“How much happier is Russia than are many Catholic countries!”
It is thus that a German author, of the Baltic provinces, a Protestant,
and a subject of the czar, broke in upon the concert of complaints on the
condition of the Russians to which we had for a long period been
habituated. It is true that Augustus Wilhelm Hupel wrote towards the close
of the last century; but the state of things which drew from him this cry
of admiration continues even at this present time. Let us add that a
considerable number of writers, especially Protestants, share the
sentiments of Hupel; in fact, a certain government not long ago ranged
itself on the side of this author’s opinions, and undertook to procure for
its subjects, whether they would or not, the same happiness as that which
the Russian people enjoy. This fact is a more than sufficient inducement
for us conscientiously to study the cause of this happiness—a study to
which the following pages will be devoted.
Happily, the writer of the Baltic provinces expresses himself with
remarkable precision. “The monarch,” says Hupel, in speaking of the synod
which governs the Russian Church—“the monarch himself selects the members
of this ecclesiastical tribunal, and can also summarily dismiss those who
do not please him. It follows, therefore, that the members of the synod
entirely depend upon the will of the czar. Not only can they do nothing of
which he does not approve, but, by virtue of this arrangement, _it is the
czar himself who is the real head of the church of his empire_. Of what
lofty wisdom, then, is not this institution a proof! How much happier is
Russia than are many Catholic countries!”(123) It is evident, therefore,
that the object of admiration and envy is the concentration of civil and
religious power in the sovereign’s hands; the synod of St. Petersburg
being the institution which secures and perpetuates the concentration of
this double power.
The czar to whom Russia is indebted for the synod is Peter I., surnamed
the Great (1689‐1725), than whom few sovereigns have been the object of
more enthusiastic admiration. The things which he undertook and in which
he succeeded, for promoting the civilization of Russia, are truly
surprising, his laws being, in our opinion, the most splendid monument he
has created in his own memory. Frequently, in glancing through the
_Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire_,(124) while taking
into account the number, the variety, and extent of the subjects embraced
by the genius of Peter, the circumstances under which he had to work, and
the thankless elements which he contrived to manage, we have experienced
sincere admiration; but, side by side with his great qualities, in what
ignoble and monstrous vices did he not indulge! If we were to quote
certain judgments passed by his contemporaries, it would be easy to
understand the disgust with which the _History of Peter the Great_, by
Voltaire, fills every sincere and virtuous man. Great qualities do not
excuse great vices, especially in the case of Peter, who on many occasions
proved by his conduct that he was capable of self‐restraint, had he only
chosen to exercise it. This czar, whose leading characteristics were a
spirit of determination and an energetic will, can neither be excused for
his debauches nor his cruelties. The reforms originated by him naturally
bear the impress of the despotic character of their author. In the present
day it is openly said, even in Russia, that Peter acted, “as if there were
no possible limits to his power, setting himself determinedly to gain his
end, without in the least troubling himself about the nature of the
means.”(125) We may add that the religious convictions of the czar were,
to say the least, an enigma. And this is the man who gave to the Russian
Church the organization which she retains to this day.
Unhappily for the people, when a man rises from among them and
accomplishes unheard‐of undertakings, the prestige of his name eclipses
the light in which justice would regard his actions. If flattery erects to
him its altars, and if religious or political passions find it to their
interest to exalt him, this man, though in his grave, continues no less to
exercise a powerful influence; and all his qualities, even his bad ones,
receive a species of consecration. A century and a half have elapsed since
the death of Peter the Great, and yet it may be said with truth that he
still rules Russia. It is no common thing to find a series of sovereigns,
all of whom draw their inspiration from the same idea; and yet all the
czars, with the single exception of Peter II., who only reigned three
years (1727‐1730), perpetuated, with regard to the Russian Church, the
idea of the originator of the synod.
That the czars, however, should have made it their rule to walk in the
footsteps of Peter, and that in their ukases they should recall his memory
with enthusiastic eulogies, it is easy to conceive; and also that
Protestants, especially those of Germany, should never weary in their
praises of his religious reforms; these praises being, in the first place,
the payment of a debt of gratitude to the czar, and, in the second, an
homage rendered to the Protestant side of the reforms themselves. But the
most painful part of the matter is that Peter and his successors should
have found, in that very church which they were oppressing, not only
docile instruments of their will, but also the warmest encouragements to
prosecute their work. Theophanes Prokopovitch, Bishop of Pskoff, of whom
we will speak further, wrote treatises to prove that “the czars have
received from on high the power to govern the church; only it is not
permitted that they should officiate in it.”(126) Plato Levchin,
Metropolitan of Moscow, while he was still tutor to the Czarowitz Paul,
afterwards Paul I., prepared for his use a catechism which has been held
in great esteem by Protestants. In the epistle dedicatory he thus
addresses his pupil: “I bear in mind a saying of your highness—saying
worthy of eternal remembrance. We were one day reading this passage in the
Gospel: _Take heed that you say not among yourselves: We have Abraham for
our father_ (S. Matt. iii. 9); when, upon my remarking that the Jews
vainly gloried in having Abraham for their father, whose faith and works
they failed to imitate, your highness deigned to reply: ‘And I also should
glory in vain that I descend from the great Peter, did I not intend to
imitate his works.’ That these and other similarly excellent dispositions
of your highness may increase with your years, behold this is what the
church of God, prostrate before the altar, supplicates, and will never
cease to supplicate, of the divine mercy, from the profoundest depths of
her heart.”(127)
There is nothing surprising in the fact that lessons such as these,
explained and developed in the body of the catechism, should have borne
their fruit. The pupil of Plato, having become czar, was the first who
introduced into official edicts the title of Head of the Church(128) for
himself and his successors, and more emphatically than perhaps any one of
the others he established as a principle the supremacy of the czar over
the church.(129)
We forbear to quote other examples. If it be true that nations never stop
short at a theory, the same thing is true also of sovereigns; and, when
Nicholas I. acted as every one knows he did act, he was but carrying out
the doctrine accepted and _taught_ in the Russian Church. As for the
people, it would have been indeed surprising had they not shared in the
doctrine of the church, and still more so had they attempted any
opposition to it. In fact, as might be supposed, there was no lack of
writers who set themselves to make the people appreciate the advantages of
every description which they enjoyed under the religious autocracy of the
czars.
This state of things could not, however, last indefinitely; and it was the
Emperor Nicholas himself who, by some of his measures, contributed to
hasten its end. At the commencement of his reign it was desired to exclude
the foreign element from teaching, and to substitute for it the national
only. Professors were lacking; and, to form these, the government thought
it well to send out young men at its own expense to learn in the _German_
universities that which they would subsequently have to teach the
Russians. Besides, for many years past Russia has entered into active and
frequent relations with the rest of Europe; the regulations which bound
Russians, if not to the glebe, at least to the soil of their country, have
been relaxed; travelling has been facilitated; travellers have been able
with less difficulty to penetrate into the country, and its own
inhabitants to go abroad and observe what is passing in the rest of the
world.
And what has resulted from all this? Many things; and, first of all, the
following: “The future propagators of learning and civilization,” says the
Père Gagarin, in a remarkable pamphlet,(130) “were sent to Berlin, where
they lost no time in becoming fervent disciples of the Hegelian ideas. It
was in vain that serious warnings reached St. Petersburg of the fatal
direction these young men were pursuing. For reasons which perhaps some
future day may explain the warnings were wholly unheeded; and in a short
time the chairs of the principal universities were filled by these
dangerous enthusiasts, whose newly‐imported ideas made rapid progress.
School‐masters, professors, journalists, the writers who had been formed
in the universities, successively became the apostles of the doctrines
which they had adopted. Neither censures, nor the watchfulness of the
custom‐house, nor the active surveillance of an ubiquitous and anxious
police, availed to put a stop to the propagation of revolutionary notions,
protected as they were by eccentric formulas, unintelligible to all who
were not in the secret of the sect. It was not until 1848 that the eyes of
the government began to be opened; but it had no efficacious remedy at
hand. It multiplied regulations, of which the object was to hinder the
diffusion of modern science and ideas; but was destitute of salutary
principles to offer as a substitute for the unhealthy teaching of which it
now recognized the dangers. The system of national education, which had so
miserably failed, had been based upon ‘orthodoxy,’ autocracy, and
nationality, and was now resulting in the triumph of German ideas, in the
atheism of Feuerbach, and in radicalism and communism of the most
unbridled description.”
That we may not unjustly charge the Emperor Nicholas with being _solely_
responsible for these results, it must also be said that other Russians,
who had at any rate travelled at their own expense, and foreigners who had
come to settle in Russia, assisted in propagating the same doctrines. If
books are not printed without some reasonable hope that they will be read,
and if the number of publications in which certain ideas are particularly
developed proves the favor with which they are received, it would be only
too easy to make a statistical statement of alarming significance, showing
the favor with which the most revolutionary doctrines are received by the
Russians. Books printed in the Russian language are evidently addressed to
Russians only, this language not having hitherto acquired a place in that
part of education which is called the study of modern languages; and we
can prove the existence of numerous publications in the Russian language,
appearing some in London, some in Berlin, some at Leipsic, some at Geneva,
and elsewhere also, in which the most communistic doctrines find their
apology. Amongst others we may notice the publication at Zurich of a
periodical review entitled _V’pered!_ (Forward!), which wars against all
belief in the supernatural and against every kind of authority. It matters
little that the writings of which we speak themselves penetrate with
difficulty into Russia; it is not to be supposed that the fact of having,
when abroad, read this review or anything similar closes to Russians the
return to their country. The book remains outside; but its teaching enters
with them.
Let us now return to the consideration of the Russian Church. The radical
ideas of which we have been speaking are plainly incompatible with the
religious autocracy of the czars; and nevertheless Russia offers us the
spectacle of men imbued with these ideas, and even manifesting them openly
without, who suddenly recover their orthodoxy as soon as they recross the
frontier of their country.
Under pain of deserving the reproach of cowardly hypocrisy, these Russians
cannot support the existing state of things, liberty of conscience being
too intimately allied with their principles. The reader will judge whether
it is not wholly immoral that men who have ceased to believe in anything
should, in order to escape legal consequences, present themselves in the
“orthodox” churches for confession and communion!... Now, as far as we are
aware, none of the pains and penalties against those who, being born of
“orthodox” parents, fail to practise the state religion, or to fulfil
their duty of annual confession and communion, have hitherto been
abolished; still less are the penalties abolished to which all are liable
who propagate doctrines contrary to those of the official church.
But the Russian atheists and rationalists of every shade of opinion are
not the only persons who have a supreme interest in requiring, together
with liberty of conscience, the abolition of the penalties to which they
would be liable if the same rigor were observed towards them as towards
those Russians who have become Catholics. For the czars, not satisfied
with calling themselves and with being the head of the “orthodox” church,
have also arrogated to themselves the right of direction with regard to
all the religious sects of the empire.
When Paul I. declared that “the supreme authority, confided to the
autocrat by God, extends also over the ecclesiastical state, and that the
clergy are bound to obey the czar _as the head chosen by God himself_ in
all things, _religious_ as well as civil,”(131) he was not addressing
himself to the “orthodox” but to the Catholic subjects of the empire. It
is in employing similar language, and by virtue of the same general
principle, that the czars have defined the position of Protestants,
Armenians, Jews, and Mahometans. However accommodating one may suppose the
Russian subjects belonging to these different religions to be, we cannot
understand why, at least in heart, they do not protest against the strange
pretension that in religious matters they are bound to obey the “orthodox”
czars. Neither can we suppose that, if they hold their errors in good
faith, and believe themselves in possession of “religious truth,” they do
not experience some desire to communicate their treasure to others, and do
not suffer in obeying the articles of the penal code which forbid their so
doing.(132) What can be, upon this subject, the sentiments of the ten
millions of Russians belonging to the various sects formed in the bosom of
the Russian Church itself, their name itself indicates; they are called
collectively _Raskolniks_—that is to say, _schismatics_. Thus we need not
say what must be the thoughts and desires of the Catholic subjects of the
czar. There remain only the “orthodox”; but it is they who form the
majority of the Russian subjects. It would be too much to expect to find
in them the partisans of a more extended liberty of conscience than that
which is permitted by the Code. “The dominant religion of the empire,”
says the Code, “is the orthodox. Liberty of worship is awarded not only to
the members of other Christian confessions, but also to Jews, Mahometans,
and pagans.... _The dominant church alone has the right to make
proselytes._”(133) We will not stop to consider the motives which induce
the “orthodox” Russians to oppose themselves to a more extended liberty of
conscience,(134) but will rather proceed to examine whether, apart from
what we have here said, it be not urgent, even in the interests of
orthodoxy itself, that some changes should be introduced into the present
organization of the Russian Church. We may be able to show that, by a
singular disposition of Providence, the interests of the orthodox _faith_
are intimately allied to those of the Catholic Church in Russia.