S4 – Interview 2: Heather Coleman

nineteen twenty nine. When she learned that few historians had written about the importance of Russian Baptists during the rise of the Bolsheviks, she wrote the book herself. Ever since, Dr Coleman has focused her work on the stories that give life to Russian religious history. Her more recent collection is Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia, a source book on

lived religion. It takes the perspective of people on the ground, helping us to understand how everyday Russian's connected to their church, their faith, and the powers at the hearts of the Empire. We love nothing better than the stories that give meaning to our lives. So Dr Coleman's focus on the ways that Christianity was experienced beyond the courts and palaces of the romanof Empire made her a perfect guide to the ins and outs of the church during the life of

Grigory Rasputin. This is the Unobscured Interview series for season four. I'm Aaron Manky for Unobscured Podcast. I'm Karl Nlis and today I'm talking with Dr Heather Coleman, Professor of History at the University of Alberta. Dr Coleman is a historian of Russia. She has written extensively on religion and modernization in Russia and across the Russian Empire in the nine

and twentieth centuries. For ten years, Dr Coleman served as editor of the Canadian Slavonic Papers, and she directs the program on Religion and Culture at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. It's a privilege to be talking with Dr Coleman today, So Heather, welcome to Unobscured Podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to talk to you. Well, we're so glad to have you with us. Um, let's

just start a little bit more about your work. Uh, in your words, you focused your scholarly work on religion in Russia. What originally brought you to this study. Well, I actually didn't think much about religion when I first started my graduate work. To be honest, in the nineteen eighties, when I was an undergraduate, religion was was not just treated as though it didn't matter in modern Russian history.

It was quite simply not treated. I just it was just not really covered, and so I didn't really develop questions about it. I was interested in understanding how ordinary people experienced the utopianism of the nineteen twenties, the early Bolshevik period, a period when the Bolsheviks were driving to trying to sort of create a new were old and um. For my master's thesis, I was exploring their their programs

for transforming women's lives. But in the newspapers of the nineteen twenties, I found the Bolsheviks very very anxious about the Baptists and and perceiving the Baptists as their competition for organizing women. Oh, look, the Baptists have a choir. Maybe we should have a choir. And I started to think, well, now, isn't that interesting. Maybe religion did matter, maybe it was

a thing. And as I pursued my moved into my doctoral studies, I came back to this, this interesting observation, and I went into the library at the University of Illinois where I was doing my PhD. And by miracle, they had a full run of a nineteen twenties Baptist Ukrainian magazine, and I opened it up and there was lively public life, an organization that was that was experiencing a religious revival in the midst of early socialism, and I was fascinated. Um and so that was part of it.

But it was also timing. This was the early post Soviet period, a period when there were all kinds of new archival opportunities, the archives that had been closed were opening up, But it was also a period of great religious revival. H And I think that we had a sense that that religion was an important factor in historical change, uh, something that historians in the in the sort of middle of the twentieth century had had tended to disregard. But

we saw it, you know, in our own lives. We saw how religion was a lens through which individuals were making sense of the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. And so I think I think that um, there were both intellectual reasons and and and and reasons of timing that brought me to this. And my professor said to me when I said I wanted to do religious topic, oh, you'll have that phone booth to yourself.

But when I got to the archives in in in in Russia, there were all kinds of graduate students who had all independently come to be interested in religious topics, and we'd all been told we'd be alone, and there we were together. And so I've been working on this ever since. Mhm wow, Well, and you focused on on those Baptists. Um, can you say maybe just a couple more words about how your work on the Baptist in

that early beginning, how has it continued to inform your scholarship. Well, um, yeah, so I mean came to the topic through the nineteen twenties, but I then discovered that there was a whole pre revolutionary story that explained why they were such an issue in early Soviet Russia. Um. This the state church and the majority religion in Imperial Russia was the Orthodox Church, and Russia until nineteen o five was an autocracy with

no constitution, no representative government. It was illegal to leave the Orthodox Church if you were orthodox um. And yet I I discovered through um my my research that in the last decades before the Revolution, the Baptist faith was rapidly spreading among ordinary people. Um. And These were people who, you know, government and church were used to thinking of as as sort of true and patriotic Russians. But these people were embracing a Western form of religion, one that

had egalitarian communities that elected their own pastors. And and and so these people's private religious choices became a big public issue in late Imperial Russia. They became a touchstone for discussions about Orthodoxy and Russian identity, about the relationship between church and state, about freedom of conscience, about civil society, about the democratic potential of the Russian people, about socialism.

And and I think that this, my work on religious sectarianism, continues to inform my scholarship because it it alerted me to the importance of religion in people's lives, the importance and in public discourse. Um. It brought to it brought me to an interest in Orthodoxy, which I have now been studying for many years, because it brought me to a realization that the church, which had been treated as sort of irrelevant and we'll talk more about this, but kind of dead um was was was not as dead

as previously reported. Um. And and my interest in the relationship between religion and power in Russian state and society has been a thread that started with this work on the Baptists and has continued throughout my career. Mhmm, yeah, that's great. Can you, from that point tell us a bit more about what we know about the varieties of Christianity active across the massive Russian Empire in the late

eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. You know, you say, the Orthodox Church, of course, was the state Church, the sanction church, um. But what were the varieties of Christianity in such a big and multivarious place. Yes, the word empire is key here, because, of course it's there was a huge variety of Christianity, in part due to huge

ethnic variety. UM. As you just mentioned, the overwhelming majority of Christians were Orthodox Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, small communities of Greeks and Serbs who lived in the south. They were all traditionally Orthodox. But there were also um substantial numbers of Roman Catholics. We forget that that much of Poland was part of the Russian Empire in this period,

and they were Catholic. U. Large numbers of Lutherans, especially in the in the northwest Finland what are what are now Estonia and Latvia were part of the Russian Empire. Uh. There were lots of Mennonites in the South Army the Armenian Apostolic Church. And then there were a wide variety of smaller groups that were care arized by the government of sects, so groups like the Duka Bors or the Molikons, the Old Believers, UM, Evangelical Christians of various sorts, especially

the Baptists I just mentioned. So in addition to UM, Islam and Buddhism and many many other faiths, there was a huge variety of Christianity. Mm hmm. Could you say a few words about the role of print culture in changing the Russian experience of religion Broadley during the late

Imperial period. Well, that's a good question to um. The late let's say, from from the middle from the eighteen sixties, when Russia began a period of profound reform and transformation UM and some loosening up of government control and censorship. In the eighteen sixties right up to the revolution. UM, you see a real transformation of the UH, an expansion of the press, but also a sharp rise in literacy rates. UM.

And these work together, of course, UM. You know, there's this is a period of the great rise of the popular press more generally in in the world, due to technological change, but also to changing literacy rates. And certainly, for example, with the Great Reforms, you have the great expansion in public education and so UH. In you know, at the beginning of the Great Reforms, at the beginning of the eighteen sixties, perhaps six percent of the population

in rural areas were was literate. But by nineteen seventeen, um, over you know, over of rural women and six of urban women were literate. And and those rates were quite a bit higher for men, especially for young men. So we have a great expansion of of um of literacy. But we also have the development of a mass circulation press. UM. This includes both UM sort of popular newspapers and and magazines, but also just a lot of short pamphlets and UH

and and other very inexpensive print products that are circulating. UH. This is also a period of a great rise in the religious press. And this has a role, very very important role in religious life in two ways. UM. First, the the there's a rise in UH press that is published by the church for the church, and so there's a great flowing flowering of local diocesan newspapers and UH magazines aimed at UH at parish priests, helping them to preach better, to try new techniques, to organize their their

their religious lives, of their communities better. But there's also a great rise of of magazines that are aimed at ordinary believers. UM, you know, with stories of of religious UH, people's religious experiences with explanation, you know, stories of people's pilgrimages, of people's miracles that people have experienced, with explanations of Bible stories and so on. Lives of the Saints in

cheap editions. Also UM. In the in eighteen sixty two, the the first Russian translations of the Gospel into ordinary spoken Russian in cheap editions became available and these were widely distributed through the church networks in the beginning in the sixties and right through until the Revolution, and the Orthodox Church emphasized putting the Bible in people's hands, and

so UH there's a great distribution of the Bible. And what's important about this is that even though literacy rates remained low compared to many of Russia's European competitors, uh, they're still pretty good among young people and increasingly good among young people. And that and that meant that people who couldn't read still had access to this print culture. Because people who could read read to their their elders, read to their grandparents, it's read to their families and

so Uh. This print culture allows the diffusion of common ideas and stories. It makes people more aware of, um, you know, places they might go on pilgrimage and and and better familiar with the Bible and with the stories of the saints and so on. Mm hmm. Thinking about that expanse of the Russian Empire, are there distinct regional differences in Russian religion, say east and west of the Urals? Yes, so the Urals are the traditional dividing line between European

and Asian Russia. Um. I think the the answer is yes. Um, there's still we still actually have a lot of work to do precisely on this topic of the varieties of orthodox see um. But I certainly can say a few words now, I mean regional variety was actually, of course normal. Um, it's really all across Europe in the nineteenth century. Modernization means leads to churches to seek a kind of a uniformity,

and modern communications helped to promote uniformity. But religion all across Europe remained very much regional and even local um in its variations. So UM, local areas will have preferred preferred saints, they will have UM hymns that they love, you know, they'll have local traditions. Um. Certainly, I would

say that Russian religion was different east of the Urals. Um. In in Siberia, Um you have um much more old belief, much more religious sectarianism, because um, the area east of the Earls was was a place where where where religious dissenters fled in the early modern period to get away from the power of the state, before state communications became better. Um, you have of course Islam, which uh, which Christianity encounters east of the Earls, and south of the Earls, Um

you have indigenous religion in its great variety. East of the Earls. Um there's a kind of a frontier atmosphere. The official church infrastructure was much less developed. We shouldn't exaggerate this. In in western Siberia we have ancient diocese to boys quotsk and so on, but are not even your quotes to boys. Um. But but there's there's very little by way of seminary education and and so on.

So so certainly um, there is much more Uh, the church has much more trouble um regulating religious practice just because of distances and variety east of the earls. M In the introduction to Orthodox Christianity and Imperial Russia, that that really helpful source book that you edited and and

that you that you wrote the introduction for. You make a few comments about the idea of dual faith, which is that Russian peasant Christianity was a kind of thin veneer over fundamentally pagan beliefs that the peasants somehow had um.

And while you know that this was a convenient simplification for Soviet writers, could you say, if you words on the distinctions between the religion practiced by church authorities and popular religion as it was practiced by people, you know, maybe it's not a thin veneer over fundamentally pagan beliefs, and you know, maybe that's the wrong way to simplify it.

But if we're talking about maybe Siberian Christianity versus what's going on in St. Petersburg, how do we how do we see differences between the religion of the church authorities and popular religion. Yeah, this is something that you know, my generation of scholars has been really trying to think in new ways about Uh. This notion of dual dual faith is somewhat problem problematic, but we can we can.

We can also, of course say that religion is um is certainly going to be different in different social classes and different ethnic groups and different regions. And and UM.

I think that what what my generation has perhaps UM as exemplified in that Orthodox Christianity and Imperial Russia book has has has sort of combat It is a view that that just because um, uh say, lower class groups do things differently from what the Church might prescribe, we shouldn't necessarily jump to the conclusion that this is pagan and and uh sort of um anti clerical. But because usually the the um the people who are doing these things believe what they are doing to be truly Christian

and are not doing this in any sense of opposition. UM. Certainly ordinary people, peasants, lower class people, in the cities often did things differently from how the priests would have liked them to do things. So, for example, UM popular religion was was certainly much more UM local, much more experiential, much more oral. Uh. They people would would perhaps um uh say prayers and get some of the words wrong, and and then understand the reason for those prayers differently

because they had not understood all of the words. UM. They had local sites of pilgrimage that were that that that UM, we're not unnecessarily approved by the powers that be UM. They would uh local local UM. Local communities would often have UM, for example, icons that they regarded as miraculous UM and that had not been officially approved.

And it's quite interesting because the priests would be in a funny position with many of these local practices because on one on the one level, priests were supposed to ensure sort of Orthodox orthodoxy, you know, to make sure

that people were doing things right UM. At the same time, the priests were members of the local community, and they they they they appreciated their their their parishioners faithfulness, and they appreciated their parishioners involvement, and so they had to walk a fine line between correcting and supporting the religion pocity of their parishioners. Would you describe the place of

relics in Russian Orthodoxy? And if we want to get a little kind of theological you know what that says about Orthodox theology maybe of the body or um, of whether the material world is somehow redeemable. What's going on with relics in the in the Russian church? Um, well, thanks for the that's a good question. Um. This gets

to the heart actually of orthodox theology. Um. The doctrine of the incarnation, the notion that God became fully human in the form of Jesus Christ and yet remained fully God at the same time, is at the heart of Christianity, and it's particularly at the center of Orthodox spiritual practice. Um. So the aim of a Christian life is to preserve and intensify the union between God and humans that that God exemplified by becoming a man in Jesus Christ. And

and um, the the the what's the word? Sorry? The the sorry, the it's not worshiping the sorry. I'm having a blank here. I'll try this again. The relics of the saints play an important role in this sort of incarnational theology and this incarnational spirituality. Uh the relics of saints are are perceived as um as a reminder that God took a material body and that by doing that, God proved that matter could be redeemed and so um.

There there is a uh An Orthodox tradition it's not a dogma, but a tradition that um that the bodies of of saints will not corrupt, that they are incorruptible

and um and that they're miraculously preserved from decay. And so in many monasteries there are the the uncorrupted remains of various saints, and people will come on pilgrimage to pray before these these relics um and you know, and and sermons and magazines at the time would explain that that that these incorruptible bodies of God's saints were God's way of showing people that they too participated in in this connection between God and and humans, that their own

bodies would be resurrected at the end of time. That that and that Orthodox truth was was sort of shown through these bodies, and so people would come to pray before the relics as um as channels of divine power as as ways to to focus on the lives of those saints and the the the the realities of the incarnation.

This is this is a kind of a related question and not in my list, But I was talking with the theologian that I'm working with, who's who's researching the program, and we we've kind of been wondering, how influential do you do you know how influential St. Simme and the New Theologian was on Russian monasticism in this period. I don't, I don't know. Okay, that's that's all right, that's right.

You know, of course we're headed towards Resputin, and Rasputin seems to have taken the teachings of St. Simmean, the New Theologian and the the Relic as a means of connecting with God and veneration, devotion and taking that onto him onto himself. And you know, maybe in a distortion or an idiosyncratic way of interpreting um that the living body of Rasputin the teacher should be treated as a

relic or the way that a dead relic would be. Um. Well, this, I mean this, this does connect into the the Orthodox. This is a distortion of of a broader Orthodox theology of of um the image and UM. You know that that Orthodoxy is um is a much more has a much more well developed theology of the material then Western Christianity does. And um Uh Orthodoxy UM believes that we I mean, as as do other Christians, that humans are are are made in the image of God, and so

Jesus is an icon uh an image of God. But so is each person and and that are that our our our goal in life are our salvation entails becoming

uh that that perfect image of God. Um. Salvation involves connecting with the holy energies that are around us and aligning our behavior and our minds and our spirits with with those holy energies in order to fully realize this, this incarnation, this this this um, the fact that we are created in the image of God and so and so you know when Resputin is doing this, he's drawing on UM. He's drawing on important ideas that are at the heart of Orthodox spirituality. That's great, UM, so kind

of climbing back into our our questions and our outline. Here, would you give us a brief description of what is meant by Old believers in Russia at this period. Oh sure, so the Old Believers were quite a large group of of Orthodox people who were in schism with the main Orthodox Church. Back in the seventeenth century, the official Orthodox Church began to to modernize and began to reform and

try to standardize religious practice. And as it did so, it um it discovered that Russian practice had begun to differ from that of the Greeks. Um. The Orthodox faith had originally come from from the Greeks and Uh. The leaders of the church at this time UH, as they were standardizing, tended to standardize in ways that that followed

the ways that the Greeks did things um. And this was very upsetting to many Orthodox believers because as I as I just mentioned um right Orthodox he means right practice and the physical practice, the way that one worships,

is considered to be critical to reaching salvation. And Russia had had traditionally crossed themselves with two fingers um uh and, which is a symbol of the incarnation, but the Greeks crossed themselves with three fingers, a symbol of the Trinity, another important doctrine um and uh and when the when

the church began to correct the ways in which believers worshiped. UH. There was a whole element who, for example, resisted crossing themselves with three fingers because they really believed that that if they practiced wrong, that they that their salvation was in jeopardy. UM. There were many UH, there were many issues connected to the the emergence of the Old Believers. But at the center of it was this this dispute about religious authority and and about and about wrecked practice.

And so in the late seventeenth century you have large numbers of people who left the church UH and became known dubbed as the old Believers. UM. And they UH and and the old Believers continued UM. Right, well, there are still old Believers today. UM. But it was illegal to be an old Believer, and so many of them fled to Siberia and to the farther reaches of the Empire. UM. And and they were they became gradually more and more tolerated in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. UM. But

but they were. But they were the The Orthodox Church consistently UM wanted to bring them back into the fold, and so they were considered a problem from the perspective of the official Orthodox Church. Speaking of groups that are treated as a problem. Could you described the Chlisti for us uh the last the well Um the Klisti Um started life as a group called the Um, the Christovchina or the Christova Viera, which means the faith of Christ

or or God's People UM. This was a Russian religious movement that that really began life in the late seventeenth century out of the as a branch of the Old belief And like certain other branches of the Old belief, the the Christochina demanded celibacy from its adherents and Um they had they had. They didn't have different doctrines or

any sort of systematic doctrine. These were groups of believers who met together regularly at night for long prayer meetings where they would see spiritual verses and church hymns and recite the Jesus Prayer, a central Orthodox prayer UM, that is is recited in a meditative format. Lord Jesus, Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner, and you recite it over and over UM. And these meetings UM UH would the goal was to have the Holy

Spirit descend on certain of the members UH. These leaders, who were known as Christ's or as mothers of God. And then and then they would dance, and they would prophesy um. At the same time, these people would faithfully attend the official Orthodox Church and fulfill their obligations in the official Orthodox Church. Some of them even entered convents and monasteries. But and so, But very early their enemies started calling them uh Christi or Christ's but clisti, which

means a whip or flagolence. Um. They were accused of sexual immorality, of having orgies. Um. The American historian Eugene Clay has shown that there wasn't fact, there is in fact no evidence of this and um that you know already in the early eighteenth century, the term clisti really doesn't have any any meaning. It's it's it's applied to a whole range of unrelated sort of charismatic religious movements. Um.

There's no religious group that claims to be clisti. Um. There are certainly some evidence of networks of these charismatic groups, but they saw themselves as being within Orthodoxy. Mm hm. Would you say a bit about why Baptist faith in Russia was considered German or foreign? Yeah, well, that's a that's a good question. UM. Not not so surprising about the foreign bit, but certainly about the German bit, because those who know the history of the Baptist Faith know

that it it's an English phenomenon originally, UM. But it's the Baptist Faith spread into the German Lands in the early nineteenth century and UM and UH through sort of pious networks and so on, and and then UM by the eighteen forties and fifties, it's spread into the Russian Empire through the many, many, many German UH colonies of people living within the Russian Empire. So there were there were German communities spread throughout Poland, which was adjacent to

the German Lands. There were German speaking communities all across the south of the Empire what is now Ukraine, UM, who had been invited to come and and develop agricultural

communities and so on in the empire. UM. And there's of course German speakers in the Baltic provinces and and so the Baptist Faith came through those German networks into the Russian Empire and developed first among ethnic Germans UM in the cities and in the countryside, and then UM local Russians and Ukrainians who were in contact with these Germans sometimes became attracted to UH, to the sort of

revivalist hymn singing meetings and started started joining them. And the Baptist faith began to spread among Russians and Ukrainians in the Empire, but it was considered to be sort of a foreign thing because it was because to be Russian was to be Orthodox. Mm hmm. Could you say a little bit more about that? How how did the Orthodox Church relate not just to the Baptists but also to the Old Believers and these other devotional movements, charismatic movements.

Is there a way to kind of crystallize and articulate how the church authorities related to sects and sectarianism in

the eighteen nineties and the early nine hundreds. Well, um so in the in the eighteen nineties, the in large part from through pressure from the Orthodox Church, the state had a system of classifying the danger of various what it called religious sects and um and they were They were classified as more or less dangerous based on their um on on a couple of on their distance from Orthodoxy, on their UH evangelicalism with a small e. In other words,

whether they were sort of proselytizing or not, and then on their on their um sort of moral stance. And so the Policeti are are classified as as most dangerous because they are also allegedly uh you know, self flagellating and sexually dangerous and and so on, even if they were in fact also somewhat imaginary. Um. And the Baptists are classified as in the most dangerous category because they were very big on proselytization. Um. So. So there's a state,

a state and church structure that are related. But in the eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundred's, the Orthodox Church also had very active missions to bring all of these groups what they called internal missions that were aimed at bringing all of these groups that that had Russian ethnic

Russian believers back to the church um. And so there were separate the the old Believers were perceived as as their own sort of category, and there were separate mission missions to the old believers and then to the various religious quote unquote sects and uh so the so so

there was and and and the church was very worried. Um. It did not want the state to to to tolerate these these sex and it and it encouraged a perception that that religious descent was connected to political dissent, and that if you were not faithful to the state church, how could you be faithful to the state. So on the Russian church and state. Would you give us a sketch of the structures of authority within the Russian Orthodox Church? Uh?

Maybe starting with Peter the Great, how his reign created what you write is a major realignment in church and state relations. What happened there? And then what does authority look like with church and state towards the end of the Russian Empire? Mm hmm, Well, this is, of course, this question of church and state is a huge one. Um the uh so, Oh sorry, I don't even know

where to start. Sorry, let's just get myself together here. Um. Yeah, So, the the relationship between church and state is usually seen as having been fundamentally reordered under Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century. UM. In the seventeenth century, the Russian Orthodox Church was what is known as an autocephalis, or self governing independent Orthodox church, and it had, as autos Cephalish churches do, a patriarch a UM. The the top person in the church was um was called the

patriarch and UM. The There was already a lot of tension between church and state in the seventeenth century, precisely over the Old Believer reforms, the reforms that led to the development of the Old Believer schism UM. When the when the Church, the states stepped in and sort of UH legislated on the schism and said that the church was right, but that the patriarch who had instituted them

UH needed to go UM. So the church was already weakened by the late seventeenth century visa VI the state UM. But in seventeen hundred, when the patriarch died, Peter the Great didn't UM, didn't organize UH the appointment of a new patriarch and just left the office empty. And then in seventeen twenty one he introduced a new body to replace to formally abolish the patriarchate and UH, and he replaced it with a council of bishops known as the

Holy Senate and UH. This council of Bishops UH, starting the following year in seventeen twenty two, was supervised by a state official known as the over Procurator, who was meant to be the eyes and ears of the monarch

in the Senate. This was later considered to be a real sort of revolution against the traditional form of management of the Orthodox Church, but also a diminution of the Orthodox Church because the the Council of Bishops is was although although it is incorrect as it is often stated to suggest that it became a simply a department of the state, the Holy Synod was was not the sort of a parallel monarch the way that the patriarch had been a parallel monarch of this church to the monarch

in the state. Um. And throughout the throughout the eighteenth century, the over procurator had relatively little power. But in the nineteenth century we have a series of over procurators of these general directors of the Senate who uh, who become interested in religion and who interfere, and who who frustrate the bishops by by by by interfering and by by trying to introduce um use the church for the state's purposes.

And so there was there was considerable tension in that system. Um. Yes, I guess the only other thing I would say about structures of authority within the Orthodox Churches that that I should have mentioned at the beginning is that the the the the the um, the bishops, the the the hierarchy of the church are all monastics. They're all monks and

uh they preside over UH. In order to rise in the church, you have to be a monk uh and may preside over a church that is has a secular clergy known as the white clergy, which are who are who are the parish priests. But the parish priests cannot rise into the hierarchy unless they take monastic vows. So the structures are quite complex. Um in that respect, would you say a little bit more about that difference between the monastic clergy and the parish clergy at this point?

How are their lives different? Sure? So these are two the two big categories, the monastic clergy known as the black clergy, and the parish clergy sometimes known as the white clergy. UM. The monastic clergy is divided into subdivided within itself into other categories um. The monastic clergy, the the the elite of the monastic clergy, the the the abbots of monasteries, the the diocesan hierarchs, the bishops um are are all part of what it what was a

sort of a learned um uh monasticism. These were These were monks who who trained in the theological academies and who who became monks on the on the road to their rise through the church as as as I say, rectors of seminaries and and bishops of provinces and dioces, dioces and so on. Uh. Then there was a broader um set of monks who were more or less educated um and who who um were were um were lived a much more reclusive monastic life um. And then there

were also female monastics as well, nuns. UM. On the white clergy or parish clergy side, we have a very very different story, very interesting situation. The monastic sorry, the parish clergy were a uh largely almost an almost a cast. Uh. They were a married clergy. So they like like you know Anglican or um or you know Lutheran pastors. They they had families, um. They but they're but the children of parish priests became themselves parish priests. They were educated

within uh. The church had a separate system of education for clergy children, and clergy daughters tended to marry clergyman's sons and uh and and they would they would become priests and priests wives, just like their parents had been before them. Uh. The parish clergy were increasingly well educated. Um. The in the eighteenth century you have a bunch of reforming bishops who who are instituting seminary education throughout the empire, and by the by the eighteen thirties or forties, that's

become pretty much universal. Um, seminary education. Um. So the parish, the parish clergy were quite quite well educated. Um. And Uh, they live they live very isolated lives in the village where they are often the only educated people. And so their families we were very Um they were at once

connected to the village. There part of village life, and they're separate because the children go off to these these boarding schools in the provincial capitals to be educated and and and and they they they come back to the village with with with an urban culture that that that is not shared with the villagers. So they're kind of um, they're kind of monkeys in the middle the the the the bishops usually had come from clerical families, UM, so

they know that culture. But they but they lived very different lives from the parish priests who who had to be UM had to be supported by their local communities and thus had a sometimes tricky relationship with their local communities. How did the Great Reforms of the eighteen sixties change Russian religious life? How was the church affected by that

period of of change the Great reforms? Yeah, so the Great reforms of the eighteen sixties, Uh, you know, the the the reforms that follow from the emancipation of the serfs in eighteen sixty one were the part of this. There was a there was a profound reform of the

church that accompanied this. UM efforts to to to to to modernize the church, to to make the make the parish, to to to make the parish clergy more vocational and less inherited as a as a as a profession, UM, to free up the children of parish clergy, to to to leave the clerical state and work in other areas

of society, UM, and so on. So on one level, we have UM this this this sort of shake up in the organization and of the church and efforts to UH, efforts to allow clerical children to to to move out into the broader world, and that actually had a profound effect on on education in the Russian Empire. Which was booming in this period because many of those those UM clergy sons and daughters go into the education field and and bring with them the values of their of their UH,

their their their priest kids. You know, they bring those values of of of of of their families into the Russian broader Russian society. UM. It's also a period UM when when the Church, like all other organizations, is participating in education in UM UH the the the expanded communications world, and is trying to trying to popularize and standardize religion UM, to organize brotherhoods and other ways of of enlivening the life of the laity in the church and making lay

practice more more knowledgeable and more UM more active. UM. And so the eighteen sixties UM that that spirit, that sort of populism with a small p of the eighteen sixties, that that desire to reach out to the people and to lift the people really animates many priests vision of their ministry, and priests UM who had previously put great emphasis on their their liturgical function, their their role as

ritual specialists. Although that although ritual remains profoundly important to Orthodox spirituality, UH priests really adopt a very very pastoral, educational uh kind of self image from the eighteen sixties onward, and so uh and so we see the really the rise of of of regular sermon giving and all all kinds of interest in organizing oh say um uh anti drinking circles in the parishes and Bible study groups and

these sorts of things. So I think that the Great Reforms did have a real impact on Russian religious life. The final way I would say is that the Great Reforms are saw the beginning of the movement of some peasants out of the villages. That you have the beginning of industrialization, you have a lot of migrant workers and um, people are less tied to the village than they had

been before UM. And and so that all of that movement and uh exposes people to new kinds of ideas, and that can be quite um uh for the church. That's a real challenge and and and the churches is very worried about um how how peasants are are are are are no longer fully rooted in the village, and and they fear that peasants will encounter such such dangerous things as as the Baptists or or the alisty. You've also written that the eighteen hundreds is a time when

the percentage of people in monasteries shifts towards women. M What was driving that change? Why why were more women going into the monasteries during the eighteen hundreds. Well, you know, that's also very interesting, and it's it's actually not just women. UM the there there is overall just a boom in monasticism in the nineteenth century um and and there's no

question that it's a disproportionate boom for for women. UM. In the eighteenth century, the Russians church and state UM like like other UM in other in Catholic Europe as well, was quite anti monastic and um and there was a real push to to too closed down most monasteries by the late eighteenth century um and and UM monasteries had been had had had largely operated in cities before that, and they and basically to join a monastery you had to sort of have your own money, You had to

be able to pay for yourself to come and be in the monastery. And there's a shift towards a more

communal model of monasticism in the early nineteenth century. Uh And there's a and the state becomes and the Church become more positive about monasticism in the early nineteenth century, and that allowed for ordinary people to join these uh, these these convents and monasteries when there was a collectivist model where you where the monastery itself became an economic unit, and and and the monks or the nuns worked together to farm or or produce artisanal things, to say, to

pay for their way, or they had patrons. And the monasteries also moved out into the countryside. And and so both men monasteries and women's monasteries UH saw a huge influx of peasants and lower urban people from the lower urban classes who who could now join these monasteries. And and most of these monasteries new monasteries were also in the countryside, so they're more easily accessible. Um. It's actually

fairly hard for us to get at UH. We have very few personal documents to give us insight into these very ordinary people's goals and what attracted them. But what we see is a combination of religious and personal and emotional benefits that that um, that people got from going to these monasteries. And we know that these women's monasteries in particular tended to start as informal lay communities that could could exist for years and years, and they were

they were. This seems to have been a socially acceptable way for peasant women who wanted to serve God who who who didn't want to participate in uh the the the the the the sort of obligatory marriage and family uh and agricultural life that most peasant women participated in. And these communities often were supported by local communities and perceived as as as acceptable and and um and and places that that women who had a different sort of

spiritual calling could could go. And then gradually UH these um these informal communities would become formalized and be become part of the of the the monastic system of the church. So it's hard for us to say, but we can certainly say for sure that by by the time of the revolution there were far more women monastics than men. Mm hm, you write that in uh, in popular moods there were both affection and contempt for Russian Orthodox ministers.

Would you just say a little bit more about that? Sure, there were certainly lots of you know, lots of folklore that made fun of of priests and um and and you know, funny little phrases about priests. UM. The priest was, of course a central figure in every village life, in the community in the cities as well. UM. Priests were were on one level highly respected. UH. They they performed

the sacraments. They they were they were village leaders. They were educated people in the community, both in the cities and in the countryside. UH. Priests wives were leaders in the community as well. Their families were were ideally seen as as models. UM. But there was also UM. There was also contempt, and the contempt came from two sources. The contempt on one level, came from the social from from the from the rest of educated society, from noble

and professional classes of of educated society. And this came from the fact that the clergy was such a sort of self contained, almost cast like social group who were educated in the seminaries, who married one another children. UM. They were perceived by the sort of secular uh educated uh society as as being um sort of inward looking

um um nativist. Uh. They're perceived as as as being country bumpkins live in the countryside, and their education was different their education UH, the education in the in the state U gymnasea. The the state secondary schools was on a European Western European classical sort of model um and uh. The the and and it emphasized Western European history, Western

European literature, and so on. The seminary education emphasized religion, not surprisingly um and it also emphasized Russian literature and Russian culture um uh and and that was so they had different they had different cultural worlds that they came from and and so they were looked down on in that way. Now, meanwhile, with their communities, UM they were they were certainly, as I say, central figures of of the parish community and and looked up to most of

the time. But they were also um they were also resented. And they were resented because the community had to support them financially. And they had large families, so they were expensive um and they were very expensive. Moreover, because the church required that required that they educate their sons at these church run institutions. There were prep schools from about the age of oh about nine or or so until about fifteen, and they you went to the seminary, and

the seminary was from about age fifteen to twenty two. UM. The these parish these parish priests. Families were just in a constant financial straits, trying to scrape up the money to pay to send the kids, you know, and pay for the boarding houses where the kids would live in the towns for this education and uh the priests. The priests were paid basically through um uh tips, gratuity ees and orthodoxy um has a involves a lot of different rituals that people will have performed both in their homes

and and at the church. So um for baptisms and marriages and funerals, a tip would be expected. But also the priest would visit to bless your home after Christmas us in January and and so on and and tips would be expected, and this of course created a very awkward situation. And then the parish is also needed to supply homes for their priests and land that the priest could work. But then the parishioners would also be expected to help farm that land, and of course that took

time from the parishioner's own farming uh. And so there was a lot of tension about the frankly paying the clergy um. And then finally there was tension because as I mentioned, um, you know, parishioners generally wanted religious services, and they wanted their priests uh in the community, but they didn't like when the priests corrected how them and they didn't necessarily like it if the priest didn't perform

the ritual the way they wanted it performed. Um. And so sometimes there could be tension about about that as well. M hm. So let's head toward the Romanov court and religion in Russian high society. Um, would you describe the role of the czar in the Russian Church? Were there differences in how this role you know, was perceived among the elite by himself versus how that's are in the

would have been perceived popularly as a religious figure. So, um, the there was a lot of there was a lot of brew ha ha in in the West, which has made its sway into into a lot of writing about the Russian Church, which argued that the Russian Church was Caesaro papist, that just like the Byzantine Church, that the that that sar was you know, that the tsar was the head of the church and ran the church, and that that was made particularly clear, you know with Peter

the Great reforms and um. And that the church tsar had a heavy handed role in the church. I wouldn't say that was the case in in practice. UM, certainly that sarum has a very very important role. That Russia was an autocracy until nineteen o five. And and the the the church UM, the church certainly preaches that the that that tsar is that that's that that'sar is anointed I the church to to to legislate in a moral fashion and to to lead the people as a as a as a as a an orthodox leader who is

advised and by by the church. UM. And and they they they they also the church also tries to to assert its authority in society by reminding that's are of his responsibility to the church that anoints him, uh, to his responsibility to God and to God's Church. UM. The that's are you know, in my own in my own research, I can see you know, certainly that's our you know, read over um annual reports from the diocese and would put comments in the margin, and those comments would be

followed up on UM. And you know that the tsar was certainly involved. But I wouldn't describe the csar as more than a symbolic kind of role in in the church. UM. Now, different stars had different views of their role in the church and UM. And you know, UM, Nicholas the second, the final, the last Tsar of the Empire was a very very devout person and he took very seriously this this this sense that he was anointed by God and that he had a divine responsibility. UM. And he he

also had a very UM. He idealized the Russian people, and he he believed that that the people believed that about him and that he had a responsibility of religious responsibility to the people. Um. The elite Um was divided. I would say, Um, the elite, Uh, there were there were many members of the I would say that overall the Russian nobility was we're faithful orthodox people. UM. That Orthodoxy was was an important part of um, of of

Russian elite life. UM. Now there were certainly, Um, there were certainly elements that were were less enthusiastic about the church. The Church was not integrated into elite life the way for example, the Anglican Church was in in Britain. Um. Because you know at the Anglican Church, you or or even you know before the revolution, the French Church. You know, elite family's younger sons might go into the church, whereas in in in Russia, Uh, the the elite's younger sons

did not go into the church. The church hierarchy came out of Uh, we're sons of parish priests basically, um, and so so so we don't have that same kind of affinity or connection to the church and um. And I've already mentioned this sort of disdain for um, for the church culturally, and and the snobbishness educationally and so on. Um. In terms of the popular, the populace, that's another very

complex question. Um. Um, they they're they're the historians have have pointed to a great phenomenon of naive monarchism of of ordinary people who who believed that the that the government um was the problem and if only they could get to the tsar, that'sar was was faithful to the to the to the to the little guy, and um, and that you know, the problem was the bureaucrats in between.

And UM. It's possible that there was some of that on a religious level between from the population, uh, sort of thinking that there were problems with the church, but that perhaps that's our was was better than that. UM. But I don't think we see a lot of that UM the church. Certainly, the church certainly pre eached UM, you know, devotion to the Tsar and uh preached a vision of the Tsar as a as a as a

quasi religious figure. UM. But I have to say, I'm not I'm not sure what we can concretely say about popular perceptions of the Tsar's role in the church. So how important was the decree of religious tolerance that went out in nineteen o five. Well, I think it was

a very important moment. UM. It's uh. So In in April of nineteen o five, in the midst of the revolute, the the growing revolution of nineteen o five, the the Tsar signed a decree on on Easter Day UM declaring that previously UM that that people who had left Orthodoxy would would would or that it would now be possible to leave Orthodoxy UM and join another another faith, and allowed for um a legal existence for the old Believers, for the Baptists, for the Molocons and Duca Bors, and

the various religious groups nonconformist religious groups. This was a terrible shock to the church. The church felt betrayed by this. The church felt that they had um that that this was an example of the state over stepping its bounds. Um that that that religion was the was the the bailey wick of the church, and that the government had had interfered um and it uh but it but it also spurred the church to a discussion about mission, about

about religious tolerance, about its position within the state. Um. There's uh for for the for the various non orthodox religious Christian denominations, this was a period of great flowering um picture. They all started magazines and started holding congresses and and um. Although they were technically not allowed to proselytize, they were only allowed to publish for their own people

and so on. Um. This this really was the beginning of a of a different relationship with the with the state and a front level of legitimacy for religious difference in Russia. The government tries to kind of claw this back um uh but but there but there were there were long debates in the Dooma, the the the parliament that emerged from the in the semi constitutional order after nineteen o five, that that that debated how to continue

to implement and manage religious tolerance. And so I think it was very important because it opened up this huge and ongoing public conversation about the relationship between the church and the state and the church and UH and the

individual conscience. In the introduction to the book Sacred Stories, You're write with Mark Steinberg that writers, artists, and intellectuals at this point pursued a nonconformist kind of gods seeking often and this isn't every person, but that there was a culture of private prayer, of mysticism, interest in spiritualism, theosophy, Nietzschean philosophy, and more Eastern religions, other idealizations of imagination, feeling,

mystical connections. That there was a home for all of this in Russian high society and in Russian intellectual society at the time. Would you say a little bit about what created this space for that kind of religiosity, that kind of mode of religious seeking to flourish. Yes, absolutely, there was there was a This is a period of great of great UH spiritual ferment and and of of of seeking of new paths. Think that there were a number of things going on in Russian intellectual life by

the early twentieth century that that encouraged this UM. The first is um the in a sense um, the the Revolution of nineteen o five. It it is, it was the it was the culmination of of of a of a sort of a movement UM, kind of a liberal movement to to UH for constitutionalism, for for transformation of

the of the state UM. And then there's a period of of of disillusionment with the people and disillusionment with with the results of that of that revolution of nineteen o five, and many intellectuals who had who had been Marxists or liberals UM begin to and but especially Marxists, begin to turn away from from materialism and they and they are drawn to to idealism, They're drawn to to

UH religion. They are frustrated with the political world, and they they look for other other forms of of meaning and identity and so on as the as the political situation becomes less and less free after nineteen o six nineteen o seven. So partly it's that. Partly it's connected to broader changes in Russian and and and frankly Pan European intellectual culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The turn from realism in UM, which had been the dominant sort of artistic philosophy of in literature and in art in the second half of the nineteenth century. UM and uh turn towards symbolism. Uh, this this sort of modernist rejection of of of of realism, and so that also encouraged this, this this interest in in mysticism, spiritualism

and so on. UM. And I think also it's this, it's this sense of separateness from me from the Russian Orthodox Church that was experienced among a certain love, certain element of Russian uh educated society, and that they were specifically looking to live outside or beyond the Russian Church.

M hmm. Yeah, and you know that there's so I think that there's a turn away from there's a turn towards spiritual Uh, there's a there's an interest, there's a renewed interest across Europe in um the spiritual, the mystical um and uh and and this is this is ah, this takes these people who uh in some senses are detached from the church. UM, this provides them with an avenue for exploring this kind of um the spiritual desires

and and and concerns. Mhm M. So if dissatisfaction with the established church was part of spurring these kinds of religious energies and seeking m how important were kind of individual mystics and healers in that movement, in that ferment. Mm hmm, well, I think there were. I think that there was there was huge variety here and there. You know, when we talk about popular urban religious ferment, um, there's

it's different in different classes social classes. Um. There is there is also religious ferment at the you know, among the sort of working classes as well. Um. And and certainly there were there there were individuals who um around whom various um, various movements gathered. Some of these, uh, some of these were in the church. UM. So you have, for example, um, father John of Cronstat, who was truly

the Billy Graham of late Imperial Russia. He was a priest who had a church outside of Petersburg and Craunchtat where he emphasized a kind of a charismatic um participatory um uh form of orthodoxy. Um. It had a quite a quite a sort of mystical side. People would travel to his to his parish, they would write to him, they had people would carry posters and cards about him. He was he was a huge religious figure and he

was within the church. But then he had groups of followers who who um sort of went beyond and and sort of idealized him and turn him into a sort of a mystical figure that they that they that they admire in and of himself. But you also have, as you say, certainly various individuals who gather groups of people around them, both among the lower classes and the upper classes.

Um Uh. I would say that it was not unusual, but that most of this religious revival, both among educated and especially among uneducated people, was basically within the um. The was was basically more inclined to be Evangelical with you know, Baptist in some sort of way um or or um on the edges of Orthodoxy. Um. So, a popular teacher who doesn't see himself as outside of Orthodoxy, but who gathers a following, and the church is a little nervous about that person because he's not you know,

he's not a formal priest or or or monk. But but the people are not perceiving themselves as as as outside of the church. Yeah, yeah, and I would say sorry, I just to finish another point is that you know, like all other churches, the Orthodox Church had trouble keeping up with the growth of of working class suburbs. In cities, and and so sometimes you know, there's a lack of available ability of a church right there in the neighborhood, and so people make their own fun you know. Well

then yeah, I'll just say. You know, today we think of of Resputin, Gregory Resputin as a kind of singular figure who stands out from history for all the legends that we know about him. But do you have peers in Russian life and rest Russian religious life. Maybe that made him legible to those around him where they would kind of know, oh, this is the kind of person that that is. Well, I would say yes and no. Um. So I think Resputin fits into two familiar categories um

sort of Um. The first is the religious traveler, the strai um, the religious wanderer. Um. There was a great tradition uh in Russian life of welcoming pilgrim, of welcoming holy people who traveled to two shrines, who traveled from village to village, living on on donations and and trying to These were people who were religious searchers, who were trying to to become the person that God had made them to be. Um. And and so there was great respect for that sort of religious traveler um a sort

of maybe there's three there. Another another category that sometimes overlapped with the religious traveler was the holy fool um.

This is someone who is a long there's a long tradition in in Orthodox culture of the fool for Christ of someone who is um uh we might art as as insane um, someone who lives on the edge of society, who perhaps does not behave according to social norms, who may not wash, or who may you know, um speak in strange ways, who may may behave in an odd way, but who is perceived as as being as being a fool for Christ, as someone who who is there to sort of test our, our our love, and our and

our tolerance, and to and to tell us the truth that we don't want to hear, because the person is such an outsider that they can say things that others would not could not say. So I see, I think that those are components that might make us putin legible. And then a final component is the traged of the statuts. The statsy were the word means elder and um. The nineteenth century, in addition to a monastic revival, sees a great a great revival of um of of an eldership

in the church. And these UM these religious elders were not they tended to be monks or nuns, but mostly monks UM and they but they were not um uh their their their authority was charismatic rather than official. So they were not appointed to be elders, not appointed to

be spiritual advisors. But they become recognized by the population as spiritual advisors as as as people who UH could guide people in their individual spiritual searching and um and so there were various monasteries where various UH spiritual elders became famous, and people would travel for great distances to visit these elders and talk to them about their their spiritual journeys, to seek advice, to seek support. UM educated

people might write to these spiritual elders. These would be longstanding relationships that could go on for decades between a a believer and A and a and a static's uh one of these um spiritual advisors. But these but they were not official figures and the church had a very sort of UM mixed feeling about them. Again because they have they have an authority that's that's charismatic and hard to control. UM so resputing um fit into some of

these modes. And and this is where I think Um the ts are and his spirituality, Nicholas the second spirituality, his his idealization of the common people, and his fundamental disconnection with actual, real ordinary people comes into play because um, you know, circles around that's our who who welcomed respute and saw him as a status. They saw him as an elder um. But he didn't really have that kind

kind of authority among he within the church. Um. He he did have the charismatic authority in the sense that he was recognized by the czar and by or or by the Sarina and members of the members of their circles as of and of high society as having having a religious um uh sort of eldership. But I think that he would certainly he's certainly not typical of these of these elders in reality. How did the church handle reports of miraculous healing in the nineteen hundreds, maybe this

early period the end of the Russian Empire. Were the reports welcomes, where they celebrated, where they investigated, where they treated with skepticism? How did the church handle reports like this? M HM. So the church by the early twentieth century, the Church, like the Roman Catholic Church to the west, had a had a very mixed relationship with miraculous healing UM. On one level, UM the church UH preached that miraculous healing was was possible and happened UM and UH and

and the church supported UM people's people's desire for religious healing. UM. At the same time, the church was very careful about recognizing UM miraculous healing and had a bureaucratic process for UH invest the gating reports of miraculous healing UH, investigating UH talking finding, going to somebody's home community and finding out about their their their previous illness, and invest interviewing the person who claimed a miraculous healing, interviewing witnesses UM.

So there was in fact a very a very complex relationship. Now, the the church had had a number of popular magazines that were aimed at at ordinary people and UH there would be fairly extensive reports about these approved miraculous healings in these magazines. So the church, as I say, UM, was not against them, but the church was very careful about them and had to comply bureaucratic process. And this

this meant that UM this. This could could be quite frustrating for an individual who felt that she or he had had a miraculous healing uh, and then found that the church authorities were skeptical about it. UM. So it's a it's a it's a it's an area of tension I would say, between um, religious communities and the official church. But it's an area of tension where the church and the communities are are fundamentally on the same side in

believing in miraculous healing. But but the church needs to be very careful about its authority in terms of sort of what miraculous healings it recognizes. M hm. That's great by way of coming to a club those Um. We've talked about the idea that the church was I love the way you put it and some of you writing that it was a moribund branch of the state bureaucracy, and you've kind of talked about how that's actually not

the case. UM. But you do also deal in your writing with this idea that religious factors don't need to be included in general histories, specifically of war or revolution in Russia. Could you spend the last couple maybe a minute or two or five or however long you want to take here and reflect on how important religion was not just in responding to historical changes, but in driving forward what we see as a period of tremendous cultural

change at the end of the Russian Empire. Yeah, thank you for the question, because I think this is, um, you know, a very important perspective that historians in the last generation have have have have tried to drive home, which is that that religion is not just a reflection of other more important factors, but that it can be, as you say, a driving for force, uh, an agent

of change in societies, and thus a historical factor. UM. And I think that the I think that there's a couple of ways in which I really think that religion needs to be worked into standard narratives of late imperial

and revolutionary Russia. The first is that is precisely this whole, this whole uh, the way in which religion was fundamentally and debates about religious difference and religious choice was fundamentally tied into the broader discussions about the individual, about civil society, about about the democracy and socialism in Russian society, elate imperial Russian society, that religion is a place where people are trying out some of these ideas, or where others

perceive people who don't who don't necessarily perceive themselves as doing this as trying out questions of of of um new kinds of social organization, about whether Western ideas are suitable for ordinary Russian people, all kinds of ideas that are being worked out through people's individual religious choices UM and and the debate religion is integral to the debates about about the what is what it means to be a Russian Russian nationality Russia and what it means to

be a good patriotic Russian, the Russian state and its character. So I think it's fundamental actually to the great debates of the late Imperial period. UM. But if we need proof that religion is um is quite simply a constitutive factor of of of of change in the imperial in the late Imperial and revolutionary period, I think we can look no further than what happened with the collapse of

the monarchy in February of nineteen sev UM. The first point is to say that the church did not stand up for that's our the official church um UH said UM goodbye. When that's our abdicated, and the next morning got to got to work reforming itself and got to work getting on with the things that it wanted to do.

And the main thing that the church wanted to do was to call a great Church Council to rethink the relationship between the Church and the state, and the relationships within the church between the bishops and the parish clergy and the lady, and to reorganize the church for the

modern world, and so um. Almost immediately after the collapse of the of the Empire, the the the the Church Council was called, and it met in Moscow, um starting in August of nineteen seventeen, and was was going right through during the revolution of October and into early nineteen eighteen,

during the revolutionary days. And but for me, what's so important is to see that in the spring and summer of nineteen seventeen, after this the Council had been called all over the country, the local diocese met to choose their their representatives to the to the council. The bishops had initially thought of a council that would involve just bishops. The parish priests had pushed and then the parish priests

were included. The laity had pushed and then the laity were included, and so by this had been talked about for quite a few years before. But but when so in the in the spring of nineteen seventeen, local diocese are choosing their representatives and there is a great revolution that is going on in the church, and people are trans forming the church from below into a democratic organization.

There are there are dioceses that that ejected their bishops and voted for bishops, which was not canonical, unheard of. But we can see how how people are living out the implications of that democratic revolution of February nineteen seventeen in their church life, and and that that is in fact their first experience. They're not having elections yet, you know, for the for the Constituent Assembly in the spring of nineteen seventeen. People are are are living this out in

their church communities first, uh. And these are people of all social groups who are doing this because the church incorporates all social groups. And so I really think that that the way that the church um is having its own revolution that is part of this utter revolution of nineteen seventeen, is really a clear example, a clear evidence of how UH we cannot write the history of UH late Imperial Russia or the Russian Revolution without considering the

religious component. Um. And that's just the Orthodox Church. All of these other groups are also similarly active and exploring UH in nineteen seventeen and and UH putting themselves on on the on the choice, the list of choices. Everybody is coming out in nineteen seventeen and offering their answer to how to save Russia, what Russia needs, and all of these religious groups are participating in that conversation. M beautiful, Well, Heather,

thank you so much. That's all I have for us. Okay, well, thank you for your great question. That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's in store for next week. The political power of nationalism, including its ability to mobilize

much stronger armed forces, was evident quite quickly to politicians. UM. And so you have all of these pre national multi ethnic states, the Habsburg Empire, the romanof Dynasty, the Ottoman Empire, all of them are trying to nationalize themselves over the course of the nineteenth century. And so their problem is in a multi ethnic state as all of them are,

as Russia certainly is. They either have to figure out how to fashion a multi ethnic national project, that is, to say, a nation that is not founded on a single ethnicity, or to engage in building ethnic nationalism. In fact, Russia tried to do both. Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio, with research by Sam Alberty, writing by Carl Nellis, and original music

by Chad Lawson. Learn more about our contributing historians, source materials and links to our other shows over at grimm and mild dot com, slash Unobscured, and as always, thanks for listening. Un