Literary responses to Russian Orthodox piety and liturgy in Stephen Graham’s “The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary”

Abstract

The article contains an analysis of semantic dominants in the book “The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary” (1915) by the English writer and traveller Stephen Graham, which he wrote following his several long stays in Russia. In it, he sums up his attempts at understanding Eastern Christianity and its relationship with Western Christianity. Although Graham’s work in general has received some recent scholarly treatment, his perception and responses to Russian Orthodox piety and worship have not yet been properly considered in Russian church scholarship. Meanwhile, they seem involving for two reasons: they contain materials for the history of liturgy and popular paraliturgical piety of the early 20th century, and also allow an original philosophical and theological angle on the Orthodox practice from a person who grew up in the Western tradition, but embraced the Eastern one. Graham describes many subjects: Christmas Eve, Radonitsa, the service in the Kiev-­Pechersk Lavra, St Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev, the Sarov Hermitage, the Martha and Mary Convent; he is also concerned with the issues of podvig and its manifestations, suffering (in penance among other things), the relationship between “action” and “vision” in their practical embodiment, etc. The study of these issues is relevant not only for liturgics and theology, but also for philology and linguacultural studies.