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Modern Holiness in the Grips of Unholy Modernity

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Modern Holiness in the Grips of Unholy Modernity Nadieszda Kizenko. A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2000. xiii + 384 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-271-01976-5. Reviewed by Argyrios K. Pisiotis Published on H-Russia (January, 2002) Modern Holiness in the Grips of Unholy Such was the life of a Christian Orthodox saint, Modernity Ioann Kronshtadtskii (1829-1908). It is sometimes nice to imagine what it might Nadieszda Kizenko, Associate Professor of be like to be an object of public adoration: your History at SUNY-Albany, has written an excellent image is mass-produced on mugs, postcards, and biography of this compelling historical fgure, key rings; you dread leaving your home without a known in English as Father John of Kronstadt. small army of bouncers to shield you from your Kizenko goes far beyond a simple narrative of his delirious admirers, some of whom have travelled life, a static description of his character traits and great distances in order to see you, to kiss you, to schematic overview of his ideas, well worn mate‐ tear bits of your clothes--some even bite you--so rial already covered by hagiographers and by bi‐ they can have a piece of you as a trophy; the na‐ ographers, both friendly and hostile, of the most tional press reports the smallest detail of your life celebrated Russian saint of the twentieth century. as news, sometimes relying on dubious sources; Although A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kron‐ foreign press correspondents spread your fame to stadt and the Russian People does not neglect the faraway places; publishers compete for the privi‐ saintly priest^Òs background, beliefs, innova‐ lege of releasing your literary efforts; the intellec‐ tions, and inner struggles, it also examines the de‐ tual elite obsessively discusses the roots and ef‐ gree to which the different versions of his life cor‐ fects of your celebrity while the highest ranks of responded to changing social and political condi‐ society invite you into their homes; the head of tions. Kizenko unveils a multidimensional portrait state himself invites you to share a most private of Father John which allows her to delve into the family moment with him. If you thought that such role of the Orthodox Church in Late Imperial Rus‐ mass hysteria was ushered in with the Beatles, sia, popular piety and lived religion, the impor‐ MTV, or ^ÓEntertainment Tonight,^Ô think again. tance of gender in religiosity, the interrelation be‐ tween saints and their cults, and the involvement H-Net Reviews of religious fgures in politics. The author endeav‐ and lively liturgy that included inspirational ors to explore what is specific to modern sanctity choral singing and sermons on burning social is‐ in general. Along the way, she uncovers modern sues (Father John did not shirk from bemoaning trends in religiosity that go beyond Russia, such poverty and castigating the rich). By re-establish‐ as the increasing importance of priests, as op‐ ing the Eucharist as the center of parish life and posed to monks or bishops, in defining piety and introducing unprecedented mass confessions, Fa‐ the dialectical relation between modern sanctity ther John made the most important individual on the one hand, and the media, publicity, and contribution to a new piety grounded in the sacra‐ politics on the other. ments. The frst chapter traces the life of Father John Without ever lapsing into hagiography, (born Ioann Sergiev) from his humble beginnings Kizenko offers in Chapter Three a rare glimpse as the son of a barely literate sacristan from into what might be called an "objective" core of Arkhangel^Òsk province to his scholarship-fund‐ saintliness, before historical circumstances and ed studies at the St. Petersburg Theological Acade‐ exigencies construct idealized hagiographic fg‐ my and through his frst fundamental and conse‐ ures, as happened after Father John^Òs death. quential career decisions. Following a typical cler‐ Though burdened with the same human faws ical pattern, Ioann "inherited" his post by marry‐ and passions as the next person, Father John ing the daughter of an archpriest at St. An‐ waged a sincere, persistent, methodical, and ulti‐ drew^Òs Cathedral on Kronstadt, the small garri‐ mately successful battle against his modest ap‐ son island guarding the way to the capital of the petite, his sensual desires, his pride, his miserli‐ Romanov empire in the Gulf of Finland. Breaking ness, and his disinterest in human company. Hav‐ radically with tradition, and without much regard ing attained the virtues antithetical to these faws, for his wife^Òs opinion, he opts for a "spiritual Father John united in his person two models of (i.e. celibate) marriage." His diaries reveal to clerical service normally thought to be distinct: Kizenko a fundamentally religious nature that at‐ the power of prayer and spiritual guidance of‐ tributed a symbolic significance and moral value fered to the laity by ascetics, and the practical ad‐ to every event, no matter how commonplace. His vice and material assistance for everyday-life models are drawn primarily from the ascetic problems that the most active of parish clergy Church Fathers. Despite his deeply pessimistic committed to their focks. Intuited by the poverty perception of human nature, he does not retire of his childhood, legitimated by patristic readings, from the secular world, as monks do, and he suf‐ and inspired by the impoverished countryside fers the consequences of this decision, not the and the destitute worker neighborhoods of an in‐ least of which are constant reminders of his social dustrializing, urbanized Russia, Father John^Òs inferiority amidst the glitter and power of the im‐ stern calls for social justice parallel those of his perial capital. Breaking with the common tradi‐ radical socialist contemporaries, such as Dobroli‐ tion of the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic ubov and Chernyshevsky. Like them, he saw the Churches, he does not see women as more prone solution in the re-structuring of society. Unlike to sin than men and his relative gender equality radicals, Father John saw Christianity-^Önot so‐ makes him particularly popular with women. cialist theories--as the basis of this restructuring. Chapter Two investigates the liturgical inno‐ Like them, he also endorsed work as an additional vations that frst made Father John a celebrity, at escape from poverty. Unlike most of them, he ap‐ least within in his parish, from the 1850s through plied his ideas in founding the House of Industry the 1870s. He fashioned a more emotionally direct as a shelter/trade-learning school/workshop for 2 H-Net Reviews the poor. He complemented his beliefs with his doxy. Radical publicists contributed what became boundless personal charity. the longest lasting image of Father John as a reac‐ All this brought Father John the broad recog‐ tionary obscurantist. From 1881 through his nition and respect of his fellow Russians, whose death, they vilified Father John who, shocked by thousands of letters to him Kizenko painstakingly the violence, atheism, and anticlericalism of the classifies and analyzes in chapter Four. Strict di‐ revolutionary movement, began identifying Rus‐ chotomies between high and low culture, between sian Orthodoxy with the autocracy and endorsed elite and popular piety, collapse under this inspec‐ the extreme Right as the most steadfast opponents tion. Barely literate peasants, politically astute of revolution. workers, clerical colleagues, and leading aristo‐ After 1904-1905, those disillusioned by Rus‐ crats all addressed petitions to the saintly priest, sia^Òs increasing secularization and political re‐ requesting that Father John pray for their healing, forms used the saintly priest^Òs prestige to pro‐ render emergency fnancial assistance, or inter‐ mote their anti-modernist agendas. Most interest‐ cede on their behalf before the authorities for spe‐ ing is the Orthodox hierarchy^Òs attitude toward cial favors. Counter to exaggerated views of the Father John: despite initial suspicions over his strict division of post-Petrine society into two cul‐ liturgical innovations, Father John^Òs undimin‐ tures, Kizenko exposes a commonality in the sup‐ ished loyalty to the Church, the theological recti‐ plicants^Ò understandings of Orthodoxy. In con‐ tude of his innovations, and his centuries-long trast to the scholarly stereotype of the Russian clerical background made them trust him and use masses as totally ignorant of church doctrine, the him for their own purpose. The majority of the author brilliantly demonstrates a less fractured Russian episcopate was perspicacious enough to continuum of social morality in which even hum‐ realize that John of Kronstadt was the Church^Òs ble supplicants understood and accepted personal ideal answer to the perceived erosion of religiosi‐ responsibility for the "rules" through which the ty and the Church^Òs position in society pro‐ Divine grace could grant them healing or other duced by economic upheaval, urbanization, new help. Moreover, the majority of petitioners exem‐ social theories, and political reforms. plify a view of society as a moral universe and of The politically turbulent frst decade of the themselves as active players in the economy of century, the last of Ioann Sergiev^Òs life, demon‐ salvation that is surprisingly congruent with Or‐ strated that celebrities, saintly or not, often do not thodox theology. enjoy the simple right of neutrality in political In chapters fve through seven, Kizenko ex‐ struggles. Father John^Òs posthumous treatment plores the distinct uses that competing groups by hagiographers, biographers, and Soviet atheist made of Father John^Òs unofficial but widely ac‐ writers, the subject of the last chapter, shows that cepted sanctity. Conservative publicists held him even saints cannot escape the distortions that his‐ up as an ideal of Orthodox clerical leadership in torical circumstances impose, especially those of lieu of an intellectually modish bureaucratic hier‐ the extreme political polarization which divided archy.
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