Book reviews

gion was central in the formation ed a more natural interweaving of of Peter’s reformatory convic- elements that we now call scien- tions. All that the great reform- tific, religious and esoteric. er achieved was compared to the Collis’s work will certainly not actions of the biblical King David, be interpreted unequivocally: and even the tsar’s contemporar- clearly problems of crisis and re- ies compared his military victo- form, conservatism and innova- ries to the defeat of Goliath. tion, relations of church and state, But it was not just military science, religion and esotericism victories and administrative in- are extremely current, and ar- novations that provided materi- guments are still raging in our al for reform, and it is now time day. However, the ideas formu- to return to the question of the lated by this impartial and atten- “Petrine instauration.” Collis sug- tive researcher will, most proba- gests that the reformist mission bly, prove of interest to many. of Peter I was seen by the tsar and his circle as a return to sourc- Yuri Rodichenkov (Transla- es of ancient knowledge, which tion by Keith Walmsley) were accessible to people before the fall; Collis writes about the References deeply conscious attempt with- in Peter’s circle “to restore aca- Florovsky, Georges. (2009). Puti russkogo demic knowledge” (p. 358). This bogosloviia [The ways of Russian theology]. Moscow: Institut russkoi understanding seems strange to tsivilizatsii. us, but in that epoch encapsulat-

Tatyana Shevchenko (2013). The Monastery and the Establishment of the Finnish Orthodox Church (1917–1957). (Valaamskii monastyr’ i stanovlenie Finliandskoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi). Moscow: Pravoslavnii Sviato-Tikhonovskii gumanitarnyi universitet (in Russian). — 500 pages.

The resources of Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Church (ROC).2 One of Orthodox University of the Hu- the most important fields to at- manities have provided the basis tract the attention of researchers for a number of studies devoted

to various aspects of the twenti- 2. See Bakonina 2014; Anashkin 2014; eth-century history of the Russian Efimov 2014; Kostriukov 2011.

118 State, Religion and Church (2015) 2(2): 118 – 126 Tatyana Shevchenko (2013). The Valaam Monastery… at the university is the history of there is a mass of documents re- those parts of Russian Orthodoxy lating to the Finnish Orthodox that inadvertently found them- Church (FOC), assembled during selves outside the borders of the the preparations for the transfer- Russian state during that centu- ral of the FOC to the jurisdiction ry’s cataclysms. Tatyana Ivanovna of the ROC in the second half of Shevchenko’s monograph, which the 1940s. The research has been focuses on the history of the the organized chronologically and Valaam Monastery and the Finn- undertakes to analyze the period ish Orthodox Church in the first between the appearance of the in- half of the twentieth century, fits dependent Finnish state and the neatly into this traditional area change in status of the Orthodox of research. structures on its territory (1917), The most valuable sources and the Moscow Patriarchate's used in the research are those abnegation of its rights to the materials from the archive of the Finnish Church (1957). Valaam Monastery that reveal life As the monograph remains at there during the interwar period heart an academic dissertation, in all its complexity and diversi- the first chapter is, as expected, ty. The diaries, letters and rem- devoted to a survey of the sources iniscences of the directors and and historiographical studies per- monks of the monastery, which taining to the theme of the work. Shevchenko is the first to cite in The second chapter is devoted to academic research, — most nota- the specifics of the situation of bly of Fathers Superior Khariton the Orthodox Church in (Dunaev) and Nestor (Kiselenk- at the moment that the independ- ov), and monk Iuvian (Krasnop- ent state was formed. The unique erov), a representative of the Old nature of the Finnish project Calendarists — offer unique in- within the borders of the Russian sight into the life of a Russian Empire, and the specific charac- Orthodox monastery that found ter of Orthodoxy’s development itself on the territory of an in- in the country — conditioned, as dependent Finland during the it was, by the influence of a strong twentieth century, and the rela- Lutheran tradition — led to an tionships of its inhabitants. To atypical situation in the coun- her credit, the author comple- try before the end of the Impe- ments her research with mate- rial period and were actively de- rials from the State Archives of bated during the discussions of and the Russian Federa- general state and church reforms tion where, in the archives of the at the beginning of the twenti- Council for the Affairs of the ROC, eth century. Even then, the influ-

VOL.2(2) · 2015 119 Book reviews

ence of Lutheran norms was per- or “black” — the editors] cler- ceived by various representatives gy played a large administrative of Orthodoxy as a threat to a sep- and state role. The author of the arate Orthodox identity. Howev- study highlights the fact that in er, the major successes attained the Grand Principality of Finland in resolving such problems as eparchial life was characterized the participation of parishioners by two tendencies — the Finnish in the life of the Orthodox par- and the Russian — the bound- ish in Finland, and the legal def- aries of which were decisively inition and social significance of formed in 1917, and the Finnish the parish priest, were offered tendency’s national orientation by several church-state activists prevailed. as a model for the whole empire. In the third chapter Shevchen- In order to understand the con- ko analyzes the normative organi- text of the history of Finnish Or- zational structures of the FOC and thodoxy it is necessary to under- the Valaam Monastery within the stand that Finland had a unique context of the changing political status within the Russian Em- systems of Finland and . The pire: it possessed its own state- Valaam Monastery, in which there hood, language and ideas of na- were 426 monks, was dragged into tional identity, which had already the political upheavals. Amongst been formulated by the Finnish the monks there were supporters intelligentsia around the middle of radical reform who wished to ef- of the nineteenth century. fect a revolution in their cloisters; As 1917 approached there later some monks, having received were forty parish priests, twelve the nickname Nikolaevtsy after deacons, fifty-eight thousand Or- Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich, thodox parishioners, and twen- supported right-monarchist emi- ty-nine parishes in Finland. Of grant organizations, provoking the the latter, fourteen were Karelian distrust of the Finnish authorities. and the rest belonged to the state, The brotherhood of Valaam found with the majority being Russian. itself in unfamiliar territory when When the empire fell there were faced with the complicated chal- a number of well-developed par- lenges of modernity, responses to ishes in Finland in which, giv- which, when considered within the en the relative weakness of epar- framework of the Orthodox tradi- chial power and, moreover, the tion, were not unambiguous. Be- incorporation of the parish- sides the imperial-monarchical es into the administrative struc- problem referenced above, there ture of the region, the parish [aka arose questions surrounding the “white,” as opposed to monastic, adoption of Finnish citizenship

120 © state· religion · church Tatyana Shevchenko (2013). The Valaam Monastery… and, subsequently, of relations small country, where cohabiting with the governing higher clerical Lutheran and Orthodox orders and of a change in church Christians necessarily lived jurisdiction (i.e., its transforma- according to different calendars. tion into an autonomous structure If the existence of the Julian of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in calendar in Orthodox life was 1923). The negative attitude of a justified by the fact of the whole number of monks was provoked Russian Empire’s adherence to by the first Finnish bishop, Her- it, then with the latter’s fall and man (Aav), whose external ap- the transfer of the new states pearance — “in secular clothing, to the the shaved and with closely cropped rationale behind continued use hair” — they never forgave as long of the Julian system disappeared. as he lived. In this they were ac- It was interesting that within the tively supported by Metropoli- Russian Orthodox hierarchy there tan Antony (Khrapovitsky), who was not a defined position on was attempting to exert authority the question of calendar reform, over the Finnish Orthodox Church. and it was the move to the new This chapter lays out in detail the calendar among a series of local political and institutional contexts Orthodox churches that provided of the transferral of the Finnish the basis for such a precedent. Church under the jurisdiction of Calendar reform culminated the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and with the problem of calculating the correspondence regarding this a date for Easter, and from 1923 question between the church hier- the Finnish Church adopted a archy and canonists. corrected date. The fourth chapter describes If calendar reform was easi- the development of a conflict ly established in practice within within the Orthodox monastic the parishes, it provoked stormy community of Finland around arguments and schisms among the question of calendar reform. the monks of the Valaam Mon- The fact remains that, even as astery. As Shevchenko’s research part of the Russian Empire, convincingly shows, this conflict Finland lived according to the was not exclusively due to disa- Gregorian calendar, and Lutheran greements surrounding the new holidays were endorsed by the calendar, but included a whole state. The demand for calendar range of subjects — for instance, reform was conceived within relationships with Old Rus- the Orthodox parish system and sia, the Empire and the Finnish was in general supported by the state, reforms in Orthodoxy, and eparchial directorship in the so on — and was accompanied

VOL.2(2) · 2015 121 Book reviews by a conflict with the governing showed the hostility of the Mos- figure, the father superior. From cow Patriarchate toward the Finn- 1925 the cloisters were home to ish Church in the interwar period. a situation that was impossible After the legality of the FOC’s according to church ecclesiology, entry into the Constantinople Pa- in which the brotherhood of the triarchate was confirmed in 1957, monastery “came to eat togeth- the monks of Valaam were in- er, but prayed to God separate- formed that they must now sub- ly,” a situation that lasted for sev- ordinate themselves to the FOC eral decades. not just in questions of admin- The fifth chapter outlines the istration, but also in matters of history of the Valaam Monastery canon and prayer. Some monks, in the period of the Second World particularly those that loved the War and the vicissitudes of its re- Russian Church, were advised to lationship with the ROC, which, move to the USSR. The mono- straight after the war, attempted graph finishes with the unfortu- to include the FOC within its juris- nate story of the natural erosion diction. By force of changing polit- of Russian monasticism at Val- ical conditions, however, it reject- aam, which had its roots, accord- ed this policy and in 1957 accepted ing to the observations of Arch- the status quo, i.e., the FOC’s in- priest Aleksandr Schmemann, in clusion in the Patriarchate of Con- the peasant (muzhitskii) tradition. stantinople. It is clear that in this Attempts by the aging monks to period canonical questions took a conserve or restore this tradition back seat to political aims. Thus, already seemed quite artificial to the transferral of Valaam’s monks Schmemann when he visited the to the jurisdiction of the Moscow monastery in 1975. Patriarchate was effected in Mos- Shevchenko’s monograph in- cow through an order of penance troduces sources that are unique by Father Superior Khariton, and in character into the academic this transfer was accompanied by field. The author was able to im- a ban on communion with the partially assemble and depict the FOC. The transferral of the Val- history of the Valaam Monastery aam Monastery to the jurisdiction in this complicated period, which of the ROC revealed the long-term was plagued by many problematic intentions of the leadership of the and closely linked issues, be they ROC to, in the event of unification, legal, disciplinary, canonical, po- completely destroy specific fea- litical or national. Her research tures of the organization of Ortho- perfectly conforms to the gener- dox life in Finland (p. 281), while ic paradigm that has been formu- the adoption through penance lated over the last two decades in

122 © state· religion · church Tatyana Shevchenko (2013). The Valaam Monastery…

Russia within church-historical politicized in Finland due to the research, that is, the confessional, number of refugees from Soviet and possesses both the advantag- Russia, who were representatives es and disadvantages of this genre. of very different political convic- Shevchenko describes in ade- tions. Thus, a powerful monar- quate detail the situations of dif- chic circle was formed around ferent elements of the Orthodox Archbishop Serafim (Luk’ianov), population, in the first case Rus- linked with the relatives of the sophone, appearing outside the tsar’s family, that served as jus- boundaries of the empire after tification for the Finnish gov- its fall. Inevitably this leads us ernment’s discharge of the arch- to thoughts on the theme of the bishop, while he was allowed to specifics of Russian national self- maintain his Finnish citizenship consciousness and the Russian and offered a life pension. The relationship to Orthodoxy. As organizers of the Russian mili- many Western researchers have tary-monarchic movement, still underlined, Russians within the called Nikolaevtsy, were closely Russian Empire, being the titu- linked with those monks at Val- lar nation, did not pass through aam who later formed a group of complete phases in the formation Old Calendarists. of their national self-conscious- At the same time, conflicting ness.3 After the empire’s fall, they relationships were forming be- appeared, from one perspective, tween representatives of Finn- deprived of their own state and, ish Orthodoxy and the ideologue from another, “guilty” in the sub- of the jugation of the unique nation- Abroad (ROCA), Antony (Khrapo- al identities of the empire’s oth- vitsky), who even had his own er peoples.4 Russians, finding cell at Valaam. Eventually, An- themselves to be a minority in tony was even forbidden entry to the former outskirts of the fallen Finland. In their letters home Va- empire, were faced with the ne- laam’s Old Calendarists stressed cessity of forcibly modeling their that Russian Orthodoxy repre- own identity. The Orthodox Rus- sented the true essence of Ortho- sophone environment became doxy, often put the word Russian before Orthodox and, refusing to

3. For Miroslav Hroch’s conceptualization admit their fellow believers be- of the phases of the formation of cause of their differences with re- national self-consciousness among the gard to the calendar, were pre- countries of Eastern Europe, see Hroch 2012: 78–97. pared to welcome Soviet power. 4. See Kappeler 2000; Weeks 1996; Martin Shevchenko’s research reveals the 2001. complex and multifaceted nature

VOL.2(2) · 2015 123 Book reviews of the factors in question, the ab- ing of the wedding ring on the left sence of “clear” dividing lines be- hand in defiance of church sacra- tween them, and the interweav- ment, the reading of silent prayers ing of national, church, political, aloud — all this does not corre- economic and personal subjects. spond to Orthodoxy” — wrote one The problems that were tear- of the Orthodox neophytes from ing Russian Orthodoxy apart the Finnish circle (p. 277). It is, were reflected in microcosm perhaps, worth seeing the con- in Finland. We see here the op- flict in the Orthodox community position of monastic and par- of Finland within the context of ish priesthoods, the conflict be- the eternal arguments between tween eparchial church leaders “traditionalists” and “modernists,” and the monasteries, and the the dyed-in-the-wool ideologues wish to introduce a political com- of Orthodoxy, and, in contrast, the ponent into church conflicts. For champions of church universalism. example, inhabitants of Valaam If we examine Shevchenko’s accused the leadership of the thesis that the situation of the Va- Finnish Church of zhivotserk- laam Monastery within the Finn- ovnichestvo (i.e., “renovation- ish Orthodox Church should be ism” or adherence to the “Living viewed on a global plane as a con- Church”), and the de facto head flict between two identities, then, of the Finnish Church movement, in this case, there are certainly not Archpriest Solntsev, tried to enough materials to allow a full show that the monasteries, with appreciation of the Finnish posi- their Russian inhabitants, were tion. This position is, of course, ar- spreading a dangerous Bolshevik ticulated in the exposition of offi- ideology and that only appropri- cial church and state documents, ate “Finnification” would be able however, original, conceptual texts to turn them into a “blessing” for from this sphere are not available. the Finnish Church. Strictly speaking, the question of The Russophone Orthodox reg- what Finnish Orthodox identity ularly accused their Finnish core- was perceived to be in the first half ligionists of a lack of Orthodoxy, of the twentieth century remains the authentic character of which as open as it has always been. was maintained only in the Rus- Shevchenko’s introduction of sian church: “All deviations from texts pertaining to Russian mo- the Russian church traditions that nasticism of the twentieth centu- we have inherited, such as, for ex- ry to academic study demands, it ample, the priests not wearing would appear, further conceptu- cassocks, cropping their hair and alization of the problems present- shaving their beards, the wear- ed by these texts and their further

124 © state· religion · church Tatyana Shevchenko (2013). The Valaam Monastery… analysis, giving due considera- dox Church in the USSR (ROC) tion to the intended meanings and those elements that inevi- of their authors. In the behavior tably found themselves outside of the inhabitants of Valaam we its borders (in the first case, the see traditionally Russian forms ROCA). All unarticulated ques- of religious resistance, including tions of church and social life, de- the characteristic genre of writ- prived of legal ground for discus- ten denunciations with an active sion and complicated by political application of eschatological mo- cataclysms, rose to the surface, tives, anonymous attacks, a refus- and, as in a microcosm, we see al of communal prayer and of full the reflection of these processes communion. Taking everything in the texts that appeared in the into account, the Valaam Old Cal- territories of the FOC. endarists had been planning op- The image in Russian culture of position over a long period: the the monks as martyrs for the true schemamonk Fr. Mikhail (Pitk- faith, persecuted by their previous evich) secretly prepared ten thou- coreligionists who had reached a sand units of consecrated bread compromise with anti-Christian and wine before the strife over state powers, which the Old Cal- the calendar (p. 333). Here, of endarists of the Valaam Monas- course, we are not talking about tery had endeavored to manipu- a conflict with Finnish Orthodoxy, late, was unintentionally softened but with their monastic brothers. by the fact that neither the admin- Throughout the book the ac- istration of the Finnish Church, rimony of the conflict within the nor the Finnish state itself, pur- Russian Orthodox sphere is pal- sued the cruel victimization of pable. The impression is giv- heretics, as is accepted within the en that Russian Orthodoxy in Russian consciousness. The mon- the 1920s and 1930s, having ograph reveals confessional-state freed itself from the cruel sys- relationships that are surprising tem of state regulation through from the point of view of Russian the Department of Orthodox Re- history and, it seems, offer a par- ligion, was transformed into a adigm for executive behavior that sphere of permanent strife. The still awaits rationalization: in re- opposition between “patriarchal” sponse to cruel opposition, the ad- and “renovationist” currents in ministrative bodies of the church the USSR is sufficiently well -de showed maximal flexibility and scribed, however the confronta- patience in allowing the monas- tion with the “right” opposition tery to live according to the Old was no less sharp, to say nothing Style using the traditional date for of the conflict between the Ortho- Easter. Furthermore, among oth-

VOL.2(2) · 2015 125 Book reviews er things, they offered advice on Orthodox Church Abroad: 1921– the living arrangements of monks 2007]. Moscow: PSTGU. Bakonina, S. N. (2014). Tserkovnaia zhizn’ outside the state, and paid them russkoi emigratsii na Dal’nem a pension. At the same time, the Vostoke v 1920–1931 gg.: Na mate- specific self-consciousness of the rialakh Kharbinskoi eparkhii [Church life of Russian emigration representatives of Finnish Ortho- in the Far East, 1920–1931: On ma- doxy, who, being solidly rooted in terials of Kharbin Eparchy]. Mos- Orthodoxy, no less solidly stood cow: PSTGU. up for the Finnish character of the Efimov, A. .B (2012). Aleutskaia i Severo- Amerikhanskaia eparkhiia pri svi- Orthodox structure in the country, atitele Tikhone [The Aleutian and is clearly felt. It is understood that North American Eparchy under strategic calculation in relation to Prelate Tikhon]. Moscow: PSTGU. the monasteries allowed the rep- Hroch, Miroslav. (2012). “From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Na- resentatives of Old Russian mo- tion: The Nation-Building Process nasticism to die peacefully, and in Europe.” In G. Balakrishnan to maintain monastic property (Ed.), Mapping the Nation (78–97). London: Verso. on behalf of the Finnish Church. Kappeler, A. (2000). Rossi- From the analyzed monograph ia — mnogonatsional’naia imperi- we clearly see that it is impossible ia: Vozniknovenie, Istoriia, Raspad to speak of “pure” national con- [Russia — a multinational empire: Rise, history, fall]. S. Chervonnaia structs and any “pure’ religious (Trans.). Moscow: Traditsiia. contents that might inhere in Kostriukov, A. A. (2011). Russkaia them; religious, confessional and Zarubezhnaia Tserkov’ v 1925–1938 jurisdictional factors were con- gg.: Iurisdiktsionnye konflikty i ot- nosheniia s moskovskoi tserkovnoi stantly present in different socio- vlast’iu [The Russian Orthodox political and national projects. Church outside of Russia, 1925– 1938: Jurisdictional conflicts and re- lations with the Moscow Church au- 5 Nadezhda Belyakova (Trans- thority]. Moscow: PSTGU. lation by Keith Walmsley) Martin, Terry. (2001). The Affirmative -Ac tion Empire: Nations and National- ism in the , 1923–1939. References Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Weeks, T. R. (1996). Nation and State in Anashkin, D. P. (Ed.). (2014). Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism Zakonodatel’stvo Russkoi pravo- and Russification on the Western slavnoi tserkvi Zagranitsei: 1921– Frontier, 1863–1914. DeKalb: 2007 [Legislation of the Russian Northern Illinois University Press.

5. This work has been supported by the Russian Scientific Fund, project no. 15- 18-00135, “Person, Ethnos, Religion in Intercultural Cooperation: Russian and International Experience of the Shaping of Civil Identity.”

126 © state· religion · church