Ioann of Kronstadt and the reception of sanctity, 1850-1988

Russian Review

Volumn 57, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 325-344

  Kizenko, Nadieszda ^a  

^a STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949338877     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9434.00027     Document Type: Review

References (110)

1. St. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetic Discourses (London, 1978), 148
2. Aviad M. Kleinberg, Prophets in Their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Chicago, 1992), 7
3. For examples of research into popular piety see Ellen Badone, Religious Orthodoxy and Popular Faith in European Society (Princeton, 1990)
4. John Bossy, "The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200-1700," Past and Present 100 (1983): 29-62
5. William A. Christian, Jr., Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ (Berkeley, 1996)
6. Natalie Zemon Davis, "Some Tasks and Themes in the Study of Popular Religion," in The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion (Leiden, 1974), 307-36
7. and Jonathan Sperber, Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton, 1984)
8. See in particular the accounts of Pierre Delooz, "Pour une étude sociologique de la saintete canonisée dans l'Eglise catholique," Archives de Sociologie des Religions 13 (1962): 17-43
9. and Gail Lenhoff, The Martyred Princes Boris and Gleb: A Socio-Cultural Study of the Cult and the Texts (Columbus, OH, 1989)
10. Caroline Bynum, for example, cautions against too literally identifying fasting saints as "neo-victims" of anorexia nervosa. See her Holy Feast, Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1987), 194-207
11. See, for example, Michael P. Carroll, Catholic Cults and Devotions: A Psychological Inquiry (Kingston, 1989)
12. David Blackbourn, Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a Nineteenth-Century German Village (New York, 1995)
13. Cecilia Ferrazzi, Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint (Chicago, 1997)
14. Barbara Corrado Pope, "Immaculate and Powerful: The Marian Revival in the Nineteenth Century," in Immaculate and Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality, ed. Clarissa Atkinson et al. (Boston, 1985), are successful examples
15. For studies of saints and sanctity see the annotated bibliography of Stephen Wilson, ed., Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folkore, and History (Cambridge, England, 1983), 309-418
16. Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity" Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80-101
17. idem, The Cult of the Saints, Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981)
18. and Robert A. Orsi, Thank You, Saint Jude: Women's Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes (New Haven, 1996)
19. Far more typical in the rosters of Russian sanctity were monks, bishops, and warrior princes (see Evgenii Golubinskii, Istoriia kanonizatsii sviatykh v russkoi tserkvi [Moscow, 1903])
20. and his obituary by Mitropolit Antonii (Khrapovitskii), written in 1909 and reprinted as Mitropolit Antonii (Khrapovitskii), "Vserossiiskii pastyr': Otlichitel'nye svoistva kharaktera Sv. Ioanna Kronshtadtskogo sravnitel'no s drugimi pravednikami (k 25-letiiu proslavleniia)," Russkii pastyr', 1989, no. 3:10-17
21. For contemporary arguments for Father Ioann's sanctity see Mikhail O. Menshikov, "Pis'ma k blizhnim, Kronshtadtskii bunt. Pastyr' dobryi," Novoe vremia, 30 October (12 November) 1905
22. Zapiski Peterburgskikh Religiozno-Filosofskikh Sobranii (1902-1903gg.) (St. Petersburg, 1906), 231
23. and A. A. Zybin, Ioann Il'ich Sergiev: Protoierei, Kliuchar' Kronshtadtskago Andreevskago Sobora (Ocherk zhizni i deiatel'nosti) (Petrograd, 1891), 3
24. for Pio see the Rev. Charles Mortimer Carty, Padre Pio the Stigmatist (St. Paul, 1955)
25. Liturgical texts repeatedly stress the necessity and the virtue of worshipping someone in an Orthodox manner. See, for example, the fifth ode in the first tone Resurrection canon (serdtsa prosveti ... pravoslavno poiushchikh tia), in Velikii sbornik, pt. 1 (Jordanville, NY, 1951), 109
26. Max Weber formulated the classic distinction between priest and prophet in The Sociology of Religion (Boston, 1967), 46
27. The notion of the interplay between people and hierarchy in defining Orthodox tradition has been developed in a variety of contexts. See Golubinskii, Istoriia kanonizatsii, 109-99
28. Charles Stewart, Demons and the Devil: Moral Imagination in Modern Greek Culture (Princeton, 1991), 150-61
29. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (Harmondsworth, 1980), 203ff
30. Contemporary Orthodox thought ascribes a high importance to those outside the hierarchy. See Dominique Beaufils, "Eléments d'une refléxion orthodoxe sur l'assistance médicale à la procréation," Contacts, no. 175 (1996): 173
31. For a discussion of clerical upbringing see Laurie Manchester, "Secular Ascetics: The Mentality of Orthodox Clergymen's Sons in Late Imperial Russia" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1995)
32. For a contemporary overview of missionary activity see Evgenii K. Smimov, A Short Account of the Historical Development and Present of Russian Orthodox Missions (London, 1903)
33. The origin of the phrase is Ierom. Mikhail, O. Ioann Kronshtadtskii (Polnaia biografiia s illiustratsiiami) (St. Petersburg, 1903), 26
34. I. K. Surskii, Otets Ioann Kronshtadtskii, vol. 1 (1938-41; reprint ed. Forestville, CA, 1979), 20-35
35. While the ban on sexual relations on the eve of communion applied to both laity and clergy, clerics were called to particularly strict observance. See S. V. Bulgakov, Nastol'naia Kniga dlia sviashchenno-tserkovno sluzhitelei: Sbornik svedenii, kasaiushchikhsia preimushchestvenno prakticheskoi deiatel'nosti otechestvennago dukhovenstva, 2d ed. (Kharkov, 1900), 771
36. Although by the mid-nineteenth century some city priests who served liturgy daily winked at the restriction, it retained much of its traditional force. See Nikita P. Giliarov-Platonov, Iz perezhitago: Avtobiograficheskie vospominaniia (Moscow, 1886-87), 1:45-46
37. For a discussion of clerical celibacy in both Eastern and Western churches see Henry R. Lea, A History of Sacerdotal Celibacy (London, 1932), 13-70
38. See the description in Ierom. Mikhail, O. Ioann Kronshtadtskii, 37-38
39. Private, less structured versions of the monastic life also existed, ranging from wandering "in the name of Christ" or joining an informal religious community. See Brenda Meehan-Waters, "Popular Piety, Local Initiative, and the Founding of Women's Religious Communities in Russia, 1764-1917," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 25 (1986): 117-42
40. RGIA SPb, f. 2219, op. 1, d. 31, l. 159. For a discussion of attitudes toward marital sexuality see Eve Levin, Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slavs, 900-1700 (Ithaca, 1993)
41. This also may be a factor in the dearth of priest-saints in the Russian Orthodox Church. By the nineteenth century, after nine hundred years of Christianity, not a single married priest had been canonized (Golubinskii, Istoriia kanonizatsii, 109-98)
42. Mitr. Antonii (Khrapovitskii), Uchenie o pastyre, pastyrstve i ob ispovedi, reprint ed. (New York, 1966), 289
43. See Johann von Gardner, Bogosluzhebnoe penie Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi: Sistema, sushchnost', istoriia, 2 vols. (Jordanville, NY, 1980-82), esp. 1:58-72
44. Described in K. Glizhinskii, Iz ob''iatii umiraiushchei bursy v gornilo zhizni (Ocherki poslednikh dnei bursy i sovremennago razvala tserkovno-prikhodskoi zhizni) (Ekaterinburg, 1912), 68
45. The standard edition contemporary with Father Ioann was Tipikon, siest' izobrazhenie china tserkovnago, iazha zovetsia Ustav (Moscow, 1885)
46. V. M., Dva dnia v Kronshtadte, iz dnevnika studenta ([Sergiev Posad], 1902), 48
47. Even the celebrated elders of Optina were not willing to take such liberties. See O. V. Shustin, Zapis' ob o. Ioanne Kronshtadtskom i ob Optinskikh startsakh, iz lichnykh vospominanii (Belaia Tserkov, 1929)
48. Shustin, Zapis', 11
49. See references to such regular contact among the letters to him, especially in RGIA SPb, f. 2219, op. 1, d. 40
50. See S. Smirnov, Drevne-russkii dukhovnik; Izsledovanie po istorii tserkovnago byta (Moscow, 1913), esp. 13-14; 255-83
51. See E. Makharoblidze, "O. Ioann Kronshtadtskii, kak sovershitel' Bozhestvennoi Liturgii," Tserkovnyia vedomosti, nos. 3-4, April 1908
52. See Alla Selawry, Johannes von Kronstadt, Starez Russlands: Mit Selbstzeugnissen und dokumentarischen Belegen (Basel, 1981)
53. Alexander Whyte, Father John of the Greek Church (Edinburgh, 1898), 5-9
54. and Fedotov, Russian Religious Mind, 346-49
55. There is some debate over the extent to which Father Ioann contributed to eucharistic theology. See the discussion in Karl Christian Felmy, Predigt im orthodoxen Russland (Gottingen, 1972), 204-23
56. Georgii V. Florovsky, Puti russkago bogosloviia (Paris, 1937), 400-401
57. [Igumen] Innokentii [Pavlov], Vvedenie v istoriiu russkoi bogoslovskoi mysli (Moscow, 1995)
58. and Prot. Mikhail Pomazanskii, "Prep. Simeon Novyi Bogoslov i sv. pravednyi otets Ioann Kronshtadtskii o Tserkvi i blagodati," in O Zhizni, o vere, o tserkvi: Sbornik statei (1946-1976) (Jordanville, NY, 1976), 108-30
59. Carty, Padre Pio, 148
60. For a study of confession in the Orthodox Church see S. S. Smirnov, Dukhovnyi otets v drevnei vostochnoi Tserkvi (Istoriia dukhovnichestva na Vostoke) (Sergiev Posad, 1906), 177-328
61. Attempts to introduce general confessions in the eighteenth century were "cut off at the root" (Archpriest Valentin Sventitsky, "Six Lectures on the History of the Mystery of Repentance," Orthodox Life, vol. 45, no. 3 [1995]: 22)
62. Priest Boris Nikolaev, in Arkhiv ustnoi istorii Rossiiskogo Gosudarstvennogo Gumanitarnogo Universiteta, fond Pskovskoi ekspeditsii, l. 6
63. V. M., Dva dnia v Kronshtadte, 60
64. Aleksandr Serebrov, Vremia i liudi: Vospominaniia (Moscow, 1960), 33
65. For a study of church-sponsored social work see Simon Dixon, "The Church's Social Role in St. Petersburg, 1880-1914," in Church, Nation and State in Russia and Ukraine, ed. Geoffrey A. Hosking (London, 1991), 178-92
66. This concern with presenting empirical information characterizes petitionary letters in both Imperial and Soviet periods. For secular petitionary letters as a genre in the Imperial period see Gregory L. Freeze, From Supplication to Revolution: A Documentary Social History of Imperial Russia (Oxford, 1988)
67. and Andrew Verner, "Discursive Strategies in the 1905 Revolution: Peasant Petitions from Vladimir Province," Russian Review 54 (January 1995): 65-90
68. For an analysis of petitions in the Soviet period see Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s," Slavic Review 55 (Winter 1996): 78-105
69. Vladimir Dal', Tolkovyi slovar' zhivogo velikorusskago iazyka, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1955), 92
70. See Tikhon (Zadonskii), "On the Duties of the Rich and Poor," in Sochineniia preosv. Tikhona, episkopa Voronezhskago i Eletskago, 2d ed., vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1825), 173
71. Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State (New York, 1970), 75
72. See the discussion of private charity and public welfare in Blagotvoritel'nost' v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1903)
73. and Adele Lindenmeyr, Poverty Is Not a Vice: Charity, Society, and the State in Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1996)
74. Surskii, Otets Ioann Kronshtadtskii, 33
75. Gregory Freeze has argued that the lay insistence on the incorruptibility of relics as "proof positive" down to the beginning of the twentieth century differed from the less tangible requirements of the church hierarchy. See his "Subversive Piety: Religion and the Political Crisis in Late Imperial Russia," Journal of Modern History 68 (June 1996): 320-21, 349-50
76. See P. Roesch, "Les Miracles d'Asclépius a l'Epoque Romaine," in Médecins et médecine dans l'Antiquité, ed. Guy Sabbah (Saint-Etienne, 1982)
77. For an analysis of healing miracles in the eighteenth century see Catherine Atwell, "Women and the Reception of Religious reform in the 18th Century," paper presented at the 28th National Convention of the AAASS, 14-17 November 1996
78. For a discussion on analogous Muslim traditions see Fatima Mernissi, "Women, Saints, and Sanctuaries," Signs 3 (1977): 101-12
79. Letter from Sosipatra Alekseevna Treskina, 3 March 1884, in RGIA SPb, f. 2219, op. 1, d. 1, l. 31
80. Igumen Konstantin, Dukhovnyi oblik, 25
81. For a discussion of their aims see Gregory L. Freeze, "The Rechristianization of Russia: The Church and Popular Religion, 1750-1850," Studia Slavic Finlandensia 7 (1990): 101-36
82. See Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii Poveleniem Gosudaria Imperatora Nikolaia Pervogo Sostavlennym (St. Petersburg, 1833)
83. Nikon (Rklitskii), Dukhovnyk oblik sv. pravednogo protoiereiia Ioanna Kronshtadtskogo chudotvortsa (New York, 1965), 51
84. Bogoslovskii vestnik (February 1908): 22
85. Quoted in Konstantin, Dukhovnyi oblik, 26
86. See the cases of miraculous healing described in "Ukazatel' k Dushepoleznomu chteniiu za pervoe ego desiatiletie, s 1860 do 1869 goda," Dushepoleznoe chtenie (January-March 1870)
87. Nikolai Bol'shakov, comp., Istochnik zhivoi vody: Opisanie zhizni i deiatel'nosti otsa Ioanna Kronshtadtskago (St. Petersburg, 1910), 136-38
88. This may be part of the generally apophatic approach of Orthodoxy. For a discussion see Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London, 1957)
89. The absence of a normative approach is chastised from a Roman Catholic perspective in P. Peeters, "La Canonisation des Saints dans l'Eglise Russe," Analecta Bollandiana 33 (1914): 380-420
90. Carty, Padre Pio, 14
91. For a discussion of clerical perceptions of urban and rural piety see Gregory L. Freeze, "'Going to the Intelligentsia': The Church and Its Urban Mission in Post-Reform Russia," in Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia, ed. Edith W. Clowes et al. (Princeton, 1991), 215-32
92. For material on the Ioannites see GARF, f. 102 (Department of Police), d. 154 (in two parts)
93. Other conservative individuals and institutions responded in a similar vein. See Michael S. Flier, "The Church of the Savior on the Blood: Projection, Rejection, Resurrection," in Christianity and Its Role in the Culture of the Eastern Slavs, 25-48
94. See Iz dnevnika o. Ioanna Kronshtadtskago v oblichenie Izheucheniia grafa L. Tolstago (St. Petersburg, 1910), 27
95. Sermon on the day of the sacred unction and coronation of the Most Pious, Most Autocratic and Great Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Aleksandrovich. "Is Russia God's Kingdom?" in Ioann Sergiev, Oblichitel'nyia Propovedi otsa Ioanna Kronshtadtskago (St. Petersburg, 1914), 5-7
96. See, for example, Novaia mysl', 13 January 1907
97. Perelom, 7 December 1906
98. Pchela, 1906, no. 2:6
99. V. V. Protopov, Chernye vorony, p'esa v 5 deistviiakh (St. Petersburg, 1908)
100. Nikolai S. Leskov, Polunoshchniki, in his Polnoe sobraniie sochinenii, vol. 11 (St. Petersburg, 1893)
101. The point was developed by such postrevolutionary publications as Naum Rostov, Dukhovenstvo i russkaia kontr-revoliutsiia (Moscow, 1930), 29ff
102. For an examination of intra-church political tensions see Michail Agursky, "Caught in a Cross Fire: The Russian Church between Holy Sinod and Radical Right (1905-1908)," Orientalia Christiana Periodica 50 (1984): 168-96
103. For the strongest characterization of the emigre position see Arkhiepiskop Averkii, Otets Ioann Kronshtadtskii, kak Prorok Bozhii, Poslannyi Rossii dlia Vrazumleniia (Jordanville, NY, 1963)
104. For the text of the canonization resolution see "Poslanie Sobora Episkopov Russkoi Zarubezhnoi Tserkvi o proslavlenii prisnopamiatnogo prot. o. Ioanna Kronshtadtskogo," 5/18 June 1964, in Russkii pastyr', 1989, no. 3:19-20
105. For an account of the Moscow Patriarchate canonization see "Zhitie sv. prav. Ioanna, Kronshtadtskogo chudotvortsa," Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii, 1990, no. 10:58-71
106. See the apocryphal "Videnie otsa Ioanna Kronshtadtskago," circulated by hand in the 1920s and 1930s and reprinted in Nash sovremennik, 1991, no. 9:42-49
107. See also the predominance of selections by Father Ioann in Rossiia pered Vtorym Prishestviem: Materialy k ocherku russkoi eskhatologii (Sergiev Posad, 1993), esp. chaps. 5, 6, 7, and 10
108. and the republication of Novye groznye slova O. I. Kronshtadtskago o strashnom poistine sude Bozhiem, griadushchem i priblizhaiushchemsiua, 1906-1907 (Moscow, 1993)
109. See Otets Ioann Kronshtadtskii: Izdanie Russkago narodnago soiuza imeni Mikhaila Arkhangela (Moscow, 1990)
110. and "Molitva sv. pravednomu otsu Ioannu Kronshtadtskomu," in Grad-Kitezh, 1992, no. 2:11