Work with Youth in the Russian Orthodox Church in the Contemporary Period
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The material posted could form the basis of a good article. Unfortunately, the text requires serious changes and additions, and the issue does not only concern the language.
1.The language is not the best and the title itself needs correcting. For example, why is the word 'youth' written with a lower case letter?
For example, why is the word 'The Youth' capitalized in line 215?
In line 230 we are dealing with a quote. Unfortunately this is not enclosed in inverted commas.
When reading the text, it is not always clear whether we are dealing with quotations or not.
All material needs to be corrected and thoroughly reviewed in this regard.
2.The Soviet Union was not the only country where there was, as the article says, "a violent atheization of the population". There were other countries in Europe where Orthodox Churches functioned and were exposed to violent atheism.
It is necessary to write about this in the literature review to complement the literature.
3.The presentation of the research methods does not clearly indicate why qualitative methods were chosen. The quantitative and qualitative methods should be briefly indicated and then the choice of qualitative methods should be justified. It is necessary in this regard to refer to the professional literature.
4.The article states that 50 informants were used in the preparation of the article, 20 were clergy. It is not clearly written who the other respondents were.
5. Anonymity should be approached with understanding, but can't the place of residence of the respondents be added and stated. Please explain why this was not done.
6.It is difficult to find an in-depth analysis of the research results. There are too many general statements not supported by concrete statements.
7. On line 256 we read that several statements were selected. Unfortunately, it is not given according to which key the selection was made.
8. We notice a lack of continuity in the text, which makes it difficult to read. For example, see the passage from line 313 to 333.
9. In many places, there are no comments or introductions and we find only quotations.
For example, see the fragment from line 336 to 348.
The situation is similar in other parts of the text under review. E.g. from 543 to 556.
10. The discussion does not meet the requirements for scientific articles, i.e., literature references are missing.
11. The bibliography should be corrected.
In conclusion, let us say that it is worth using the submitted material in improving the article.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you very much for your detailed analisis of our paper. Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The concept of «work with youth in the post-Soviet period» (lines 78, 100, etc.) needs clarification. The post-Soviet period lasts already thirty years; definitely, there were different «youths» within this period. The authors mention some «youth» living in the Soviet Union (l. 45) – is this the «youth» they mean in 2021? Differences between the post-Soviet generations of «youth» need to be explained, as well as the evolution of youth's religiosity. Is Soviet atheism still relevant for those born in 2004?
Questions offered to the respondents seem to include ready-made answers (what traditional forms you use?). Was it intentional? Did the respondents have the same concept of traditional/secular/innovative youth work as the researchers? How did the researchers know about it? Was there a preparatory period?
What was the basis for distinction between traditional church\secular and innovative forms? Is there any broader theory behind it?
(line 202) Work is «of human-human» type. It needs to be clarified what this typology means and from where it originates.
Reproducing a sample curriculum without any analysis seems not necessary (Table).
There are three formulations of the purpose in the text (77, 99, 135), of the two duplicate each other.
It is not clear what happens in youth policy of the ROC after 2000. For example, it needs to be explained that only since 2010 the position of staff youth organiser have been made obligatory for some parishes (and why this happened).
It is not clear who are «rural dean», «rector», «assistant rector» mentioned in the text. Is «rector» nastoyatel? I suggest choosing some other words.
Some respondents are given strange and funny names: Dad, Dock, Dima, Ant, etc. Unless the authors had an intention to add some humour to the publication, I suggest choosing something less comical.
References to some important recent publications (in Russian) about social work of the Church are missing (articles by Olga Bogatova and Anastasia Mitrofanova).
The authors write about organization of Orthodox nightclubs for young people, while none of the quotations indicates having such plans, or implementing them. To the best of my knowledge, this idea of nightclubs was part of the epatage strategy of late Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, and no one else, not to mention that such clubs never appeared in reality.
Author Response
Dear Sir / Madam,
thank You very much for the detailed analysis our article. Your valuable referee report will help us to improve our paper.
We shall do all our best to make corrections.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
After the corrections and clarifications made, the text is now acceptable.
Author Response
Dear Sir / Madam,
thank you very much for the detailed analysis of our article. Your valuable referee report helped us to improve our paper. Thank you very much for the acceptance of our paper.
Your authours sincerely
Reviewer 2 Report
I would recommend checking the interviewees' names once again. It has become much better, but still inconsistent. Why some of them have anglicized names (Nick, Vlad), while others are distinctively Russian? (Vladimir - is it different from Vlad? Alexander - from Alex?) Some have full names (Alexander), and some - shortened (Kostya; well, why not Kos? if we have Vlad). Mikle (l. 664) seems to be not a name. I would suggest just giving full Russian names to all of them.
Author Response
Dear Sir / Madam,
thank you very much for the detailed analysis of our article. Your valuable referee report helped us to improve our paper.
Sincerely, our authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
