Book notification: Terror in the Name of God, Simma Holt version
[ by Charles Cameron — two books of the same name ]
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I have long been an admirer of Jessica Stern‘s Terror in the Name of God, which benefits greatly from the author’s intrepid insistence on visiting and debriefing those religious militants from around the world she wishes us to understand. Imagine my surprise, therefore, at discovering yesterday a book with the same title, written by one Simma Holt, published in 1964, and dealing with religious violence as practiced by the Svobodniki or Sons of Freedom sub-group of the Doukhobors or Old Believers:
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I haven’t been on a thrift-store book run in a couple of years, and yesterday’s jaunt with son Emlyn rewarded me with three or four items, of which this was the standout — albeit my copy lacks the lurid dust-jacket.
The Old Believers have interested me for some time now, but I haven’t known much about them. Apparently their split (“Raskol”) from the larger body of Russian Orthodoxy was in opposition to reforms intended to align the Russian with other Orthodox patriarchies in terms of practice — the one change I’d run across having to do with the substitution of the sign of the cross made with two fingers by the sign made with three fingers.
I am accordingly very interested to see what more I can learn about the Old Believers in general and in particular the Svobodniki, their doctrine of “Opposite Speak” and their theological sanctions for arson and murder.
Now too, I get to explore Aylmer Maude‘s 1904 book on the Doukhabors, A Peculiar People. That phrase — more fully, “ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (I Peter 2.9) — has always pleased me, and Maude’s Christian name, a relatively uncommon one I believe, is my own second name, and the name of one of my uncles.
O quiet joy.
September 7th, 2015 at 1:05 pm
Some Old Believers settled on the west bank of Lake Peipus, in Estonia. I’ve visited some of their towns and churches, have a small icon from one of them.