UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Russian Spiritual Soil and the Retrieval of the Orthodox Christian Identity among Post-Soviet Immigrants to the United States Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1hz749mj Author Klimova, Julia Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Russian Spiritual Soil and the Retrieval of the Orthodox Christian Identity among Post- Soviet Immigrants to the United States A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Julia Klimova Committee in charge: Professor Thomas Csordas, Chair Professor Martha Lampland Professor Richard Madsen Professor Steven Parish Professor Joel Robbins 2014 Copyright Julia Klimova, 2014 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Julia Klimova is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2014 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page…………………………………………………………………… iii Table of Contents………………………………………………………………… iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………. v Vita……………………………………………………………………………….. vi Abstract of the Dissertation…………………..…………………………………... vii Introduction………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1 The History of Russian Orthodox Christianity in Russia and in the US 42 Chapter 2 Unification of Two Russian Orthodox Churches………. ……. ……… 63 Chapter 3 Individual Stories of (Post-)Soviet Conversions to Orthodox Christianity 93 Chapter 4 The Parish and Its Priest....…………………………………………….. 137 Chapter 5 Monastery Pilgrimages…...……………………………………………. 191 Chapter 6 Visit of the Miracle-Working Icon..………..…………………………. 220 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….. 239 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………... 258 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Chapter 5, in part, appeared in Tourism: An International Interdisciplinary Journal (2011, Vol.59, No3). Julia Klimova, 2011. Parts of chapter 5 were also submitted for publication in Astray: The Seductions of Pilgrimage (Di Giovine, Michael and David Picard (eds.)), under consideration by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion and Palgrave Macmillan. The dissertation author was the primary investigator and author of these papers. Financial support for this project was provided by the University of California through F. Bailey Fellowship for dissertation research, and Social Sciences Dean’s Travel Grant. For their friendship and great mentoring at the early stages of the project I would like to acknowledge late professors Donald Tuzin and Tim McDaniel. I am grateful for their warmth, intellectual generosity and openness. For their guidance and intellectually stimulating conversations I would like to express gratitude to professors Thomas Csordas, Joel Robbins, David Jordan, Steven Parish, Keith McNeal, Richard Madsen and Martha Lampland. Also, Eli Elinoff, Ted Gideonse, Jess Novak, Marisa Peters, Ana Paula Pimentel Walker, Naomi Haynes, Kate Miller and Erica Fontana have been extremely helpful in providing constructive feedback at the various stages of the project. Most importantly, I would like to thank my informants for their genuine desire to help with my research, and invaluable insights that have been the constant source of inspiration. Finally, I am very grateful to my family for their encouragement, and, most of all, Jeff Vanderwielen for his unending support and love. v VITA 1988 Bachelor of Arts, Moscow State University, Russia 2000 Master of Pacific and International Affairs, University of California, San Diego 2006 Master of Arts, University of California, San Diego 2014 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS “Pilgrimages of Russian Orthodox Christians to the Greek Orthodox Monastery in Arizona”, Tourism: An International Interdisciplinary Journal, 2011, Vol.59, No3, pp. 305-318. ““As if the Road There is Covered with Honey:” Inquiries into the Seductiveness of the Greek Orthodox Monastery in Arizona for Russian Orthodox Parish Pilgrims”, Astray: The Seductions of Pilgrimage (Di Giovine, Michael and David Picard (eds.)), under consideration by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion and Palgrave Macmillan. Waiting for a Saint: Holiness in Russian Culture and History. MA Thesis. University of California, San Diego, Anthropology Department. 2006. vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Russian Spiritual Soil and the Retrieval of the Orthodox Christian Identity among Post- Soviet Immigrants to the United States by Julia Klimova Doctor of Philosophy University of California, San Diego, 2014 Professor Thomas Csordas, Chair My work examines how former Soviet atheists have discovered and engaged with their national religious tradition, Russian Orthodox Christianity, after moving to the United States and becoming members of the local parish church. It is based on two years of fieldwork among the parishioners of the Southern California Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. I use the trope of the “Russian spiritual soil” which intertwines the spiritual, national, and material elements in Russian Orthodoxy to position my research historically and comparatively. While earlier, especially post-revolutionary forced immigrants, vii equated maintaining religious identities and national church practices with the preservation of a true spirit of Russian Orthodoxy, removed from its physical roots, for recent, post-Soviet immigrants the parish church, I argue, became a space to retrieve religion as part of their culture, history and identity. The parish setting provides a fruitful space to investigate the emergence of post- Soviet religious life, it is a space where habitual secular sensibilities meet and interact with arising religious ones. The parish setting in the foreign context adds new dimensions to these processes. Unlike in Russia, it employs Western models of organization and management, mostly borrowed from American Protestant churches, and secular Western practices of democratic voting and the equality of the clergy and the laity clash with the desire of new believers to submit to the spiritual authority of the parish priest and Church hierarchy. In my dissertation I trace and analyze the tensions and dynamics involved in processes of retrieval of the Orthodox identity by doing the ethnography of various practices, such as participation in the sacramental life of the church and in everyday management of parish life, veneration of miracle working icons, and pilgrimages. In search of a more pure and authentic spiritual life, for example, some parishioners go on regular pilgrimages to a Greek Orthodox monastery in Arizona, while others utilize personal connections with priests in Russia to seek spiritual counseling. The local Russian Orthodox parish thus exists as a site of contestation and creativity, intermixing local and transnational, national and pan-Orthodox, secular and religious dynamics in the lived experiences of post-Soviet immigrants. viii Introduction My work examines how former Soviet atheists have discovered and engaged with their national religious tradition, Russian Orthodox Christianity, after moving to the United States and becoming members of the local parish church. I use the trope of the “Russian spiritual soil” which intertwines the spiritual, national, and material elements in Russian Orthodoxy to position my research historically and comparatively. I argue that, for the post-Soviet wave of immigrants, the parish church in America became a space to retrieve religion as part of their culture, history, and identity. Their experience differs from that of earlier immigrants, especially those in the post-revolutionary forced wave of immigration, who equated maintaining their religious identity and national church practices with the preservation of the rich canonical and cultural traditions of Russian Orthodoxy removed from its physical roots in a foreign context. The phrase “Russian spiritual soil” is borrowed from a 2006 official interview given by the late Metropolitan Laurus, then head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), during his trip to Russia. Metropolitan Laurus stressed that Russians abroad should stay connected to the “Russian spiritual soil” in order to remain true Orthodox believers and should not lose their cultural and national identity in a foreign environment. To him, Orthodox Christianity and Russian culture are inseparable, both “infused with the spirit of Holy Russia.” Therefore, to maintain an Orthodox religious identity in a Western, “heterodox and non-Christian, secular environment,” one has to stay connected to and preserve Russian culture and traditions (2006). 1 2 The metaphor of the “Russian spiritual soil” brings into play the national, spiritual, and material elements of religious life. On one hand, the spiritual wealth of the Orthodox tradition is linked to its national manifestations and a particular physical place. The Orthodox tradition is historically rooted in Russian geographic territory, which itself ensures the cultural and spiritual continuity of Orthodoxy, most vividly expressed in the concept of Holy Russia. The religious and national identity of Russian Orthodox Christians is seen as rooted in Russian soil, nourished by tradition. On the other hand, soil here is not only material, limited by the geographical space it occupies but also spiritual, transcending the borders of the nation state and connecting to the canonical