The Public Image of Eastern Orthodoxy: France and Russia, 1848–1870 centers on the efforts led by Archpriest Iosif Vasilievich Vasiliev in Paris to promote and defend the Russian Orthodox Church against negative stereotypes rampant within the Roman Catholic establishment in France that reinforced a perceived spiritual and civilizational division between Russia and the West. The time period studied accords with Vasiliev's most significant accomplishments in Paris and with the fate of the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Pius IX, from the questioning of papal temporal power during the 1848–1849 revolutions to the proclamation of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council in 1870 that ended a period of more open ecumenical discussion. Heather Bailey brings to this account virtually every Catholic polemic on Orthodoxy in contemporary French-language publications and the Orthodox responses to those attacks, as well as French archival sources related to this dispute and the Orthodox community in Paris. The result is a carefully constructed analysis of the French Catholic misunderstanding of Orthodoxy and of the various attempts by Vasiliev and his allies to correct perceptions and change public opinion. In the end, Bailey admits, the negative stereotypes persevered, although some limited progress was made by the 1860s.

The French Catholic stereotypes of the Russian Orthodox Church envisaged an enslaved and schismatic church controlled by the tsar in a condition of condemnable caesaropapism; in this view, Orthodoxy was “a degenerate other” (44). Compared to the Roman Catholic Church, seen as the “guiding force of civilization” (28), the Russian Church constituted a “base, shameless, and fruitless institution,” a form of “pagan barbarism” with ignorant and indigent clergy (27). The Russian suppression of the Polish Uprising in 1830–1831 and the conversion of 1.5 million Uniates to Russian Orthodoxy in 1839 led to excoriating Catholic diatribes against Orthodoxy throughout the 1840s and presented Russia “more to be feared than Turkey” in the decade prior to the Crimean War (29).

To the rescue of Russian Orthodoxy's image came Archpriest Vasiliev, described as “a Russian David standing up to the Roman Catholic Goliath” (167). After engaging in individual polemics with French Catholic churchmen, Vasiliev created the first Orthodox newspaper in the West, L'Union Chrétienne, to defend the Russian Church and to correct the misunderstanding of it in Europe. First published in 1859, the paper did not have many subscribers and therefore had a minimal impact, but Bailey argues its importance in opening a new avenue of dialogue and a new perspective on a possible future union of Christian churches. In this effort, Vasiliev was assisted by the liberal French priest René-François Guettée, who converted to Orthodoxy in 1862 and was much celebrated in Russia for his prodigious work to educate the West about the truth of Orthodoxy. Both clergymen were praised by the Russians as “‘wrestler[s]’ for Orthodoxy” (163–164).

More important for the image of Orthodoxy in France was the 1861 consecration of the stunning Byzantine-Muscovite-style Alexander Nevsky Church in Paris. Archpriest Vasiliev was the guiding force behind the realization of this construction, helped by Napoleon III's interest in a rapprochement with Russia after the Crimean War. Two chapters assess the positive reporting on the opening of the church and its various splendid public ceremonies, even attracting the Empress Eugénie, who expressed “deep reverence” while in the church (108). The church created a “contact space” that brought Orthodoxy and Catholicism closer and “reshaped Orthodoxy's public image” (96). Beyond advancing the image of Orthodoxy, the church's presence, Bailey argues, “advanced the cause of religious toleration” in France, particularly since at the time the French state only recognized Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism (110). Regardless of positive descriptions of the church and its services, however, anti-Orthodox sentiments, particularly the false assertion of the tsar as the head of the church, remained “ubiquitous in the French press” in the 1860s (114).

Bailey excels in piecing together the dynamics of the dialogue between French Catholic and Russian Orthodox publicists, and she exhibits a deft understanding of the critical contexts of the liberal/ultramontane split among French Catholics and their anxiety about the fate of the papacy during Napoleon III's foreign escapades, as well as the arguments of Russian Slavophiles and Panslavists during this period. Her research is thorough, her prose crisp and readable. But what should readers make of the constant contradiction between applauding heroic attempts to overturn the denigrating Catholic image of the Orthodox Church, recounted painstakingly here through analysis of publications, and yet admitting the limited accomplishments of these efforts? L'Union Chrétienne was on the one hand a “landmark” publication as the first Orthodox publication abroad, but on the other hand received “lackluster attention and support” (173). In the end, after all of Vasiliev's and Guettée's efforts, “there was not an abrupt shift in western opinion” but only “some success at reshaping French attitudes about the Eastern Church” by the 1860s (180). Bailey suggests that perhaps their work in France had a more significant impact inside Russia, where they “reflected and fueled reformist sentiment” in the 1860s concerning the Russian Orthodox Church, but the storyline feels a bit unfinished (174).

In her conclusion, Bailey refers to a marked revision in the portrayal of the Russian Orthodox Church by French Catholic publicist Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu in the 1880s that finally rejected the tsar-pope and enslaved church myths. The reader is left wondering why this occurred in the 1880s and whether 1870 was the best endpoint of this study despite Bailey's justifications. Additionally, at least one image of the Alexander Nevsky Church inside the book and a map with the church's location in Paris would have enhanced the book.

Nevertheless, this is a well written and well researched study that reveals the extent of the prejudice against the Orthodox Church in the mid-nineteenth century in Western Europe and the concerted efforts to counter the persistent negative stereotypes. Anyone interested in the Orthodox Church in Europe, Catholic/Orthodox relations, or the Russian Orthodox Church abroad will find this a fascinating read.