Businessmen, Priests and Parishes

Abstract

Beginning in the late socialist years, the religious situation in Soviet Union changed massively and local authors from Vladimir region describe this phenomenon as religious rebirth (vozrozhdenie). The believersoften have long-term relationships with individual priests to whom they turn for various blessings, confessions, and forms of spiritual advice, including the interpretation of dreams. The advice and interpretations given by priests differ considerably, but they generally emphasize religious action and right ritual performance. Russian orthodoxy sustains highly individualizedforms of religiosity and becomes more flexible than even its practitioners and priests like to acknowledge.