Will it be the same in Russia?
We do not wish to exaggerate anything, and will even admit that the complaints which are so general of the ignorance of the Russian clergy may be much overstated. Nevertheless, in looking through the bibliography of that country, we find ourselves forced to acknowledge that [pg 710] whenever the day shall arrive for unbelief to have free course there, decorated with the seductive appellations of science, of progress, of the emancipation of reason, etc., the Russian clergy will either find themselves without arms wherewith to defend orthodoxy, or with such only as shall prove insufficient.
In fact, the reader is perhaps not aware that, from the year 1701, Peter the Great had been obliged (according to Voltaire) to forbid the use of pen and ink to monks. “It required,” says the apostle of science, “an express permission from the archimandrite, who was responsible for those to whom he granted it. Peter willed that this ordinance should continue.”[171] The successors of Peter likewise willed the same, although we do not venture to affirm that the ordinance is still observed. Let us, then, be just, and refrain from blaming the Russian monks. If, since the time of Peter the Great, they have not extraordinarily enriched the literature of their country, the fault is none of theirs.
Neither have we any right to blame the secular Russian clergy if few writers have appeared among them, nor yet any one of those whose name alone exercises an apostolate. All the Russians who have written on the ecclesiastical schools of their country are unwearied in their complaints against the badness of the method and the insufficiency of instruction which the young Russian levite takes with him on leaving the seminary.[172] We do not in any way accuse the commissions charged with the inspection and reformation of the ecclesiastical schools. We are convinced that these commissions have done their best; if the evil still continues as before, it is because they have not the power to touch its root. Besides, how can it be expected that a priest, poor, burdened with a family, and in very many cases necessitated to maintain himself and his family by the work of his hands, can either have the necessary freedom of mind or sufficient leisure to devote himself to study?
It remains for us to consider the bishops. These are taken from the monastic orders, and if, since Peter I., all of them have not been archimandrites, yet to all has, at any rate, been granted by the archimandrite, of their convent, at his own risk and peril, the use of pen and ink. Of the two hundred and eighty ecclesiastical writers who have appeared and died in Russia from the conversion of that country to Christianity down to the year 1827, and whose biographies may be found in the Dictionary of Mgr. Eugenius, Metropolitan of Kief,[173] one hundred and ten belonged to the episcopate; and ever since 1827 that episcopate has continued to reckon among its members men remarkable for their learning. Everything, however, is relative. These bishops have shone in Russia; and there has been a desire to make them shine as far as France by translating into French the Orthodox Theology of Mgr. Macarius, Bishop of Vinnitsa; a collection of Sermons, by the late Mgr. Philarete, Metropolitan of Moscow; and perhaps some other works. It is also to be supposed that some care must have been shown in selecting from amongst the productions of ecclesiastical [pg 711] literature in Russia, the best there were to be found of what she possessed. Without criticising, we think there is reason for saying that hitherto the Russian episcopate has not by its writings furnished orthodoxy with a support proportioned to the dangers with which it is threatened, and we doubt very much whether it will be equal to furnishing her with it very quickly. The Russian prelates renowned for their learning are but few in number; besides, so long as the faith and the church are protected by the Penal Code, and judicial prosecution would be the consequence of any attack, neither priests nor bishops have much chance of finding themselves face to face with any adversaries of importance. The latter, in fact, would be exceedingly careful to avoid the men who could denounce them; and the result of this is that, for want of exercise, neither the bishops nor priests can state what is either their strength or their weakness. To this we must add the thousand hindrances placed by Russian censorship to the manifestation of religious thought. There is nothing, even to the sermon preached by the pope in his parish, which must not be submitted to censure.[174] As for pastoral letters of bishops, we should be very glad if any could be quoted to us. The formalities and delays which accompany the revision and approbation of every work destined to appear in print are of a nature to discourage the most intrepid. The examination of all the ecclesiastical productions destined to appear in the immense empire of the czars is confided to the committees of the four ecclesiastical academies of Kief, Kasan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. If no exceptions were allowed, at any rate in favor of periodical works, the complaint of Jeremias might be truly applied to Russia: Parvuli petierunt panem, et non erat, qui frangeret eis—“The little ones asked for bread, and there was none to break it for them” (Lament. Jer. iv. 4). Finally, we will not stop to consider the manner in which ecclesiastical censorship is exercised in Russia, nor yet its tendencies nor its object; but we say, to single out one point only, that it is impossible to find in all Russia a single work that is able to throw any light upon the reciprocal relations of the church and state. More than one reader will join us in acknowledging that in Russia a true, apologetic literature has yet to be created.
To complete the picture of that which will inevitably take place in Russia on the day when the Orthodox Church shall there lose the support of the Penal Code, and will have to struggle alone, and abandoned to her own strength against heresy and unbelief, we ought to observe that, since the general confiscation of the goods of the clergy which was effected under Catherine II. (1762), the Russian Church has no longer anything to supply its needs but that which is allowed it by the state. It is the state which provides for the keeping up of churches and monasteries; the state which furnishes the expenses of the orthodox worship, and which assigns to the ministers [pg 712] of that worship the piece of land from which they must find a maintenance for themselves and their families, or else which supplies them with a salary proportioned to the functions they are to exercise. It is not, after all, impossible that, in the day of which we speak, the state, while continuing to retain a budget for the orthodox worship, may nevertheless extraordinarily reduce it; and also it is not impossible that conditions which cannot be conscientiously accepted will be attached to the payment of the salary, already so moderate, of the ministers of this church. In either case, more even than to combat heresy and unbelief, it will be necessary for the Russian Church to consider how her priests and their families are to find bread and shelter. Now, the only classes which can then effectively help them—are they not the same which at this day show so great a contempt for their popes?
And this is not yet all. In the day of which we speak who will secure to the bishops the obedience of the secular clergy? This clergy trembles now before them, because it sees them armed by the law with a despotic power;[175] but no one can foresee what will happen in the day when popes and bishops shall be equal before the law. The bishops being all drawn from the monastic state, the result has been that hitherto the secular clergy have lived in subjection to the regular; and this fact, united to other causes, has created a powerful antagonism between these two orders of the clergy, which not unfrequently betrays itself by venomous writings. One portion of the press makes common cause with the secular clergy; and, if we may judge by certain tendencies, the admission of the secular clergy to the episcopate will probably be one of the consequences of the changes that will take place in the relations between the church and state. But it is not possible that this change can be peaceably effected; the disorders which, at times, arise in the application of the principle of universal suffrage, show, in some degree, how, in this case, various elections of bishops would be brought about. And then, in the confusion and wild disorder of conflict, where would be found the authority which could have power to settle these differences and claim for itself adhesion and respect? The bishops, moreover, who or a century and a half have all been equal before the czar, and only distinguished by the titles and decorations granted or refused according to the good pleasure of the monarch—will these submit themselves to an archbishop, to a metropolitan, to a patriarch—in a word, to one from amongst themselves? Will they, for the love of concord, invest him with a superior authority, and obey him? And were they to reach this point, would not St. Petersburg contest the primacy with Moscow? And would Kief forget her canonical jurisdiction of former times?
Yet more, would not Constantinople vindicate any right over Russia? And the other Oriental patriarchs—would they forget that their concurrence was formerly sought for the erection of the patriarchate of Moscow, and their approbation to sanction the establishment of the Synod?
We may thus, in its principal features, behold the state to which the czars have reduced the faith and the church of which they entitle themselves the guardians. The picture is a gloomy one; nevertheless, we do [pg 713] not believe that we have exaggerated anything. Before proceeding further we would even say a word of excuse for the czars.
If the Catholic Church were not built upon a rock, proof against all tempests, many a Catholic sovereign designated by appellations indicative of the highest degree of attachment to the church would long ago have reduced her to the same condition as the church of the czars.