WEBVTT - S4 – Interview 2: Heather Coleman 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:10.400 Our guest today is Dr Heather Coleman. Dr. Coleman is 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:13.720 a historian of Russian religion whose research guides us back 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.960 into Russia's past to see the importance of religion as 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.759 a force for social change, and she comes at the 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.560 topic from some surprising directions. For instance, take her book 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.200 Russian Baptists and the Spiritual Revolution nineteen o five to 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:30.720 nineteen twenty nine. When she learned that few historians had 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.920 written about the importance of Russian Baptists during the rise 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.560 of the Bolsheviks, she wrote the book herself. Ever since, 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.239 Dr Coleman has focused her work on the stories that 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.879 give life to Russian religious history. Her more recent collection 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.159 is Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia, a source book on 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.800 lived religion. It takes the perspective of people on the ground, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.600 helping us to understand how everyday Russian's connected to their church, 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.640 their faith, and the powers at the hearts of the Empire. 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:01.960 We love nothing better than the stories that give meaning 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.000 to our lives. So Dr Coleman's focus on the ways 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.600 that Christianity was experienced beyond the courts and palaces of 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.840 the romanof Empire made her a perfect guide to the 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.200 ins and outs of the church during the life of 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:19.000 Grigory Rasputin. This is the Unobscured Interview series for season four. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:28.440 I'm Aaron Manky for Unobscured Podcast. I'm Karl Nlis and 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.679 today I'm talking with Dr Heather Coleman, Professor of History 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.280 at the University of Alberta. Dr Coleman is a historian 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:39.280 of Russia. She has written extensively on religion and modernization 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.080 in Russia and across the Russian Empire in the nine 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.720 and twentieth centuries. For ten years, Dr Coleman served as 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.120 editor of the Canadian Slavonic Papers, and she directs the 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.200 program on Religion and Culture at the Canadian Institute of 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.520 Ukrainian Studies. It's a privilege to be talking with Dr 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.760 Coleman today, So Heather, welcome to Unobscured Podcast. Thank you 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.880 for having me. I'm very excited to talk to you. Well, 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.840 we're so glad to have you with us. Um, let's 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.840 just start a little bit more about your work. Uh, 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.000 in your words, you focused your scholarly work on religion 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:20.040 in Russia. What originally brought you to this study. Well, 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:25.080 I actually didn't think much about religion when I first 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:29.000 started my graduate work. To be honest, in the nineteen eighties, 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:34.240 when I was an undergraduate, religion was was not just 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.440 treated as though it didn't matter in modern Russian history. 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.640 It was quite simply not treated. I just it was 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.960 just not really covered, and so I didn't really develop 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:49.200 questions about it. I was interested in understanding how ordinary 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:53.720 people experienced the utopianism of the nineteen twenties, the early 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.679 Bolshevik period, a period when the Bolsheviks were driving to 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:02.040 trying to sort of create a new were old and um. 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.839 For my master's thesis, I was exploring their their programs 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:09.720 for transforming women's lives. But in the newspapers of the 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:15.760 nineteen twenties, I found the Bolsheviks very very anxious about 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:20.359 the Baptists and and perceiving the Baptists as their competition 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.480 for organizing women. Oh, look, the Baptists have a choir. 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.200 Maybe we should have a choir. And I started to think, well, now, 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.400 isn't that interesting. Maybe religion did matter, maybe it was 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:37.280 a thing. And as I pursued my moved into my 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:42.320 doctoral studies, I came back to this, this interesting observation, 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.720 and I went into the library at the University of 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.720 Illinois where I was doing my PhD. And by miracle, 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.720 they had a full run of a nineteen twenties Baptist 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:59.160 Ukrainian magazine, and I opened it up and there was 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:07.600 lively public life, an organization that was that was experiencing 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.680 a religious revival in the midst of early socialism, and 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:16.680 I was fascinated. Um and so that was part of it. 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.680 But it was also timing. This was the early post 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.240 Soviet period, a period when there were all kinds of 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:27.839 new archival opportunities, the archives that had been closed were 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.760 opening up, But it was also a period of great 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.320 religious revival. H And I think that we had a 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:40.679 sense that that religion was an important factor in historical change, uh, 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.520 something that historians in the in the sort of middle 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.479 of the twentieth century had had tended to disregard. But 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.280 we saw it, you know, in our own lives. We 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.840 saw how religion was a lens through which individuals were 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:59.039 making sense of the collapse of communism in Central and 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.159 Eastern Europe. And so I think I think that um, 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.279 there were both intellectual reasons and and and and reasons 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:10.280 of timing that brought me to this. And my professor 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:12.279 said to me when I said I wanted to do 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.720 religious topic, oh, you'll have that phone booth to yourself. 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.440 But when I got to the archives in in in 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:25.080 in Russia, there were all kinds of graduate students who 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.719 had all independently come to be interested in religious topics, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.200 and we'd all been told we'd be alone, and there 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.159 we were together. And so I've been working on this 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:41.000 ever since. Mhm wow, Well, and you focused on on 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:46.640 those Baptists. Um, can you say maybe just a couple 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.919 more words about how your work on the Baptist in 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:59.320 that early beginning, how has it continued to inform your scholarship. Well, um, yeah, 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.040 so I mean came to the topic through the nineteen twenties, 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.680 but I then discovered that there was a whole pre 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.760 revolutionary story that explained why they were such an issue 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:15.599 in early Soviet Russia. Um. This the state church and 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:21.560 the majority religion in Imperial Russia was the Orthodox Church, 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.479 and Russia until nineteen o five was an autocracy with 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:29.640 no constitution, no representative government. It was illegal to leave 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:33.400 the Orthodox Church if you were orthodox um. And yet 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:39.000 I I discovered through um my my research that in 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.880 the last decades before the Revolution, the Baptist faith was 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:49.160 rapidly spreading among ordinary people. Um. And These were people who, 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.320 you know, government and church were used to thinking of 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.679 as as sort of true and patriotic Russians. But these 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:01.640 people were embracing a Western form of religion, one that 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:06.880 had egalitarian communities that elected their own pastors. And and 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:12.640 and so these people's private religious choices became a big 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.760 public issue in late Imperial Russia. They became a touchstone 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.840 for discussions about Orthodoxy and Russian identity, about the relationship 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.760 between church and state, about freedom of conscience, about civil society, 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.760 about the democratic potential of the Russian people, about socialism. 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:37.360 And and I think that this, my work on religious sectarianism, 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:42.200 continues to inform my scholarship because it it alerted me 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:47.120 to the importance of religion in people's lives, the importance 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.600 and in public discourse. Um. It brought to it brought 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.320 me to an interest in Orthodoxy, which I have now 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.480 been studying for many years, because it brought me to 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.640 a realization that the church, which had been treated as 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.120 sort of irrelevant and we'll talk more about this, but 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:09.600 kind of dead um was was was not as dead 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.680 as previously reported. Um. And and my interest in the 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:18.160 relationship between religion and power in Russian state and society 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.440 has been a thread that started with this work on 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:26.760 the Baptists and has continued throughout my career. Mhmm, yeah, 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.680 that's great. Can you, from that point tell us a 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.960 bit more about what we know about the varieties of 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.800 Christianity active across the massive Russian Empire in the late 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.400 eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. You know, you say, 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:44.680 the Orthodox Church, of course, was the state Church, the 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.960 sanction church, um. But what were the varieties of Christianity 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:55.240 in such a big and multivarious place. Yes, the word 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.320 empire is key here, because, of course it's there was 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.480 a huge variety of Christianity, in part due to huge 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:09.520 ethnic variety. UM. As you just mentioned, the overwhelming majority 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:17.520 of Christians were Orthodox Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, small communities 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.240 of Greeks and Serbs who lived in the south. They 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.960 were all traditionally Orthodox. But there were also um substantial 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.959 numbers of Roman Catholics. We forget that that much of 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.000 Poland was part of the Russian Empire in this period, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:38.400 and they were Catholic. U. Large numbers of Lutherans, especially 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:43.520 in the in the northwest Finland what are what are 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:49.959 now Estonia and Latvia were part of the Russian Empire. Uh. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.280 There were lots of Mennonites in the South Army the 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.120 Armenian Apostolic Church. And then there were a wide variety 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.200 of smaller groups that were care arized by the government 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.080 of sects, so groups like the Duka Bors or the Molikons, 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:11.520 the Old Believers, UM, Evangelical Christians of various sorts, especially 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:17.319 the Baptists I just mentioned. So in addition to UM, 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:22.839 Islam and Buddhism and many many other faiths, there was 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:29.280 a huge variety of Christianity. Mm hmm. Could you say 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.160 a few words about the role of print culture in 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:37.840 changing the Russian experience of religion Broadley during the late 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:45.600 Imperial period. Well, that's a good question to um. The 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:50.079 late let's say, from from the middle from the eighteen sixties, 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:57.040 when Russia began a period of profound reform and transformation 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:04.359 UM and some loosening up of government control and censorship. 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.840 In the eighteen sixties right up to the revolution. UM, 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:13.400 you see a real transformation of the UH, an expansion 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:18.240 of the press, but also a sharp rise in literacy rates. UM. 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:22.560 And these work together, of course, UM. You know, there's 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:24.920 this is a period of the great rise of the 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.560 popular press more generally in in the world, due to 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:34.520 technological change, but also to changing literacy rates. And certainly, 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.480 for example, with the Great Reforms, you have the great 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:43.360 expansion in public education and so UH. In you know, 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:45.480 at the beginning of the Great Reforms, at the beginning 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.240 of the eighteen sixties, perhaps six percent of the population 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:57.880 in rural areas were was literate. But by nineteen seventeen, um, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:07.280 over you know, over of rural women and six of 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.720 urban women were literate. And and those rates were quite 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.240 a bit higher for men, especially for young men. So 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.760 we have a great expansion of of um of literacy. 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:24.040 But we also have the development of a mass circulation press. UM. 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:30.240 This includes both UM sort of popular newspapers and and magazines, 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:37.319 but also just a lot of short pamphlets and UH 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:42.720 and and other very inexpensive print products that are circulating. UH. 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.080 This is also a period of a great rise in 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.920 the religious press. And this has a role, very very 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:55.040 important role in religious life in two ways. UM. First, 0:12:55.320 --> 0:13:00.440 the the there's a rise in UH press that is 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.480 published by the church for the church, and so there's 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:12.200 a great flowing flowering of local diocesan newspapers and UH 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:17.360 magazines aimed at UH at parish priests, helping them to 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:22.880 preach better, to try new techniques, to organize their their 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.800 their religious lives, of their communities better. But there's also 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:31.080 a great rise of of magazines that are aimed at 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:37.080 ordinary believers. UM, you know, with stories of of religious UH, 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:43.280 people's religious experiences with explanation, you know, stories of people's pilgrimages, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.760 of people's miracles that people have experienced, with explanations of 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.400 Bible stories and so on. Lives of the Saints in 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:56.960 cheap editions. Also UM. In the in eighteen sixty two, 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:04.520 the the first Russian translations of the Gospel into ordinary 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:09.480 spoken Russian in cheap editions became available and these were 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:14.800 widely distributed through the church networks in the beginning in 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:19.200 the sixties and right through until the Revolution, and the 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.680 Orthodox Church emphasized putting the Bible in people's hands, and 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:28.200 so UH there's a great distribution of the Bible. And 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.760 what's important about this is that even though literacy rates 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:38.280 remained low compared to many of Russia's European competitors, uh, 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:44.600 they're still pretty good among young people and increasingly good 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.520 among young people. And that and that meant that people 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.880 who couldn't read still had access to this print culture. 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:57.520 Because people who could read read to their their elders, 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:01.680 read to their grandparents, it's read to their families and 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:06.280 so Uh. This print culture allows the diffusion of common 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:11.479 ideas and stories. It makes people more aware of, um, 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.200 you know, places they might go on pilgrimage and and 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:19.280 and better familiar with the Bible and with the stories 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:25.320 of the saints and so on. Mm hmm. Thinking about 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:31.680 that expanse of the Russian Empire, are there distinct regional 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:38.920 differences in Russian religion, say east and west of the Urals? Yes, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.920 so the Urals are the traditional dividing line between European 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:51.040 and Asian Russia. Um. I think the the answer is yes. Um, 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.840 there's still we still actually have a lot of work 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:59.440 to do precisely on this topic of the varieties of 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.480 orthodox see um. But I certainly can say a few 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:09.920 words now, I mean regional variety was actually, of course normal. Um, 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:16.040 it's really all across Europe in the nineteenth century. Modernization 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:21.240 means leads to churches to seek a kind of a uniformity, 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:27.240 and modern communications helped to promote uniformity. But religion all 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:32.240 across Europe remained very much regional and even local um 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:37.440 in its variations. So UM, local areas will have preferred 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:43.520 preferred saints, they will have UM hymns that they love, 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:49.920 you know, they'll have local traditions. Um. Certainly, I would 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:55.640 say that Russian religion was different east of the Urals. Um. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:17:03.880 In in Siberia, Um you have um much more old belief, 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:08.840 much more religious sectarianism, because um, the area east of 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:16.440 the Earls was was a place where where where religious 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:21.280 dissenters fled in the early modern period to get away 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:28.520 from the power of the state, before state communications became better. Um, 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:33.879 you have of course Islam, which uh, which Christianity encounters 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:38.080 east of the Earls, and south of the Earls, Um 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:43.320 you have indigenous religion in its great variety. East of 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:47.080 the Earls. Um there's a kind of a frontier atmosphere. 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:52.360 The official church infrastructure was much less developed. We shouldn't 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:57.520 exaggerate this. In in western Siberia we have ancient diocese 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.160 to boys quotsk and so on, but are not even 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:06.320 your quotes to boys. Um. But but there's there's very 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.960 little by way of seminary education and and so on. 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:17.040 So so certainly um, there is much more Uh, the 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:23.960 church has much more trouble um regulating religious practice just 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:30.080 because of distances and variety east of the earls. M 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.480 In the introduction to Orthodox Christianity and Imperial Russia, that 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.440 that really helpful source book that you edited and and 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.159 that you that you wrote the introduction for. You make 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.680 a few comments about the idea of dual faith, which 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.760 is that Russian peasant Christianity was a kind of thin 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:54.439 veneer over fundamentally pagan beliefs that the peasants somehow had um. 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.040 And while you know that this was a convenient simplification 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.320 for Soviet writers, could you say, if you words on 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:05.160 the distinctions between the religion practiced by church authorities and 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.359 popular religion as it was practiced by people, you know, 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.160 maybe it's not a thin veneer over fundamentally pagan beliefs, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.040 and you know, maybe that's the wrong way to simplify it. 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:18.040 But if we're talking about maybe Siberian Christianity versus what's 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:19.919 going on in St. Petersburg, how do we how do 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:24.119 we see differences between the religion of the church authorities 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:29.800 and popular religion. Yeah, this is something that you know, 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:34.680 my generation of scholars has been really trying to think 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:39.760 in new ways about Uh. This notion of dual dual 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:45.320 faith is somewhat problem problematic, but we can we can. 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:49.840 We can also, of course say that religion is um 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.840 is certainly going to be different in different social classes 0:19:55.960 --> 0:20:01.880 and different ethnic groups and different regions. And and UM. 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.399 I think that what what my generation has perhaps UM 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.880 as exemplified in that Orthodox Christianity and Imperial Russia book 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.200 has has has sort of combat It is a view 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:20.600 that that just because um, uh say, lower class groups 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:25.879 do things differently from what the Church might prescribe, we 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:30.040 shouldn't necessarily jump to the conclusion that this is pagan 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:36.400 and and uh sort of um anti clerical. But because 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:41.640 usually the the um the people who are doing these 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:45.200 things believe what they are doing to be truly Christian 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.920 and are not doing this in any sense of opposition. UM. 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:56.320 Certainly ordinary people, peasants, lower class people, in the cities 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:03.280 often did things differently from how the priests would have 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:09.639 liked them to do things. So, for example, UM popular 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:18.440 religion was was certainly much more UM local, much more experiential, 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:24.960 much more oral. Uh. They people would would perhaps um 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:29.800 uh say prayers and get some of the words wrong, 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:35.119 and and then understand the reason for those prayers differently 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:40.440 because they had not understood all of the words. UM. 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:46.320 They had local sites of pilgrimage that were that that 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:54.439 that UM, we're not unnecessarily approved by the powers that 0:21:54.560 --> 0:22:03.960 be UM. They would uh local local UM. Local communities 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:09.520 would often have UM, for example, icons that they regarded 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:15.439 as miraculous UM and that had not been officially approved. 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:20.280 And it's quite interesting because the priests would be in 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:24.199 a funny position with many of these local practices because 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.560 on one on the one level, priests were supposed to 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:33.480 ensure sort of Orthodox orthodoxy, you know, to make sure 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:38.480 that people were doing things right UM. At the same time, 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:43.240 the priests were members of the local community, and they 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:49.720 they they they appreciated their their their parishioners faithfulness, and 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:53.959 they appreciated their parishioners involvement, and so they had to 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:59.880 walk a fine line between correcting and supporting the religion 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:04.359 pocity of their parishioners. Would you describe the place of 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:08.000 relics in Russian Orthodoxy? And if we want to get 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:10.720 a little kind of theological you know what that says 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:16.119 about Orthodox theology maybe of the body or um, of 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:20.119 whether the material world is somehow redeemable. What's going on 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.960 with relics in the in the Russian church? Um, well, 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:27.680 thanks for the that's a good question. Um. This gets 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:34.119 to the heart actually of orthodox theology. Um. The doctrine 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:39.560 of the incarnation, the notion that God became fully human 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:43.840 in the form of Jesus Christ and yet remained fully 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:48.040 God at the same time, is at the heart of Christianity, 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:55.960 and it's particularly at the center of Orthodox spiritual practice. Um. 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:59.840 So the aim of a Christian life is to preserve 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:04.720 and intensify the union between God and humans that that 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:11.080 God exemplified by becoming a man in Jesus Christ. And 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:17.320 and um, the the the what's the word? Sorry? The 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:27.520 the sorry, the it's not worshiping the sorry. I'm having 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:29.960 a blank here. I'll try this again. The relics of 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:33.119 the saints play an important role in this sort of 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:40.560 incarnational theology and this incarnational spirituality. Uh the relics of 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:47.680 saints are are perceived as um as a reminder that 0:24:47.960 --> 0:24:52.320 God took a material body and that by doing that, 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:58.280 God proved that matter could be redeemed and so um. 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:03.119 There there is a uh An Orthodox tradition it's not 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:07.959 a dogma, but a tradition that um that the bodies 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:13.280 of of saints will not corrupt, that they are incorruptible 0:25:13.800 --> 0:25:18.679 and um and that they're miraculously preserved from decay. And 0:25:18.800 --> 0:25:26.760 so in many monasteries there are the the uncorrupted remains 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:31.960 of various saints, and people will come on pilgrimage to 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:37.359 pray before these these relics um and you know, and 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:43.960 and sermons and magazines at the time would explain that 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:50.200 that that these incorruptible bodies of God's saints were God's 0:25:50.240 --> 0:25:56.560 way of showing people that they too participated in in 0:25:56.960 --> 0:26:02.720 this connection between God and and humans, that their own 0:26:02.800 --> 0:26:08.640 bodies would be resurrected at the end of time. That 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:12.600 that and that Orthodox truth was was sort of shown 0:26:12.840 --> 0:26:16.680 through these bodies, and so people would come to pray 0:26:16.840 --> 0:26:22.920 before the relics as um as channels of divine power 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:28.760 as as ways to to focus on the lives of 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:35.359 those saints and the the the the realities of the incarnation. 0:26:37.359 --> 0:26:40.960 This is this is a kind of a related question 0:26:41.000 --> 0:26:42.960 and not in my list, But I was talking with 0:26:43.000 --> 0:26:47.200 the theologian that I'm working with, who's who's researching the program, 0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:51.280 and we we've kind of been wondering, how influential do 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:54.679 you do you know how influential St. Simme and the 0:26:54.720 --> 0:27:00.359 New Theologian was on Russian monasticism in this period. I don't, 0:27:00.560 --> 0:27:03.439 I don't know. Okay, that's that's all right, that's right. 0:27:03.480 --> 0:27:06.639 You know, of course we're headed towards Resputin, and Rasputin 0:27:06.840 --> 0:27:09.919 seems to have taken the teachings of St. Simmean, the 0:27:09.920 --> 0:27:14.440 New Theologian and the the Relic as a means of 0:27:14.680 --> 0:27:17.880 connecting with God and veneration, devotion and taking that onto 0:27:17.960 --> 0:27:20.840 him onto himself. And you know, maybe in a distortion 0:27:20.920 --> 0:27:25.240 or an idiosyncratic way of interpreting um that the living 0:27:25.280 --> 0:27:28.720 body of Rasputin the teacher should be treated as a 0:27:28.760 --> 0:27:35.000 relic or the way that a dead relic would be. Um. Well, this, 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:40.240 I mean this, this does connect into the the Orthodox. 0:27:40.520 --> 0:27:46.400 This is a distortion of of a broader Orthodox theology 0:27:46.440 --> 0:27:51.840 of of um the image and UM. You know that 0:27:51.840 --> 0:27:55.760 that Orthodoxy is um is a much more has a 0:27:55.880 --> 0:28:01.680 much more well developed theology of the material then Western 0:28:01.800 --> 0:28:09.280 Christianity does. And um Uh Orthodoxy UM believes that we 0:28:09.760 --> 0:28:12.600 I mean, as as do other Christians, that humans are 0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:15.440 are are made in the image of God, and so 0:28:15.920 --> 0:28:20.520 Jesus is an icon uh an image of God. But 0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:25.040 so is each person and and that are that our 0:28:25.080 --> 0:28:30.879 our our goal in life are our salvation entails becoming 0:28:31.560 --> 0:28:38.120 uh that that perfect image of God. Um. Salvation involves 0:28:38.200 --> 0:28:42.280 connecting with the holy energies that are around us and 0:28:42.360 --> 0:28:47.840 aligning our behavior and our minds and our spirits with 0:28:48.960 --> 0:28:52.600 with those holy energies in order to fully realize this, 0:28:52.600 --> 0:28:56.320 this incarnation, this this this um, the fact that we 0:28:56.360 --> 0:28:59.320 are created in the image of God and so and 0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:04.080 so you know when Resputin is doing this, he's drawing 0:29:04.280 --> 0:29:11.920 on UM. He's drawing on important ideas that are at 0:29:11.960 --> 0:29:21.600 the heart of Orthodox spirituality. That's great, UM, so kind 0:29:21.600 --> 0:29:24.800 of climbing back into our our questions and our outline. Here, 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:29.800 would you give us a brief description of what is 0:29:29.800 --> 0:29:34.280 meant by Old believers in Russia at this period. Oh sure, 0:29:36.520 --> 0:29:44.640 so the Old Believers were quite a large group of 0:29:44.640 --> 0:29:49.440 of Orthodox people who were in schism with the main 0:29:49.760 --> 0:29:57.120 Orthodox Church. Back in the seventeenth century, the official Orthodox 0:29:57.240 --> 0:30:01.719 Church began to to modernize and began to reform and 0:30:01.840 --> 0:30:06.960 try to standardize religious practice. And as it did so, 0:30:07.160 --> 0:30:12.040 it um it discovered that Russian practice had begun to 0:30:12.200 --> 0:30:17.160 differ from that of the Greeks. Um. The Orthodox faith 0:30:17.200 --> 0:30:22.320 had originally come from from the Greeks and Uh. The 0:30:22.400 --> 0:30:25.959 leaders of the church at this time UH, as they 0:30:25.960 --> 0:30:30.880 were standardizing, tended to standardize in ways that that followed 0:30:30.880 --> 0:30:36.120 the ways that the Greeks did things um. And this 0:30:36.720 --> 0:30:41.320 was very upsetting to many Orthodox believers because as I 0:30:41.440 --> 0:30:45.840 as I just mentioned um right Orthodox he means right 0:30:46.160 --> 0:30:53.320 practice and the physical practice, the way that one worships, 0:30:54.280 --> 0:31:00.000 is considered to be critical to reaching salvation. And Russia 0:31:00.320 --> 0:31:06.240 had had traditionally crossed themselves with two fingers um uh and, 0:31:06.920 --> 0:31:10.400 which is a symbol of the incarnation, but the Greeks 0:31:10.400 --> 0:31:13.760 crossed themselves with three fingers, a symbol of the Trinity, 0:31:13.840 --> 0:31:18.920 another important doctrine um and uh and when the when 0:31:18.960 --> 0:31:27.320 the church began to correct the ways in which believers worshiped. UH. 0:31:27.360 --> 0:31:33.880 There was a whole element who, for example, resisted crossing 0:31:33.920 --> 0:31:38.280 themselves with three fingers because they really believed that that 0:31:38.640 --> 0:31:44.200 if they practiced wrong, that they that their salvation was 0:31:44.240 --> 0:31:48.680 in jeopardy. UM. There were many UH, there were many 0:31:48.760 --> 0:31:52.680 issues connected to the the emergence of the Old Believers. 0:31:52.680 --> 0:31:55.640 But at the center of it was this this dispute 0:31:55.680 --> 0:32:00.880 about religious authority and and about and about wrecked practice. 0:32:01.040 --> 0:32:04.360 And so in the late seventeenth century you have large 0:32:04.440 --> 0:32:09.440 numbers of people who left the church UH and became 0:32:09.560 --> 0:32:14.440