Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The article discusses the veneration of St Xenia of St Petersburg in contemporary Russian vernacular Orthodoxy. Based on an analysis of such unorthodox forms of veneration of this saint as a sculpture and a lyrical song, the article shows that obtaining emotional comfort and the emotionalisation of communication with a saint are constitutive parts of ‘lived’ Russian Orthodoxy today. St Xenia is seen by believers as a ‘peer counsellor’ with experience of social suffering and therefore capable of empathy and consolation. The article shows that the ‘small miracle’ expected from addressing a saint or visiting a holy place is often a state of emotional comfort. The article suggests that all this happens as a result of the influence of the global therapeutic turn in Russian Orthodoxy.
Source: Ortodoksia
Author: Jeanne Kormina
Language: English
Topic: Religious Tourism and Spaces
Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4402906270