The Churching of Russia: Parish Empowerment and Parish Protest

Abstract

Western scholarship on secularization takes into account “churching” — expansion of the parish base to accommodate population growth and migration. This study examines churching in Imperial Russia, with a focus on two questions: how well (when) did the Orthodox Church expand its parish base, and how did that churching impact the aspirations and activity of parishioners? Perhaps even more than its peers in Europe, the Russian Orthodox Church faced a growing challenge in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: on the one hand, enormous social change, but on the other hand, limited resources to adapt. This paper suggests that the Russian response was belated, but intense, with churching sharply accelerating after 1880. The local parish, almost alone, had to finance churching, yet continuing paying substantial diocesan levies that mainly served the interests of the clergy. The double burden was too much. Parishioners, encouraged to organize and mobilize since the 1860s, became increasingly assertive in claiming their right to govern the parish, to control its finances, and to choose its clergy. In short, churching led to revolution in the church.