The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia , and: Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism , and: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov': Sovremennoe sostoianie i aktual'nye problemy [The Russian Orthodox Church: Contemporary Condition and Current Problems] (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia, and: Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism, and: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov': Sovremennoe sostoianie i aktual'nye problemy [The Russian Orthodox Church: Contemporary Condition and Current Problems] Irina Papkova Wallace L. Daniel , The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia. 251 pp. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006. ISBN 1585445231. $29.95. Zoe Knox , Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism. 257 pp. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. ISBN 0415320534. $170.00. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Mitrokhin , Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov': Sovremennoe sostoianie i aktual'nye problemy [The Russian Orthodox Church: Contemporary Condition and Current Problems]. 648 pp. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2004. ISBN 5867933245. Post-Soviet Russia has been characterized by a visible resurgence of the country's arguably most important cultural institution, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). After seven decades of alternating persecution and soft repression by the atheistic Soviet state, the Church has experienced a remarkable renaissance, both in terms of recovered physical infrastructure and in social status.1 Visitors to today's Russian Federation will observe the ongoing renovation and reconstruction of church buildings, the proliferation of kiosks selling religious materials on many city streets, the ubiquitous Orthodox clerics offering commentary to the mainstream television stations, and other daily manifestations of Orthodoxy's pervasive public presence. President V. V. Putin is, according to reliable accounts, a practicing Orthodox Christian, as are an increasing number of officials in the government apparatus.2 Accordingly, scholars have begun to explore both the extent [End Page 481] and the implications of this phenomenon. Broadly, analysts have looked at the following issues: the degree to which Russian society can really be called Orthodox; the relationship between the Church and the political regime, specifically Orthodoxy's role in democratization; the position of the Russian Orthodox Church within civil society; and the contribution of Orthodoxy to the creation and maintenance of a cohesive post-Soviet Russian identity.3 The deepening of the research agenda can be easily traced: if at first scholarship on post-Soviet Russian Orthodoxy found expression exclusively in academic articles or conference anthologies, since 2004 several serious monographs on the subject have been published both in Russia and in the West, three of which are reviewed here. The disciplinary background of scholars currently working on today's Russian Orthodoxy is quite varied; it includes sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and, less frequently, historians. The methodological difficulty historians experience in tackling a modern-day subject hardly needs to be stated; at the same time, two of the three authors reviewed here—Nikolai Aleksandrovich Mitrokhin and Wallace L. Daniel—are historians by training, suggesting the timeliness of an assessment of the ways that history is employed in the scholarly analysis of the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church. This review, then, focuses not just on how the three monographs treat the subject of their inquiry but also on aspects of these works that should be of particular interest to Kritika's audience. Specifically, the review stresses the pitfalls inherent in the (unavoidable, to be sure) interpretation of a contemporary phenomenon through a particular reading of history; it also brings attention to the need for a critical reassessment of the way in which scholars (historians or otherwise) in general treat fundamental assumptions regarding the historical pattern of church–state relations in Russia. All three books are welcome contributions to our understanding of the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church. In terms of institutional analysis, Nikolai Mitrokhin's 650-page volume is the most impressive. Based on eight years of research in over 40 dioceses, the book devotes attention to almost [End Page 482] every imaginable aspect of the ROC's activities. Mitrokhin begins by dissecting the membership of the Church, critically assessing the actual number of active Orthodox believers in Russia and their socioeconomic backgrounds and analyzing the inner workings of parish communities (35–75). He then looks at the organizational administration of the Moscow Patriarchate, its economic activities, and the internal divisions among various Orthodox factions vying for control over the Church's spiritual and political agenda (76–234). The second part of the book analyzes such related issues as the...