Joachim Losehand Symphonie der Mächte. Kirche und Staat in Rußland (1689–1917). Gabriele Schäfer Verlag Herne 2007. 120 S. = Studien zur Geschichte Ost- und Ostmitteleuropas, 7. ISBN: 978-3-933337-57-3.

To be candid but humane, this small brochure does not represent a contribution to the scholarship on the Russian Orthodox Church and its relationship to the state. The author does use the translated sources in Peter Hauptmann and Gerd Stricker’s edited volume, Die Orthodoxe Kirche in Rußland. Dokumente ihrer Geschichte (860‒1980) (Göttingen, 1988), but otherwise relies entirely on secondary sources (mainly from reference works, not monographs). The author does not use a single Russian-language source and, to judge from the errata (“provoslavnyi” [p. 13] and “soborne” [pp. 33, 53]) does not have command of the language, and, in turn, the immense pre-revolutionary and more recent scholarship in Russian. Nor is this slim tract even an adequate synthesis of recent scholarship in Western languages; the bibliography barely exceeds 100 works and the text shows no awareness of the more recent scholarship, especially in Russian and Western languages, even in German. Nor has the publisher served the author well, given the mistakes in formatting and errors that a copy-editor would ordinarily detect. The reviewer, for example, first appears as “Gregory” but later becomes “Geoffrey,” a minor peccadillo compared to the lack of original research and analytical substance that characterizes this text. One tries to be magnanimous, but frankly it is difficult to understand why this book was published and for whom it was intended.

Gregory L. Freeze, Waltham, MA