On the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in bringing the religious space of Russia in accordance with the Constitution

Reviewed by: Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy: Religion, Politics, and Strategy by Dmitry Adamsky Jacob Lassin Dmitry Adamsky. Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy: Religion, Politics, and Strategy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019. 413 pp. Dmitry Adamsky's Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy: Religion, Politics, and Strategy offers an astute view into the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and Russia's nuclear arsenal. Adamsky, a political scientist, opens new dimensions concerning the study of the ROC and the Russian state in this book, which investigates "the unprecedented role that the Orthodox faith has played in Russian identity, politics, and national security and focuses on the bond that has emerged between the Kremlin, the ROC, and the nuclear weapons community" (3). Adamsky terms the results of this association "Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy." Throughout the book, Adamsky provides a history of how the ROC"utilized the nuclear community as a tool to enhance its social and political influence" (3). His research into the symbiotic relationship between the ROC and the country's nuclear community provides new insights into just one of the myriad ways that the ROC aims to shape the direction of state policy in the current moment. Adamsky divides his book into three sections that roughly correspond to the three decades of the post-Soviet period. He asserts that each of these decades represents a different phase in the process of development of the ROC's involvement with Russia's nuclear weapons program. He begins with what he calls the "Genesis Decade," the first post-Soviet decade. Adamsky notes that, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a grassroots development of interest and engagement with Orthodoxy within the nuclear weapons community. In this decade, he stresses, the Church had to act cautiously so as not to appear overly aggressive in its attempts to influence the Russian military. Next, he speaks of the "Conversion Decade," when religion began to play a much greater role in the political life of the country, coinciding with Vladimir Putin's first decade leading the country. He notes that it is during this period that many of the senior officials became believers, or at least became more amenable to the prospect of the ROC taking a larger role in the life of the nuclear program. The expansion of religion in the nuclear corps reflects a larger trend within Russia during that time: "[As] Russian ruling elite began seeing in Orthodoxy a 'critical ingredient in the formation of a cohesive national identity,' the adoption of Orthodox symbols and narratives gradually began on a national level" (87). In the book's last section, Adamsky writes of the "Operationalization Decade," in which Russia's nuclear weapons are once again seen as a major guarantor of national security and Russian Orthodoxy has become a major facet of state attempts to define Russian national identity: "Closer relations between the state and the Church resulted in the ROC's greatest ever engagement in domestic and foreign policy" (176). Adamsky structures his work with repeating chapter titles within each of the three sections, specifically "State–Church Relations," "Faith–Nuclear Nexus," and "Strategic Mythmaking." These repeating chapters allow the reader to understand the most important thematic elements of the ROC's work to influence the Russian nuclear community and, ultimately, foreign and domestic politics. Adamsky provides a thorough look at various ways that the ROC influences those within Russia's nuclear weapons apparatus, such as through the creation of catechism courses among military personnel and clerical blessings of nuclear weapons. In doing so, Adamsky fills his book with sensational and curious details concerning how the ROC has attempted to infiltrate and cooperate with the nuclear apparatus. This repeating structure helps readers to understand the changes over time that have occurred in the relationship between the Russian military and the ROC. At times, however, the book reads as a sort of exacting catalog of the different ways that religion is present [End Page 241] in the various institutions and elements that constitute the Russian nuclear weapons apparatus. This is useful for learning granular information, but it often leads to a rather halting narrative that makes it more difficult to fully ascertain Adamsky's larger arguments...

Why Science and Faith Need Each Other: Eight Shared Values That Move Us beyond Fear

Piiskop Platoni roll õigeusuliste eestlaste vaimse vastupanu juhtimisel 1918. aasta Saksa okupatsiooni ajal

Fake news is created as ordinary news stylistically but it consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes (aimed at misinforming or deceiving people). The text is generally constructed to cause negative emotions and feelings in readers: fear, panic, distrust, and paranoia. It is done to manipulate the opinion and consciousness of a large number of people and eventually leads to changes in the values, ideas and attitudes that already exist in the public awareness. The result is a schism that has already gone beyond the usual spiritual strife. Moreover, its expansion has weakened the defining feature of Russian Orthodoxy which lies in trust and support of the state and authorities. The Russian Orthodox Church has to deal not only with public health crisis but also with profound differences within its ranks over the churchgoers’ behavior in the conditions of a pandemic. The article analyzes legal regulations and mechanisms for countering fake news about the Russian Orthodox Church, and provides examples from the judicial practice. It also determines the mechanisms of the worshippers’ reaction to the fake news involving the Russian Orthodox Church. Using semiotic methodology, the author reveals re-encoding of the symbolic meaning of such signs as “Russian Orthodox cross” and “red cross”. The connotative meaning of these signs leads to contradictions in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction. The article examines the problem of searching for effective mechanisms for educating the younger generation and its social integration in the context of the discrepancy between the model of youth socialization and the changed conditions of social relations, which are affected by the ongoing "new wars" and escalating social conflicts. The purpose of the study is to reconstruct and substantiate the model of youth education of the Russian Orthodox Church as a special methodology and technology for the socialization of the younger generation, which has significant potential for the use of its elements in the system of secular institutions of social education. Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of the study is the dialectical method, with the help of which the model of education of the Russian Orthodox Church is considered in its development, contradictions are taken into account, common and special features are established, and the potential of typology is provided. The historical approach ensured the identification of the nature of the evolution and development trends for the model of youth policy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ideas of the cultural approach determined the work with the meanings of cultural phenomena. Equally, the axiological approach made it possible to take into account the value assimilation of reality, the attitude towards Orthodoxy, and, based on the consideration of behavioral motives, projection onto the process of education. At the same time, included observation gave an understanding of the relationships and behaviors that constitute the cultural norm among believers. The opportunity was used to consider the socialization of the young generation on the basis of the cognitive and existential image (paradigmatic approach), formed in the tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church. In order to describe the macro-structures and processes of institutionalization, the methodological premises of structural functionalism were used. This approach was combined with the activity-based direction of sociological theory in the study of the micro-level of the process under study. From the standpoint of the systemic approach, the considered model of education appeared as a phenomenon occupying a separate place in social reality as a single whole, which determined the understanding of its elements as a hierarchically organized system of the entire youth policy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The functional method determined the action and role of the socialization model as a separate link in the system of other phenomena in their interconnection and interdependence. Results. The article analyzes the youth policy of the Russian Orthodox Church in the modern history of Russia. In the context of escalating global threats and challenges, an effective mechanism for social education of the younger generation and its social integration has been established. A number of deficiencies in the state youth policy have been identified, the most significant of them are: the reproduction of a hedonistically oriented discourse, the normative ambivalence of the youth transit management system, the underdevelopment of activity-based technologies for working with young people, as well as the lack of continuity and synchronization between the institutions of supporting childhood and youth. The conclusion is substantiated that the search for sources for their elimination in the Soviet model of working with young people is not constructive. The paper addresses the experience of implementing social education of young people, implemented by the Russian Orthodox Church. Its generalization made it possible to distinguish three stages of development: the first stage (1991-2000) is formation; the second stage (2000-2014) is institutionalization; and the third stage (2015 - present) is adaptation under the influence of global threats and geopolitical instability. Based on the analysis of key documents regulating work with youth, the authors reconstructed and verified the model of social education, which is implemented by the Russian Orthodox Church. Conclusions. The model of youth education implemented by the Russian Orthodox Church is based on a clear system of principles and involves the creation of a comprehensive set of sample situations that allow young people to internalize the normative and value model of Orthodoxy and transmit it to other youth communities. In this regard, this model is an effective tool for the socialization of the younger generation, the formation of their life philosophy and inclusion in real activities to transform their lives, as well as an opportunity to transform state youth policy and develop new forms of social education of the younger generation in a situation of geopolitical instability and social crises.

Introduction. The turn of the 1980s – 1990s in the history of our country is characterized by the liberalization of the social system, which changed, in particular, the relations between the state and the Orthodox Church. One of the crucial issues in this area is the consideration of state policy to involve the Russian Orthodox Church into joint partnership. It allows determining the place and role of the Orthodox confession in the life of post-Soviet Russia. The article analyzes the features of the historical development of the economic policy of regional authorities aimed at involving the local diocese into joint social partnership in 1990s – first decade of the 2000s. The purpose of the research is to reveal a comprehensive chronological framework of the historical aspects of economic policy carried out in relation to its involvement into social partnership. Materials and Methods. To achieve this goal, both unpublished archival documents and published sources were used. The main source for the article were the materials from the funds of the state historical archive of the Chuvash Republic and the state archive of modern history of the Chuvash Republic (documents of official records management of public authorities and religious organizations), which are first introduced into scientific use. The study is based on the principle of historicism, comparative-historical and descriptive methods, which revealed the content of the research. Results. According to the results of the study of economic policy of the Chuvash authorities to involve local Orthodox community into joint partnership in 1990s – first decade of the 2000s, the authors give a comprehensive description of the considered historical processes. In particular, two stages concerning the beginning of sate and church social partnership in the Chuvash Republic are proposed and described. The first phase is characterized by preconditioning (acknowledgement of the Russian Orthodox Church’s leadership in spiritual revival of the local population, economic support of the church revival, etc.) and the origin and growth of the social partnership model of state and church relations (the period of 1990s). The second stage (first decade of 2000s) is the time of approval and implementation of the social partnership relations model between the Chuvash authorities and Chuvash diocese. The main characteristic of the period are the agreements between the diocese and healthcare institutions, educational institutions, justice institution regarding the issues of spiritual and patriotic education, opposition to totalitarian sects, etc. Discussion and Conclusion. In general, the priority in social partnership in the Chuvash republic in the period of 1990s – first decade of 2000s was given (comparing to, for example, pre-Christian beliefs) to the Orthodoxy, which was determined mainly by its historic significance, its special role in the cultural life of the region. At the same time at the beginning of first decade of 2000s there are events (Chuvash diocese took part in the opening of the monument of the “Covering Mother”, the Russian Orthodox Church took part in discussions regarding the ban of pre-Christian beliefs publications), which proved the fact of considering the Russian Orthodox Church by the authorities not only from the position of social, but also from the point of political partnership.

SOMMARIO: 1. La riforma di Pietro il Grande e la paralisi della Chiesa - 2. La diffusa aspirazione a ridefinire i rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa - 3. Verso il superamento dell’intolleranza religiosa - 4. Le prese di posizione di Antonij (Vadkovskij) e di Sergej Witte - 5. La reazione del Pobedonoscev – 6. Il Memorandum dei 32 - 7. Il riconoscimento della tolleranza religiosa - 8. I vescovi e la riforma ecclesiastica - 9. Il Manifesto del 17 ottobre e i ritardi nella convocazione del Concilio. The Russian Orthodox Church at the Beginning of the 20th Century ABSTRACT: Peter the Great abolished the Patriarchate and entrusted the direction of the Church to a Holy Synod led by a laymen ( Ober-prokuror ). This reform had the consequence to paralyze the Church, as pointed out by F.M. Dostoevskij and by several outstanding Russian scholars. At the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century the necessity to overcome the relationship of subjection of the Church to the State was clearly perceived both by the intellectuals and inside the Church. The Tsar himself realized that there was a need of a change: the Fundamental laws were consequently modified and religious tolerance was acknowledged on April 17th 1905. Of paramount importance was the role played by the Prime-minister Sergej Witte and by the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg Antonij (Vadkovskij) to overcome the conservative ecclesiastical policy carried out by the Ober-prokuror Konstantin Pobedonoscev. The answers given by the bishops to a questionnaire issued by the Holy Synod on July 27th, 1905, confirmed that the problem was clearly felt also inside the Church. The Council of the Russian Church, which was supposed to be gathered at the beginning of the century, was summoned several years later, at the eve of the bolshevik coup d’etat .

The study subject is recreation of the former Church of the Presentation of the Lord at the Feldjegersky Corps as departmental church of the Russian Federation Feldegersky Service. The study objects are the works of the researchers studying the Church history, archives and periodicals covering the Church history and the Russian Federation legal acts. The study is relevant because of increasing activities of organizations and individuals aimed at eliminating or changing traditional Russian spiritual and moral values. The issue discussed in this article is a proposed measure for the Russian Federation to counter emerging threats. The article uses the following methods: historical and legal analysis and synthesis, systemic-structural, functional and formallogic approaches. The subject itself presents scientific novelty, as it has not been previously explored by other researchers. The article for the first time accumulates the works of Church history researchers and provides new sources, containing new information about the Church history. The article concludes that it is possible to recreate this Church as a departmental temple of Feldegersky Service and that this meets the interests of the Russian Federation, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Federation State Feldegersky Service, which in this regard would benefit from the interaction, that will enable the latter to expand the program of patriotic, historical and ethical education of its employees. This in its turn will increase the level of historical knowledge, patriotism and compliance with ethical standards and rules as well as standards of official conduct among its employees. The Russian Orthodox Church will be able to legally carry out its missionary activities in the State Feldegersky Service of Russia. For Feldegersky Service employees, the Church will become a place to unite them, transmit traditional spiritual and cultural values, historical traditions, and support them additionally in their official tasks.

In the digital age, social media have become especially relevant in creating the image of the Russian Orthodox Church. They have their own characteristics and provide a different image of Orthodoxy in comparison to traditional media.The article presents the results of a study of the media image of the Russian Orthodox Church during the coronavirus lockdown in Russia from January 3 to April 30, 2020. We used a social media analysis system “Kribrum”. At the first stage, content on the Russian Orthodox Church and coronavirus was analysed, and the top 35 influential media were compiled. Taking into account the political attitude of the media, they were divided into state (conservative), neutral (without an editorial agenda); oppositional (liberal). The rating did not include Orthodox media, which indicates the low influence of the Church on the consciousness of users. The basis of the information space is formed by non-religious and opposition media with high ratings. At the second stage, with using the method of content analysis, the image of the Russian Orthodox Church and its constituent elements were analysed – the image of the Orthodox faith, the Patriarch, priests, believers. Two poles are highlighted, between which the images of the Russian Orthodox Church are built. In the state media, the Russian Orthodox Church is presented as a state institution, a patriotic organisation uniting all Orthodox Christians. It performs a psychological function and helps believers to survive the period of a pandemic through prayers. Oppositional (liberal) media show the Russian Orthodox Church as an archaic, self-serving and pro-government organisation that has turned out to be unable to prepare for a pandemic and to make the right decisions so that believers do not get coronavirus. Rhetorical, technical and analytical (social technologies) methods of framing the image of the Russian Orthodox Church are revealed.It can be argued that the Internet is dominated by a stereotypical negative and distorted image of the Russian Orthodox Church. This leads to a violation of the understanding of the social functions of the Church and a decrease in its role in public life.

Religion has an essential effect on the development of any society since it impacts religious norms and models of behaviour, establishes priorities and values, influences gender relations, predetermines gender roles, and influences the establishing of certain traditions, laws, and customs. This article is a review of the historic position of the Russian Orthodox Church – the dominant religion in Russia – its past and current status in Russia, and the issues relating to women in Russian socio-cultural and religious community. While there is a lack of research on the Russian Orthodox Church and its influence on Russians and, particularly, Russian women, the increased religiosity in Russia within the last decade requires us to study the Russian Orthodoxy and its impact on people’s lives and its attitude to gender. This article provides a deep analysis of the impact of the Russian Orthodox Church on the image of women in Russia. It has been argued that Russian national character and heritage was formed by the Russian Orthodox Church and the existing gender stereotypes in Russia have been significantly impacted by the Russian Orthodox Church and have mainly been derived from the interpretation of the New Testament by the Russian Orthodoxy and its clergy. Particularly, gender roles and the perception of family, and marriage are understood to be in compliance with the values of the Russian Orthodox faith. For the faith the most important purpose of marriage is the birth and raising of children and the chief responsibility and duty of a woman is to care for her husband and children as these are considered as a way of the woman’s service to society and to God.

The interaction between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Empire in the context of military personnel training in military educational institutions is analyzed in the article. Pedagogical conditions of effective interaction with learners in order to cultivate qualities characterizing the Defender of the Faith, Tsar and Fatherland are identified in the article. The author considers some changes in the Russian Orthodox Church development in military educational institutions which influenced the training process during the main historical stages of military school establishment and development. The historical and pedagogical analysis gives us a chance to track internal connection between the Russian Orthodox Church activity in the armed forces and military educational institutions and the effective upbringing of spiritual and moral qualities as well as to define specifics of religious and political influence of the Russian Empire authorities in the officer corps educational system. From our point of view, the most productive aspect in establishing and strengthening Christian cultural and moral values of military service was the joint activity of military educational institution command and higher education institution church stipulated by the daily routine in the learner training. Underlining the importance of the Russian Orthodox Church role in learner preparation in the Russian Empire military educational institutions, the author unveils the influence of a religious factor on the Defender of Fatherland image establishment with regard to an environmental approach.

Goal. The purpose of the article is to consider the peculiarities of the activities of Protestant sects (primarily Baptists) on the territory of the Kharkiv province at the beginning of the 20th century. The chronological boundaries of this study cover the period from 1905 to 1908. This is the period between the proclamation of freedom of conscience in the Russian Empire and the beginning of the reactionary policy of the tsarist government and its law enforcement agencies. Research methodology. The methodological basis of the article consists of the principles of historicism and objectivity, implemented using a number of methods: general logic (analysis and synthesis), as well as classification, comparative and periodization methods. Scientific novelty. The subject of a special scientific study was the organizational and propaganda work of religious dissidents in conditions of relative tolerance and lack of pressure from the state and the official church. Conclusions. Imperial manifestos of 1905 and 1906. on freedom of conscience and religion completely changed the lives of the sectarians of the Kharkiv province. It was established that in the period from 1905 to 1909 in the province, dissidents were not hindered by either the police or the Russian Orthodox Church. The latter was in a kind of embarrassment from the great freedoms that were granted to the sectarians. In addition, the dissidents themselves everywhere violated the provisions of the manifesto on the prohibition of propaganda and actively called on the Orthodox to join the sect. The period 1905–1909 can be called a time of experimentation, when both sectarians and representatives of the authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church had to try to coexist under conditions of mutual compromise. After many decades of open confrontation, such processes encountered many difficulties in local conditions.

According to the logic of the updated RF Constitution and the UN Resolution on enlightenment religious tolerance, the latter is defined as the optimal principle of the arrangement of interreligious relations. This logic is also consistent with the goals of effective prevention of inter-religious aggression in the context of the implementation of the doctrine of religious security, since it takes into account the religious people’s mechanism of criminal behavior features. Meanwhile, the constitutional law basis of religious security, including Russian legislation on freedom of conscience, is not consistent with such a logic. This indicates the importance of correcting the existing legal approaches. The proposed statement and consideration of the question in the research aspect are new. This study, continuing for more than ten years, touches upon a wide range of constitutional and legal issues of the religious space, and it is reflected in more than 40 articles by the authors. The research methodology is based on the dialectical methodology. The elements of other methodological approaches are also used, in particular,the methods of falsification and abstract slice. The study conducted surveys of more than nine hundred people, who identified themselves as religious people, religious agnostics, and atheists. The purpose of this research aspect presented in this article is to justify the importance of correcting the legal regulation of interreligious relations from the point of view of the criminological significance of religious tolerance for religious security purposes. This aspect is relevant in connection with the accumulation of ideas of religious exclusivity in society, as well as the rejection of religious tolerance. This article finds the criminological significance of religious tolerance as one of the most important factors of religious security, and it points out the inferiority of patience in matters of faith as the Russian legislative antipode of religious tolerance. The authors also highlight the absence of religious tolerance in Russia, and they propose priority measures to ensure legal institutionalization of tolerance in the religious space. These measures include, in particular, the use of the positive potential of the two largest religious communities in Russia: Sunnism and canonical Orthodoxy — and proposals for a legislation change.

The aim of the scientific article is to analyze statistical data on Russian pilgrims - clergymen who visited the Holy Land in the late 19th century based on official reports and data published by the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS). The author also pays serious attention to the issue and system of organizing pilgrimage trips to Palestine for clergymen from Russia and the role of the IOPS in this process. Currently, there are no comprehensive works devoted to this issue in Russian historiography. At the same time, consideration of the specifics of the participation of clergymen in general pilgrimage flows from the Russian Empire to the Holy Land will allow us to determine the number of such persons, the features of their everyday services, participation in liturgies, organization of pilgrimage caravans and visits to Christian places of worship. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that it actually provides for the first time data and their assessment on the number of priests who visited Palestine for pilgrimage purposes in the 1880-1890s. It is important that the IPPO did not specifically conduct a sample of worshipers by class and occupation, which complicates the study of the issue. At the same time, individual little-studied reports and reports of the IPPO commissioners in the Holy Land, the leaders of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, the memoirs of clergymen, as well as other scattered information published in the official publication of the society "IPPO Messages" allow for a scientific justification and verifiable conclusions. The research methods used in writing the article are of a general scientific and special nature. Using analysis and synthesis, statistical data on pilgrims in the Holy Land were collected and evaluated. A comparative historical analysis made it possible to determine the role of the IPPO in supporting the pilgrimage of clergymen to holy places. In the future, it is planned to study the features of the interaction of the IPPO and the Russian Orthodox Church with the Eastern Patriarchates in the context of supporting the pilgrimage of clergy to the Holy Land, to identify and characterize the features of the organization of pilgrimage trips based on the recollections of clergy, to analyze the nature of contacts of the IPPO and the Russian Orthodox Church with the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria in the context of the development of pilgrimage to Palestine of clergy in the late 19th – early 20th centuries.

Reviewed by: Old Believers in a Changing World Lucien J. Frary (bio) Robert O. Crummey , Old Believers in a Changing World (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011). 267 pp. Index. ISBN: 978-0-87580-650-1. Since the collapse of communism, the study of religious movements in the Eastern Orthodox world has reasserted itself. For the first time in more than half a century, Russian scholars became free to explore the spiritual dimensions of the past, as enthusiasm for religiosity replaced the long-defunct Marxism-Leninism piety. The rekindling of interest resulted in a flowering of scholarship on the history and culture of the Old Believers, the conservative offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church that emerged sometime after the mid-seventeenth century. The rise of Old Believer studies is a most welcome event for students of Russian history, early modern history, popular religious culture, and the history of Christianity in general, and reflects the renewed appreciation of Orthodoxy's significance in the history of the region. The present volume summarizes current research trends and suggests ways of employing interdisciplinary techniques and literatures to understand the largest "schismatic" movement in Russian history. Robert Crummey, the doyen of North American students of this phenomenon, has collected eleven separate essays into an enlightening synthesis of a crucial aspect of Russia's religious heritage. Divided into four thematic sections, "Historiography and Theory," "Seventeenth-Century Origins," "Eighteenth- and Nine teenth-Century Communities," and "Old Believer Life and Scholarship in the Late Twentieth Century," the book begins with a sympathetic yet balanced definition of its topic. A diverse and complex group of devout Christians, the Old Believers (staroobriadtsy) consider themselves the last purely Orthodox Christians on the planet. Crummey refers to staroobriadchestvo as "the groups of Eastern Orthodox Christians who have defined and identified themselves by their rejection of certain liturgical practices of the post-Nikonian Russian Orthodox Church" (P. 6). The movement emerged during the 1660s and early 1670s when polemicists began to criticize the Nikonian reforms and champion the traditional Russian liturgical practice as the only authentic version of Christian expression. Because of their conviction as the last faithful remnant of Christ's teaching, Old Believers scrutinized their beliefs in relation to the official Russian Orthodox Church with deep determination and energy. Tending to live apart from mainstream society, their vision is both eschatological and apocalyptic. [End Page 413] Until recently, scholarly and polemical writing on Old Belief has tended to fall into two general categories: the works of ecclesiastical historians and those of the populists. The first category, emerging in the second half of the seventeenth century, focuses on the liturgical, polemical, and canonical aspects of the movement that divided the Russian Orthodox Church. 1 Beginning in the 1850s, a new approach (the second category) turned to the political, social, and economic circumstances in which Old Belief developed. Scholars of this school, led by A. P. Shchapov, considered the movement to be a form of democratic opposition to the administrative constraints imposed by the state. 2 Each school of scholarly discourse brought with it particular insights and advantages, yet the dialogue between them remained minimal. Meanwhile, in the West, the few publications on Old Belief eschewed monocausal explanations. Pierre Pascal, for example, saw Old Belief as a clash between irreconcilable visions of Christianity, while Serge Zenkovsky viewed it as a complex spiritual movement for religious renewal. 3 Now, in the early 2010s, the study of Old Belief is in position to synthesize these hierarchies of explanation, based on an infusion of new archival sources as well as new approaches and analytical tools from other disciplines. As Crummey [End Page 414] points out, Old Belief was not an entirely sui generis movement; historians need to engage with the enormous literature on other popular and nonconformist religious movements to best understand its meaning and historical significance. Several remarkable features of the new work being done by Russian and Western historians of Old Belief reflect an intermingling of research from across the globe and the infusion of research methods from other disciplines. For example, the study of Old Belief represents an excellent avenue to test the boundaries of routine categories such as "elite" and "popular...