Russia under the Old regime

222

languages in liturgies and theological writings. Intended to bring the church closer to the people, the practice has the effect of separating the members of the Orthodox community still further. Orthodoxy has nothing corresponding to Latin to give its members a sense of oneness transcending national boundaries. The Russian clergy, for example, were ignorant of Greek, and had to import monks from the Balkans whenever they needed to consult Byzantine books.

The whole trend of Orthodox Christianity may be said to be centrifugal, away from the ecumenical towards the regional. And this trend, in turn, has tended to blur the distinction between church, state and nation. The Orthodox church never had the power and the cohesion needed to defend its interests from secular encroachments. Divided into many national branches, each separated from the rest by frontiers and barriers of language, each under its own hierarchy, it had little choice but to adapt itself to whatever temporal power it happened to live under. A perceptive French observer noted already in 1889, long before the Revolution had demonstrated the fact, the utter dependence of the Russian church on the shifting winds of politics:

In Eastern Orthodoxy, the ecclesiastical constitution tends to model itself on the political, while the boundaries of the churches tend to reproduce the boundaries of states. These are two correlative facts, inherent in the national form of the Orthodox churches. Confined within the frontiers of the state, deprived of a common head and religious centre abroad, independent of one another, these churches are more susceptible to the influence of temporal power, more vulnerable to the backlash of revolutions of lay society. With their everywhere identical hierarchy of identical priests and bishops, the Orthodox churches adapt themselves, depending on the time and place, to the most diverse regimes: the mode of their internal administration always ends up by harmonizing with the mode of the political organization.1

The close, almost symbiotic identification of church and state characteristic of eastern Christianity has deep roots in historic and doctrinal factors.

To begin with the historic. The eastern church was fortunate to enjoy from its inception the patronage of the Roman Emperors who, after conversion, transplanted their capital to Constantinople. In Byzantium, the emperor was head of the church, and the church 'was within the state and... part of the state organization'. In the words of Emperor Justinian there existed a relationship of 'harmony' between secular and ecclesiastical authorities which in practice meant that the Emperors participated in some of the most important church functions, including formulation of canon law, summoning of general church councils, and the appointment of bishops. In return, the state used the power at its disposal to uphold the decisions of the synods and to maintain on their territory religious orthodoxy.2 For Byzantine theorists it was axiomatic that the church could not subsist without protection of the state. The matter was stated succinctly by the Patriarch of Constantinople in a letter he sent to Prince Basil 1 of Moscow around 1393. Objecting to Basil's reputed assertion that Muscovy had a church but no emperor, the Patriarch reminded him that it was the duty of emperors to convoke synods, support church rules, and fight heresies. Hence 'it is not possible for Christians to have a church and not to have an emperor. Imperial authority and church exist in close union and communication with one another, and the one cannot be separated from the other.'3

In the west, the conditions making for such close collaboration were absent. After the imperial capital had been transferred to Constantinople, Rome found itself in a political vacuum which its bishops promptly filled. The western church for a long time had no monarchy to contend with, and developed strong secular interests of its own. When, therefore, independent secular authority made its appearance in the west, the situation tended towards confrontation. The western church was not in the least shy in asserting its superiority; already Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) boldly proclaimed the supremacy of church over state. Precisely because it had developed under politically more auspicious circumstances, the eastern Church made on its behalf more modest claims. Then, as Byzantium went under, it became yet more dependent on secular authority for physical protection and financial assistance, whereas the papacy grew richer and more powerful and had less reason than ever to acknowledge secular authority as its equal.

The doctrinal factor which pushes the Orthodox church into the arms of the state has to do with its inherent conservatism. This church considers itself to be the custodian of truths eternally revealed; its mission is to make certain that these are not tampered with or diluted. Purity of doctrine and ritual are for it matters of the gravest importance. Reform movements within orthodoxy have generally aimed at the removal of what were perceived as innovations rather than at a return to scriptural Christianity or an adaptation to modern conditions. The ultimate authority in its eyes is not the Gospels but church tradition. (The Holy Scriptures in Russia were first fully translated and published only in the 1860S-70S.) Because of the importance which attached to the outward manifestations of religion, its magical elements, the Orthodox church has always staunchly resisted changes in ritual, iconography or any other practice. Byzantium still experienced conflicts over doctrine; but by the tenth century when Russia underwent conversion, these had been largely resolved, so that she received the faith in a finished and supposedly perfect form - a fact which made its ecclesiastical establishment more conservative than even the mother church.