 cloud so and I will also connect you to the, I will enable you to to share the screen in a moment. Okay so welcome everybody I would like to wish you in the name of the center of world Christianity here at SOAS a happy new year and if you are part of the orthodox world and belated Merry Christmas we have it's the beginning of the second term if you think in university terms or if you're in a semester system it's the end of the it's the end of the first semester the summer semester so it's a it's in a way a very it's a time of transition and I think it's a very good time to talk about the topics that we discussed in the first term in a different light and this today Allison Ruth Kulosova is going to introduce a topic which we have not really talked about in the same sense so it's a within the Russian orthodox tradition and she has a made a name for herself we are familiar with herself in the context of the IOTA seminars and also most of them the recent ones I've sent to the center so you will already be familiar with with the seminars and she has experience both in on the linguistic side but then also in theology which she accumulated both in Durham University and in Paris at these San Sergio's Orthodox Theological Institute affiliated to the University of Tartu in Estonia she's a resident in Russia so she's familiar with both the academic aspects of Russian orthodoxy and the lived church life in Russia and in the world of Russian orthodoxy I will not say much more on the topic I think with anything else we can bring up in the discussion that follows and now let me just share this with you a moment I'm going to make you co-host this little green button appear for sharing this screen should be at the bottom yes okay very good so um so the format is because it's a lunchtime session many people can't make it Erica Hunter the former chairwoman of the Center for of World Christianity she sends her apologies she has she has something important going on in Cambridge today but she would have liked very much like to be here today and also some I received another few apologies also we have a few people who can't log on because that's a permanent problem with the zoom system that we have here so for this reason we're recording this session and I'm very happy to pass the word on to Allison Colosova right now thank you very much could I just um ask how much time I have how long do you usually have 30 40 minutes or less if you like and then if or more if you have a lot to say and then we will add anything up to a half an hour afterwards in terms of discussion right so usually um about just over an hour all together is that right yeah usually because it's I hope it won't take me too long I usually find them when I go if we go beyond that you will see that people will be dropping out but this is recorded so it's it can be it can go on as long as you like okay right thank you very much thank you very much well it's um it's very good to be with you here today and particularly to meet Romina who I wrote an article for a year or two back and that was a very good experience for me and it provoked a lot of reflection for me okay have we got somebody else online uh I think I think I'm going to okay so um much worldwide reflection has been provoked recently by the many centenaries of assemblies and texts which have turned out to be landmarks in the history of global mission and improved ecumenical relations between christian confessions the years following the bloodbath of world war one were particularly fertile in efforts towards internationalism at a time when the breakup of three empires had brought to the fore the principle of national self-determination this was reflected among the christian churches by important statements which called for healing of divisions and a new pursuit of unity the 1920 lambeth conference appealed to all christian people called for a re united catholic church of all who profess and call themselves christians the encyclical of the patriarch of Constantinople to the churches of christ everywhere also issued in 1920 called for a strengthening of love and fellowship poinonia 1921 saw the first meeting of the international missionary council at lake mohawk the fruit of the work of the continuation committee of the 1910 edinburgh missionary conference which highlighted the need for concert concerted action and closer fellowship if the missionary task of the churches was to be accomplished edinburgh's call for cooperation in the sphere of mission is widely viewed as an important step towards the movement for faith and order and the movement for life and work which led eventually to the creation of the world council of churches in 1948 the american historian paul valier argues in his 2012 book conciliarism a history of decision making in the church that this renewed desire for inter-church dialogue and collaboration and all the many ecumenical conferences and councils that it spawned were Protestantism's contribution to what he terms the 20th century conciliar renaissance he considers the vatican two council of the roman catholic church and the 1917 to 1918 moscow council of the Russian orthodox church to have been the two great events of this 20th century conciliar renaissance all these gatherings and the scholarship they encouraged led to a renewed emphasis on consensus-based decision making and conflict resolution and i i quote valier by means of councils formally constituted trans-local leadership assemblies called together to resolve issues affecting the life doctrine and ministry of the church while valier discusses expressions of this conciliar renaissance throughout all the christian confessions he nevertheless asserts that the renaissance had its origins in russia this may surprise many owing to the lack of eastern orthodox involvement in the edinburgh 1910 conference and the lack of russian involvement in the other famous ecumenical conferences and texts of the 1920s while this may seemingly be explained by the turmoil of the 1917 russian revolution and the civil war of the early 1920s and the general lack of fellowship between churches in east and west the picture is not so simple it was amidst and in fact because of the chaos of the 1917 revolution that one of the key events of valier's conciliar renaissance the 1917 to 1918 moscow council took place in this paper my aim is to explore why valier considers the 20th century conciliar renaissance had its origins in russia and in the process we shall explore some of the events and debates which led directly to the 1917-18 moscow council and also followed in its wake in the 1920s we shall get i hope something of the view from russia during the early decades of the 20th century which have proved so pivotal for the western church's mission and ecumenism and i shall seek to raise the question of whether the churches in east and west were facing similar issues in fact and if so why i shall do this by focusing on a concept and practice which has come to be extremely significant in the history of both russian philosophy and theology that of sabornost this is a peculiarly russian word which in recent times has been translated as conciliarity or conciliar conciliarism although it is a word with rich complex meanings to which we shall return in a moment we shall see how the pursuit of conciliarity or sabornost provoked intense debates within russia over the nature of the church its unity governance relations with the state and mission from the mid-19th century onwards and culminated in the 1917 moscow council as my own research is connected with the missions of the russian orthodox church rather than focusing on the key conciliar event of the 20th century in russia the moscow council i shall explore some of the forms that this pursuit of conciliarity took far from the empire's capitals i will illustrate how the pursuit of conciliarity intersected with missionary activity by focusing on two expressions of conciliarity in the mid vulgar region around kazan a region with an indigenous turkic and fino agrit population which had been a mission field for the russian church since the conquest of kazan in 19 in 1552 the first of these expressions of conciliarity is the missionary conference which took place in kazan in 1910 during exactly the same days in fact as the edinburgh 1910 conference the second is a process which was taking place amidst the turmoil of the 1920s when orthodox christians of the turkic chuvash people sought to establish their own chuvash episcopate and diocese and i'd just like to emphasize that i am sitting in chuvashia at the moment so this explains some of the particular focus of what i'm talking about today so first of all uh what is subordinast what does this word mean the root of the term subordinast is the verb sabirats which in russian is to gather or to meet together and this explains why in russia a large church or cathedral is known as a saboor as it is where all the faithful gather together this notion of gathering or meeting explains why the term saboor is also used to refer to a church council a gathering of all the leaders of a national church or of the entire church at ecumenical councils to deliberate and reach consensus about church doctrine or government the english word conciliarity has frequently been used to translate subordinast when it refers to this conciliar or collegial form of perceiving truth and applying it within the church the word saboor has the adjective saborny or saborna in the salavic languages and it is because of the connotations of this adjective that the word sabornast has been complicated to translate into english without losing some of its wider rich overtones the reason for this is that when the texts of the greek church were translated into slavonic a process associated with senseral and methodius in the ninth century the word saborna was used to translate the word catholic one of the attributes of the church in the nicene creed so where the creed reads in english i believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church the creed reads in slavonic i believe in one holy saborna and apostolic church um now what is fascinating is that while the words saboor and saborna have been used from time immemorial in the slavonic languages the noun sabornast was only coined in the 19th century and its origins are associated with alexei chomiakov a lay theologian and philosopher who traveled widely in western europe engaging in debate with protestant and roman catholic theologians it was in this context that in the 1840s he wrote several theological treatises the most famous of which has become known as the church is one and in these writings it is the meaning of the catholicity and universality of the church that is his central concern we see this in a famous passage where he explains what it means for the for the church to be sabornaya and he writes the church is called one holy sabornaya and in the text it actually is catholic and universal apostolic as she is one and holy as she belongs to the whole world not to any one particular locality as all of humanity and the entire earth not any one people or country are sanctified by her as her essence consists of the concord and unity of spirit and life of all her members who confess her throughout the earth as in the apostolic writings and teachings are contained the fullness of her faith hope and love we see here how homeakov understood the church's catholicity as both a geographical universality but also a qualitative feature of concord and unity of spirit and life and for homeakov it was only amidst such concord and unity of spirit and life that divine truth could be collectively perceived by the entire universal church he asks in one famous passage is it not to the church gathered together in its entirety that understanding of the divine truths is given for this reason homeakov emphasized the significance of church councils when representatives of the church gather and deliberate together to resolve conflicts but he also broadens out this communal perception of truth at councils or synods to include the entire people of god the body of christ and homeakov writes that the ultimate source of truth is the holy spirit who dwells precisely in this gathering of the church as an entire people as they explained above homeakov was actually writing to polemicize with western theologians the thrust of his treatises which were written originally in french is a call to protestants and roman catholics to return to an undivided church where the fullness of truth can be known yet his writings also proved to be very popular at home in russia not only popular but explosive i would say and so explosive that when they were first published in russian translation in moscow in the early 1960s publication was banned after two treatises so why were homeakov's writings considered to be so subversive in russia one reason for this was the ill feeling felt over the system of church government introduced into the russian church by tsar peter the great in 1721 peter had abolished the patriarchate and created a holy synod made up of lay government officials and some senior bishops with a lay official as it at its head and this subordination to secular church control sorry to secular state control was deeply resented within the church especially by the bishops who were to a great extent deprived of governing church affairs from the 1860s during the period of liberal reform which saw the abolition of serfdom several influential articles critical of peter's synodal system made proposals to restore independence to the church by replacing the holy synod by a council of bishops led by a patriarch there were also proposals to restore conciliarity at the level of diocese and metropolitan regions by holding assemblies of both clergy and laity to deliberate on local matters komiakov's writings on the conciliarity of the church gave renewed impetus to this debate much of which focused on the practical implications of the term subordinates the late 19th century debate over how to reform the church and restore subordinates came to a head amidst the revolutionary turmoil of 1905 to 1906 which saw russia paralyzed by striking workers and intense violence in both city and countryside this troubled period led to the october 1905 manifesto which created the representative body of the state duma and also granted civil rights such as freedom of conscience in april 1905 a decree on religious toleration lifted restrictions on north non-orthodox religious communities and legalized conversion from orthodox to other christian confessions and to islam in response orthodox church leaders pointed out that the orthodox church had not received the benefits acquired by other religious confessions and requested that they also be freed from the control of the secular authorities this request led to a much bolder memorandum from the president of the committee of ministers witter who denounced the synodal system of church government which had reduced the church to an institution of state and he stressed that the church needed to regain the freedom to manage its own affairs through restoration of conciliarity this led the tsar eventually to agree to holding a church council at some time in future although he stressed this was impossible amidst the current violence nevertheless the tsar's agreement to hold a council unleashed an intense debate throughout 1905 to six about the aims and compositions of such a council broader ideas about church reform and the very nature of the church and its subordinates some wanted the national church council to be an assembly of bishops only and viewed with suspicion any participation by the laity or the lower clergy while others wanted the laity and clergy to have not only a consultative role but to be able to vote on key issues some emphasize that subordinates was not just the calling of a council but was also rooted in the life of local parishes with active participation of the laity others called for councils in metropolitan regions to promote conciliarity at the local level while some taking their inspiration from chamiakov himself emphasized that the church was the entire spirit field people of god now these debates about church reform were not only taking place in mosco and st petersburg and in the church seminaries intense debate was raging throughout russia and it was reflected on the pages of provincial journals and newspapers when a request was sent in 1905 to the diocesan bishops asking for their opinions concerning church reform the bishops in the major cities of the mid vulgar region such as kazan samara simbirsk and ufa overwhelmingly supported the participation participation of their priests and laity in a national council yet they also called for decentralization of the church by creating local organs of church government with representatives of clergy and laity for example uh bishop christopher of ufa which is today the capital of baskota stan where the the people are largely muslim um he declared that reform demands that the foundation of the church should be the conciliar principle inspired by the idea of brotherhood in christ with a patriarch at its head he emphasized that the implementation of the conciliar principle should begin from the grassroots and the implementation of the idea of brotherhood together with the conciliar principle should of course begin from the parish community as the basic ecclesial unit the majority of the population in these diocese of the med vulgar region were not in fact russian and since the 1960s there had been a missionary movement spearheaded by the kazan linguist nicolai ilminsky he promoted the translation of biblical and logical liturgical texts into the local turkic and phino ugric languages and he promoted the education of indigenous teachers and orthodox clergy amidst the intense debate of 1905 to six we begin to see how the issues raised by the church reform and reform movement were viewed by this emerging native intelligentsia in in journals such as the kazan-based life of church and society for example uh nicolai nikolsky a churash lecturer at the kazan missionary courses stressed that christians should not show prejudice towards others those of other nationalities and that native languages of the med vulgar should be heard in churches a churash priest from samara diocese father anton ivanov and uh in the photo he's uh the one on the far left he explained how assemblies of missionary priests had become a feature of native church life and enable priests to resolve issues through common efforts in a brotherly way he emphasized that the deliberations of such gatherings could make a vital contribution to a future national council on issues relating to the non-russian russian peoples there was also a clear call for national leadership in the mid vulgar region one anonymous author in the journal suggested that the percentage of the native population should be taken into account in the formation of metropolitan districts and two native bishops should be appointed in the kazan diocese a turkit chuvash who also spoke tata and a finna agrit marie who also spoke the finna agrit mod vin language and another anonymous article argued and this is quoted on the screen the appointment for the orthodox natives of bishops from their own background will raise their sense of self-esteem they will finally stop seeing themselves as a lower race unworthy of having their own national bishops and forced to be eternally under the guardianship of others and will stop seeing orthodoxy as a means of russification but this this journal along with all other reform oriented journals was closed down in the reactionary atmosphere of late 1907 the old russian council promised by the tsar in 1905 was not summoned while proposals for ecclesial decentralization and native bishops were frustrated for the next decade and it was against or in the midst of this reactionary atmosphere that the kazan 1910 missionary conference was called so first of all why was there a missionary conference in kazan in 1910 we've already seen some of the reasons for this in in the kazan was the center of the russian church's orthodox the russian orthodox church's missionary work in the region and here's a few kind of brief dates which helped to fill in the background of that picture from the early 9 10th century islam had been preached in the mid volga and before 1552 and the russian conquest of kazan the kazan karnate was ruled by the tartars who confessed on the whole islam the peoples who were subject to them within the karnate so the the fino agrit peoples and the other Turkic peoples such as the chuvash that i've mentioned largely retained their their own animistic practices although certainly influenced by islam as well after the russian conquest of kazan for several centuries the the peoples of the region there wasn't not really any official missionary work although there was russian settlement in the region and the building of churches and monasteries and schools um and but then from the 1740s to the 60s most of the non-russian population of the mid volga were baptized en masse into the russian orthodox church i say most because most of the the muslim villages were left untouched but this led to a particular problem that throughout the 19th century there were constant petitions from the baptised non-russians to be reclassified as muslims um and it was also against the the background of the 1905 revolutionary turmoil that a degree on religious toleration was passed this affected all the the christian confessions without russia but in particular it it allowed those who had been secretly practicing islam um but not really allowing not allowed to to openly confess islam uh were to finally openly confess their faith um and about 49 000 people of turkic or finna finna agrit origin petitioned to become officially muslim by january 1909 and this was one of the main reasons uh that the the kazan 1910 missionary conference met and the main issue really was uh that there was a fear that there would be a complete re-islamification of the mid volga region uh the conference's kino speech was on islam and it highlighted the strengths of the muslim communities the high literacy rate the extensive network of schools printing presses libraries and reading rooms international ties with schools and publishing houses in egypt and turkey uh mullahs who spoke the same language and led the same lifestyle as the flock uh there were also subsections devoted to islam in the recently annexed turkistan and to the muslim press amidst uh this main theme of the conference uh two dissonant visions of mission emerged dissonant visions visions of mission with contradictory consequences um one was a view of mission and this was very much promoted by the the representatives of the synod at the conference of mission as one aspect of collaboration between church and state with the aim of promoting state unity and uh this view of mission very much uh saw the assimilation of local identities as as the main uh policy that mission needed to have uh but in opposition to this uh this vision of mission was uh a man who became particularly famous at the 1970-1918 council but at the time was a vicar bishop in the Kazan region and this was Andrei Uhtomsky he had very much a vision of mission through the laity through parish communities and without state interference um he had been very influenced by Nikolai Ilminsky and he very much promoted the inculturation of orthodoxy into local languages and cultures very much under the inspiration of of Nikolai Ilminsky I managed to miss out a a slide sorry with uh with the photos of of Ilminsky um anyway a little bit about who who was Ilminsky um the first Ilminsky schools using indigenous languages opened in the 1860s and were followed by the founding of the Kazan teachers seminary to train teachers for native language schools in 1872 by the 1880s a number of former pupils and teachers from the schools and seminaries were being ordained as orthodox clergy so by 1910 there was a modest contingent of indigenous clergy and lay teachers who had developed out of the movement and about 40 of Ilminsky's native followers were among the 242 official delegates of the Kazan conference some of them such as the Chuvash Nikolai Nikolsky led and took part in sections on translations into Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages, native schools, uh missionary attitudes to the traditional rights and beliefs of the Medevolga peoples and the response to Islam while a particularly authoritative Chuvash priest Daniel Filimonov gave a speech during the opening ceremony yet we must not be lulled into thinking that the presence of so many of Ilminsky's native followers at Kazan 1910 was simply the result of a successfully implemented policy to indigenous orthodoxy during the decade prior to 1910 they had become an articulate voice in the church press defending use of native languages by indigenous personnel in churches in schools against charges of political and ecclesial separatism from those who advocated mission as a means of assimilating the native peoples so they had come to Kazan really to defend their cause and the anonymous articles I mentioned earlier proposing native bishops and dioceses were most likely written by one of those written present at the Kazan 1910 conference yet it is a symptom of the reactionary atmosphere in which the Kazan 1910 conference took place that these proposals for native leadership at the diocesan level were not aired um despite the Kazan conferences the Kazan conferences inability to provide a conciliar forum where the issue of native leadership could be discussed the fact that indigenous clergy and teachers from the Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples of the Medvolga made important contributions to debate debates in Kazan was an expression of a local conciliarity in itself the next time we see the concerted action of this band of Ilminsky's followers is in national assemblies held against the background of the 1917 revolution and you can see some of this on the screen now um and at this time they gave free reign to their views some of which were undoubtedly rumbling beneath the surface at Kazan in 1910 for example at the initiative of Nikolai Nikolsky the union of Volga minority peoples held its first congress in march 1917 according to its statute it aimed to defend the interests of national minorities achieve national self-government and national literature and native language education its aims for the church were in line with the more radical views of the church reform movement a church separate from the state autonomous parish communities national diocese with an indigenous episcopate elected priests and bishops at a congress of the Tuvash national society in 1917 it was the Tuvash priest Daniel Filimonov who drew up the agenda for the section on the church which resolved this in areas with a compact Tuvash population there should be Tuvash bishops of separate diocese and Tuvash clergy and laity should be represented in diocesan and district councils these events took place in the context of diocesan councils of clergy and laity across Russia and these councils took local church affairs into their hands with some of them removing their bishops and electing new ones they also took place while the 1917 to 1998 Moscow council met one of its most important actions was to restore the patriarchate and elect patriarch Tichon as the first patriarch many however were critical of patriarch Tichon's negative stance towards the new Bolshevik government and among them were a group of progressive clergy known as the renovationists they declared loyalty to the new Bolshevik government and it's same of combating socioeconomic injustice which they considered was rooted in the gospel yet they also called for separation of the church from the state when the new patriarch Tichon was arrested for counter-revolutionary activity in May 1922 the renovationists took control of the church as a national renovationist council in May 1923 they defrocked Tichon and replaced the role of patriarch by a synod of bishops priests and laity so one of the key renovationist demands was that the church should be governed the church should be governed in a conciliar manner rather than by a patriarch let's now return to the creation by the chuvash of a national episcopy episcopacy and diocese this seemed to chuvash Christians to be a logical step after the creation in June 1920 of a chuvash autonomous oblast or region which gave the chuvash some degree of political autonomy many of the chuvash clergy had great sympathy with the cause of the renovationists and it was the renovationists who gave the chuvash clergy permission to hold a regional assembly of chuvash clergy and laity to create an autonomous chuvash diocese two of those present at the assembly in March 24 had played active roles at the Kazan 1910 conference in a long speech Nikolai Nikolsky justified the creation of a national diocese with historical examples of indigenous leadership one of the two bishops elected for the new diocese was Daniel Filimonov who had represented the native clergy at the opening of Kazan 1910 but the new diocese hit problems before it was created patriarch Tikhon was released from prison in June 1923 and a year later appointed another chuvash priest German Kokel as bishop giving him the task of drawing the chuvash parishes back to the patriarchal church after Tikhon's death in April 1925 there was a return on mass of bishops clergy and parishes to the patriarchal church and so the chuvash diocese created with the blessing of the controversial renovationists began to lose ground it was in this context of seeming failure and frustration of the creation of the chuvash diocese combined with despair at the ecclesial anarchy which was shattering the wider Russian church that the chuvash bishop Daniel Filimonov and we can we see him here in the picture read a report patriarch and synod on 11th of July 1926 and he read this on the steps of his church on the banks of the river Volga now interestingly his key argument wasn't so much really about the creation of a native diocese but his key argument was that the council had been the hallmark of church government down the centuries called at crucial moments to resolve conflicts over controversial issues while he did not use the term subordinates his arguments revolved around what it means for the church to be sabornaya both in the sense of concilia and synodal forms of church government and in the sense of the wider universality and catholicity of the church which embraces all peoples of the world including the chuvash he gave an overview of how disputes had been resolved through the practice of conciliarity starting from the council of the apostles in Jerusalem in acts 15 and continuing with the acumenical councils and he concluded with the the quote that you can see here on the screen the truth can be more easily discerned by several people than by one alone the definitions and decisions of concilia power are more authoritative than the decisions of single-handed power the decisions of several people together are much more impartial than those of a single person it is more difficult for the powerful of this world to influence several people than one person the way I think my time is coming to a close so I will just say in conclusion that it might be assumed that the very different ecclesiologies theologies and historical experience of the russian orthodox church and the western Protestant churches would mean that in the early 20th century they would be facing very different issues yet churches and missionary societies in both Russia and the west had for over a century prior to 1910 been propagating the christian faith in new cultural social and linguistic milieu in the context of empires the transmission of faith through schools and education translations into local vernaculars and through indigenous personnel had led in varying degrees to indigenous christian communities and native leadership which by the time of the two 1910 missionary conferences in Kazan and Edinburgh and even more so in the 1920s were questioning and even rejecting missionary tutelage and it's accompanying cultural and political baggage this meant that by the earlier 20th century churches in eastern west not only faced common challenges relating to the church's witness and dialogue with the world but broader issues concerning the nature of the church itself its catholicity its capacity to remain unified amidst cultural and linguistic diversity and its relationship to secular power and this is one major reason that the issue of conciliarity the issue of how to maintain unity amidst diversity became a common concern at this time and an issue particularly brought to the fore amidst the missionary expansion of the churches thank you very much and yes thank you very glad to to welcome your questions and hear your comments well first of all thank you very much for this very powerful lecture I was I was magnetically drawn to every single line that you said it was a very interesting and also very historical lecture so we have a lot of questions that I have in my head but I'm sure there are other people who want to who I would like to give the privilege of starting who would like to oh john bins has to leave so yes so thank you very much for for coming is there are there any other questions would who would like to ask the first question shall I stop yes if you stop sharing yeah nice to see Richard Benwell here I have an immediate question maybe we can start you allude to the political changes that are taking place at the you know during this time of the of the synod not the synods but the the the conferences which discuss a an economic ecumenical approach to to Christianity and especially the future of the Russian church I guess but there are were there any direct changes that were caused by the October revolution because that and of course the civil war that is ensues the war between the white and the red so-called white and red Russians because I would imagine that this in a way perhaps also split the church yes yes yes well I didn't make that clear enough I should have kind of included the dates of the revolution happening but the where I explained that the the chuvash began to hold there or they they created this kind of union of minority Volga peoples I mean this was March 1917 so it was very much I mean that that couldn't have taken place really before the events of February 1917 so yes over the summer of 1917 we see a kind of I mean not complete ecclesial anarchy I would say but in an awful lot of diocese across Russia we see local diocesan councils taking place and in a way that you know direct response or consequence of the debates about subordinates because beforehand these councils you know hadn't existed we not only see them taking place and I mean in some places they were reasonably conservative they kind of met in a reasonably kind of friendly manner but in other places they they literally you know just got rid of the the former bishop for you know for conservatism and elected a new bishop so the the debates taking place among the chuvash really are you know are kind of part of this broader picture I mean in some ways today in chuvashia these debates among the chuvash are kind of hushed up you know there isn't much interest shown in them particularly by the the official church I mean there are a few there are a few scholars who have been working on the texts of these meetings but you know largely because they're kind of they're seen as kind of chuvash separatism chuvash wanted to move away from the the orthodox church which in fact they weren't I mean they they wanted to create their own autonomous diocese previously they've been part of the Kazan diocese but wanting their own bishop within within that diocese was their aim but you know it needs to be seen very much against the background of the 1917 revolution and then yes again in the 1920s this the creation of the the renovationist movement which took control of the church uh uh from from patriarch Tsikhan again this is you know largely the result of political events the government is trying to discredit the church in general so we see the I've forgotten what it's called in English but they when they were they were taking the all the the church plate from the churches kind of supposedly to you know to to kind of finance the the state and and it's really you know because of Tsikhan's response to this that he is he's arrested and imprisoned and for counter-revolutionary activity and that gave the renovationist the the chance to take power in the church so this group of progressive clergy and it's really with their kind of their blessing that the the Chuvash created their own diocese at this point so everything is very much kind of intertwined with the with the political events it's a very very complex time I mean I had I spent a long time just trying to kind of reduce this very complex time down to you know a few events that you know make it not too complicated because all kinds of things going on. Thank you that was an answer that I would like to follow up later but first we have a question a long question by Romina I'll read it out because it's on the it's part of the chat and I wonder what are the implications of these historical debates within the Russian church for contemporary ecumenical efforts and approaches that's the first question maybe you would like to answer that one first so for contemporary ecumenical efforts and approaches. Yeah I mean on the one thing on the one hand I think we need to see that in many ways the the debates about a council in 1905 arose out of this 1905 decree on religious toleration I mean I didn't have time to dwell very much on this but in many ways you could say that this was you know the the Russian states attempt to improve ecumenical relations I mean they weren't being called ecumenical relations then but to kind of pursue a more tolerant attitude towards obviously you know the Baltic states with you know Lutheranism the the Ukraine Catholicism so the 19 you know the nine the debates about the 1905 council in a way were a response to that and so yeah on on the other hand I would say that these these events of the 1920s and the the rise of the renovationist movement which today is very much a seen as a you know a schematic movement by the official Russian church have I think have contributed greatly to the fact that the the Russian church today whilst it kind of in one sense promotes ecumenical relations but I would say that at the grassroots level within Russia you know an awful lot the vast majority of Russian orthodox are very kind of hesitant about having any relationship any kind of form of ecumenical relations and obviously we see this in I was reading an article just recently about the the problems of the seminaries that are have been created for non-orthodox confessions in Russia today and the problems they have with getting being registered and and and I think a lot of this kind of hesitancy in general about ecumenical relations dates back to these events of the 1920s and the the renovationist movement because the renovationist movement apart from obviously taking into its hands you know control from from Tihon it did have a fairly kind of ecumenical viewpoint in some of its manifestos it talked about unity with the other Christian confessions so unity with Christian confessions is often looked back to today by many by well some orthodox who know something about the renovationist movement but even those who don't know anything about it will will say oh that's renovationist you know long before I even I ever studied the renovationist movement I heard this term among the people that I'm living among and I would sometimes ask well you know who exactly were these people you know why are they called out what were they saying and nobody could really tell me to be honest or they told me very little so it's become a kind of you know label that is kind of foisted onto anything that is kind of progressive within the church you could say so it's things like you know the calendar issue as well that that's another issue that is because the renovationist movement also promoted use of the new calendar and it was used for a while at this time and then the church as a whole went back to using the old calendar which is why we're celebrating Christmas on January the 7th rather than December the 25th as is the case in many churches in you know in many Orthodox churches I mean in Romania in Bulgaria which at that time at this very time in the early 1920s you know went on to the new calendar so many things that are kind of viewed as you know kind of modernism if you like and that you know involves the calendar it involves ecumenical relations kind of been you know tarnished really by the the brush of these renovationists um yeah so I don't know if that's answered your question it's too long answer to your question it was very detailed thank you Alice you know that that was very educational as well and I was wondering because um you know I had done a bit of research on how you know protestant denominations are being sort of viewed in Central Asia not Russia specifically and um they're you know they don't have a formal status they're being persecuted that's a term that is accurate I don't know but that's a term used by the watch organizations for religious freedom so I'm not sure how you know to what extent that applies but in general it wasn't it was viewed by suspicion and I think you're what you're talking about is this deeply great great in great memory that that this is something bad that happened something threatening to orthodoxy what orthodoxy might mean in the mind of the ordinary believer right um and so I think it then becomes a label as you say that is being kind of politicized in in in new historical context so re so re reintroduced every time but in slightly different with slightly different political motivations if that makes sense uh which we've seen in Greece we've seen in other contexts as well so thank you so much yeah and there's a second question if you have the time you have a second question just ask your second question so I you know I've also read your paper on Ilminsky's work um with the Kazan uh you know missionary um uh uh uh seminary sorry seminary um and I just I appreciated your nuanced analysis you know in terms of how orthodoxy spread to non-Christian indigenous minority peoples very much implicated in political sort of top-down political events right um but also at the grassroots grassroots level at the same time we see that orthodox activity actually kind of concerned itself with preserving you know local languages and understanding the vernacle vernacular life of the you know the indigenous life of the communities um so I think that kind of raises the need for a more nuanced uh understanding and analysis and approach to the relationship between missionary activity and pluralism and inculturation that's the term you used um so I think that kind of I think that that has the potential to direct the field to move the field in new directions because I think it's it's been quite simplistic in a sense that you know by default missionary activity is associated with inculturation and destruction of indigenous life right and one of one of the arguments we made in that volume that was that we kind of co-produced was that um is that uh you know not all missionary not all missions are the same first and foremost because the theology that informs the missionary activity differs within contexts considering you know Catholic missions or Western missions in general within colonialism versus you know orthodox missions within Russian imperialism or orthodox missions you know by the Greek the Greek churches or Syrian churches so that's very different um and I just wonder what your thoughts are in this and what what your suggestions would be in how we move forward this field and how we analyze this relationship between missionary activity and inculturation and imperialism or colonialism because again the very notion of colonialism is debated what does colonialism mean and does it apply to Russian imperialism you know what is the difference between imperialism and colonialism essentially so again that's another question but I just wanted to hear your thoughts and uh suggestions thank you yes thank you uh Romina and obviously this is a big issue of my research and uh it's something that I really you know ended up being faced with particularly when I was writing my phd I think I started out with a uh perhaps you know a very simplistic view of the Russian missions I mean I think that's partly because very little work has actually been done on the Russian missions and so people like Nikolai Ilminsky in the uh the kind of overall kind of books about Russian mission you know he perhaps gets a gets a page or two and it tends to be oh you know what a wonderful job we've done you know we we translated everything into the local languages and you know this wonderful orthodox mission and and I you know I I have enormous respect for Nikolai Ilminsky and for what was going on um and I don't doubt that this was you know an amazing kind of work um and really it it was something very kind of innovative and revolutionary for the time and and of course he he's been uh kind of branded with the label of being a Russifier you know which again was kind of when I started looking into what actually people were writing about him apart from you know in the kind of the orthodox uh missionary books um you know you you begin to be faced with the question well you know why is he being branded as a Russifier when you know he was helping everybody to in um to translate things into their local languages and not only translating but helping them to preserve their languages and largely today you know people look to his disciples as the people who have preserved their languages and cultures in the Mid-Volga so I mean this picture I've painted today of the uh his Tuvash disciples being very much involved in creating um autonomous diocese and being involved in the political events of creating political autonomy I mean this was a picture that was similar throughout the Mid-Volga region it wasn't just the uh the Tuvash um it was the Finno-Ugric peoples as well and to a certain extent you know even the Tatars even though the majority of the Tatars are Muslim um so um yeah so anyway to go back you know I I started off myself with with a fairly kind of simplistic view of the missions um and really it was only through beginning to you know actually look at the archives and you know you suddenly read this um you know for example the the last text that I I quoted from this Patreon I considered and see that um you know people like Father Daniel Fillimonov uh Nikolai Nikolsky you know they they were at the heart of uh of political events at the time um and and this really had you know completely arisen out of uh out of the missions I mean it it wasn't just that they kind of you know became um uh kind of became Bolshevik um you know it it was something that emerged kind of organically out of the mission and the fact that they had been given their own languages the fact that they they had higher education um you know they became this very articulate uh intelligentsia at the time and were were fully involved in the political events of the time um so it does uh yes I mean it you know it uh it kind of shatters I think the yes the simplistic views of orthodox mission um yeah so I don't know if that's answered the question again thank you so much are there any immediate questions I have another one hi that goes back to the the very first slide that you showed where you talked about the synods the um and the reaction to this the synods who who actually go against the bonus there they have um the the that that was the state trying to um institute a centrally organized hierarchical um decision-making process um it's during that time that the um Russian church is being used as a a symbol of uh Russian identity which is then taken by the Alexander to to the the the corners of Russia where sorry of the empire the tsarist empire where the Russian influence was at its weakest so I think the um idea that the um the orthodox church is an influence it's um an instrument in Russification comes from that time and it's very interesting to see that the um the well the the the counter uh current that you have the reformist counter current that that actually goes precisely the other way that it's in got an indigenizing influence um it's very interesting I mean this is something that should actually be highlighted more um more prominently in the historical press as well you know in the because most of the um history um publications that I'm familiar with they they just identify the state with the church during this period and that is obviously you know an era yes much too far too simplistic a picture yes yes now I would agree with you that it was Ilminsky's main uh kind of mentors if you like although he didn't actually meet them well he met one of them were um uh the the missionary Makari Glukarev who was in the Altai mission uh so on the border with Mongolia and uh Bishop Inakenty or Innocent of Alaska who ended up becoming the Metropolitan of Moscow during the time that uh Ilminsky's work was just becoming uh kind of getting established um and obviously yes on the borders of the empire on the one hand if you read their texts they they also to a certain extent they're patriotic Russians and they're doing it out of a desire to to bring these peoples more fully into the empire and yet at the same time they're they're creating uh you know the local vernacular written texts um so in a way you know um putting a setting a time bomb for you know eventually uh those those areas you know developing and preserving their own identity so you know in Alaska obviously they once Alaska became American it was precisely you know looking back to the work of Inakenty in giving them their own uh their own local texts um that they you know they began to identify themselves uh as orthodox and and they saw the kind of the fact that they had their own alphabets and texts um you know as something that was giving them an identity at the time when America was trying to uh have you know English language schools and sending native children off to you know to learn in uh in English language schools um and that's led to a lot of the the kind of native population native peoples of Alaska today you know identifying very strongly with orthodoxy and looking back particularly to that period and if I may add Alyson they have their own scenes being canonized by the Russian Orthodox church and that's that's massive I think yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean I think somebody who you know influenced my work and was a kind of discovery from me but helped me to make sense of all of this was you know was Laminsana who I'm sure you know is obviously a um a big name in the world you know in the kind of world Christianity um circuit uh because I think he he began well just helped me to see that this really was the pattern uh in empires throughout the world really that um you know whilst many of the missionaries may have gone out to uh to kind of and were sort of passing on their own cultures um just the fact that they were involved in in vernacular translation it brought them far more into contact with local peoples their cultures and and eventually you know gave the tools to um to bring the empire down really and in many ways it was the same thing happening in Russia you know to some extent yeah more questions all right nice to see Richard and Tamara Penwell thank you for joining us we have any more questions so uh well so in this uh oh here we can we know more about the iota missionary initiative don't mean asking again uh well um I mean iota is uh is the international orthodox theological association so it's a network of uh I mean not just orthodox scholars uh theologians um people of different professional backgrounds um trying to provide more kind of international networking which is obviously one of the kind of major problems of the orthodox church for any people who know the kind of particular recent major problems in the orthodox church I mean obviously uh yes the orthodox church is is very much divided on national lines in many ways with uh with not that much uh international networking um or subordinates you could say there's a kind of lack of subordinates which is one reason why we're studying this topic of subordinates in in Estonia and in Dartu um and um yeah I mean the the iota has different groups which are devoted to study of different areas of theology and life so um the the group that I co-chair um with Father Michael Alexa of Alaska who's one of the main people who's written about the the Alaskan church um is the mythology group but there are many other groups um about patristics or women in the church or all kinds of different groups um you know uh ecology uh so different kind of pressing issues of the uh far day um and the uh the next iota major conference will be in January 2023 so the call for papers will be going out for that conference so if anybody here you know would like to present a paper please look on the iota website um you know you would be very welcome it's although it's largely orthodox uh theologians and scholars who who will be meeting at the conference it will be held in in Volos in Greece that's kind of COVID willing but um you know we hope very much it it will be going ahead at the beginning of January 2023 so um yeah please you know look on the iota website um I'll certainly make sure that all the updates that you have are circulated and I think I'll make you a member of our group too than you have yes you get the indications to similar um similar activities any any further questions um Simon you look in a very curious clearant mood no yes any oh here we are yes who's the who's that author who writes on Alaska yes um this is uh it's the minute I'll put it in the chat um this is he's a an orthodox priest in Alaska and uh married to uh his wife is from one of the Alaskan native people so he speaks several of the Alaskan native languages and he's been the the dean of uh of the parishes there so it's travels around Alaska and supporting the the priests in far flung regions and um I mean this this book is kind of 30 years old now I think it's based on his phd thesis orthodox Alaska a theology of mission so it gives both the the history of the orthodox church in Alaska and and he uses that to present his own theology of mission as you can see sorry I was just wondering do we have it in the archives at sauce because I did try to find everything on orthodox missions at sauce when I was writing a paper and that and I don't think we had that book there but I'm just wondering if we could get it if not is it would you know Alison where we could get it from I mean I think it was published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press and I'm not sure it's still in print because it's a very yeah very significant book I will chase it up and of course it's um so as the a is for Africa not for America but they will probably hopefully be able to acquire it anyway um um no I am checking and I think much more historic history oriented than theology oriented at sauce so this is I think something that we might we might work towards improving where we bridge the theological with the historiographical because I think those are intertwined obviously yeah definitely I will I will put it if you see that it's published so you say it's in print at the moment I'm pretty sure it is yes um I look out for it and then make sure that I mean I can order it on behalf of the center so it's um you know so it's related further questions you know you don't know anything about the Tungusik populations in Russia how they are because that I'm just familiar with the the the initial encounters and then the emphasis was very much on civilizing the populations who were I know that uh in in Ilminsky's letters he does discuss the the Tungus I mean he he became someone who kind of was foisting his opinions really on everybody throughout the um the Russian church towards the end of his life so in many different situations he was just really stressing this principle of using the local languages you know and um yeah you know wherever possible um so I think in that sense he did uh he did mention them but I I I don't really know much about the the modern day situation of them they're no more questions than Romina you um no I mean I don't want to um extend this further I'm sure people are busy but I just listening to Alison's few last comments I was just thinking how you know in the work we do I work in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tahuero church and obviously I have to learn the languages and you communicate in the local languages with the communities in the context of the project I do I work with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church on uh addressing domestic violence with the help of the clergy and theology and so I always think you know what is what is the relevance of what I do to the concept of mission uh because you know if you think about mission even that concept needs to be decolonized in a way and revisited which again we we we raised on the previous volume that is not just questioning uh colonialism and how that applies to each context but also the very concept of mission you know as you you are speaking about Father Michael he lives in these communities he he has kind of become indigenous himself in what we call in anthropology becoming native in a way I don't know to what extent this applies and how how imbricated this is in colonial legacies to even speaking those terms but but what I'm trying to say is we live you know there are many of us who live in these communities and feel very much connected to these communities and do respect them and want and appreciate them and want to learn the languages and the lifestyle so on um and I just and I just wonder you know is that is that really mission or is that a way of existence I don't I don't know what you know how this could be a frame better but I'm trying to say that there is there is mission that has an intention and a certain standardized approach and then there is a way of life and I think it all boils down to the intention of the individual and their own ethos how they live how they communicate and engage with these communities because I don't think there is one type only I think the individual really defines it so anyways just foot for thought I don't know how relevant this is but I thought it made sense to put it out there in view of you know the discussions we've been having yes I mean in the um in the Alaskan situation I would say an example of somebody who really was just kind of you know living living his life really um but living a life kind of with God that in a way automatically drew people to God would be St. Herman of Alaska who was one of the the monks who went to live there I mean I get the impression from what I've read about him I don't know that there is a lot of kind of really detailed information about how he lived but um you know he wasn't really there to kind of you know to to be a missionary in a way he was just living his monastic lifestyle on on his island and in a way that just yes as you say his kind of his whole way of life you know people began to see his his holiness his prayerfulness um and began to relate to him so um I think there is that uh that kind of yeah example that is is not just yeah not just kind of going out to be to be a missionary but just being a missionary by who who one is um I'm going to see there's the very famous lines from uh from you know about um you know acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will be saved um you know in a sense that you don't necessarily need to go out and preach to everybody but um you know if you are acquiring the Holy Spirit then you will inevitably uh you know through through love through through holiness um kind of become somebody who is a kind of a light and a source of kind of God's God's love and blessing uh in the world and you know these are perfect words to end your your your presentation today because they take us back to actually theology you know the core essence of of the christian christian mission and then also the our existences um so it's um it was a very interesting journey through history but actually something that also unites us with the the world today at the um the the question of uh the ecumenical again I would like to ask more but maybe in Wallace next year that I actually have yes anyway so I I think we'll um draw a line here and um I would like to thank you so much for for actually having uh this time and also I was um I mean I can say that now maybe but over christmas I had not just um I got COVID so we were basically knocked knocked out over yet but then I also lost access to the um the the server the the least server that controls the messages to the the center and um when you got my message that was the very day the that I managed to somehow get in through the side door but I mean I shared my worries with Romina at that point you know how can we notify people that that your talk is coming up so but but um yes it it worked and so I'm very I mean from my side too I mean it it's all gone fine from the technical point of view but actually where I am we have a very bad internet connection and I've actually come around to a friend's flat where they have a better internet connection so really until I you know until I got online and did my screen share I had no idea really whether A I was going to be able to join with you and you know and secondly show my show my slides so um you know it's it's all been a bit precarious at my end too but I'm very very glad too that it's worked out and I'm very glad to meet you all thank you for your invitation thank you very much thank you Allison take care of yourself yes thank you yes bye bye thank you bye bye bye everyone bye Lars thank you thank you Lars thank you that was good bye bye bye