Orthodox Believers Research Articles

Life of Saint Nikephoros of Sebaze as an Illustration of the Perception of the Iconoclastic Era by the Byzantines in Later Times (Including Russian Translation of the Life)

Introduction. This work is concerned with the perception of the iconoclastic era in the Life of St. Nikephoros of Sebaze preserved in the form of enkomion written by an anonymous author presumably in the mid 10th century, and to clarify some details of Nikephoros’ biography. Methods. Source research and analysis, philosophical hermeneutics, comparative textological and historical research are the methods employed in this work. Sources on the subject include the edition of the Life of St. Nikephoros by F. Halkin, Lives of St. Patriarch Methodios, St. Nicetas of Medikion and St. Makarios of Pelekete, the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. Analysis. The life of St. Nikephoros written in the 10th century by a monk of the monastery of Sebaze illustrates how the iconoclastic era was seen by the next generations who no longer found living witnesses of those times. The hagiographer knows almost nothing certain about his hero, except that he was a monk, suffered for icons in the epoch of the second iconoclasm, and founded a monastery. For ordinary monks in the 10th century, the iconoclastic heresy was associated with the names of emperors Leo III, Constantine V and Leo V, which testifies to the success of the myth created by iconodules in the 9th century that the iconoclastic heresy, unlike the others, was not born in the church environment, but appeared in the imperial palace and was implanted by the authorities without much support from believers. Silence about the last iconoclast emperor Theophilos can be presumably attributed to the success of his posthumous rehabilitation. The past is completely mythologized in the Life: all bishops, priests and monks ardently struggled for their faith, enduring torment and hardship; nothing is said about the Orthodox believers who had fallen into heresy. The hero of the Life itself represented a composite character of a Christian ascetic and confessor of iconoduly completely devoid of individual traits. Results. The analysis of the life shows that by the 10th century the iconoclastic era began to be perceived by believers – at least, by ordinary monks – as the time of epic exploits, and the knowledge of historical events became fragmentary and was based on myths and legends distributed in the church environment rather than real facts. Appendix. The article is accompanied by Russian translation of the Life of St. Nikephoros of Sebaze with a scientific commentary.

Seasonality of Infant Mortality in Barnaul in the Second Half of the 19th — Early 20th Centuries (with Reference to Parish Books)

This article analyses the seasonal peculiarities of infant mortality and identifies periods of children’s increased vulnerability to adverse factors during the year. The article assesses infant mortality rate and the impact of various causes in the formation of the situation with infant mortality. Referring to the database of Barnaul parish register books, the author analyses deaths of Orthodox believers between 1869 and 1911. During the period in question, Russia was characterised by a high level of infant mortality, and in Siberia and Barnaul it was ultrahigh. In the early twentieth century, European Russia and the Urals faced a decline in infant mortality. In Barnaul, the rate of the decline was significantly lower. Seasonal infant mortality rates showed increased infant mortality from May to August with peak values in June. Summer months accounted for 50.8% of deaths, spring for 21.7%, winter for 15%, and autumn for 12.5%. In the summer, more than 80% of cases in the structure of infant mortality resulted from infectious and intestinal diseases with an overwhelming percentage of intestinal infections (79%). The percentage of deaths from intestinal infections (smallpox, measles) and bacterial diseases (diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlet fever) was less significant. Most of the deaths from respiratory diseases occurred in spring, followed by winter mortality and autumn mortality. The seasonality rate of child mortality (aged between 1 and 4) shows high values in June and July. In the summer, infant mortality was 1.4 times higher than child mortality and 2.1 higher than total mortality. A quarter of infant mortality was neonatal. The extreme level of the infant mortality rate in Barnaul was accounted for primarily by post-neonatal mortality cases.

Deification in Russian Religious Thought: Between the Revolutions, 1905–1917 by Ruth Coates

Reviewed by: Deification in Russian Religious Thought: Between the Revolutions, 1905–1917 by Ruth Coates Paul Gavrilyuk Ruth Coates, Deification in Russian Religious Thought: Between the Revolutions, 1905–1917. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019. Studies of deification have gone viral. Since non-Orthodox scholars stopped practicing intellectual distancing from deification long ago, there is a growing epidemic of monographs looking for the traces of the theme in every possible direction: scripture, the Greek and Latin Church Fathers, medieval theologians, those who labored on every side of the Reformation and our side of modernity. Surprisingly, however, a complete story of the doctrine of deification’s coming to its own in modern Orthodox theology remains to be written. Ruth Coates’s book fills an important lacuna in this larger story. The subtitle of the book—“Between the Revolutions, 1905– 1917”—establishes the Sitz im Leben and provides the temporal limits of the study. The “revolutionary situation” in Russia led to a considerable amount of social turbulence, which provided fertile soil for spiritual and religious awakening: the Russian religious renaissance. The narrow temporal window chosen by Coates allows for a fine-textured, focused synchronic assessment of the four main sources or “case studies”: Tsar and Revolution (1907), a collection of essays by Dmitry Merezhkovsky, his wife Zinaida Gip-pius, and their friend, Dmitry Filosofov (the three are conventionally shortened to “the Merezhkovskys”); The Meaning of Creativity (1916) by Nikolai Berdyaev; The Philosophy of Economy (1912) by Sergei Bulgakov; and The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (1914) by Pavel Florensky. The “case study” approach illustrates the intellectual daring of the Russian religious renaissance by considering the implications of deification not only for theology (Florensky), but also for political theory (the Merezhkovskys), economics (Bulgakov), and personalist philosophy (Berdyaev). The book also includes two background chapters on deification in the Greek Church Fathers and in the nineteenth-century Russian religious thinkers. The ordering of the main four chapters is not chronological, since Berdyaev’s book was written and published after the rest of the works considered. Rather, this book’s argument seems to move from the works the least indebted to the patristic understanding of deification (the Merezhkovskys) to the works that show a more robust engagement of the Church Fathers (Florensky). To put this differently, the Merezhkovskys focused on the wrong ways to go about deification (idolatrous sacralization of the person and office of the Russian Tsar), whereas Florensky described the ecclesial way of going about deification (virginity and asceticism). For the Merezhkovskys the abrogation of the office of the patriarch by Peter I was more than a secularizing move based on the Protestant models; it was, at least in the minds of many Russian Orthodox believers, a blasphemous usurpation of the sacred authority of the Church by the Tsar, who accepted quasi-divine honors reminiscent of the pagan Roman Emperors. The [End Page 223] Merezhkovskys proposed an anarchist solution to the problem of the idolatrous and demonic divinization of absolute monarchy. In fleshing out this solution, they creatively drew on the imagination of Russian sectarian groups, which held that all their religious adherents, with due divine assistance, could become Christ. The Merezhkovskys located this form of deification in the sanctification of the flesh and criticized “historical Christianity” and “institutional Church” for unduly negative attitudes towards the body. Coates notes sectarian tendencies in the “new religious consciousness” espoused by the Mere-zhkovskys and points out that their critique of the Church was not grounded in a careful study of the Orthodox tradition. Berdyaev wrote The Meaning of Creativity at the time when he parted with the Merezhkovsky circle and the “new religious consciousness,” but as Coates astutely observes, much of his former sensibility, especially the suspicion towards the “institutional Church,” still remains in this book. Berdyaev compares a genius and a saint (in his example, Pushkin and St. Seraphim of Sarov) and claims that the creative act of a genius is as valuable in the eyes of God as the ascetic struggle of the saint. For Berdyaev, the creative act has a redemptive value inasmuch as it aligns human agents with the creative power of God and with divine freedom. As Coates carefully...

«Не позволять простому народу… ежегодное и бесцельное шатание заграницу». Записка тайного советника А. И. Темницкого о русских паломниках на Восток. 1910 г.

The article introduces a note about Russian pilgrims, written by the privy councillor A. I. Temnitsky on January 26, 1910. The original text is stored in the files of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire. Substantial analysis of the source accompanies its publication. The document is being introduced into scientific use for the first time with minor abbreviations that do not affect its style or content. The identity of the note’s author has not been established; it is known that Temnitsky owned land in the Minsk gubernia and lived in Kiev for a time. The article is to characterize this source on the pilgrimage policy of the Russian Empire found in the archival file “Correspondence on transportation of pilgrims and on pilgrims’ daily routine en route to Jerusalem, 1897-1914.” The hypothesis about the crisis of the pilgrimage policy of the Russian Empire on the eve of the First World War has been tested with traditional methods of historical science: comparative, historical, problem-chronological, retrospective. The note of Temnitsky enables to correct the existing ideas on pilgrimage practices of the Orthodox believers from the Western gubernias of the Russian Empire. The document offers a different view on the Russian pilgrimage policy of the early 20th century, undermines the researchers’ arguments that it was the conservative part of that Russian society that supported the activation of pilgrimage activities in Russia. The publishers underscore the value of the suggestion made by Temnitsky: Russia should have its own chapel in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and extend the activities of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission to Egypt. The publishers conclude that Temnitsky’s note gives researchers an alternative point of view on the organization of Russian pilgrimages on the eve of the First World War and demonstrates systemic problems in the implementation of the Russian pilgrimage policy that contrast with increased statistics on the entry of Russian subjects in Palestine.

Мольбы о помощи. Письма православных верующих Папе Римскому 1931 г.: новые документы из архивов Ватикана

Мольбы о помощи. Письма православных верующих Папе Римскому 1931 г.: новые документы из архивов Ватикана

Рефлексії митрополита В. Липківського на виклики перед віруючими у радянській Україні

У статті висвітленні рефлексії митрополита Української автокефальної православної церкви В. Липківського на виклики перед православними віруючими у 1920-1930-х рр. Проповіді митрополита віддзеркалили уявлення духовенства про життєві перипетії, світоглядні кризи, що постали перед ними та вірянами в умовах суспільних карколомних змін. Митрополит В. Липківський – український пророк, який передбачив суттєві проблеми людства та християнства у ХХ – ХХІ ст. – десакралізацію особистості, безцерковне та побутове православ’я.

Constituting of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a factor in changing the cultural-civilizational paradigm of independent Ukraine.

Summary. The article deals with the close link between the diminishing influence of the Moscow Patriarchate on social and political processes in Ukraine and the restoration of the Ukrainian cultural and civilizational space. Namely, the gradual deprivation of Orthodox believers of the post-imperial syndrome, including attitudes, perceptions, behavioral models, etc., associated with the stay of Ukrainians in the foreign-language and other people's (Asian) mentality and culture of the empire. It is noted that the receipt of the Tomos on recognition of autocephaly and the constitution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) by Orthodox believers of Ukraine has a positive impact not only on the development of the OCU itself (increase in the level of theology, international and intra-Ukrainian inter-church communications, nationalization of both the cult and some Orthodox ceremonial forms, etc.), but also the level of patriotism, restoration and development of the Ukrainian-speaking environment, archetypal traditions, rituals, behavior models, etc. The conclusion is about the religious aspect of promoting Ukrainian development from the Asian to the European cultural and civilizational model.

From Pussy Riot’s ‘punk prayer’ to Matilda: Orthodox believers, critique, and religious freedom in Russia

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the configurations of belief, critique, and religious freedom in Russia since the performance of the Russian group Pussy Riot in 2012. The ‘punk prayer’ and its legal and political aftermath are interpreted as an incidence of the contestation of the boundary between the secular and the religious in the Russian legal and social sphere. The authors show that the outcome of this contestation has had a decisive impact on the way in which religion, critique, and the human right of religious freedom have been defined in the present Russian context. In response to Pussy Riot, the Russian legislator turned offending religious feelings into a crime. The article investigates two more recent cases where offended feelings of believers were involved, the opera “Tannhäuser” in Ekaterinburg in 2015 and the movie Matilda in 2017, and analyses how the initial power-conforming configuration that emerged as a reply to the ‘punk prayer’ has revealed a ‘power-disturbing’ potential as conservative Orthodox groups have started to challenge the authority of the State and the Church leadership. The article is based on primary sources from Russian debates surrounding Pussy Riot, Matilda, and “Tannhäuser” and on theoretical literature on the religious–secular boundary and human rights.

The autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: a new dividing line for Ukraine?

ABSTRACT This essay discusses the 2018 path to autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church – the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. I argue that the move towards autocephaly was dictated primarily by politico-ideological reasons and was accompanied by the rise of confrontation and a lack of cooperation. The majority of Orthodox believers, belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, opposed this process, which made them the subject of intimidation campaigns. Overall, the move towards autocephaly, instead of uniting Ukrainians, has only brought about new dividing lines in Ukraine and has contributed to the split in global Orthodoxy.

Liturgical Commemorations, Political Dissent and Religious Schism in the Russian Orthodox Church during the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract In the early Soviet period, the long Christian tradition of praying for secular and ecclesiastical rulers played an important role in Orthodox debates over legitimate authority, especially after the death of Patriarch Tikhon (Bellavin, 1865–1925) in March 1925. When Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodskii, 1867–1944), the acting leader of the patriarchal church, ordered the liturgical commemoration of the atheistic Soviet government as the secular authority and himself as the ecclesiastical authority in October 1927, he immediately provoked strong resistance from a group of hierarchs, clergy and laypersons in Leningrad. Because this opposition was expressed publicly at worship services, the Bolsheviks considered it a form of anti-Soviet agitation. For Orthodox believers, however, commemoration represented an ecclesiastical rather than a secular question. Sergii himself resisted Soviet pressure to stop commemorating his own superior, the imprisoned Metropolitan Petr (Polianskii, 1862–1937). Despite the bitter divisions among the followers of Patriarch Tikhon in the decade that followed his death, both Sergii and his opponents both prayed for Petr – a fragile thread that united the church’s contending factions.

ORTHODOX RELIGIOUS IDENTITY AND EUROPEAN VALUES: SUPPLEMENTS OR OPPOSITES?

The processes of European integration taking place on various levels and in diverse spheres of life are full of contradictions and obstacles. What bonds present-day inhabitants of Europe at the level of mass consciousness, the so-called European values are an object of heated discussion. Religion and religious values may well unite and contribute to the sense of common collective identity at different levels. At the same time, religion may lead – and in actuality often led – to ferocious and bloody conflicts. Christianity that has determined civilizational identity for the overwhelming majority of European nationstates is not unified. Orthodoxy tradition of Christianity is conceived of by elites and general public in the countries of ‘core Europe’ as a rather contradictory phenomenon. The author attempts to answer a research question: Does Christian Orthodox tradition exhibited in people’s religious identity contradict to the modern European values and, subsequently, slow down European integration? This article uses secondary quantitative approach to undertake an exploratory analysis and test religious identity effects on European value systems in six countries with predominantly Orthodox religious profile. Preliminary findings testify that two phenomena at question are not antipodes, in opposition to what is widely believed. The Orthodox faithful differ from non-believers and adherents of other confessions by several value attitudes, but these dissimilarities validate more pro-democratic and pro-European values of Orthodox believers. In particular, the latter show stronger support for democratic values, including democratic political system, and civic political culture. Strong Orthodox believers hold a more consistent system of values and worldview than non-believers, who mostly demonstrate consumerist and ego-centric attitudes.

ALTAI RUSSIA: ON THE HISTORY OF NATIONAL RESISTANCE TO THE DISCRIMINATION “ANTIRASKOL” POLICY OF THE IMPERIAL REGIME

On the basis of modern methodological positions, the article highlights the unique historical experience of the formation of a large territorial community of “bricklayers” in the mountainous areas of the Russian Altai, the system-forming core of which was the peasants migrated from northern Russian regions who were Orthodox believers in their religion. The purpose of the study is to emphasize the importance of freedom as a basic ideological value, organically inherent in this ethno-confessional community and allowing them to successfully operate in adverse political conditions. Emphasizing the love of freedom of the founding fathers of Altai Russia, the author argues that it is this quality of human capital of the Russian Old Believers that allowed them not only to withstand the long-term opposition to the expansion of the serf regime, but it also allowed to develop their economies in a market-oriented, entrepreneurial manner. Special attention is paid to the economic success of this people’s colony, the principles of organization of local self-government, collectivist relationships, lifestyles, culture and morality of the peasant Old Believers of Altai Russia. In the final section of the article, the author dwells on the final results of this phenomenal experiment and formulates the conclusion that the resistance of the Altai pioneers to the discriminatory policy of the imperial regime was not fruitless. The will to freedom helped them to maintain their relative autonomy as an autonomous communal-volost territory, which subsequently existed in fact outside the jurisdiction of the mining and imperial department.

Identity of Orthodox believers in modern Ukraine

The features of the development of Orthodox believers’ identity in modern Ukrainian society are explored. It is stated that the identity of Ukrainian Orthodox believers is characterized by the layering of several identities, combining religious and cultural components. The religious component of the Orthodox identity includes rational and irrational experience of comprehending the Christian God and appears as a world-view basis of church-confessional self-determination. For some of believers Orthodox identity means adopting a way of life and a system of values under the influence of which social identity becomes religiously colored. The determining influence of spiritual values on social behavior forms and the independence of these values from the change in political systems makes the main features of the deterministic religious factor of civic identity.The cultural component of the modern believers’ Orthodox identity is based on ideological uncertainty, undeveloped civic consciousness, globalization challenges, ideas about the traditional character of Orthodox identity. Taking this into account, it is determined that for a large part of Orthodox believers self-identification appears not so much through the confession of faith and the adoption of the Orthodox way of life as through recognition of Orthodoxy as a cultural tradition that has historically developed in the country. Awareness of belonging to culture, which stimulates the vision formation of its development ways, means actualization the civic type national identity.It is established that an important factor in the development of the Orthodox believers’ identity in Ukraine is the civilization dimension of the jurisdictional division, the problem of which has not yet been resolved. The main factor determining the development of the believers’ identity at the present stage is the creation of a Local Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Belonging to one of the Orthodox jurisdictions will further determine the Ukrainian Orthodox believers’ identification model.Keywords: confessional identity, Orthodox believer, Ukrainian society, tradition, Orthodox jurisdiction, religious community, cultural identity

Структура и содержание ценностно-смысловой сферы психически больных с религиозным мировоззрением

The purpose of the study described in the article is to elicit value and meaning elements and to describe their structure in mentally ill patients with the religious outlook. The assumptions that the value and meaning system (VMS) of believing patients and non-believing ones differ are put forward. Four groups of subjects participate in the study: “Orthodox patients” (N = 24, 9 men and 14 women, age m = 26.7 ± 6); “Unbelieving patients” (N = 12 people, 3 men and 9 women, age m = 28.9 ± 7.6); “Healthy Orthodox believers” (N = 15 people, 4 men and 11 women, age m = 30.2 ± 6.4); “Healthy unbelievers” (N = 14 people, 5 men and 9 women, age m = 29.7 ± 5.1). G. Kelly’s methodology of personal constructs is applied in the study to assess the VMS: the triad method, Hinkle’s Laddering technique, and the repertory grid technique. The results show that the VMS of mentally ill patients with the religious outlook is characterized (in the structural aspect) by a greater mutual connection of value and meaning elements than in patients who do not believe. In comparison with believing patients, the unbelieving ones display significant disintegration and reduction of multiplicity of interrelationships between various value and meaning elements. The stability of the structure and key elements in the contents of the VMS in believing patients are probably explained by their special religious attitude to the disease as well as by the possibility, despite the disease, to actualize the meaning of life though the reaching for God.

Everyday communications in religious practices

It has been determined that understanding everyday life as a socially determined sphere of religious life makes it possible to explore the religious practices of the Orthodox believer, on the one hand, as a component of social relationships and a way of incorporating into religious relations, on the other, as a means of objectifying religious experience. Within the framework of various scientific areas, communication is explored as a way to transfer information in interpersonal, group and social interaction. Communication is considered as a way of being of everyday life, a universal form of sociality, reproduced in intersubjective interaction. The everyday relations of Orthodox believers are characterized by common linguistic meanings and processes of interpretation. The identification of religious individuals and communities takes place through communication. Daily life is the basis of the communication of believers, the religious language is the main factor in the nature of everyday life level. The influence on the development of religious relations of the newest means of communication, including Internet forums, providing the opportunity for communion of the laity, clergy, monastics, believers of other faiths and religions is shown.

Karin Hyldal Christensen. The Making of the New Martyrs of Russia: Soviet Repression in Orthodox Memory. London: Routledge, 2017

Since the beginning of the 1990s the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has canonized nearly 2,000 new martyrs and confessors, Orthodox believers who were killed during the Soviet repressions (mostly between 1917 and 1941). Just during the Great Jubilee of 2000, which commemorated the birth of Christianity, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized more than 1,000 martyrs. This was the biggest canonization process in the history of the ROC. As a consequence, the profile of Russian saints has radically changed. During the first millennium of Russian Christianity (988–1988) the ROC had only 300 national saints, most of whom were primarily monastics, ascetics, or holy prelates. There were almost no martyrs during that time. Mass canonization has changed these numbers radically. At the moment, the majority of Russian saints are the new martyrs of the twentieth century. Karin Hyldal Christensen’s book is the first comprehensive attempt to explain this new phenomenon within the ROC. The Danish researcher has written more than two hundred pages in an attempt to explain: Who are the new martyrs? Why did the ROC canonize them, and what did that process look like? She focuses on explaining how the new martyrs relate to the Orthodox tradition; however, she also tries to describe the contemporary social meaning of new martyrdom. Text in English DOI: 10.25285/2078-1938-2018-10-3-145-149

Nadzieja na jedność? Herezje i heretycy w listach św. Ambrożego

This article presents the results of the analysis of the correspondence of St. Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, concerning heresies and heretics and the hope of their final reconciliation with the Church. The article consists of two essential parts, the first shows the definition and essence of heresies and heretics, including examples of heretics and how they act. The second part focuses on dealing with heretics and fighting for the unity of the Church. This section shows the ways in which this fight is taking place and the parties responsible for it: the bishops and the emperors. Reading the letters of St. Ambrose does not leave any illusions – the Bishop of Milan has gradually been losing the hope for ending such conflicts, above all with the Arians. Reasons for such an attitude are repeatedly presented in his letters – the conflict of the basilicas, the attitudes of the heretics, the weakness of orthodox believers and priests. It seems, however, that in spite of everything still smoulders in him spark of hope, because to the last letter of preserved cor­respondence he calls for return to the bosom of the Church and orthodoxy.

The narrative and moral discourse regarding marriage in Tobit

Tobit was written around the third century B.C. It is considered canonical by the Catholics and the Orthodox believers, but not by Protestants and the Jews. The story is not historical but fictional, with a very dynamic narrative, containing numerous lessons in the spirit of the OT, particularly those relating to Deuteronomy theology. The central theme of the book is marriage and the ideal marriage is portrayed in terms of physical purity, struggling against lust, faithfulness, monogamy, and the permanence of the marriage covenant. It is pointed out in many places that love, fondness, and consideration are necessary for a successful marriage. Another important condition is the endogamy of marriage, so that the spouses would be able to keep and practice their faith more easily. And finally, prayer as the expression of trust in God is posited as the foundation of a marriage whose purpose transcends the erotic and procreative functions and emphasis is also placed on the importance of consecration. So in a fun way, Tobit offers a moral lesson which ties in with Biblical morality.

Communism as the unhappy coming

We show that Eastern Orthodox believers are less happy compared to those of Catholic and Protestant faith using data covering more than 100 countries around the world. Consistent with the happiness results, we also find that relative to Catholics, Protestants and non-believers, those of Eastern Orthodox religion have less social capital and prefer old ideas and safe jobs. In addition, Orthodoxy is associated with left-leaning political preferences and stronger support for government involvement in the economy. Compared to non-believers and Orthodox adherents, Catholics and Protestants are less likely to agree that government ownership is a good thing, and Protestants are less likely to agree that getting rich can only happen at the expense of others. These differences in life satisfaction and other attitudes and values persisted despite the fact that communist elites sought to eradicate church-going in Eastern Europe, since communists maintained many aspects of Orthodox theology which were useful for the advancement of the communist doctrine. The findings are consistent with Berdyaev’s (1933, 1937) hypothesis of communism as a successor of Orthodoxy.

Annual cycles of the Orthodox believers participating in the blessing of Easter food

The author seeks to define the types of annual cycles of the Orthodox believers who take part in the preparation for Easter. The analysis is based on the data of the «Holy Saturday: An opinion poll in the temples of the Eastern Vicariate of Moscow» survey conducted on April 30, 2016. The sample size was over 13,000 respondents. The author analyzes the survey data using the method of hierarchical cluster analysis. As a result, four clusters of respondents were identified.They differ from each other in terms of respondents’ perceptions of religious holidays and their degree of involvement/detachment from an active and ideological participation in them. These four groups are (1) persons oriented toward church holidays, (2) persons oriented toward secular holidays, (3) those who do not celebrate holidays, and (4) those who celebrate them. As to heuristic results, a temporal component of respondents’ identities was explored and explained.Each cluster has its own unique calendar within the annual cycle. In some groups this calendar is determined by religious or secular calendar, while others do not take into account at all.