On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Orthodox Churchhad 50,000 parishes, a thousand men’s and women’s monasteries, and sixtytheological schools. By 1941, Stalin had nearly succeeded in eliminating theChurch as a public institution. Perhaps only a hundred and fifty to two hundredchurches remained active in the whole country, and every monastery and seminaryhad been closed. Although Hitler’s invasion of Russia caused Stalin abruptly tochange course—he turned to the Church to help him mobilize the population forwar—the Church nevertheless labored under severe restrictions until theGorbachev era.
With the fall of communism in 1991, the Church began torebuild its devastated institutional life. The number of parishes has grownfrom 7,000 two decades ago to 30,000 today, monasteries from twenty-two toeight hundred, and seminaries and theological schools from three to more than ahundred. Symbolic of this new era is Christ the Savior Cathedral, razed byStalin in 1931 and reconstructed in the 1990s at the initiative of PresidentBoris Yeltsin and the mayor of Moscow on its original site on the banks of theMoscow River, close to the Kremlin.
Over the past decade, I have traveled to Russia a dozentimes, with stays for an entire year in 2004–2005 and again in 2011–2012. TheWestern media have reported a good deal about the new cultural and politicalinfluence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Many observers believe that Russia isreturning to ancient Byzantine notions of a symphonia, an approach inwhich Church and state closely cooperate. Critics claim that the Church isenjoying newfound wealth and social privilege in exchange for supporting thePutin regime.
There is certainly evidence for this assertion. During mystay in 2011–2012, I saw firsthand the gulf between the church hierarchy andthe new anti-Putin political movement. Church leaders essentially ordered theirflock to avoid the demonstrations that were spilling out onto the streets ofMoscow and St. Petersburg. Believers were supposed to stay home and pray. Fortheir part, the protest leaders included no church representatives and did notappeal to the Orthodox faith to justify their stand. As far as they wereconcerned, the protest movement and the Church had nothing to do with eachother. And the Church seemed all too willing to oblige, as when Kirill,Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’, declared his support for Putin in the March2012 presidential election and condemned the feminist collective Pussy Riot forintruding into Christ the Savior Cathedral to protest the Church’s unholyalliance with Putin.
But the story of the Church’s rebirth is more complicatedthan Western analyses suggest. Most Russians now identify themselves asOrthodox and approve of the Church’s renewed social prominence. Since the fallof communism, Christmas and Easter have been reestablished as federal holidays,and on these days the churches cannot contain all the worshippers. Thousands ofchurch buildings have been restored to their former glory and again dominatepublic space. Not only President Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev butalso regional and local political officials openly profess their Orthodox faithand appear next to church officials at civic events as well as religiousservices. In just twenty years, the Church has become Russia’s largest and mostimportant nongovernmental organization. Sensing its growing social influence,the Church aspires to achieve nothing less than the re-Christianization of theRussian nation.
What these ambitions mean in practice and whether they willsucceed are far from certain. Some assert that Russia wasn’t all that Christianprior to the Revolution, and so re-Christianization is a misnomer.Others worry that the Church has become just another institution scrambling forsocial privileges in the post-Soviet system, thus turning people off to itsmessage. Nevertheless, most priests and active Church members I know from mytravels in Russia express a hope that Orthodoxy will once again become anessential part of the nation’s identity. They dream of a Russia in which churchsymbols, rituals, moral values, and teachings take hold of popular imaginationand play a leading role in shaping society.
The biggest impediment to success is Russians’ low rate ofactive participation. Although as many as 70 to 80 percent call themselvesOrthodox and have been baptized, only 2 to 4 percent regularly attend theliturgy. Even fewer keep the Church’s fasts. Still, sociological surveys haveestablished that Russia is one of the few places in the developed world wherepeople report that religion is becoming more important to them, not less. I amconstantly surprised by Russians like my friend Tanya. A well-educated andprofessionally successful Moscow resident, she questions the existence of God,never attends church services, and doesn’t even know the Lord’s Prayer, yetmakes pilgrimages to remote Orthodox monasteries, where she says she experiencesa holy world that fills her with utter joy and peace. For her, a low rate ofeveryday participation clearly does not contradict a high degree of affectiveaffiliation. The Church believes that the explanation is both simple andpowerful: Orthodoxy helps Russians understand who they are as a people and whatmakes Russia unique among the world’s nations.
Since the enthronement of Kirill as patriarch in 2009, theChurch’s slogan has become votserkovlenie—literally, “in-churching.”Kirill has challenged the Church to see all segments of Russian society—frombikers to rock music fans, from drug addicts to political candidates—as itsmission field.
Despite the deep secularization of Russian society undercommunism, Kirill is confident that re-Christianization will succeed. Orthodoxmoral and aesthetic values, he argues, lie at the heart of the nation’shistoric identity. The Orthodox tradition has embedded itself in the greatestachievements of Russian art, architecture, music, and literature. Russia can betruly Russia only if it acknowledges and affirms its Orthodox roots. Thismessage resonates with many Russians, even those who are otherwise secular inoutlook. At the same time, problems remain. Although the Church has succeededin expanding its presence in all areas of society, that has not meant thatpeople are becoming committed Orthodox disciples in the way the Church wishes.
Sretensky Monastery in Moscow provides a good example of theChurch’s limited successes in educating people in the faith. Founded in 1397,it was closed by the Soviet regime in 1925 and used by the secret police forimprisonments and executions. Today the reopened monastery is renowned for itsoutstanding choirs (one sang the national anthem at the opening ceremonies of theWinter Olympic Games in Sochi), entrepreneurial spirit, and close relationswith President Putin. Seven hundred or more people regularly attend the DivineLiturgy; on holidays, the crowds spill out into the courtyard. A second churchcurrently under construction will accommodate more than two thousandworshipers. The atmosphere of faith is impressive. Nevertheless, when I livedin Moscow and regularly attended the one weekly adult—education offering, aBible study, fewer than thirty-five people were present, and the monk’sinstruction often seemed over their heads.
The monastery’s publishing program has had more success,with more than a hundred new titles each year, covering all areas of churchlife: Christian spirituality, church history, Scripture, church music and arts,Orthodox ascetic practices, monasticism, liturgy and church prayer, and thelives of the saints. Other church presses add to a steady stream of books,brochures, CDs, and DVDs aimed at a popular audience.
The biggest publishing news of recent years has beenEveryday Saints (literally translated, Unholy Holy People), in whichArchimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), head of Sretensky Monastery and reputedspiritual counselor to President Putin, offers a series of vignettes about hisjourney from Marxist atheism into Orthodox monasticism. In contrast to Orthodox“getting things right” books, Everyday Saints depicts the Church aspeople with warts and flaws through whom God nevertheless works for good.Though six hundred pages long, the book has sold 1.5 million hard copies,making it one of the ten best-selling titles in Russia since the end ofcommunism. It has been marketed not only in religious bookstores but also insupermarkets and the Russian equivalents of Barnes and Noble. EverydaySaints, which continues to sell well, is by any measure a popular book thathas penetrated popular consciousness. But whether the book will draw itsnon-churched readers into active participation is another question.
The same combination of success and limited resultscharacterizes Russia’s first Christian university, St. Tikhon’s OrthodoxHumanitarian University in Moscow. I was a scholar-in-residence there for the2011–2012 academic year, lecturing on Reformed theology and researching theoperative theology that guides the Russian Orthodox Church’s efforts atin-churching today. Originally founded as a theological institute for layeducation, the university now boasts ten faculties: theology, missions,history, philology, religious education, church arts, sacred music, sociology,information technology, and applied mathematics. It has been ranked amongRussia’s best non-state institutions of higher education.
St. Tikhon’s mission of training a new intellectual cadre tobring Orthodox values into all areas of Russian society is very compelling,with parallels to what the U.S. Catholic Church hopes of Notre Dame or CatholicUniversity of America. St. Tikhon’s faculty boasts some of the Church’s premierscholars, and the student body is intellectually curious and hard-working.Nevertheless, I could not escape the feeling that the university was just atiny Orthodox sanctuary amid the countless profane temples to economic wealthand political power that dominate the new Moscow. The university is striving toovercome the intellectual insularity of the Soviet era, but few of the theologystudents I met had wrestled with the difficult challenges that have shapedcontemporary Western theology, such as historical criticism or theologies ofliberation.
St. Tikhon’s mission is further hampered by its limitedsuccess in placing graduates in jobs. Those seeking church positions are oftenregarded as too liberal theologically or lacking the ascetical formationemphasized by church seminaries; graduates of departments such as sociologyfind that employers often prefer students of state universities whose traininghas been entirely secular. The changing character of the student body alsocreates difficulties. Since acquiring state accreditation, the university is nolonger permitted to require applicants to submit a letter of recommendationfrom a priest. Even though most students still identify themselves as Orthodox,many have limited grounding in church doctrine and practice.
The difficulty of educating people in Christian faith is hardlyunique to Russia. But the Church’s ambitious hopes for in-churching will makelittle progress without a vibrant intellectual culture alongside its richliturgical and monastic traditions. The Russian Orthodox Church desperatelyneeds gifted public theologians today if it is to relate Christian faith to itsculture. The challenge to developing a public theology comes not only fromsecularizing forces in society but also from anti-intellectual attitudes withinthe Church. Too many priests simply want laypeople to submit to churchauthority and tradition, and too many laypeople regard Orthodoxy as nothingmore than a collection of rituals from which they pick and choose what worksfor them.
After communism, the Orthodox Church quickly revived its longtradition of social ministries. Today monasteries and lay sisterhoods andbrotherhoods play an especially important role in providing spiritual andphysical care to Russia’s sick, abandoned, incarcerated, and unemployed.
Monasteries have always been central to the Russianimagination. Their holy men and women, represented by Fr. Zosima inDostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, inspired Russians to repent oftheir sins and glimpse the mystical interconnection of all life. Some ofRussia’s greatest writers and artists made pilgrimages to the famous startsi(holy elders) at Optina Pustin. Other monasteries have been centers of socialministry.
St. Elizabeth (Romanova) has inspired many of these efforts.Elizabeth was the sister of Alexandra, the last tsaritsa. After her husband’sassassination in 1905, Elizabeth abandoned her life of royalty and used herwealth to establish the Martha and Mary Monastery in Moscow. The monastery wasa place not only of fervent prayer but also of loving care for the city’s poorand needy. The monastery did not last long, however. In 1918 Elizabeth wasexecuted by the Bolsheviks, and in the 1920s her monastery was closed, and itschurch was converted into a movie theater.
When the Church in the early 1990s began canonizing the newmartyrs of the Soviet period, Elizabeth was among the first. Her example ofpower and beauty humbling themselves to care for society’s marginalized againguides ministry in her reopened monastery. Its innovative programs for autisticchildren and homebound elderly people are models for the new Russia. As onesister told me, “We feel Elizabeth’s presence among us as we work and livewhere she did.” Other monasteries have also taken up Elizabeth’s cause.
In the 1990s, a sisterhood in Minsk, Belarus, began ministeringto men in one of the city’s mental hospitals. As patients were released, thesisters organized work for them in construction, agriculture, and church arts(such as workshops for icons, church furnishings, and church textiles). Profitsfrom these enterprises allowed the sisters to expand their ministry to otherunemployed men.
Eventually, the sisters founded a monastery in honor of St.Elizabeth on the outskirts of Minsk. When I visited in 2012, ninety nuns,assisted by two hundred members of the lay sisterhood, were providing work andhousing to more than 1,700 men, many of whom labor in the monastery’s fieldsand raise food for the St. Elizabeth community and for sale. The menparticipate fully in the rhythms of church life and receive spiritual counseland religious education. Large congregations join the sisters on Sundays andreligious holidays, supporting the monastery’s work with their offerings andprayers.
By any measure, both the Mary and Martha Monastery and St.Elizabeth’s Monastery are great successes, and their witness is especiallyimportant in contemporary Russia, where a rapid transition to a market economyleft many victims in its wake and state social services underdeveloped. TheChurch’s invitation to sobornost, that untranslatable Russian word fordeep, intimate communion and mutual care, responds powerfully to the physicalneeds and spiritual emptiness of people in post-Soviet society.
Patriarch Kirill has requested that every parish and diocesedevelop ministries that combine social outreach and evangelism. Many Churchleaders, however, believe that the state, not the Church, should takeresponsibility for social services. This response is understandable. Churchvolunteerism and social ministry are very new in Russia, since under communistrule the state controlled all social work. And they are not just new, but quitesmall in comparison to the significant problems afflicting Russian society. TheChurch’s department for social ministry has a network of approximately athousand volunteers in Moscow—a city of more than 12 million.
Nevertheless, public opinion polls indicate that theChurch’s social outreach meets with widespread approval, which is notsurprising given the heroic efforts of the nuns, monks, and lay brothers andsisters on the frontlines. The Church’s social initiatives will surely expand.Whether in-churching will result is less clear. As is true anywhere in theworld, the government is concerned with matters of licensing and training andtherefore regulating what the Church can or cannot do in its social programs.The Russian situation is further complicated by the Putin regime’s suspicion ofintermediary organizations and desire to control them.
When it comes to interpreting the communist era and modernRussian history, I discovered that Russians adopt different strategies ofselective remembrance. And they are cautious, especially with me, anoutsider—an American. On the one hand, they may have had relatives who sufferedloss of life or livelihood because of Soviet repression. On the other, they areproud of their nation’s economic and military accomplishments during thecommunist years.
The Church has a narrative of the twentieth century thatfocuses on the hundreds of thousands who suffered for their faith. This kind ofremembrance is closely linked to in-churching. To atone for the nation’shistoric sins against the Church, Russians should protect the Church and enterinto its life.
Fr. Alexander Mazyrin, a leading voice among a youngergeneration of church historians, sees the twentieth century as the time of theRussian Church’s greatest suffering and also glorification. He invokesTertullian’s dictum, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Manychurch leaders further suggest that the blood of the martyrs is also the seedof a new Russia. According to this version of historical remembrance, Russianswill experience national renewal today if they honor the Church’s greatsacrifices under communism. Russia can again become great, but only as a Christian,Orthodox nation.
To promote this interpretation of twentieth-century Russianhistory—and, by implication, Russia’s future—the Church has undertaken a seriesof canonizations. In 2000, a major church council formally recognized the“Congregation of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, Both Known andUnknown,” canonizing more than seven hundred persons. Since then, nearly 1,300additional canonizations have taken place. Almost every parish and monastery inRussia has identified its new martyrs. The Church provides for painting theiricons, composing hymns and prayers to them, publishing an official version oftheir life stories, and venerating their relics (if the communists leftanything behind). On the day of a martyr or confessor’s death, the Churchincludes his or her name in the prayers of the liturgy.
Another assertion of historical interpretation occurs atchurch memorial sites. Butovo was once a killing field on the outskirts ofMoscow. Several thousand died here for their faith, along with thousands ofother political prisoners. At the end of the communist era, the KGB offered thesite to the Church. Researchers have now documented the names of the victimsand when they died. Once a year, the patriarch celebrates an open-air liturgyon the site. A large church constructed nearby displays photographs of victims,a small collection of personal items (such as shoes and glasses) recovered fromthe site’s mass graves, and icons of those who have been canonized.
Solovki offers an even more powerful example. An island inthe White Sea only a hundred kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, it was oncethe location of one of Russia’s largest and most famous monasteries. In 1924the Soviets transformed the monastery complex into the first gulag. In cruel irony,it specialized in holding Christian believers. Some victims were bound to treesand left to be eaten to death by mosquitoes. Others died of typhoid or did notsurvive the harsh winters. Today thousands of pilgrims journey annually to theisland to worship at the reestablished monastery and venerate the places ofsuffering.
The third major pilgrimage site honors the royal family. TheChurch-on-the-Blood in Yekaterinburg stands on the site of the house in whichthe royal family was imprisoned and executed. Several miles away, a monasteryand memorial chapels have been constructed near the mine shafts into which theBolsheviks threw the bodies of the tsar, his wife, and his children. Largecrowds of Orthodox faithful gather annually on the anniversary of these events.
As powerful as these church commemorations are, otherhistorical narratives compete with them in today’s Russia. Putin has emphasizedthe nation’s sacrifice in repelling fascist Germany. Lenin’s tomb on Red Squareand his ubiquitous statues throughout the land still affirm the achievements ofcommunism. And historical amnesia is also at work. The Church’s theology ofsuffering makes little sense to a society increasingly characterized by thedrive to achieve what Russians call a “European” standard of living.
Undoubtedly the greatest barrier to in-churching stems fromdifficulties in forming Eucharistic community, which should be the centralreality of Orthodox life. In large cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg,hundreds of thousands of people live in residential areas that were constructedduring the Soviet period and therefore have no churches. For this reason, thepatriarch has announced an initiative, in cooperation with the mayor’s office,to erect two hundred new churches in Moscow. Until then, however, liturgicalparticipation will require heroic efforts from the many who live far from achurch.
Other impediments stem from distinctive Russian attitudestoward the Eucharist. Traditionally, Russian Orthodox believers have communedonly three or four times a year, and sometimes only on Great Thursday of HolyWeek. Requirements of personal confession of sin, absolution by a priest,fasting, restoration of broken relationships, and the reading of a long cycleof prayers prior to participation in the Eucharist have discouraged frequentreception. A related problem has been people’s tendency to regard Communion inexcessively individualistic terms. The holy elements have been understood toguarantee personal well-being, even physical health.
Today many priests, especially in large urban congregations,are trying to change Eucharistic practice. Regular, even weekly, Communion isbecoming more common. Preparation has become less onerous. In the parish that Iattended in Moscow, people could make confession during the course of theDivine Liturgy: One priest took confessions, while other clergy celebrated theliturgy. Sometimes, the head of the parish offered a general absolution, and areader chanted the preparatory prayers on the people’s behalf. Nevertheless, many Russians still do notunderstand receiving the Eucharist as incorporation into the Church in itsfullness. They may arrive at the last minute just for Communion or leaveimmediately afterwards. Their goal is simply to receive the bread and wine fortheir personal benefit.
The quality of relationships within a parish also matters.Vladimir Vorobyov, rector of St. Tikhon’s University, has identified“community” as the most pressing task before the Russian Orthodox Church today.And sociological surveys suggest that most Russians do not seek or expect asense of mutual concern and care in the Church. They prefer just to drop in tolight candles or order prayers when they have personal needs. The Church’sinvitation to “life together” does not interest them.
When Kirill became patriarch five years ago, the prospectsfor in-churching seemed promising. Hailed as one of Russia’s most charismaticpublic speakers, he enjoyed popular support in the Church and beyond. In thelast couple of years, however, the Church has encountered stiff resistance. Anew anti-clericalism, as Russians call it, has emerged. The Russian mediaregularly portray the Church as obsessed with wealth and privilege rather thangood works. Kirill has been taken to task for his own excesses: a $30,000 Swisswatch, an exclusive apartment along the Moscow River, and skiing vacations inSwitzerland. The Church’s conservative stances on sexuality and abortion, andits rejection of the democracy movements in Russia and Ukraine, have angeredliberally minded Russians, while Orthodox fundamentalists have attacked Kirillfor not pressing Putin to forbid pornography and criminalize publicbelittlement of Orthodox moral values.
Overall, what has occurred so far is less the in-churching ofRussian society than the incorporation of the Church into all dimensions ofRussian society. The state has actively supported this process of “in-socializing”the Church. Putin affirms the Church’s essential place in society by personallyreturning significant buildings and famous icons that the communistsconfiscated and by attending the Easter Vigil in Christ the Savior Cathedral.He solicits the Church’s opinion on social legislation relating to health andabortion, and promises that the state will protect the Church from slander anddefamation. The prosecution of Pussy Riot is one notable example. Moreover,Putin regularly honors the Church’s unique place in Russian history andculture. The patriarch sat next to the president in the reviewing stands aboveRed Square at last year’s celebrations of the 825th anniversary of the foundingof Moscow.
This effort at re-Christianizing national identity, if notsouls, does not necessarily mean that the Church will become a state church.Orthodox leaders regularly affirm the constitution’s separation of Church andstate. They know that accommodation to state interests can destroy thespiritual freedom of the Church, as happened when Peter the Great abolished thepatriarchate and effectively made the Church a department of the state—and ashappened again under communism. Moreover, re-Christianization does not requireevery Russian to become Orthodox. The Church recognizes that Russia is composedof many different ethnic and religious groups, and that individuals should befree in matters of religion. A coerced faith is no faith at all.
Instead, the expansion of the Church into society reflects abelief that Orthodoxy has a powerful and enduring influence over the Russianimagination. The Church today promotes its role as the principal interpreter ofthe nation’s identity with considerable confidence. The Church claims aprivileged place in Russian society because it believes that Orthodoxy bestpreserves the historic identity and values of the Russian people. No longerpushed to the margins, the Church, with its symbols, rituals, and teachings,believes that it tells Russians who they really are as a nation.
The Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra (a lavra is a majormonastery—only four monasteries in Russia have that designation), north ofMoscow, is perhaps Russia’s most famous pilgrimage site. For generations,Russians have come from all over the country to venerate the monastery’srelics, miracle-working icons, and holy waters. Prominent political andintellectual leaders have asked its abbots for spiritual and politicalguidance. It’s in many ways a focal point for the fusion of Christian idealswith Russian identity.
Today’s Russia is different from Peter the Great’s, differentfrom Tolstoy’s, different from Stalin’s. But I have joined the thousands ofRussians who make pilgrimages to the lavra each year. They take the same roadsand pathways as their ancestors. Then, at their destination, they glimpse whatmany generations have sought and beheld: Holy Rus’. Orthodoxy’s vision ofdivine beauty and truth briefly touches them. They are at once chastened by thepettiness of their worldly loves—and elevated by a sense of divinetranscendence that unites them not just with Christ, but also with the highestachievements of Russian culture.
We should not discount these experiences. Russia is acountry deeply damaged by decades of communist rule. But Russians think ofthemselves as a great nation and civilization, not just a second-rate Europeanpower still recovering from a failed political experiment. Orthodoxy offersthem a sense of what is valuable about their culture and how they are part of,yet different from, the West. This is the deepest source of its power inRussia.
This power comes with great temptation, of course. TheRussian Orthodox Church has hoped that its growing social prominence would helpit win people to the Gospel, but the opposite may come to pass. The NorthAmerican experience has taught us that it’s only too easy to confound civilreligion with Christian faith, thus undermining the Church’s loyalty toChrist’s kingdom.
Some critics assert that the evidence is already in. Theybelieve that the Russian Orthodox Church has made a pact with the devil, whogoes by the name of Vladimir Putin. I have no power of prophecy. I havelearned, however, that the Russian Church has many gifts, many strengths. Todaythe peril in Russia to genuine Christian faith comes not from tsarism orcommunism but instead from an emerging global culture that reduces human lifeto material acquisition and consumption. In such a time, appeals to the spiritualgreatness of the Russian nation may be an essential witness to the Gospelrather than a capitulation to the powers that be.
John P. Burgess is the James Henry Snowden Professorof Systematic Theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Image by Cayambe via Creative Commons. Image cropped.
