CHURCH AND STATE
The Russian Orthodox Church--Russia Outside of the Mediaeval Papal
Commonwealth--Influence of the Greek Church--Ecclesiastical History of
Russia--Relations between Church and State--Eastern Orthodoxy and the
Russian National Church--The Synod--Ecclesiastical Grumbling--Local
Ecclesiastical Administration--The Black Clergy and the Monasteries--The
Character of the Eastern Church Reflected in the History of Religious
Art--Practical Consequences--The Union Scheme.
From the curious world of heretics and Dissenters let us pass now to
the Russian Orthodox Church, to which the great majority of the Russian
people belong. It has played an important part in the national history,
and has exercised a powerful influence in the formation of the national
character.
Russians are in the habit of patriotically and proudly congratulating
themselves on the fact that their forefathers always resisted
successfully the aggressive tendencies of the Papacy, but it may be
doubted whether, from a worldly point of view, the freedom from Papal
authority has been an unmixed blessing for the country. If the Popes
failed to realise their grand design of creating a vast European empire
based on theocratic principles, they succeeded at least in inspiring
with a feeling of brotherhood and a vague consciousness of common
interest all the nations which acknowledged their spiritual supremacy.
These nations, whilst remaining politically independent and frequently
coming into hostile contact with each other, all looked to Rome as
the capital of the Christian world, and to the Pope as the highest
terrestrial authority. Though the Church did not annihilate nationality,
it made a wide breach in the political barriers, and formed a channel
for international communication by which the social and intellectual
progress of each nation became known to all the other members of the
great Christian confederacy. Throughout the length and breadth of
the Papal Commonwealth educated men had a common language, a common
literature, a common scientific method, and to a certain extent a common
jurisprudence. Western Christendom was thus all through the Middle Ages
not merely an abstract conception or a geographical expression: if not
a political, it was at least a religious and intellectual unit, and all
the countries of which it was composed benefited more or less by the
connection.
For centuries Russia stood outside of this religious and intellectual
confederation, for her Church connected her not with Rome, but with
Constantinople, and Papal Europe looked upon her as belonging to the
barbarous East. When the Mongol hosts swept over her plains, burnt her
towns and villages, and finally incorporated her into the great empire
of Genghis khan, the so-called Christian world took no interest in the
struggle except in so far as its own safety was threatened. And as
time wore on, the barriers which separated the two great sections of
Christendom became more and more formidable. The aggressive pretensions
and ambitious schemes of the Vatican produced in the Greek Orthodox
world a profound antipathy to the Roman Catholic Church and to Western
influence of every kind. So strong was this aversion that when the
nations of the West awakened in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
from their intellectual lethargy and began to move forward on the path
of intellectual and material progress, Russia not only remained unmoved,
but looked on the new civilisation with suspicion and fear as a thing
heretical and accursed. We have here one of the chief reasons why
Russia, at the present day, is in many respects less civilised than the
nations of Western Europe.
But it is not merely in this negative way that the acceptance of
Christianity from Constantinople has affected the fate of Russia. The
Greek Church, whilst excluding Roman Catholic civilisation, exerted
at the same time a powerful positive influence on the historical
development of the nation.
The Church of the West inherited from old Rome something of that
logical, juridical, administrative spirit which had created the Roman
law, and something of that ambition and dogged, energetic perseverance
that had formed nearly the whole known world into a great centralised
empire. The Bishops of Rome early conceived the design of reconstructing
that old empire on a new basis, and long strove to create a universal
Christian theocratic State, in which kings and other civil authorities
should be the subordinates of Christ's Vicar upon earth. The Eastern
Church, on the contrary, has remained true to her Byzantine traditions,
and has never dreamed of such lofty pretensions. Accustomed to lean on
the civil power, she has always been content to play a secondary part,
and has never strenuously resisted the formation of national churches.
For about two centuries after the introduction of Christianity--from
988 to 1240--Russia formed, ecclesiastically speaking, part of the
Patriarchate of Constantinople. The metropolitans and the bishops were
Greek by birth and education, and the ecclesiastical administration was
guided and controlled by the Byzantine Patriarchs. But from the time of
the Mongol invasion, when communication with Constantinople became more
difficult and educated native priests had become more numerous, this
complete dependence on the Patriarch of Constantinople ceased. The
Princes gradually arrogated to themselves the right of choosing the
Metropolitan of Kief--who was at that time the chief ecclesiastical
dignitary in Russia--and merely sent their nominees to Constantinople
for consecration. About 1448 this formality came to be dispensed with,
and the Metropolitan was commonly consecrated by a Council of Russian
bishops. A further step in the direction of ecclesiastical autonomy was
taken in 1589, when the Tsar succeeded in procuring the consecration of
a Russian Patriarch, equal in dignity and authority to the Patriarchs of
Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria.
In all matters of external form the Patriarch of Moscow was a very
important personage. He exercised a certain influence in civil as well
as ecclesiastical affairs, bore the official title of "Great Lord"
(Veliki Gosudar), which had previously been reserved for the civil head
of the State, and habitually received from the people scarcely less
veneration than the Tsar himself. But in reality he possessed very
little independent power. The Tsar was the real ruler in ecclesiastical
as well as in civil affairs.*
* As this is frequently denied by Russians, it may be well
to quote one authority out of many that might be cited.
Bishop Makarii, whose erudition and good faith are alike
above suspicion, says of Dmitri of the Don: "He arrogated to
himself full, unconditional power over the Head of the
Russian Church, and through him over the whole Russian
Church itself." ("Istoriya Russkoi Tserkvi," V., p. 101.)
This is said of a Grand Prince who had strong rivals and had
to treat the Church as an ally. When the Grand Princes
became Tsars and had no longer any rivals, their power was
certainly not diminished. Any further confirmation that may
be required will be found in the Life of the famous
Patriarch Nikon.
The Russian Patriarchate came to an end in the time of Peter the
Great. Peter wished, among other things, to reform the ecclesiastical
administration, and to introduce into his country many novelties which
the majority of the clergy and of the people regarded as heretical; and
he clearly perceived that a bigoted, energetic Patriarch might throw
considerable obstacles in his way, and cause him infinite annoyance.
Though such a Patriarch might be deposed without any flagrant violation
of the canonical formalities, the operation would necessarily be
attended with great trouble and loss of time. Peter was no friend of
roundabout, tortuous methods, and preferred to remove the difficulty in
his usual thorough, violent fashion. When the Patriarch Adrian died, the
customary short interregnum was prolonged for twenty years, and when
the people had thus become accustomed to having no Patriarch, it was
announced that no more Patriarchs would be elected. Their place
was supplied by an ecclesiastical council, or Synod, in which, as a
contemporary explained, "the mainspring was Peter's power, and the
pendulum his understanding." The great autocrat justly considered
that such a council could be much more easily managed than a stubborn
Patriarch, and the wisdom of the measure has been duly appreciated
by succeeding sovereigns. Though the idea of re-establishing the
Patriarchate has more than once been raised, it has never been carried
into execution. The Holy Synod remains the highest ecclesiastical
authority.
But the Emperor? What is his relation to the Synod and to the Church in
general?
This is a question about which zealous Orthodox Russians are extremely
sensitive. If a foreigner ventures to hint in their presence that the
Emperor seems to have a considerable influence in the Church, he may
inadvertently produce a little outburst of patriotic warmth and virtuous
indignation. The truth is that many Russians have a pet theory on this
subject, and have at the same time a dim consciousness that the theory
is not quite in accordance with reality. They hold theoretically that
the Orthodox Church has no "Head" but Christ, and is in some peculiar
undefined sense entirely independent of all terrestrial authority. In
this respect it is often contrasted with the Anglican Church, much to
the disadvantage of the latter; and the supposed differences between
the two are made a theme for semi-religious, semi-patriotic exultation.
Khomiakof, for instance, in one of his most vigorous poems, predicts
that God will one day take the destiny of the world out of the hands
of England in order to give it to Russia, and he adduces as one of
the reasons for this transfer the fact that England "has chained, with
sacrilegious hand, the Church of God to the pedestal of the vain earthly
power." So far the theory. As to the facts, it is unquestionable that
the Tsar exercises a much greater influence in ecclesiastical affairs
than the King and Parliament in England. All who know the internal
history of Russia are aware that the Government does not draw a clear
line of distinction between the temporal and the spiritual, and that
it occasionally uses the ecclesiastical organisation for political
purposes.
What, then, are the relations between Church and State?
To avoid confusion, we must carefully distinguish between the Eastern
Orthodox Church as a whole and that section of it which is known as the
Russian Church.
The Eastern Orthodox Church* is, properly speaking, a confederation of
independent churches without any central authority--a unity founded
on the possession of a common dogma and on the theoretical but now
unrealisable possibility of holding Ecumenical Councils. The
Russian National Church is one of the members of this ecclesiastical
confederation. In matters of faith it is bound by the decisions of
the ancient Ecumenical Councils, but in all other respects it enjoys
complete independence and autonomy.
* Or Greek Orthodox Church, as it is sometimes called.
In relation to the Orthodox Church as a whole the Emperor of Russia is
nothing more than a simple member, and can no more interfere with its
dogmas or ceremonial than a King of Italy or an Emperor of the French
could modify Roman Catholic theology; but in relation to the Russian
National Church his position is peculiar. He is described in one of the
fundamental laws as "the supreme defender and preserver of the dogmas
of the dominant faith," and immediately afterwards it is said that "the
autocratic power acts in the ecclesiastical administration by means
of the most Holy Governing Synod, created by it."* This describes very
fairly the relations between the Emperor and the Church. He is merely
the defender of the dogmas, and cannot in the least modify them; but he
is at the same time the chief administrator, and uses the Synod as an
instrument.
* Svod Zakonov I., 42, 43.
Some ingenious people who wish to prove that the creation of the Synod
was not an innovation represent the institution as a resuscitation of
the ancient local councils; but this view is utterly untenable. The
Synod is not a council of deputies from various sections of the Church,
but a permanent college, or ecclesiastical senate, the members of which
are appointed and dismissed by the Emperor as he thinks fit. It has no
independent legislative authority, for its legislative projects do not
become law till they have received the Imperial sanction; and they are
always published, not in the name of the Church, but in the name of
the Supreme Power. Even in matters of simple administration it is
not independent, for all its resolutions require the consent of the
Procureur, a layman nominated by his Majesty. In theory this functionary
protests only against those resolutions which are not in accordance with
the civil law of the country; but as he alone has the right to
address the Emperor directly on ecclesiastical concerns, and as all
communications between the Emperor and the Synod pass through his hands,
he possesses in reality considerable power. Besides this, he can always
influence the individual members by holding out prospects of advancement
and decorations, and if this device fails, he can make refractory
members retire, and fill up their places with men of more pliant
disposition. A Council constituted in this way cannot, of course,
display much independence of thought or action, especially in a country
like Russia, where no one ventures to oppose openly the Imperial will.
It must not, however, be supposed that the Russian ecclesiastics regard
the Imperial authority with jealousy or dislike. They are all most loyal
subjects, and warm adherents of autocracy. Those ideas of ecclesiastical
independence which are so common in Western Europe, and that spirit of
opposition to the civil power which animates the Roman Catholic clergy,
are entirely foreign to their minds. If a bishop sometimes complains to
an intimate friend that he has been brought to St. Petersburg and made
a member of the Synod merely to append his signature to official papers
and to give his consent to foregone conclusions, his displeasure is
directed, not against the Emperor, but against the Procureur. He is
full of loyalty and devotion to the Tsar, and has no desire to see his
Majesty excluded from all influence in ecclesiastical affairs; but he
feels saddened and humiliated when he finds that the whole government of
the Church is in the hands of a lay functionary, who may be a military
man, and who looks at all matters from a layman's point of view.
This close connection between Church and State and the thoroughly
national character of the Russian Church is well illustrated by the
history of the local ecclesiastical administration. The civil and the
ecclesiastical administration have always had the same character and
have always been modified by the same influences. The terrorism which
was largely used by the Muscovite Tsars and brought to a climax by Peter
the Great appeared equally in both. In the episcopal circulars, as in
the Imperial ukazes, we find frequent mention of "most cruel corporal
punishment," "cruel punishment with whips, so that the delinquent and
others may not acquire the habit of practising such insolence," and much
more of the same kind. And these terribly severe measures were sometimes
directed against very venial offences. The Bishop of Vologda, for
instance, in 1748 decrees "cruel corporal punishment" against priests
who wear coarse and ragged clothes,* and the records of the Consistorial
courts contain abundant proof that such decrees were rigorously
executed. When Catherine II. introduced a more humane spirit into the
civil administration, corporal punishment was at once abolished in the
Consistorial courts, and the procedure was modified according to the
accepted maxims of civil jurisprudence. But I must not weary the reader
with tiresome historical details. Suffice it to say that, from the time
of Peter the Great downwards, the character of all the more energetic
sovereigns is reflected in the history of the ecclesiastical
administration.
* Znamenski, "Prikhodskoe Dukhovenstvo v Rossii so vremeni
reformy Petra," Kazan, 1873.
Each province, or "government," forms a diocese, and the bishop, like
the civil governor, has a Council which theoretically controls his
power, but practically has no controlling influence whatever. The
Consistorial Council, which has in the theory of ecclesiastical
procedure a very imposing appearance, is in reality the bishop's
chancellerie, and its members are little more than secretaries, whose
chief object is to make themselves agreeable to their superior. And it
must be confessed that, so long as they remain what they are, the
less power they possess the better it will be for those who have the
misfortune to be under their jurisdiction. The higher dignitaries have
at least larger aims and a certain consciousness of the dignity of their
position; but the lower officials, who have no such healthy restraints
and receive ridiculously small salaries, grossly misuse the little
authority which they possess, and habitually pilfer and extort in the
most shameless manner. The Consistories are, in fact, what the public
offices were in the time of Nicholas I.
The higher ecclesiastical administration has always been in the hands
of the monks, or "Black Clergy," as they are commonly termed, who form a
large and influential class. The monks who first settled in Russia were,
like those who first visited north-western Europe, men of the earnest,
ascetic, missionary type. Filled with zeal for the glory of God and the
salvation of souls, they took little or no thought for the morrow, and
devoutly believed that their Heavenly Father, without whose knowledge no
sparrow falls to the ground, would provide for their humble wants. Poor,
clad in rags, eating the most simple fare, and ever ready to share what
they had with any one poorer than themselves, they performed faithfully
and earnestly the work which their Master had given them to do. But
this ideal of monastic life soon gave way in Russia, as in the West, to
practices less simple and austere. By the liberal donations and bequests
of the faithful the monasteries became rich in gold, in silver, in
precious stones, and above all in land and serfs. Troitsa, for instance,
possessed at one time 120,000 serfs and a proportionate amount of land,
and it is said that at the beginning of the eighteenth century more than
a fourth of the entire population had fallen under the jurisdiction of
the Church. Many of the monasteries engaged in commerce, and the monks
were, if we may credit Fletcher, who visited Russia in 1588, the most
intelligent merchants of the country.
During the eighteenth century the Church lands were secularised, and the
serfs of the Church became serfs of the State. This was a severe
blow for the monasteries, but it did not prove fatal, as many people
predicted. Some monasteries were abolished and others were reduced to
extreme poverty, but many survived and prospered. These could no longer
possess serfs, but they had still three sources of revenue: a limited
amount of real property, Government subsidies, and the voluntary
offerings of the faithful. At present there are about 500 monastic
establishments, and the great majority of them, though not wealthy,
have revenues more than sufficient to satisfy all the requirements of an
ascetic life.
Thus in Russia, as in Western Europe, the history of monastic
institutions is composed of three chapters, which may be briefly
entitled: asceticism and missionary enterprise; wealth, luxury, and
corruption; secularisation of property and decline. But between Eastern
and Western monasticism there is at least one marked difference.
The monasticism of the West made at various epochs of its history
a vigorous, spontaneous effort at self-regeneration, which found
expression in the foundation of separate Orders, each of which proposed
to itself some special aim--some special sphere of usefulness. In Russia
we find no similar phenomenon. Here the monasteries never deviated
from the rules of St. Basil, which restrict the members to religious
ceremonies, prayer, and contemplation. From time to time a solitary
individual raised his voice against the prevailing abuses, or retired
from his monastery to spend the remainder of his days in ascetic
solitude; but neither in the monastic population as a whole, nor in any
particular monastery, do we find at any time a spontaneous, vigorous
movement towards reform. During the last two hundred years reforms have
certainly been effected, but they have all been the work of the civil
power, and in the realisation of them the monks have shown little more
than the virtue of resignation. Here, as elsewhere, we have evidence of
that inertness, apathy, and want of spontaneous vigour which form one of
the most characteristic traits of Russian national life. In this, as in
other departments of national activity, the spring of action has lain
not in the people, but in the Government.
It is only fair to the monks to state that in their dislike to progress
and change of every kind they merely reflect the traditional spirit of
the Church to which they belong. The Russian Church, like the Eastern
Orthodox Church generally, is essentially conservative. Anything in
the nature of a religious revival is foreign to her traditions and
character. Quieta non movere is her fundamental principle of conduct.
She prides herself as being above terrestrial influences.
The modifications that have been made in her administrative organisation
have not affected her inner nature. In spirit and character she is now
what she was under the Patriarchs in the time of the Muscovite Tsars,
holding fast to the promise that no jot or tittle shall pass from the
law till all be fulfilled. To those who talk about the requirements of
modern life and modern science she turns a deaf ear. Partly from the
predominance which she gives to the ceremonial element, partly from
the fact that her chief aim is to preserve unmodified the doctrine and
ceremonial as determined by the early Ecumenical Councils, and partly
from the low state of general culture among the clergy, she has ever
remained outside of the intellectual movements. The attempts of the
Roman Catholic Church to develop the traditional dogmas by definition
and deduction, and the efforts of Protestants to reconcile their creeds
with progressive science and the ever-varying intellectual currents of
the time, are alike foreign to her nature. Hence she has produced no
profound theological treatises conceived in a philosophical spirit, and
has made no attempt to combat the spirit of infidelity in its modern
forms. Profoundly convinced that her position is impregnable, she has
"let the nations rave," and scarcely deigned to cast a glance at their
intellectual and religious struggles. In a word, she is "in the world,
but not of it."
If we wish to see represented in a visible form the peculiar
characteristics of the Russian Church, we have only to glance at Russian
religious art, and compare it with that of Western Europe. In the West,
from the time of the Renaissance downwards, religious art has kept pace
with artistic progress. Gradually it emancipated itself from archaic
forms and childish symbolism, converted the lifeless typical figures
into living individuals, lit up their dull eyes and expressionless
faces with human intelligence and human feeling, and finally aimed at
archaeological accuracy in costume and other details. Thus in the
West the Icon grew slowly into the naturalistic portrait, and the rude
symbolical groups developed gradually into highly-finished historical
pictures. In Russia the history of religious art has been entirely
different. Instead of distinctive schools of painting and great
religious artists, there has been merely an anonymous traditional craft,
destitute of any artistic individuality. In all the productions of
this craft the old Byzantine forms have been faithfully and rigorously
preserved, and we can see reflected in the modern Icons--stiff, archaic,
expressionless--the immobility of the Eastern Church in general, and of
the Russian Church in particular.
To the Roman Catholic, who struggles against science as soon as it
contradicts traditional conceptions, and to the Protestant, who strives
to bring his religious beliefs into accordance with his scientific
knowledge, the Russian Church may seem to resemble an antediluvian
petrifaction, or a cumbrous line-of-battle ship that has been long
stranded. It must be confessed, however, that the serene inactivity for
which she is distinguished has had very valuable practical consequences.
The Russian clergy have neither that haughty, aggressive intolerance
which characterises their Roman Catholic brethren, nor that bitter,
uncharitable, sectarian spirit which is too often to be found among
Protestants. They allow not only to heretics, but also to members of
their own communion, the most complete intellectual freedom, and never
think of anathematising any one for his scientific or unscientific
opinions. All that they demand is that those who have been born
within the pale of Orthodoxy should show the Church a certain nominal
allegiance; and in this matter of allegiance they are by no mean very
exacting. So long as a member refrains from openly attacking the Church
and from going over to another confession, he may entirely neglect all
religious ordinances and publicly profess scientific theories logically
inconsistent with any kind of dogmatic religious belief without the
slightest danger of incurring ecclesiastical censure.
This apathetic tolerance may be partly explained by the national
character, but it is also to some extent due to the peculiar relations
between Church and State. The government vigilantly protects the Church
from attack, and at the same time prevents her from attacking her
enemies. Hence religious questions are never discussed in the Press,
and the ecclesiastical literature is all historical, homiletic, or
devotional. The authorities allow public oral discussions to be held
during Lent in the Kremlin of Moscow between members of the State Church
and Old Ritualists; but these debates are not theological in our sense
of the term. They turn exclusively on details of Church history, and on
the minutiae of ceremonial observance.
A few years ago there was a good deal of vague talk about a possible
union of the Russian and Anglican Churches. If by "union" is meant
simply union in the bonds of brotherly love, there can be, of course, no
objection to any amount of such pia desideria; but if anything more real
and practical is intended, the project is an absurdity. A real union of
the Russian and Anglican Churches would be as difficult of realisation,
and is as undesirable, as a union of the Russian Council of State and
the British House of Commons.*
* I suppose that the more serious partisans of the union
scheme mean union with the Eastern Orthodox, and not with
the Russian, Church. To them the above remarks are not
addressed. Their scheme is, in my opinion, unrealisable and
undesirable, but it contains nothing absurd.