SUMMARY:

In contemporary Russian Orthodoxy, alternative regimes of religiosity are developing alongside traditional modes of organizing religious life within the framework of parishes. All alternative regimes are united by a common ideology of Orthodox nomadism that caters to the demands and habits of the urbanized Orthodox majority. Those who compose this majority prefer pilgrimages and visits to Russian Orthodox fairs to a regular religious life in their local Orthodox communities. Thus, they try to evade a premodern structure inscribed in the very concept of a church parish with its strong control over the parish’s members and explicit hierarchy. The article by Zhanna Kormina offers an in-depth analysis of different forms of such avoidance and escape. It is based on the author’s long-term sociological-anthropological study carried out in the regions of the Russian Northwest and Sverdlovsk.