It’s not Charity – it’s Building a Common Life

In opening the conference, SFI Rector Alexander Kopirovsky, a PhD Candidate in Pedagogy, said that “Mother Maria had an amazing charisma. She feared no sort of dirty work or harsh external circumstance, felt at home everywhere and thanked God for everything. And we are glad that in our day we see not only individuals who carry on her work, but entire brotherhoods which bear her name.”

Kopirovsky added that “the question of ‘Orthodox Action’ is not a simple one, because alongside work and the service stands the question of personal salvation. Some have said that Mother Maria, rejected personal salvation, instead engaging in social ministry: this is a false dichotomy. It's not a choice — either one or the other. Every person should understand that he or she, as a person, has already been saved by Christ. We work out our personal salvation on that foundational salvation which has already been accomplished by the blood, death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and the coming down of the Holy Spirit. A person’s own efforts of course play an important role, but those efforts are bound up with a unified and integral service to God. Mother Maria’s work with 'Orthodox Action’ wasn't in opposition to her efforts toward personal salvation but inseparably united to them.”

The conference, organized by St. Philaret’s Orthodox Christian Institute (SFI) and the Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad, featured two plenary sessions and a roundtable discussion entitled “The Ideas of ‘Orthodox Action’ and Social Ministry Today”. The first plenary session focused on the theological ideas and theoretical foundations of the movement’s ministry. The second session focused on its history.

At the roundtable, the ideas of Mother Maria and her organisation “Orthodox Action” were discussed with contemporary social workers, including:

• Tatyana Zaltsman, a PhD Candidate in History and Head of the Department of Social Work at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University (PSTGU); 
• Anna Savik, Coordinator of the “Route of Assistance” (Marshrut Pomoshchi") programme at the “Live Together” ("Zhitj Vmeste") Charitable Foundation and Deputy Head of the Social Work Department at SFI; 
• Olga Osetrova, Chief Physician of the Samara Hospice (ANO); 
• Svetlana Fain, a PhD Candidate in Philology and Director of the “Friends of the Community of Sant’Egidio” Centre for Social and Cultural Programmes.

The theology of “Orthodox Action” was the topic of a paper presented by Lydia Kroshkina, a PhD Candidate in Cultural Studies, Associate Professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities and Senior Lecturer at SFI.

“Ecclesiology and Anthropology stand squarely at the centre of ‘Orthodox Action’s’ theology. Two positions are of critical importance for them, and these are faith in the Church and faith in the human person. The organisation’s participants saw and positioned themselves on the cusp of church renewal within the field of social ideas and actions. Their ecclesiology is anthropocentric, and at the very heart of their anthropology lies communion,” noted Kroshkina.

SFI Associate Professor PhD Candidate Viktor Granovsky presented a paper entitled “The Problem of Christian Activism: Nikolai Berdyaev, Anton Kartashov, Mother Maria (Skobtsova)”. He emphasised that “Activism is the active efforts of Christians to build social Christianity, or, as Mother Maria put it, social apostleship. And this turns out to be quite a problematic issue for us — for Christians in general, and especially for Orthodox Christians.” In his paper, Granovsky systematically described how the idea of Christian activism and social Christianity was developed in the theological thought of the three outstanding thinkers named in its title.

Sofya Androsenko, a researcher at the Department of Humanities and Natural Sciences at SFI and postgraduate student at Moscow State University, delivered a paper entitled “Nikolai Berdyaev’s ‘Orthodox Action’”. “It is well known that the name ‘Orthodox Action’ was coined by Nikolai Berdyaev. My paper focuses on the anthropological foundations of the philosopher's thought on church and society and the circle of people who shared these same views. Mother Maria was one of his very few ‘genetic relatives’ in terms of ecclesiological outlook,” said Androsenko.

A paper by Anna Platanova, a postgraduate student at the Higher School of Economics (HSE), was devoted to the kinship and distinctive character of Mother Maria’s and Nikolai Berdyaev’s theological views. Platanova's paper was entitled “The Concept of the Person in Nikolai Berdyaev and Mother Maria (Skobtsova)”. “Mother Maria and Nikolai Berdyaev were in theological dialogue about the nature of human freedom and way human personhood is actualised. In the context of our theme of ‘Orthodox Action,’ it is important to address this fact, given that the principle of personhood (личностность) lay at the very foundation of the ‘Orthodox Action’ movement. This dialogue found vivid expression in Mother Maria’s own texts, particularly in her article ‘Birth and Creation,’ where researchers see her direct polemic with Berdyaev’s early ideas as expressed in his book The Meaning of the Creative Act.  It seems to me that attempting to understand the origins of this polemic will help us see the diversity of emphases significant to Berdyaev and Mother Maria in terms of the practice of ‘Orthodox Action’”, Platanova maintained. 

In opening the roundtable discussions, SFI Vice-Rector for Development Marina Naumova said that “the members of ‘Orthodox Action’ declared that their method was not charity, but the building of a common life. At the foundation of their thought and activity lay a carefully considered ecclesiology and anthropology. It was an ecclesiology conceived as the overcoming of an individualistic understanding of Christianity as only a religion of personal salvation. They proclaimed their faith in the Church as a common work that is not limited to liturgical church service, but overflows into a ‘liturgy outside temple walls.’ In the movement, social work was inseparably linked with missionary-proselytizing activity and the building of a shared life. In the activity of ‘Orthodox Action’ we also note the confession of a holistic approach to the human person which takes into account not only bodily needs (what we now call ‘basic needs’ in social work), but also pays attention to a person’s inner, psychic world, the ability to put oneself in the place of the one in need, and spiritual help, which will always be a person's struggle for the Image of God in himself, for his own dignity and for his own vocation.” Naumova added that “the goal of our roundtable is to see whether there is continuity between the ideas and experience of ‘Orthodox Action’ and today’s practice of social ministry, and if so, how and where that continuity is embodied.”

Tatyana Zaltsman, PhD Candidate in History and Head of the Department of Social Work at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University (PSTGU), noted that “there are different models in social work theory. The existential model, for example, is largely built on a genuine helper meeting another genuine other person. Until you yourself are authentic — that is, until you stop fantasizing a little about yourself — no encounter will take place. It seems to me that this was also important for Mother Maria; she reflected deeply on the problem of insincerity and falsity in one’s inner experience. It is impossible to express this in any measurable criteria, but inside yourself you know when you have suddenly become real and have truly met yourself.”

Svetlana Fain, PhD Candidate and Director of the “Friends of the Community of Sant’Egidio” Centre for Social and Cultural Programmes, said “when I think about the life of Mother Maria and her ‘Orthodox Action’, I am deeply moved by the idea of a Christian’s openness to the contemporary world — a Christian who is not closed in on personal salvation and the church (however vitally important both are).  Moreover, when Mother Maria speaks of sobornost’, she emphasizes that those who help and those who are helped are one single Body of Christ. There is enormous Christian value and depth in this approach. For us at the ‘Friends of the Community of Sant’Egidio’, this is very close to our hearts — this is how we live.”

Olga Osetrova, Chief Physician of the Samara Hospice, emphasized that “a hospice is a wonderful place where it is fundamentally important to enter into a person’s life, into their depth, and at the same time to help rather than remain alien. Christ teaches us this by His own life and ministry. And ‘Orthodox Action’ followed the same path.  Mother Maria spoke of the importance of being a servant to the person, giving something truly significant of oneself. The fear of remaining fruitless and the perception of all of life — not only service in church — as a field for labor: this, for me, is the main thing in the legacy of the movement.”

The following papers were presented during the plenary session on the history of the movement:

• PhD Candidate Natalia Likvintseva, Leading Researcher at the Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad presented on “The History of the ‘Orthodox Action’ Movement in Documents — and their Absence”;
• PhD Candidate in Biology Ulyana Gutner, an SFI Lecturer, presented a paper called “Mother Maria Skobtsova’s Activity in the Russian Christian Student Movement (RSCM) as a Path to Monastic Ministry”;
• PhD Candidate in History Konstantin Obozny, who is Dean of the SFI Faculty of History, presented on “Orthodox Action’s Relations with the French and Occupation Authorities”;
• PhD in Physics and Chemistry Kirill Sologub, a Professor at the University of Paris, presented on “The History of ‘Orthodox Action’ after the Death of Mother Maria”. 

The conference brought together researchers from Moscow, Tver, Pskov, Samara, and Paris. In addition to St. Philaret’s Institute (SFI), the following institutions of higher education and organizations were represented:

• Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU)
• Lomonosov Moscow State University
• Financial University
• University of Paris
• St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University (PSTGU)
• All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade
• "Live Together" ("Zhitj Vmeste") Charitable Foundation
• Samara Hospice
• Friends of the Community of Sant'Egidio.