Vera Shevzov is a professor in the Department of Religion and current Director of the Program of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at Smith College. Her research focuses on Orthodox Christianity in imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. Her book Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution (2004) was awarded the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History. It was subsequently translated and published in Russia (“Dmitrii Bulanin,” 2010). She is also co-editor of Framing Mary: The Mother of God in Modern, Revolutionary, and Post-Soviet Russia (2018). Her numerous published essays and articles examine a wide array of topics on lived Orthodoxy and Orthodox thought including history and sacred memory; law and canon/church law; liturgy and icons; Russia’s Marian culture; religion, national and ethnic identities; religion and revolution; visuality and Soviet antireligious propaganda. Support for her research has come from the American Academy of Religion; the Mellon Foundation; the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Social Science Research Council; and Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. She currently serves on the International Expert Committee for the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief’s project on Contemporary Eastern Orthodoxy (Norwegian Centre for Human Rights), and the Advisory Council of Fordham University’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center. She is co-editor (with George Demacopoulos, Fordham University) of the Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies.
Shevzov received her B.A. and Ph.D. at Yale University, as well as additional graduate training in the history of Orthodox Christianity and Orthodox thought at St. Vladimir’s Seminary (New York) and St. Petersburg Theological Academy (Russia), and in Anthropology of Religion, Cultural Anthropology, and Folklore Studies at UPENN. Her current research project include “Orthodoxy and ‘Rights’ in Revolutionary Russia, 1905-1917” and “Visual Violence and Cultural Cleansing in Early Soviet Antireligious Propaganda.”