Scott Kenworthy
Biography
Dr. Kenworthy researches the history of Orthodox Christianity in Modern Russia, and therefore his interests lie at the intersection of the History of Christianity, Russian/Eurasian studies, and Religious studies. He is currently working on a book on the "Name Glorifiers" controversy in early twentieth century Russia, which explores the conjunction of contemplative spirituality, church-state dynamics in a transnational context, together with religious thought and the philosophy of language. He has extensive international experience and has held prestigious fellowships in Germany, Romania, and Hungary.
Education
- Ph.D. History, Brandeis University, (2002)
- M.A., St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary
- B.A. and M.A., UC Santa Barbara
Research Interests
Dr. Kenworthy specializes in the history and thought of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, particularly in modern Russia. His most recent book, The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia (Oxford University Press, 2025), is a biography of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Bolshevik Revolution. His first book, The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism, and Society After 1825 (Oxford University Press, 2010), won the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History. He has also co-authored an introductory survey, Understanding World Christianity: Russia (Fortress Press, 2021).
Courses Taught
- HST 198. World History Since 1500.
- HST/REL 234. History of Christianity.
- HST 254. Introduction to Russian and Eurasian Studies.
- HST 306. History of Christian Thought.
- HST 360V: The Crusades
- HST 436/HST 536. Havighurst Colloquium.
- REL 101. Rethinking Religion.
- REL 180 B : First Year HONORS Core Course: The Good Life
Publications
Books
- Religion and Russian Revolution of 1917: Conflicts, Encounters, and Transformations, co-edited with Alexander Agadjanian, Nadieszda Kizenko, and Francesca Silano. Indiana University Press, 2026
- Patriarch Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia, 1865-1925. Oxford University Press USA, 2025.
- Understanding World Christianity: Russia, co-authored with Alexander Agadjanian. Fortress Press, January 2021.
- The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism and Society After 1825 (Oxford: Oxford University Press and Washington, DC: Wilson Center Press, 2010)
Selected Articles
- “The Council of the Orthodox Church in Russia, 1917-1918,” co-authored with Aleksandr Kravetskii, in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Conciliarity in Modern Orthodox Christianity, ed. by Irina Paert, Andrey Shishkov, and Alison Kolosova (Wiley-Blackwell, 2025), pp. 141-54.
- “The Eastern Traditions Today: Russian and Romanian Orthodox Monasticism,” in Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, ed. Bernice Kaczynski (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 590-605.
- “Russian Orthodox Monasticism from 988 to 1917,” in Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, ed. Bernice Kaczynski (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 478-94.
- “The Name Glorifiers (Imiaslavie) Controversy,” in The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought, ed. George Pattison, Caryl Emerson and Randall Poole (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 327-42. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198796442.013.24
- “The Revival of the Name-Glorifiers Debate in post-Soviet Russia,” Religion, State & Society 48: 2-3 (2020): 180-95.
- “Rethinking the Orthodox Church and the Bolshevik Revolution,” Revolutionary Russia 31: 1 (2018): 1-23. [Over 1,000 views since online publication as of January 1, 2019]
- “Russia and Eastern Europe,” in Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Christianity, ed. Lamin Sanneh and Michael McClymond (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), pp. 500-510.
- “Russian Orthodox Monasticism in War and Revolution,” in Russia's Home Front, Book 2: The Experience of War and Revolution, ed. Adele Lindenmeyr, Christopher Read and Peter Waldron (Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2016), pp. 221-49.
- “Gregory L. Freeze: Historian of the Orthodox Church in Modern Russia,” in Manfred Hildermeier and Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter (eds.), Church and Society in Modern Russia: Essays in Honor of Gregory L. Freeze (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015), 211-29.
- “Monasticism in Modern Russia,” in Ines A. Murzaku (ed), Monasticism in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Republics (Routledge, 2015), 265-84.
- “Archimandrite Toviia (Tsymbal), Prior of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra: Memoirs and Diaries (selections),” introduction and translation, in Heather Coleman (ed.), Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia: A Sourcebook on Lived Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), 269-87.
- “Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvenskii) and Pavel Florenskii on Spiritual Experience, Theology, and the Name Glorifiers Dispute,” in Patrick Michelson and Judith Deutsch Kornblatt (eds), Thinking Orthodox in Modern Russia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), 85-107.
- “Debating the Theology of the Name in Post-Soviet Russia: Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeev and Sergei Khoruzhii,” in Katya Tolstaya (ed), Orthodox Paradoxes: Heterogeneities and Complexities in Contemporary Russian Orthodoxy (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 250-64.
- “The Revival of Monastic Life in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra after World War II,” in Catherine Wanner (ed.), State Secularism and Lived Religion in Soviet Russia and Ukraine (Oxford: Oxford University Press and Washington, DC: Wilson Center Press, 2012), 117-38.
- “To Save the World or to Renounce It: Modes of Moral Action in Russian Orthodoxy,” in Mark Steinberg and Catherine Wanner (eds), Religion, Community, and Morality after Communism (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 2008), pp. 21-54.
Selected Grants and Awards
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2023)
- Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University, Senior Fellowship (2022)
- NEH Summer Stipend (2020)
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2014-2016, 2022)
- Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study Residential Fellowship (2013)
- Kennan Institute Title VIII Research Scholarship, Woodrow Wilson Center (2006-07)
- Fulbright Senior Scholar Program Teaching Award: Romania (2003-05)
