New book by Tucson Scholars
John and Carol Garrard

Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent:  Faith and Power in the New Russia
Tucson husband and wife scholastic team John and Carol Garrard wrote another book together. The new book explains how the Russian Orthodox Church regained control of Russia.

From September 2004 to April 2005, John was a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center researching their new book Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent: Faith and Power in the New Russia. The book was published in August and will be released to book stores on October 8, 2008.

Dr. John Garrard is Professor of Russian Studies, University of Arizona, and his wife Carol is an independent scholar and author. They live and work in Tucson, Arizona.
Click to ENLARGE
Dr. John Garrard with Carol showing his award
for outstanding research in the College of
Humanities during the 2008 Spring Pre-
Commencement luncheon at the Univ. of Arizona.
More About Book
Book cover

Project summary:  The dual purpose of this book-length study is
  • first, to demonstrate that, in the slow and painful recovery of the Russians’ sense of themselves as a nation, a key role is being played by the Russian Orthodox Church.
  • The second objective is to set forth the implications of this critical development for Russia’s immediate future as a civil society and as a partner in the search for international peace and security. The project will be carried out in a completely non-partisan, objective manner. The writer is not a member of the Orthodox Church.
Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent is the first book to fully explore the expansive and ill-understood role that Russia's ancient Christian faith has played in the fall of Soviet Communism and in the rise of Russian nationalism today, and is the hidden force behind Russia's domestic and foreign policies today.
Biography: As a young private in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, I was posted to Northern Ireland, an experience that left me with a lifelong commitment to religious tolerance. ... (I was assigned to) British Intelligence as an officer-cadet and sent to the Univeristy of Cambridge to learn Russian in a then secret operation run by the Joint Services School for Linguists. I mustered out as an Interpreter, and took up the place that had been held for me for two years at Oxford University. ... My current project, on the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church, has brought me full circle to the same issue I faced over 50 years ago patrolling “Sniper Alley” in Northern Ireland: the critical need on this planet for religious tolerance.

When asked about the fate of other Christian faiths, not Orthodox, in Russia, Dr. John Garrard responds: "I am sorry to see that post-Soviet Russia continues to discriminate against all Christian confessions other than Russian Orthodoxy—Moscow Patriarchate. Tolerance, Russian style, is to extend legal equality to Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, but to make the ROC the sole Christian confession available. I take a balanced view of the ROC—the fact that there has been no large scale neighbor on neighbor violence along the lines of religion (as there was when Yugoslavia broke up and as there is today in Iraq) has been a hugely positive step for the country, but the true separation of church and state, while enshrined in law in Russia is abrogated [abolished] in daily life."

The new book will be launched at a presentation free and open to the public on October 20, 2008, from noon to 1 pm, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, 8th floor auditorium, Washington, DC 20004-3027.

More about Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent: Faith and Power in the New Russia
by John Garrard and Carol Garrard
Cloth — 2008 — $29.95 / £17.95 — 348 pp. — 6" x 9" — 24 halftones.
$30 at Princeton University Press 1-800 777-4726 —  $22 at ChristianBook.com

Posted Sept 20, 2008 by Russian Arizona NEWS