Synthesizing Religions: Vasily Rozanov’s “Phallic Christianity”

Henrietta Mondry

doi:10.3390/rel12060430

Abstract

Vasily Rozanov was one of the first Russian writers of the fin de siècle to create a nexus between the study of the history of world religions and the history of sexuality. He viewed Christianity’s asceticism as a source of the disintegration of the contemporary family. This article examines Rozanov’s strategy to synthesize religions and to use pre-Christian religions of the Middle East as proof of common physical and metaphysical essence in celestial, human, animal, and mythological human/animal/divine bodies. I argue that while his rehabilitation of the physical life by endowing it with religious value was socially positive, his self-proclaimed “mission of sexuality”, when politically motivated, was manipulative and incorporated the notion of the atavistic ‘survivals’. In conclusion, I explain that Rozanov’s monistic search for the divine in the physical body as well as his strategy to synthesize religions were additionally driven by his personal doubts in the preeminence of Christian eschatology.

Highlights

Rozanov (1856–1919) was one of the first writers of the Russian fin de siècle to view religious beliefs in relation to the history of sexuality
It became conventional to use both synchronic and diachronic approaches to explain differences between and within modern societies and to “mine non-Western cultures for ‘survivals’ from the past, whether as primitive practices to regulate, or as a ‘window onto the past’ study” (Yoshiko Reed 2014, p. 120). Rozanov turned his attention to the conceptualizations of the human and animal body in relation to the links with the divine across religions, and often based his opinions on readings of Scriptures, the Talmud, as well as on the study of ancient artefacts and pictorial representations taken from pre-Christian sources
Rozanov turned his attention to the conceptualizations of the human and animal body in relation to the links with the divine across religions, and often based his opinions on readings of Scriptures, the Talmud, as well as on the study of ancient artefacts and pictorial representations taken from pre-Christian sources.2. His professed missionary goal was to rehabilitate the body in all its biological activities by breaking boundaries between the physical and metaphysical essence

Summary

Introduction

Rozanov (1856–1919) was one of the first writers of the Russian fin de siècle to view religious beliefs in relation to the history of sexuality. Rozanov turned his attention to the conceptualizations of the human and animal body in relation to the links with the divine across religions, and often based his opinions on readings of Scriptures, the Talmud, as well as on the study of ancient artefacts and pictorial representations taken from pre-Christian sources.. Rozanov turned his attention to the conceptualizations of the human and animal body in relation to the links with the divine across religions, and often based his opinions on readings of Scriptures, the Talmud, as well as on the study of ancient artefacts and pictorial representations taken from pre-Christian sources.2 His professed missionary goal was to rehabilitate the body in all its biological activities by breaking boundaries between the physical and metaphysical essence. The last section assesses Rozanov’s subjectivities in his mission to synthesize religions.

Rozanov’s Mission of “Phallic Christianity”

Looking for God in an Animal

Finding a Place for the Self through Connecting with