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Volume 14, No. 1

New Light on a Pivotal Orthodox Theologian

Matt Miller

St. Andrew’s Biblical-Theological Institute, Moscow, and Ostkirchliches Institut, Regensburg, Germany, organized an academic conference, 29 September – 3October 2004, on “Russian Theology in European Context: Bulgakov and Contemporary Western Religious Philosophical Thought,” in honor of Archpriest Sergei (1871-1944). This gathering of scholars, graduate students, and church leaders to discuss the\impact of one of Russian Orthodoxy’s most influential twentieth-century theologians was held in Dzerzhinsky, Russia, near Moscow. This conference in honor of apolitical exile was held, ironically, in a city named in honor of the founder of Lenin’s political police, which forced Bulgakov to flee his homeland. A well-polished statue of Dzerzhinsky still stands in the city. Approximately 40 participants attended the conference,30 from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and ten from Western Europe and North America. The majority represented state-supported academic bodies, with others from Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant institutions. This conference followed a 2003 event, “Russia and the Universal Church: The Humanity of God in the Perspective of Contemporary Interconfessional and Interreligious Dialogue,” dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Soloviev, the innovative Russian philosopher of the nineteenth century.

Bulgakov’s insightful and often controversial works continue to spark heated debate 60 years after his death. His brilliant mind was sharpened by the trials of his tumultuous life. Born into the family of an Orthodox priest, the young Bulgakov dismissed his faith in an atmosphere of alcoholism and poverty. He later found worldly success as a Marxist professor of economics, but eventually found his new system of belief to be intellectually unsound. He wrestled through philosophical idealism and Christian socialism back to Orthodox Christianity and was ordained a priest in 1918. His outstanding leadership within the church led to his exile from Russia in 1922 along with other “un reform able” intellectuals. Until his death in 1944, he served as professor at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. In training a new generation of clergy, he emphasized the impact of the divine incarnation on every aspect of Christian life and called for personal spiritual revival and self-critical church renewal.

His influence spread broadly from Paris, but several equally talented Orthodox leaders sharply criticized some of his theological innovations (especially his ideas on “Sophia”) as heretical. His theological and philosophical writings attempted to face the wrenching doctrinal, political, and economic problems of the early twentieth century. His theological method always began with careful study of the Scriptures and the Fathers, but he saw the necessity of consulting contemporary Catholic, Protestant, and other thinkers as well. He believed that his theology must be both Orthodox and modern. In return, his ideas influenced many Roman Catholic and Anglican theologians. Today, Bulgakov’s journey from parochial Orthodoxy through Marxism and idealism to a traditional but open-minded Orthodoxy resonates with many in the Slavic intellectual world. For this reason, anyone working within this environment should be familiar with his thinking and influence.

The wide range of Bulgakov’s religious and philosophical interests was reflected at the conference in the presentation of topics: the Scriptures, the Church, the Trinity, culture, creativity, and economics. Dr. Aleksandr Ivanovich Negrov, rector of St. Petersburg Christian University (a leading Protestant seminary), addressed “The Hermeneutics of Sergei Bulgakov,” treating Bulgakov’s approach to biblical interpretation compared to that of other Orthodox theologians. Negrov argued that Bulgakov placed an unusually strong accent on the divinely inspired nature of Scripture. He also outlined Bulgakov’s four basic interpretive principles: 1) The interpreter needs to respect both the human and divine aspects of Scripture; 2) A full understanding of Scripture is received only with the assistance of the Holy Spirit within the Church; 3) The Bible can be fully understood only within the context of holy tradition; 4) The interpretation of a text reached by the Church in a council is superior to that reached by an individual interpreter.

Sergei Vasilievich Nikolaev, a Ph.D. student at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, and a Methodist pastor,explored “Epistemological Issues Raised by Fr. Sergei Bulgakov’s Proposal for Partial Intercommunion among Members of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius.”His study focused on Bulgakov’s highly controversial 1933recommendation that members of this Orthodox-Anglican group share a common celebration of the Eucharist. Nikolaev argued that the proposal was based more on an experiential sense of personal spiritual fellowship than on theological or canonical grounds. Brandon Gallaher, a doctoral student at Oxford University and a graduate of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary, compared two outstanding, but rarely juxtaposed, thinkers in “There is Freedom: The Problem of Divine Freedom and the Necessity of Love in Karl Barth and Sergei Bulgakov.” Gallaher discussed their views on the philosophical interrelation of the purpose of God’s creation of the world, the nature of God’s gracious love, and the reality of God’s freedom.

Dr. Nikolai Konstantinovich Gavrushin of the Moscow Theological Academy contrasted the careers and worldviews of two well-known clerics of the same name who both died in 1944: “Two Jubilees: Archpriest Sergei Bulgakov and Patriarch Sergei (Stragorodskii).” He stressed that although many are familiar with the theological conflicts between the émigré theologian and the Soviet patriarch, they may not be familiar with points of commonality in their early careers. For example, they both participated in pre-Revolutionary St. Petersburg religiousphilosophicalmeetings.

In another presentation, Dr. Albert Rauch, a Catholic priest and director of the Ostkirchliches Institut, Regensburg, Germany, noted the influence of Bulgakov on the views of Catholic theologians, especially Hans Urs von Balthasar, Aloys Grillmeier, and Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), and the decisions of Vatican II. Father Sergei’s ideas on sobornost’ were seen in the council’s theological description of the Church. He also influenced Vatican II statements on tradition and relations with other Christian confessions. 

This event left no doubt that Father Sergei’s penetrating and often eccentric thought continues to influence, fascinate, and provoke both secular philosophers and believers of all Christian confessions. His career confirmed that Lenin was indeed correct when he labeled Bulgakov “unreformable.” He held his course, and his books continued to circulate from hand to hand until they could be openly published and discussed. Not all Orthodox welcome Bulgakov’s call for openness to the modern world, free discussion, and self-critical church reform, but many others seem ready to listen to this voice from exile. In 2006 an edited collection of conference papers appeared as Russkoe bogoslovie v evropeiskomkontekste: S.N. Bulgakov i zapadnaya religioznofilosofskaya mysl’ (Moscow: Bibleisko-BogoslovskiiInstitut Sv. Apostola Andreia).

Those desiring an English language introduction to the life and thought of Bulgakov(or a bibliography of his works) should consult Catherine Evtuhov, The Cross and the Sickle: Sergei Bulgakov and the Fate of Russian Religious Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997) and Paul Valliere, ModernRussian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Grand Rapids, MI:Eerdmans, 2000), reviewed in the East-West Church & Ministry Report 11 (Winter 2003), 14-15.

Matt Miller, a Ph.D. candidate in Russian history at the University of Minnesota, works in Russia with the Evangelical Free Church.

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Volume 14, No. 1

Catholicism in Russia Today

Dennis J. Dunn

Russian Catholics: Strength and Distribution

The implosion of the Soviet Union dramatically affected the number and location of Catholics who live in Russia. The new independent states of Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan were no longer part of Russia, with the size of the Catholic Church in Russia thus significantly reduced. It is difficult to say precisely how many Catholics are in Russia today. The number varies from the official Vatican estimate in 2000 of 1,285,000 to a recent estimate by Sergei Filatov and Lyudmila Vorontsovaof 150,000. Russian Catholic leader Yuli Shreider and Yuri Gnedkov, editor of the Moscow Catholic weekly Svetevangeliia, estimated in 1996 that the number of Catholics was about 500,000.1Whatever number is correct, there does seem to be general agreement that the location of most of today’s Russian Catholics is no longer European Russia, but Siberia. The Vatican maintains that there are one million Catholics in Western Siberia, 200,000 in Northern European Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg,50,000 in Eastern Siberia, and 35,000 in Southern European Russia. While Vatican figures are debated, no one appears to disagree with the pattern that the figurespresent.2 This reality is the fruit of tsarist and Soviet policies of deporting to Siberia Catholic Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Germans, and others over centuries.

By 1996, according to reports in a letter from Siberia, the number of Catholic parishes and communities totaled 86 in European Russia and 110 east of the Urals. In 2000 the Vatican calculated 327 parishes and 51 missions. This number is the rough figure that Russian Orthodox nationalists accept and denounce.3Besides the sudden reduction in numbers and the subsequent movement of Catholicism’s numerical center of gravity to Siberia, the Catholic Church also faces the challenge of geography. Russia still has 11 time zones, with the Catholic Church spread from St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea to Magadan  in eastern Siberia. The administration of this huge region is daunting.

The Nationalities Question

Another problem for the Church is that social stratification and ethnic identity divide its followers. There is the traditional nucleus of the Catholic Church in Russia: Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, and other non-Russians who have retained their ethnic identities.4 Then there are those who favor a revival of the Russian Uniate or Byzantine Catholic Church, which was largely suppressed under the Soviets but still is recognized by the Vatican.5 These Catholics argue that the Byzantine tradition is the appropriate vehicle for the expression of RussianCatholicism.6 Then there are the russified descendants of Catholics living in territories annexed by Russia or the Soviet Union. Finally, there is a small but influential group of Russian Catholic intellectuals and youth who believe that the Latin rite is the appropriate expression of Catholicism and the way by which Russia can pull closer to the West. To serve each of these groups, to reconcile their agendas, and, at the same time, to increase the Catholic presence in Russia, is proving

difficult.7

Catholic Parishes

Another obstacle for the Catholic Church has been the task of trying to secure the return of church property. The process is slow and tedious because the government has reused the property for a plethora of purposes, from hospitals to office space to residences. In addition, the court system is not set up to adjudicate property disputes and the Duma, controlled by Russian nationalists, is not in the least sympathetic to the Catholic Church. In addition, local governments, which invariably favor the Orthodox Church, are often more restrictive than the federalgovernment.

Overcoming the Shortage of Priests

Another problem for the Catholic Church in Russia is the catastrophic shortage of priests, which has been solved in part by priests coming from abroad. As of 1996 in European Russia there were 89 priests from 16 countries; and of these, 37 were secular priests and the rest were members of various religious orders. There were also 104 nuns from 17 countries. In Russia in Asia there were 52priests and 60 nuns. The Vatican reported that the Russian Federation as of 2000 had 192 priests and 312 nuns. The number had increased to nearly 300 priests by 2002.8

Although most foreign priests have residence permits, the non-renewal and revocation of visas have created fear and anxiety among non-native Catholic clergy. This trend may signal a resurgence of traditional Russian xenophobia and anti-Westernize. Indeed, human rights journalist Lawrence Uzzell believes that the Putin government started taking an anti-foreign tack in May 2001 when Nikolai Trofimchuk, an advocate of state repression of Catholicism and other Western religions on geopolitical grounds, became head of the Kremlin’s new Council for Co-operation with Religious Organizations. Trofimchuk considers “spiritual security” as part of national security and demands that foreign missionaries be expelled because they are reallyagents of foreign governments that do not have Russia’s best interest at heart.9

Although the influx of foreign priests has helped relieve the problem of the shortage of priests in Russia, it simultaneously reinforces another problem. The large number of foreign priests emphasizes the image of Catholicism as a foreign religion. The Catholic Church in Russia has been fighting this battle for centuries, and it continues to this day. Patriarch Aleksii II declared in August1997 that “you cannot claim that there is a Catholic tradition in modern Russia,” and in June 2001, when Pope Paul II visited Ukraine, he spoke of a Catholic invasion of Orthodox lands.

To solve the problem of being identified or painted as foreign religion, the Catholic Church in Russia has pursued two policies. On the one hand, its leaders state categorically that the Catholic Church is not a foreign religion in Russia. Metropolitan Kondrusziewicz simply refers to the edicts of the tsars in the eighteenth century that granted Catholics the right to practice their faith.10 Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Paul I, and Alexander I granted legal status to the Catholic Church, invited the establishment of Catholic communities, and approved archdiocesan and diocesan structures.

Theological Education

The second response of the Catholic Church to the charge that it is a foreign religion is a major effort to begin to build a native priesthood. To this end, an upper level seminary, Mary Queen of the Apostles, was opened in Moscow in 1993 with close to 30 students.11 The seminary aims to prepare priests for ministry in Russia who will be familiar with Russian language and sensitive to the culture. Special courses on the history and distinctive aspects of Russian religious consciousness taught by Orthodox professors are included in the curriculum. The Catholic Church wants to be certain that its priests are attuned to the nuances and rich traditions of the Orthodox faith.

Because of cramped and uncomfortable conditions in Moscow and a new opportunity in St. Petersburg, the seminary was moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg in September 1995. The Catholic Church had asked the government to return to it the building that had housed test. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Seminary, which had been confiscated in 1918. On 4 September 1995 the chief of test. Petersburg Committee of Management of City Property returned one floor of the building to the Church, and the seminary moved to St. Petersburg shortly thereafter. In 2002the seminary had about 70 diocesan and religious order students, mainly Russians and recent converts to Catholicism. Out of the nearly 300 Catholic priests in Russia in 2002, 17 were Russians.12

Nonetheless, the Catholic Church in Russia will be dependent upon foreign priests for many years to come. On 11 February 1996 Metropolitan Kondrusziewicz set up at Mary Queen of the Apostles Seminary a new Center for Vocations to the Priesthood and the Dedicated Life. Bishop Joseph Werth established minor seminaries in Novosibirskin 1993 and Vladivostok in 1996. Bishop Clemens Pickel also recently set up a minor seminary in Astrakhan.13

Catholic Charity

Another critical issue for the Catholic Church is its administration of charity. In 1991 Caritas, the international

Catholic charity organization, opened a branch in Moscow. By the mid-1990s it had five regional branches in European Russia and two east of the Urals in Novosibirsk and Vladivostok. Throughout the 1990s Caritas provided

material help to the homeless, single pensioners, and the truly needy. The largest Caritas center, in Moscow, served 942 people in 1995, almost 50 percent of whom were homeless, about 30 percent invalids, eight percent single pensioners and the rest from large or broken families. The type of aid given included 334 requests for clothes, 226 forfoodstuffs, 37 for money, 26 for physical rehabilitation, 35for employment assistance, and 270 for psychological counseling. A children’s hospital called the Holy Family Center was also opened in 1993 to help teenagers who hadneurological disorders, many of whom had attempted suicide. Most of these teenagers are homeless, orphans, or the children of broken families and alcoholics. Priests and nuns are providing them with food, clothing, and counseling, and are trying to teach them how to lead a normal life.14 Besides Caritas, other Catholic charitable organizations include American Catholic Charities, Aid to the Church in Need, and aid directly from the Vatican. In addition, various Western religious orders provide assistance from their own resources.

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Volume 14, No. 1

Church Strength in Georgia

Darrell Jackson

Eastern Orthodox Churches

In Georgia the Divine Liturgy is celebrated by three Eastern Orthodox traditions. The largest is the official, autocephalous Orthodox Church of Georgia. Additionally, dwindling numbers of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians living in Georgia worship in Russian Orthodox and Ukrainian Orthodox congregations. In addition, Ukrainian Orthodox are deeply divided into a number of competing jurisdictions, although they will not be considered here.

Georgia also is home to several dissenting Orthodox groups who normally refer to themselves as “Orthodox traditionalists.” Most are conservative and are trying to revive an earlier, more traditional form of Orthodox practice. The most widely known groups are Old Believers (Old Ritualists), divided into two groups: The smaller Popovtsy who recognize the authority and role of priests and bishops over their congregations, and the larger Bezpopovtsy who, as their Russian name suggests, reject the authority and role of priests and bishops. The Christian Orthodox Church in Georgia (True Orthodox Church) claims its apostolic succession through a Metropolitan Bishop in Boston, USA, and believes itself to be the only faithful Orthodox remnant in Georgia, in opposition to the Georgian Orthodox Church led by Patriarch Ilia II, which it considers to be heretical. Smaller groups, including the Gldani Orthodox Eparchy, the Dukhoboriy Orthodox, and the Malakani  Storoveriy, may also be noted.

Oriental Churches

The Armenian Apostolic Church has existed in Georgia for many centuries. Its bishop resides in Armenia and is represented in Georgia by a vicar general. Other Oriental churches include small numbers of Syriac Orthodox Christians (distinct from the Assyrian, or Syrian, Church of the East, which is also known as the Chaldean-Rite Eastern Catholic Church).

The Syriac Church was formerly known in English as the Syrian Orthodox Church but adopted its current name in 2000. The Oriental churches are distinct from Eastern Orthodox churches in that they reject the Chalcedonean Ecumenical Council and its Christological formulations.

Catholic Churches

The Roman Catholic bishop resident is responsible for the care of three distinct Catholic traditions: Latin-Rite Catholic; Eastern-Rite Catholics who celebrate the Eastern liturgy but recognize the primacy of the Pope; and Chaldean-Rite (Syrian or Assyrian Churches of the East) and Armenian-Rite congregations. (The latter are not to be confused with the Armenian Apostolic Church.)

Protestant Churches

Protestants in Georgia find that their right to erect places of worship is severely restricted by the manner in which local authorities “interpret” legal regulations. In practice, it is nearly impossible for any non-Orthodox congregation to build a place of worship without the consent of the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate. Even for those churches that enjoy reasonably good relationships with the Patriarchate, establishing places of worship is not at all easy. The Evangelical Christian-Baptist Church of Georgia has been able to develop new congregations only by using private homes for worship. Despite restrictions, Evangelical Christians-Baptists are growing: from one church in Tbilisi prior to the collapse of Soviet power to almost 100 congregations and home Bible-study groups today. The majority of these congregations belong to the Evangelical Christian-Baptist Church of Georgia. A smaller Association of Evangelical Christian-Baptist Churches consists of “non-registered,” independent churches. Both groups tend to be ethnically Russian.

The largest group of Pentecostals belong to the Pentecostal Union though, again, significant numbers of independent Pentecostal and other charismatic fellowships exist outside the Union. Some Pentecostal congregations that are unable to secure permission to build churches continue to meet in forests around Tbilisi in the summer.

Ethnic and Geographical Factors

The disputed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia reflect ethnic questions that have an ecclesial corollary. Georgian Orthodox Churches in Abkhazia, for example, are generally led by Russian priests from Russia. Georgian clergy, including the metropolitan, are not permitted to enter the region. Many Georgian Orthodox cross into Georgian territory to attend the Divine Liturgy in the Georgian language. 

Especially important for predicting trends in church attendance, the Georgian population has been decreasing by an average annual rate of 6.7 percent since 1989. This decrease is most marked among ethnic Russians and Ukrainians. Between 1989 and 2002, the population decreased by 799,100 (14.5 percent) as a result of outmigration. This movement is important in trying to understand general patterns of church attendance and especially in trying to predict future patterns of attendance in those churches traditionally supported by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, including their respective Orthodox, Independent Baptist, and Pentecostal churches. The year 2002 witnessed a reduction in the Slavic community’s strength from 341,000 to 67,700, that is, from 6.3 to 1.5 percent of the population.

Edited excerpt of the author’s findings originally presented to the Third International LausanneResearchers’ Conference, August 2005, as part of larger study, “Beyond the Preamble: Searching for Godin a Secularizing Europe.”

Notes:

1 This table updates and revises 2000 data, drawing on the fullest possible range of sources, including a personal visit in August 2004. I am still cautious about being definitive about the relationship of the respective size of Orthodox communities and their active members. I am also cautious about what I suspect is over-reporting by Jehovah’s Witnesses. It also is extremely difficult to estimate the size of the Pentecostal and Charismatic communities. I am not aware of any reliable data for the relative sizes of Chaldean and Armenian-Rite Catholics. My estimates are based on the 39 congregations for the two rites combined, reported to me personally. I assume that 600 Muslims visit a mosque at least once per month and that 1,200 Armenians attend worship at least once a month at each congregation, based on the higher figure of 30 congregations.

2 The official Orthodox Web site reports that 65 percent of the population identify with the Orthodox Church (www.patriarchate.ge). The figure for active members derives from a Bible Society report compiled within Georgia and therefore credited with a reasonable level of accuracy. The caution of Mark Elliott should be borne in mind when assessing these figures, as they are intended to refer to the Orthodox “community”: Mark Elliott, “Analysis of World Christian Encyclopedia Figures for Post-Soviet Christians,” East-West Church & Ministry Report 9 (Summer 2001), 4-5.

3 Estimated from number of congregations, assuming 40 per congregation. The majority of these congregations met in homes.

4 Catholic Hierarchy Web site (http://catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dcauc,html), viewed 10 September 2004.

5 R. Roberson, The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey (Rome), 187.

6 www.ebcgeorgia.org reports 15,000 active members in 50 churches and 53 mission stations, 15 August 2004.

7 This total includes 65 churches and 53 preaching stations. Personal e-mail from Bishop Malkhaz, April 2005.

8 Web report indicated “over 1,000 members” in early 2004.

9 The U.S. State Department (2004) estimates 9,000 Georgian and Russian Pentecostals.

10 Based on a report of 500 soldiers, adherents, and friends attending a central act of worship in 1999.

11 www.adventiststatistics.org. Figures are active members for 2002. Reports indicate a strength of over 300 in 2003.

12 Six registered churches plus four “companies” (www.adventiststatistics.org/view_summary.asp?FieldstD=222829), April 2005.

13 http://www.watchtower.org/statistics/worldwide_report.htm. Figures are memorial attendance for 2003. Membership given is 15,200. Witnesses have been active in Georgia since 1953.

14 Census data for 2002 indicates 3,600 Jews in Georgian-controlled territory, representing 95 percent of the total population of Georgia. Our figure is adjusted to allow for Jews living in the autonomous regions of Georgia at a similar level to that elsewhere in Georgia.

15 U.S. State Department Reports (2000-04) variously report the size of the Muslim community at between 8 and 9.9 percent of the population. This is considerably influenced by the presence of Chechen refugees in the valley of northern Georgia.

16 Estimated from reports and photographs of visits to the Bahai community in Georgia. I err on the side of overestimating.

17 Estimate based on experience of the size of Hare Krishna communities in Central and Eastern Europe. The community in Tbilisi also operates a vegetarian restaurant.

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Volume 14, No. 1

Russian Orthodoxy : Two Paths

John Binns

The fall of Communist governments across Eastern Europe and Soviet Asia has left the churches there facing a volatile if more liberated future prospect. The changes have left the church, especially in Eastern Europe, with two overriding challenges. The first task is moral and spiritual. The twentieth century saw a series of persecutions of a ferocity unparalleled in any period in the history of the church. Many discovered a new life and strength through persecution. Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh was asked once, “Is the church in Russia free? “He replied, “The freedom of the church is to love until death.”

The Need for Renewal

Now, however, new trials are confronting the Orthodox churches. There is the need for the renewal, nurture, and re-conversion of societies undergoing economic and political disorientation, and for a response to the arrival of Western exports of secularization, consumerism, and globalization. Faced with a rapidly changing society, the Orthodox churches may see their vocation as maintaining a pure and unchanging tradition and so become inward-looking, defensive, and condemnatory of others. Or they may become committed to a new world order, responding to new demands and questions posed by science and technology and to the sheer presence of other churches and faiths in an increasingly interdependent world. They may find it possible to be both true to the tradition of the past and open to the opportunities of the future. This will require far-reaching spiritual and moral reorientation.

The second task is similar to the first, but is transposed to the political and cultural arena. In the course of a long history, the Orthodox churches have moved through several locations on the world cultural map. The process began with a thousand years of being the center of culture, in the Byzantine Empire, with Islam and the Catholic West as increasingly assertive but still subordinate competitors on either side. In the next period Western Europe and Islam were the two major powers, with the Orthodox churches functioning partly as a minority within Islam and partly as a Russian Empire which could be called, with some reservations, Orthodox. The question now is: where do the Orthodox belong?

Separation or Integration?

For the Orthodox of Eastern Europe and Russia the options are twofold. The Orthodox could become a separate cultural entity, part of a reconstituted Russian-dominated economic and cultural alliance. This is the view of the celebrated – or infamous? – theory of Samuel Huntington, set out in a book which touched a raw nerve among many Orthodox by suggesting that Orthodoxy belongs to a different civilization from Western Christianity: The Clash of Civilizations and the Re-making of World Order (New York: 1996). Or they could become part of a new Europe, culturally reverting to the Graeco-Roman synthesis of the empire before it was torn apart by the embitterment of the Great Schism (1054), and so developing an identity within a new enlarged Europe. This is a question which has long preoccupied Orthodox Christianity: in fifteenth-century Constantinople, with its debate over the acceptance of the Council of Florence (1439); or in nineteenth-century Russia, with the division between Slavophil’s and Westernizers. In the past the Orthodox have decided against seeing themselves with the West, as part of European Christian culture; and any suggestion for  rapprochement with Catholic or Protestant has been firmly rejected by the common mind of the church. But now the new circumstances of the post-Communist era in the East and the post-Christian era in the West may lead both East and West to come up with different answers from those of the millennium before, and to evolve a new Christian sense of common purpose and shared life within a unified European political and economic entity.

The Difficulty in Measuring Orthodox Adherence

In Russia the period following the fall of Communism has been marked by the rebuilding of churches and re-opening of institutions on a massive scale. The existence of this religious revival has, however, been questioned. Although accurate statistics are not available, those familiar with Russian society generally agree that between one and three percent of the population of Russia attend church regularly. This level of attendance is less than in many countries in secularized Western Europe. But caution must be exercised over this more negative approach. For the West, with its post-Enlightenment individualism, belief is a matter of individual choice and the commitment of faith is expressed through attending church worship. The Orthodox East has inherited a more communal approach, with membership of church often being bound up with membership of a nation. Expression of faith is more finely nuanced and can be shown through keeping the fasts, sharing the celebration of the feasts, venerating icons, and visiting places of pilgrimage. People are likely to attend church on major festivals, rather than on Sundays. Such diverse forms of expression of faith are harder to assess, but there is plenty of evidence of firmly entrenched Orthodox practice. In 1999 the relics of St. Panteleimon were brought to Moscow. There was huge interest: observers reported that around a million people queued for eight hours or more to venerate the relics. Such indicators suggest that religious practice is too varied and many-sided to be accurately captured in a survey.

A fuller picture of religious observance in Russia has recently been presented by a team of researchers who have traveled to all parts of the country. Rather than compiling statistics, they have chosen to produce a more descriptive survey of their findings. It provides detailed information about the state of church life in different parts of Russia. (Some results of this survey are published in Religion, State and Society 28 [March 2000],7-69.) Compare, for example, the situation in two dioceses which the research team visited and described: Petrozavodsk, a diocese formed in the1990s in the northwest of Russia; and Ekaterinburg, the former Sverdlovskin the Urals, where Tsar Nicholas II and his family were assassinated.

Comparing the Diocese of Petrozavodsk . . .

In Petrozavodsk the researchers found a lively and vibrant church life. Bishop Manuil is from an intellectual St. Petersburg background, enjoys good relations with Lutherans and Pentecostals, and uses a translation of the New Testament made by Finnish Pentecostals for his work among Karelian-speaking congregations. The monasteries, especially the Muromsky Monastery, are centers for his catechetical work. In the city itself the Zhuravka Educational Center has been financed by the head of a building firm who is also the director of the center. Its three-year course for catechists is taught by the bishop, leading priests, and secular teachers.

Some of its graduates have become priests. The bishop’s press secretary, however, is a leading conservative who regularly publishes nationalist articles that contradict the public statements of the bishop. The bishop values the variety of church life in his diocese.

Russian Orthodoxy

. . . And the Diocese of Ekaterinburg

Ekaterinburg sprang into the news when it was learned that in May1998 books by the more open Orthodox writers - Alexander Schmemann, John Meyendorff, and Alexander Men - had been burned in public. This was in fact the second book burning, as there had been an earlier occasioning 1994. The bishop who had ordered these burnings was the young and upwardly mobile Bishop Nikon, who had been appointed to the diocese in1994 while he was still in his early thirties. He turned out to be a keen fundraiser for the diocese, raising money mostly from parish churches, and also an opponent of foreign missions and heterodox sects. He built up good relations with the army and some of the local institutions but was unpopular with many clergy. He cut off support for the church’s education

program, acted against liberal priests, and aroused the opposition of some of the monasteries. He later denied to the Synod of Bishops that the book burnings had taken place, but nevertheless he was eventually removed after numerous complaints against him had been received by the Patriarchate. He was then sent to the well-known and conservative Pskov Monastery of the Caves.

The leadership of the church under Patriarch Alexis II is sometimes criticized for caution at a time when positive leadership is required. These two examples show just some of the range of church life in Russia and show the importance of the task of holding the church together in a time of social change.