Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:04:22.078Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Economy of the Temples of God in the Turmoil of Changing Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2014

Detelina Tocheva
Detelina Tocheva*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale [[email protected]].
Get access

Abstract

The liberalisation of religious practice after the fall of the Soviet regime and the support by the Russian state to the Russian Orthodox Church have contributed to the enormous growth of the church economy. Controversies within and without the Church interrogate commercial and gifting practices. The relationship between the expansion of church commerce and the operation of moral boundaries, underlined by critical stances, has been determined by culture and history, with the post-Soviet transformation having played a key role in shaping popular notions of selflessness and profit-seeking. Moreover, as people participate in the church economy they mobilise perceptions of the differential moral valence of gift and commerce in order to communicate concerning the power of the Church, its controversial image, Russia’s social stratification, and to deploy ethics of equity and honesty.

Résumé

La libéralisation des pratiques religieuses après la chute de l’Union soviétique et le soutien apporté par l’État russe à l’Église orthodoxe russe ont contribué à son très fort enrichissement. Des controverses à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur de l’Église ont surgi sur les pratiques commerciales et de don. La collusion entre religion et commerce dénoncée par les critiques qui rappellent les interdits moraux est un produit historique et culturel, la transformation post-soviétique ayant joué un rôle-clé dans la formation des notions populaires de désintéressement et de recherche de profit. Tout en participant à l’activité économique de l’Église, les fidèles mobilisent des visions différenciées de la valeur morale du don et du commerce qui alimentent le débat sur le pouvoir de l’Église et son image, la stratification sociale en Russie et appellent à une éthique d’équité et d’honnêteté.

Zusammenfassung

Die freie Religionsausübung seit der Auflösung der Sowjetunion und die Unterstützung der orthodoxen Kirche durch den russischen Staat haben zum enormen Wirtschaftswachstum letzterer beigetragen. Innere und äußere Kirchenkontroversen hinterfragen die Wirtschafts- und Spendepraktiken. Das Verhältnis zwischen Ausbau des Kirchenumsatzes und Entstehung moralischer Grenzen, hervorgehoben durch kritische Meinungsäußerungen, wurde durch Kultur und Geschichte bestimmt, wobei die postsowjetische Umwandlung eine Schlüsselrolle in der Entstehung eines volkseigenen Verständnisses von Uneigennützigkeit und Profitsuche gespielt hat. Durch die Teilnahme an der religiösen Wirtschaft entwickeln die Menschen darüberhinaus eine Vorstellung von differentieller moralischer Wertung in puncto Spende und Handel, um über die Kirchenmacht, ihr umstrittenes Bild und die soziale Stratifizierung Russlands zu kommunizieren, aber auch um eine Gerichtigkeits- und Ehrlichkeitsethik einzuführen.

Keywords

Russian Orthodox ChurchReligious economyGiftCommercePostsocialismÉglise orthodoxe russeÉconomie religieuseDonCommercePost-socialismeRussisch-orthodoxe Kirchereligiöse WirtschaftSpendeHandelPostsozialismus
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , April 2014 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Agadjanian, Alexander and Rousselet, Kathy, 2005. “Globalization and Identity Discourse in Russian Orthodoxy” in Roudometof, Victor and Agadjanian, Alexander, eds., Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twenty-First Century (Walnut Creek, AltaMira Press: 29-57).Google Scholar
Agadjanian, Alexander and Rousselet, Kathy, eds., 2011. Prikhody i Obshchiny v Sovremennom Pravoslavii: Kornevaia Sistema Rossiiskoi Religioznosti [Parishes and Communities in Contemporary Orthodoxy: The Basic System of Russian religiosity] (Moscow, Ves’ Mir).Google Scholar
Benovska-Sabkova, Milena, Köllener, Tobias, Komáromi, Tünde, Ładykowska, Agata, Tocheva, Detelina and Zigon, Jarrett, 2010. “‘Spreading grace’ in post-Soviet Russia”, Anthropology Today, 26 (1): 16-21.Google Scholar
Bernshtam, Tatiana A., 2005. Prikhodskaya Zhizn’ Russkoi Derevni: Ocherki po Tserkovnoi Etnografii [Parish Life of the Russian Village: Essays in Church Ethnography] (Saint Petersburg, Ethnographica Petropolitana, Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie).Google Scholar
Bogdanov, Konstantin A., 1995. Den’gi v Fol’klore [Money in Folklore] (Saint Petersburg, Bell).Google Scholar
Bourdeaux, Michael, ed., 1995. The Politics of Religion in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (Armonk, Sharpe).Google Scholar
Caldwell, Melissa, 2004. Not by Bread Alone: Social Support in the New Russia (Berkeley, University of California Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldwell, Melissa, 2007. “Elder Care in the New Russia: The Changing Face of Compassionate Social Security”, Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology, 50: 66-80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrier, James G., 1995. Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism since 1700 (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Carrier, James G. and Luetchford, Peter G., eds., 2012. Ethical Consumption: Social Value and Economic Practice (New York, Berghahn Books).Google Scholar
Coleman, Simon, 2000. The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, Simon, 2004. “The Charismatic Gift”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10 (2): 421-442.Google Scholar
Coleman, Simon, 2006. “Materializing the Self: Words and Gifts in the Construction of Charismatic Protestant Identity” in Cannell, Fenella, ed., The Anthropology of Christianity (Durham, Duke University Press: 163–184).Google Scholar
Coleman, Simon, 2011. “Prosperity Unbound? Debating the ‘Sacrificial Economy’”, The Economics of Religion: Anthropological Approaches. Research in Economic Anthropology, 31: 23-45.Google Scholar
Dinello, Natalia, 1998. “Russian Religious Rejections of Money and Homo Economicus: The Self-Identifications of the ‘Pioneers of a Money Economy’ in Post-Soviet Russia”, Sociology of Religion, 59 (1): 45-64.Google Scholar
Fedotov, George P., 1966. The Russian Religious Mind. Vol. II: The Middle Ages, the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Centuries (Cambridge, Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Freeze, George, 1983. The Parish Clergy in Nineteenth-Century Russia. Crisis, Reform, Counter-Reform (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Gregory, Christopher A., 1980. “Gifts to Men and Gifts to Gods”, Man (N.S.), 15 (4): 626-652.Google Scholar
Gregory, Christopher A., 1982. Gifts and Commodities (London, Academic Press).Google Scholar
Hart, Keith, 2000. The Memory Bank: Money in an Unequal World (London, Profile Books).Google Scholar
Humphrey, Caroline, 2002. The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies after Socialism (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Humphrey, Caroline and Mandel, Ruth, 2002. “The Market in Everyday Life: Ethnographies of Postsocialism” in Mandel, Ruth and Humphrey, Caroline, eds., Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism (Oxford, Berg: 1-16).Google Scholar
Kiernan, J. P., 1988. “The Other Side of the Coin: The Conversion of Money to Religious Purposes in Zulu Zionist Churches”, Man (N.S.), 23 (3): 453-468.Google Scholar
Knox, Zoe, 2005. Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism (London, Routledge Curzon).Google Scholar
Köllner, Tobias, 2011. “Built with Gold or Tears? Moral Discourses on Church Construction and the Role of Entrepreneurial Donations”, in Zigon, Jarrett, ed., Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet Russia (New York, Berghahn Books: 191-213).Google Scholar
Köllner, Tobias, 2012. Practising Without Belonging? Entrepreneurship, Morality, and Religion in Contemporary Russia (Berlin, LIT).Google Scholar
Köllner, Tobias, 2013. “Businessmen, Priests and Parishes: Religious Individualization and Privatization in Russia”, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 162: 37-53.Google Scholar
Kormina, Jeanne, 2008. “Ispolkomy i Prikhody: Religioznaia Zhizn’ Pskovskoi Oblasti v Pervuiu Poslevoennuiu Piatiletku” [Executive Committees and Parishes: Religious Life in the Pskov Region in the First Five Years after the War], Neprikosnovennyi Zapas, 3 (59), accessed on 28 March 2012 from http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2008/3/ko11.htmlGoogle Scholar
Kuraev, Andrei, 2006. Tserkov’ i Molodezh’: Neizbezhen li Konflikt? [The Church and the Youth: Is the Conflict Unavoidable?] (Saint Petersburg, Russkii Ostrov).Google Scholar
Ledeneva, Alena, 1998. Russia’s Economy of Favours. Blat, Networking and Informal exchange (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1984 [1922]. The Argonauts of the Western Pacific (Prospect Heights, Waveland Press).Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1926. Crime and Custom in Savage Society (London, Paul Kegan, Trench, Trubner & Co.).Google Scholar
Manning, Nick and Tikhovona, Nataliya, eds., 2004. Poverty and Social Exclusion in the New Russia (Alderhsot, Ashgate).Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel, 1950 [1924]. “Essai sur le Don. Formes et Raisons de l’Echange dans les Sociétés Archaïques”, in Mauss Marcel, Sociologie et Anthropologie (Paris, PUF : 143-279).Google Scholar
Mitrokhin, Nikolai, 2004. Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’: Sovremennoe Sostoyanie i Aktual’nye Problemy [The Russian Orthodox Church: Contemporary Situation and Current Problems] (Moscow, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie).Google Scholar
Nazarov, A. A., 2006. Ekonomika i Religiia Rossiiskoi Imperii. Konfessional’naia Politika v Sisteme Ekonomicheskikh Reform (Po Materialam Zakonodatel’stva XVIII – XIXvv) [Economy and Religion in the Russian Empire. Confessional Policy in the System of Economic Reforms (Based on Materials from Legislation in XVIII – XIX centuries)] (Moscow, Paradiz).Google Scholar
Obadia, Lionel and Wood, Donald C., 2011. “Economics and Religion, Economics in Religion, Economics of Religion: Reopening the Grounds for Anthropology?”, Research in Economic Anthropology. The Economics of Religion: Anthropological Approaches, 31: xiii-xxxvii.Google Scholar
Parry, Jonathan, 1986. “The Gift, the Indian Gift and the ‘Indian Gift’”, Man (N.S.), 21 (3): 453-473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patico, Jennifer, 2005. “To be Happy in a Mercedes: Tropes of Value and Ambivalent Visions of Marketization”, American Ethnologist, 32 (3): 479-496.Google Scholar
Patico, Jennifer, 2008. Consumption and Social Change in a Post-Soviet Middle Class (Washington D.C., Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford, Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Patico, Jennifer, 2009. “Spinning the Market: the Moral Alchemy of Everyday Talk in Postsocialist Russia”, Critique of Anthropology, 29 (2): 205-224.Google Scholar
Pesmen, Dale, 1995. “Standing Bottles, Washing Deals, and Drinking ‘For the Soul’ in a Siberian City”, Anthropology of East Europe Review, 13 (2): 65-75.Google Scholar
Pesmen, Dale, 2000. Russia and Soul: an Exploration (Ithaca, Cornell University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richters, Katja, 2013. The Post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church: Politics, Culture and Greater Russia (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Ries, Nancy, 2002. “‘Honest Bandits’ and ‘Warped People’: Russian Narratives about Money, Corruption, and Moral Decay”, in Greenhouse, Carol J., Mertz, Elizabeth and Warren, Kay B., eds., Ethnography in Unstable Places: Everyday Lives in Contexts of Dramatic Political Change (Durham and London, Duke University Press: 267-315).Google Scholar
Rivkin-Fish, Michele, 2005. Women’s Health in Post-Soviet Russia: the Politics of Intervention (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press).Google Scholar
Rivkin-Fish, Michele, 2009. “Tracing Landscapes of the Past in Class Subjectivity: Practices of Memory and Distinction in Marketizing Russia”, American Ethnologist, 36 (1): 79-95.Google Scholar
Roitman, Janet L., 2003. “Unsanctioned Wealth; or the Productivity of Debt in Northern Cameroon”, Public Culture, 15 (2): 211-237.Google Scholar
Rousselet, Kathy, 2013. « L’autorité religieuse en contexte post-soviétique : regard sur le fonctionnement des paroisses russes orthodoxes », Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 162: 15-36.Google Scholar
Rozov, A. N., 2003. Sviashchennik v Dukhovnoi Zhizni Russkoi Derevni [The Priest in the Spiritual Life of the Russian Village] (Saint Petersburg, Aleteia).Google Scholar
Shevzov, Vera, 2004. Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Thyrêt, Isolde, 2010. “Economic Reconstruction or Corporate Raiding? The Borisoglebskii Monastery in Torzhok and the Ascription of Monasteries in the 17th Century”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 11 (3): 490-511.Google Scholar
Tocheva, Detelina, 2011. “Crafting Ethics: The Dilemma of Almsgiving in Russian Orthodox Churches”, Anthropological Quarterly, 84 (4): 1011-1034.Google Scholar
Toshchenko, Zhan, 2009. “Ekonomicheski Pritiazania Religii” [The Economic Claims of Religion], Novaia Gazeta, 6 July 2009, accessed on 28 March 2012 from http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=71792&cf=Google Scholar
Wanner, Catherine, 2005. “Money, Morality and New Forms of Exchange in Postsocialist Ukraine”, Ethnos, 70 (4): 515-537.Google Scholar
Zelizer, Viviana, 1997 [1994]. The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Zelizer, Viviana, 2009 [1979]. Morals and Markets: The Development of Life Insurance in the United States (New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers).Google Scholar