From the Editor
Pravoslavnaia Rusʹ was a phenomenon of the Russian ecclesiastical diaspora. Founded in 1928 by then-Archimandrite (future Archbishop) Vitaly (Maximenko, 1873–1960), a Pochaev printer, the bi-weekly publication in the mid-1930s became an organ of the entire Russian Orthodox diaspora transcending “jurisdictional boundaries”. From 1928 to the present, this periodical has been published without significant interruption (except for closure by Slovak authorities during World War II and during the move from Ladomirova in Slovakia to Jordanville in America).
This publication is an indispensable primary source for the study of the 20th-century history of the Russian Church and Russia in general, especially with regard to the period when church periodicals either did not exist or were subject to censorship in the USSR.
Originally, the creation of the database for use by the editorial staff originated with me when I was editor of Pravoslavnaia Rusʹ (1991–2001). My friend, fellow historian and editorial staff member of Orthodox Russia, Reader Dmitrii Pavlovich Anashkin (1967–2018), had been compiling this database of over 30,000 records for a number of years. The editor-in-chief of the publication, Metropolitan Laurus (Škurla; 1928–2008), paid for Dmitrii Pavlovich’s labor. Eternal memory to them!
Now, with the blessing of His Grace Bishop Luke (Murianka) of Syracuse, rector of Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, we would like to present an online version of this indispensable resource for all scholars of Russian Orthodox Church history. My deepest thanks to Dr. Walker R. Thompson (Heidelberg University), without whose labors this index could never have been posted here.
Unfortunately, for technical reasons, the page numbers have been lost in the database: the Iomega ZIP disk containing the original files was found to be damaged and unreadable, so, despite our best efforts, we were required to use an Excel file with a copy of the contents. However, it remains easy to find the articles, as the issues typically only ran to 16 pages. Please note that the database contains typos as well as elements of pre-Revolutionary spelling that could not be converted to the “new” orthography.
A full-width version of the index can be found here, while you can read about the full history of the publication here.