History and Orthodox Life

An excellent online essay has been produced: “American Orthodox Historiography: The Methodological Problem.” I suspect it is the first and only of its kind. It’s a surprising piece in some respects. Maybe its most surprising feature is its length. For a “range” of history so relatively small, there is quite a bit of space given to outlining how daunting the task is. That is, a considerable selection of “data” (though, to be clear, none of these things were likely produced to be “data” for a historiographer) is suggested as useful. It goes far beyond what one might traditionally have thought to be “primary sources,” e.g., “charters, wills, mortgage agreements, or some other kind of legal instrument intended to either document a contemporary legal reality or to generate a new one” or “the products of record-keeping by bureaucracies such as state ministries, charitable organizations, foundations, churches, and schools.” These pools of “data” could have some limited use for all sorts of studies. For example, an article-length discussion of the placement of, say, Eastern European Slavic Orthodox immigrants’ illegitimate children in state care or the bequeathing trends of moderately successful sub-middle class industrial workers to their local religious institutions between the years 1880-1900. All of these ideas and more could probably be worked into papers and, for better or worse, published in some journal. People have received tenure for lesser things which expand our understanding of certain trends and phenomena. I think the author of this essay is trying to do more.

In the introductory pages to his outstanding study of terrorism, Blood & Rage, Michael Burleigh writes that his “book focuses on [the] life histories and actions [of terrorists] rather than the theories which validate them, roughly in accord with St. Matthew’s precept ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’” It’s a very “unscientific” approach from the standpoint of modern historiography, not the least because Burleigh is willing to engage in what social scientists call “value judgments.” This is more than just the fact that Burleigh morally condemns the subjects of his study and their actions. It’s that he has selected certain ones on the basis of a prudent evaluation of their lives and actions without recourse to “method.” He has not confined his analysis to “methodologically appropriate” evidence or even selection criteria. The reader, of course, is free to disregard his efforts wholesale. I imagine some already have. Reading it attentively, however, will likely leave most thinking Burleigh has not only done his job as a historian well, but has done it with such care and penetration that they are better off in their understanding of human beings generally and modernity specifically than they were before. It’s not that they know the particularities of this-or-that terrorist in excruciating detail; it’s that they now know something about terrorism. Making evaluative judgments about what comes in, what goes on, and what the actual intent of a given work being produced is should be paramount. Is it? Recall Leo Strauss’s assault in Natural Right and History on the “value free” social science of Max Weber and his admonition that regardless of what one is studying, a scientist must distinguish between “genuine” and “mere” manifestations. As Strauss says, “Would one not laugh out of court a man who claimed to have written a sociology of art but who had actually written a sociology of trash?”

It seems, then, as a first matter that whoever wants to study the history of Orthodoxy in America and, from there, compose some analysis of some, if not all, of it, the “genuine” and the “mere” or the “spurious” must be made. Equally important, some evaluation will have to be made concerning what is valuable to such a study. And then, and only then, will further thought have to be given to “the point.” For what purpose is this being produced? What will we know from reading it? Minute details excruciatingly drawn out which have little-to-no bearing on any relevant trends or phenomena today or something integral about Orthodoxy and, indeed, the Church herself? Knowing something about the latter is not, it seems, unimportant to many people today. At the same time, one might wonder whether or not the Church, in her fullness and life at any time or in any place, can really be captured through a recitation of “facts”—facts drawn out of “data” which, as noted, were never intended to be such. But maybe these are “meta” issues which don’t need to be taken into consideration at the moment. Admittedly, they fall outside of what modern historiography wants to accomplish; a history of Orthodoxy that is actually a history of some ethnic grouping would not be laughed out of court so quickly in an environment which largely fails to distinguish between the two anyway.

There is something missing from the history of Orthodoxy in America and, indeed, much history about the Orthodox Church in general: analysis of the experiences as containing in the writings and “symbols” (architecture, iconography, hymnography, non-ecclesial artifacts, etc.) which are still extant. It seems that one might learn a great deal of the experience of Orthodoxy in America by reading and interpreting the writings of (St.) Sebastian Dabovich. It seems that one might learn something about the experiences of congregants of Orthodox immigrants by studying the layout of their earliest churches, in particular the recourse of some communities to organs, pews, and architectural choices reflecting the dominant Protestant paradigms in the communities they chose to join. And what of the hagiographic tradition of Orthodoxy in America? It’s not “history” in the scientific sense, but it is a portrait of Saintliness which, arguably, is much more important to the direction and development of at least some, if not many, communities of Orthodox as they attempted to live out their faith in an environment where they were and, indeed, still are an undeniable minority.

There’s something else as well. What is, in the end, the “value” of a history of Orthodoxy in America? Or, to put it another way, what is the “value” of a scientific history of Orthodoxy in America? What will it tell us? Heaven forbid it should make us into what Nietzsche called “historical men” in The Use and Abuse of History for Life: “Looking into the past urges them toward the future, incites them to take courage and continue to engage in life, and kindles the hope that things will yet turn out well and that happiness is to be found behind the mountain toward which they are striding.”