Topics to be discussed:

1. Who is the holy fool: what does s/he look like to an outsider?

2. The phenomenology of saintly folly in world traditions. The holy fool as a cultural archetype

3. The Manifesto of Foolishness for Christ’s sake: St. Paul’s 1^st Epistle to the Corinthians

3. The Byzantine Empire and the Byzantine saint.

Christian ascetics, monks and St. Antony of Egypt.

Foolishness and Folly in the lives of the Desert fathers.

The Book of Steps: the Syriac Liber Graduum.

Holy foolishness for Christ’s sake as a concept.

4. Palladius’ Nun who Feigned Madness

Palladius’ Serapion the Sindonite

Syrian Christianity, Syrian ascetics

Evagrius Scholasticus about Simeon of Emesa

5. Simeon the Holy Fool of Emesa by Leontius of Napolis

The holy fool as persona non grata

6. Andrew the Fool of Constantinople: Holy fool as a prophet

Hellenistic and Byzantine dreamers and visionaries.

Hebrew prophet and eschatological literature: St. Andrew’s apocalypse

7. Byzantine Christianity and Kyivan Rus

Kyivan Paterikon. 1^st Kyivan fools for Christ: Isaakii the Recluse

Avraamii of Smolensk: Pagan Rus and its priests

Isidor the Firm Word

8. Heyday of Russian holy foolishness. The fool and his myth:

            St. Basil the Fool of Moscow

            St. Nikola of Pskov (the tsar and the fool)

            St. Prokopii of Ustiug

            St. Ioann of Ustiug

St. Fedor and St. Nikolai Kochanov

            Muscovy and Novgorod: Ivan the Terrible as a holy fool

9. Russian Old Believers and holy foolishness: Russian Schism

            Avvakum and the holy foolishness

10. And what about holy foolish women? From Palladius’ Nun to Xenia of St. Petersburg

11. XIX-century Russian writers on holy fools and saintly folly: Aleksandr Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Fedor Dostoevsky, Lev Uspensky

12. XX-century Russian writers on holy foolishness: Maxim Gorky, Svetlana Vasilenko, Victor Erofeev, Venedict Erofeev

13. Holy foolishness in film: Andrei Tarkovsky, Tengiz Abuladze, Pavel Lungin

14. Holy foolishness in Today’s Russia. Holy foolish dissidents: actionism, Pussy Riot, Petr Pavlenky. Is it the same tradition?