Details

Volume 16, No. 4

Changing Times

Today’s Czech youth are growing up in a world very different from the Marxist controls that their parents experienced. Now, for the first time in generations, no children reaching their teen years were born under Communism. Today’s teenagers, born under democracy, now must cope with the myriad choices of a free society and constant and rapid change. Government-sponsored surveys document that Czech youth today focus much of their attention on the use of “impersonal” media such as on-line chat rooms. But at the same time, teens also value “hanging out with friends.” Czech youth report little interest in the church or ideology in any form, expressing strong distaste for organized religion and politics.

Personal Ministry Recommendations

What does all this mean for Christian workers seeking to reach Czech youth? One requirement is to study God’s Word and to study Czech culture. Reaching out to Czech youth thus requires both exegeting the Bible and exegeting the culture. In the process of comprehending the world of Czech youth, I combine observations drawn from the work of Sak and Sakova with my own findings from research, cultural informants, and personal experience. Czech youth value relationships, but they dislike massive, distant, institutionalized hierarchy, be it secular or religious. They appreciate genuine interaction with people who can be trusted, and they are not impressed by show, at least not for long. Many Czechs in their 20s who have traveled to America highly value grassroots home stays, placing less value on visits to tourist sites.

Reaching out to non-believing Czech youth requires winning their trust. This can be a lengthy process, but it is necessary. One wins trust by spending time with Czech youth, participating in activities together, being genuine and selfless, being interested in their lives, being humble, being educated and intelligent, being likeable and funny, and being oneself. Trust is built over years, not weeks.

One way to deepen trust is to allow Czech youth to explain Czech culture and to show newcomers their world. What is required is to appreciate, engage, learn, experience, adapt to, and love things Czech – and above all, love Czech youth.

What Works in Czech Youth Ministry?

• Small discussion groups about God among friends who trust each other work well.

• It is important to have fun together through experiences that are not overly structured.

• Share common interests such as music, language learning, sports, and hobbies.

• Witness and share about Jesus at the proper time during backyard picnics, in cafés or tearooms, while traveling together, hiking, playing sports, and playing music.

• One key is to live where one seeks to minister. Living where one works makes it easier to know the cultural context and to be known by locals.

• Camps continue to be an effective means of outreach. One-week and weekend outings are a recognized part of Czech culture. One example would be a week-long hiking trip to the mountains with structured spiritual programs in the evenings. Then during the day discussion may continue while hiking. Weekend events might include a two-night stay in a cabin near a ski resort. Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday morning might include a 30-to-90-minute presentation on a section of the Bible, a testimony, and discussion over tea. Camping and hiking allow believers to build trust, share experiences, have fun, hang out, play music and sports, enjoy the countryside, and talk about God in natural, heartfelt, and open ways. Camp experiences, however, do need direction. In addition to time together, Christians should share their faith intentionally and clearly.

• Alfa courses (http://uk.alpha.org/) for youth – which include sharing food, fellowship, and non-threatening spiritual discussions in neutral, welcoming settings – are an effective way to share faith. One will likely need to build trust with people before inviting them to Alfa courses.

• Exit 316 is a faith-based television program for youth that airs on CT2, the Czech NBC channel. Each segment focuses on one theme and Christian views of it. Inviting youth to a comfortable, neutral location to watch this show can be followed with small group discussion. Christian youth can lead other youth who trust them after having gone through basic small-group training. Peers reaching peers through shared activities makes much more headway than in-your-face encounters. Exit 316 includes winsome personal testimonies, fast-moving media clips, and music that speaks to the genuine spiritual yearnings of teens. Observing spiritually alive believers can in this way overcome the dislike of religion so common among Czech youth. One study reported “the least favorite activities of Czech youth are political events, spiritual activities, meditation, community assistance, and volunteer activities.” (Frantisek Pelka, “Dissertation on Continual Research on Youth, 2003-2005,” Ph.D. dissertation, Czech Republic National Institute for Children and Youth, 2005.) A healthy Exit 316 study group may be the best way to reach Czech youth with the Gospel of Christ throughout the school year.

• Since formal religion is a turn-off for Czech youth, the focus should be on the person of Jesus and how to experience Him.

• At the same time, it is best for youth workers not to inflict young people with the struggles and internal politics of their ministry or church. Youth workers should dwell, instead, on personal connections between Czech youth and Jesus’ words, example, and character.

• Having Czech youth over to one’s home is a valuable way to develop deeper relationships, especially if one has a family. They too can be a strong witness, revealing true Christianity in natural, non-threatening ways.

• On-line chat and interactive blogs are valuable tools because initially Czech youth will often be more open to asking questions on-line than face-to-face. Christian workers can witness to Czech youth through on-line forums, chat rooms, blogs, or whatever will be the next, new, on-line invention. (See, for example, www.smysluplnyzivot.cz.)

• Some youth may be open to reading the Bible together. Ask them to meet together just to read

Report Scripture. (One can go to www.nbk.cz to download the Czech New Testament onto a computer/MP3 player.)

• Encourage Czech youth to study abroad. A 2005 study by the Czech Republic’s National Institute for Children and Youth stated that “50-60 percent of youth have a long-term interest in studying abroad” because “speaking a foreign language is important for my career, for getting a good job in the European Union, and also for study and travel.” Fifty-three percent of youth surveyed knew English and 28 percent knew German (Frantisek Pelka). If a Czech youth worker is able to arrange for a young Czech to have a quality schooling experience abroad in a Christian home, this opportunity will address several important issues that Czech youth value: relationships, genuine experience, adventure, language, and travel.

• Czech youth who work part-time jobs only in the summertime are often bored. Music clubs, English clubs, and basketball clubs are good ways to spend time and to influence youth, helping them steer clear of drugs and crime.

• Hang out where Czech youth hang out. All the above examples of what works in Czech youth ministry require some initial trust between a Christian youth worker and an individual youth. The best way to earn that trust is simply to hang out where youth gather - the skate ramp, the Internet gaming room, by the water, at the sports center, at the playground, and in pubs and cafes. Hours in formal school settings do not open as many doors with Czech youth as just hanging out with them on their turf.

In Summary

The language of relationship is written in terms of shared experiences, spending recreational time together in stress-free situations, communicating by cell phone, text messaging, on-line chatting, discovering and visiting Czech youth websites, tuning in to their favorite television shows, and generally being interested in and involved in their world. Balancing time spent with Czech youth with time spent studying Czech youth through research will help Christian youth workers to share the message of the Gospel in meaningful ways.

Those in ministry have many possibilities to “fish for men” in the Czech Republic, but each day only holds 24 hours. One key is to stay current with the always-changing interests of Czech youth in order to interact with them in meaningful ways. But most important of all, youth workers need to be obedient to the voice and leadership of the Holy Spirit to guide their ministry to Czech youth. Research and professionalism are important, but only a healthy tie to the Vine will produce Kingdom fruit (John 15).F

Edited excerpts published with the author’s permission from a paper submitted in 2008 for a course in community analysis, Moody Bible Institute Graduate School, Chicago, Illinois.

Mark Krupa, a missionary with Josiah Venture, Wheaton, Illinois, has ministered to youth in the Czech Republic since 1997.

Details

Volume 16, No. 4

Russia’s Islamic Threat

Gordon M. Hahn

High Muslim Unemployment

Russia’s poorest regions are most often those heavily populated by Muslims, the eight so-called titular Muslim republics, especially those in the North Caucasus.

 * The unemployment rate was calculated using figures from the working-age population from the October 2002 census (www.perepis2002.ru/ct/html/TOM_07_01.htm). Therefore, the unemployment rates could be slightly higher, especially in the North Caucasus with its decades-long higher reproduction rates. The high unemployment rates reflected in Table 1 are of particular concern. When one considers that the real level of unemployment is much higher than official statistics show, the situation appears explosive. This is especially true since youth unemployment is even higher than overall unemployment. Such levels of joblessness among youth – especially in the North Caucasus where they reach nearly 50 percent and in some villages reportedly 90 percent – are creating an army of young males with no outlet for their energies.

Russia’s ethnic Muslims are a sizable minority and continue to have higher birth rates (Table 2) than ethnic Russians. Ethnic Muslims probably number 15 million and comprise more than half of Russia’s non-Russian population than ethnic Russians. Ethnic Muslims probably number 15 million and comprise more than half of Russia’s non-Russian population

 *Includes Siberian and Crimean Tatars as well as Volga Tatars and excludes so-called “Krysheny” or Baptized Tatars. It should be noted that there is some reason to believe that forces in Moscow and Bashkiriya may have deliberately deflated the 2002 census numbers for Tatars in executing or counting the results.

** There may have been some inflation of the Chechen population figures in the 2002 census by Moscow in order to cover up deaths brought on by two post-Soviet Chechen wars.

 The number of ethnic Muslims grew by 20 percent between the 1989 Soviet census and the 2002 Russian census. Meanwhile, the country’s overall population declined by just over one percent, and the ethnic Russian population fell by 3.45 percent. Nine of the Muslim ethnicities’ population growth reached astonishing levels of over 40 percent. Of Russia’s 23 Muslim nationalities included in published census data, only four declined in size in the inter-census years, a phenomenon explained by an exodus of these groups’ members back to their ethnic homelands in Central Asia after the Soviet collapse. This was also the reason for the small Kazakh growth. The doubling of the ethnic Azeri population in Russia is a product of group members’ fear of residing in a potential war zone, given the ongoing Armenian-Azeri tensions over the Armenian enclave and unrecognized state of Nagorno-Karabakh embedded in Azerbaijan. The ethnic Muslim groups’ higher population growth rates mean that the ranks of idle young males, especially in the North Caucasus republics, will be growing.

A key reason for ethnic Muslims’ higher population growth rates is their more traditional lifestyle, informed in part by rural custom and Islam. The latter frown upon birth control and women working outside the home. North Caucasus traditions of machismo put a premium on high numbers of children. Also, customary individual houses in rural areas (versus small apartments more common elsewhere in the former Soviet Union) better accommodate large families. This traditional way of life is being preserved by the lower level of urbanization in the North Caucasian Muslim republics, leaving inhabitants less integrated into secular Russian life.

By late in the 21st century, the decline in the ethnic Russian population and the rapid growth among the country’s ethnic Muslims together will threaten the ethnic Russians’ majority. One estimate has it that by mid-century the ethnic Russian population will have declined to as little as 60 million, as the mortality rate increases with the passing of the much more numerous older generation.1 The second half of the century, all else remaining equal, should see a further decline of at least 10-15 million. If the ethnic Muslim groups’ population continues to grow at the rate it did between the 1989 and 2002 censuses, their numbers will increase to approximately 45 million by the century’s end. By that time, therefore, ethnic Muslims will form a plurality and perhaps a majority of Russia’s population, and Islam will likely begin to challenge Russian Orthodox Christianity as the country’s most widespread religion.

Muslim Demographics

An important brake on the mobilization of an Islamic revolution would seem to be the divide among Russia’s ethnic Muslims between believers and non-believers. It has been estimated that only 3.7 to 4 million (some 20 percent) of Russia’s ethnic Muslims are practicing believers.2 However, since the ideological liberation begun during perestroika, re-Islamization has proceeded apace. By October 2005, according to Ravil Gainutdin, Chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia (SMR), the number of mosques in Russia had grown from a mere 150 as of the Soviet collapse in 1991 to some 6,000.3 Even in urbanized, secularized, and relatively russified Tatarstan, the number of mosques has increased from a handful to over a thousand, perhaps 1,200, growing at a rate of 50-60 per year.4

The number of ethnic Muslims who identify themselves as believers has grown precipitously, even among more secular and assimilated populations, such as the Tatars of Tatarstan. For example, in the early 1980s, 59 percent of Tatars expressed indifference, and only 15.7 percent declared themselves believers. By 1994 an astonishing 66.6 percent of urban Tatars and 86 percent of rural Tatars declared themselves believers. However, further survey data show that while identification and general belief have risen immensely, the practice of Islamic rituals remains extremely low. In 1990 only 13.9 percent of Muslim believers prayed at home and 8.3 percent of Muslim believers prayed in a mosque, meaning that 77.8 percent of Muslims never prayed at all.5

Against the background of a growing revolutionary Islamic insurgency throughout much of the North Caucasus, already capable of bringing terror to Moscow on land, underground, and in the air, the remaining potential for radical recruitment in society and within the state represents a grave threat to Russia. As Russians are reduced to ever-smaller minorities in Muslim republics dominated by ethnic and, for the most part, believing Muslims, they will feel unwelcome, even fearful. This will only exacerbate the already considerable and rising tensions between indigenous Muslims and the Muslim republics on the one hand, and the Russian state and ethnic group on the other hand.

The Chechen Quagmire and Foreign Islamic Revolutionaries

Many of the immediate causes of Russia’s burgeoning Islamic movement come from Putin’s policies. First and foremost is the often brutal prosecution of the festering low-intensity war in Chechnya. This has led to the Chechens’ radicalization under the influence of foreign, jihadist terrorist ideologies and movements funded, inspired, and perhaps still coordinated by al Qaeda. (Editor’s note: A jihadist is a Muslim who wages a spiritual struggle or holy war against non-Muslims.) Having lost on the traditional battlefield, Chechen insurgents have turned increasingly to terrorist methods and to a strategy of expanding the war throughout the North Caucasus and as far beyond as possible. Thus, the Chechen-led terrorist network is facilitating the sustained and growing infiltration of radical Islam into other regions of Russia. This spread is the result of Russia’s geographical proximity to parts of the larger Muslim world, that world’s present pre-revolutionary crisis, and the post-Soviet restoration of historical ties between Russia’s Muslims and the rest of the umma (Muslim community).

Russian Authoritarianism at Muslim Expense

Another leading cause of expanding Islamist terrorism in Russia is Putin’s re-authoritarianizing counter-revolution. As the Chechen war dragged on and terrorism began to mount, the Putin administration responded by transforming Russia from a hybrid regime that was a limited, illiberal “managed democracy” to something altogether more authoritarian.6

Although Russia’s Muslim republics, including Kabardino-Balkariya, tend to be its most authoritarian regions7 and Putin’s counter-revolution has encouraged these regimes to become more firmly authoritarian, they have still not reached a level of authoritarianism firm enough to stamp out terrorist or other forms of opposition. However, by more aggressively and non-surgically cracking down on Muslims across the board and increasingly violating their political, civil, and human rights in many regions, Moscow and the republics’ regimes have made many indigenous young Muslims more open to calls for secession.

Russian Intervention in Ingushetiya

Moscow’s attempt to control political developments in the regions has sparked not only ethno-confessional backlash, but also secular political instability in the ethnic Muslim republics. In particular, Moscow’s recentralization drive has introduced an additional complicating factor into the inter-clan politics of the Muslim republics, especially those in the North Caucasus. For example, Ingushetiya – the first republic that saw Moscow intervene directly in its politics, a republic populated largely by the Chechens’ fellow Vainakh Muslim people, the Ingush, and bordering Chechnya – and Bashkortostan were on the brink of democratic “orange revolutions” in 2005. Soon thereafter Ingushetiya saw an increase in the number of what, for the most part, were largely Islamist terrorist acts.

Under Moscow’s recentralization drive, a KGB official, Murat Zyazikov, was forced on Ingushetiya as president by the Kremlin in 2003, replacing the popular and independent Ruslan Aushev, who had been a persistent critic of the war in Chechnya. Under Zyazikov kidnappings spread throughout the republic. His opponents and others blamed them on the new president, his brother, and his allies in the security organs. Zyazikov blamed them on Chechen militants. Zyazikov’s growing authoritarianism, encouraged by Moscow’s soft-authoritarian and recentralizing policies, pushed the opposition to action. Led by Ingushetiya parliamentary deputy Musa Ozdoev, it organized several demonstrations but was prevented from holding one on May Day 2005, which it had explicitly stated would be parlayed into an orange-style revolution. Ozdoev was arrested, and the revolution was aborted. This secular instability emerging in Ingushetiya could provide an opening to radical nationalists or Muslim jihadists.

Although the picture painted here may suggest that an Islamic revolution in Russia is inevitable, contingency is an inherent aspect of all great historical events.8 There are also constraints that may shape, dampen, or mitigate the factors driving growing Russian-Muslim tensions. F

Editor’s note: The concluding portion of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church & Ministry Report.

Notes:

1 Yu. M. Kobishchanov, “Musulmane Rossii, korennyie rossiiskie musulmane i russkie musulmane,” in Kobishchanov, Musulmane izmenyayushcheisya Rossii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ROSSPEN, 2002), 107; and Yu. M. Kobishchanov, “Musulmansaya Moskva XXI v.:Musulmane Rossii nakanune XXI veka,” Materialy Mezhdunarodnoi Konferentsii, Moskva, 6 September 1997 (Moscow, 1998), 23.

2 A 2001 estimate places the number of practicing Muslim believers at five percent of the general number of religious believers, who composed 55 percent of Russia’s then estimated population of 147 million. This would mean approximately 3.7 million Muslim believers. M. Tulskii, “Vakhkhabity v Rossii pobezhdayut umerennykh musulman,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 19 June 2001. A 1997 estimate made by the Moscow Sociology Institute put the number of Muslim believers at 6.2 percent of the overall number of religious believers, and six percent of Russia’s population. This would put the number of Muslim believers at slightly over four million. See Malashenko, “Islam i politika v sovremennoi Rossii,” 7, citing A. B. Zubov, “Granitsy razlomov i urovni edinstva v segodnyashnei Rossii: Uroki sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniya,” Dukhovnyie osnovy mirovogo soobshestva i mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii (Moscow: MGIMO, 2000), 270.

3 Neil Buckley, “Russia’s Islamic Rebirth Adds Tension,” Financial Times, 28 October 2005.

4 “V Nabernykh Chelnakh otkrylas 11 mechet,” Islam.ru, 14 October 2005, www.islam.ru/press/rus/ 2005-10-24/#9740, and Georgii N. Engelhardt, “Militant Islam in Russia – Potential for Conflict,” Moscow Defense Brief, 4 April 2005, http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/1-2005/wap/militant_islam/.

5 Rosalinda Musina, “Musul’manskaya identichnost’ kak forma ‘religioznogo natsionalizma’ Tatar v kontekste etnosotsial’nykh protsessov i etnopoliticheskoi situatsii v Tatarstane,” in M. V. Iordan, R. G. Kuzeev, and S. M. Chervonnaya, eds., Islam v Yevrazii: sovremennyie etnicheskie i esteticheskie kontseptsii sunnitskogo islama, ikh transformatsiya v massovom soznanii i vyrazhenie v iskusstve musulmanskikh narodov Rossii (Moscow: Progress-Traditsiya, 2001) 297-301.

6 On limited illiberal democracy under Yeltsin, see Gordon M. Hahn, Russia’s Revolution from Above, 1985-2000: Reform, Transition, and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002), Ch. 11. On aspects of Putin’s soft-authoritarian counter-revolution, see Gordon M. Hahn, “Putin’s ‘Stealth Authoritarianism’ and Russia’s Second Revolutionary Wave,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Regional Analysis, 21 April 2004, www.regionalalysis.org/publications/regionalvoices/en/2004/04/616B350A-D9CD-49F59416EC AD7F5F1EAE. ASP, and Harley Balzer, “Managed Pluralism: Vladimir Putin’s Emerging Regime,” Post-Soviet Affairs 19 (July-September 2003), 189-227.

7 See the results of the 2004 Russian presidential elections in Muslim republics as compared to those in other republics in Hahn, “Putin’s ‘Stealth Authoritarianism’.”

8 On contingency in regime transformations, see Hahn, Russia’s Revolutionary from Above, Chs. 1, 8, and 9.

Excerpted from Russia’s Muslim Threat by Gordon M. Hahn. Copyright 2007 by Yale University. Reproduced by permission of Yale University Press (http://www.yalebooks.com/). All rights reserved.

Editor’s Note: The concluding portion of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church & Ministry Report.

Gordon M. Hahn is a senior researcher at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California.

Details

Volume 16, No. 4

Augustine in Russia

Melissa Jones

Editor’s note: The first portion of this article was published in the previous issue of the East-West Church & Ministry Report 16 (Summer 2008), 1-3.

Free Will and Original Sin

Unimpeded freedom of will is an essential ingredient in Orthodox theological anthropology, and Orthodox theologians have generally held that salvation is dependent upon a combination of God’s grace and human freedom. The fall restricted human freedom because it limited the human condition and brought death into the world, but it did not “darken the will,” as Augustine asserted. Most Eastern theologians would agree that humans are able and expected to seek perfection, and that God’s grace is an aid to that effort. Augustine’s premise that humans are not able to not sin (non posse non peccare) is foreign to Eastern Orthodox thought. The strict doctrinal formulation of Augustine’s concept of original sin was also foreign to Eastern Orthodox tradition. The accepted Eastern view of original sin was never formulated as systematically as it was in the West. This is not unusual in that Eastern Orthodox theology uses reasoned arguments, but depends instead mainly on tradition and the authority of the Church Fathers in making arguments, while the Latin West uses a more analytical, systematic style that is dependent on logical proofs.

Western and Eastern Understandings of Grace

In order to avoid a paralyzing pessimism, Augustine’s views regarding the corrupt nature of humanity went hand-in-hand with an elaborate theory of grace. Eastern Fathers generally had taken a positive view of human nature and grace. Eastern theologians tended to see the incarnation and death of Jesus as an event that freed all of humanity from Adam’s sin, granted all of humanity grace, and established freedom to choose either right-action or sin. The West, particularly after the acceptance of Augustine’s ideas of original sin, held a more juridical view of sin and atonement that required a careful balance of grace versus sin to attain salvation.

Augustine’s teachings on the subject of grace, coupled with the generally accepted doctrine of divine foreknowledge, led him to a doctrine that has been referred to as “double predestination” because it divided humanity into two classes, those who were destined to receive grace and therefore would have the capacity to be saved, and those who would not receive grace and were therefore ultimately damned.1

Nuanced Russian Critiques of Augustine

Russian scholars such as D. V. Gusev and I. V. Popov did not blindly accept Augustine’s ideas of original sin uncritically. Nor did they reject them as heretical products of the West. Rather, they attempted to put Augustine in a context of time and place to help understand how and why his ideas developed. Popov even suggested using Augustine’s experience with the Donatists to help discern how best to deal with certain sects of Old Believers.2

Other scholars like L. I. Pisarev, K. Skvortsov, and E. N. Trubetskoi, were able to unabashedly criticize some of Augustine’s ideas, while still accepting other aspects of his work that they believed to be useful in the Russian context.3 These secondary works by Russian theologians show that lively discussion was taking place in the theological academies during the last half of the 19th century. The numerous German and French works cited in their articles and monographs show that an exchange of ideas was taking place, and that the Russian Academy could no longer be perceived as an intellectually isolated purveyor of stale theology. In conclusion, it can be seen that a return to patristic studies, and the resulting Kievan translations of Augustine into Russian, made his writings widely available for analysis, thus helping to enliven Russian theological discourse.

The Hostile East-West Background

At first glance, the 19th-century focus on Augustine’s work by Russian church leaders seems surprising. The relationship between the Latin church of the West and the Greek Eastern church has always been strained. Even from the early centuries of Christianity, differences in language and culture created misunderstandings and disagreements that eventually erupted into the schism of 1054. The Russian church, as inheritor of Byzantine culture and religion, also inherited many of the resentments and prejudices against the Latin Catholic church that were based on events occurring even before Russia’s official acceptance of Christianity in the 10th century. This history of conflict would lead to the expectation of a very grudging acceptance by Russian churchmen of any Western theologian, let alone Augustine, a quintessential Western thinker who promoted a theological anthropology that stood counter to the Eastern patristic tradition.

Accusations of Heresy

Indeed, even modern-day Orthodox theologians continue to debate the appropriate place of Augustinian theology in Orthodoxy, and spirited disagreements on this topic have continued over the years in academic books and journals.4 An entertaining example of a modern Orthodox diatribe against Augustine was written by Michael Azkoul, now a bishop in the Antiochian Orthodox Church. In his book, The Influence of Augustine of Hippo on the Orthodox Church, Azkoul portrays Augustine as a Neoplatonic heretic who should be rejected with the likes of Nestorius and Arius.5 According to Azkoul, Augustine’s Neoplatonic premises taint every aspect of his theology: “Each doctrinal error of Augustine is consistent with all the others, stemming from principles which allowed him to elaborate a peculiar and coherent body of religious opinion.”6 Azkoul provides a well-researched, if unbalanced, review of literature attacking the use of Augustinian theology in the Orthodox church.

This controversy becomes even more heated in Orthodox popular culture. Arguments about Augustine erupt frequently in Orthodox magazines and in discussions carried over the Internet. The godfather of contemporary anti-Augustinianism in popular Orthodox thinking was the late Fr. John Romanides, an Orthodox priest who was a graduate of Harvard University, former professor at Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary in Massachusetts, and retired professor of Thessaloniki University. Romanides wrote several respected mainstream academic works, including Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine; An Interplay Between Society and Theology, published by Holy Cross Orthodox Press.7 However, his post-retirement activities appear to have been focused on producing voluminous works on an Internet web page called “Romanity” that describe in detail the damage done to Orthodoxy by Western influences. Romanides spent a considerable amount of time attacking Augustine and his influence, and he still has a loyal Internet following among those who would condemn the influence of Augustine and Western theology on Orthodoxy. Romanides’ opinions and other works criticizing Augustine were also published in The Christian Activist: A Journal of Orthodox Opinion. His contribution to this magazine was “The Fundamental Difference between the East and West,” which appeared in the same issue as a work by Orthodox priest John Reeves examining “The Price of Ecumenism Parts 1 & 2: How Ecumenism Has Hurt the Orthodox Church.”8 A later issue in this same publication carried an article by a “well-known psychologist and opponent of the mental health system,” Seth Farber, who argues that Augustine’s work inspired Luther, Calvin, and Freud to promote a “theory of human depravity.”9 While these examples may be the works of Orthodox extremists, they echo anti-Western, anti-ecumenical opinions that have existed for centuries.

Augustine Serving Russian Purposes

Thus, parochial, anti-ecumenical movements in Russia and in other Orthodox jurisdictions are able to claim that Orthodox tradition and Augustinian theology are completely incompatible. Making this claim does a grievous injustice to the many dedicated, idealistic Russian scholars like K. Skvortsov, E. N. Trubetskoi, and A. I. Bulgakov who sought to enhance the understanding of Orthodoxy by examining the works of great Western theologians such as Augustine.10 These 19th-century Russian scholars tried to expand the understanding of Orthodoxy by expanding the boundaries of Russian theological scholarship. Such men had faith in the strength of Orthodox theology and did not hesitate to compare and contrast its teachings with those of other confessions.

Professor Afanasii I. Bulgakov of the Kievan Theological Academy, for example, in addition to his translations of Augustine, wrote an objective history of Methodism, which he defended as his master’s thesis, and contributed historical essays on Anglicans, Baptists, Old Catholics, and Mormons. His work on the Anglican hierarchy was translated into English by William John Birkbeck in 1889.11 Many of today’s Orthodox critics of ecumenism do not understand that the desire to maintain a unique and creative Orthodox theology does not necessitate hostility toward theological dialogue and ideological walls to prevent contact with other religions.

In Summary

Russian interest in Augustine has been rekindled in recent years. The Library of Christian Literature, which was established in St. Petersburg in 1998 as a branch of the Moscow Library, lists several recent editions of Augustine’s works in its online catalog.12 In addition, a well-known Russian medievalist, V. V. Bychkov, has published a book on Christian polemics and apologists that features the work of Augustine.13 As the Russian Orthodox Church finds itself in increasing contact with Western confessions, it is likely to be drawn into further examinations of seminal Western theologians such as Augustine of Hippo. F

Notes:

1 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), Vol. 1 of The Christian Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 298.

2 See Appendix III, “Nineteenth-Century Russian Secondary Works on Augustine,” in Melissa Ann Jones, “Augustine in Russia,” Ph.D. dissertation, Arizona State University, 2000, 165-70.

3 Ibid.

4 For example, Reinhard Flogaus provides a scholarly, balanced examination in “Palamas and Barlaam Revisited: A Reassessment of East and West in the Hesychast Controversy of 14th-century Byzantium,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 41 (No.1, 1998), 1-32. This same volume also carries a discussion of the venerable Fr. John Myendorff’s thoughts regarding Augustine and original sin: Boris Bobrinskoy, “The Adamic Heritage According to Fr. John Meyendorff,” 33-44.

5 Michael Azkoul, The Influence of Augustine of Hippo on the Orthodox Church (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 128-79.

6 Ibid., 221.

7 John Romanides, Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine; An Interplay between Society and Theology (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1981).

8 John S. Romanides, “The Fundamental Difference Between the East and West,” The Christian Activist: A Journal of Orthodox Opinion 9 (1999); http://www.philthompson.net/pages/library/eastwest.html (accessed 5 April 2008). The same issue carried “The Price of Ecumenism, Parts 1 and 2: How Ecumenism Has Hurt the Orthodox Church” by John Reeves. This article is available at the Orthodox Christian Information Center website: http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/tca_priceofecumenism.aspx (accessed 5 April 2008).

9 Seth Farber, “The Reign of Augustine,” The Christian Activist: A Journal of Orthodox Opinion 13 (1999), 1-20.

10 See Jones, “Augustine in Russia,” Appendix III, 165-70.

11 See “Bulgakov, Afanasii I” in Pravoslavnaia bogoslovskaia entsiklopediia, ed. by A. N. Lopukhin, Vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1902, 1183-84. The Bulgakov work translated by Birkbeck was a vindication of the legitimacy of the Anglican hierarchy from an Orthodox point of view. It was published as The question of Anglican orders in respect to a “vindication” of the papal decision, which was drawn up by the English Roman Catholic bishops at the end of 1897, trans. by W. J. Birkbeck (London: S.P.C.K., 1899).

12 The St. Petersburg Library of Christian Literature [Biblioteka Khristianskoi Literatury] lists the following works in its electronic catalog: Avgustin, Cvety blagodatnoi zhizni, 1997; Avgustin, Ispoved’ [Confessions], 1997; Avgustin, O grade bozhiem: Kn. 1-13 [City of God], 1998; Avgustin, O grade bozheim: Kn. 14-22, 1998; Avgustin, Tvopeniya [Works], 1998; Avgustin, Ispoved’, 1999; Avgustin, O predopredelenii svyatyh [On the Predestination of the Saints], in electronic format, http://www.lcl.spb.ru:8084/archiv/.

¹³ V. V. Bychkov, Aesthetica Patrum. Estetika Ottsov Tserkvi: Apologety. Blazhennyi Avgustin (Moscow: Ladomir, 1995).

Edited excerpts published with permission from Melissa Ann Jones, “Augustine in Russia,” Ph.D. dissertation, Arizona State University, 2000.

Melissa Jones is an adjunct faculty member of religious studies at Chapman University College, Irvine, California.

Selected Russian translations of Augustine

Bogoslovskiia razmyshleniia o blagodati bozhiei i o vole chelovecheskoi [Theological Reflections on the Grace of God and Human Will]. St. Petersburg: Matvei Ovchinnikov, 1786.

O grade bozheim [The City of God]. Moscow: Moscow Typographical Company, 1786.

Blazhennago Avreliia Avgustina Ipponiiskago episkopa Ispovedaniia [Confessions of Blessed Augustine, Bishop of Hippo]. Moscow: Moscow Typographical Company, 1787.

Ispovedy [Confessions]. Kiev: Kievan Theological Academy, 1866-69.

O grade bozhiem [The City of God]. Kiev: Kiev Theological Academy, 1885-87.

Details

Volume 16, No. 4

Editor’s Note: The conclusion of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church & Ministry Report.

Edited excerpts reprinted with permission from Wallace L. Daniel, The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2006), with additional material added from Wallace L. Daniel, “Reconstructing the ‘Sacred Canopy’: Mother Serafima and Novodevichy Monastery,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 59 (April 2008), 249-71.

Wallace L. Daniel is provost at Mercer University, Macon, Georgia.