A Vanquished Hope

A common assumption made by many historians of pre-Bolshevik Russia is that the Russian Orthodox Church was a moribund relic of the cultural past, content to serve as a quaint but sometimes oppressive instrument of the tsarist state. A Vanquished Hope effectively refutes this view. As the book demonstrates, ecclesiastical documents, bishops' reports and theological journals reveal a widespread movement to revitalize the church in its structures and life, a movement concerned above all …