Russia under the Old regime

THE CHURCH AS SERVANT OF THE STATE

of activity. It had nothing to call its own, and identified itself to such an extent with the monarchy that when the latter fell, it went right down with it. The relative ease with which the communists succeeded in eliminating the church from public life in Russia contrasts tellingly with the resistance they encountered in Catholic Eastern Europe where, having attempted the same and failed, in the end they had to accept the church as an independent institution. Except for the Hungarians, the Russians were the last east Europeans to be converted to Christianity. Formal conversion occurred in 987 (rather than 988-g, as the chronicles report) when Prince Vladimir and his court, followed by the rest of the warrior class received baptism from the Greek clergy. The Slavic population at large was converted slowly and often under duress; for many centuries afterwards it continued to adhere to pagan practices. The choice of Orthodoxy for Kievan Russia was a perfectly natural one if one takes into account the wealth of Byzantium in the tenth century and the superiority of its culture relative to Rome's, as well as the importance to Kiev of commercial relations with it.

The fact that Russia received its Christianity from Byzantium rather than from the west had the most profound consequences for the entire course of Russia's historic development. Next to the geographic considerations discussed in the opening chapter of this book, it was perhaps the single most critical factor influencing that country's destiny. By accepting the eastern brand of Christianity, Russia separated itself from the mainstream of Christian civilization which, as it happened, flowed westward. After Russia had been converted, Byzantium declined and Rome ascended. The Byzantine Empire soon came under siege by the Turks who kept on cutting off one by one parts of its realm until they finally seized its capital. In the sixteenth century, Muscovy was the world's only large kingdom still espousing eastern Christianity. The more it came under the assault of Catholicism and Islam, the more withdrawn and intolerant it grew. Thus, the acceptance of Christianity, instead of drawing it closer to the Christian community, had the effect of isolating Russia from its neighbours.

The Orthodox Church, being composed of independent national units, is by its very nature decentralized. It has no papacy to give it cohesion; its units tend to be 'autocephalous' or 'self-headed'. Major doctrinal and administrative issues are settled by councils (synods) which on important occasions assume the format of international church congresses. This practice too is more faithful to the spirit of early Christianity, but it does tend to weaken Orthodoxy's ability to stand up to secular authority. Its structural decentralization is reinforced by the right of national branches of the Orthodox church to make use of local