On 3 November, James M. White, the founder of www.balticorthodoxy.com, released his new book, Unity in Faith? Edinoverie, Russian Orthodoxy, and Old Belief, 1800-1918, with Indiana University Press. This book offers a new perspective on the enduringly popular subject of Old Belief by looking at the previously untold story of edinoverie, those Old Believers who reconciled themselves with the Russian Orthodox Church. The book principally examines edinoverie through the lens of imperial diversity and the Russian Orthodox Church's struggle to accept those it had previously cast out. In the process of its century-long engagement with Old Believers through edinoverie, the Church itself was changed, as it was forced to provide a new and more expansive conception of Orthodox identity. The narrative also relates the lives of the edinovertsy themselves, both through the experiences of everyday believers and the fascinating biographies of some of its leaders, such as the charismatic elder Pavel Prusskii, the renegade priest Ioann Verkhovskii, and the firebrand reformer Simeon Shleev. As it unfolds through their eyes, the history of edinoverie is a complex and engaging tale of compromise, negotiation, and adaptation against the backdrop of a rapidly modernising Russian Empire.
The launch event was hosted by Quaestio Rossica on facebook. Dr Alexander Palkin (Ural Federal University) interviews Dr White about the book and edinoverie more generally.