The Cosmopolitics of Charismatic Orthodoxy: Stefan (Vasilii Karpovich Podgornyi) and His Followers

Abstract

At the end of Russia’s old regime, the transformation of society initiated by the Great Reforms of the 1860s had also transformed the Orthodox Church. After the Emancipation, former serfs found new opportunities as laborers, factory workers, entrepreneurs, and even priests, monks, and holy men. Vasilii Karpovich Podgornyi was one such serf who, after Emancipation, became a successful businessman. Inspired by traditional piety he used his entrepreneurial skills to create networks of religious communities, primarily composed of pious women. Podgornyi’s remarkable success sharply split the church hierarchy. Some conservative hierarchs regarded this former serf as a suspicious figure, a pervert who took advantage of his female followers. Because of such accusations, Podgornyi spent ten years in a monastic prison. Other clergy, including Podgornyi’s monastic jailers, became his strong advocates and ultimately succeeded in seeing him freed from prison. Podgornyi’s movement, however, remained controversial and illustrates the sharp social tensions within the church before the Bolshevik Revolution.