Eresia e riforma nel Cinquecento. La dissidenza religiosa in Russia by Laura Ronchi s> De Michelis (review)

Abstract

548 SEER, 8o, 3, 2002 Ronchi De Michelis, Laura.Eresiaeriforma nelCinquecento. Ladissidenza religiosa inRussia.Studi storici. Claudiana, Turin, 2000. 256 pp. Notes. Figures. Bibliography. Index. LIT 38,ooo: Ei9.62. SIXTEENTH-CENTURYRussiawasaworldmarkedbyreformistmonks,pilgrims, wanderingpreachers,prophetsand mystics.It was a world in which religious questions extended to the entire sphere of public life, in which individual ethical choices could prove destabilizing for the difficult socio-political equilibriumthat was being constructed.In Russia, as in the West, the origins of the relationship between the Court and the Church lay in the strugglein which the confrontation of ideas was often replaced by trials, convictions, confinementsandbanishments.Butbeyond thesesimpleparallels,theRussian situationpresentedspecificcharacteristicsthatcannot be tracedbackto events that in the Westled to the establishmentof centralizedStateswith denominational Churches. This is the complex world depicted by LauraRonchi in her extremely detailed and multi-levelled historical analysis.Among these levels we findthe historyof the 'great'people (sovereigns,metropolitans,and boyars) beside everydaylife and individualdestinies;and 'reasonof state'beside ideas and faith. This volume, a milestone in studies on sixteenth-centuryRussia, painstakinglydocumentsthe Moscow heresytrialsthatwere undertakenby Metropolitan Makariifrom 1553 to I558 againstsome importantlay and churchfigures of the time. Re-examining the trials through court records and testimonies, the author reconstructs the numerous threads which link them to the development of the Muscovite State and the transformationof the Orthodox Church. The creation of a strong ecclesiastical institution capable of cooperatingwith the political power and legitimizing it saw the involvement of the most open-minded and sensitive intellectuals and provoked reactions of opposition and dissent. Furthermore,the debate was extended even beyond the walls of the monasteries to include learned laymen and restless souls. Thus, the history of the heresy trialsbecomes a privilegedlook-out point for the re-reading of the entire era. Ronchi's book is a mine of information rangingfrompolitical to economic, social and religioustopics. It providesthe outline of a society still in flux, in which politico-administrativebodies were assumingtheirown individualforms.This multifaceted,dynamicworldteems with original figurespursued by the author on the paths they chose, thereby giving a human face to historicalrigour. One of the most interesting aspects of this work, however, is the author's approach to the sources, which are fragmentary,often full of gaps and, at times, reconstructed through traces left in successive eras. For centuries historianshave interpretedthe scarcedocumentation on the trialson the basis of pre-determinedand ideological theses.The author,on the otherhand, opts 'to let [the documents] speak'for themselvesby attempting 'to drawfrom the materialwe have as much as it can give us' (p. I25)and nothing more. Where there are gaps in the documentation the scientificreconstructionof the facts leave room for hypotheses, which are declared as such by the author and alwaysadvancedwith extreme caution. The most widely-accepted thesis to date interpretedthe trialsof the I550S as proof of the fact that in Muscovy, as elsewhere, there existed a heretical REVIEWS 549 anti-Trinitarian movement against which an alliance between Crown and Church was forged, in this case between Ivan IV and Metropolitan Makarii. After being repressedin Russian territorythe movement was subsequentlyto continue to operate in Lithuania, where the exiles found refuge. Thus, these exiles were thought to be the first free thinking Russian Protestants, or dissidents,somewhat extremist,of the likesof Zwinglior Serveto. Thanks to the author'spainstakingre-readingof the sources,made possible by her vast linguistic and philological competence, she is able to tear apart such an interpretation.On the one hand, she identifiesthe political nature of the heresy trials. In this case, it was the role of the Orthodox Church in the process of the formation of the Muscovite State that came into play. On the other hand, the author outlines the universe of thought and philosophical stimulus that inspired the protagonists: there emerge fascinating, vivid portrayals of various monks and laymen, such as staretsArtemii, Matfei Bashkin, Feodosii Kosoi, Ivan Viskovatyi, who, although quite distant from Western anti-Trinitarianism,were involved in a courageous debate on the role of the Church, of which they could all feel a part. The true Christian experiencewas lived by them not only as an internalpath but also as an active commitmentto adaptingtheworldto theEvangelicalideal.These protagonists were surrounded by thousands of secondary figures, who were involved in their plight and...