THE VILLAGE PRIEST
Priests' Names--Clerical Marriages--The White and the Black Clergy--Why
the People do not Respect the Parish Priests--History of the White
Clergy--The Parish Priest and the Protestant Pastor--In What Sense
the Russian People are Religious--Icons--The Clergy and Popular
Education--Ecclesiastical Reform--Premonitory Symptoms of Change--Two
Typical Specimens of the Parochial Clergy of the Present Day.
In formal introductions it is customary to pronounce in a more or less
inaudible voice the names of the two persons introduced. Circumstances
compel me in the present case to depart from received custom. The truth
is, I do not know the names of the two people whom I wish to bring
together! The reader who knows his own name will readily pardon one-half
of my ignorance, but he may naturally expect that I should know the name
of a man with whom I profess to be acquainted, and with whom I daily
held long conversations during a period of several months. Strange as
it may seem, I do not. During all the time of my sojourn in Ivanofka I
never heard him addressed or spoken of otherwise than as "Batushka." Now
"Batushka" is not a name at all. It is simply the diminutive form of an
obsolete word meaning "father," and is usually applied to all village
priests. The ushka is a common diminutive termination, and the root Bat
is evidently the same as that which appears in the Latin pater.
Though I do not happen to know what Batushka's family name was, I can
communicate two curious facts concerning it: he had not possessed it in
his childhood, and it was not the same as his father's.
The reader whose intuitive powers have been preternaturally sharpened by
a long course of sensation novels will probably leap to the conclusion
that Batushka was a mysterious individual, very different from what he
seemed--either the illegitimate son of some great personage, or a man of
high birth who had committed some great sin, and who now sought oblivion
and expiation in the humble duties of a parish priest. Let me dispel
at once all delusions of this kind. Batushka was actually as well as
legally the legitimate son of an ordinary parish priest, who was
still living, about twenty miles off, and for many generations all his
paternal and maternal ancestors, male and female, had belonged to the
priestly caste. He was thus a Levite of the purest water, and thoroughly
Levitical in his character. Though he knew by experience something about
the weakness of the flesh, he had never committed any sins of the heroic
kind, and had no reason to conceal his origin. The curious facts above
stated were simply the result of a peculiar custom which exists among
the Russian clergy. According to this custom, when a boy enters the
seminary he receives from the Bishop a new family name. The name may be
Bogoslafski, from a word signifying "Theology," or Bogolubof, "the love
of God," or some similar term; or it may be derived from the name of the
boy's native village, or from any other word which the Bishop thinks fit
to choose. I know of one instance where a Bishop chose two French words
for the purpose. He had intended to call the boy Velikoselski, after his
native place, Velikoe Selo, which means "big village"; but finding
that there was already a Velikoselski in the seminary, and being in a
facetious frame of mind, he called the new comer Grandvillageski--a word
that may perhaps sorely puzzle some philologist of the future.
My reverend teacher was a tall, muscular man of about forty years of
age, with a full dark-brown beard, and long lank hair falling over his
shoulders. The visible parts of his dress consisted of three articles--a
dingy-brown robe of coarse material buttoned closely at the neck and
descending to the ground, a wideawake hat, and a pair of large, heavy
boots. As to the esoteric parts of his attire, I refrained from making
investigations. His life had been an uneventful one. At an early age he
had been sent to the seminary in the chief town of the province, and had
made for himself the reputation of a good average scholar. "The seminary
of that time," he used to say to me, referring to that part of his
life, "was not what it is now. Nowadays the teachers talk about
humanitarianism, and the boys would think that a crime had been
committed against human dignity if one of them happened to be flogged.
But they don't consider that human dignity is at all affected by their
getting drunk, and going to--to--to places that I never went to. I was
flogged often enough, and I don't think that I am a worse man on that
account; and though I never heard then anything about pedagogical
science that they talk so much about now, I'll read a bit of Latin yet
with the best of them.
"When my studies were finished," said Batushka, continuing the simple
story of his life, "the Bishop found a wife for me, and I succeeded
her father, who was then an old man. In that way I became a priest of
Ivanofka, and have remained here ever since. It is a hard life, for the
parish is big, and my bit of land is not very fertile; but, praise be to
God! I am healthy and strong, and get on well enough."
"You said that the Bishop found a wife for you," I remarked. "I suppose,
therefore, that he was a great friend of yours."
"Not at all. The Bishop does the same for all the seminarists who wish
to be ordained: it is an important part of his pastoral duties."
"Indeed!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "Surely that is carrying the
system of paternal government a little too far. Why should his Reverence
meddle with things that don't concern him?"
"But these matters do concern him. He is the natural protector of widows
and orphans, especially among the clergy of his own diocese. When a
parish priest dies, what is to become of his wife and daughters?"
Not perceiving clearly the exact bearing of these last remarks, I
ventured to suggest that priests ought to economise in view of future
contingencies.
"It is easy to speak," replied Batushka: "'A story is soon told,' as
the old proverb has it, 'but a thing is not soon done.' How are we to
economise? Even without saving we have the greatest difficulty to make
the two ends meet."
"Then the widow and daughters might work and gain a livelihood."
"What, pray, could they work at?" asked Batushka, and paused for a
reply. Seeing that I had none to offer him, he continued, "Even the
house and land belong not to them, but to the new priest."
"If that position occurred in a novel," I said, "I could foretell what
would happen. The author would make the new priest fall in love with
and marry one of the daughters, and then the whole family, including the
mother-in-law, would live happily ever afterwards."
"That is exactly how the Bishop arranges the matter. What the novelist
does with the puppets of his imagination, the Bishop does with real
beings of flesh and blood. As a rational being he cannot leave things
to chance. Besides this, he must arrange the matter before the young man
takes orders, because, by the rules of the Church, the marriage cannot
take place after the ceremony of ordination. When the affair is arranged
before the charge becomes vacant, the old priest can die with the
pleasant consciousness that his family is provided for."
"Well, Batushka, you certainly put the matter in a very plausible way,
but there seem to be two flaws in the analogy. The novelist can make two
people fall in love with each other, and make them live happily together
with the mother-in-law, but that--with all due respect to his Reverence,
be it said--is beyond the power of a Bishop."
"I am not sure," said Batushka, avoiding the point of the objection,
"that love-marriages are always the happiest ones; and as to the
mother-in-law, there are--or at least there were until the emancipation
of the serfs--a mother-in-law and several daughters-in-law in almost
every peasant household."
"And does harmony generally reign in peasant households?"
"That depends upon the head of the house. If he is a man of the right
sort, he can keep the women-folks in order." This remark was made in
an energetic tone, with the evident intention of assuring me that the
speaker was himself "a man of the right sort"; but I did not attribute
much importance to it, for I have occasionally heard henpecked husbands
talk in this grandiloquent way when their wives were out of hearing.
Altogether I was by no means convinced that the system of providing for
the widows and orphans of the clergy by means of mariages de convenance
was a good one, but I determined to suspend my judgment until I should
obtain fuller information.
An additional bit of evidence came to me a week or two later. One
morning, on going into the priest's house, I found that he had a friend
with him--the priest of a village some fifteen miles off. Before we had
got through the ordinary conventional remarks about the weather and the
crops, a peasant drove up to the door in his cart with a message that
an old peasant was dying in a neighbouring village, and desired the last
consolations of religion. Batushka was thus obliged to leave us, and his
friend and I agreed to stroll leisurely in the direction of the village
to which he was going, so as to meet him on his way home. The harvest
was already finished, so that our road, after emerging from the village,
lay through stubble-fields. Beyond this we entered the pine forest, and
by the time we had reached this point I had succeeded in leading the
conversation to the subject of clerical marriages.
"I have been thinking a good deal on this subject," I said, "and I
should very much like to know your opinion about the system."
My new acquaintance was a tall, lean, black-haired man, with a sallow
complexion and vinegar aspect--evidently one of those unhappy mortals
who are intended by Nature to take a pessimistic view of all things, and
to point out to their fellows the deep shadows of human life. I was not
at all surprised, therefore, when he replied in a deep, decided tone,
"Bad, very bad--utterly bad!"
The way in which these words were pronounced left no doubt as to the
opinion of the speaker, but I was desirous of knowing on what that
opinion was founded--more especially as I seemed to detect in the tone a
note of personal grievance. My answer was shaped accordingly.
"I suspected that; but in the discussions which I have had I have always
been placed at a disadvantage, not being able to adduce any definite
facts in support of my opinion."
"You may congratulate yourself on being unable to find any in your own
experience. A mother-in-law living in the house does not conduce to
domestic harmony. I don't know how it is in your country, but so it is
with us."
I hastened to assure him that this was not a peculiarity of Russia.
"I know it only too well," he continued. "My mother-in-law lived with
me for some years, and I was obliged at last to insist on her going to
another son-in-law."
"Rather selfish conduct towards your brother-in-law," I said to myself,
and then added audibly, "I hope you have thus solved the difficulty
satisfactorily."
"Not at all. Things are worse now than they were. I agreed to pay her
three roubles a month, and have regularly fulfilled my promise, but
lately she has thought it not enough, and she made a complaint to the
Bishop. Last week I went to him to defend myself, but as I had not money
enough for all the officials in the Consistorium, I could not obtain
justice. My mother-in-law had made all sorts of absurd accusations
against me, and consequently I was laid under an inhibition for six
weeks!"
"And what is the effect of an inhibition?"
"The effect is that I cannot perform the ordinary rites of our religion.
It is really very unjust," he added, assuming an indignant tone, "and
very annoying. Think of all the hardship and inconvenience to which it
gives rise."
As I thought of the hardship and inconvenience to which the parishioners
must be exposed through the inconsiderate conduct of the old
mother-in-law, I could not but sympathise with my new acquaintance's
indignation. My sympathy was, however, somewhat cooled when I perceived
that I was on a wrong tack, and that the priest was looking at the
matter from an entirely different point of view.
"You see," he said, "it is a most unfortunate time of year. The peasants
have gathered in their harvest, and can give of their abundance.
There are merry-makings and marriages, besides the ordinary deaths
and baptisms. Altogether I shall lose by the thing more than a hundred
roubles!"
I confess I was a little shocked on hearing the priest thus speak of his
sacred functions as if they were an ordinary marketable commodity, and
talk of the inhibition as a pushing undertaker might talk of sanitary
improvements. My surprise was caused not by the fact that he regarded
the matter from a pecuniary point of view--for I was old enough to know
that clerical human nature is not altogether insensible to pecuniary
considerations--but by the fact that he should thus undisguisedly
express his opinions to a stranger without in the least suspecting
that there was anything unseemly in his way of speaking. The incident
appeared to me very characteristic, but I refrained from all audible
comments, lest I should inadvertently check his communicativeness. With
the view of encouraging it, I professed to be very much interested, as
I really was, in what he said, and I asked him how in his opinion the
present unsatisfactory state of things might be remedied.
"There is but one cure," he said, with a readiness that showed he had
often spoken on the theme already, "and that is freedom and publicity.
We full-grown men are treated like children, and watched like
conspirators. If I wish to preach a sermon--not that I often wish to
do such a thing, but there are occasions when it is advisable--I am
expected to show it first to the Blagotchinny, and--"
"I beg your pardon, who is the Blagotchinny?"
"The Blagotchinny is a parish priest who is in direct relations with
the Consistory of the Province, and who is supposed to exercise a strict
supervision over all the other parish priests of his district. He acts
as the spy of the Consistory, which is filled with greedy, shameless
officials, deaf to any one who does not come provided with a handful of
roubles. The Bishop may be a good, well-intentioned man, but he always
sees and acts through these worthless subordinates. Besides this, the
Bishops and heads of monasteries, who monopolise the higher places in
the ecclesiastical Administration, all belong to the Black Clergy--that
is to say, they are all monks--and consequently cannot understand our
wants. How can they, on whom celibacy is imposed by the rules of the
Church, understand the position of a parish priest who has to bring up
a family and to struggle with domestic cares of every kind? What they do
is to take all the comfortable places for themselves, and leave us all
the hard work. The monasteries are rich enough, and you see how poor we
are. Perhaps you have heard that the parish priests extort money from
the peasants--refusing to perform the rites of baptism or burial until
a considerable sum has been paid. It is only too true, but who is to
blame? The priest must live and bring up his family, and you cannot
imagine the humiliations to which he has to submit in order to gain a
scanty pittance. I know it by experience. When I make the periodical
visitation I can see that the peasants grudge every handful of rye and
every egg that they give me. I can overbear their sneers as I go away,
and I know they have many sayings such as--'The priest takes from the
living and from the dead.' Many of them fasten their doors, pretending
to be away from home, and do not even take the precaution of keeping
silent till I am out of hearing."
"You surprise me," I said, in reply to the last part of this long
tirade; "I have always heard that the Russians are a very religious
people--at least the lower classes."
"So they are; but the peasantry are poor and heavily taxed. They set
great importance on the sacraments, and observe rigorously the fasts,
which comprise nearly a half of the year; but they show very little
respect for their priests, who are almost as poor as themselves."
"But I do not see clearly how you propose to remedy this state of
things."
"By freedom and publicity, as I said before." The worthy man seemed to
have learned this formula by rote. "First of all, our wants must be made
known. In some provinces there have been attempts to do this by means of
provincial assemblies of the clergy, but these efforts have always been
strenuously opposed by the Consistories, whose members fear publicity
above all things. But in order to have publicity we must have more
freedom."
Here followed a long discourse on freedom and publicity, which seemed to
me very confused. So far as I could understand the argument, there was
a good deal of reasoning in a circle. Freedom was necessary in order to
get publicity, and publicity was necessary in order to get freedom;
and the practical result would be that the clergy would enjoy bigger
salaries and more popular respect. We had only got thus far in the
investigation of the subject when our conversation was interrupted by
the rumbling of a peasant's cart. In a few seconds our friend Batushka
appeared, and the conversation took a different turn.
Since that time I have frequently spoken on this subject with competent
authorities, and nearly all have admitted that the present condition of
the clergy is highly unsatisfactory, and that the parish priest rarely
enjoys the respect of his parishioners. In a semi-official report,
which I once accidentally stumbled upon when searching for material of
a different kind, the facts are stated in the following plain language:
"The people"--I seek to translate as literally as possible--"do not
respect the clergy, but persecute them with derision and reproaches, and
feel them to be a burden. In nearly all the popular comic stories the
priest, his wife, or his labourer is held up to ridicule, and in all the
proverbs and popular sayings where the clergy are mentioned it is always
with derision. The people shun the clergy, and have recourse to them not
from the inner impulse of conscience, but from necessity. . . . And why
do the people not respect the clergy? Because it forms a class apart;
because, having received a false kind of education, it does not
introduce into the life of the people the teaching of the Spirit, but
remains in the mere dead forms of outward ceremonial, at the same time
despising these forms even to blasphemy; because the clergy itself
continually presents examples of want of respect to religion, and
transforms the service of God into a profitable trade. Can the people
respect the clergy when they hear how one priest stole money from below
the pillow of a dying man at the moment of confession, how another was
publicly dragged out of a house of ill-fame, how a third christened a
dog, how a fourth whilst officiating at the Easter service was dragged
by the hair from the altar by the deacon? Is it possible for the
people to respect priests who spend their time in the gin-shop, write
fraudulent petitions, fight with the cross in their hands, and abuse
each other in bad language at the altar?
"One might fill several pages with examples of this kind--in each
instance naming the time and place--without overstepping the boundaries
of the province of Nizhni-Novgorod. Is it possible for the people
to respect the clergy when they see everywhere amongst them simony,
carelessness in performing the religious rites, and disorder in
administering the sacraments? Is it possible for the people to respect
the clergy when they see that truth has disappeared from it, and
that the Consistories, guided in their decisions not by rules, but
by personal friendship and bribery, destroy in it the last remains of
truthfulness? If we add to all this the false certificates which the
clergy give to those who do not wish to partake of the Eucharist, the
dues illegally extracted from the Old Ritualists, the conversion of
the altar into a source of revenue, the giving of churches to priests'
daughters as a dowry, and similar phenomena, the question as to whether
the people can respect the clergy requires no answer."
As these words were written by an orthodox Russian,* celebrated for his
extensive and intimate knowledge of Russian provincial life, and were
addressed in all seriousness to a member of the Imperial family, we
may safely assume that they contain a considerable amount of truth. The
reader must not, however, imagine that all Russian priests are of
the kind above referred to. Many of them are honest, respectable,
well-intentioned men, who conscientiously fulfil their humble duties,
and strive hard to procure a good education for their children. If they
have less learning, culture, and refinement than the Roman Catholic
priesthood, they have at the same time infinitely less fanaticism, less
spiritual pride, and less intolerance towards the adherents of other
faiths.
* Mr. Melnikof, in a "secret" Report to the Grand Duke
Constantine Nikolaievitch.
Both the good and the bad qualities of the Russian priesthood at the
present time can be easily explained by its past history, and by certain
peculiarities of the national character.
The Russian White Clergy--that is to say, the parish priests, as
distinguished from the monks, who are called the Black Clergy--have had
a curious history. In primitive times they were drawn from all classes
of the population, and freely elected by the parishioners. When a man
was elected by the popular vote, he was presented to the Bishop, and
if he was found to be a fit and proper person for the office, he was
at once ordained. But this custom early fell into disuse. The Bishops,
finding that many of the candidates presented were illiterate peasants,
gradually assumed the right of appointing the priests, with or without
the consent of the parishioners; and their choice generally fell on the
sons of the clergy as the men best fitted to take orders. The creation
of Bishops' schools, afterwards called seminaries, in which the sons of
the clergy were educated, naturally led, in the course of time, to the
total exclusion of the other classes. The policy of the civil Government
led to the same end. Peter the Great laid down the principle that every
subject should in some way serve the State--the nobles as officers in
the army or navy, or as officials in the civil service; the clergy as
ministers of religion; and the lower classes as soldiers, sailors, or
tax-payers. Of these three classes the clergy had by far the lightest
burdens, and consequently many nobles and peasants would willingly have
entered its ranks. But this species of desertion the Government could
not tolerate, and accordingly the priesthood was surrounded by a legal
barrier which prevented all outsiders from entering it. Thus by the
combined efforts of the ecclesiastical and the civil Administration the
clergy became a separate class or caste, legally and actually incapable
of mingling with the other classes of the population.
The simple fact that the clergy became an exclusive caste, with a
peculiar character, peculiar habits, and peculiar ideals, would in
itself have had a prejudicial influence on the priesthood; but this
was not all. The caste increased in numbers by the process of natural
reproduction much more rapidly than the offices to be filled, so that
the supply of priests and deacons soon far exceeded the demand; and the
disproportion between supply and demand became every year greater and
greater. In this way was formed an ever-increasing clerical Proletariat,
which--as is always the case with a Proletariat of any kind--gravitated
towards the towns. In vain the Government issued ukazes prohibiting the
priests from quitting their places of domicile, and treated as vagrants
and runaways those who disregarded the prohibition; in vain successive
sovereigns endeavoured to diminish the number of these supernumeraries
by drafting them wholesale into the army. In Moscow, St. Petersburg, and
all the larger towns the cry was, "Still they come!" Every morning, in
the Kremlin of Moscow, a large crowd of them assembled for the purpose
of being hired to officiate in the private chapels of the rich nobles,
and a great deal of hard bargaining took place between the priests and
the lackeys sent to hire them--conducted in the same spirit, and in
nearly the same forms, as that which simultaneously took place in the
bazaar close by between extortionate traders and thrifty housewives.
"Listen to me," a priest would say, as an ultimatum, to a lackey who was
trying to beat down the price: "if you don't give me seventy-five kopeks
without further ado, I'll take a bite of this roll, and that will be
an end to it!" And that would have been an end to the bargaining, for,
according to the rules of the Church, a priest cannot officiate after
breaking his fast. The ultimatum, however, could be used with effect
only to country servants who had recently come to town. A sharp lackey,
experienced in this kind of diplomacy, would have laughed at the threat,
and replied coolly, "Bite away, Batushka; I can find plenty more of your
sort!" Amusing scenes of this kind I have heard described by old people
who professed to have been eye-witnesses.
The condition of the priests who remained in the villages was not much
better. Those of them who were fortunate enough to find places were
raised at least above the fear of absolute destitution, but their
position was by no means enviable. They received little consideration
or respect from the peasantry, and still less from the nobles. When the
church was situated not on the State Domains, but on a private estate,
they were practically under the power of the proprietor--almost as
completely as his serfs; and sometimes that power was exercised in a
most humiliating and shameful way. I have heard, for instance, of one
priest who was ducked in a pond on a cold winter day for the amusement
of the proprietor and his guests--choice spirits, of rough, jovial
temperament; and of another who, having neglected to take off his hat as
he passed the proprietor's house, was put into a barrel and rolled down
a hill into the river at the bottom!
In citing these incidents, I do not at all mean to imply that they
represent the relations which usually existed between proprietors and
village priests, for I am quite aware that wanton cruelty was not among
the ordinary vices of Russian serf-owners. My object in mentioning the
incidents is to show how a brutal proprietor--and it must be admitted
that they were not a few brutal individuals in the class--could maltreat
a priest without much danger of being called to account for his conduct.
Of course such conduct was an offence in the eyes of the criminal law;
but the criminal law of that time was very shortsighted, and strongly
disposed to close its eyes completely when the offender was an
influential proprietor. Had the incidents reached the ears of the
Emperor Nicholas he would probably have ordered the culprit to be
summarily and severely punished but, as the Russian proverb has it,
"Heaven is high, and the Tsar is far off." A village priest treated in
this barbarous way could have little hope of redress, and, if he were
a prudent man, he would make no attempt to obtain it; for any annoyance
which he might give the proprietor by complaining to the ecclesiastical
authorities would be sure to be paid back to him with interest in some
indirect way.
The sons of the clergy who did not succeed in finding regular sacerdotal
employment were in a still worse position. Many of them served as
scribes or subordinate officials in the public offices, where they
commonly eked out their scanty salaries by unblushing extortion and
pilfering. Those who did not succeed in gaining even modest employment
of this kind had to keep off starvation by less lawful means, and not
unfrequently found their way into the prisons or to Siberia.
In judging of the Russian priesthood of the present time, we must call
to mind this severe school through which it has passed, and we must
also take into consideration the spirit which has been for centuries
predominant in the Eastern Church--I mean the strong tendency both in
the clergy and in the laity to attribute an inordinate importance to
the ceremonial element of religion. Primitive mankind is everywhere and
always disposed to regard religion as simply a mass of mysterious rites
which have a secret magical power of averting evil in this world
and securing felicity in the next. To this general rule the Russian
peasantry are no exception, and the Russian Church has not done all it
might have done to eradicate this conception and to bring religion into
closer association with ordinary morality. Hence such incidents as the
following are still possible: A robber kills and rifles a traveller,
but he refrains from eating a piece of cooked meat which he finds in the
cart, because it happens to be a fast-day; a peasant prepares to rob a
young attache of the Austrian Embassy in St. Petersburg, and ultimately
kills his victim, but before going to the house he enters a church
and commends his undertaking to the protection of the saints; a
housebreaker, when in the act of robbing a church, finds it difficult to
extract the jewels from an Icon, and makes a vow that if a certain saint
assists him he will place a rouble's-worth of tapers before the saint's
image! These facts are within the memory of the present generation. I
knew the young attache, and saw him a few days before his death.
All these are of course extreme cases, but they illustrate a tendency
which in its milder forms is only too general amongst the Russian
people--the tendency to regard religion as a mass of ceremonies which
have a magical rather than a spiritual significance. The poor woman who
kneels at a religious procession in order that the Icon may be carried
over her head, and the rich merchant who invites the priests to bring
some famous Icon to his house, illustrates this tendency in a more
harmless form.
According to a popular saying, "As is the priest, so is the parish," and
the converse proposition is equally true--as is the parish, so is the
priest. The great majority of priests, like the great majority of men
in general, content themselves with simply striving to perform what is
expected of them, and their character is consequently determined to a
certain extent by the ideas and conceptions of their parishioners. This
will become more apparent if we contrast the Russian priest with the
Protestant pastor.
According to Protestant conceptions, the village pastor is a man of
grave demeanour and exemplary conduct, and possesses a certain amount
of education and refinement. He ought to expound weekly to his flock, in
simple, impressive words, the great truths of Christianity, and exhort
his hearers to walk in the paths of righteousness. Besides this, he is
expected to comfort the afflicted, to assist the needy, to counsel those
who are harassed with doubts, and to admonish those who openly stray
from the narrow path. Such is the ideal in the popular mind, and
pastors generally seek to realise it, if not in very deed, at least in
appearance. The Russian priest, on the contrary, has no such ideal set
before him by his parishioners. He is expected merely to conform
to certain observances, and to perform punctiliously the rites and
ceremonies prescribed by the Church. If he does this without practising
extortion his parishioners are quite satisfied. He rarely preaches or
exhorts, and neither has nor seeks to have a moral influence over his
flock. I have occasionally heard of Russian priests who approach to what
I have termed the Protestant ideal, and I have even seen one or two of
them, but I fear they are not numerous.
In the above contrast I have accidentally omitted one important feature.
The Protestant clergy have in all countries rendered valuable service to
the cause of popular education. The reason of this is not difficult to
find. In order to be a good Protestant it is necessary to "search the
Scriptures," and to do this, one must be able at least to read. To be a
good member of the Greek Orthodox Church, on the contrary, according to
popular conceptions, the reading of the Scriptures is not necessary, and
therefore primary education has not in the eyes of the Greek Orthodox
priest the same importance which it has in the eyes of the Protestant
pastor.
It must be admitted that the Russian people are in a certain sense
religions. They go regularly to church on Sundays and holy-days, cross
themselves repeatedly when they pass a church or Icon, take the Holy
Communion at stated seasons, rigorously abstain from animal food--not
only on Wednesdays and Fridays, but also during Lent and the other long
fasts--make occasional pilgrimages to holy shrines, and, in a word,
fulfil punctiliously the ceremonial observances which they suppose
necessary for salvation. But here their religiousness ends. They are
generally profoundly ignorant of religious doctrine, and know little or
nothing of Holy Writ. A peasant, it is said, was once asked by a priest
if he could name the three Persons of the Trinity, and replied without a
moment's hesitation, "How can one not know that, Batushka? Of course
it is the Saviour, the Mother of God, and Saint Nicholas the
miracle-worker!"
That answer represents fairly enough the theological attainments of a
very large section of the peasantry. The anecdote is so often repeated
that it is probably an invention, but it is not a calumny of theology
and of what Protestants term the "inner religious life" the orthodox
Russian peasant--of Dissenters, to whom these remarks do not apply, I
shall speak later--has no conception. For him the ceremonial part of
religion suffices, and he has the most unbounded, childlike confidence
in the saving efficacy of the rites which he practises. If he has been
baptised in infancy, has regularly observed the fasts, has annually
partaken of the Holy Communion, and has just confessed and received
extreme unction, he feels death approach with the most perfect
tranquillity. He is tormented with no doubts as to the efficacy of faith
or works, and has no fears that his past life may possibly have rendered
him unfit for eternal felicity. Like a man in a sinking ship who has
buckled on his life-preserver, he feels perfectly secure. With no fear
for the future and little regret for the present or the past, he awaits
calmly the dread summons, and dies with a resignation which a Stoic
philosopher might envy.
In the above paragraph I have used the word Icon, and perhaps the reader
may not clearly understand the word. Let me explain then, briefly,
what an Icon is--a very necessary explanation, for the Icons play an
important part in the religious observances of the Russian people.
Icons are pictorial, usually half-length, representations of the
Saviour, of the Madonna, or of a saint, executed in archaic Byzantine
style, on a yellow or gold ground, and varying in size from a square
inch to several square feet. Very often the whole picture, with the
exception of the face and hands of the figure, is covered with a metal
plaque, embossed so as to represent the form of the figure and the
drapery. When this plaque is not used, the crown and costume are often
adorned with pearls and other precious stones--sometimes of great price.
In respect of religions significance, Icons are of two kinds: simple,
and miraculous or miracle-working (tchudotvorny). The former are
manufactured in enormous quantities--chiefly in the province of
Vladimir, where whole villages are employed in this kind of work--and
are to be found in every Russian house, from the hut of the peasant to
the palace of the Emperor. They are generally placed high up in a corner
facing the door, and good orthodox Christians on entering bow in that
direction, making at the same time the sign of the cross. Before and
after meals the same short ceremony is always performed. On the eve of
fete-days a small lamp is kept burning before at least one of the Icons
in the house.
The wonder-working Icons are comparatively few in number, and are always
carefully preserved in a church or chapel. They are commonly believed
to have been "not made with hands," and to have appeared in a miraculous
way. A monk, or it may be a common mortal, has a vision, in which he
is informed that he may find a miraculous Icon in such a place, and on
going to the spot indicated he finds it, sometimes buried, sometimes
hanging on a tree. The sacred treasure is then removed to a church, and
the news spreads like wildfire through the district. Thousands flock to
prostrate themselves before the heaven-sent picture, and some are healed
of their diseases--a fact that plainly indicates its miracle-working
power. The whole affair is then officially reported to the Most Holy
Synod, the highest ecclesiastical authority in Russia, in order that
the existence of the miracle-working power may be fully and regularly
proved. The official recognition of the fact is by no means a mere
matter of form, for the Synod is well aware that wonder-working Icons
are always a rich source of revenue to the monasteries where they are
kept, and that zealous Superiors are consequently apt in such cases
to lean to the side of credulity, rather than that of over-severe
criticism. A regular investigation is therefore made, and the formal
recognition is not granted till the testimony of the finder is
thoroughly examined and the alleged miracles duly authenticated. If
the recognition is granted, the Icon is treated with the greatest
veneration, and is sure to be visited by pilgrims from far and near.
Some of the most revered Icons--as, for instance, the Kazan
Madonna--have annual fete-days instituted in their honour; or, more
correctly speaking, the anniversary of their miraculous appearance is
observed as a religions holiday. A few of them have an additional title
to popular respect and veneration: that of being intimately associated
with great events in the national history. The Vladimir Madonna, for
example, once saved Moscow from the Tartars; the Smolensk Madonna
accompanied the army in the glorious campaign against Napoleon in
1812; and when in that year it was known in Moscow that the French were
advancing on the city, the people wished the Metropolitan to take the
Iberian Madonna, which may still be seen near one of the gates of the
Kremlin, and to lead them out armed with hatchets against the enemy.
If the Russian priests have done little to advance popular education,
they have at least never intentionally opposed it. Unlike their Roman
Catholic brethren, they do not hold that "a little learning is a
dangerous thing," and do not fear that faith may be endangered by
knowledge. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact that the Russian Church
regards with profound apathy those various intellectual movements which
cause serious alarm to many thoughtful Christians in Western Europe. It
considers religion as something so entirely apart that its votaries
do not feel the necessity of bringing their theological beliefs into
logical harmony with their scientific conceptions. A man may remain a
good orthodox Christian long after he has adopted scientific opinions
irreconcilable with Eastern Orthodoxy, or, indeed, with dogmatic
Christianity of any kind. In the confessional the priest never seeks to
ferret out heretical opinions; and I can recall no instance in
Russian history of a man being burnt at the stake on the demand of the
ecclesiastical authorities, as so often happened in the Roman Catholic
world, for his scientific views. This tolerance proceeds partly, no
doubt, from the fact that the Eastern Church in general, and the
Russian Church in particular, have remained for centuries in a kind of
intellectual torpor. Even such a fervent orthodox Christian as the late
Ivan Aksakof perceived this absence of healthy vitality, and he did
not hesitate to declare his conviction that, "neither the Russian nor the
Slavonic world will be resuscitated . . . so long as the Church remains
in such lifelessness (mertvennost'), which is not a matter of chance,
but the legitimate fruit of some organic defect."*
* Solovyoff, "Otcherki ig istorii Russkoi Literaturi XIX.
veka." St. Petersburg, 1903, p. 269.
Though the unsatisfactory condition of the parochial clergy is generally
recognised by the educated classes, very few people take the trouble
to consider seriously how it might be improved. During the Reform
enthusiasm which raged for some years after the Crimean War
ecclesiastical affairs were entirely overlooked. Many of the reformers
of those days were so very "advanced" that religion in all its forms
seemed to them an old-world superstition which tended to retard rather
than accelerate social progress, and which consequently should be
allowed to die as tranquilly as possible; whilst the men of more
moderate views found they had enough to do in emancipating the serfs
and reforming the corrupt civil and judicial Administration. During the
subsequent reactionary period, which culminated in the reign of the
late Emperor, Alexander III., much more attention was devoted to Church
matters, and it came to be recognised in official circles that something
ought to be done for the parish clergy in the way of improving their
material condition so as to increase their moral influence. With this
object in view, M. Pobedonostsef, the Procurator of the Holy Synod,
induced the Government in 1893 to make a State-grant of about 6,500,000
roubles, which should be increased every year, but the sum was very
inadequate, and a large portion of it was devoted to purposes of
political propaganda in the form of maintaining Greek Orthodox priests
in districts where the population was Protestant or Roman Catholic.
Consequently, of the 35,865 parishes which Russia contains, only 18,936,
or a little more than one-half, were enabled to benefit by the grant. In
an optimistic, semi-official statement published as late as 1896 it is
admitted that "the means for the support of the parish clergy must even
now be considered insufficient and wanting in stability, making the
priests dependent on the parishioners, and thereby preventing the
establishment of the necessary moral authority of the spiritual father
over his flock."
In some places the needs of the Church are attended to by voluntary
parish-curatorships which annually raise a certain sum of money, and the
way in which they distribute it is very characteristic of the Russian
people, who have a profound veneration for the Church and its rites, but
very little consideration for the human beings who serve at the altar.
In 14,564 parishes possessing such curatorships no less than 2,500,000
roubles were collected, but of this sum 2,000,000 were expended on the
maintenance and embellishment of churches, and only 174,000 were devoted
to the personal wants of the clergy. According to the semi-official
document from which these figures are taken the whole body of the
Russian White Clergy in 1893 numbered 99,391, of whom 42,513 were
priests, 12,953 deacons, and 43,925 clerks.
In more recent observations among the parochial clergy I have noticed
premonitory symptoms of important changes. This may be illustrated by
an entry in my note-book, written in a village of one of the Southern
provinces, under date of 30th September, 1903:
"I have made here the acquaintance of two good specimens of the parish
clergy, both excellent men in their way, but very different from each
other. The elder one, Father Dmitri, is of the old school, a plain,
practical man, who fulfils his duties conscientiously according to his
lights, but without enthusiasm. His intellectual wants are very limited,
and he devotes his attention chiefly to the practical affairs of
everyday life, which he manages very successfully. He does not squeeze
his parishioners unduly, but he considers that the labourer is worthy of
his hire, and insists on his flock providing for his wants according to
their means. At the same time he farms on his own account and attends
personally to all the details of his farming operations. With the
condition and doings of every member of his flock he is intimately
acquainted, and, on the whole, as he never idealised anything or
anybody, he has not a very high opinion of them.
"The younger priest, Father Alexander, is of a different type, and the
difference may be remarked even in his external appearance. There is a
look of delicacy and refinement about him, though his dress and
domestic surroundings are of the plainest, and there is not a tinge of
affectation in his manner. His language is less archaic and picturesque.
He uses fewer Biblical and semi-Slavonic expressions--I mean expressions
which belong to the antiquated language of the Church Service rather
than to modern parlance--and his armoury of terse popular proverbs
which constitute such a characteristic trait of the peasantry, is less
frequently drawn on. When I ask him about the present condition of the
peasantry, his account does not differ substantially from that of his
elder colleague, but he does not condemn their sins in the same forcible
terms. He laments their shortcomings in an evangelical spirit and has
apparently aspirations for their future improvement. Admitting frankly
that there is a great deal of lukewarmness among them, he hopes to
revive their interest in ecclesiastical affairs and he has an idea of
constituting a sort of church committee for attending to the temporal
affairs of the village church and for works of charity, but he looks to
influencing the younger rather than the older generation.
"His interest in his parishioners is not confined to their spiritual
welfare, but extends to their material well-being. Of late an
association for mutual credit has been founded in the village, and
he uses his influence to induce the peasants to take advantage of the
benefits it offers, both to those who are in need of a little ready
money and to those who might invest their savings, instead of keeping
them hidden away in an old stocking or buried in an earthen pot. The
proposal to create a local agricultural society meets also with his
sympathy."
If the number of parish priests of this type increase, the clergy may
come to exercise great moral influence on the common people.