A History Of The Russian Church To 1488

The Russian church is central to an understanding of early Russian and Slav history, but for many years there has been no accessible, up-to-date introduction to the subject in English - until now. The late John Fennell's last book, is a masterly survey of the development, nature and role of the early Church in Russia from Christianization of the country in 988, through Kievan and Tatar poeriods to 1448 when the Russian Church finally became totally independent of its mother-church in Byzantium.

Understanding World Christianity: Russia is a broad examination of Christianity--especially Orthodox Christianity--in modern Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church is currently playing a very prominent role in Russian society and politics, and it is not possible to fully understand Russia today without it. The role of Russian Orthodoxy today is a dramatic reversal from the suppression it suffered for most of the 20th century under the Soviet regime. Based upon a wealth of recent research in multiple fields, this book examines the complexity of contemporary Russian Orthodoxy within a historical context. It first introduces the reader to what is distinctive about Orthodox Christianity in general and Russian Orthodoxy in particular, then provides an overview of the history of Christianity in Russia, its various regional expressions, the experience of representative individuals during the 20th century, an examination of modern Russian theology, and ends with an analysis of the post-Soviet relationship of religion, politics, and society. It is an ideal introduction for students and non-specialists interested in Global Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, Russian Studies, and any others who wish to know how Christianity influences, and is influenced by, the Russian context.

Shape Shifters presents a wide-ranging array of essays that examine peoples of mixed racial identity. Moving beyond the static “either/or” categories of racial identification found within typical insular conversations about mixed-race peoples, Shape Shifters explores these mixed-race identities as fluid, ambiguous, contingent, multiple, and malleable. This volume expands our understandings of how individuals and ethnic groups identify themselves within their own sociohistorical contexts. The essays in Shape Shifters explore different historical eras and reach across the globe, from the Roman and Chinese borderlands of classical antiquity to medieval Eurasian shape shifters, the Native peoples of the missions of Spanish California, and racial shape shifting among African Americans in the post–civil rights era. At different times in their lives or over generations in their families, racial shape shifters have moved from one social context to another. And as new social contexts were imposed on them, identities have even changed from one group to another. This is not racial, ethnic, or religious imposture. It is simply the way that people’s lives unfold in fluid sociohistorical circumstances. With contributions by Ryan Abrecht, George J. Sánchez, Laura Moore, and Margaret Hunter, among others, Shape Shifters explores the forces of migration, borderlands, trade, warfare, occupation, colonial imposition, and the creation and dissolution of states and empires to highlight the historically contingent basis of identification among mixed-race peoples across time and space.

This readable introduction to Russian church history covers its whole course: the early beginnings among the pagan Slav communities, the vital and touchy interaction of Church and State during the turbulent reigns of the Tsars, and the Church's narrow escape from destruction after the Bolshevik Revolution. For this edition, Nicolas Zernov has revised and amplified the chapters dealing with the post-Revolutionary Church.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1842.