Christianity and Shamanism

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The Role of Orthodoxy, Past and Present

Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christianity, fleshed out in the Russian Orthodox Church, has played a major part in forming the destiny of the history of Russia and her peoples.

The origins of Christianity in Russia is expressed in a legend that rests deeply in the people's memory. This is a legend about one of the Twelve Apostles who is said to have traveled to Russia early in the first century AD. He is the Apostle St Andrew, the first called by Christ to become a Disciple. By the third century, Christianity had penetrated into the territory that comprises modern Russia, disseminated firstly among Greeks who inhabited the Black Sea. The sixth century marked the beginning of the Christianization of the ancestors of the modern Caucasian people, including Adygs, Osetins, Chechens, Ingushes and others. (Later Christianity was replaced by Islam among all those early nations of the Caucasus except the Osetins.)

At the end of the ninth century, Christianity began to penetrate into the territory of Kievan Russia. The eastern form of Orthodoxy, brought from Byzantium, was established as the normal form. The first known people to have been baptized were the Prince of Kiev Askold and Princess Olga. The mass Christianization of the Kievan Rus' began in the year 988 AD, when the greatest of Kiev's rulers, Prince Vladimir, adopted the new faith and ordered his army to be baptized in the River Dnieper. Orthodox Christianity then became the state religion of ancient Russia and survived, spreading rapidly over a vast territory.

The baptism of Russia contributed to the strengthening of her internal political arrangement, as well as the strengthening of the state's external political status. The advantage was evident: the adoption of Christianity meant the entrance of Russia into the community of the European Christian peoples, which immediately increased the prestige of the state and enhanced trust in its external activity. Christianity provided reinforcement of the princes' power, a strengthening of connections between all parts of the state, and the establishment of the state's internal stability.

Christianity related the culture of the Slavonic world and of Kievan Russia with the cultural circles of the Christian peoples of the East and West. It also prompted the development of a written language and literature, as well as architecture, painting, music. Christianity directed the pagan family towards Christian morality. Orthodox parishes and particularly the monasteries played an essential role in the development of the administrative life of Russia.

Orthodox Christianity, thus, contributed greatly to the formation of the Russian nation. N.A. Berdyaev expressed quite a fair idea in his work titled Philosophy of Inequality, saying that:

a nation includes not only generations of people, but also the stones of temples, palaces and country-seats, sepulchres and plates, old manuscripts and books. To hear the will of a nation, one should listen to these stones and should read those ashen pages.

We would like to emphasize another important aspect that has frequently been omitted by researchers: Christianization heightened the moral potential of the Russian people, helping them to fulfill an historical mission, that of an Eurasian state, inside the multinational state and outside in the international arena. Orthodox Christianity, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Christianization of Russia, resulted in the formation of a vast and powerful multinational state. Some scientists confirm that the basis of the development of this state was provided by the religious ideal, not a national idea. The state was not so much Russian as it was Orthodox. The Orthodox Church has existed as the guardian of the idea of community and of unity, playing an extremely important part in different historical periods of the country.

In the present time, when Russia is experiencing a deep social, economical, spiritual and moral crisis, the influence of the Orthodox Church on social life is steadily growing. There is a revival of the best Orthodox traditions, aimed at increasing the spiritual and moral potential of the human being. Many political leaders of modern Russia recognize the importance of the Russian Orthodox Church in uniting society. The active, fruitful cooperation of the Russian Orthodox Church with the state to support social stability and civil accord has become a notable factor of Russian social and political life.

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Missionary Endeavor and Results

It is necessary to note that, during the last years, some struggles in the field of religious ideas have been expressed sharply. This has caused the clergy to discuss a question about re-activating the missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church. Such work, as we know, has always been an essential part of the Church.

From the early expansion of the territory of the Russian centralized state, the propagation of Orthodoxy became an inalienable part of the Russian feudal state's colonial policy. Thus, in the fourteenth century, Bishop Stephan of Perm was spreading the (so called) Russian faith among the Komy-Ayryans and Komy-Permyaks who lived in the region known as Prikamye. In the second half of the fourteenth century, the Tatar population of Kazan Khanate were forced to adopt Christianity. Speaking about Siberian peoples, we may say that their Christianization was intensified after the formation of the Tobolsk and All Siberian Archdiocese in 1620.

The Christianization of the Sakha (Yakuts), Evenks, Yukagirs, Chukchi, Dolgans and other native peoples of the Lensk region began early in the first half of the seventeenth century, representing one of the most important aspects of the autocracy's colonial policy, which was aimed at occupying the appropriated lands through a penetration of the Russian influence to the farther north and east up to the coasts of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. The occupation would open a way to accomplish a plan to exploit the countless fur, pelt and other natural resources. In this way, the policy of propagation of Orthodoxy among natives was determined particularly by the economic interests of the tsarist government.

The mass Christianization of the local population was carried out in a relatively short period of time, and finished from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century. According to archive documents, the percentage of the population that remained unbaptized in the year 1823 was only about one-percent of the total population. Such success of the missionary endeavor can be explained by the establishment of various steady administrative, domestic and cultural interactions between the native population and the alien Orthodox population (Russian soldiers, merchants and manufacturers, who often married native women).

Christianization resulted in a deepening and broadening of these interactions, bringing Russians and natives closer yet. According to the outstanding Russian ethnographer and Yakutist S.A. Tokarev, religious discord would otherwise have caused difficulties in communication between peoples. In addition to this dynamic, the Orthodox Church had already established its position in Siberia by that time, and thus had gained experience in missionary work, using various methods to bring the natives to baptism, such as setting them free from paying yasak [imperial tax], etc.

However, the pagan faith of the native herdsmen (cattle and deer breeders), and the native hunters and fishers, of the Lensk region had been deeply absorbed for centuries in soul and body, and could not be replaced at once by the new, foreign religion. Being baptized, they continued to follow their traditional beliefs, sometimes ignoring the rules and customs of Orthodoxy. In Laws and Customs of the Yakuts of the Steppes (1823), it was stated that shamanstvo [shamanizing] is being practiced at least secretly by many Yakuts. The practice exerted considerable influence even from the second half of the nineteenth century and into the beginning of the twentieth century.

Completion of the baptizing of the population of Yakutia marked the beginning of a qualitatively new stage in their Christianization. This stage involved a struggle for the establishment of the new religion, Orthodox Christianity, and the eradication of paganism. For this purpose, chapels and churches were built in the uluses (regions), and measures were taken to attract natives to study at parish schools so as to create Orthodox priests. Translation and publication of church literature in the Sakha (Yakut) language was established.

A renown Sakha (Yakut) philologist and academician P.A Sleptsov has noticed that the educational textbooks, produced by missionaries, were constantly being improved; so that from the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, they began to achieve a literary and linguistic content that was nearly exemplary. Their literary precision and norms are practically identical to the modern literary samples. While we may assume that Christianization had been carried partly in order to spread the Russian language among the natives; we should also see that it contributed to the protection of the Yakut language and even to the formation of the literary Yakut language. A language, as we know, is the basis that provides the originality of any culture.

Missionary work was much reinforced after 1852, when the Archbishop of Kamchatka, the Kurile Islands and the Aleutian Islands Innokentii (Veniaminov) managed to join the Yakut region to his eparchy [diocese]. A separate Yakut eparchy was formed in 1870. Later, the highest ecclesiastical organ of the region ~ the Yakut Consistory ~ began to operate as well as the eparchy's Committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society, organized to contribute to the establishment of the Christian faith among the native people.

At the end of the nineteenth century, there were about 249 churches and chapels in the Yakut eparchy. In 1917, the number reached 333, with about 1,500 clergy.

Christianization played an extremely important part in the formation of the self-awareness of the Sakha people, making them an inalienable part of the multinational Russian people. Thus, in a report, dated 9 March 1913, addressed to the Internal Minister regarding the establishment of the right to elect one of the native men as the Yakut region's representative in the State Duma, Dr P.N. Solkolnikov and the head of the Meginsk ulus (region) D.I. Sleptsov wrote proudly:

The so-called natives are at a stage of a deep evolution from nomads to cultured people. Nomads are becoming familiar with the Russian language and grammar and with the Orthodox Church much more rapidly than ever before. At least we , the Yakuts, free of Islam and Buddhism, may be proud of the fact that no less than a hundred years ago we generally adopted Orthodoxy.

(quoted in Cholbon, vol. 95, no. 10).

The Christianization of the Sakha (Yakut) peoples became the basis for a process of mutual enrichment and mutual penetration of both cultures. It made the Sakha (Yakut) culture familiar with the Russian one, and thus obtained access for the Sakha (Yakut) nation into European culture and world culture. Before the October Revolution, Orthodoxy acted as a uniting factor in relations between peoples.

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Orthodoxy and Shamanism

As a result of such purposeful missionary activity, within conditions that deepened the cultural interactions between native and Russian peoples, a particular ethnic and confessional merging occurred.

Studying its origin, we must take into consideration a connection between traditional pagan belief with its shamanistic worldview and early Christian worldviews, particularly northern Manichaeanism [Manichaeism],¹ which had much influenced the cultural development of the peoples inhabiting Siberia and Central Asia. According to the studies of the renowned archaeologist and academician L.R. Kyzlasov, the Burchanists² of the Altai region were referring directly to people in white clothes who were coming to the Altai to teaching a belief in a common God. A well known connoisseur of the Sakha (Yakut) material culture and spiritual culture A.E. Kulakovsky considered the Sakha (Yakut) religion to have been harmonious, accomplished, and far from idolatry and shamanism. He noticed that shamans was an incorrect name for the priests who were serving White and Black Gods.

It is significant that the great Kulakovsky has emphasized the importance of Christianization, describing Orthodoxy as the Russians' donation to the local peoples. He has understood the meaning of this process in the formation of a destiny leading to our cultivation and merging with Russians

Another outstanding Sakha (Yakut) scientist G.V. Ksenofontov has conducted serious research into Christianity and its early history. He has discovered a similarity between Christianity and shamanstvo [shamanizing]. The title of his second collection of works indicates that the similarity was not occasional: Christ: Shamanism and Christianity. A formation of ethnic and confessional blending or merging among the native peoples could occur because of the originality of Russian Orthodoxy, which had retained some features of Slavonic paganism. The Russian population exerted an influence on the Christian worldview, resulting in a religious psychology with an echo of double-belief.

I cannot but quote the words of the national Sakha (Yakut) writer, and honorable citizen of the Republic, D.K. Sivtsev - Suorun Omollon:

I will not reveal much saying that Christianity and particularly Orthodoxy is mostly patient towards the pagan traditions. Moreover, it has lost nothing of that. Its strength is in preaching and asserting love and in developing conscience. The Christian ideal, brought to the pagan environment, makes it more human.

(Yakutia, 6 April 1999).

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Conclusion: Orthodox or pagan?

A futile debate has been going on over the last few years: Are the Sakha (Yakut) people Orthodox or pagan? Some people assert that the Sakha are pagan. That is not correct. The Sakha are Orthodox people.

It might appear easy to say this, so let us consider this fact by reference to three milestones in a man's life: birth, creation of family, and then death. We come into this world, get married, live, work, and die according to the Christian traditions, customs and rules. (While it is possible to attempt to explain this by saying that we are a people who have become absolutely Russified and who, nevertheless, managed to keep our own distinctive culture, I would dare affirm this to be an unusual phenomenon that should be studied carefully.) Native people still follow the Orthodox calendar. For instance, May 22 is a memorial day of St Nickolai Shudotvorets [St Nicholas the Wonderworker]. This holiday marks the beginning of the summer days for the Sakha people. St Nicholas Day, as it is known, is widely celebrated by everybody today; and this may serve as one more proof of the fact that we are Orthodox.

The president of the Sahka Republic, M.E. Nikolaev, was entirely correct when, speaking on a French television channel, he mentioned that the people of Sakha are Orthodox.

Having perceived this reality, let us heed the words of the Archbishop of Yakutsk and Lensk, His Eminence Herman, who was correct when he wrote the following:

Most importantly, all of us should live as friends in peace in our northern land, which is a severe land but also a kind land. We should live respecting each other's dignity. The precepts, brought to our land by Jesus Christ, can be expressed in a few words: to love God and to love our neighbors. This means that we should love all people as we love ourselves. If we had remembered these precepts, our complicated lives would not have had so much evil and sin.

(Cholbon, 2000, no. 1).

We have words of Christian ethics to guide our evolution today, as we draw from a history of affirmative relations and creative interactions, through which the integrity of the nations can be assured within the multinational state where Orthodoxy continues to play a major part in forming the destiny of Russia and her peoples.

Endnotes:

Note 1:

Manichaeanism [Manichaeism] was a dualistic doctrine about the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, as the initial and equal principals.
 

Note 2:

Burchanists are followers of Burchanism, a branch of Lamaism (northern Buddhism), carrying the elements of shamanism.

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