Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Aram G. Sarkisian, "Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era" (NYU Press, 2025)
Date: October 8, 2025
Host: Jenna Pittman
Guest: Aram G. Sarkisian

Episode Overview

This episode explores Aram G. Sarkisian’s new book, Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era. The conversation delves into the migration of Russian Orthodox Christians from the borderlands of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the formation of the American Orthodox Rus community, and the interplay between faith, labor, and identity during a period of immense social and industrial transformation.

Introduction & Author Background

[01:35]

• Jenna Pittman introduces Aram G. Sarkisian and his work, noting its focus on Russian Orthodox immigrants in the U.S. from the 1890s to the 1920s.
• Aram G. Sarkisian shares personal motivations:
  • Grew up in Detroit around Russian Orthodox communities.
  • Noted a lack of scholarly representation for these communities.
  • Started original research as an undergraduate, driven by a desire to fill a gap in historical literature and to tell the stories of his own heritage.
  • “I come from, on my mother's side, a Russian family. I grew up in and around Russian Orthodox communities for much of my life... I didn't hear or see them anywhere else. They weren't really in history books.” (03:00)

Title & Thematic Focus

Orthodoxy "On the Line"

[06:01]

• The title is a play on words:
  • “On the line” references both the assembly line central to industrial labor and the precariousness ("on the line") of Orthodox faith and identity in the context of migration and modernization.
  • “They have to fight for what it means to be an Orthodox Christian in this world. So their faith itself is really on the line as well.” — Aram Sarkisian (06:45)

Historical Context & Subject Matter

[07:54]

• Period: American Progressive Era (1890s to mid-1920s)
• Geography: Primarily the American Northeast and Midwest
• Immigrants’ Background: Mainly rural, often from pre-industrial societies in present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
• Community Formation: The Russian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America facilitated the creation of a support network for immigrant workers, balancing their transnational Russian identities with American life.
• “They want them to participate in American life. They want them to vote, become citizens, send their children to public schools... but also keep those identities as an idealized, Russified version of themselves.” (10:50)
• Assimilation: Book challenges conventional notions of the “melting pot,” emphasizing dual identities and mutual enrichment between American and Orthodox traditions.

Discussion of Key Themes

Labor, Migration, and Class Mobility

[13:16]

• Labor: Church expansion in the U.S. is closely tied to labor migration.
• Clerical Labor: Orthodox priests (most married and with families) are viewed as workers within the same labor framework as their congregants.
• “I'm trying to understand this community as a community for working people, by working people, comprised of working people in all of its dimensions…” (14:25)
• Migration Patterns: Many migrants initially did not intend to settle permanently; U.S. work was often a means to an end—earning money to buy land back home.
• “For a lot of these people, it was a means to an end. It was something they tolerated for the paychecks...” (16:24)

Social Mobility & Immigrant Status

[19:50]

• Vignette: Father Theophan Bukhatov’s observations of class/change among Russian immigrants (19:50–22:00).
• Perception of class/assimilation linked to time in the U.S., material wealth, and changing behavior.
• Church played a vital role in building community infrastructure (schools, orphanage, seminaries) to support both religious and social mobility.
• Disruption Post-1917: Russian funding ends after the Revolution, church institutions falter, and the sense of permanence within immigrant communities becomes more urgent.

Transnational Ties & The Russian Revolution

[24:27]

• Pre-1917 Funding: Russian Empire (via the Holy Synod, the Tsar, etc.) provides significant support for U.S. church institutions.

• Greek Catholic Conversions: Massive influx from Greek Catholic communities fueled church expansion.

• Post-1917 Upheaval: Russian funding to the Archdiocese abruptly ceases after the February Revolution; church faces immediate financial crisis (clerical salaries, orphanage funding, etc.), drastically altering its operations.

  • “The impact of geopolitical change in Russia has immediate impacts on church life in the United States.” (28:50)

• Immigration Policy: World War I and later U.S. immigration restrictions (like the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924) end the era of mass migration, shifting the church’s focus to those permanently in America.

Midwest Industrialization and Community Migration

[31:02]

• Industrial Growth: Expansion into the Midwest (Detroit, Chicago, Gary, Cleveland) closely tracks the growth of industries such as automotive, steel, and meatpacking.
• Internal migration: Orthodox immigrants moved fluidly within the U.S. seeking work, utilizing church and immigrant aid networks like the Russian Immigration Society to find jobs and connect to new communities.
• Personal Story: Aram shares his own family’s migration path from New York to Detroit, drawn by Ford’s $5 wage (36:51).
  • “He was chasing the $5 daily wage in 1914... That was an opportunity for him. He went alone and sent for his wife later.” (37:05)
• Job Opportunities: The Fordist model allowed unskilled agricultural migrants to easily transition into factory work, though the jobs were difficult and often hazardous.

The Church as Community Anchor

[39:39]

• The church filled critical gaps in welfare, especially during crises like the 1918 influenza epidemic.
• Provided social security, health support, mutual aid, and acted as an unofficial insurance provider.
• “The church has to step in...” (40:10)

Methodology & Archival Work

[41:50]

• Sarkisian relied heavily on:
  • Church newspapers (a rich source for community life and bottom-up history).
  • Federal archives (including FBI, labor, and deportation records).
  • A limited but meaningful access to church institutional archives.
• Diverse documentation but also significant gaps; approached with a willingness to reconstruct stories from scattered fragments.
• “There are ways in which [the community is] extremely well documented and a lot of ways in which it's not. So you have to kind of work around the absences.” (43:00)

Bottom-Up Social History

[47:35]

• Sarkisian emphasizes telling “bottom up” stories—foregrounding everyday experiences, personal narratives, and community bonds.
• Example: Mourning practices during the influenza epidemic, the makeshift families formed by faith and shared experience.
• “These communities became family… not blood kinship, it was cultural, linguistic, but most of all, faith.” (48:00)

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “I was really shocked to find out that there was virtually nothing about Orthodox Christian communities in North America in the literature, aside from very small pockets of work." — Aram Sarkisian [03:40]
• “On the line, of course, is a reference to the assembly line... but also it's a book about contestation.” — Aram Sarkisian [06:11]
• “They want them to participate in American life...but also keep those identities as an idealized, Russified version of themselves.” — Aram Sarkisian [10:50]
• “For a lot of these people, it was a means to an end. It was something they tolerated for the paychecks…” — Aram Sarkisian [16:24]
• “The impact of geopolitical change in Russia has immediate impacts on church life in the United States." — Aram Sarkisian [28:50]
• “The church has to step in and church affiliated organizations have to step in to kind of take that mantle before really corporate paternalism and...workplace benefits are really a standard part of the American workforce.” — Aram Sarkisian [40:22]
• “I really wanted to tell you a social bottom up history of a community, not just an ecclesiastical history, although that's important, but to really bring out the people and the stories to make you understand that this is a really rich community of experiences that deserve to be explored and to be understood on their own terms.” — Aram Sarkisian [44:50]

Looking Ahead

[49:55]

• Aram’s Current Work:
  • Not affiliated with an institution, but continues to work independently.
  • Two ongoing projects:
    1. “Problems of Orthodoxy in North America”: Essays on post-WWII challenges, including the Cold War, anti-communism, clerical abuse, suburbanization.
    2. Short book on early English-language Orthodoxy in North America, with a focus on the politics and conversion movements among former Episcopalians and Old Catholics, and the tensions of Americanization within an immigrant church.

Closing Thoughts

This episode offers a nuanced, multidimensional view of how Russian Orthodox immigrants both shaped and were shaped by the American industrial, social, and religious landscape during a pivotal era. Sarkisian’s research highlights the resilience of immigrant faith communities and the importance of viewing historical actors as complex, adaptive, and community-driven.

Key Segments & Timestamps

• Author’s Background and Motivation: [02:16]
• Meaning of “Orthodoxy on the Line”: [06:01]
• Progressive Era & Community Formation: [07:54]
• Labor, Class, and Notions of Work: [13:16]
• Social Mobility & Church Support: [19:50]
• Russian Funding & The 1917 Revolution: [24:27]
• Midwest Migration Stories: [31:02], [36:51]
• Church as Welfare Provider: [39:39]
• Archival Methods: [41:50]
• The Power of Faith Communities: [47:35]
• Author’s Current Work: [49:55]

For further exploration, Aram G. Sarkisian’s Orthodoxy on the Line (NYU Press, 2025) is available wherever books are sold.