Unorthodox Orthodoxy? The Icon’s Role in the Reception of Russian Orthodoxy by the Volga-Kama Chuvash

Alison Kolosova

doi:10.36391/jis2/003

Abstract

This article discusses the icon’s role as a visual, sensory, and material means of encounter with the sacred realm in the context of Russian Orthodox missions in the Volga-Kama region of Russia. It argues that the icon facilitated engagement with Russian Orthodox worldview and rites before the introduction of vernacular textual learning owing to its capacity to resonate with indigenous understandings of the sacred and divine. The article draws on prerevolutionary ethnographic texts describing the role played by icons in Chuvash religious rites and argues that, rather than the dvoeverie and paganism attributed to them by the missionaries, the Chuvash were by the early twentieth century practicing an indigenous, inculturated Orthodoxy.

Highlights

Questions such as how and why religious faith, worldviews and rites have been mediated between different cultural contexts, as well as the impact of such mediation, have been pivotal issues in much recent historical, theological and anthropological scholarship
The article draws on prerevolutionary ethnographic texts describing the role played by icons in Chuvash religious rites and argues that, rather than the dvoeverie and paganism attributed to them by the missionaries, the Chuvash were by the early twentieth century practicing an indigenous, inculturated Orthodoxy
While much of the recent historiography has been devoted to the mediation and reception of the Christian faith in the context of Western European empires, there has been a growing body of literature devoted to the cultural impact of Russian Orthodox missions on the indigenous, non-Slavic peoples of the Russian Empire.[4]

Summary

Introduction

Questions such as how and why religious faith, worldviews and rites have been mediated between different cultural contexts, as well as the impact of such mediation, have been pivotal issues in much recent historical, theological and anthropological scholarship. The article draws on prerevolutionary ethnographic texts describing the role played by icons in Chuvash religious rites and argues that, rather than the dvoeverie and paganism attributed to them by the missionaries, the Chuvash were by the early twentieth century practicing an indigenous, inculturated Orthodoxy.

Results

Conclusion