Types of Religious Lives

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Mother Maria Skobtsova died on Good Friday, 1945, in Ravensbrück concentration camp near Berlin. The “crime” of this Orthodox nun and Russian refugee was her effort to rescue Jews and others being pursued by the Nazis in her adopted city, Paris, where in 1932 she had founded a house of hospitality.

"Mother Maria is a saint of our day and for our day; a woman of flesh and blood possessed by the love of God, who stood face to face with the problems of this century."
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

"The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked: Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and the prisoners? That is all I shall be asked."
Nicolai Berdyaev "In commemoration of Mother Maria"

Though written in 1937, this essay, arguably one of Mother Maria's most significant writings, was, discovered only in 1996 by Helene Klepinin-Arjakovsky in the archive of Sophia Pilenko in NY . While based on very specific groups and tendencies within the Russian Orthodox Church, nonetheless Mother Maria’s analysis of five types of Christian faith and practice remain widely relevant today, even beyond the original Russian Orthodox context. In turn she posits and offers a critique of four religious types: synodal, ritualist, aesthetical, and ascetical, before presenting her own ideal, which she calls the evangelical type.

Of all the types, the one most tied to Russian history and the most common style of relationship between Church and State in Russia is the “synodal” model, which refers to the long period in Russian history when the Orthodox Church was administered as a department of the tsarist state. But even here, one can recognize the tendency among many Christians to cling to a “traditional” and seemingly “unchangeable” vision of an institution’s identity and piety. Such a model might be recognized under the more familiar word “Christendom.” The discerning reader, regardless of background, will surely also recognize the other “types” depicted here: the ritualist, aesthetical, ascetical. In each case she offers a fairly biting critique of approaches to religious practice that substitute the love of tradition, order, doctrine, liturgy, or form for the underlying Spirit of God.

Mother Maria’s last type, the “evangelical,” is not to be identified with the modern Protestant variety, whether that is identified as Bible-based, culturally and ethically conservative, or openly and emotionally expressive. Rather, what she means by the “Gospel” type is a more authentic Christianity of the sort already reflected in the preceding writings. In this type, liturgy and hierarchy, dogma and tradition all have their place, but here we seek first God and God's kingdom, and recognize Him foremost in the face of the brother or sister before us. Love of God is love of the neighbor. The liturgy we celebrate in church is the liturgy we must live on the street, in our homes, in loving service to the neighbor. Again, the relevance of this model is not confined to the Orthodox Church. Indeed, Mother Maria’s vision points to a truly ecumenical convergence available to Christians of all backgrounds and traditions, and it is this challenge, among others, that gives her voice such an enduring and urgent relevance.