Russian Sectarianism Research Articles

Religion and Revolution in a Sectarian Family of Late Tsarist Russia

Abstract In 1965, after decades of ethnographic research in primary sources first collected by Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, Soviet historian Alexander I. Klibanov concluded that despite its origins in peasant social protest, Russian sectarianism had failed to advance the goals of the Bolshevik revolution. “Darkened” by religion and under the influence of their “bourgeois leaders” and “reactionary” Tolstoyan activists, religious dissidents were content to serve the political and economic interests of the ruling classes. Klibanov’s sweeping pronouncement ran counter to previous, western scholarship, which generally viewed the religious sect as precursor of the political party, and it was specifically rebutted in 1967 by Ethel Dunn, who argued that Klibanov had not proved his conclusion that sectarians were satisfied with tsarism and opposed to revolution. Sergei I. Zhuk further pressed the case against Klibanov’s thesis in his 2004 study of the oppositional discourse of the peasant evangelical movement in southern Russia and the revolutionary activity of proletarian peasants against Ukrainian plantation owners. Soviet ideologists had disowned their “cultural predecessors,” Zhuk claimed. The case study of an exiled sectarian family that we present in this article follows in the footsteps of Dunn, Zhuk, and others to show how the anti-clerical activism of a Bessarabian Stundist, Eremei Cheban (1858–c.1930), fueled the political dissidence of his son, Khariton (1886–1962), who participated in violent anti-tsarist rebellion in the Caucasus during the 1905 Revolution.

Царствовать со Христом тысячу лет: два пророка русского милленаризма

The article explores the crossroads of two surviving groups of “old Russian sectarianism” — Molokan Jumpers and JehovistsIl’intsy — for whom the anticipation of the millennial kingdom on earth was a central doctrinal tenet. Researchers in the past, as well as modern scholars of religion, usually have not paid attention to the connection between the two movements, which was at one time quite substantial both in the doctrinal and the practical sense. Handwritten, typed and unofficially published sources gathered by the author during field work served as the principal material for the article. They include letters of Nikolai Il’in to his followers and his other writings, the memoirs of Molokan elders, and the historical accounts found among the Molokans of Armenia and the USA.

«Желаем жить не по плоти, а по духу»: демографическое поведение постников

Religious studies devote considerable attention to the research of doctrinal influences on social behavior and everyday practices among followers of various religious movements. This study analyzes the demographic behavior of the postniks (one of the “old Russian sectarian” movements) in the Tambov region of the early twentieth century. The paper relies on the relational database developed by the authors during this research. The systematization of archival statistical data and other sources allows the authors to take a closer look at the postniks’ religious life. The population pyramid based on the available data indicates their deep distinction from “ordinary” Orthodox peasants of the Tambov province. The same significant differences exist in the number of children in a family and other compared indicators. The authors argue that this specific demographic behavior is a consequence of the worldview attitudes of the postniks rather than any external factors.

ДОРЕВОЛЮЦИОННОЕ РУССКОЕ СЕКТАНТСТВО ЮЖНОГО УРАЛА В РЕГИОНАЛЬНОЙ ИСТОРИОГРАФИИ

The article provides an analysis of development of regional historiography of «Russian sectarianism» in the pre-revolutionary, Soviet and contemporary periods. The author highlights the peculiarities of studying this issue at each stage, and underlines the shortcomings that forced the researchers to search for a new methodological basis. He comes to the conclusion that a comprehensive study of informal religiosity in the Southern Ural in pre-revolutionary Russia remains an actual scholarly task.

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...

«Старые секты» на новый лад: проблемы и перспективы изучения русских религиозных диссидентов XVIII–XX вв.

The introductory paper to the thematic block deals with fundamental issues of present day historical, anthropological, and religious studies of the so called “old Russian sects” of the 18th and 19th centuries. Russian religious dissenters of this period could be hardly viewed as homogeneous or integrated religious culture both historically and socially. However, the study of these movements as well as their representation in various discursive and ideological contexts can tell us a lot about religion in Russia of the “Synodal period”. The paper discusses key aspects of Russian sectarianism in terms of sensational forms, media regimes, moral economies, history of confessionalization and charismatic leadership in popular religious culture.

ONTOLOGICAL DUALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF HOLINESS IN THE PEASANT EPIC OF S.A. KLYCHKOV

The phenomenon of Group of Russian poets and fiction writers of the early XXth century, merged by literary critics under the title «new-peasant poets », is seemingly enough researched. However, when there is a serious knowledge of the creative heritage of the two most famous new-peasant poets – Sergei Yesenin and Nikolai Klyuev – heritage (especially prose) of the third significant poet of this circle, Sergei Klychkov, is still poorly studied. The focus of this article is the first part of a trilogy («Sugar German», «Chertuhinskij Balakir» and «Prince of Peace»), roman of S.A. Klytchkov «Sugar German», where most unpopular for this theme post-revolutionary years author undertakes to explore the issue of Holiness. For artistic research of the topic Klytchkov uses not only all the accumulated before him «resources» of the classical Russian literature (primarily heritage of N.S. Leskov), but also his own front-line experience and experience of Russian sectarianism (old believers of different leanings and concerts), a peculiar fad that is going through all Russian intellectuals in the pre-war and prerevolutionary years (correspondence with N.A. Kljuev, block shape of Grigory Rasputin, «Walking to Castle Kitezh» by S.A. Klytchkov himself, etc.). The task of author of this article is to find and describe the exceptional artistic means («double effect» and «double-lighting»), which the writer uses to achieve the necessary objectivity in narration. The article uses characteristics of prose made by writer's contemporaries (A.M.Gorky, A.K. Voronski, P.A. Zhurov), studies of creativity of S.A. Klychkov that became classic now (N.M. Solncev, M. Nikjo), theoretical works on the Russian and world literature and art of M.M. Bakhtin, V. Kozhinov, Ortega Y Gasset, and T. Mann, as well as works on the theory of literature of 2001–2019 years by S.A. Nebolsin, V.V. Fedorov, I.A. Esaulov.

Wierzenia i idee sekciarskie w rosjoznawstwie polskim pierwszych dekad wieku XX

The paper discusses Karol Potkański’s study of Russia called Constantine and Methodius (1905) with reference to Tadeusz Nalepiński’s work The Spirit King of Russian. He’s coming!,Władysław Jabłonowski’s Around the Sphinx. Studies of life and world of the Russian people (1901),Two cultures. Historical and literary studies (1913), Stanisław Kutrzeba’s Sources and contrasts of Polish and Russian cultures (1916), Marian Zdziechowski’s Selected works,Bogumił Jasinowski’sEastern Christianity and Russia (1933) and others. It attempts to show the religious studies’ current in the Polish research in Russia which was open not as much to the Orthodox Church as to the Rus-sian sectarianism. The author follows ethnogenetic intuitions of Russia historians signalized after the Russian Revolution of 1905 in relation to their inquiries into widely-comprehended Russian spirituality and psychology. He records what was said about the radical dualism of Slavs and their Iranian origin. He shows it is historically justified to use religious studies’ method in Russian studies. He proves the efficiency of dualism as a model for analyzing Russian history. He indicates the key to history through the sectarian beliefs and ideas of Gnostic-Manichaean provenance.

A study on the russian sectarianism in the Dostoevsky's philosophy of religion

A study on the russian sectarianism in the Dostoevsky's philosophy of religion

Rostov in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920: The Key to Victory by Brian s> Murphy (review)

REVIEWS 56I Breyfogle has managed to discuss some very complex issues in a clear and accessiblemanner. It is to be highlyrecommended to studentsof both Russian expansionism and of Russian sectarianism. StMartin'sCollege JOHN SWIFT Lancaster Murphy,Brian.Rostov intheRussianCivilWar,I9I7-I920: 7The Ky to Victogy. Cass Military Studies Series. Routledge, London and New York, 2005. xvi +I96 pp. Maps. Illustrations.Notes. Appendices. Select bibliography. Index. [65.00. STUDIESof the Russian Revolution and Civil War have overwhelmingly tended to focus on higher level political and militaryaffairs.Yet a true understandingof the dynamicsof the period requiresalso a solid knowledge of attitudes and events at a lower level. Workssuch as Orlando Figes'sPeasant Russia, CivilWar:T7he Volga Countgyside inRevolution (Oxford, I989) have gone some way towardsredressingthe imbalance in the historiography,but only to a limited extent. In the case of the Civil War, the Don region is a naturaltargetfor the local historian. It was there, after all, that the Civil War began, with the Cossacks'rebellion against Bolshevikrule and the establishmentof the White Volunteer Army in late I9I7. The Don region and its primary city, Rostov, then changed hands severaltimes in the CivilWar, makingit a usefulfocusfor studiesof the varyingimpact of Red and White ruleand misrulebetween I9I7 and 1920. Peter Holquist'sMakingWar,Forging Revolution: Russia'sContinuum of Crisis (Cambridge,MA, 2002) has providedone usefulstudyin this regard.On its footstepsnow follows Brian Murphy'sRostov in theRussianCivilWar. Murphy's book is not a monograph, but a collection of documents interspersed with commentary. Murphy has taken most of the documents from fond 12 opis 3 of the Communist Party archivesin Rostov-on-Don, although selectionsfrom a number of publishedtexts are also included. The stated aim of the selectionis to 'fillout the socialbackground'to the CivilWar in Rostov, and to 'convey the daily experience of life in the streets' (p. xi). However, because the primary source is the Communist Party archives,the documents inevitably reflect the Red position much more stronglythan the White one. Historiansseekinginformationabout the Communist undergroundin Rostov in the Civil War will find much more of interest than those wishing to learn more about the attitudesand actions of the Communists'opponents, or even of the mass of the Rostov population. For this reason, the selection only partiallyfulfilsits objectiveof fillingout the social backgroundto the events of the period. The advantage of a collection of documents over a monograph is that the original words of those who actuallyparticipatedin the events describedcan bring them to life in a way second-hand reportingcannot. This is not always the case with those assembled here. The chapter on 'Daily Life, I9I8' is quite dry, for instance. By contrast,some of the materialabout the Bolshevik undergroundmakes exciting reading, and I suspect that this section will also be the most useful for historians. 562 SEER, 84, 3, JULY 2006 It is hard to determine exactly who constitutesthe target audience for the book. Some of the commentary suggeststhat Murphy assumesthat there will be readers who know little or nothing of the broader historical picture. He therefore provides context and backgroundwhich will be superfluousto specialists. There is also a mistaken effort to tap into the current 'war on terror'with cover blurbsayingthat 'thepassionateenthusiasmof these revolutionaries may give us some insight into the psychology of young men and women who are called "terrorists" today'. In fact when one reads what these men and women were doing, it went no furtherthan undergroundprinting presses. There is nothing at all relevant to contemporary terrorism.Despite these ratherill-directedeffortsto reach out to some popularmarket,this book is of ratherlimited interest,of use mostly to specialistsin the Russian Revolution and CivilWar, and above all to those wishingto gain some understanding of the dynamics of civil war at the lower levels. For such persons, Rostov in the RussianCivilWarwillprove a usefuland occasionallyquite stimulatingaddition to the existing literature. Department ofPoliticsandInternational Studies P. F. ROBINSON University ofHull Baron, Nick and Gatrell, Peter (eds).Homelands: War,Population andStatehood in Easten Europeand RussiaI9I8-I924. Anthem Studies in Population Displacement and Political Space. Anthem Press, London 2004. xviii + 267 PP. Maps. Tables. Notes. Index. f16.95 (paperback). BETWEEN i86o and I9IO, approximately40 million labourmigrantsfrom Eastern Europeanvillagesleft theirhomelandsto seekwork,wages and, eventually 'bread and butter'. This number included tens of...

The Dostoevsky Encyclopedia by Kenneth s> Lantz (review)

324 SEER, 83, 2, 2005 However unfortunatean errorthat 'novelstic'may be (thesethingshappen), the stickiness of the text, with its fondness for obsolete or highly technical terms ('inconcinnity' [p. 43], 'imbricated' [p. 93], 'aporias' [p. iii], 'devalorization' [p. I63], etc.), can only tend to obscure the challenging aspects of its own argument as well as the extraordinaryand trulynovel, not to say novelistic, challenge of Tolstoi's attemptto answerthe questions 'What is power?'and 'Whatforce producesthe movement of nations?' London RICHARD FREEBORN Lantz, Kenneth. 7The Dostoevsky Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press,Westport, CT and London, 2004. xxxiv + 499 pp. Chronology. Lists. Table. Select bibliography.Index. /56.99. THE strength of this work is in its compilation of facts. It begins with an alphabetical list of the entries, followed by a list of entries by topics, and a useful chronological table of Dostoevskii's life and publications. There is an index at the back and a bibliography. In the body of the work the topics proceed alphabetically as one would expect of an encyclopedia. Crossreferencingis achieved through bold type within entries. However, unlike an encyclopedia, thereare no referenceswithin the alphabeticalsequencingitself (of the type: 'EpilepsySeeIllness').Each of Dostoevskii'sworkshas its separate entry, with a limited range of sources at the end, and there is a wealth of informationon Dostoevskii'scontemporariesand some of the figuresreferred to in lettersand works.Acknowledgementis made of the thirty-volumeJ'Nauka edition of the complete works,which with its apparatusof notes and tables of referenceis almost an encyclopedia in itself. Broader,more ideological, mattersare dealtwith Religious and Political views, the Peasantry/People. Yet not all topics appear to merit an entry. Where are 'Humour', 'Nature', 'Napoleons I and III', for example?All this is an enormous taskfor one man to undertake,however great his competence. A true encyclopedia is the work of a team, and although one may admire Kenneth Lantz's industry and erudition, he cannot escape the charge of individual predilection with a resultant narrowing of focus. This is most obvious in his section on 'ReligiousViews'. To begin with thereis the question of whose religious views those of Dostoevskii's characters or the trickier ground of the views of the authorhimself? As regardsthe latter,Lantzstresses Dostoevskii'sChrist-centredOrthodoxy, whilstadmittingLeontiev'sdoctrinal criticisms and Strakhov'sobservations on his minimalist religious practices. Lanz, however, subscribes to the conventional view: 'Dostoevsky's very concept of religiousfaithwas a processof struggle,not a finishedand resolved belief' (p. 357). So far so good, but there is a whole area of religiousexperience airbrushed out of thistraditionalview, which is not only a constantthreadthroughouthis writing, but also affects his portrayal of the Russian people, the 'Russian Christ'and even the manipulativeleversof revolutionarypolitics.When Lantz talksof the peasantsmaintaining 'theirage-old ideals of Orthodox Christianity ' (p. 306), he can only mean, though I doubt he does, that the peasantry REVIEWS 325 persisted in the tradition of the old faith, before the 'Orthodoxy' which was imposed on them in the seventeenth century. The 'Old Faith'was takenvery seriouslyby Dostoevskii,who in an articleof I862 calledit 'themost important phenomenon in Russianlife, and the best pledge for a betterfuturein Russian life'.Dostoevskii'sinterestextended to the extremesof Russiansectarianism the Flagellantsand the Castrates -nor are these minor themes in hiswriting; they have a symbolicpresence throughout,and it is no coincidence that allhis murderers are connected by allusion and symbol to Russian sectarianism. These are matters for which the student of Dostoevskii needs real help, particularlywhen the unmentioned religiouseccentric Fiodorov has an entry, whereasthe leader of the Flagellants,Danila Filippov(whosename does occur in 7heDevils)is not referencedat all. Most strange of all, in the entry on 7he Brothers Karamazov, the main teachingsof Zosima on adorationof the earthand the doctrineof otherworlds are passed over in complete silence (the doctrine of 'other worlds' was anathematizedby the Orthodox church in the eighteenth century, and 'earth worship'has obvious pagan roots).As a resultthe great spiritualclimax of the novel, Alesha'sepiphany in the monasterygarden, is completelylost. Finally it must be said that the proofreading leaves much to be desired. Among other slips Makar Dolgorukii is referred to as Makar Devushkin (p. 422). Turgenev'sNotesofa Hunter becomes Notesofa Hunger (p. 443) and in a felicitous slip, rather than a cloud, 'a great...

L'Europa nello specchio della prima emigrazione russa (1918-1940) by C. Solivetti T. Civjan (review)

REVIEWS 325 persisted in the tradition of the old faith, before the 'Orthodoxy' which was imposed on them in the seventeenth century. The 'Old Faith'was takenvery seriouslyby Dostoevskii,who in an articleof I862 calledit 'themost important phenomenon in Russianlife, and the best pledge for a betterfuturein Russian life'.Dostoevskii'sinterestextended to the extremesof Russiansectarianism the Flagellantsand the Castrates -nor are these minor themes in hiswriting; they have a symbolicpresence throughout,and it is no coincidence that allhis murderers are connected by allusion and symbol to Russian sectarianism. These are matters for which the student of Dostoevskii needs real help, particularlywhen the unmentioned religiouseccentric Fiodorov has an entry, whereasthe leader of the Flagellants,Danila Filippov(whosename does occur in 7heDevils)is not referencedat all. Most strange of all, in the entry on 7he Brothers Karamazov, the main teachingsof Zosima on adorationof the earthand the doctrineof otherworlds are passed over in complete silence (the doctrine of 'other worlds' was anathematizedby the Orthodox church in the eighteenth century, and 'earth worship'has obvious pagan roots).As a resultthe great spiritualclimax of the novel, Alesha'sepiphany in the monasterygarden, is completelylost. Finally it must be said that the proofreading leaves much to be desired. Among other slips Makar Dolgorukii is referred to as Makar Devushkin (p. 422). Turgenev'sNotesofa Hunter becomes Notesofa Hunger (p. 443) and in a felicitous slip, rather than a cloud, 'a great could of uncertainty' remains over Raskol'nikov'smotivations (p. 74). Having said this, there is a great deal of valuable information here, even though it is not so much an encyclopedia as a usefulhandbook. Department ofRussian Studies RICHARD PEACE University ofBristol Solivetti, C. and Civjan, T. (eds). L'Europa nellospecchio dellaprimaemigrazione russa(1918-1940). EuropaOrientalis, 22, 2o03, 2. University of Salerno, Salerno, 2004. 397 pp. Notes. Appendix. Priceunknown. THIS special issue of the Salerno-basedjournal drawson the proceedings of a conference held in Rome in the late autumn of 2000, bringing together a group of twenty-two scholars, roughly half of them Italian and half Russian. With one exception they write in Russian. Carla Solivetti's introduction (pp. 9-I 4), which for some reason has escaped mention in the book's list of contents, deftly summarizes all the contributions. Most of them revolve around definitions of national identity as articulatedin various kinds of high literarytext. No attention-seekingbig idea or unitarymethodology has been urged upon the contributors,and there is little trace of theory blight;instead, there is a good deal of clunky quotation and paraphrase that can be as offputting as severe cases of it. And there seems to have been no post-conference revision of the contributions,tojudge by the way they sometimes referto the same subjectbut not to each other.The absence of an index to the whole book imposes a furtherself-inflictedresistanceto searchability.All this being said, though, there is much of interesthere for studentsof Russia Outside Russia. 326 SEER, 83, 2, 2005 The contributions are arranged in chronological order of their topic's principal focus. Though the titles seem to promise a broad spectrum of specificity, the collection in fact comes down to a series of narrowlyfocused empirical studies. In the title of the lead article (pp. 15-20), Nikita Struve refersto 'the meeting between the firstRussian emigration and Europe', but what transpiresis a perfunctoryassessmentof a few well-knownencountersin Paris between Russian and French religious-minded intellectuals, with Berdiaev looming large. In the title of their joint piece (pp. 145-70), Dr Solivetti and M. Paolinireferto the 'paradigms'of exile (izgnanie) and mission (poslannichestvo) in the emigration, but what we actually get is a descriptive account of the fugitivepamphlet, Chto delat'russkoi emigratsii? (Paris, 1930) that focuses largely on the contribution of Zinaida Gippius (but does not crossreference a contradictoryfootnote on this same subject on pp. 90-9I). The only essay here in Italian, Michaela Bohmig's 'Ancorasull'emigrazionerussa' (pp. 299-320), would appear from its title to be a general study, but it is in fact a book review discussing five substantial recent publications, of which short titles will be listed here:A. Burchard,Klubsderrussischen Dichter inBerlin I920-I94i; G.-B. Kohler, BorisdeSchloezer (I88I-I969); M. Litavrina,Russkj teatral'nyjPariz...

Origins and Transformation of the Hristovers: Features of the Doctrine

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. socio-political contradictions in the Russian empire led to the separation from orthodoxy of a number of communities, commonly known as "spiritual Christians," or the old Russian sectarianism. Declaring the doctrine of Orthodoxy authoritarian, they advocated the profession of faith "in the spirit and in the truth," for a spiritual interpretation of Scripture. All spiritual Christians are characterized by: the rejection of the Orthodox Church and the whole institute of the church hierarchy, the basic Orthodox dogmas, sacraments, the cult of the saints, icons, as well as the belief in the incarnation of the Holy Spirit in living people, the "spiritual" baptism which is the teaching of the word of God, human self-communication with God. They declared the whole world spiritual, condemned luxury, preached severe asceticism.

Twentieth-Century World Religious Movements in Neo-Weberian Perspective.

These essays seek to apply the conceptual apparatus pioneered by Max Weber in his studies of the major world religions to developments in religious traditions around the globe over the past century. Topics covered include the continuing legacy of Confucianism and Taoism in Chinese culture; neo-Confucianism in Singapore schools; political religion in Communist China; Zen Buddhism in the United States and Japan; Buddhist reinterpretation in Sri Lanka; the role of the Ayatollah Khomeini in the Iranian revolution; Russian sectarianism; the Protestant ethic introduced by the Basel Mission in Ghana; charismatic Christianity in South Africa and North America; Protestant and Catholic movements in Latin America; Church of England parishes in New Towns; Protestant-Catholic agendas in Northern Ireland; the ordination of women in the Anglican Communion; and a California flying-saucer cult. Shows in rich detail that a neo-Weberian approach is relevant to present-day developments and therefore potentially futuritive. $99.95 356pp. 1992

Comment on Black's Review of Old Believers in Oregon

in believing that the Woodburn, Oregon, Old Believers are priestists (popovtsy). This is not necessarily true: their religious leaders (nastavniki), at least in some cases are not ordained by any kind of religious organization standing over the local congregation but rather are chosen by the members of the congregation through a divinatory process involving opening the Bible at random and laying down a pencil or some other kind of pointer, and then interpreting the passage indicated as the occasion seems to require. (This was the account given to us by one elderly nastavnik when we visited Woodburn.) The same or a similar process is used by certain Russian sectarian groups. Second, Black complains that the film, and particularly the brochure accompanying it, reduced the content of the Old Belief to certain

The Evolution of Old Russian Sectarianism (On Data from Voronezh Oblast)

Old Russian sectarianism comprises those forms of religious movements that arose and took ideological shape among various categories of the peasantry during the period when serfdom was most severe (the end of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth centuries). It was specifically then that the most powerful forms of religious sectarianism, such as Khristovoverie, Dukhoborism, Molokanism, and Subbotnichestvo came into being.

Sectarianism and the Socialist Reconstruction of the Countryside

The data we have uncovered do not permit us to deal with the entire range of questions associated with religious sectarianism during the period of socialist reconstruction of agriculture. Nor is it possible to characterize, with the necessary completeness, the activity as well as the changes, during that period of basic changes, that have occurred in the broad range of religious currents of which sectarianism is comprised. We shall set limits to our task. The object of investigation will be those currents in religious sectarianism that arose historically on Russian soil and constituted, in the past, the religious variant of the movement of the people in their own interests. Essentially it was these currents alone that constituted the socio-historic phenomenon termed sectarianism, if we employ the term in the strictly scientific sense. By the circumstances of their origin, by their social functions and, finally, by their mode of organization, Baptism, Evangelical Christianity, Adventism, and Pentecostalism constitute Protestant churches, each of which had characteristics of its own and acquired supplemental features under the conditions of their propagation in Russia. At the same time, these organizations do have points of contact with the forms of old Russian sectarianism.

Russian Sectarianism in New Soviet Marxist Scholarship

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