Buddhist Devotion to the Russian Tsar : The Bicultural Environment of the Don Kalmyk Sangha and Russian Orthodox Church in the 1830s

Inoue Takehiko’s paper analyses how the close and long-lasting relationship between Kalmyk Buddhists and Don Cossacks (in the Don Cossack province) developed during the nineteenth century. This relationship was mediated both by Kalmyk Buddhist monks and the requirements of military and religious services to the Tsar, leading to transformations in the identity of this Kalmyk group. He uses the example of the ceremony surrounding the opening of a Kalmyk Parish school in 1839 to demonstrate how both parties sought to combine their socio-religious cultures in furtherance of the alliance of their interests.

The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict

The article analyses the influence of the religious factor on the internal processes of nation-state consolidation in Ukraine and on the causes and consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The division of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy into three branches (UAOC, UOC-KP and UOC-MP) did not allow the Church to become a consolidating factor in the formation of a nation-state in independent Ukraine and a generator of social transformation. The situation may change for the better after the creation of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2018.

Bishop Apollos (Belyaev) and Development of Vyatka Diocese in 1866—1885

Using mainly historical-comparative and historical-genetic methods, the issue of the development of the Vyatka and Slobodsk dioceses, which coincides within the borders with the Vyatka province, under Bishop Apollos (Belyaev), is considered in the article. The author pays special attention to the process of organizing religious, educational and missionary activities, and up to the appointment of Bishop Apollos, the results of this work were insignificant. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time it comprehensively examines the activities of the Vyatka Bishop Apollos in terms of the implementation of a nationwide religious course, which included active educational and missionary work of the local clergy. Under Bishop Apollos, to increase the influence of the clergy on the local population, including the Old Believers and non-Orthodox, important transformations were carried out: a separate vicariate was allocated in the diocese, the Vyatka Committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society and the Vyatka Brotherhood of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker were opened, and the work of the local clergy was also generally reorganized. This gave the first positive results in strengthening the position of the Russian Orthodox Church among the local population of the Vyatka diocese.

Everyday Life of the Russian Nuns in the Holy Land at the Time of Changes in the Middle East, 1940s–1950s

This study aims at providing an overview of the everyday life of Russian nuns in Palestine after World War II. This research encompassed the following tasks: to analyze the range of ego-documents available today, characterizing the everyday life and internal motivation of women in choosing the church jurisdiction; to identify, on the basis of written sources, the most active supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate to examine the nuns’ activity as information agents of the Russian Orthodox Church and Soviet government; to characterize the actors influencing the everyday life of the Russian nuns in the context of the creation of the state of Israel and new borders dividing the Holy Land; to present the motives and instruments of influence employed by the representatives of both secu-lar and church diplomacies in respect to the women leading a monastic life; to describe consequences of including the nuns into the sphere of interest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR; to show the specific role of “Russian women” in the context of the struggle for securing positions of the USSR and the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in the region. The sources for the study were prodused by the state (correspondence between the state authorities, meeting notes) and from the religious actors (letters of nuns to the church authorities, reports of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, memoirs of the clergy). By combining the methods of micro-history and history of the everyday life with the political history of the Cold War, the study examines the agency of the nuns — a category of women traditionally unnoticeable in the political history. Due to the specificity of the sources, the study focuses exclusively on a group of the nuns of the Holy Land who came under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patri-archate. The majority of the Russian-speaking population of Palestine in the mid-1940s were women in the status of monastic residents (nuns and novices) and pilgrims, and in the 1940s–1950s, they were drawn into the geopolitical combinations of the Soviet Union. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, staffed with representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, becomes a key institution of influence in the region. This article shows how elderly nuns became an object of close attention and even funding by the Soviet state. The everyday life of the nuns became directly dependent on the activities of the Soviet agencies and Soviet-Israeli relations after the arri-val of the Soviet state representatives. At the same time, the nuns became key participants in the inter-jurisdictional conflicts and began to act as agents of influence in the region. The study analyzes numerous ego-documents created by the nuns themselves from the collection of the Council on the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the USSR Council of Ministers. The study shows how nuns positioned themselves as leading a monastic life in the written correspondence with the ROC authorities and staff of the Soviet MFA. The instances of influence of different secular authorities on the development of the female monasticism presented here point to promising research avenues for future reconstruction of the history of women in the Holy Land based on archival materials from state departments, alternative sources should also be found. The study focused on the life of elderly Russian nuns in the Holy Land and showed their activity in the context of the geopolitical transformations in the Near East in the 1940s–1950s.

For the Life of the World and Orthodox Political Theology

The article explores the document For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church ( FLW) in the contexts that had instigated its promulgation. It maps this document in the coordinates of the Orthodox political theology during the long twentieth century. FLW corresponds to a line in “the theology of the 1960s,” which advocated for liberal democracy and against anti-Westernism. The article argues that FLW fulfills the unaccomplished mission of the Panorthodox council in producing a comprehensive Orthodox social doctrine. It compares FLW with the social corpus adopted by the Russian Orthodox Church during the 2000s.

Life of Russian Orthodox Clergy in the United States at the End of the 19th Century (Reflected in the correspondence of the Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev)

Using little-known correspondence of the Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev with the bishop Nickolay (Ziorov) — head of Russian Orthodox Church in the United States in 1892–1898 — the article explores the everyday life of Russian clergy in America. This correspondence is deposited at the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg and has not been published or studied before. The author analyzes Pobedonostsev’s role in the diocese affairs. This examination is new both in the Church’s history and recently published literature on Pobedonostsev. Yet the Ober-Procurator’s supervision was of utmost importance for the Russian mission in the United States, faced with the crucial challenge of adapting itself to the alien cultural environment. Pobedonostsev was well informed about the situation with the Russian mission, helped to solve many personnel, financial and organizational problems, was a chief promoter of its interests before the Russian imperial government — Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Finance, the State Council, and the Tzar’s court. Pobedonostsev also stayed in touch with the US diplomatic mission in Russia and Russian diplomats in the United States. He was very close with bishop Nickolay who regarded the Ober-Procurator as his main benefactor and constantly turned to him for advice and assistance. Pobedonostsev strongly supported the bishop’s reforms of missionary activities in education, parish life, and propagation of Orthodoxy, as well as his efforts to defend the Russian Orthodox mission’s interests before American authorities. No wonder their extensive correspondence richly reflected the diocese’s life with all its problems and needs. The article highlights their close cooperation in recruiting qualified clergymen for American service, which was the key task for the mission that suffered from a shortage of reliable professional personnel. Pobedonostsev-Nickolay cooperation greatly contributed to the diocese progress, which later reached its peak under Nickolay’s successor bishop Tikhon (Bellavin). Their correspondence sheds new light on the personalities of both men united by their fervent devotion to the Orthodox Church and highly conservative views. It also presents a revealing case study of the interaction between Russian ecclesiastic and state authorities as well as their perception of American culture. The author’s main methodological approach consisted in text analysis of the archival documents juxtaposed against the context of Russian-American relations and the realities of American life.

Interaction of the Synod and Its Institutions with the Secret Chancellery in the First Half of the 1720s

This article studies the mechanism of interaction of the Synod, its institutions and bodies of the central church administration with the Secret Chancellery during the first half of the 1720s. The analysis is based on the documents of the Synod containing correspondence with the Secret Chancellery. This study is a continuation of the research on the relationship between the Secret Chancellery and the Russian Orthodox Church, whose resluts had been published earlier. A deeper immersion in the topic provided greater insights into the joint activities of the synodal institutions and Russia’s main penal body at the time, as well as revealed the details of the most important contacts and pertinent problems. Of particular importance is the activity of the Chancellery of the Most Holy Synod, through which official correspondence with the Secret Chancellery and control over the implementation of its decisions as well as defrocking of priests before the start of investigation were carried out. Further, the paper describes the categories of convicts who were sent to the Synod from the Secret Chancellery and looks into the differences in their position. Contrary to the prevailing opinion about the absence of relations between the Synod and the Secret Chancellery, the author concludes that in practice there was a certain mechanism of interaction, which concerned investigations regarding the accused from among the clergy and their commital, as well as granting official requests from both parties, sending ecclesiastical experts, and enforcing sentences of the Secret Chancellery. In addition, facts are considered that testify to extremely complex and contradictory relations between the Synod and the Secret Chancellery. The author concludes that the relationship between these institutions was not systemic, but developed in the context of the state’s general advance on the church and subordination of the latter and the clergy to state interests. The mechanism of interaction between the Synod and the Secret Chancellery was formed in line with this trend as well.

Political Implications of Orthodox Identity: An Example of the World Russian People’s Council

The article examines the conceptual ideas of the World Russian Peoples Council, acting under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church, regarding the implementation of the right to freedom of conscience and the status of religious associations in Russia. Furthermore, the speeches of heads of the states at the Councils were studied for their attitude to the ideological content of the activities of this organization. On the basis of the data obtained, the author attempts to find a correlation between the proposals voiced at the Councils on changing certain aspects in the religious sphere and the reforms of the Russian legislation on freedom of conscience. As a result of this study, a striking coincidence was revealed between the two factors mentioned: the provisions discussed at the Councils, as a rule, after some time were reflected in Russian normative legal acts. Not having sufficient grounds for declaring an unambiguous causal relationship between conciliar ideas and legislative reform, one can, in any case, assume a significant impact of the activities of the World Russian Peoples Council on the state policy in implementation of the right to freedom of conscience in modern Russia.