Gregory L Freeze

Gregory L. Freeze (Ph.D. Columbia University) is the Raymond Ginger Professor of History at Brandeis University. His primary teaching interests are modern Russian history, with a particular focus on religious and social history. Freeze initially focused his research on the parish clergy, which led to two archivally-driven monographs, one on the formation of the clergy as a caste in the eighteenth century, and a second on attempts to transform that caste into a new professional class of pastors in the nineteenth century. Freeze later shifted his focus to the believers--religious practice and the parishioners themselves. He has also expanded the chronological scope to include the Soviet period, with a major project on "Bolsheviks and Believers," 1917-1941" in progress. He has also participated in two collective research projects under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences, the first in the History section at the St. Petersburg section, the second at the History section in Moscow.