"The Spiritual Elevator": Ritual Efficacy in Russian Orthodox Prayer
Anthropological Quarterly, Volume 99, Number 3, Summer 2026, pp. 461-485
Published by George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2026.a1000661
Abstract
This article explores the tension between mystical prayer and immutable, ritual speech. The tension derives from the fact that mysticism resists linguistic formulation. In the context of embodied, psychosomatic prayer, long-term fieldwork shows what brings about the efficacy of such petition. “Felt” intimacy with God is a slow process and is aided by “sincerity” and “embodying the word”; “sincerity” comes about through the pointedness of the intentionality conveyed by the words. As a public-private practice, the Jesus Prayer keeps crossing boundaries between ritual, everyday socialization and hesychastic isolation. It is this permeability which makes it such a compelling ethnographic study. Such research clarifies the relationship between repetitive, conventionalized acts of piety and its effects on the supplicant because it shows that language is not diminished by formalization or repetition as has previously been implied.
[Keywords: prayer, Orthodoxy, Russia, formalization, repetition, efficacy]
Published by George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2026.a1000661
Abstract
This article explores the tension between mystical prayer and immutable, ritual speech. The tension derives from the fact that mysticism resists linguistic formulation. In the context of embodied, psychosomatic prayer, long-term fieldwork shows what brings about the efficacy of such petition. “Felt” intimacy with God is a slow process and is aided by “sincerity” and “embodying the word”; “sincerity” comes about through the pointedness of the intentionality conveyed by the words. As a public-private practice, the Jesus Prayer keeps crossing boundaries between ritual, everyday socialization and hesychastic isolation. It is this permeability which makes it such a compelling ethnographic study. Such research clarifies the relationship between repetitive, conventionalized acts of piety and its effects on the supplicant because it shows that language is not diminished by formalization or repetition as has previously been implied.
[Keywords: prayer, Orthodoxy, Russia, formalization, repetition, efficacy]
