A Construct That Obstructs: The Church Parties Model of Sixteenth-Century Russian Church Relations

The dominant construct to explain early sixteenth-century internal Russian Church relations was for over a hundred years one of conflict between two parties – the Possessors (a.k.a. Josephians) and the Non-Possessors (a.k.a. Trans-Volga Elders). Source-based research challenged that conflict model by demonstrating that Iosif Volotskii, the presumed leader of the Possessors, and Nil Sorskii, the presumed leader of the Non-Possessors, and their disciples and followers were not antagonists but collaborators with each other. Nonetheless, the Church parties model has continued being used to explain Russian Church relations for the mid-sixteenth-century. Yet, it is just as faulty to explain the evidence of mid-century as it is for earlier. Evidence, instead of being analyzed, is shoehorned to fit the model. The Church parties-in-conflict model is a historiographical construct that obstructs rather than informs understanding the source testimony. That testimony is far more complex and nuanced than the simplistic Church parties model allows for.