Orthodox kaleidoscope: heterogeneity, complexity, and dynamics in the Russian Orthodox Church. An introduction

ABSTRACT

This introduction to ‘Orthodox Kaleidoscope: Heterogeneity, Complexity, and Dynamics in the Russian Orthodox Church’ sheds light on its contributions from a methodological-theoretical angle. Six of the seven contributions to this issue spring from an interdisciplinary academic network established in 2015 by scholars of 15 institutions in search of approaches and theories that would do justice to the multifaceted and fluid return of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) to society and (geo-)politics after perestroika. One of the challenges this Orthodox revival presents to scholarship is an extreme heterogeneity of groups, worldviews, and teachings, each claiming to represent ‘true’ Orthodoxy by virtue of their belonging to Orthodox Tradition. Such belonging grants the right to exist and exercise sacral authority on micro-, meso- and macro-levels, but also involves a non-belonging, a simultaneous insider and outsider perspective of Orthodoxy/Orthodox Tradition. Since this problem arises in each situation when such an overreaching position (sub specie aeternitatis) is claimed, it is common to each religious tradition and is therefore pertinent to religious studies more broadly. In the Introduction I discuss this variation of Russell’s paradox and the ways to overcome this conceptual problem.

KEYWORDS:

• Theory and methodology in study of religion
• Russian Orthodox Church
• Russell’s paradox
• post-Soviet religious revival

This special issue addresses the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate; hereafter ROC MP) that followed the end of Soviet rule in the countries of the former USSR. The revival of Orthodox religious life encompassed all levels of society, from the macro-level of institutional structures to the micro-level of ‘lived’ religion and piety. Heterogeneity and complexity – of the Church’s engagements with society, foreign affairs, and its internal life – are the main features of this revival. In Russia this revival manifested in closer church–state relations, the Church’s (geo-)political agenda, the development of a spectrum of internal ecclesiastical factions, and the (re)gaining and maintaining of societal influence. It is also perceptible in phenomena like the revival of local practices and traditions, the restoration of ecclesiastical property, the proliferation of parishes, and the development of clerical education and Orthodox pedagogy.

Furthermore, the ROC MP stretches beyond Russia’s current borders, claiming jurisdictions over churches in other post-Soviet states. In the revival of the national Orthodox churches after the end of communist rule, relations had to be redefined and renegotiated, not only between the respective states and churches within each country, but also between states and between churches, a process in which interests often conflicted. The ROC MP also incorporates several self-governing branches, including the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) and the Japanese Orthodox Church, in which the religious dynamics evidently were different, not having been part of the USSR. The title of this collection reflects the complex dynamics of the myriad historical, theological, social, political, economic, and other factors shaping contemporary Orthodox life, which resemble a kaleidoscope in motion, but other metaphors have been used to capture the diversity of (Russian) Orthodox religiosity, e.g. ‘multi-vocality’ (Köllner 2019, 7).

In recent decades scholarship has become increasingly sensitive to this diversity, countering stereotypes of Eastern Orthodoxy as the unknown ‘other’ Christianity (Hann and Goltz 2010) or of ‘the bounded state and the uniform dominant religious tradition’ (Shterin 2016, 44). Next to analysis of the diversity within institutional structures (Fagan 2013; Papkova 2011; Richters 2013) and of the complex roles of Orthodoxy in societal and political issues (Curanovic 2012; Stoeckl 2014; Shterin 2016), more attention is being given to the interactions between the macro-, meso- and micro-levels (Köllner 2019; Zabaev, Mikhaylova, and Oreshina 2018). There is also increasing focus on the vibrant field of lived Orthodoxy (Hann and Goltz 2010; Panchenko 2012; Kormina 2012, 2014; Kormina and Luehrmann 2018; Rock 2015 etc.) and to (de)secularisation in Russia and post-Soviet states (Shterin 2012; Karpov 2013; Freeze 2015; Rosati and Stoeckl 2012; Agadjanian 2017, 2015; Uzlaner 2020 etc.).

As Irina du Quenoy correctly observes in her contribution to this collection: ‘The field we represent is well established by now and boasts numerous specialists with very good knowledge of the overall “Russian” picture. And yet our discussions of such things as church/state, church/society relations and of the tradition/reform dichotomy within the church remain largely bound to the “Russian” experience/tradition, without exploring how these same issues play out in other Orthodox contexts that may or may not themselves be influenced by the prerevolutionary Russian Orthodox past, particularly outside of Eastern Europe’. Indeed, systematic reflection on the theoretical and methodological challenges the post-Soviet Orthodox kaleidoscope poses has yet to be established.

Origin and content of the issue

This collection is an offshoot of the research project ‘Orthodox Kaleidoscope: Studying the Russian Orthodox Church. Heterogeneity, Complexity, Dynamics’ (OK), which was initiated in 2015 to address the methodological and theoretical challenges posed by this diverse field. OK started as an interdisciplinary network of scholars from 15 international academic institutions with support from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) as well as from nine of the participating institutions. Two expert meetings and a major conference were conducted (2016 and 2018), and in 2018 the network was fused with the ongoing international project ‘Theology after Gulag’. With one exception (Bogumił and Voronina) the contributions to this collection are revised papers presented during these meetings, offering case studies that exemplify this heterogeneity in diverse contexts and disciplines: history, theology, ethnography, memory studies, political studies.

Heterogeneity, complexity, and dynamics play a twofold role in this collection. The contributions focus on the heterogeneity in the field, from ‘official’ to ‘lived’ religion and anything in between (cf. Shakman Hurd 2015, 6). They offer cases where differing or even mutually exclusive appeals to the normativity of, and belonging to, Orthodoxy and Orthodox Tradition are at play in various settings: in pedagogical conceptions (Irina Paert), theological conceptions (Scott M. Kenworthy, Irina du Quenoy), memorialisation processes (Zuzanna Bogumił and Tatiana Voronina), perceptions of ‘heresy’ (Page Herrlinger) and (geo)politics (Anastasia Mitrofanova, Heleen Zorgdrager). The contributions also focus on some of the dilemmas scholarship faces in dealing with this heterogeneity, and the need to clarify scholarly use of central terms such as ‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘religion’. They present case studies as ‘food for thought’ on matters of methodology and theory, and suggest specific tools for dealing with these matters.

Overall, we can distinguish two senses of heterogeneity of current Orthodoxy, a conceptual and a religious (theological) sense. Taken as a concept, there is no consensus on a normative understanding of what ‘is’ Orthodox, either in the field or in scholarship. Earlier, I observed (2014b, 112) that ‘“Orthodoxy” and “Orthodox Tradition” have themselves become labels or myths to which anyone can appeal, since there is no uniform definition of what is “Orthodox” […] lived Orthodoxy is heterogeneous to the point of randomness’. Furthermore, as Scott M. Kenworthy aptly states in this issue: ‘Observers of contemporary Russian Orthodoxy, both in the West and in Russia, have frequently oversimplified this heterogeneity and underestimated the challenge in conceptualising their analysis. At the same time, different groups of Orthodox actors assert that their understanding of Orthodoxy is the “true” one, resulting in competing and heterogenous claims to what true Orthodoxy is’.

Thus, this lack of conceptual clarity is part and parcel of unclarity about what Orthodoxy actually is in practice. Vera Shevzov (2014, 135–136) has underlined broader problems of defining Orthodoxy in contemporary Russia: ‘what actually constitutes “authentic” Orthodoxy, and identifying who “belongs” to the Orthodox Church – and how these authentic forms and criteria of belonging relate to genuine faith – remain highly contested’. Questions of authenticity and belonging (or not belonging) in view of this extreme heterogeneity imply the larger question of how to define religion or religiosity.

To engage effectively with this conceptual and religious heterogeneity requires ordering and systematisation, and therefore normativity is key. Conceptual normativity entails having agreed scholarly criteria or norms with which to assess what can be considered as Orthodox and should be viewed as guiding academic description rather than impeding it.

Religious normativity relates to the religious substance or subject matter of Orthodox faith. In other words, we need both concepts upon which we agree in order to study Orthodoxy effectively (like the arguments over what name glorification means), and some shared understanding of what counts as Orthodox at macro-, meso- and micro-levels in order to understand where/how to position a group or practice. Yet another aspect is our own academic norms or ethics which we apply in studying this highly politicised (cf. all contributions to this issue) research field, taking into account that no neutral research position is possible.

As questions of normativity in these two senses are at stake in the study of religion broadly conceived (Lewis 2012; Tolstaya 2014b), the observations and methodological considerations in this issue have potential relevance for interdisciplinary debate on the scholarly study of religion. In sum, this collection aims to contribute to the scholarly debate on ‘what is religion?’

As the contributions to this issue show and as I have argued elsewhere (Tolstaya 2014a, 2014b), reference to Orthodox Tradition cannot provide the ‘norm’ for, nor a straightforward answer to, this question. This might not surprise, especially since heterogeneity is a defining feature of ‘lived religion’ (cf. McGuire 2008, 15). A particular theoretical problem of heterogeneity is posed when one observes that in the field the divergent claims and understandings of Orthodox believers, and also of political and juridical bodies, presuppose Orthodoxy and Orthodox Tradition to be normative and essentially ‘unchanging’, while allowing for specific changes and for norms that contradict belonging to tradition, e.g. on ethical or theological grounds. Concrete examples drawing on the current collection are made easily, e.g. the homophobic claims made by some Orthodox groups, discussed by Heleen Zorgdrager and by Anastasia Mitrofanova, can be seen as contradicting the notion of man as God’s image, while the opponents and adherents of the teaching of the ‘veneration of the divine names’ explicitly accuse each other of contradicting ‘the scriptures and the church fathers’ (Kenworthy). Moreover, Orthodox theologians conceive of Tradition as all-embracing and as unchanging and changing at the same time, as, in the words of one of the most respected theologians, it ‘has to be combined with personal experience, and needs to be rethought and relived in each new generation’ (Ware 2011, ix). In two earlier publications (Tolstaya 2014a, 2014b) I first called for theoretical engagement with the conundrum of a perpetually un/changing tradition by borrowing the image of the ‘Aleph’ from the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Orthodox Tradition resembles an ‘Aleph’, an iridescent sphere of approximately four inches that includes the whole universe, containing ‘all its continually changing members, including itself, while remaining the same’ (2014a, 3). A more appropriate image to illustrate the paradox for this collection is perhaps a person who is holding a kaleidoscope while simultaneously being one of the glass pieces constituting a kaleidoscopic pattern.

This paradox of simultaneous ‘unchanging’ and ‘changing’ or of belonging and non-belonging to the all-embracing Orthodox Tradition is ultimately self-referential (Tolstaya 2014a, 6). It represents an impossible perspective: the person who or institution which appeals to the normativity of (unchanging) Tradition by definition includes this person’s or institution’s (changing) self in Tradition. Obviously, this changing/unchanging concerns both spatial-temporal context, i.e. an appeal from history to eternity, and theology, i.e. an appeal from dogmatic appropriations and variations to a presupposed unchanging or normative dogmatic corpus. Needless to say, this changing/unchanging is no way unique to Orthodoxy but applies to any religious tradition with claims to doctrinal normativity on the micro-, meso-, or macro-levels.

Importantly, these questions of definition, normativity, and of belonging and not belonging are not just theoretical exercises, but directly concern each case study in this collection, and most of the authors refer to it. The first three contributions address the ‘Orthodox kaleidoscope’ in contexts other than – but related to – Russia, with case studies from Ukraine, Moldova, and Japan, respectively. This broader scope underlines the need for an inter-contextual approach to the ROC MP, or in the words of one of the contributors (Irina du Quenoy), a way of escaping the trap of self-reference by expanding the research object’s boundaries. The issue opens with theologian Heleen Zorgdrager’s analysis of the post-Maidan Ukrainian churches’ appeal to ‘traditional values’. Discussing two cases in which these values clashed with human rights legislation, Zorgdrager characterises the position of the churches as paradoxical (in the sense of the ‘Aleph’): on the one hand they support the Euromaidan’s urge for societal reform and modernisation, referring therefore to changeability, on the other hand they increasingly apply a discourse of traditional morality and national values, thus referring to unchangeability. Departing from this paradox, Zorgdrager asks how academic theology might advance analysis of the ideological parameters of religion in public and political debate, especially since – as she notes – there is no open discussion of these values within the churches. Theology can indeed contribute to meeting the theoretical challenge of self-reference, drawing on its ‘experience’ in dealing with questions of normativity and transcendence as its subject matter (as Zorgdrager puts it). Calling for closer interdisciplinary interaction between theology and social sciences, Zorgdrager turns to the Four Voices approach developed by Cameron and Duce (2013) as a model to enable dialogue between the different (macro-, meso- and micro-)levels of theological engagement, as well as within academic debate. Engaging with the four ‘voices’ – operant or lived theology, espoused theology, normative theology, and formal/academic theology – serves as a method to balance matters of personal belief and religious transcendence against the sociopolitical implications and applications of religious practices and discourses.

As Anastasia Mitrofanova shows in the next contribution, ‘traditional values’ play an inverse role in Moldovan public discourses. Contrary to Ukraine (and Russia), the Metropolinate in Moldova, part of the ROC MP, does not build on a discourse of traditional values. Such discourse is appropriated by radical Orthodox groups who – often militantly – confront state and church alike and challenge concrete policies, for example, on machine-readable identity cards, the secularity of public spaces, religious tolerance, and LGBT issues. Mitrofanova’s discussion highlights how the radicals’ claims to represent ‘true’ Orthodoxy are supported by a blend of anti-western sentiments, religious nationalism (propagating Moldova as an ‘Orthodox land’), and political ideology with ‘apocalyptic undertones’, rejecting both the Russian and the Moldovan churches’ collaboration (as they see it) with the state. Reflecting also on her own position as researcher, Mitrofanova’s case exemplifies the need as well as the difficulties of clear concepts in view of concrete forms of the conflation of religion and (political) ideology, and (re-)invention of religious tradition(s).

Drawing on fieldwork and the relatively scarce literature on the Japanese Orthodox Church (JOC, which is also formally part of the ROC MP), Irina du Quenoy considers how the ‘Russian’ tradition has been (re-)invented in an entirely different Orthodox cultural setting and by the charismatic authority of its founder, St Nicholas of Japan. She compares specific dimensions with the ROC MP, and concludes with some of ‘the methodological and theoretical questions scholars involved in the OK-network are seeking to address’: the demographic issue of nominal vs. factual belonging to Orthodoxy; the hotly debated questions of the liturgical reform of Church Slavonic, the ordination of women, the role of the laity, and obligatory confession before communion; continuity vs. rupture of Tradition after the 1917 Revolution; and the role of charismatic authority. Du Quenoy identifies a way out of ‘Tolstaya’s Aleph’ in furthering our case studies and broadening our comparative research of contextual Orthodoxy. In other words, looking at broader Orthodox heterogeneity allows for a different, ‘kaleidoscopic’ perspective on this diversity and on claims on normativity (theological as well as organisational) within the Russian Orthodox Church. A comparative framework enables us to assess the way we, as well as our research subjects/objects (in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, or Japan), refer to phenomena, and the terms we use.

These observations apply equally to the four contributions in the ‘Russian’ section of our issue. This section opens with Irina Paert’s analysis of engagement in the ROC MP with post-Soviet religious education. Paert nuances existing views that the Moscow Patriarchate’s efforts in this field have led to a ‘clericalisation’ of education, arguing that it was largely lay educators who revived Orthodox pedagogy in theory and practice. Adopting Cameron and Duce’s Four Voices approach as advocated by Zorgdrager, Paert identifies three main trends in pedagogical approaches which share an understanding of pedagogy as ‘espoused’ and ‘lived’ theology that can be practised through education. At the same time, these trends illustrate the paradox of self-reference: while the authors representing these trends all connect to ‘Tradition’ and are committed to rooting religious pedagogy in Russian cultural and intellectual heritage, they propound divergent understandings. As Paert concludes, it remains an open question whether ‘Orthodox pedagogy’ as a field will define itself through opposition to the ‘western’, or – while tapping from Russian pedagogical and religious thought – in explicit dialogue with western models.

The contribution by Zuzanna Bogumił and Tatiana Voronina, though not originating in the OK network, complements the themes of this collection by viewing the heterogeneity and dynamics of contemporary Orthodoxy from the perspective of memory studies. Focusing on the role of the ROC MP as memory actor in the broader memory politics over the 1917 Russian Revolution, they discuss the centenary commemorations organised by the Church. The authors analyse how the Church’s attempts to recognise the martyrdom of the new martyrs via canonisation testify to the Church’s societal role in dealing with the unprocessed Soviet past; by combining two commemorative strands – the martyrdom of the new martyrs and the 1917 restoration of the patriarchate – the ROC MP understanding of the impact of the Revolution shifted from a negative narrative of persecution to a more positive one that stresses the heroic feats of martyrs. At the same time, Bogumił and Voronina trace the ‘path dependence’ of these commemorations in preceding post-Soviet commemorations and emphasise the complexity of these memory processes, which incorporate different interpretations of the past and its links to the present.

Scott M. Kenworthy discusses the heterogeneity in contemporary debates on the teaching of the ‘veneration of the divine names’ (Russian imiaslavie), a theological dispute going back to the early 1900s that has revived in the dynamics of post-Soviet times. Looking specifically at popular (internet and print) polemics, Kenworthy shows two sides of the post-Soviet Orthodox paradox: proponents and opponents of the teaching equally appeal to ‘true’ Orthodoxy to stake their claim, and they can be found across the entire spectrum of Orthodoxy. This given challenges binary distinctions between ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ factions in the ROC MP; at the same time the actors themselves tend to think in binary modes. To deal with this paradox, Kenworthy calls for an approach that combines historical and argumentative contextualisation with respect for ‘the profound theological issues at stake with a humility about drawing any absolute conclusions’, an attitude which is at the core of Orthodox theology itself.

Concluding the issue is a historical study in which Page Herrlinger documents the case of Russian Orthodox clerics against two popular lay preachers and their followers in the early 1910s. Clergy accused the so-called ‘Moscow brothers’, who were known for propagating sobriety, of ‘heresy’ and had them arrested and tried. Herrlinger presents a case which resonates with contemporary issues in the ROC MP: relations between clergy and laity, the use of mass media, gender issues, and especially the Church’s promotion of a single community of faith and tradition. Then as now, justification for specific claims was given with very similar appeals to the normativity of unchanging Orthodoxy. Herrlinger specifically highlights the questionable tactics of some of the clergy, and central to her discussion is what she calls the tension ‘between the religious issues at the heart of the case and the moral and ethical nature of the means used to wage it’. It is in view of the complex heterogeneity of Orthodoxy that the need for scholarly demarcation, systematisation, and ordering becomes evident. This leads back to a question more or less explicit in all the contributions to this collection: is it necessary and possible to determine criteria for conceptual and religious normativity, given that the heterogeneous field offers no clarity?

Looking forward through the kaleidoscope

The need for such criteria emerges from all contributions in this issue; it is present in the question of belonging to Orthodox T/tradition and ‘traditional values’ and the appeals to moral and ethical identity (Mitrofanova, Paert, Zorgdrager, Herrlinger); the links between religion and nationalism/identity politics (Bogumił/Voronina, Mitrofanova, Paert, Zorgdrager); theological and ideological disputes over ‘true’ Orthodoxy and supposed heresies (Herrlinger, Kenworthy); and tradition(s) and practices of the Japanese Orthodox Church as a ‘mirror’ for appeals to Tradition in Russian Orthodoxy (du Quenoy). Devising ‘norms’ or criteria for demarcation is a task for interdisciplinary dialogue, which is one of the raisons d’être of the present issue.

The contributions to this issue show the appeal to normativity (often referred to as authority) at stake in diverse settings. Kenworthy, for example, highlights that the actors in polemics on the glorification of the Name of God ‘themselves certainly fall into binaries of normative truth claims, asserting their position as “dogma” and castigating their opponents for “heresy” in ways that make dialogue impossible’. There is a similar appeal to normativity in the polemics explored in the historical case study by Herrlinger on the supposedly heretical proponents of sobriety, but also within the radical Orthodox groups in Moldova discussed by Mitrofanova or (more implicitly) for the different conceptions of Orthodox pedagogy presented by Paert. Each of these cases results in a paradox of self-reference: the claim to normativity is at odds with the given of heterogeneity.

This, of course, has direct implications for the two senses of heterogeneity at stake. One, there is no clear or normative concept of Orthodoxy to be drawn from the field. Two, self-reference does not solve the question of religious belonging or not belonging. Along these lines, self-reference does not provide the ‘norm’ to distinguish between what is religion and what is not. How can scholarship deal with claims on the normativity of Orthodoxy vis-à-vis the heterogeneity?

One of the ways suggested for escaping the paradox of self-referentiality is by starting with comparative case studies of similar issues in different contextual Orthodoxies (du Quenoy). However, in this case, of course, we are forced to use ‘Orthodoxy’ in a kind of nominal sense again. It is helpful in this respect to acknowledge that any similar concept or umbrella term, e.g. ‘(post-)secular’, ‘postmodern’, or ‘radical Orthodoxy’ is prone to the same paradox of self-referentiality, especially when they remain in the realm of the conceptual (epistemology). Therefore, besides broadening the scope of our research via intercontextuality and inclusivity, e.g. in adopting the Four Voices approach, both theoretical and case studies-focused approaches to the field will profit from cross-fertilisation.

Another suggestion to overcome self-referentiality is interdisciplinarity (Zorgdrager). Currently, studies of post-Soviet Orthodoxy are dominated by sociological, anthropological, historical, and political science perspectives. The field can benefit from more interdisciplinarity and more contributions from theology (cf., e.g. Hovorun 2018). The contributions to this collection demonstrate that the complex fabric of religion in post-Soviet societies can be better explored by bringing social scientific and religious studies perspectives into dialogue with theology and ethics.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Frank Bestebreurtje and the journal editors for their indispensable comments on this text, and to the contributors to this issue for their inspiring articles.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The issue is an output of the network ‘Orthodox Kaleidoscope: Studying the Russian Orthodox Church. Heterogeneity, Complexity, Dynamics’, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) within the program ‘Internationalisation in the Humanities’, file nr. 236-25-009.

Notes on contributors

Katya Tolstaya

Katya Tolstaya is Chair of Theology and Religion in Post-Trauma Societies at the Faculty of Religion and Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and founding director of the Institute for the Academic Study of Eastern Christianity (INaSEC, 2010). Her work focuses on establishing the new field of interdisciplinary and interreligious post-Soviet theology within the interdisciplinary landscape of post-traumatic, post-totalitarian, and post-genocidal studies. Her monograph Theology after the Gulag is scheduled at Oxford University Press for 2021.