A Treatise on Relics

by Jean Calvin

“The two bishops, who a little while before locked themselves in the apartment of the Holy Sepulchre, now sallied forth out of it. When the whole multitude had their candles lighted, the bishops were caught by the crowd, lifted upon their shoulders, and carried to their chapels, amidst loud and triumphant acclamations. They soon, however, reappeared at the head of a similar procession to the one before, as a pretended thank-offering to the Almighty for the miraculous fire vouchsafed.”—(P. 121, et seq.)

It appears, by comparing these two narratives of one and the same thing, though separated by a distance of a hundred and fifty years, that the only difference which will be found between them is, that in the time of Maundrell, 1697, the miraculous fire was produced in about one minute's time, whilst the performance of the same trick required twenty when it was observed by Mr Calman. And, indeed, it has been justly observed by both these writers, that the exhibitors of the miraculous fire, having continued so long to practise this imposture, cannot leave it off without ruining their authority and influence over those whom they have thus been cheating for many centuries. This circumstance has [pg 204] been most pointedly expressed by the author of the work from which I have extracted Mr Calman's description of this pious, or rather impious, fraud, and who says:—

“Had it been an occasional miracle, as time had rolled on, and truth had more and more illuminated the human mind, the practice might have been gradually discontinued. As the priests had grown more honest, and the people more enlightened, they might have mutually consigned these pious frauds to the oblivion of the darker ages; and if the blush of shame had risen up at the memories of the past, the world would have respected them the more for their honesty of purpose.

“But an annual miracle, always of the same specific kind, exhibited on the same spot, and at the same hour,—an annual miracle,—at what point of time should this be discontinued? and, if discontinued, would it not be manifest either that heaven had forsaken its favourites, or that all the past had been delusion and imposture?”—(Pp. 127, 128.)

And it is the authority of a church supported by such impious and shameful impostures as this miraculous fire that a number of Anglicans, including several dignitaries of the church, are anxious of preserving against Protestant encroachments, and protest against the existence of the Protestant bishopric of Jerusalem, for fear that it might injure the faith of the pilgrims, and put an end to such sacred [pg 205] juggleries as the one described above, which outrivals the most superstitious practices of ancient or modern Paganism! And it is for the predominance of this same church that the autocrat of Russia has now plunged Europe into a war which may prove one of the bloodiest that modern times have witnessed, and proclaimed a Græco-Russian crusade against the Ottoman Porte and its Christian allies! This last-named circumstance may, I think, render it not uninteresting to my readers to know the manner in which this question is viewed by Russians of elevated rank and superior education. I would therefore recommend to their attention a little pamphlet[123] recently published in English by an accomplished Russian, who had studied at the University of Edinburgh, and had enjoyed friendly intercourse with the most eminent characters of that learned body, leaving with all those who had known him a most favourable impression of his personal character and talents. His opinions, therefore, are not those of an ignorant fanatic, or a hireling of the Government, but must be considered as an expression of those entertained by the upper classes of Russian society. He compares in this pamphlet the position of Russia towards the followers of the Eastern Church in Turkey, to that of England towards the Protestants of other countries, saying:—

“You translate the Bible into all living languages, not excluding the Turkish idiom, and you distribute the holy volumes to the shopkeeper of Constantinople, and to the shepherd who tends his camels amidst the ruins of Ephesus. We are not as laborious propagators of the faith; but yet we would fain intercede in favour of the Turk when your copy of the Bible has converted him to the Christian faith, and who, by the law of the land, must have his head cut off for this transgression. Mark that the obligation is much more binding on us than it is on you, and not the less binding from the job having been begun by yourselves. The Turks are spread amongst the Greeks and surrounded by them. There are ten thousand chances to one, that if the Moslem be converted at all, it is to that creed of which the church stands in his immediate eye, and that creed is ours. But, strange to say, it is because of that very chance that we are to be prohibited from meddling in the matter. With the French and with the English the case is far different. They, indeed, we are told, claim the right of protection only over thousands; but you claim that same right over millions, and, therefore, you shall not have it. The question you may, however, say, is not fairly put, for should a Turk be converted, and on the point of losing his head, we are ready to interpose with our authority, even though it be to the Greek Church that he should have turned. Well! but place yourselves for [pg 207] a moment in our situation. Are we to leave to you the work which has been done in our vineyard, and not stand up for those who have embraced the cross, merely because there are millions in that realm who embrace it? The case stands equally the same with regard to the far greater number of human beings who are born and have grown up in the profession of our faith. Without attempting to prove that they are exposed to constant cruelty and oppression, a fact which has been strenuously denied without the denial having ever been proved, it is abundantly known, and an indisputable fact, that the Greeks are in a state of continual bondage, deprived of the dearest rights of men, condemned, in a religious point of view, to a state of thraldom such as exists in no other part of the world, inasmuch as the supreme head of their church is installed in his dignity, maintained in the same, or deposed by a sovereign professing a faith hostile to his own. Is such a state of things to be tolerated by those who are its victims? and is not this in itself a hardship greater than any other that can be imagined? The English have given us, in a period, it is true, of greater zeal for their faith, an example of active sympathy manifested by them towards their brothers in belief, subjects of a neighbouring and powerful sovereign. The case was not as urgent as the one to which I compare it, inasmuch as the Huguenots of France were not the subjects of a Mussulman sovereign. But [pg 208] this, perhaps, will be brought home as an argument against me, for such is the hatred of sects proceeding from the same faith, that England would, perhaps, have borne more meekly the hardships endured by the Calvinistic brethren, if they had been subjected thereunto by a Soliman, and not by him who styled himself the most Christian king of France. However this may be, it is said at present that, whether oppressed or no, the Greeks never solicited our intervention. To this it may be answered, that the whole difficulty would have been solved by the very fact of the solicitation, for had they had the courage and the means to send a similar and unanimous message to the Emperor of Russia, they would have had the strength and unanimity required themselves to strike the blow, and make all intervention useless. The fact of their having not risen as a man in their own cause, is a sufficient explanation for their want of boldness in soliciting their deliverance at the hands of a foreign state. But laying aside the question of the subjects of the Ottoman empire professing the Greek faith, to speak of the much more vital interest of the faith itself, professed as it is by ourselves, let it be permitted to me to submit to your candid decision, if the work of defending that faith does not belong pre-eminently to us, and neither to the English nor the French. We tolerate in the whole extent of our empire both the Roman Catholic and the Lutheran communions of faith; we have [pg 209] millions of subjects professing both creeds; we build churches for them. Long before the Roman Catholics were emancipated in England, the posts of the highest honour, of the greatest confidence, and of the largest perquisites in the army, the senate, and the supreme council of the empire, were opened indiscriminately by us to men professing the Greek, Roman, or Lutheran creeds. Is it because of our tolerance with respect to sects not our own, that we are condemned to be indifferent to the hardships of those of our own faith? Are we not only to allow your church to stand unmolested within our own realm, but also to allow our own church to fall in ruins within the limits of a neighbouring state? If so, you condemn our toleration, you call it indifference and disbelief.”—(P. 9, et seq.)

It is perfectly true that there are in Russia several millions of Protestants and Roman Catholics, and that many of the highest offices, civil as well as military, are occupied by them; for it is well known that the most efficient servants of the Russian government are chiefly foreigners, either by birth or extraction. This tolerance, however, is always getting more and more restricted; and I have alluded above, on pp. [161-163], to the persecution of the Greeks united with Rome, as well as the systematical proselytism by force and fraud amongst the Protestants of the Baltic provinces. The author says that a Mahometan who becomes a convert to Christianity [pg 210] must lose his head by the laws of Turkey, but he does not tell us what fate awaits a follower of the Greek Church in Russia who would become a Roman Catholic or a Protestant. M. de Custine relates, in his well-known work on Russia,[124] that a Russian gentleman, who enjoyed a high social position at Moscow, published a work, which the censor allowed in an unaccountable manner to pass, maintaining that the influence of the Roman Catholic Church is much more favourable to the progress of civilization than that of the Græco-Russian one, and that the social condition of Russia would have been much more advanced by the former than it has been by the latter. This work produced a great sensation, and the punishment of the author of such a blasphemy was loudly demanded by the orthodox Russians. This affair being submitted to the Emperor, he declared that the author was insane, and ordered to treat him accordingly. The unfortunate individual consequently was put into a madhouse, and though perfectly sane, was subjected to the most rigorous treatment as a lunatic, so that he nearly became in reality what he was officially declared to be, and it was only after several years of this moral and physical torture that he was permitted to have a little more liberty, though still retained in confinement.

I do not know what has become of this unfortunate man, but the truth of this nameless act of tyranny [pg 211] has been fully admitted by Mr Gretsch, who wrote, by the order of the Russian Government, an answer to the work of Custine. He says that the individual in question, a Mr Chadayeff, having committed an action which the laws of Russia punish with great severity, the Emperor Nicholas, desiring to save the culprit from the penalty which he had incurred, ordered, by an act of mercy, to treat him simply as a madman.

Now, I think that the penalty of physical death, inflicted by the Turkish law on the converts from Mahometanism to Christianity, may be considered as humane, if compared to the murder of soul and intellect by the slow process of a moral and physical torture, to which a man has been subjected in Russia for his religious opinions; and if such an atrocious punishment was inflicted by an act of imperial mercy, as a mitigation of the severity of the law, what would it have been if the letter of that law had been fulfilled? “Ferrea jura, insanumque forum.”

If, according to the opinion of the Russian writer, his countrymen have a right of interfering in behalf of the followers of their church in Turkey, on account of the community of their faith, the same right is possessed by Great Britain and other Protestant States, as well as by France and other Roman Catholic powers, to interfere in behalf of their brethren in the faith who are oppressed by Russia. With regard to the observation of the same author, “that the Greeks are in a continual [pg 212] state of bondage, deprived of the dearest rights of men, condemned, in a religious point of view, to a state of thraldom such as exists in no other part of the world, inasmuch as the supreme head of their church is installed in his dignity, maintained in the same, or deposed, by a sovereign professing a faith hostile to his own,” I must remark that he has forgotten, in saying that such a state of thraldom exists not in any other part of the world, to add, except in Russia, because all the Roman Catholic bishops and other dignitaries of their church, as well as the Protestant superintendents, presidents of consistories, &c., “are installed in their dignity, maintained in the same, or deposed, by a sovereign professing a faith hostile to their own.” And his question, “Is such a state of things to be tolerated by its victims? and is it not in itself a hardship greater than any other that can be imagined?” is as much applicable to the Protestants and Roman Catholics of Russia as it is to the Christians of Turkey.