Encyclopaedia

In the early 1990s Xenia Dennen brought back from Moscow some spravki (reports) on some Russian Orthodox dioceses written by Sergei Filatov, a scholar from Moscow’s Oriental Institute, and showed them to Michael Bourdeaux, then director of Keston Institute.

These spravki formed the beginning of a major project to produce an Encyclopaedia about religious life in Russia today. Michael Bourdeaux found their contents fascinating and felt that here was an opportunity to make a detailed study of the religious situation in Russia which should not be missed, knowing from experience how quickly official attitudes towards religion could change and how open doors could suddenly slam shut.

Currently the Encyclopaedia is available only in Russian, although it is hoped eventually to publish an English version. The First Edition was compiled over a 12-year period, and eventually completed with the publication of a seventh and final volume in the autumn of 2008 (the volume was presented to the press and the academic world at the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice in Moscow on 14 January 2009). It was divided into two parts. Part I, in four Volumes, covered all the religious denominations existing in Russia. Part II, consisting of three Volumes, was a geographical survey covering all 78 administrative entities in the Russian Federation, studying the religious make-up on each oblast, krai and republic, listed in alphabetical order. Historical background was provided, as well as the latest information on each denomination's structure and activities, church-state relations, interdenominational relations and local intellectual life, with addresses, telephone numbers, websites and e-mail addresses listed whenever possible.

To take account of developments in Russia since the completion of the First Edition, work is underway on a Second Edition of Part II. This will ultimately be in seven volumes, of which four have so far been published - the first in 2014, the second in 2016, the third in 2018 and the fourth (Vol. 5) in 2022. It is hoped that another volume (Vol.4) will be published in 2025.

In Part I, each denomination was studied under the following subject headings:

organisational structure
short history
basic doctrines, current theological position
number of members, churches
geographical distribution
national composition
mass media outlets and publications
educational institutions
monasteries (where relevant)
social and charitable bodies
economic position
bibliography

Volume 1 covers Orthodoxy (the Moscow Patriarchate, the Free Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, the Catacomb or True Orthodox Church); Old Believers; Spiritual Christianity (Dukhobors , Molokans); Armenian Apostolic Church; Oriental Orthodox (Syrian); Catholic Church.

Volume 2 covers Protestant denominations: Anglicans; Lutherans; Reformed Church; Methodists; Baptists and Evangelical Christians; Plymouth Brethren; Pentecostals and Charismatics; Christian Scientists; Jehovah’s Witnesses; Mormons; The Church of Christ (Boston movement); Etika povedeniya (Behaviour Ethics).

Volumes 3 & 4 contain information on all non-Christian religions, for example, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the Rerikh movement, the Vissarionovites, the White Brotherhood, paganism.

Research for the First Edition was carried out by a Russian team based in Moscow. For the work on the Second Edition of Part II, this team has been joined for much of its research by Keston's Chairman, who has travelled with the team to many places all over the Russian Federation. The team has carried out thousands of interviews, in addition to studying published sources, press articles, and secular and confessional reports. The project has been described as a work of social anthropology rather than a sociological study. When work on the Encyclopaedia began, it was the first time that such a piece of research had been carried out.

Printed editions of the encyclopaedia

Part I (volumes 1 - 4) can be obtained from universitas@mail.ru and Part II (volumes 1-3) from letsad@mail.ru.

Digital editions of the encyclopaedia

Copies of Part I, volumes 1-4 have been digitised by the Keston Center, Baylor University, and can be accessed via the following link:

https://baylor.box.com/s/3caza83kzwgs5hfqnyt5bgq39d5uepzz

Part II, volumes 1-3 have also been digitised by the Keston Center, and can be accessed via the following links:

Vol. #1
https://baylor.box.com/s/hqdj6j7d2hejkh807p8ug00iqo7oeur4

Vol. #2
https://baylor.box.com/s/8uu3qsqto860qnn1rcspkldwt4pah7uf

Vol. #3
https://baylor.box.com/s/04vmc2bkjxtrcgpkicvss3gkb64ddrbk

Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the new edition can be accessed via the links in the box at the top of this page on the right.

Reviews

The project

Field trip to Magadan in the Far East of Russia, June 2017

In 2004, Xenia Dennen gave a talk at a Keston colloquium at Regent’s Park College, Oxford (6th May). The text is available here.

2009 - Moscow book launch

(Left to right) Xenia Dennen, Sergei Filatov, Roman Lunkin, Olga Fadina, Anatoli Pchelintsev and Boris Knorre at the Moscow book launch

The final volume of Keston’s Encyclopaedia Religious Life in Russia Today was presented to the press and the academic world at the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice in Moscow on 14 January 2009. The Centre’s Director, Anatoli Pchelintsev, opened the proceedings by praising the work of the Encyclopaedia team, stressing the exceptional value of their fieldwork, and then presented Keston’s Chairman with an honorary doctorate ‘for an outstanding contribution to the establishing of civil society and the defence of freedom of conscience and religion’. About 40 people were present, including the religious correspondent of Izvestia who published an article about the Encyclopaedia on the following day. Olga Fadina, the publisher, expressed her delight at seeing her dream come true, adding that she hoped the Encyclopaedia would reach people in the Russian provinces. Professor Shaburov (Comparative Religion Department of the Russian State Humanities University), Professor Alexei Malashenko (Moscow Carnegie Centre), Bishop Künzel (Lutheran Church), Diane McKelvey (First Secretary, British Embassy), correspondents from Blagovest and Protestant, the editor of Ezhednevnyi zhurnal, Alexander Ignatenko (President of the Institute of Religion and Politics), Evgeni Rashkovsky (head of the religious literature section of the Library of Foreign Literature) and Professor Anatoli Krasikov (Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Society, Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences) were among those present. Xenia Dennen chaired the meeting, starting with a brief speech, and handed over to Sergei Filatov, head of the Encyclopaedia team. Roman Lunkin then spoke followed by the publisher, Olga Fadina. Professor Anatoli Krasikov praised the Encyclopaedia in fulsome terms and Evgeni Rashkovsky described the Encyclopaedia as synchronised history where you could see Russia's spiritual history in action.

2012 - Launch of Encyclopaedia Team’s New Collection of Essays

Left to right (top table): Sergei Filatov, Roman Lunkin, Xenia Dennen and Boris Knorre at the Europe Institute, Moscow, when a new publication by the Encyclopaedia team was launched.

On Saturday 28 January 2012 a new collection of essays on the religious situation in Russia, edited by Sergei Filatov and entitled Religia i Rossiiskoe mnogoobrazie (Religion and Russian Diversity) was launched at the Europe Institute in Moscow.

Most of the essays in this collection have been written by members of Keston’s Encyclopaedia team apart from three contributions from other experts. The collection is composed of six sections: 1) “Religion, society and power in Russia”; 2) “Local government and religious believers; 3) “The ROC: diversity behind a monolithic mask”; 4) “The results of 20 years of freedom for minorities”; 5) “New religions, familiar ideas”; 6) “Views from outside”.

Keston’s chairman, Xenia Dennen, was present and spoke about the work of the team in which she had participated for the past 12 years. Sergei Filatov, head of the team, chaired the meeting, while Roman Lunkin outlined the immense variety of religious expression and affiliation as well as the complexity of the contemporary religious situation in Russia as presented in Religia i Rossiiskoe mnogoobrazie. Among those present at the launch were journalists from Blagovest-info, Ogonyok and Argumenty i fakty, as well as from a Christian radio station which filmed the proceedings and interviewed Xenia Dennen, Sergei Filatov and Roman Lunkin. Copies of the collection can be ordered from the publisher, Letnii Sad, letsad@mail.ru.

Xenia Dennen & Sergei Filatov interview head of the priestless Old Believers (far right), St Petersburg, March 2018

The team in Novgorod, April 2017

The team by a holy lake of the Sami people, Lovozero, Murmansk oblast, June 2016

Encyclopaedia team in Elista (capital of Kalmykia), March 2015

Team in Galich, 500 km north-east of Moscow, on field trip to Kostroma oblast in January 2015

Field trip to Volgograd, January 2013: team in front of the bombed remains of a redbrick mill from the Battle of Stalingrad, preserved beside the local museum

The Encyclopaedia team in Siberia, June 2012 (Ulan-Ude, Buryatia)

Roman Lunkin, Xenia Dennen & Sergei Filatov in Ivanovo (300km north-east of Moscow) in June 2011

Roman Lunkin, Xenia Dennen & Sergei Filatov in front of the Annunciation Cathedral in Voronezh in January 2011

Roman Lunkin, Xenia Dennen & Sergei Filatov visit the Monastery of the Holy Mother of God, known as the Korennaya Pustyn 30 km from Kursk, during a fieldtrip in March 2010

The Encyclopaedia team (left to right) Roman Lunkin, Xenia Dennen, and Sergei Filatov in the St Nicholas Monastery on the edge of Rylsk, a small town 120 km west of Kursk in southern Russia, near the Ukrainian border (March 2010)