Scott M. Kenworthy - Böcker

On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, which had been abolished by Peter the Great two centuries earlier. The Council chose Tikhon (Bellavin), the son of a humble village parish priest, to be head of Russia's largest religious confession. At the time, the majority of Orthodox Christians were devoutly religious. Tikhon's vision of the Church, which he began putting into practice during his years as the Orthodox bishop of North America (1898-1907), was that of an organic body which welcomed the participation of all believers. The Bolsheviks had other ideas. They aimed to create a revolution that would be carried out by the state on behalf of the people. And they sought to eradicate religion as “superstition” and not only to disestablish the Church, but to destroy it altogether. Although the alternate Russia which Tikhon represented would be crushed by the superior force of the Bolsheviks, he helped navigate the Church through immense challenges so that, in the end, the Orthodox Church outlived the Soviet experiment. The People's Patriarch tells the story of the clash of visions for the new Russia in 1917 through the lens of the humble man chosen to lead the Church, whose life exemplifies the transformations within the Orthodox Church in late Imperial Russia and its fate during the Revolution. The People's Patriarch is the first critical biography of one of the twentieth century's most important Orthodox Christian leaders, based on an exhaustive use of previously untapped primary sources, including Tikhon's letters and encyclicals, previously classified documents from the top Bolshevik leadership and Soviet secret police, and materials from a dozen archives in five countries.

On the eve of World War I, the Russian Empire was among the most diverse in the world, and religious identity was the single most important factor for determining a subject's relation to the imperial state. The revolutions of 1917 overturned the Empire's religious world. The Provisional Government sought to disentangle the state from its long-standing ties to the Orthodox Church; minority religious groups looked forward to greater freedom of practice; and, with the Communist Revolution of October 1917, Bolshevik anti-religious activists looked to bring about the death of God and the birth of the New Soviet Person.Drawing on archives, periodicals, ego-documents, visual imagery, and other key sources, Religion and the Russian Revolution examines not only how diverse religious groups and individual actors were affected by revolutionary politics, but also the critical role religious discourses and practices played in shaping revolutionary imagery and action. The chapters dive into the rich and varied landscape of personal and collective religious experiences before, during, and after the 1917 Revolutions. In so doing, the contributions gathered in this volume document perceptions of violence, everyday religious practices, visual imaginaries, and new definitions of "religion" and "the sacred" across Russia.By rethinking the religious implications and consequences of this radical era, Religion and the Russian Revolution forcefully illustrates that the Revolutions of 1917 cannot be fully understood without exploring the ways in which the sacred and the revolutionary overlapped and informed each other.

On the eve of World War I, the Russian Empire was among the most diverse in the world, and religious identity was the single most important factor for determining a subject's relation to the imperial state. The revolutions of 1917 overturned the Empire's religious world. The Provisional Government sought to disentangle the state from its long-standing ties to the Orthodox Church; minority religious groups looked forward to greater freedom of practice; and, with the Communist Revolution of October 1917, Bolshevik anti-religious activists looked to bring about the death of God and the birth of the New Soviet Person.Drawing on archives, periodicals, ego-documents, visual imagery, and other key sources, Religion and the Russian Revolution examines not only how diverse religious groups and individual actors were affected by revolutionary politics, but also the critical role religious discourses and practices played in shaping revolutionary imagery and action. The chapters dive into the rich and varied landscape of personal and collective religious experiences before, during, and after the 1917 Revolutions. In so doing, the contributions gathered in this volume document perceptions of violence, everyday religious practices, visual imaginaries, and new definitions of "religion" and "the sacred" across Russia.By rethinking the religious implications and consequences of this radical era, Religion and the Russian Revolution forcefully illustrates that the Revolutions of 1917 cannot be fully understood without exploring the ways in which the sacred and the revolutionary overlapped and informed each other.