Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The article offers a case study of how Russian Orthodox who migrated from the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 reimagined their religious identity and their church in a transnational setting. Iulia de Beausobre (1893‐1977) was a Russian aristocrat who fell victim to the Stalinist purges but survived the Soviet prison system and was helped to emigrate to Britain. Drawing on her significant written corpus, the article analyses her understanding of the ‘Russian’ nation in relation to the Russian Orthodox Church. It argues that this was shaped primarily by her spiritual formation in prison and the role that the practice of unceasing prayer in the hesychastic tradition played in her survival. De Beausobre draws on this experience to arrive at a vision of the transcendence of church and nation in the post‐Christian age as a transecclesiastical community of prayer.
Source: Modern Theology
DOI: 10.1111/moth.70026
Author: Ruth Coates
Institution: University of Bristol
Language: English
Topic: Soviet and Russian History
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,900
OpenAlex ID: W4413894437