Church history, a reputedly scientific discipline in imperial Russia, plunged into obscurity after the Bolshevik revolution. It was still taught in the very few theological seminaries and academies still left open, but practically nothing was published to counter the spate of atheist propaganda. The 1988 jubilee and especially the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 opened the long-closed floodgates. Many new church history books and collections of documents have been published since, especially dealing with the Russian church in the tragic 20th century, while older monographs have been reprinted or published on the Internet. New journals devoted to Russian church history have appeared but have yet to reach the quality or popularity of secular historical journals.
The first issue of 2000 of the established Nestor journal published by the Saint Petersburg branch of the Institute of Russian History and edited by S. L. Firsov is a notable addition to the increasing amount of new publications on the history of the Russian church. It is divided into five sections: Sources, Studies, Debut, Bibliography, and Reviews and Summaries.
The volume opens with Firsov’s re-publication of the diary of Apolinarii Lvov, the head the synodal Library and Archive between 1891 and 1898 (pp. 9-164). The text was first published in 1930, but contained a number of omissions and errors. Like most diaries, it is a highly subjective text, which strongly criticizes officials with whom Lvov was in contact and is especially critical of deputy Ober Prosecutor Sabler. The diary, a remarkable document of its epoch, clearly reveals the stale atmosphere and the lack of good leaders in the Synod and in Russian society at large. It is full of precious snippets about the vicissitudes of church-state relationships, which were hardly perfect. Copious notes added to the text provided by Firsov are quite helpful and enlightening.
The second contribution belongs to O. L. Fetisenko who publishes 18 letters exchanged between the eminent Russian philosopher K. N. Leontiev and his great admirer T. I. Fi-lippov, a state official at the time of Tsar Alexander III (pp. 165-204). The letters date from 1879 to 1891. Their main topics were the fierce disputes waged between the Greek and Bulgarian churches in the Balkans and the goals of Panslavism. Strongly conservative and devout, Leontiev demanded adherence to church canonical law while his correspondent followed official Russian policy which became more pragmatic in the 1860s and envisioned autonomy, but not autocephaly for the emerging Bulgarian church.
The next batch, published by Firsov, of documents covers four letters and protocols concerning the renovationist movement in the Russian church (pp. 205-236). In the early 20th century, the renovationist ranks were made up mainly of married and educated urban clergy which introduced notable reforms during the Moscow council of 1917-1918. In the 1920s, the Renovationists received full support from the Bolshevik state while traditional believers such as those belonging to the Alexander Nevsky brotherhood (doc. 4) were tried in courts and sentenced. These documents help elucidate the poignant riddle of the Renovationists, most of whom were sincere and straightforward in their desire to rid the church of its imperial and antisemitic legacy.
The Studies section begins with an article by A. E. Musin who reconsiders archaeological data (mainly graves and their artifacts) as a source of Russian christianization (pp. 239-262). According to his article, different types of burial do not necessarily provide evidence for lingering paganism and the term dvoeverie is a literary invention adopted by Soviet propaganda. His evidence enhances the available literary information about the 10th-11th century in Russia which tends to be scarce.
In his article “The All-Holy Synod and the Russian Bishops in the First Decades of Existence of ‘Church Government’ in Russia,” A. G. Zakrzhevky discusses the structure and prerogatives of the church’s ruling body after the abolishment of the Patriarchate in 1721 (pp. 263-274). His conclusions are pessimistic. The Synod was created by the state and served its interests. Devoid of any initiative and rights and turned into the puppets of the tsarist regime, bishops sometimes behaved dismissively or even rebelled, such as Rostov Metropolitan Arseny Matsievich who was tried twice and died of cold and hunger in a Revel dungeon.^[1] Zakrzhevky relies only on published works in the writing of his article.
M. V. Pul’kin builds on his previous research of Karelian Orthodoxy in his article dealing with interethnic relations in the Olonets diocese and efforts to improve them by introducing liturgy and preaching in the vernacular (pp. 275-290). The period covered ranges from the 18th through the early 20th century. Due to specific conditions, the Karelians preserved remnants of pagan beliefs and were prone to the influence of the Old Believers. Most of them, especially women, did not know any Russian. Although the Karelian language was taught in the Olonets theological seminary, Russian authorities adopted decisive measures to implement it in church in the early 20th century in order to counter Finnish cultural influences. Still, according to data from 1910, clergymen were not fluent in Karelian in 4 of 47 local parishes.
In the next study, S. I. Alexeeva considers the activity of the Ober Prosecutors which led the Holy Synod from 1856 till 1904 (pp. 291-310). She finds that, in spite of their different views about imperial power and the importance of the church, they all believed in the supremacy of the monarchy, the unity of the state, and the subservience of the Synod. Their unflinching conservatism triggered the opposition of the bishops who were aware of the non-canonical status of the synodal system.
V. V. Morozan dwells on the economical status of the Russian church in the late 19th and early 20th century (pp. 311-330). Needless to say, this was one of the few facets of ecclesiastical life carefully studied by Soviet scholars. They established the legend turned into a clichй that the church’s wealth was beyond any reasonable proportions. After close analysis of archival evidence, the author proves that if where there was wealth in the church, it was distributed unevenly. Some clergy and monastics were quite poor. On the other hand, church property was in many cases not administered effectively and brought only diminished profits. It is estimated that before the revolution, the church’s annual revenue, augmented by state subsidies, amounted to more than 200 million rubles, quite a handsome sum for that period.
А. N. Kashevarov, the author of three monographs on the early relationships between the Russian church and the Bolshevik state, acquaints readers with the results of his research on the fate of the monasteries after the revolution (pp. 331-342). 165 new cloisters, mostly nunneries, were founded in 1900-1917. The total revenue of Russian monasteries was about 20 million rubles, a small portion of which came from agriculture. Of all 1,103 monasteries that existed in 1921, 722 were secularized. The monasteries were found incompatible with communist ideology and initiatives to turn cloisters into “communes” only delayed their demise.
The article by A. V. Zhuravskii is an attempt to unravel the intricacies of the various opposition factions in the Russian church which formed in the 1920s and 1930s. (pp. 343-372). He makes interesting comparisons with Byzantium, where tension reigned between the state and the church in the 9th and 13th century. Attitudes to the policy of Metropolitan Sergii, especially after 1927, divided clergymen and believers into three categories – leftwing (Gregorians and Renovationists), centrist (three camps united in their loyalty to Sergii) and rightwing (zealots and the more moderate followers of Kiril of Kazan). How the massive catacomb movement fit into this complicated picture is not clearly elucidated.
One of the leading historians of the Russian church, M. V. Shkarovskii publishes his study on the Exarchate in the Baltic region during the Nazi occupation (pp. 373-402), drawing on his recent work in German archives. Metropolitan Sergii (Voskresenskii) professed anticommunist views and opposed local nationalist churchmen clinging to Constantinople. The Nazi authorities tolerated him, although their strategy did not envisage any Orthodox presence in the Baltic countries after the war. Religious services initially held in Nazi camps for Russian prisoners of war were later banned. Sergii managed to open a seminary in Vilnius in 1942 and approved the election of Sergii (Stragorodskii) as Patriarch which infuriated the Nazis. He was killed on April 28, 1944 and the Exarchate was disbanded half a year later.
Two students, M. V. Grekhnev and M. A. Mirkina, publish their research on the literary views of
K. P. Pobedonostsev who was Ober Prosecutor in 1880-1905 (pp. 405-416). Before his death in 1907, he produced a Russian translation of the New Testament that was strongly influenced by Church Slavonic. Pobedonostsev’s opinions of authorship and plagiarism were definitely mediaeval and influenced his worldview, which uniquely intertwined archaism and modernity.
The volume under review ends with a bibliographical survey by Firsov of monographs and other works on the history of the Russian church (pp. 419-428) as well as a review by N. D. Russev of Hristo Dimitrov’s Bulgarian-Hungarian Relations during the Middle Ages (Sofia, 1998).
All in all, Nestor (2000, № 1) represents a very good collection of miscellany mainly on the 20th century history of the Russian church. It would be simple as it would loutish to carp at putative errors of omission or commission. The main questions, I think, one should ask about such collections of this sort are: Are all the contributors competent (and, where possible, expert) in the areas they address? Is there sufficient breadth of coverage in the text to justify the title? Does each article focus primarily on the forest, and secondarily on the trees? Is the volume likely to have a long shelf-life as a genuinely reference-work, rather than limited interest as a curio? My answer to these questions is “yes”, “no”, “for the most part”, and “I’d be willing to bet”. My only regret is that, with one exception, all of the articles deal with the 20th century. One would expect a broader chronological coverage. This issue of Nestor is strongly recommended to scholars, institutions and libraries alike.