Confessionalization in a Multi-ethnic Empire
Confessionalization in a Multi-ethnic Empire
This chapter surveys the state’s policy towards non-Orthodox faiths and communities in the eighteenth-century empire, which reflected its overall policy of tolerance of difference. It considers Islam, Buddhism, Lutheranism, Catholicism, and Judaism. In each case the empire tried to identify institutions of connection with religious communities to facilitate communication and control by the imperial center. The various Christian sections already provided some form of religious hierarchy or ministerial ranks, but where they did not exist, Moscow created them, as in the new position of “Grand Mufti” (in the Middle Volga and Crimea) for the generally non-hierarchical Islam. Forced conversion efforts against Muslims occurred primarily in the Middle Volga, an area of strong Russian in-migration, and were violent but unsuccessful; that practice was ended with Catherine II’s Edict of Toleration (1773).
Keywords: confessionalization, Islam, Kazan, Crimea, Middle Volga, Judaism, Edict of Toleration, Buddhism, Lutheranism, Catholicism
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