Накануне Рождества (“on Christmas Eve”), I did my once-a-year attendance of a богослужение (“worship service”), more specifically a месса (“[Catholic] Mass“) — not out of personal religious sentiment but because my parents were visiting from Arizona.

Also, being a неверующий (“non-believer”) who was not expected to kneel or креститься (“to cross oneself”) when everybody else did, I had both hands free and was designated for camcorder-duty, as my племянник, “nephew”, was in the children’s pageant as an ангел. (He wasn’t Gabriel, the архангел who delivers the big news to Mary — the kid was one of about two-dozen anonymous angels, with an equal number of shepherds, because of course you can’t have fifteen Three Wise Men.)

Anyway, this got me thinking about the topic of religion. Naturally, in polite company one doesn’t talk about religion or politics, but there are still plenty of circumstances where it’s helpful to know the vocabulary for not talking about it. Plus, православие (“[Eastern] Orthodox Christianity”) has been shaping Russian culture and history for more than a millennium. So, let’s look at some Russian words that deal generally with religious beliefs and customs. To start with, what are some of the characteristics of religion?

Religious leaders

One feature common to many faiths is the existence of a духовенство (“the clergy,” collectively) that is functionally distinct from the ordinary rank-and-file of миряне (“members of the laity”).

Russian speakers outside of the Christian tradition may refer to their own religious leaders using non-Russian words (such as раввин, from Hebrew). But the most general term for a clergyman/minister of any religion is священник, whose duties may include the освящение (“consecration”) of persons, places, and sacred items. Both nouns come from святить/освятить (я свячу, ты святишь…), “to consecrate, make holy”. In Russian Orthodoxy, священник by default refers to a “priest,” who ranks lower than a епископ (“bishop”). And you may also run across поп, which also means “priest,” but nowadays it has negative connotations and should probably be avoided — unless, perhaps, you’re quoting King Henry II’s famous remark about Thomas à Becket!

Specifically in the context of ancient язычество (“paganism”), a “priest” or “priestess” can be жрец or жрица, respectively. The words are cognate with жертва (“sacrifice” or “victim”, but originally “sacrificial victim”) — so a жрец was, in other words, the dude with the big knife.

Finally, quite a few religions have a special category of “clergy” that are different from the священники in that they do not lead congregations, and may also lack certain authorities reserved for the священство (“priesthood”). Instead, they choose a монашеская жизнь (“monastic life”) secluded from the everyday world in a монастырь. A male “monk” is a монах, while монахия is “nun”.

Types of belief and religious customs

To many, religion is synonymous with the worship of gods. In fact, though, not all religions have a concept of божество (“deity”) in the sense of разумные лица (“thinking/conscious persons”) которые сотворили вселенную и ей управляают, “who created the universe and govern it.” Some religions have сверхъестественные существа (“supernatural beings”) who are not exactly deities, while others believe in unconscious supernatural силы (“forces”), but not in gods as such.

As you would expect, religions with personified deities often place particular emphasis on молитва — which means both “the act/process of praying” and also “a traditional standardized prayer” — for instance, «Отче наш» (the “Our Father”). When you mean “recite a formulaic prayer,” you can say читать молитву, even if it’s known наизусть (“by heart”) and isn’t literally being read from a text. But to say “pray” in the sense of “requesting something from a deity” the verb is [по]молиться (я молюсь, ты молишься…), followed by кому — with о чём expressing the favor asked for:

Помолимся великому Юпитеру о конце этой засухи!
“Let’s pray to great Jupiter for an end to this drought!”

Whatever their doctrines regarding who or what controls the universe, many religions speculate about загробная жизнь, “the afterlife.” Again, there’s a huge diversity of opinion; some speak of перевоплощение (“reincarnation”), while others believe in рай (“Heaven; paradise”) which is contrasted with ад, “Hell” — and both of these, by the way, have a locative ending in stressed -у/-ю (в раю, в аду). But whatever the nature of life in the hereafter, many religions agree that грешники (“sinners”) will not have a very nice time!

Religion’s effect on cultural norms

And the topic of грех (“sin”) brings up another common feature of religions: they concern themselves with the definition of нормы — for instance:

• norms of нравственность, “morality” (Assuming that slavery is a sin, does it count as less immoral if you only enslave идолопоклонники, “heathen idolators”?)
• norms of богословие, “theology” (Is the верховное существо, “Supreme Being”, capable of creating evil? If not, does this Being lack всемогущество, ”omnipotence”?)
• norms of обряд, “ritual” (What words must a приавославный priest recite during the rite of причастие? And how does кошерный cheese differ from the non-kosher kind?).

Members within a given religion sometimes violate these norms — or more often, they have honest disagreements about how to interpret the normative rules. When individual believers express мнения, которые противоречат нормам и учениям веры (“opinions that contradict the norms and teachings of the faith”), they may be accused of богохульство (“blasphemy”) or even outright ересь, “heresy.” And in really serious cases, they may be threatened with отлучение от церкви (или от другой религиозной общины), “excommunication from the church (or other religious community)”. The corresponding verb is отлучать/отлучить:

Правда, что еврейского философа Спинозу отлучили от иудаизма по настоянию голландских християн?!
“Is it true that the Jewish philosopher Spinoza was excommunicated from Judaism at the insistence of Dutch Christians?!”

Of course, excommunicating one person isn’t too difficult. But if, say, 35% of the believers in a faith community hold “heretical” views, kicking them all out is rather impractical. What may occur in such cases is that the община раскалывается на отдельные секты (“the community splits/schisms into separate sects”). Which brings us, finally, to the big…

Старообрядческий раскол (“Schism of Old Believers”)

The noun раскол (“a schism”) can be used in reference to any religion, but when we’re talking about Russian history specifically , it’s understood to mean a major crisis of Russian Orthodoxy that began circa 1652 and continued for about 40 years. To make a long story short, after six-and-a-half centuries of Russian Christianity, discrepancies had emerged between Greek and Russian Orthodoxy. The leaders in Constantinople requested various changes, which were enforced heavy-handedly by the Muscovite patriarchy and hugely unpopular with many believers, resulting in the schism. The раскольники (“schismatics”) who split off were referred to either as староверы (“Old Believers”) or старообрядцы (“Old Rite-ists”). Arguably, the second term is much better because the разногласие, “disagreement”, had nothing to do with major theological questions (“Was Jesus Christ human or divine?”) and everything to do with proper ritual form (“What’s the proper spelling/pronunciation of Jesus Christ in the Russian church liturgy?”). Многих старообрядцев убили (“Many Old-Rite-ists were murdered”), and perhaps thousands more совершили самоубийство (“committed suicide”).

From a modern standpoint, it may seem incomprehensibly bizarre that people were willing to kill and die over such minutiae as whether one should креститься двумя пальцами или тремя (“make the sign-of-the-Cross with two fingers or three”)! However, some historians have argued that there were other issues involved, including politico-economic factors. For example, among the старообрядцы there were very few крепостные крестьяне (“peasants held in serfdom”) and perhaps even fewer aristocrats — nearly all of them were free (though low-ranking) farmers and merchants. So you can interpret the whole mess as an example of a “proto-middle-class” asserting its own rights by challenging the top-down changes imposed by the church leadership.