Ways of Russian Theology

Church and State Under Nicholas I.

The fall of the “Ministry of Religious Affairs” in 1824, the overthrow of that “Egyptian yoke,” as Metropolitan Seraphim put it, did not alter the general character of Church-state relations. Fotii vainly hastened to announce that “in the glory of God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ alone is our minister,” for a “secular man” still held power in the Church. Shishkov, even though not a minister of a “combined ministry,” continued to interfere in the affairs of Synodal administration on the questions of the Catechism and Biblical translation. The process of converting Church administration into a “department” was actually speeded up under the Over ProcuratorS.D. Nechaev (1833-1836). 211 Without preliminary permission, without hesitating to decide matters automatically, without consulting the Synod and even altering Synodal decisions while closing off the path of retreat by imperial confirmation of his reports, the Over Procurator concentrated all Synodal affairs and relations in his hands. Nechaev, a Mason, was contemptuous of both the clergy and the hierarchy.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, police reports began to appear against the hierarchs and members of the Holy Synod. These reports largely turned out to be lies. Our chancellery suspected that the Over Procurator assisted in these reports, in order to humiliate Church administration in Russia. Hierarchs and members of the Synod justified themselves as best they could. The Synod was greatly agitated, while the Over Procurator, giving the appearance of agitation and encouraging the dissatisfaction of the members, declared that the regime of police surveillance did more harm than good.

This is how Ismailov, a contemporary bureaucrat in the Synodal Chancellery, recounted these events in his “memoirs.” Even Filaret of Moscow fell under suspicion. In an official report he was goaded into the incautious remark that “the right of the police to report rumors without the least responsibility for false information impedes the freedom of administration and disturbs, in word and deed, the tranquility of Russian subjects.” This was an outright condemnation of the gendarme principle. During Nicholas' reign such remarks were not forgotten, even in the case of metropolitans. Once again during the cholera of 1830 Filaret appeared disloyal, when in his sermon he spoke too frequently about the sins of kings and about Divine punishments. Finally, it would seem at Filaret's insistence, the idea to appoint the Tsarevich, the future Alexander II, to a seat in the Synod in conformity with his inclusion in the Senate and other higher state bodies was rejected. With a surprising lack of delicacy, Filaret referred to the internal autonomy of the Church. Even to catch sight of Filaret became an unpleasantry for the Emperor Nicholas.

Filaret had his own theory about the state, a theory of the Holy Kingdom. He certainly did not conform to the official and officious doctrine of state sovereignty. “The Sovereign receives his entire legitimacy from the Church's anointment,” that is, in the Church and through the Church. And only the Sovereign is anointed, not the state. Therefore the organs of state power possess no jurisdiction in Church affairs. Filaret's cast of mind was utterly foreign to the state bureaucrats of the Nicholaitan era. For them Filaret was a dangerous liberal. Sideline observers held the same opinion. “Filaret was very clever in humiliating the temporal power; in his sermons there was the light of that vague Christian socialism which beamed from Lacordaire 2l2 and other far-sighted Catholics” (This was Herzen's estimate in My Past and Thoughts [Byloe i dumy].).

Dissatisfaction with Nechaev reached such a pitch that the Tsar was asked to appoint a more workable Over Procurator. The assistant to the Over Procurator, A.N. Murav'ev, played a decisive part in this plan. Count N.A. Pratasov was appointed. He turned out to be even more powerful than Nechaev. He had a completely elaborated system of reform, and he possessed the ability to gather shrewd and able executors of his designs. Pratasov faithfully promoted the Nicholaitan establishment or regime in Church politics. State integration of Church administration was completed precisely in this period. Hence-forth the Church was known as the “Department of the Orthodox Confession.” The clergy and the hierarchy were included. The office of Over Procurator was transformed by means of a “Synodal Command” from an organ of state surveillance and supervision into an organ of real power. This was entirely in harmony with the spirit of Peter's reform. In those same' years Speranskii was minting precise formulae in the Petrine spirit.

As a Christian sovereign the Emperor is the supreme defender and guardian of the dogmas of the ruling faith and observer of orthodoxy [pravoverie] and all good order in the Holy Church. In this sense, the Emperor, in the law of succession to the throne (April 5, 1797), is called the Head of the Church. The Autocratic power is implemented in Church administration by means of the Most Holy Governing Synod which it has established. (Fundamental Laws [Osnovnye zakony], articles 42 and 43 of the 1832 edition.).

Pratasov looked upon Church affairs solely from the point of view of state interest as “the teaching to which our Fatherland has lent its moral authority.” He built an Empire and put a church on it. Educated by a Jesuit governor, surrounded by assistants and advisors taken for the most part from the former Polotsk Uniate College, Pratasov was the epitome of a self styled and profane bureaucratic Latinism. The urge toward precise definitions was linked to the barracks-like and reactionary spirit of that epoch. Pratasov had no sympathy toward Rome. But Romanized books on theology and canon law corresponded to his own personal tastes. Not only did he wish to rule the Church administration, Pratasov wanted to reorganize and reconstruct it in harmony with the fundamental principles of an absolute confessional state. This design constitutes his historical significance. Prior to his appointment to the Synod, precisely during the period when the “University Statute” and the “Statute on School Districts” was revised in 1835, Pratasov was Uvarov's assistant in the Ministry of Education. 2l3 In that ministry a plan to reform the ecclesiastical schools had been prepared which fully conformed to the minister's anti-clerical and pedagogical views. Was not the very existence of a special ecclesiastical school network simply the manifestation of a dangerous class egoism, “an extraordinarily harmful vocational egoism?” Was not the entire Statute of 1814 antiquated? The Ministry sternly criticized the entire educational system based on fear. It underscored the insufficient and deficient texts as well as the failings of the entire educational program, especially the harm philosophy might do when applied to theology. Would it not reduce to myth that which is beyond human understanding? Parish and district [uezd] schools were to be combined and transferred to the Ministry of Education.

Once more Filaret defended the ecclesiastical schools and the class accused of harmful egoism. The question of transferring or eliminating the schools was dropped. Pratasov insisted on reforms, but the Commission on Ecclesiastical Schools was unwilling either to expand the question or contemplate reforms. It was satisfied to reexamine merely the textbooks and course plans submitted by the various seminaries.

Pratasov decided to circumvent the Commission and even the Synod. In 1839, on the strength of his own Imperial Report, the Commission was dissolved and replaced by a special Ecclesiastical-Educational Administration. Such a step was logical, since the Commission on Ecclesiastical Schools was organically linked with the previous school structure which was now to be substantially altered. Discussion centered precisely on the change of principles, ideals, and goals. The principle of social development and cultural growth placed at the foundation of all the educational measures of the Alexandrine period seemed dangerous, disintegrative, artificial, and useless to Pratasov. He wanted to turn back once more to the eighteenth century with its service professionalism. The former statute openly declared “learning” to be the special aim of these schools. This was exactly what Pratasov did not want. It was precisely this self-contained and “dead learning” which it was above all necessary to eliminate, particularly that “disreputable and godless science” philosophy. According to Pratasov's estimate, previously “in many respects the education of Russia's clerical youths rested on an arbitrary, non-Orthodox foundation which had something in common with various Protestant sects.” This was an obvious rebuke of the Alexandrine period. The former statute explicitly proposed to “adhere directly to the latest discoveries and achievements.” This meant that “non-Orthodox” and “arbitrary” study. Here Pratasov invoked the words of Chrysostom: “Good ignorance is better than poor knowledge. . . .” At any rate, what was needed was a scientific course and instruction suitable to the conditions of village life.

The students leave the seminaries to become village priests. They must know village life and be able to assist the peasant even in his daily affairs. Thus, what use is all this theology to a village priest? Why does he need philosophy, that science of freethinking, nonsense, egoism, and boasting? What are trigonometry, differentials, and integrals to him? It would be better to strengthen his knowledge of Catechetics, Church statutes, and singing. That is enough. Let the higher sciences remain in the academies.

This was how Archimandrite Nikodim Kazantsev, a former teacher at the Moscow Academy, interpreted Pratasov's instructions. Nikodim was at that time rector of Viatka Seminary and had been summoned by the Over Procurator in order to compose new statutes. 2l4 Pratasov and his intimate assistant, Karasevskii, 215 did all they could to inculcate this narrow principle of professionalism in Nikodim. “Every cadet among us knows his weapons and how to march; a sailor knows the name, place and strength of every last nail in the ship; an engineer gauges every conceivable crowbar, hook, and rope. But we clergy do not know our clerical business.” By “clerical business” Pratasov understood not only the “statute” and “singing,” but also the ability to speak “with the people.” It was this pretentious “populism” which gave the projected reform its polemical character. Pratasov merely developed and applied the ideas of Kiselev. 216 Cadres of elementary teachers who could teach morality to the people must be created. The clergy was to be adapted to that end.

Judging by the first survey, it would seem that the village priest, having contact with people who are ready to accept in childish simplicity everything spoken by their pastor, has need not so much of a detailed and deep knowledge of science, as an ability to elucidate Christian truths and morality of the Gospels simply and clearly, phrasing those truths of the Gospel in such a way that they are suitable for the simple minds of the villagers and relating them to the circumstances of village life. . . .

Pratasov's entire design was nothing other than a “wager on simplicity” [stavka na oproshchenie] . In the “circumstances of village life” would it not be more useful to master daily and practical habits than acquire “a deep knowledge of science?” Would it not be better to know the rudiments of medicine and firmly understand the fundamental principles of agriculture? Should not these subjects be introduced and strengthened in the seminary programs at the expense of “cold learning?”

Pratasov proposed to strengthen the non-clerical class features throughout the school system and impart to all instruction “a direction consistent with the needs of village parishioners: ' Pratasov defined the aim of all ecclesiastical schools as “the education of worthy servitors of the altar and preachers of the Word of the Lord to the people.” His proposals were decisively opposed in the Commission on Ecclesiastical Schools. Filaret submitted a point by point refntarion of them and asked how much these proposals were in harmony “with the spirit of Church law: ' Only during the summer absence of Filaret of Moscow and Filaret of Kiev was Pratasov able to push through the Commission a proposal for certain alterations in the textbooks and curriculum. The teacher of literature was reminded that “the direct aim of his work is to educate a person who can correctly, freely, expressively, and convincingly converse with the people about the truths of faith and morality.” Therefore, secular rhetorics, poetics, and so on might be passed over quickly. “Higher criticism in history instruction is to be avoided, for as a weapon in the hands of a one-sided logician it threatens to destroy historical monuments” (that is, their veracity), just as “arbitrary systemization” was to be avoided where nations or personalities are depicted as bearers of “some sort of ideas fatal for them.” Somewhat unexpectedly, a Latin program was proposed for philosophy: “Philosophy is accustomed to speak in Latin: ' Is not this preference for Latin more readily explained by the fear that to carry on a public discussion of philosophy in a readily understood language might be dangerous? Only the most general directions were given for teaching theology: let it be taught “so that the priest may easily adapt and apply it when he finds an opportunity to converse with a simple person born a Mohammedan or a pagan, or who has converted from Christianity.” One need not resolve questions and doubts “which the innocent mind does not even suspect: ' Peter Mogila's Orthodox Confession [Pravoslavnoe ispovedanie] was to be placed at the foundation of this instruction, and “the details of theology are to be confirmed by reference to it.” The Orthodox Confession was published in modern Russian by the Synod in that same year, 1838. In addition, a new subject was to be introduced in the seminary curriculum, the history of the Holy Fathers, for which it was still necessary to work out and compile a textbook.

At that time Pratasov was most concerned with the publication of reference texts which could be consulted as easily and unreservedly as if they were the teaching and injunction of the Church on every dimension of ecclesiastical life. In addition to Peter Mogila's Confession the Imperial and Patriarchal charters on the establishment of the Holy Synod, with an exposition of the Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Church [Tsarskaia i patriarshiia gramaty o uchrezhdenii Sviat. Sinoda, s izlozheniem Pravoslavnago ispovedaniia Postochno-Kafolicheskiia Tserkvi] was issued. 217 The translation and editorial work was undertaken by Filaret of Moscow, who introduced very important corrections in the text in an effort to eliminate Latinisms (e.g., the injunction to laymen against reading the Holy Scriptures and the term “transubstantiation” [presushchestvlenie] were eliminated). 218 Subsequently the Ecclesiastical-Educational Administration prescribed that copies of these “charters” be given to the students at the seminary when they attained the highest form, “so that upon finishing the school and leaving the seminary, they might keep this book for constant reference.” The question of the Catechism was once more raised by Pratasov in connection with the publication of these “Books of Symbols.” Pratasov, supported by Serbinovich, 219 the director of his chancellery, insisted on introducing new questions and answers on Tradition and predestination and omitting those about natural knowledge of God in visible nature. Filaret refused to include an exposition of the so-called “commandments of the Church” 220 in the Catechism, for he found them superfluous alongside God's Commandments. Instead, the commandments concerning the Beatitudes were included (as they had been in the Orthodox Confession). No substantial changes were made in the Catechism. The moment passed without incident. Filaret was satisfied with the new edition of his Catechism. After correction, together with its attendant additions, it was no longer merely a catechism, but a theological “system” in summation. “In as much as there is no book approved for theology, and our theologians do not always guide the word of truth correctly, I was moved to supplement the catechism.” However, Pratasov and Serbinovich were soon dissatisfied. In the next few years the question was several times raised of composing a new catechism by a new author. In the 1850's the name Makarii was selected. 221

In 1839, the Book of Laws [Kniga pravil] was published to replace The Rudder [Kormchaia kniga]. 222 Only Church laws were included in it; civil legislation was omitted. Unlike what was done for civil legislation under Speranskii, Pratasov found it untimely to publish a “complete collection” of Church laws in view of the “unseemliness” (as he justified it) of many laws of the Petrine era and the entire preceding century. Their publication might be somewhat awkward and perhaps even injurious. The Complete Collection of ecclesiastical legislation in Russia since the establishment of the Holy Synod [Polnoe sobranie dukhovnykh ukazonenii v Rossii so vremeni uchrezhdeniia Sviat. Sinoda] already compiled by Professor A. Kunitsyn 223 was therefore left in manuscript, just as the extensive canonical code of Avgustin Sakharov, Bishop of Orenburg, 224, was found unsuitable. Even the Spiritual Regulation 225 was not republished during this era of republication. A Statute on ecclesiastical consistories [Ustav dukhovnykh konsistorii] was newly composed and introduced for temporary use in the same year, 1838, and its final text was confirmed and republished in 1841. For Pratasov's edifice, two pillars were intimately connected: on the one hand, utility, order and discipline, and on the other hand, professional qualification and strict delineation of the entire order by written rules or laws. Pratasov did not like monasticism, which was logical from the state's point of view. He preferred to raise “clerical youths” in a more practical and secular way. He preferred the uniform to the cassock, as Rostislavov very interestingly relates in his memoirs (especially in the chapter “On the reform of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy primarily on the model of the battalion of military cantons”).

Only in 1840 were new course outlines for the seminaries finally worked out and approved. They were introduced in the Moscow and Kazan' districts in the fall of that year. For all of his stubbornness and persistence, Pratasov was forced to give way in a great deal. He had to be satisfied with a compromise. The new subjects which he wanted, “general medicine” and agriculture, were added to the seminary curriculum. But the general character of instruction femained unaltered. Only the Russian language was permitted for teaching all subjects, and Latin was treated as a separate discipline. Modern languages and Hebrew were electives. It was suggested that philosophy be confined to psychology and logic, while excluding other branches of metaphysics. These changes in instruction did not become “generalized.” But the logical coherence and core of courses which so fruitfully distinguished the schools under the Alexandrine statute was lost. An interesting innovation was the “preparatory course for the priesthood” for those who had already finished. This course was a morepractical program, which included visits to city hospitals in order to learn simple methods of healing. No substantial changes were included in the academy course outlines. Only the distribution of courses according to class was altered. New courses and even new chairs were established: patristics, “a theological encyclopedia,” pedagogy, Russian civil history, and so on. However, the most important thing — the spirit of the times — was altered.

Pratasov sought for the clerical robe new people who would be able to transcribe his designs into the more technical language of the Church and theology. After several attempts and failures, he found his man among the Moscow teachers: Afanasii Drozdov, then rector of the Kherson Seminary in Odessa. 226 “Count Pratasov found certain pet ideas in Archimandrite Afanasii and raised him upon his shoulders” (in the words of Metropolitan Filaret). He was transferred as rector to the St. Petersburg Academy.

Afanasii occupied no chair and taught no subjects at the academy. But he was entrusted with the supervision of all teachers, and he conveyed to them the correct ideas about their subjects. Moreover Afanasii was appointed to preside over a special committee on textbooks and course outlines. The entire blow was now concentrated on the educational program. The first theme around which debate swirled (both orally and in writing) was Holy Scripture. Afanasii was not content to distinguish two sources of knowledge about faith, Scripture and Tradition, as independent and separate subjects. He wished to diminish Scripture. One detects personal pain in the passion and irresponsibility with which Afanasii proved the insufficiency (actually the hopelessness) of Scripture. Afanasii frightened contemporaries with his arrogance. “It seems to me that the grace of the Spirit has recoiled from him, and he is often without peace and consolation in the Holy Spirit,” remarked Evsevii Orlinskii (later archbishop of Mogilev), 227 who replaced him as rector. “In such circumstances he tortures himself and does not know what to do with himself. He catches on some haughty dream and then forgets it; he is carried away or puts on airs, and then once more behaves pitifully.” The source of theological suspiciousness, not just caution, may be found in this inner uncertainty, or in his lack of firm faith. “Afanasii, yes, Afanasii alone and no one else preaches: `Mogila's Confession and The Rudder are all there is for me — and there is nothing else,' “ wrote Filaret Gumilevskii to A.V. Gorskii. One might add: and not even the Fathers or the Bible. Afanasii wanted to steer himself away with The Rudder from all doubt. As Gorskii records from these same comments of Metropolitan Filaret, Afanasii “believed in the Church books even more than in the Word of God. You cannot be saved by the Word of God, only the Church books can save you . . . . “ Afanasii was a convinced and consistent obscurantist, and his pessimistic obscurantism sprang from doubt and the lack of faith. Everything was in doubt. Nikanor of Kherson 228 sympathetically and with commiseration depicted Afanasii's sinister and tragic image. Afanasii was neither ignorant nor indifferent. He was a passionately inquisitive and curious man. “A sharp mind able to plunge to the depths of matters,” said Nikanor. But it was a proud and spiteful mind. Afanasii did not read Russian books even in the later years of literary awakening. “Absolute rubbish, my dear boy.” He read only foreign books, both old and modern. He was interested most of all in the Bible, and he was an excellent Hebraist. He was interested in the history of ancient religions, the epoch of early Christianity, and he reread all the Fathers to Photius. 229 He knew contemporary “German Christology” from Bauer to Strauss, 230 the natural sciences, and not just from books. He kept a herbarium and collected minerals. From such a surfeit of knowledge and interests he weakened and fell to doubting. He became frightened and doubted himself. As an older man he wrote voluminously, “he wrote enormous, thorough, and substantial investigations, which were of systematic importance.” But he burned everything. “He wrote and burned.” Yet something was saved from this destruction. The manuscript of the book The Believers in Christ and Christians [Khristovery i Khristiana], on which Afanasii labored in his later years was preserved. The book is about the origins of Christianity. The chapter headings are very curious. The author distinguishes “the believers in Christ” from “Christianity without Christ” and before Jesus Christ. He studied the history, teachings, and tradition of this Christianity. He sought among the apologists for “organic remains” of it ("not that Christianity which takes its beginnings from Jesus Christ, but a different one which preceded it”). The Essenes, Therapeutae, and Philo are the links in the chain of facts he studied. 231 “The effort by writers among the believers in Christ to efface from the historical monuments all the evidence about Christians long in advance of the Christian faith” did not completely succeed. The “Gospel of Marcion” 232 occupied a prominent place in this process of transformation of Christianity into a “Catholic Christian belief.”

In Nikanor's account, Afanasii was “subject to the most oppressive inner grief, and subjected by a sick mind, but not as one who is the product of simple insanity, rather his sickness flowed from a surplus of knowledge, from the impossibility of reconciling intellectual antinomies, from a temporary and passing turbulence, from the principles imbibed with his mother's milk which began to grow in his soul.” This is that sinister “turbulence” of heartfelt beliefs; it is the grief of a heart which doubts everything, and Afanasii's reactionary anxiety grew in this quaking soil. “That man will burn people on a bonfire, he will hand over holy vessels for desecration, yet he will remain half convinced that he does so for the benefit of mankind,” wrote Filaret Gumilevskii, condemning Afanasii's policies. The cooperation between Afanasii and Pratasov — that union of profound doubt and powerful presumption — could not last long. These two men agreed only on practical conclusions, not on premises. Within five years; Afanasii was sent to distant Saratov as bishop.