SLAV REVOLUTIONARY CATHOLICISM
If Providence bestows on the English Church only once in every half century a man like Bishop Westcott, this Church, I think, can be sure of a solid and sound longevity. Well, this Bishop Westcott spoke once enthusiastically of "the noble catholicity which is the glory of the English Church." My intention in this lecture is to describe to you an island in the Roman Catholic Church among the Slavs, which island is distinguished by a noble catholicity. "I believe in the holy catholic apostolic church." This sentence that you repeat in London, as do the Roman Catholics in Rome, and we Orthodox in Moscow, has always two meanings, a sectarian and a universal, or a narrow one and a sublime one. The first meaning belongs to the people who imagine Christ standing at the boundary of their Church, turned with his face to them and with his back to all other "schismatic" peoples. The second belongs to the people who think that Christ may be also beyond their own churchyard; that the dwelling of their soul may be too narrow for His soul, and that their self-praisings and schismatic thunderings are very relative in His eyes. I propose to speak to-night about the people of this second category, i.e., of the people who are in the Christian history like a link connecting the different parts, the different Churches, into a higher unity. I will limit my considerations in this lecture to Slav Roman Catholicism. I call my theme of to-night "Slav Revolutionary Catholicism." Why "revolutionary"?
Why not? Is not Christianity a revolutionary movement from its very beginning? Is it not the most wonderful and the most noble among the revolutionary movements in history? Cardinal Newman and many others spoke about the evolution of Christianity. Revolution is the word much more applicable to it. The spreading of this revolution from a poor village in Galilee over all the world—that is the history of the Church; or, if you like, the evolution of a revolution. As a volcano is an internal movement of the earth which gives a new shape to the surface, so the Christian revolution was also an internal movement, which gave a new form to the drama of human life. The Christian religion seemed very simple, it was even poor in simplicity, and still—what an incalculable impression it made! It was simple in aims and in means. It had but one aim, and there was one way only to it: to attain good only by good deeds; to fight for justice only with means that were just; to realise Love only by Love itself; to push darkness away, not by a greater darkness, but by light; to come to God the Perfect by a perfect way. Christ preached a new aim and showed a new way—a very sublime aim and a very limited way indeed. In the pre-Christian world there were manifold aims and manifold ways and means. In Sparta, skilfulness in sinning and hiding sins was tolerated and even applauded. In ancient Rome, till the full sunset of its strength, a good man was regarded as a weak man. Among the pagan Slavs, a prosperous man was envied more than a virtuous man. Christianity cleared the spiritual atmosphere and deepened human life. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." It was very clear. "Narrow is the way which leads unto life." It was very deep. Through Hell you never will reach Heaven. In making the devil your companion you will never come to God. And God is the only aim, Christ the only way to that aim; a very far aim, a very narrow way.
Your great compatriot, Wycliffe, is rightly considered as the beginner of the Reformation. Wycliffe spoke, and his word was his great mission on earth. But his word in Bohemia became flesh—yea, more than flesh—blood and fire. Human words are never great except when transformed into a drama—when incarnated into life. Wycliffe was never so great in England as he became in Bohemia. Christianity in Bohemia was at that time relatively young, nearly three times younger than in Rome. But since Prince Borivoj was baptised by the Slav Apostle, Methodius, never did Bohemian Christianity stand nearer to the primitive Bohemian paganism than at the time when King Wenceslas ruled in Bohemia, and Pope John XXIII ruled in Rome, and Jan Huss served as preacher in a Prague chapel called the Bethlehemian. The paganism under the style of poor Jesus, against which fought Huss, was much more obstinate and aggressive than the paganism under the style of Perun, against which fought St. Methodius. Everywhere was found a substitute for Christ, everywhere a pretext for an easy life and for a broad way instead of the narrow one. Sins and virtues had been equalised by means of money. The Church buildings had been transformed into public places for the exchange of sins and virtues. "Repentance, not Money!"—exclaimed Jan Huss. But his voice was stifled by the piercing sounds of the drums by which the sale of absolution for sin was announced in the streets. Again exclaimed Jan Huss: "The whole Bohemian nation is longing after Truth." But the traders in Christ's blood and tears laughed him to scorn. The doctors of theology asked their colleague Huss to confess that "the Pope is the head and the Bishops the body of the Church, and all their orders must be obeyed." But Huss did not care very much either about the head or the body, but principally about the spirit of the Christian Church. And this spirit he saw eclipsed. He saw men again falling back to the creed of serving "two masters." He looked to the heart of the Christian religion and saw that it was sick, and his soul revolted against it. But his righteous revolution was regarded as a malevolent innovation, his words as a scandalous licence, and his tendencies as a deliberate destruction of Christianity. Therefore Jan Huss was brought before a tribunal of Christian judges, condemned to death and burnt to ashes, ad magnam Dei gloriam, as the Bishop of Lodi preached on that occasion.
The fact was that the Council of Constance was a great innovator, and that Huss stood for the true catholicity of old. He fought for the primitive Christian spirit which always inspired, vivified and purified the Christian world, and his judges introduced a quite anti-Christian, a quite new spirit into the Church, the spirit of judging and killing. The sufficient proof—if you need proof at all—of this is that Huss suffered as a Christian martyr and through painful suffering brought his cause to glory; whereas his judges killed him in the hope through a crime to promote the Christian cause, and so covered their names with shame. The truth and glory of Jan Huss's cause were manifested last year throughout the whole of the globe. The whole world celebrated the quincentenary of his martyr death. I participated in this celebration in New York. It was a rare spectacle, that the New World saw. The Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, Methodists and Baptists, all the Churches and denominations participated in it. We went together, we prayed together, and we felt united in one and the same spirit. That was a great moment, for many of us the unique moment, when we experienced what is meant by the catholicity, by the noble catholicity, of the Christian Church, as Bishop Westcott called it. It was an elevated and sweet feeling. The diabolical spirit of the Council of Constance never could unite us, but the Christian Catholic spirit of Jan Huss united us. The memory of Pope John XXIII divides the world, whereas the memory of the great apostle of the Bohemian nation unites it. Yet the revolution of Jan Huss was not of a personal character. It was not directed against John XXIII, or against the Vatican as Vatican—it was directed against the spirit of Forum Romanum which crept into the Vatican and dwelled there. It was directed against Jupiter, who took the place of Christ in Rome and who invisibly inspired the Council of Constance; and against Perun, who, disguised, smiled from every church in Prague, and with a smile ruled over the souls in Bohemia under the name of Christ.
Mickiewicz, Sienkiewicz! Two great milestones in the history of the Polish soul; two great milestones in Christian history also! Both Roman Catholics and both revolutionists in religion. The religious revolution they made can be characterised only by the words "noble catholicity." Both of them were attracted by Primitive Christianity much more than by the official Church of their own time. Sienkiewicz's work "Quo Vadis?" is by far better known than Mickiewicz's lectures on "The Official Church and Messianism." Yet the same religious ideal has been pictured in both these works. Mickiewicz put on record as the true Christian men of suffering, of intuition and of action ("hommes de douleur, d'intuition, d'action"). Sienkiewicz described the first Christians as being such men. He revived the first days of Christianity in Rome. What striking contrasts between paganism and Christianity! Two quite different worlds in conflict—one world consisting of men of pleasure, and the other of men of suffering. On one side: Nero, Petronius, Vinicius, Seneca himself, and a mass harassed only about panem et circenses. On the other side: Paul of Tarsus, Petrus, Lygie, Ursus and many others willing to suffer and to die, and singing in suffering and in dying: pro Christo! pro Christo! On the one side, the proud Roman citizens, who adored force and who gave sacrifices to good and to evil spirits equally in order to save or procure their miserable, fleeting pleasure. On the other the humble inhabitants of the suburbs of Rome who adored only the Good Spirit of the Universe and did not care about pleasure, but about Justice and Love. Nero or Christ! The Emperor of the Casa Aurea, who, oversaturated and annoyed by life, finished by suicide; or the Prophet from Nazareth who came to establish the Kingdom of God on earth and who was forcibly crucified by the adorers of darkness!