebrations that drew upon centuries of Byzantine history and the Christian past of the region to promote a Christian identity for the region.

scholarly journals The Yedinoverie Church in the Dnipro Ukraine in the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church (the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries)

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Natalia Dianova
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Article ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Soviet Power ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Old Believers ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of

In the presented scientific article, an attempt was made to study the origins of the origin of the Yedinoverie Church in the Dnipro Ukraine, the main stages of its development in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the definition of a place of common faith in the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church. Historical conditions and peculiarities of the emergence of uniformity are analyzed as a form of compromise between the Old Believers and the official Orthodox Church. The role of the Slavonic and Kherson Archbishop Nikifor (Feotoki) in the origin of the common religion and the reaction of the Holy Synod to its actions is examined. The process of creating Yedinoverie Church and the dynamics of its development in different regions of the Dnipro Ukraine is studied. In the context of the topic under consideration, scientific and interest documents are published and archived, which give an opportunity to consider certain aspects of the activities of the clergymen of the faith Edinoverie Church. The attitude of soviet power and the official Orthodox Church to the unity of faith at various stages of the period under investigation is considered. The main criteria of pressure on the Old Believers to join them in the Yedinoverie Church are clarified. It is noted that the activities of the Russian government did not bring the desired results and the number of co-religionists did not increase significantly. The reasons were the unwillingness of the Old Believers to change their spiritual priorities and the disappointment in the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church. With time, already in the first half of the XX century, the Yedinoverie Church, fulfilling its mission of associating schismatics with official Orthodoxy, became an integral part of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its church temples and monasteries gradually changed their status to Orthodox.

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 Splits and sects in the Azov region and the authorities of the Russian Empire: Failed compromise in the nineteenth century

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 480-489
Author(s):  
Tamara S. Olenich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Russian Empire ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Old Believers ◽  
Interfaith Relations ◽  
Azov Region ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The 19Th Century

The article discusses the features of the emergence and spread of sectarian organizations and Old Believer communities in the Azov region in the 19th century. It is shown that the processes of the spread of sectarian organizations century were very active, which is explained by the fact that sectarian organizations had a broad social base and expanded dynamically, despite restrictions from the official government. The laws in force at that time limited the activities carried out by the Russian Orthodox Church in counteracting the process of promoting sectarian teachings at that time. The article illustrates that some of the representatives of sectarianism disguised themselves as Orthodox and compactly lived within the boundaries of church parishes. Proselytizing sectarianism was especially active in the territory of the Yekaterinoslav province by organizations such as the Molokans, Khlysts, Skoptsy, Old Believers, and others. This article characterizes the prevailing political and legal conditions for the spread of the sects, as well as the features of the system of religious relations that have developed in the region. On the basis of archival data, the number of such sects as the Molokans, the Whips, the Old Believers and the Evangelists, etc., was studied. The specificity of religious relations between representatives of different religious groups in the Azov region is analyzed within the framework of a unique phenomenon — a polymodel system of the interfaith relations.

scholarly journals Russian Church Schism and the Formation of “Two Russias”

2014 ◽  
pp. 130-138
Author(s):  
Kirill M. Tovbin
Keyword(s):  
17Th Century ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Old Believers ◽  
Church Schism ◽  
Spiritual Movement ◽  
Negative Identity ◽  
Postmodern Spirituality

Describes the course and nature of Raskol (splitting of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century). The author considers the effects of the split on Old Believers, which led to the enforced adaptation of ideological modernism that combined with their original traditionalism. While proceeding from participants of traditional spiritual movement to religious adepts, Old Believers have developed their own ideology and negative identity (which are the main points of the modern type of religiosity). Though Old Believers confronted Modernity both ideologically and mentally, they used veiled postmodern mechanisms, which are actively run today for shaping stylistics and imitationalism of the postmodern spirituality.

scholarly journals Bishop Apollos (Belyaev) and Development of Vyatka Diocese in 1866—1885

2021 ◽  
pp. 396-412
Author(s):  
M. Yu. Polovnikova
Keyword(s):  
Local Population ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Old Believers ◽  
Missionary Work ◽  
Historical Comparative ◽  
First Time ◽  
Positive Results

Using mainly historical-comparative and historical-genetic methods, the issue of the development of the Vyatka and Slobodsk dioceses, which coincides within the borders with the Vyatka province, under Bishop Apollos (Belyaev), is considered in the article. The author pays special attention to the process of organizing religious, educational and missionary activities, and up to the appointment of Bishop Apollos, the results of this work were insignificant. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time it comprehensively examines the activities of the Vyatka Bishop Apollos in terms of the implementation of a nationwide religious course, which included active educational and missionary work of the local clergy. Under Bishop Apollos, to increase the influence of the clergy on the local population, including the Old Believers and non-Orthodox, important transformations were carried out: a separate vicariate was allocated in the diocese, the Vyatka Committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society and the Vyatka Brotherhood of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker were opened, and the work of the local clergy was also generally reorganized. This gave the first positive results in strengthening the position of the Russian Orthodox Church among the local population of the Vyatka diocese.

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.

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 Fates of priests of Russian Orthodox Church of Old-Believers in the ancient centres of Starodub and Vietka in 1920s-1960s

2019 ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
Marina V. Kochergina
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
World War ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Old Believers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church

The article is devoted to the difficult fate of the old believers' priests of the Russian Orthodox Church of Old Believers in the period of Stalin's repression, the events on the World War II East Front and the postwar period, associated with a new oppression against the Church. The author restores the fate of old believers' priests from the ancient centres of Starodub and Vietka, who managed to preserve, despite the repression by the Soviet authorities, the faith of their ancestors, to show selflessness in relation to their flock, love for the Motherland, patriotism. The analysis of published biographies of old believers' priests of the Russian Orthodox Church of Old Believers, the memories of old believers themselves, recorded by the author, allow tracing the difficult way of restoring the spiritual life of old believer communities of Starodub and Vietka in this period, to show the regional aspects of the activity of old believers' priests in the field of state-confessional relations, their interaction with members of communities.

scholarly journals Archival sources of the Russian Orthodox Church missionary activity history among the old believers of the Orenburg diocese of the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 249-253
Author(s):  
Alina Dzhanarovna Kamzina
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Development ◽  
Source Analysis ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Old Believers ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Archival Documents

The historical period considered in this paper is one of the important periods for the economic, political and spiritual development of the Russian state. The Orenburg Region at this stage was a multi-confessional region, where, despite the leading role of the Russian Orthodox Church, both non-Christian and Christian denominations, including a variety of old believers consent and sectarianism, were spread. In this regard, the anti-sectarian missionary activity of the official Orthodoxy aimed at both the old believers and sectarians became particularly relevant. Archival documents in the collections of Federal and regional archives form the basis of this problem study. The paper presents an overview of unpublished sources and their source analysis. The author analyses such groups of archival sources as statistical materials, records of management sources, among which a special place is occupied by the Governors and diocesan reports, documents of personal origin, legislative materials. Among these groups of sources, the most valuable ones are records of civil and spiritual departments. The review allows to conclude about the variety of types of archival documents and their various informative features. The presented classification is not final and can be supplemented.

scholarly journals Transformation of the Orthodox Religiosity in the 1920s–1990s in the Komi Republic

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-272
Author(s):  
Victoria V. Vlasova
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Komi Republic ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Old Believers ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Church

Abstract This article analyses the influence of Soviet religious politics on society’s attitude to religion, as well as on the transformation of religious practices taking as an example the Komi Republic. I focus on the Orthodox tradition,1 as the vast majority of residents of the Komi Republic were Orthodox (Russian Orthodox Church, Old Believers). The article starts with a brief review of theoretical approaches to the study of the religious transformations during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The churches’ closing in the 1920s – 1930s and their partial reopening in the 1940s – 1950s are used to discuss changes in the manifestation of religiosity in public space. A correlation between gender, age and religious activity is demonstrated. The total control by the state over the church rituals led to a privatization of religious life, which significantly limited both the state and the church control over them. The article also describes how folk religious practices, unrelated to the church, influenced the believers’ resistance and adaptation to the political and ideological changes.

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