Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Revolution, 1905-1946 (Indiana-Michigan Series in Russian and East European Studies) - Tapa dura

Roslof (United Theological Seminary, Ohio) has produced a wonderfully successful and clearly written study of the Russian Orthodox clergy, who attempted to reconcile Christianity with the goals of the Bolshevik state . . . by actively accommodating Orthodox religious beliefs and institutions to new Soviet realities. This renovationist church faced a hostile world, opposed by the hierarchy of the traditional Orthodox Church and trusted by neither Orthodox believers nor the Soviet state. The first chapter is an insightful reading of the best secondary literature on the Orthodox Church and the rise of renovationism, especially in the era of the 1905 revolution. The remaining six chapters are abreast of the secondary literature but rooted in fresh archival research that is really fruitful, making possible a new and convincing picture of the history and significance of renovationism. Roslof finds renovationists neither self-serving renegades nor naive stooges, but believers who acted out of religious conviction. Stalin's decision in 1943 to support the traditional, patriarchal church not only ended the renovationist alternative but made it very difficult for the church to reform, to define its place and role in a modern Soviet, and then post-Soviet, world. An important contribution to understanding modern Russia. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above. -- J. T. Flynn * emeritus, College of the Holy Cross , 2003jun CHOICE. *