The NU Library & SSH Department of History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies are delighted to invite you to a book presentation of "Russia’s Social Gospel: The Orthodox Pastoral Movement in Famine, War, and Revolution" by Daniel Scarborough.

About the Book

The Late Russian Empire experienced rapid economic change, social dislocation, and multiple humanitarian crises, enduring two wars, two famines, and three revolutions. A "pastoral activism" took hold as parish clergymen led and organized the response of Russia's Orthodox Christians to these traumatic events. In Russia's Social Gospel, Daniel Scarborough considers the roles played by pastors in the closing decades of the failing tsarist empire and the explosive 1917 revolutions.

The book draws upon extensive archival research to examine the effects of the pastoral movement on Russian society and the Orthodox Church. Scarborough argues that the social work of parish clergymen shifted the focus of Orthodox practice in Russia toward cooperative social activism as a devotional activity. Parish priests were charged with both spiritual and secular responsibilities, but were supported by neither church hierarchy nor state institutions. In rising to meet this challenge, the Orthodox pastorate created new social networks for the organization of mutual aid. These networks ultimately assumed political significance, contributing to Church reform and the restoration of the Moscow patriarchate.

About the Author

Daniel Scarborough is an Associate Professor of history at Nazarbayev University. His interests include the religious and intellectual history of late imperial Russia, and Muslim-Christian relations in 19th-century Central Asia.

Daniel grew up in Jacksonville Florida. He studied philosophy as an undergraduate at St. John’s College in Santa Fe New Mexico before moving to Russia in 2001 as a Peace Corps volunteer. He taught English in Opochka, Lodeinoe Pole, and Tver'. Daniel returned to Russia in 2007 to conduct archival research in Moscow and Tver' as a Fulbright-Hays fellow. In 2012, he earned his PhD in the history of the Russian Empire from Georgetown University. From 2013 to 2015, he held a fellowship at the Havighurst Center of Miami University in Oxford Ohio. He began teaching history at Nazarbayev University in August of 2015.

More information for this book from https://www.amazon.com/Russias-Social-Gospel-Orthodox-Revolution/dp/0299337200

Format: Hybrid event

YouTube Premier link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P660znAqJAc