'Confessionalization in the Slavia Orthodoxa (Belorussia, Ukraine, Russia)? – Potential and Limits...

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Confessionalization in the Slavia Orthodoxa 67

Confessionalization in the SlaviaOrthodoxa (Belorussia, Ukraine,Russia)? - Potential and Limits of aWestern Historiographical ConceptAlfons Bruning

The early Modern history of Western Europe received the label of an 'ageof confession' in many recent publications. Reference was being madehere to the concept of confessionalization, developed initially in Germanhistoriography of the late 1980s, and spread then throughout historio-graphical science on Western European countries. But what about theOrthodox East? Have there been processes of confessionalization in theOrthodox Church of Eastern Europe comparable to those described formost of the European regions of Western, Latin Christianity? The questionitself had been asked not long after the very concept had been created,at a time when the real research base was still limited mainly to some

case studies on German history, along with a number of pioneer workson Roman Catholicism.1 The once rather modest beginnings of the con-cept, on the other hand, did not withstand its claim for universal signifi-cance for an understanding of Early Modem historical processes.Confessionalization, as the Berlin historian Heinz Schilling, one of theinventors of the concept, pointed out repeatedly, was meant from itsvery start to be a comparative concept for European history in general,and to be operating in a universal historical perspective.2

While in the meantime numerous case studies have tried to estimate

its value for the hemisphere of Western Christianity, its adoption for theEastern European part of Christianity seems to be a greater challengethan it once had been considered.3 Yet this challenge is apparently takensuccessively. Hints at a possibly similar development in the Eastern hemi-sphere have somewhat accumulated in recent works, written by specialistsof Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian history of Early Modern times.The first steps, sometimes reluctant, sometimes hasty, have been made totake the risk, and get over this presumably significant boundary between

Latin and Byzantine Christian culture. This chapter is going to systematizethese, for the time being, rather disparate attempts, in order to estimatethe real value of the concept of confessionalization for a better under-standing of the Orthodox part of Europe.

To avoid misunderstandings, a short but concise summary of the con-cept is needed first. 'Confession', the key word in this concept, is to beunderstood as a uniform and coherent religious community, shaped ideo-logically around written dogmatic texts, unique rites and a clear schemeofhierarchy - all of which arose in the time of religious concurrencebetween Catholicism and Protestant denominations since the first halfof the 16th century. 4 Confessionalization was the next step. As expressedby the authors -'the initial creators were the Berlin historian HeinzSchilling, and his Freiburg colleague Wolfgang Reinhard - it meant thepenetration of state, politics and society on all levels by confessionaladherences after the Reformation and through the concurrency of con-fessions, an intensification of inner structures in church and state, areinforcement of church discipline, the formation of a new type of clergy,and, in connection with all this, the development of a dose cooperationof church and state, ideologically as well as practically. One immediateresult was the quite well-known religious confrontations, from disputesup to the level of wars, throughout 16th and 17th century Europe. Thelong-term outcomes of this process should be then a modernization ofstate and society, and the rise of confessional absolutism during the'confessional era' in European history.5

In fact, the concept - or even the paradigm, as its creators tended toname it - has since then been reconsidered for most of the regions ofEarly Modern Europe, be it Spain, 6 France, 7 England even Ireland,8Sweden9 as well as East Central Europe, as Bohemia, Poland-Lithuania,Slovenia or Hungary. 10 No wonder that through intensive case studyverification over years, the concept itself experienced a number of critics^greater precisions and changes. The pretension for universal historicalsignificance had to be diminished, some of the initial elements were tobe called into question. Confessionalization, in the end, ceased to beregarded as a paradism, including all the pretensions of the term, but itapparently is now the more regarded as a universal historiographicalresearch tool of promising value. So it might seem appropriate to state,that the concept of confessionalization continues to dominate historicaldebates on Early Modem Europe for a greater part, and perhaps on ahigher level than it was able to do still a decade before

What were the debates about? The question should be, how criticaldiscussion so far had contributed to a reshaping of the concept, that

68 Religion & Conceptual Boundary in CEE

possibly made it more applicable for the Orthodox East as well. A conciserecapitulation of the critique expressed so far has to take into accountmainly four categories, some of which, however, seem to be less importantfor our purpose. 11 The first of them is macro-historical criticism. Thesecond refers to the periodization of the alleged process of confessionali-zation. The third concerns the role of theological truth in this process,including the question of specific characteristics of different confessions,which may limit the possibilities of comparison. Finally, critique isaimed at what had been called the 'etatistic narrowing' or 'top-to-bottomapproach' of the concept. The first among these points, i.e. criticism inthe macro-historical perspective, opposes the elder concepts of secular-ization (including rationalization in Max Weber's understanding) to theclaim of the confessionalization concept to portray a fundamental processin Western society. In other words, the question is, whether religion wasin fact as decisive as the confessionalization concept wants to have it.According to the critics, there are numerous exclusions, and numerousfields of social and cultural activities the confessionalization concept doesnot hit and describe. An important example concerns the ideas of toleranceand religious freedom, by themselves contradictory and likely to be morethan only exceptions in the light of what Wolfgang Reinhard had calledthe overall 'pressure for confessionalization'.12 Consequently, the path-way to modernity should not have been paved by confessionalization andits inherent strengthening of religious adherences, but mainly proceededfrom secularization.

Whatever theoretical perspective was being taken, for the historianthere remained a large field of elements and developments in EarlyModern Europe, which were by their very nature non-confessional, or atleast in fact never affected by confessionalization, as e.g. Roman law, theHumanist intellectual community (res publica litteraria), mystical andspiritual traditions, etc. Critique of the confessionalization concept,consequently, did not fail to indicate these phenomena. 13 It remains anopen point, however, how important they all were for what the conceptin dispute describes as the generally dominating lines of history. Whereare the exceptions, and what is the mle (perhaps to be even confirmed byseveral exceptions)? The protagonists of the 'confessionalization' con-cept often stressed their intention to re-establish a necessary sensitivityfor the role of religion and religious reform in Early Modern Europe,which had been unduly neglected in previous historiography with itsfocus on mere social structures and economics. Additionally, asWolfgang Reinhard pointed out in response to his critics, modernity ofstructures should be also recognized where it was in fact not intended by


the protagonists of religious reforms (it hardly ever was, of course), andbesides the process of confessionalization, taking into account the orig-inally sociological roots of the concept, was meant to be multidimen-sional and complex enough to integrate the named critical points. 14

For our purpose here, questions of periodization seem of lesser interestfor the time being, as long as the very question of the applicability of theconcept for the Orthodox Church remains open. To some degree thismight also be said about the claims of cultural specifics on the part ofeach of the confessions, as they have been stressed, for example, byThomas Kaufmann in his studies of German Lutheranism in the early17th century. 15 It is not yet clear whether these specifics necessarily hadto be contradictory to a process of confessionalization, or whether theycould be integrated in a concept, which is then, once more, to beregarded more as the 'genotype' of historical development, alongside the'phenotypes' of concrete confessional milieus. The argument yet has itssomewhat practical implications, for historiography and church histori-ography in particular has itself long been an important element of con-fessional milieus. For a time reaching far into the 20th century churchhistory was practised almost exclusively by members of confessionalcamps and stamped by their theological background. Consequently themore 'functional' attitude towards religion, which is included in the'confessionalization' concept and its neglecting of questions about theo-logical truth, has been criticized repeatedly by church historians profes-sionally connected with theologian faculties of German universities. 16As we shall see soon, the phenomenon of a confessional - and, laternationally oriented-historiography is as cmcial in the Orthodox worldas it was in the West. Different from the West, stereotypes there are farfrom being overcome, and show a strong living force.

In comparison with these, for the time being, rather marginal points ofcritique the fourth one appears to be much more essential. Once again, it isabout the limits of the confessionalization concept, yet it does not onlyrefer to those fields, which confessional structures could not reach, but tothe limits and weaknesses of confessional structures themselves. In otherwords, did the formation of clear boundaries and coherent religiousgroups, and the strengthening of religious discipline among the believersreally take place with the overwhelming, deep-reaching force, the concepttends to postulate? When Wolfgang Reinhard stated that confessional-ization was to become the first phase of what previous historiography hadtried to describe as 'social discipline' (Sozialdisziplinierung17) and thechurch, right through its collaboration with the state, stepped into the gapbetween governmental demands for discipline and the recalcitrance of


the people to follow these demands, when it motivated them religiouslyto subordination and a disciplined way of life and behaviour, 18 exactlythis was to form another weak point of the concept in the eyes of thecritics. In fact in many of the sources of that alleged disciplining character,all the catechisms, church orders, visitation protocols, etc. even if nowof church provenance, still there was left enough space for resistance tothe common people. Being normative by their very nature, these sourcesobviously do'not include sufficient evidence about whether the com-moner really followed the written demands, and the texts therefore tend tomerely describe the intentions of their authors rather than a real historicalprocess. So Reinhard might have only shifted the problem from thesphere of the state to that of church authorities, but not have resolved it.As research of recent years has shown, some agreement of the subjects,some readiness to take part in disciplining processes is in fact decisivefor any real success of disciplining attempts from above, and in the longmn neither church nor state was able to achieve anything by mere meansof oppression. Nevertheless Reinhard's argument in the light of the sameresults of recent research still can seem persuasive, because obviouslychurch and state in their efforts did profit from the subject's agreement.Yet the process finally leading to a 'disciplined' and, in this respect,modern society was by far more complex than a simple 'top-to-bottom-approach' as once suggested. In this process of mutual agreementbetween the organs of power and the common people the final resultsoften differed from the initial intentions of the reformers, and moreoften, as a matter of grief for those reformers, there were at first glancefew results at all. In the long run, however, the impact of confessionalnorms on societal development can in fact be observed, even where thepressure from above failed to be very strong. 'Confessionalization frombelow' at least sometimes met halfway the reform efforts from above. 19

* * *

These are probably the main guidelines to be taken into account for anyactual operation with the confessionalization concept on the ground ofthe so-called Slavia Orthodoxa. Our survey is now to form the back-ground for a re-examination of developments in the Orthodox Churchm Belomssia, Ukraine, and (Muscovite) Russia. For sure, within the limitsof this article, this can hardly be undertaken in a more than superficialway, and it is therefore for a greater part about a re-examination of worksalready done. As we have noted, science meanwhile has made its firststeps towards an application of the confessionalization concept in theSlavic Orthodox environment - steps which shall be estimated on the

Confessionallzation in the Slavia Orthodoxa 71

following pages, by asking whether they can show a perspective for anyusefulness of the confessionalization concept as a research tool for thestudy of Eastern Christian religious and cultural history. Building reflec-tions on these pioneer works includes detecting misunderstandings,where they exist and showing perspectives rather than delivering alreadywell-grounded results on our own.

Finally, two further introductory remarks seem to be necessary on'confession' and confessionalization in Eastern Slavic Orthodoxy,

simply to outline the problem one has to face in stepping over the bor-der from Western to Eastern Christianity. On 'confession': It may be wellcalled into question, whether Orthodox Christendom is able to form a'confession' at all, in the more narrow sense of the concept. Of course,the term is in widespread use as a name simply for a Christian denomi-nation, be it Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican or whatever else.In everyday language and habits it might be completely legitimate thento speak about an Orthodox confession as well, but in must be stated inthis concrete context, that the term is quite more specific within theframework of 'confessionalization'. Here it means a societal group ratherthan only a branch of Christian religion. Confessional adherence, fol-lowing the concept, has its significance for social processes and socialmobility, political decisions and ideologies. Significantly enough, thekey text of the Lutheran confession, the so-called Confessio Augustana,has, for example, first been presented before the Imperial Council(Reichstag) in German Augsburg, with the Emperor himself at its head,not before any church synod. There are other examples of a similar illus-trative quality: Interconfessional marriage by the time became an exclu-sion, tending to damage seriously the social reputation of the participants.In German Bavaria, as in many other Catholic regions, the governmentrequired an oath on belief in the Holy Virgin (quite impossible to takefor a strict Protestant) from applicants for public service. All these exam-pies show the practical significance, the secular consequences as onemay say, of the formation of confessions in Early Modem Europe. 20 Thisdefinition in regard of the social, not only religious significance, how-ever, has to be taken into account in examining, whether Orthodoxycan accurately be named a confession as well, or at least finally devel-oped into a such.

Secondly, confessions in the West were built mainly around dogmatictexts, as, in the first place, the confession texts of the Protestant denom-inations (Bekenntnisschriften) and the Roman professio fidei, composedand released after the Catholic council of Trent. As a matter of fact,Orthodox Christendom devotes much less significance to dogmatics in


comparison with its overall high esteem of rite and liturgy. Even in theWest the different confessions in the further process of 'confessionaliza-tion' stressed ritual elements especially, when they were able to demon-strate the right faith and the difference to the alleged heretics of theother side. 21 Nevertheless, Western Christianity in these times defined thefaith of the believer by its content, by its congmence with dogmatic for-mulas of one confession, not primarily by liturgical practice. The latter,indeed, is by far more the case in Orthodoxy. So even if one has to dowith a dogmatic document on the Orthodox part as well, as may be the'Orthodox confession of faith' of the Kievan metropolitan Peter Mohyla,compiled in 1640, a text which seems at first glance quite similar inplace and function to the Western counterparts, its real significance foran alleged confessionalization deserves to be examined very carefully. 22

At first sight, the Belomssia and Ukraine of today, in older Polish historiog-raphy usually called the kresy, offer a promising landscape for enquiriesabout confessionalization processes. But a closer look also should reveala number of temptations and traps. A fact well known, the earlier histori-ography in fact offers tempting schemes in black and white, of clear campsand dramatic confrontation between ethnic, political and confessionalgroups. The picture drawn here looks as follows: Polish Catholicism withits tendency to spread on the Eastern parts of Poland-Lithuania standsagainst an old established Ruthenian Orthodoxy in these lands. After thefamous Union of Brest in 1596, the Uniate church entered into its longlasting heroic stmggle for self-assertion between the frontiers, between thedistmst of resentful Roman Catholics, and the enmity of the Orthodox. 23Meanwhile the Ruthenian Orthodox, after having resisted papal attemptsto capture them by the Union in Brest, from that time onwards begantheir own stmggle to preserve not only the right and pure faith of theirancestors, but by this also their cultural and ethnic - if one author is atleast wise enough to avoid then the puzzling term 'national' - identity. 24From the perspective of numerous works in Western languages, the Ukraineespecially, became an ideological battlefield between Rome, Constantinopleand, finally, Moscow.25 Although it is not possible here to weigh up care-fully all the relevant titles, some of them at their time nevertheless hadbeen valuable contributions to our knowledge,26 a basic problem mighthave become already clear. The religious drama on the stage, outlined inthese works, seems to welcome openly the confessionalization concept,for all the allegedly necessary elements already exist: confessions welldefined in their specifics, confessional antagonisms, concurrence over


the common believer, and, after all, religiously motivated wars since themid-17th century, etc.

More recent historiography, however, had to destroy to some degree thisalleged paradise for the confessionalization specialists, ironically right atthat time when the concept was being invented. It was obviously thebiographical genre, which finally helped outstanding representatives ofmodern Ukrainian historiography (mainly in the diaspora of Canada andthe United States) to get over long lasting stereotypes, and led to a betterunderstanding of the complex formation processes really happeningwithin the society of the Polish-Lithuanian East in early modem times. 27

That did not mean that views about social formation were further-

more dissolved. Particularly it was now the pattern of an ethno-cultural,in its type early modern national consciousness among the populationof the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which had been maintained,

and gained more attention among the scholars.28 As soon as it waspointed out that these types of an ethno-cultural self-understandingof social groups were to a high degree determined by religious affili-ation, once again the confessionalization concept seemed easily applic-able, and on occasion was readily adopted - sometimes without furtherreflection. 29

If there was a first reflection on the concept by Eastern scholars, onthe other hand, it did not escape misunderstandings either. So the Moscowhistorian Mikhail Dmitriev, while highly recommending the 'confes-sionalization' concept for a better understanding of the socio-culturaldevelopments generated around the Union of Brest, simultaneously putsit in a line with other processes, such as Counter-reformation, Catholicreform, and attempts for interconfessional reconciliation.30 The originalintention of the concept, however, was to integrate at least two of thenamed processes, i.e. Counter-reformation and Catholic reform, whichwere to form in fact the main elements of what then was to be named the'Catholic confessionalization'.31 What Dmitriev obviously had in mind,was not so much a fundamental and systematical process of 'confession-alization' of church, state, society and culture, as was intended by thecreators of the concept, but rather a 'confessionalization' of mind andmentality, with respect to the political and ecclesiastical elites in particular.Later on, one finds some reluctance in generally connecting ongoingprocesses with the concept in his comprehensive study on the genesis ofthe Union of Brest. 32 A single exception is Dmitriev's judging of the roleof the Polish government on the way towards the Union. When he out-lines the change from initial hesitation towards an open and decisiveengagement within the ruling circles of the Rzeczpospolita and King


Sigismund Vasa in particular, the naming of this change as a 'confession-alization' of politics seems to him completely appropriate. 33

Another main contribution to our question is Serhii Plokhy's recentstudy of the religious attitudes of the Ukrainian (Dnipro) Cossacks duringthe seventeenth century (until about 1670). 34 Plokhy's work aims to depictthe specific dialectics in the relationship of the Cossacks to the Orthodoxfaith. He rightly concedes that there was little if any religious componentin the Cossack revolts up to the second decade of the 17th century. Onlyafter the restoration of an Orthodox, non-uniate hierarchy in Kiev underthe protection of large Cossack units the latter began to see and presentthemselves as defenders of the Eastern rite, and to behave correspondingly.On the other hand, the Orthodox faith itself was being transformed bythe elite of the Cossack movement into what might be called the ideologyof an arising Cossack state. Orthodoxy thus became what these circles madeout of it. Soon after the great uprising of the famous hetman BohdanKhmelnyts'kyi had broken out, it turned into a military faith, and fromthis time battles and campaigns were motivated with religious slogans.Plokhy sums up his image like this: 'Having entered the religious fray,Cossackdom readily adapted and transformed Orthodoxy into a rebel faith,but, in the process, even more profoundly changed and transmuteditself. '35 He refers to the 'confessionalization' concept, which apparentlyserves him as the common background in European history and simul-taneously as a tool for a closer interpretation of the Cossack wars in thelight of the religious wars throughout 17th century Europe. 36 Althoughhis book does clearly not tend to describe the 'ideological' formationprocess within the Cossacks and the official documents released bythem as a 'confessionalization' itself, there was, in his view, neverthelessa strong influence by this general framework of European religious his-tory, by which Ukrainian Orthodoxy consequently had also been affected.As he demonstrates on the basis of a rich source material, Orthodox reli-gion became more and more the keystone in the ideological base for theCossack's revolts. Simultaneously, their - alleged - confessional homo-geneity gave them good arguments in their negotiations with Muscovy. Itwas not by chance that the Pereiaslav agreement of 1654 was legitimizedon both sides primarily in terms of religious commonality. 37

Plokhy's book undoubtedly gives insight into the motives of theCossack wars, and, by the perspective it opens, on the self-understandingof the elite in the Cossack hetmanate during the following decades.Among others, it is particularly the question of church-state relations,which is under discussion here. 'In most of Europe, including the Polishand Lithuanian lands of the Commonwealth, aristocratic opposition to


royal authority developed in tandem with the Reformation movement,especially with Calvinism. In the Ruthenian lands of the Kingdom ofPoland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, magnate opposition developedmainly under the banner of Orthodoxy. '38 However, the Cossacks, eventhe more educated elite with noble roots among them for long stoodisolated, because, at first, nobles in the Commonwealth in fact havebeen wavering between criticism and loyalty, and, secondly, the Orthodoxchurch with its persistent distrust of other Orthodox centres such asMoscow and Constantinople did so as well.

Furthermore it is not clear, taking into account the mainly officialcharacter of the sources on which Plokhy relies, which social part andideological direction among the still rather disparate Cossack troops heis describing - and which were the others. If it is about the Cossack'selite, how does this upper circle relate to the rank and file Cossacks? Asthe Cossacks were still not in any respect a homogenous social community,their religious adherences most likely were not yet completely uniformeither. 39 As we can learn from this study once more, there was quite adifference between the ideological constructions among the Cossackelites, somewhat made up on the ground of a defence of the Orthodoxfaith, and the religious adherences of the rank and file Cossacks - whichwere, obviously, nevertheless mobilized by this ideology.

Plokhy's study has sometimes been perceived as a description at leastof mirroring processes of confessionalization in the Ukrainian (and,allegedly, later the Russian) Orthodox church during the 17th century. 40What he depicts, however, is the shaping of an ideology rather than theimpact of purely confessional views in Orthodox society. Discussionabout Plokhy's theses, and even more about the possible conclusions,occurred to a great extent in Ukrainian historiography. One particularquestion, the relation of the Cossacks to the Orthodox faith lies, of course,at the core of these discussions. First, that they transformed Orthodoxreligion into a 'rebels' faith', as even Plokhy himself presents it, is perhapsmore true in the sense that their Orthodoxy in many senses followed alogic of war. The furor of their campaigns in fact often levelled out anyconfessional differences, so that during these wars Orthodox monasteries,churches and villages could not feel any safer than those of Catholics orUniates. The Cossacks' war faith was in part bearing characteristics of an'eschatological' sense and will for destruction.41 One might argue thatthis contains phenomena like the soldiers' striving for loot, which arelikely to be met among all troops during the Thirty Years' War, where thepsychological laws of the war situation exerted their influence. Butthe attitude towards religion among the Cossacks had its history before,


and this attitude was quite far from being homogenous even before theuprising. So the question remains open, as to the extent the ideologicalagenda of the elite, with or without its religious elements, had ever reachedthe average Cossack warrior.

The masses' religiosity, theoretically speaking, not only lacked most ofthe basic characteristics that might be regarded as undeniable precondi-tions for finding an Orthodox confession, but hardly fit the image ofOrthodox belief, which the church reformers in Kiev wanted to estab-lish. During the first half of the 17th century, and most probably also inthe second half there was, alongside undoubtedly Christian and Orthodoxforms of religious practice, quite an amount of what the Kievan clericswould have called simply superstition, such as magic rituals, belief indemons, spiritism or simply local customs that had never been tested ontheir applicability with what could be called the 'official' Orthodox faith(or Orthodox 'confession') - if, after all, something like that alreadyexisted by that time. 42 There is some reason to assume, that the 'rebels'faith' of the Cossacks during the Khmel'nyts'kyi uprising, took quite abit from the rather folkloristic sources of local customs and every day's

religious life in the borderland society. But this was in fact what the offi-cial confessions in the West for a long time tried to combat and putdown. The connection of the Cossacks with Orthodox religion is some-

thing of a stereotype in historiography that Plokhy tries hard to differen-tiate. Before him, Ukrainian historiography quite often has outlined theprocess in which the Cossacks of the East grew into the role of warriorsfor the Orthodox faith, and for guarantees for the preservation of a tra-ditional heritage of the Ruthenian people. 43 Yet there is evidence for theother side of the medal, namely that the Orthodox population of theEastern provinces long hesitated to regard them as such. Their relationtowards the Cossacks was sometimes quite critical. The grievances of thelocal dietines, where the assembled Orthodox nobles repeatedly asked

for help against the raids and attacks of different Cossack units, add anuance which once in a while had been forgotten in traditional histori-ography.44 It may be true that the commoners in these provinces up to1648 slowly but surely learned to ground their hope for restoration oftheir rights, and those of their Eastern faith on the Cossacks, but, first,there were alternatives as even the protestant magnates, 45 and, secondly,they also never ceased to regard the Cossack's wildness and unpre-dictable actions with distrust and fear.46

Religion most probably was not, or not alone, at the heart of growingenmity. Social and economic tensions as, e.g. the rising power of themagnates at the expense of a petty nobility, the steady suppression and


re-enserfment of the peasantry, played a significant role in the growingdiscontent in the East, and contributed as much as pure religiousconfrontation in generating the final conflict. 47 A closer examination ofthe sources has shown that expressions of feelings of religious discrim-ination, although they might have somewhat accumulated in the voiceof rumour among the folks, in their origin more than once can be tracedback to quite secular, and often locally limited conflicts. 48

To be accurate, these facts by themselves do not automatically upholdan adoption of the confessionalization concept for the Ukrainian andBelorussian lands. We have early examples, as in Heinz Schilling's keystudy of the Duchy of Lippe in North Western Germany, where religiousantagonisms also have sharpened already existing social and economicconflict lines and contributed to a development into confessionalhomogeneity in the end. 49 But, there it was the church, or, better, thealready formed confessional churches, who played this outstanding rolein the process of formation of societal entities. What is decisive, then,in the case of the Cossacks in Poland-Lithuania, is the fact, that their

religiosity - the Cossack's 'rebel faith', as Plokhy called it - obviouslygained its shape along with an increasing alienation from the officialOrthodox church, its representatives and their reform efforts. But canthere be confessionalization not only without, but in part even againstthe church?

On the other hand, what about the face of the church itself? Did thechurches follow the path to confessionalization? What is tme, the church,for its part, not long after the, in fact, dividing Union at Brest in 1596slowly but surely brought serious reforms on the way. Reform efforts wereactually already at the root of the decision of some of the RuthenianOrthodox bishops to join the Union with the Roman papacy, when theyhoped to gain support from above, be it from the Polish government, orfrom Rome. 50 After the Brest synod, when most of the lay people and someof the clerics openly demonstrated their disagreement with this ratherself-willed step of their bishops, there were furthermore two branchesof the Orthodox church in Poland-Lithuania - one that followed the

Union, and another that preserved its loyalty to the patriarchal see ofConstantinople. Yet both of them soon, at the latest after about 1610,began to introduce quite a number of reforms to improve their inner sta-tus, and it was the new situation of concurrence (among themselves, aswith the Western confessions, with Protestantism and with the Catholicchurch after Trent), which made these reform efforts resolute and in parteven aggressive. Paradoxically enough, many of the models and examplesfor reform steps were being taken from the Western counterparts, and it was


in particular the Catholic church after Trent that provided both Orthodoxbrancheswith ideas how to deepen faith, fight heresy (or, in their eyes,Catholic apostasy) and to strengthen the discipline of priests and monks.These models were, to be sure, not taken without cautious and deliberatereflections. 51 Nevertheless, perhaps not by chance alone, the endeavoursof the Eastern rite churches in most respects corresponded quite wellwith the scheme that once Wolfgang Reinhard had developed to sum upthe decisive measures of the Western confessions in the period of con-fessionalization.52 Within these schemes the decisive steps are the follow-ing: to regain clear theoretical ideas about the theological background ofone church, to spread and establish new norms of ecclesiastical andChristian life, to exert and strengthen propaganda on behalf of the con-fessional church, to use education to spread and deepen knowledgeabout the new orders and images, to discipline the adherents, to broadenthe execution of rites (especially those with a clear distinguishing qual-ity) and to influence language. Already a superficial examination of thereforms in both Orthodox camps in the Ruthenian lands of later Ukraineand Belomssia in the early 17th century seem sufficient to show that theycarried out most of the points of this programme as well.

On the part of the Uniates, the initiatives belonged to their secondmetropolitan, Josif Veliamyn Ruts'kyi. His main achievement consistedin a re-organization of the Basilian order, with a centralization of hierarchy,a stressing of the importance of education and mission, which broughtthese monks closer to the image of Western religious orders as, e.g. theJesuits, while the spiritual traditions of Eastern monastic life tended tocome second. As the Uniate church simultaneously preserved the habitof Orthodoxy that made the bishops and higher clerics come exclusivelyfrom the monasteries, Ruts'kyi's reform of the Basilians directly affectedhis church as a whole, helping to create the new type of clerics whichthe times obviously required. 53 In addition, there were a number of synodsbetween that of Kobryn in 1626 and Zamosc almost a hundred yearslater, in 1720, where at least the intention to strengthen disciplineamong lay people and clerics, and the intention of improving steadilythe education system was openly declared. Regular - more or less regularin fact - church visitations were to provide the responsible bishops withthe necessary information about the state of their eparchies and theirflock. 54 Ruts'kyi's collaborator Josaphat Kuncevych, who later became amartyr, being" murdered in Vitebsk in 1623, composed a catechism andstrict'regulations for the Uniate priests. 55 Another book of rules of this type,then called 'metryka', was published later by the bishop of L'viv, losif<;}iiiTr>)ian<;'^vi in 1687. about ten years after the latter had converted


secretly to the Union, and once again started to improve ecclesiastical lifein his diocese.56 In general, the main contributions to a strengthening ofchurch discipline, and, as a consequence, to the formation of what mightbe called a 'uniate confessional consciousness' of the regions of WesternUkraine, were under way mainly only in the last decades of the 17th,and the first decade of the 18th century. 57

Endeavours of the Orthodox Church had quite a similar face, and startedfrom the famous Monastery of the Caves in Kiev. Though there were slightbeginnings of reform already in the years after 1600, initiated by the archi-mandrites Elisei Pletenec'kyi and Zakharii Kopystens'kyi, the outstandingfigure in the Orthodox reform process was their successor and, after 1633,also Kievan metropolitan Peter Mohyla (1596-1646). Mohyla's most signif-icant contribution was the Kievan College, founded in 1632 on his initia-tive and financed mainly out of his personal purse, which by its adoptionand transformation of Western standards was the first institution of higherlearning within the Slavic Orthodox World. Sons of nobles, as well as futurepriests were now to achieve their education here on purely Orthodoxgrounds. 58 Of high importance were, furthermore, Mohyla's re-editions ofpurified liturgical and canonical books, as his Nomocanon (1629), the missal(Sluzhebnyk, twice in 1629 and 1639), and above all, the sacramentarybook(Trebnyk) of 1646, which should later be of great influence in Muscovy andRussia. Together with this, Mohyla made first steps towards the founding ofa church consistory, and had also carried out first church visitations withinhis dioceses. 59 A church council in 1640, among others, released the firstOrthodox catechism under the title of 'Confessio Orthodoxa'. 60

A number of corresponding examples can perhaps be easily be men-tioned. All of them obviously hint at the fact that what might be called thestructural, not only the mental part of confessionalization, was quitepresent also in the branches of the Eastern rite churches in Ukraine andBelomssia. Ukrainian historiography has come to concede, albeit withsome hesitation, that all these reform efforts could be regarded as begin-nings of a confessionalization process.61 The hesitation, however, seemsas justified as any optimism with regard to the superficial similarities.For one of the key questions remaining is what real effect on the re-shap-ing of religious life all these reforms had? This includes, in the light ofour previous discussion of the confessionalization concept and its cri-tique, to what extent the objects of the reform endeavours, the lay peopleand the lower clergy, reacted to the new demands in a positive way andthereby contributed to bringing the re-shaping actually on its way. Aswe can easily presume meanwhile, in the Ukrainian lands their responsewas for the greater part completely negative.

80 Religion & Conceptual Boundary in CEE Confessionalization in the Slavia Orthodoxa 81

First, the very state of religious education within the lower classes ofthe population was, at its most, elementary, and that was even more truefor the specifics of church, rite and dogma. Among the lay people in theEastern parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was, duringthe 17th century at least, obviously very little knowledge about decisivedifferences between the churches in concurrence. So it was, on the one

hand, a widespread stereotype, that the Union had to be regarded as a stepfrom the part of the Poles to infiltrate and spoil the 'Rus' faith, but on theother hand there were apparently very few people able to say whatUniatism really meant. The intensive literal polemics about the Union, sowidely discussed in historiography science since the middle of the 19thcentury, supposedly had their effect only within a limited circle of clericalintellectuals, and did not leave traces among the common folk. The onlything that was more or less commonly known was that the Uniates dur-ing the service prayed for the Roman pope. 62 Yet there is evidence thateven this was not always the case, so that religious practice hardly couldhave contributed to a development of confessional consciousness. 63Consequently, it was presumably also not confessional consciousness thatwas to form the basis on the Cossacks' faith and the inherent enmity

towards everything regarded as Catholic, Polish or Uniate.On the part of the newly erected Uniate church, efforts to strengthen

religious discipline among the lower clergy and the lay people was obvi-ously as fruitless as literary propaganda. For example, in the case of theUniate clergy, there are steady complaints about its deplorable moral andcultural standards throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and it doesnot seem as if any improvement was achieved at all over this time. Lackof even the basic education including literacy and knowledge of Slavonic,and on the other hand drunkenness, brawls, quarrels, insults alongsidedubious economic activities with windmills, inns and alcohol, or the

requirement of exorbitant taxes for sacramental services, remained thesubject of repeated laments by the responsible bishops.64

As for the Orthodox, church reform not only failed to improve religiousdiscipline, let alone to win the approval of the lay people, but also drovethe masses into severe opposition. As we can also learn from Serhii Plokhy'swork discussed above, it was the disagreement of the people and theCossacks, in particular, to the reforms initiated by the Orthodox metro-politan Peter Mohyla that led the former into the revolt in the years1637-38. Later on, the actions of the Cossack army and the hetmanmore than once met the opposition of the higher Orthodox clergy, whorarely shared the self-belief of these Cossacks as alleged 'warriors offaith'. Tensions between the top and the bottom of the Orthodox church

persisted at least until the subordination of the Kievan metropolitan see tothe patriarchate of Moscow in 1686. 65 There may have been some successin improving church life, nevertheless, at least in comparison withneighbouring Muscovy. When after 1667 parts of the Eastern regions ofthe Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth came to the Muscovite Tsars, the

Uniate population of the Ukrainian lands apparently converted moreeasily to Orthodoxy than did their coreligionists in the Belomssian regions.Recent science has presumed that the reason for this is to be found in thealready more advanced state of Orthodoxy in Ukraine, where, as a result ofthe reform efforts of the Kievan centre, the difference between Uniatism

and Orthodoxy was felt less than in relation to the 'backward' Muscovitechurch and its habits next to the Belorussian territory. 66 These are yetweak indications for the time being (we have heard already about thesituation on the side of the Uniates), and it is also tme that in the yearsafter 1686 the Kievan hierarchy had to restart its reform programme forlays and lower clergy almost from zero. For example, protocols of theKievan synod of 1691, with their description of liturgical and moral stan-dards, which were needed to be introduced in the eparchies, clearly reflectthe still deplorable status of religious life at the end of the 17th century. Itseems hard to suppose that this level should already indicate a progress.67

Meanwhile, at this time the Kievan metropolitanate was a part ofMuscovite Russia, and subordinated to the Moscow patriarch. Since themiddle of the 17th century, Ukrainian monks and scholars had broughtmany elements of reform to their new lords, be it higher education, puri-fied liturgical books or organizational skills. A fact well known is thatclerics of Ukrainian provenance dominated Russian ecclesiastical culturein the ranks of teachers, writers and especially bishops far into the 18thcentury. 68 Continuing our reasoning on the possibilities of confession-alization in the Slavic Orthodox hemisphere, it might be asked whetherthat allegedly confessional 'mentality of the reforms' in the Kievan met-ropolitanate69 was now the real heritage of the Ukrainians to theMuscovite, and later Russian Tsardom. In fact the direction of the reformsteps taken in Muscovy from the middle of the 1 7th century onwards was,at first sight, quite similar. Long before their living place had become apart of the Muscovite territory, the Kievans had begun to exert theirliteral and cultural influence on circles of reformers in Moscow. This

was particularly true in the case of the so-called 'zealots of piety', whogathered in the capital from about 1640 onwards. Most significant


personalities of the following years, as the archpriest Awakum, and thelater patriarch Nikon, apart from the younger Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovichhimself, belonged to that circle, united by their will to improve religiouslife in Muscovy, which they regarded as the remaining bulwark of tmeOrthodox Christianity.70

How can the very fact be interpreted that the most influential figuresof Muscovite Russian history in the second half of the 17th century duringtheir younger years were probably under the influence of that confes-sional 'mentality of the reforms' in Kiev? Does that whatever thin 'path ofconfessionalization' in the Orthodox church lead from there to Moscow?

Asking a question like this is, of course, more a matter of rhethoric.What is true, however, is that Muscovite religious history up to the early18th century also offers quite a number of promising points and figuresfor an adaptation of the confessionalization concept - or, to put it fromthe opposite perspective, it awaits the historian familiar with the con-cept with several traps and temptations. The undoubted influence ofUkrainian - or, in a more adequate terminology, Ruthenian - Orthodoxyin this period is one of them, and should be discussed more deliberately.

Some attempts have been also made in historiography on MuscoviteRussia to adopt the confessionalization concept. Their outcome yet is quitedisparate. As an example, temporary cooperation between the Germanuniversity of Tubingen and that of St Petersburg generated a volume of col-lected articles on probable similarities between German and MuscoviteRussian development.71 Apart from some promising insights on parallels inreligiosity and theology between East and West, however, the overall resultis perhaps more capable of illustrating both the theoretical difficulties tobridge the gap between East and West and the practical ones in bridgingcoordinating separated working traditions in historiography. The Russianreader may benefit from the volume primarily through the editor's intro-ductory article with its depiction of the genesis of the confessionalizationconcept, but even there reflections on its applicability to early modernRussian history is hardly to be found.72 More optimistic in this respectproved to be the German specialist on Russian history Stefan Plaggenborg,who connects the question for confessionalization with that of the mod-ernization potentials of 17th century Muscovy in general. Plaggenborgrightly points at the fact that quite a number of the topics in WolfgangReinhard's already mentioned scheme for structural confessionalization73apparently did exist in the Russian Orthodox church of that time as well -even if the very problem of whether Orthodoxy is able to form a confessionin the strict sense of the term is taken into account.74 Regardless of the cri-tique on the concept and its implications of a modernization by formation


of religious strurtures, which we have mentioned above, Plaggenborg'sapproach certainly deserves more attention than it has received so far.Other, separate attempts to clear the potential of questions for modern-ization in the case of Muscovite Russia actually ignore the confessional-ization concept for the time being.75 Indeed one might wonder whetherthe concept and its implications really 'have long been axiomatic to his-torians of Russian religion and society', as the American historian Robert0. Crummey has stated in a recent essay on Muscovite religious cultureand the ecclesiastical elite. 76

As we have just noted, there are similarities as well as traps and temp-tations. To start with one crucial point: for both the confessionalizationconcept and Muscovite religious history, the relationship between churchand state is of central significance. While in the West, in the perspective ofthe concept, church and state closely collaborated to introduce discip-line and religious uniformity for the benefit of both of them, 77 theRussian state and church still had to clarify their relationship within thetraditional Byzantine framework of the so-called symphonia, an ideal ofmutual addition of the spiritual and the political and legal sphere with itsoften unclear separation of responsibilities. The Greek tradition actuallygave the state and the Emperor a predominance, and when, through thedeposition of the high-handed patriarch Nikon in December 1666, theTsar obviously won the struggle of previous years, this happened withreference to the Greek tradition. Yet in fact the harmonic ideal of the

symphonia was given up in favour of a pure predominance of the state,i.e. the Tsar in particular. This new predominance of the secular power,however, was not immediately accompanied by a merger of state andchurch institutions. The monastery's office (monastyrskii prikaz), forinstance, once founded to administrate the vast land holdings of themonasteries, was simultaneously diminished in its significance duringthe sessions of the council. 78 Like secular rulers in the West since the

Middle ages, the Russian Tsar still in the 17th century held responsibilityfor the church, and in particular it was his obligation to persecute anderase heresy if necessary. After the councils of 1666-67 hereby continuedto be a state crime. 79 Interests of the state in purity of faith, along with ageneral lack of suitable secular personal in administration, even beforePeter the Great, resulted in a number of rather civil obligations being laidupon the priests, be it denunciation of alleged state crimes or heresy, or beit registering deliberately the status and religious activities of their flockmembers. Thus, a process of engagement of the lower clergy for the state'spurposes began in the period before the Petrine reforms, which were thenonly to enforce a tendency already set up. It should be noticed, however,


that the later enlargement had a less religious character, and focussedmore on pure governmental needs, such as taxes, service potentials of thepopulation, etc. 80 So even if there were signs of cooperation betweenchurch and state in the field of religious discipline and uniformity, first,in comparison with the West the prevalence was perhaps more on theside of the secular needs of the state, and secondly, this cooperation

rarely found its expression in equivalent administrative structures. So ifrelationship between church and state in Russia is looked at more closely,a number of problems are revealed.

Ideologically there might have been a vision for a 'confessional'Orthodox state in Russia as well. It seems more appropriate, however, tostate that it was still in the process of being formed. Some of the laterconstitutive elements of Russian state ideology still had to be formulatedand integrated until the end of the century.81 In the field of theologyitself, the synods of 1666-67 tmly set the standards for liturgical practice,but it was only in the 1680s that anything approaching a theologicaldispute in the strict sense took place among Russian orthodox clerics. 82Correspondingly, until the end of the century there was no agreementto be reached about a coherent concept of schooling, giving favour eitherto Greek theology and language, or to the methods brought by theUkrainians, with their adoptions from the Latin and Catholic scholarworld.83 Russian Orthodoxy, even in the 17th century, was very far fromhaving a clearly formulated doctrinal corpus comparable in any respectto that of the Western confessions. What is tme - one might follow herethe conventional argument - that written texts are in general less con-stitutive for an Orthodox church than liturgy and rite, and RussianOrthodoxy in this respect succeeded to develop its characteristics asmuch as did the Western confessions. In such a perspective, similar, e.g.to Thomas Kaufmann's above-mentioned statements on Lutheranism, 84there appears then on the Orthodox part, what might be called a specificOrthodox confessional culture, notwithstanding Orthodox participationin the general process of confessionalization. What makes this statementstill problematic, is that, in the long mn, striving for dogmatic clarityproved to be inevitable for Russian theologians as well. Apart from thefact that simple backwardness is something different from culturalspecifics, it was the significant wavering of Orthodox theologians of the17th century between Catholic leanings (often hinted at in case of theUkrainians) and covered Protestantism (e. g. in case ofFeofan Prokopovichafter 1700), that became a matter of complaint and irritation for bothWestern and Orthodox church historians. Here the profile that the con-fessionalization scheme requires was obviously not achieved.85

While the ideological and theoretical (as church-state relations) sideof the medal already causes some unresolved problems, on the structuralside there are still further doubtful elements. To reach the effectiveness

of a church-state cooperation in spreading norms, discipline and religiousconformity, that was, despite all hindrances, finally known in the West,for the Russians was little more than wishful thinking. That was certainlynot due to a lack of effort and good intentions. So, at first glance, thereseems to be another striking parallel between Russian Orthodoxy andthe Catholic church in particular, becoming obvious through the figuresof a number of outstanding bishops of a new type, who energeticallytook over the burden of reforming ecclesiastical life in their dioceses.Educated and well informed in theological and ritual literature, withclear ideas about what church and piety should be like, capable andexperienced in administration, and rigorous in their will to bring anorder to religious life, people like the Bishop Afanasii of Kholmogoryrepresented a type of hierarch similar in some respects to the Catholicbishops after Trent, and the reforms of the Milan bishop Carlo Bonomeoin particular.86 Until the middle of the 18th century, most of them hadcome from the Ukrainian lands and had profited from the better level ofeducation there, namely the famous Kievan academy. They were gener-ally recruited from the group of men that has been named the 'educatedmonks'. While joining monastic life more or less formally, these newclerics almost entirely concentrated on the achievement of literacy andhigher learning, regarded as weapons to defend Orthodoxy against allheresies by words, texts, and, if the call from above gave them the oppor-tunity, by reform activity as bishops. As long-time inhabitants of monas-teries, they gave comparatively little space to a spiritual life in prayersand tranquillity, as is of high significance in the Eastern tradition. 87

It is also this type of man, who is able to demonstrate differences againin respect, e. g. to the Catholic church. First, they were simply much lesssuccessful in their endeavours. Even in case of such an energetic person-ality as the named Bishop Afanasii, all their efforts to lift up clericalbehaviour, church discipline and to establish an educational systemamounted to little more than humble beginnings. For example, despiteall efforts to increase education among the parish priests, the averagelevel of learning among the lower clergy still remained quite mdimentaryfor a long time. 88 Similarly, their influence remained limited even as faras the election of parish priests was concerned, for, in the most parts ofRussia and Ukraine, this had for centuries been a prerogative of as localparish itself, and the parishioners stubbornly insisted on their traditionalright, even if the candidates presented to the bishop for consecration by


no means fitted the new requirements. 89 Secondly, the inner structurewas much weaker than in the Western churches. The bishop's traditional

staff of collaborators was apparently quite small, and badly qualified, andan improvement in this situation was not in sight. Most of the eparchies,especially in the north, saw the founding of a consistory only in the thirddecade of the 18th century.90 Furthermore, the connections between thesometimes remote eparchies and the centre were rather loose, and oncethe bishop had reached the place of his destination, he could rely onlyon his own skills and forces. Opposition at the local level was often strongenough, coming from monasteries, peasant or noble communities, andonly very gradually did the implementation of the Nikonian reformssucceed in overcoming them.91 As far as we know, there was no suchthing in the Russian church at that time as the periodical visits ad liminaof the Catholic bishops to the Roman pope in Catholicism after Trent.The contrary side of this was that bishops in their independency on thelocal see could, and in fact often did, act as self-will local potentates,

suppressing their flock by means such as taxation, church norms anddiscrimination. Patriarch Nikon was in fact not the only one among thehierarchs to claim for himself the title of 'velikii gosudar'.92

In the West, church reform, confession-building and confessionalizationgrew on the basis of concurrence between different confessional denom-inations, which forced each part to mobilize all forces to strengthen struc-ture and loyalty inside their communities. Although it has been argued,that from the outbreak of the schism (raskol) in the middle of the 17thcentury the situation in the Muscovite Tsardom was similar, once againat least gradual differences seem to be more important. Only at the endof the 17th century did the Russian Old Believers succeed in formingmore or less coherent ecclesiastical communities with their centres in the

northern periphery, at Vetka and Vyg. Simultaneously, the process of theformation of what Robert 0. Crummey has called a 'textual community'continued but came to a temporary end at about 1700.93 Before, resist-ance to the church reforms had been more unspedfic often merging withrather secular, but equally violent opposition of the peasantry againstnew taxes, labour requirements and restrictions of their right to move,all of which had already been determined by the new codex (ulozhenie)of 1649.94 As Georg B. Michels has shown in his numerous publicationsmainly on the Old Believers, even in the religious sphere opposition to thechurch reforms was nurtured from quite disparate sources, and only rarelywas the moving force a clear religious alternative. The decisive reasons forresistance, therefore, are more often to be found at the local level, withinexisting conflicts, but now to be enforced by the undoubtedly harsh and


non-diplomatic implementation of Nikon's far-reaching liturgicalchanges.95 Besides, these liturgical reforms did not meet with a homog-enous tradition that could be identified as the 'old Russian'. The reli-

gious reality in the Russian lands of the late 17th century was in fact notthat of the Stoglav and the Domostroi, i.e. the key documents of a firstreform period around 1551. What in fact existed were conglomerates ofyears' old local rites, wonder belief, semi-pagan customs, feasts and sea-sonings, which had already been a cause for anger and complaint for theso-called 'zealots of piety' in the 1640s - rigid priests such as Awakum, IvanNeronov and even Nikon himself, and, last but not least, the pious youngTsar Alexei. These, of course, were the elite. The average parish priest con-tinued to be a part of this world of a mixture between paganism, folkloreand Orthodoxy, rather than the representative of the pure faith the offi-cials tried to make out of him. 96 It may be true that the Western confes-sions in the further course of events shared a similar situation when

dealing with their lay people, among whom local rites, folkloristic tradi-tions and beliefs were also widespread. But they dealt with the problemof what they called 'superstition' in a situation of mutual concurrence,which in the Russian church did not exist on a similar level. The Uniatesand Old Believers were forming rather inferior religious communitiesafter about 1700 on the general level of Muscovite society, and there wasobviously no definite confessional alternative to the Tsar's Orthodoxy.

On the other hand, the amorphous ground for resistance proved to belong-living. Science on Russia still holds up a general scepticism aboutwhat for the West has been defined - within the confessionalization

scheme, among others - as social discipline. Such processes hardly evertook place on a comparable level. 97 For the time being exceptions mayconfirm the rule. Recent research, however, has detected some influ-ence, e.g. of the ecclesiastical norms of marriage and family life,98 and ofthe Orthodox liturgical calendar" on everyday life already existing atthe turn of the 17th century. The impression is, however, that the laypopulation gave their approbation only to some of the church norms,where and when they promised some benefit in avoiding conflicts,while in other spheres, as the already mentioned election of priests, orthe folkloristic and magic customs, the parishes still for some time pre-served the rather independent character of their religious life.

After all this, an answer to the question of whether there was also confes-sionalization in the Slavic Orthodoxy must sound ambiguous. At first, if


scholars have detected something like a 'confessionalization of mindand mentality' among the political, and the clerical elite, this is far lessthan it seems. But it is also perhaps of some significance and should notbe neglected, for it is usually the mind and the ideology, that stands atthe beginning of any attempt to form new structures. On the other hand,the next step towards the formation of structures shows differences inquality as well as in quantity.

Basically, when the scheme proposed by Wolfgang Reinhard, whichwe have used on occasion, describes reform steps undertaken by thechurch and its subordinate institutions in particular, one should have inmind that these steps do not always result in something completelynew. In fact, there is an old, almost 'classical' scheme of church reforms,that does not in any way lead automatically to confessionalization.Enforcing the discipline of the clerics, increasing levels of education andstrengthening internal structures have, since ancient times, been themeasures the Christian churches considered necessary to cope with a cri-sis. Similar endeavours, consequently, can be seen in the Byzantinechurch of the Early Middle Ages, in the Roman Catholic Church at the 4Lateran Council around 1214, and also at the Stoglav Synod in Muscovyin 1551. Confessionalization in all these cases was certainly not thetheme. Where, then, can one find in fact the new qualities of thereforms of 'Confessional Europe'? Perhaps, in many respects the imageof the Ukrainian Reforms before 1648, and those in Muscovy after 1654,in this sense still bear a rather conventional image. Parallels, e.g. withWolfgang Reinhard's scheme do not have to indicate a type of confes-sionalization. The striving of the Orthodox church, and the MuscoviteTsar at the end, had more in common with the Western Emperors andthe Catholic Church of the late Middle Ages, fighting repeatedly withtheir heresies and unconventional movements, all the lollards, hussites,

flagellants, etc. which appeared on the scene over the centuries beforethe Reformation.

Other similarities seem to be contradictory to this impression, and toshow more of a confessionalization development, as the work of theRussian 'educated monks' and bishops may show. Taking into accountthat Orthodoxy by its character is hardly capable (nor willing) to form aconfession in the Western sense even stmctural similarities are some-

times yet the more striking.As an initial result of the comparative use of the confessionalization

concept as a research tool for the Eastern Church, one might be contentwith the statement that there perhaps was a certain degree of confes-sionalization in the East Slavic Orthodoxy as well. The crucial question


differences in the light of the confessionalization concept is certainly astep forward. The real outcome of such a comparison will apparently onlybe accessible if we know how to interpret in detail the similarities anddifferences.

Notes

1. Cf. the passage in H. Schilling, 'Die Konfessionalisierung van Kirche, Staat undGesellschaft - Profil, Leistung, Defizite und Perspektiven eines geschichtswis-senschaftlichen Paradigmas' in idem and W. Reinhard (eds). Die katholischeKonfessionalisierung (Giitersloh: Gutersloher Verlagshaus 1995), pp. 1-49, hereesp. p. 8, and the following discussion, p. 48.

2. 'Es 1st europaisch vergleichend angelegt, und nimmt eine universalhistorischePerspektive ein. ' - H. Schilling, 'Konfessionalisiemng der europaischen Landerund ihre Folgen ftir Kirche, Staat, Gesellschaft und Kultur', in J. Bahlcke andA. Strohmeyer (eds), Konfessionallsierung in Ostmitteleuropa. Wirkungen desrellgwsen Wandels un 16. und 17. Jahrhundert in Staat, Gesellschaft und Kultur(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1999), pp. 13-62, p. 16.

3. Apparently, the protagonists of the 'confessionalization' concept themselveshad to concede this challenge. H. SchiUmg, e.g. on occasion has slightly dimin-ished the pretension to universality, tending to limit the value of 'confession-alization' to Latin Christianity of Western Europe, cf. idem, 'Confessionalisationand the Rise of Religious and Cultural Frontiers in Early Modern Europe', inE. Andor and I. G. Toth (eds). Frontiers of Faith. Religious Exchange and theConstitution of Religious Identities 1400-1750 (Budapest: CEU Press, 2001), pp.21-35, p. 22f.

4. Most important for this stmctural understanding of the term 'confession' hadbeen the contribution ofTiibingen historian E. W. Zeeden, cf. idem, 'Gmndlagenund Wege der Konfessionsbildung im Zeitalter der Glaubenskampfe',Historische Zeitschrift 185 (1958), pp. 249-99; idem, Die Entstehung derKonfessionen. Grundlagen und Formen der Konfessionsbildung im Zeitalter derGlaubenskdmpfe (Munich, Vienna: Oldenbourg, 1965).

5. Key texts for the concept are, for example, W. Reinhard, 'Gegenrefoimation alsModernisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters',Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 68 (1977) 226-52; idem, 'Konfession undKonfessionalisierung in Europa', in idem, ed., Bekenntnis und Geschichte. DieConfessio Augustana im historischen Zusammenhang (Munich: Voegel, 1981), pp.165-89; idem, 'Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung? Prolegomena zu einerTheorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters', Zeitschrift fur historische Forschung10 (1983) 257-77; H. Schilling, Konfessionskonflikt und Staatsbildung. EineFallstudie iiberdas Verhdltnis van religiosem undsozialem Wandel in der Friihneuzeitam Beispiel der Grafschaft Lippe (Gutersloh: Gtitersloher Verlagshaus, 1981);idem, 'Die Konfessionalisierung im Reich: Religioser und gesellschaftlicherWandel in Deutschland zwischen 1555 und 1620', Historische Zeitschrift 246(1988) 1-45 (English translation: idem, 'Confessionalization in the Empire.Religious and Societal Change in Germany between 1555 and 1620', in idem,Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modem Society: Essays inGerman and Dutch History (Leiden, New York, Cologne: Brill, 1992), pp. 205-45).


H. A. Oberman and J. D. Tracy (eds), Handbook of European History (GrandRapids, Mich. : W. B. Eardmans, 1996), pp. 641-81. Three volumes containthe first results of the communication process about the paradigm, each of thembeing devoted to one of the main confessions in Western Christianity:H. Schilling (ed). Die reformierte Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland (Giitersloh:Gutersloher Veriagshaus, 1986); H. -Chr. Rublack (ed), Die lutherischeKonfessionalisierung in Deutschland (Giitersloh: Gutersloher Veriagshaus,1992); W. Reinhard and H. Schilling (eds). Die katholische Konfessionalisierung(Giitersloh: Giitersloher Veriagshaus, 1995) - cf. footnotel.

6. See A. M. Poska, 'Confessionalization and Social Discipline in the IberianWorld', Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 94 (2003) 308-18.

7. See James A. Fair, 'Confessionalization and Social Discipline in France,1530-1685', Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 94 (2003) 276-92; Raymond A.Mentzer, Andrew Spicer (ed), Society and Culture in the Huguenot World1559-1685 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2002).

8. See U. Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung in Hand. Konflikt undKoexistenz im 16. und in der ersten Haelfte des 17. fahrhunderts (Tiibingen: MohrSiebeck, 2000).

9. See M. Asche, A. Schindling (eds), Ddnemark, Nonvegen und Schweden imZeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung. Nordische Konigreiche undKonfession 1500 bis 1650 (Mtinster: Aschendorff, 2003).

10. See the articles in Bahlcke/Strohmeyer, Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa.Further reflections are presented by J. Deventer, ' "Confessionalization" -a Useful Theoretical Concept for the Study of Religion, Politics, and Societyin Early Modem East-Central Europe?', European Review of History II (2004)403-25. On Poland-Lithuania the author of this survey is about to presentan own contribution, see A. Briining, 'Unio non est Unitas - Polen-LitauensWeg ins Konfessionelle Zeitalter (15-18), (first as Phil. Diss., Berlin 2004),forthcoming. On Bohemia cf. the recent remarks of St Plaggenborg,'Konfessionalisierung in Osteuropa im 17. Jahrhundert. Zur Reichweite einesForschungskonzeptes', mBohemia 44 (2003) 3-28, esp. 8-18. On Slovenia seeR. Partner, 'Confessionalization and Ethnicity: The Slovenian Reformationand Counter-Reformation in the 16th and 17. Centuries', Archiv furReformationsgeschichte 93 (2002) 239-77.

11. For the following summary see the well-grounded overview of U. Lotz-Heumann, The Concept of "Confessionalization": a Historiographical Paradigmin Dispute', Memoria y Civilizacion 4 (2001) 93-114, esp. 103ff.

12. Reinhard, 'Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung'; for the critique see e.g.W. Schulze, 'Konfessionalisiemng als Paradigma zur Erforschung des konfes-sionellen Zeitalters', in B. Dietz and St Ehrenpreis (eds), Drei Konfessionenin einer Region. Beitrdge zw Geschichte der Konfessionalisierung im Herzogtum Bergvom 16. bis zum 18. fahrhundert (Koln: Rheinland-Veriag, 1999), pp. 15-30.

13. See A. Schindling, 'Konfessionalisierung and Grenzen von Konfessionalisier-barkeit', in idem and W. Ziegler (eds), Die Territorien des Reiches im Zeitalter derReformation und Konfessionalisiemng. Land und Konfession 1500-1650, Vol 7:BUanz, Forschungsperspektiven, Register (Munster: Aschendorff, 1997),pp. 9-44.

14. For a response of W. Reinhard see idem., '"Konfessionalisierung" aufdem Prufstand', in Bahlcke and Strohmeyer, Konfessionalisierung in

Ostmitteleuropa. pp. 79-88; for the sociological leanings of the concept,mainly from the theoretical frameworks of T. Parsons and N. Luhmann,S. W. Reinhard, 'Konfession and Konfessionalisiemng in Europa'. Otheraspects of critique went a step further, when the idea of a 'modernization', foritself an assumption of German historiography of the 1970s, was put intoquestion. The discussion consequently affected the 'confessionalization'concept as well, of which 'modernization' is a constitutive element. Cf.L.Schorn-Schiitte, 'Konfessionalisierung als wissenschaftliches Paradigma?',in Bahlcke and Strohmeyer, Konfessionalisiemng in Ostmittelewopa, pp. 61-77.On the discussion about 'modernization' in the context of German'Gesellschaftsgeschichte' see H. U. Wehler (ed), Modemisieningstheorie undGeschichte (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1975).

15. Th. Kaufmann, Dreiff. igj&hnger Krieg und Westfdlischer Friede. KirchengeschichtlicheStudien zur lutherischen Konfessionskultur (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1998).

16. See idem, 'Die Konfessionalisierung van Kirche and Gesellschaft.Sammelbericht iiber eine Forschungsdebatte', Theologische Literaturzeitung121 (1996) here esp. col. 1121.; W. Ziegler, 'Kritisches zui Konfessiona-lisiemngsthese', in P. Friefi, R. Kiefiling (eds), Konfessionalwerung und Region(Konstanz: Universitatsverlag, 1999), pp. 41-53.

17. The classical study for the term is G. Oestreich, 'Strukturprobleme deseuropaischen Absolutismus', in idem, Geist und Gestalt des fruhmodemenStaates (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1969), pp. 179-97.

18. 'Meines Erachtens fullt die Kirche diese Liicke. Sie stellt ihren Apparat zurVerffigung und ermoglicht den Konsens der Betroffenen. Auf diese Weisewird "Konfessionalisierung" zur ersten Phase der "Sozialdisziplinierung"' -cf. Reinhard, 'Zwang zur Konfessionalisiemng', 276f.

19. For a summary of this aspect of critique see Lotz-Heumann, 'Confes-sionalization', 109-14; among the most important contributions to the dis-cussion since Reinhard's thesis was formulated have been e. g. H. R. Schmidt,'Sozialdisziplinierung? Ein Pladoyer fur das Ende des Etatismus in derKonfessionalisierungsforschung', Historische Zeitschrift 265 (1997) 639-82;M. Prinz, 'Sozialdisziplinierung und Konfessionalisiemng. Neuere Fragestell-ungen in der Sozialgeschichte der friihen Neuzeit', Westfdlische Forschungen42 (1992) 1-25; M. R. Forster, Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque.Religious Identity in Southwest Germany, 1550-1750 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001); A. Holzem, 'Die Konfessionsgesellschaft. Christenlebenzwischen staatlichem Bekenntniszwang und religiosei Heilshoffnung',Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte 110 (1999) 53-85.

20. Cf. Reinhard, 'Zwang zur Konfessionalisiemng', 268-77.21. Cf. Ibid., 266.22. For further reflections on this point see A. Bruning, 'Confessio Orthodoxa

und europaischer Konfessionalismus - einige Anhaltspunkte zuiVerhaltnisbestimmung', in R. 0. Crummey, H. Sundhaussen and R. Vulpius,(eds), Russische und Ukrainische Geschichte vom 16-18. Jahrhundert(=Forschungen zur osteuropaischen Geschichte, vol. 58) (Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz 2001), pp. 207-21.

23. For examples for the mostly apologetic historiography of the Uniate church offormer times cf., e.g. J. Pelesz, Geschichte der Union der ruthenischen Kirche mitRomvon den dltesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, vols 1-2 (Wurzburg: L. Woerl,


1878-80). The claim of former Uniate historiography for representing anUkrainian National Church is clearly represented in J. Madey, Kirchezwischen Ost und West. Beitrage zur Geschkhte der ukrainischen und weiff.ruthenischenKirche (Munchen: Ukiainische Freie Universitat - Monographien, 15, 1969).

24. Among the numerous examples of this direction see esp. V. Antonovych,Ocherk sostoianiia pravoslavnoi cerkvi v lugo-Zapadnoi Rossii s poloviny XVII dokonca XVIII st., preface to Arkhiv lugo-Zapadnoi Rossii, vol. IV, part I (Kiev:Tipografiia E. Fedorova, 1871). On the fate of the volume see also the com-ments of the editors in the reedition of the text in V. B. Antonovych, Moiaspovid'. Vybrani istorychni ta publicystychni tvory (Kiev, Lybid' 1995), pp. 767f.Of similar tendency is F. I. Titov, Russkaia pravoslavnala cerkov v pol'sko-litovskom gosudarstve v XVH-XVIII w. (1654-1725), vol. 1: Zapadnaia Rus' vbor'be za vem i narodnost' v XVII-XVIII w. (Kiev 1905).

25. Cf. E. Winter, Byzanz und Rom im Kampfum die Ukraine (Leipzig: Harrassowitz1942).

26. For a thorough catalogue of the vast literature on the topic, with its numbersprovided also with short comments, see I. Patrylo, Dzherela i bibliohrafliaistorii ukraiins'koi cerkvy, part I-II (Rome: Zapysky ChSVV, 1975, 1988). Adeliberate, albeit sometimes positivistic overview of a greater part of the lit-erature is now V. Lastovs'kyi, Istoriia pravoslavnoi cerkvy v Ukraiini naprykindXVII-XVin st: Istoriohraftchni aspekty (Kiev: Logos 2006).

27 I have in mind particularly F. E. Sysyn, Between Poland and the Ukraine. TheDilemma of Adam Kysil (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1985);see also his comments on another exemplary topic of the time, idem, 'PeterMohyla and the Kiev Academy in Recent Western Works: Divergent Views onSeventeenth-Century Ukrainian Culture', in Harvard Ukrainian Studies 10(1986) 156-87; D. A. Flick, Meletij Smotryc'kyf (Cambridge, Mass. : HarvardUniversity Press, 1995).

28. Cf. the articles in I. Banac et at, (eds), Concepts ofNationhood in Early ModemEastern Europe, thematically specialized volume of Harvard Ukrainian Studies10 (1986), nos 3, 4.

29. See, for example, the - apart from this quite solid - chapter by J. Oswalt, 'DieRegionen Weifirufilands im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung', in D. Beyrauand R. Lindner (eds), Handbwh der Geschichte Weifiruftlands (Gottingen:Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, 2001), pp. 344-58. Simultaneously, this is also theonly work on Belorussian Early Modern History to receive the confessional-ization concept at all, while native historiography seems to have completelyignored it so far.

30. Cf. M. V. Dmitriev, 'Centrobezhnye i centrostremitel'nye tendencii v rozvitiievropejskogo khristianstva', in idem, B. N. Florja and S. G. Jakovenko (eds),Brestskaia uniia 1596g. i obshchestvenno-politicheskaja bar'ba na Ukraine ivBelorussnvkonce XVI -nachale XVII v. (Moscow: Indrik 1996), pp. 15-32, esp. pp. 26ff.

31. See on this mainly Reinhard, 'Gegenreformation als Modernisiemng?'; idem,'Was ist die Katholische Konfessionalisierung?', in idem/Schilling, KatholischeKonfessionaUsierung, pp. 419-53.

32. M. V. Dmitriev, Mezhdu Rimom i Car'gradom. Genezis brestskoi unu 1595-1596gg. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 2003).

33. Ibid., pp. 272ff.; see also idem, 'Die Kirchenunion van Biest (1596) unddie Konfessionalisierung der polnischen Ostpolitik in der Regierungszeit

Sigismunds III.', in Chr. Augustynowicz and A. Kappeler et al. (eds), Russland,Polen und Osterreich in derFruhen Neuzeit. Festschrift fiir Walter Leitsch zum 75.Geburtstag (Wien et al. : Bohlau 2003), pp. 159-77.

34. S. Plokhy, The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modem Ukraine (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2001).

35. Ibid., p. 344.36. Ibid., Introduction, pp. 10-13.37. Ibid., p. 342; on the relations with Orthodox Muscovy prior to 1654 see

ch. 8, pp. 274-333.38. Ibid., p. 73.39. On the in fact quite complex composition of the Cossack social state see

already C. Kumke, Fuhrer und Geftihrte bei den Zaporoger Kosaken. Struktur undGeschichte kosakischer Verbdnde im polnisch-litauischen Grenzland (1550-1648)(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993).

40. See e.g. the review by A. Lavrov, soon to be published in the Journal ofUkrainian Studies. (I am grateful to Professor Lavrov for his manuscript.)

41. Cf. N. Yakovenko, Skil'ki oblich u viini: Khmel'nychchyna ochyma siichasnykiv,in eadem, Paralel'nyi svit. Doslidzhennia z istorii uiavlen' ta idei v UkraiimXVI-XVIIst. (Kiev: Kritika 2002), pp. 189-228.

42. See for example W. A. Serczyk, Na dalekiej Ukrainie. Dzieje Kozaczyzny do 1648roku (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1984), pp. 175-9.

43. Cf. most recently V. Shcherbak, Ukraiins'ke kozactvo. Formuvannia social'nohostanu (Kiev: Vydavnichyi Dim 'KM Akademiia', 2000) (esp. ch. 5. 2);V. Holobuc'kyi, Zaporozhs'ke kozactvo (Kiev, Vyshcha shkola, 1994).

44. Cf. Arkhiv lugo-Zapadnoi Rossii, part II, vol. 1, Introduction, pp. XXIX-XXXIand ibid., no. 12, p. 118; no. 21, pp. 228-50, etc.

45. For a most interesting study on the patronate of the Protestant Radziwillprinces in Lithuania over their Orthodox subordinates see now R. D^giel,Protestanci i prawoslcmni. Patronat wyznaniowy Radziwillow birzanskich nadCerkwiqprawoslawnyw ksi^stwie sluckim w XVII w. (Warsaw: Neriton, 2000).

46. Cf. B. N. Fiona, 'Otrazhenie religioznikh konfliktov mezhdu protivnikami ipriverzhencami unii v "massovom soznanii" prostogo naseleniia Ukrainy iBelomssii v pervoi polovine XVII v. ', in M. V. Dmitriev, L. V. Zaborovskii,A. A. TurUov and B. N. Fiona (eds), Brestskaia uniia 1596 g. i obshchestvenm-politicheskaia bor'ba na Ukraine i v Belorussii v konce XVI - pervoi polovine XVHv., part II: Brestskaia uniia 1596 g. Istoricheskie posledstviia sobytiia (Moscow:Indrik, 1999), pp. 151-73, esp. pp. 157ff., 165.

47 Plokhy's reflection on social and ethnocultural factors, which shapedCossack identity alongside with religious ones, is mainly in ibid., ch. 4,pp. 145-75. Elsewhere in historiography, nuances are set differently, with lessemphasis on religion. See F. E. Sysyn, 'Ukrainian Social Tensions before theKhmel'nyts'kyi uprising', in S. H. Baron and N. Sh. Kollmann (eds), Religionand Culture in Early Modem Russia and Ukraine (DeKalb: Northern IllinoisUniversity Press, 1997), pp. 52-70; idem, 'Orthodoxy and Revolt: The Role ofReligion in the Seventeenth-Century Ukrainian Uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth', in J. D. Tracy and M. Ragnow (eds), Religion and theEarly Modem State. Views from China, Russia and the West (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004), pp. 154-84. See also the critical review of Plokhy'sbook by G. B. Michels, in The American Historical Review 108 (2003), no. 5.


48. M. V. Dovbyshchenko, 'Realii ta mify relihyinoho protystoiannia na Volyni vkinci XVI -pershoi polovyni XVII st. ', in Socium. Al'manach social'noji istorifi,vyp. 2 (2003) 57-82^ Dovbyshchenko's article refers critically, among others,to the results published by Fiona, 'Otrazhenie religioznikh konfliktov'

49. See H. Schilling, Konfessionskonflikt und Staatsbildung. Elne Fallstudie uber d.Verhaltnis van religiosem und sozialem Wandel in der Fruhneuzeit am Beispiel derGrafschaft Lippe (Gutersloh: Mohn, 1981).

50. See the extent recent monograph by B. Gudziak, Crisis andReform. TheKyivanMetropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the UnionofBrest (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1998).

51. The problem of Orthodox adoptions of Western models and an allegedundue transformation of the Eastern faith by this adoption has for long beendiscussed, especially since the critique of father G. Florovskii in his Putt russk-ago bogosloviia (Paris: YMCA, 1937), esp. pp. 50ff. I have tried to treat thisquestion in A. Briining, 'Peter Mohyla's Orthodox and Byzantine Heritage.Religion and Politics in the Kievan Church Reconsidered', in H.-J. Torke, ed.,VonMoskau nach St Petersburg. Das russische Reich im 17. Jahrhundert CWiesbaden:Harrassowitz, 2000), pp. 65-90.

52. See Reinhard, 'Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung', 263-8.53. A concise monograph on Ruts'kyi and the Uniate reforms, fitting with con-

temporary standards, is probably still a matter of desire. Informative, althoughtendentious in spots, is M. Szegda, Dzialalnosc prawno-organizacyjna MetropolityJozefa IV Weljamyna Ruts'kiego (1613-1637) (Warsaw: Akademia teologiikatolickiej, 1967); see also S. Senyk, 'Rutskyj's Reform and OrthodoxMonasticism: a Comparison. Eastern Rite Monastidsm in the Polish-LithuamanCommonwealth in the Seventeenth Century', Orientalia Christiana Periodica48 (1982) 406-30.

54. See'I. Skochylias, 'Heneral'ni vizytacii v ukraiins'ko-bilorus'kykh ieparkhi-iakh uniats'koii mitropolii. 1596-1720 roky', in Zapysky Naukovoho Tovarystvaim. Shchevchenka 238-(2000) 46-94. Idem, Sobory 1'vivs'koi eparkhii XVI-XVIHst. (L'viv: Vydavnyctvo UKU, 2006). The latter work, with a thorough historicalintroduction and a vast collection of materials, was available to me, unfortu-nately, only in the very final phase of the composition of this chapter, andtherefore could be taken into account superfidally.

55. Cf., 'Der Katechismus des hi. Josaphat, Martyrer-Erzbischof von Polotzk', inDer christliche Osten 15 (1960) 92-101; 'Regeln des HI. Josaphat far seinePriester', Der christliche Osten 16 (1961) 27-30, 50-61, 91.

56. Cf. recently P. Wawrzeniuk, Confessional CivWzing in Ukraine The Bishop losyfShumliansky and the Introduction of Re forms in the Diocese ofLviv 1668-1708(Sodertorn: Sodertorn hflgskola, 2005).

57. Skochylias, Sobory I'vwskoi eparkhii, Introduction, pp. xcff.58. Cf. A. Sydorenko, The Kievan Academy in the 17th Century (Ottawa: University

of Ottawa Press, 1977), together with the critical remarks by F. E. Sysyn, 'PeterMohyla and the Kiev Academy in Recent Western Works: Divergent Views onSeventeenth-Century Ukrainian Culture', in HUS 10 (1986) 156-87, here esp.pp. 158-60.

59 On Mohyla one can still refer to St T. Golubev, Kievskii Mitropolit PetrMogila iego spodvizhniki, vol. 1 (Kiev: Korchak-Novickij, 1883), vol. 2 (Kiev: Korchak-Novickij, 1898'); see furthermore A. Zhukovs'kyj, PetroMohyla ipytannia iednosti


cerkov, 2nd edn (Kiev: Mystectvo, 1996) (on Mohyla's renewal of hierarchy andstructu7e"see-ibid., p. 99, with further references); Ihor Shevchenko, TheMany Worlds of Peter Mohyla', in idem, vkmme Betwem^ast and, w^t(Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1996), pp. 164-86.

60. See Bruning, 'Confessio Orthodoxa', passim.61. The outlined developments are treated deliberately in Plokhy's booK as well,

who states that especially Mohyla's reforms 'helped to set thewhole Orthodoxworid'on' the path of confessionalization' - cf. Plokhy, The Cossacks andReUgion, ~ch. 2, pp. 65-99, on Mohyla esp. pp. 95ff (quotation p 97),N. Takovenko, Narys istorii seredn'ovichnoii ta rann'omodernon Ukraimy,̂ 2ndedn'(Kiev: Kritika, 2005), pp. 285-92. The chapter is entitled 'Peishi kroky nashliakhu konfesionalizadi: "mentalnisf reform"'.

62. Cf. Fiona, 'Otrazhenie religioznykh konfliktov', 153.63'. Cf. M'. -V.'Dovbyshchenko'(ed),'Pam/Mfty. Arkhiv ukraiins'koi cerkvy. Vyp^ 1:

Dokumenty dc/istoriii unii na Volyni i Kyivshchyni kinda XVI ̂ peKho)polovynyXVII st., vol. 3 (Kiev: Ukrains'kyi Derzhavnyi Naukovo-DoslidnyiInst. Archivnoi Spravy ta Dokumentoznavstva, 2001), p. 76f.

64. Ct Aleksander Kossowski, 'Btaski i cienie unii koscielne) w Polsce w XVII-XVIIIw^'wswietle zrodet archiwalnych', in Ksiega pamiatkowa ku czci jego ekscelenciiX. 'biskupa'Mariana Leona Fulmana, czesc III: wydziaf^ nauk humanistycznych(LubUn:rKatolicki uniwersytet Lubelski, 1939), pp. 62-132'es^PP;64;9-;LChistovich, Ocherk istorii zapadno-russkoi cerkvy, chast' 2 (St Peterburg:Tipografiia Depart. Udelov 1884), pp. 376-9. A vivid portrait of reUgious lifein the Uniate parishes has recently been drawn by Wawrzeniuk, ConfessionalCivilizing, pp. 101-40.

65. Cf. Plokhy^ 'Cossacks and Religion, pp. 142, 236-273.66'. Cf. 0. P. Kryzhanivs'kyi, Serhii Plochli, Istoriia cerkvy ta reHhimoii dumky na

Ukrmini, vol. 3 (Kiev: Lybid', 1994), p. 78.67. 'Kievskii sober 1691 g. '" in Kievskie Eparkhial'nye Vedomosti, No. 8 (1865), part

2, 313-29. . . .. ,68. Almost'exhaustive on this point is still K. V. Kharlampovich, Malorossnskoe

viiiame na velikorusskuiu cerkovnuw zhizn' (first Kazan, 1914, reprint TheHague: Mouton, 1968).

69. Cf. footnote 61 above.70. See'Kharlampovich, Malorossiiskoe vliianie, pp. 95-146. On the 'zealots

piety;-see W.'Heller, Die Moskauer 'Eiferer fur die Frommigkelt' zwischen Staatund'Kirche (1642-1652) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988).

71. A. Prokopiev (ed), Konfessionalizadia v zapadnoi iwstc>chnoiEvroP<'vranne^Novoevrmiia. Doklady russo-nemeckoi nauchnoi konferencii 14-16 noiabria 2000g. (St Petersburg: Aleteiia, 2004).

72. Idem,-'Vvedenie. Reformadia, Kontrreformaciia, Konfessionalizadia', in idem,KonfessionaUzadia, pp. 5-29.

73. See notes 5 and 20 above.74 See Plaggenborg, 'Konfessionalisierung in Osteuropa', 18-2875. Seefor°exampleJ. Kotilaine and M. Poe (eds). Modernizing Muscovy. Reform

and Social Change in Seventeenth-century Russia (London/New York: Routlegde/Curzon, 2004). _ . " .. , , ^ _".

76. R.~6^Crummey, 'Ecclesiastical Elites and Popular Belief and Practice inSeventeenth-century Russia', in Tracy/Ragnow, Religion and the Early Modem


State, pp. 52-79. It is mainly religious reform from above, what Crummeytends to sum up by the term 'confessionalization', cf. ibid., p. 62.

77. Cf. for example Reinhard, 'Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung', 268-77.78. Cf. Deianiia moskovskikh soborov 1666-1667 godov, ed. N. I. Subbotin (Moscow

1893, Reprint Westmead 1969). See also W. van Scheliha, Russland und dieorthodoxe Universalkirche in der Patriarchatsperiode (1589-1721) (Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz 2004), esp. pp. 294-312; Plaggenborg, 'Konfessionalisierung', 22f.

79. Cf. PolnoeSobrameZakonovRossuskoiImperii, vol. 2, no. 1163, pp. 647-50(1685).80. See D. Coulter, 'Church Reform and the "White Clergy" in Seventeenth-

century Russia', in Kotilaine and Poe, Modernizmg Muscovy, pp. 291-316, hereesp. pp. 310-15. For the eighteenth century, see G. L. Freeze, The RussianLevites. Parish Clergy in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass. : HarvardUniversity Press, 1977), pp. 29-33.

81. This is true, for example, for the heritage of Kievan Rus, which apparently onlyin the second half of the 17th century became an integrated part of Russianself-consciousness and the state ideology. See E. L. Keenan, 'On CertainMythical Beliefs and Russian Behaviour', in F. Starr (ed. ), The Legacy of Historyin Russia and the New States ofEurasia (Armond et al. : Sharpe, 1994), pp. 19-40.

82. On this dispute about transsubstantiation and eucharisty cf. Scheliha, Russlandund die orthodoxe Universalkirche, pp. 441-64.

83. Ibid., ch. Ill, pp. 327-34.84. Kaufmann, Konfessionskultur.85. From the Russian orthodox part see for example the famous work by

G. Florovskii, Puti russkago bogoslovia. An example from Western historiographyis for example Th. G. Masaryk, Russische Geistes- und Religionsgeschichte, vol. 1(Jena 1913, reprint Frankfurt a. M. : Biichergilde Gutenberg 1992), p. 41.

86. G. B. Michels, 'Rescuing the Orthodox. The Church Policies of Afanasii ofKholmogory', in R. P. Geraci, M. Khodarkovsky (eds). Of Religion and Empire.Missions, Conversions and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia (Ithaca and London: CornellUniversity Press, 2001), pp. 19-37.

87. On the type of the 'educated monks' see I. Smolitsch, Geschichte der russlschenKirche, vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964), pp. 392-98.

88. Coulter, 'Church Reform and the "White Clergy"', pp. 292-6.89. On the tradition of the priests being elected by the parishioners in the 17th

century (and before) see P. V. Znamenskii, Prikhodskoe dukhovenstvo v Rossii50 vremeni reformy Petra (reprint St Petersburg: Izdat. Dom 'Kolo', 2003),pp. 193-235; Smolitsch, Geschichte der russischen Kirche, pp. 431ff.

90. A. V. Kamkin, Pravoslavnaia cerkov na severe Rossii (Vologda: VologodskijGosudarstvennyj Pedagogiaceskij Inst., 1992), pp. lOlff. ; Smolitsch, Geschichteder russischen Kirche, p. 370f.

91. Cf. G. B. Michels, 'The Patriarch's Rivals: Local Strongmen and the Limits ofChurch Reform During the Seventeenth Century', in Kotilaine and Poe,Modernizing Muscovy, pp. 317-41.

92. For a correspondent example see idem, 'The Rise and Fall of ArchbishopStefan: Church Power, Local Society, and the Kremlin during the SeventeenthCentury', in Torke, Van Moskau nach St Petersburg, pp. 203-26.

93. Cf. Robert 0. Crummey, The Old Believers and the World ofAntichrist. The VygCommunity and the Russian State 1694-1855 (Madison: University of WisconsinPress, 1970).

94. Cf. Plaggenborg, 'Konfessionalisierung', 21, who argues, however, thatrightly this combination of social, political and religious conflict is potentiallya sign for confessionallzation.

95. See in particular G. B. Michels, At War with the Church. Religious Dissent inSeventeenth Century Russia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). For aninteresting case study in this context see A. Lavrov, '"Alter Glaube" and "NeuerGlaube" in einem einzelnen Bezirk: Del Fall Kargopol' (1653-1700)', inA. Kappeler (ed). Die Geschichte Russlands im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert aus derPerspektive seiner Regionen (Wiesbaden: Hairassowitz 2004), pp. 199-219.

96. See Crummey, 'Ecclesiastical Elites and Popular Belief, passim. On the parishpriests in this context see, e.g. E. B. Smilianskaia, 'Pravoslavnyi pastyr' i ego"suevernaia" pastva (k izucheniiu naraodnoi religioznosti v Rossii pervoi tretiXVIII v. )', in M. S. Kiseleva (ed), Chelovek mezhdu Carstvom i Imperiei. Sbomikmaterialov mezhdunarodnoi konferendi (Moscow: Inst. Cheloveka RAN, 2003),pp. 407-15 (with further references on the topic).

97. See the overview by L. Behrisch, 'Social Discipline in Early Modem Russia', inH. Schilling (ed), Institutionen, Instrumente und Akteure sozialer Kontrolle undDisziplinierung im fruhneuzeitlichen Ewopa (Frankfurt a. M. : Klostermann,1999), pp. 325-57.

98. D. H. Kaiser, ' "Whose Wife Will She Be at the Resurrection?". Marriage andRemarriage in Early Modem Russia', Slavic Review 62 (2002), no. 2, pp. 302-23.;N. Boskovska, Die russische Frau im 17. fahrhundert (Koln et al. : Bohlau, 1998).

99. D. H. Kaiser, 'Quotidian Orthodoxy: Domestic Life in Early Modem Russia',in V. A. Kivelson and R. H. Greene (eds). Orthodox Russia. Belief and Practiceunder the Tsars (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003),pp. 179-192.

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