This Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation Has Been Downloaded from Explore Bristol Research
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Flew, Peter M Title: The Early Lives of St Serafim of Sarov, 1840-49 the Making of a Modern Saint General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. The Early Lives of St Serafim of Sarov, 1840-49: the Making of a Modern Saint Peter Flew A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of Master of Philosophy in the Faculty of Acts, School of Modern Languages, Department of Russian. Submitted September 2019. Word Count: 24,617 Abstract This dissertation is a study of the early Lives of Serafim of Sarov (1754–1833), published in the 1840s by three monastic contemporaries, the Hieromonks Sergii (1841), Georgii (1844) and Ioasaf (1849). It analyses their form, content and publication history to understand how Serafim came to be constructed as a saint and what personal, cultural, political and religious factors shaped the narratives that were eventually accepted for publication. It examines the modernity of these early Lives, through which Serafim was elevated to sainthood. The reign of Nicholas I (r. 1825–55) was characterised by the relationship between faith and nationalism, which was reflected by the authors (and editors) in the early Lives. Russia experienced a religious revival at the turn of the nineteenth century, which was reflective of a modern phenomenon of religious de-privatisation, rather than evidence of a reactionary tendency. During the Nicholaevan era, nationalism was expressed through both cultural and political variants. On the one hand, church and secular intellectuals sought to renew Russia by harnessing the revived ascetic spirituality. On the other, it was a political project to maintain the autocratic rule of Nicholas I, buttressed by a traditional conception of Orthodoxy. By reflecting both forms of nationalism, the early Lives produced an image of Serafim that was emblematic of Russia’s modernity and worthy of veneration. This dissertation is split into three chapters: Chapter One presents the form and content of the early Lives, alongside their publication history, to reveal the use of an archaic form in the contests of authority of those involved in their publication; Chapter Two shows how the symbiotic relationship between faith and cultural nationalism represented a modern dynamic that found expression in Serafim’s early Lives. Chapter Three examines how the early Lives reflected political nationalism as encapsulated by the ideology of Official Nationality. 1 Dedication and Acknowledgements This dissertation is dedicated to Giorgio Nocent, without whom it would not have been started or completed. I am indebted to the advice and continued support of Dr Ruth Coates, whose expert supervision assisted my return to academia after a decade in the legal world. Our conversations in 17 Woodland Road and in the snows of Iași, Romania, were illuminating and the source of many of the ideas in the dissertation. I thank Dr Claire Knight for her careful and considered comments on the drafts, which have been instrumental to structuring and refining this dissertation. I also thank my parents, Richard and Audrey Flew, whose unwavering support this year enabled me to make this change in direction and apply myself to research. The time spent in Cumbria together was perhaps the most fruitful in completing this project. Finally, I thank Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, who kindly allowed me to enter his home and discuss the progress of this research. His advice and directions were, as can be expected, insightful and valuable to my work. 2 Author’s declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University's Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate's own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: PETER FLEW DATE: 22 SEPTEMBER 2019 3 Table of Contents Introduction Page 5 1. St. Serafim of Sarov and His Early Lives……………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 5 2. Serafim and Existing Scholarship…………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 7 3. Chapter Overview and Methodological Approaches………………………………………………………………………….Page 10 Chapter One: Sites of Contested Authority Page 13 1. Serafim’s Early Lives: Form and Content……………………………………………………………………………………………Page 15 1.1 Ascetic Narratives in Serafim’s Early Lives……………………………………………………………………………………Page 16 1.2 Ascetic Motifs in Serafim’s Early Lives………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 23 2. Producing the Early Lives…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 27 2.1 The Publication of Sergii’s and Georgii’s Lives………………………………………………………………………………Page 29 2.2 The Publication of Ioasaf’s Life………………………………………………………………………………………….. ……….Page 35 Chapter Two: Modernity, Cultural Nationalism, and the Early Lives of Serafim Page 40 1. Secularisation and Religious Revival………………………………….………………………………………..………...…………Page 41 1.1 Russia’s Symbiosis of Religious Revival and Cultural Nationalism…………………………………………………Page 46 2. Revived Ascetic Spirituality in the Early Lives of Serafim……………………………………………………………………Page 51 2.1 Nepsis and Hesychia in Serafim’s Early Lives………………………………………………………………………………..Page 54 2.2 The Jesus Prayer in Serafim’s Early Lives………………………………………………………………………………………Page 57 2.3 Theosis in Serafim’s Early Lives…………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 60 Chapter Three: Political Nationalism in the Early Lives of Serafim Page 66 1. Reaction and Conservatism in Nicholaevan Russia……………………………………………………………………………Page 67 2. The Startsy as Spiritual Policemen…………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 72 2.1 Serafim as a Model Starets………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 74 3. Serafim as Spiritual Policeman………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 79 3.1 Orthodoxy…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 80 3.2 Autocracy……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 85 Conclusion Page 92 Bibliography Page 95 4 ‘И как прекрасна ты, Русь, когда, полная одним чувством, согласно подымаешься ты, единственная несравненная в своей истинной сущности!’1 Introduction 1. St. Serafim of Sarov and His Early Lives In the early twentieth century, Serafim of Sarov (1754–1833) was canonised as a saint amid great pomp and ceremony.2 He was a modern saint, characterised by Dmitrii Merezhkovskii in 1908 as Russia’s ‘last’ (poslednii sviatoi).3 This dissertation examines Serafim’s elevation to sainthood. It studies the origins of Serafim’s construction as a saint in the 1840s and explores what modern sainthood signified in nineteenth-century Russia. Serafim was born as Prokhor Moshnin in 1754, the son of merchants in Kursk.4 He embarked on a life of monasticism at Sarov, where he was tonsured and given his angelic-inspired name.5 Serafim was an ascetic monk and hesychast who lived as a hermit in the local forests;6 he later became known as a pioneer of the renewal in Russia of the Orthodox tradition of contemplative prayer and the institution of spiritual eldership (starchestvo).7 Having lived during the reigns of Catherine II (r. 1762–96), Alexander I (r. 1801–25), and Nicholas I (r. 1825–55), he died in 1833.8 Posthumously, Serafim came to be considered worthy of veneration, and three early Lives (zhitiia) 1 Evgenii Poselianin, Prepodobnyi Serafim: Sarovskii chudotvorets i russkie podvizhniki XIX veka (Moscow: Novoe Nebo, 2018), p. 24. 2 For more details on Serafim’s controversial canonisation, see Gregory L. Freeze, ‘Subversive Piety: Religion and the Political Crisis in Late Imperial Russia’, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 86, 2 (June 1996), 308–50; Robert L. Nichols, ‘Orthodox Spirituality in Imperial Russia: Saint Serafim of Sarov and the awakening of Orthodoxy’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 16/17 (2000-2001), 19–42; and Richard Price, ‘The Canonisation of Serafim of Sarov: Piety, Prophecy and Politics in Late Imperial Russia’, Studies in Christian History, 47 (2011), 346–64. 3 Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, ‘Poslednii sviatoi’ in Ne mir, no mech’ (Saint Petersburg: Izdanie M. V. Pirozhkov, 1908),