The Religious Landscape of Revolutionary St. Petersburg,1905-1918

Abstract

Although legitimately associated with a crisis of faith and the rapid spread of atheistic-socialism, the revolutionary period 1905-1918 in St. Petersburg/Petrograd can and should also be understood as one of unprecedented religious experimentation and spiritual growth, even among the working classes. Rejecting overly simplistic notions of “secularization” and de-Christianization, this article offers a necessarily fluid and pluralistic portrait of Petersburg religious culture, the contours of which were shaped by tensions between rural and urban practices, popular and official institutions, and competing notions of the sacred and the profane in the city’s increasingly diverse marketplace of beliefs. It examines the new and varied demands that working-class believers voiced with respect to the role of the Orthodox faith and Church in their lives and investigates urban Orthodoxy as it was “lived,” including changes and continuities in religious practice, sacramental life, icon worship, and pilgrimage.