Content:

We live in a world which has become much smaller than it appeared to our fathers and forefathers. The isolation of the nations has gone, and now each of them is the neighbor of all the others. It is no longer possible to ignore the existence of people who inhabit even remote parts of the earth. Mankind is one body, and the destiny of every one of us depends on our willingness and ability to understand others and to work together for the common good.

There are nations which have taken a leading part in the history of mankind for a considerable time, and which are accustomed to lead and to be followed by others. There are also peoples who have lived confined to their own territories, mixing little with others, and who have remained strangers even to their neighbors. Amongst these strangers are the Russian people. For many centuries they have faced by themselves their formidable tasks, they have fought unaided against manifold dangers, and they have tried to find their own answers to the great problems of life. But seldom have they shared the experience of others, and there have been long periods when their very existence was forgotten in the West.

The situation, however, has lately radically changed. Russia has come into the foreground, and she is likely to remain an important member of international society. The future of mankind is bound to be influenced by her people, and the success or failure of co-operation between Russia and other nations is of vital significance for the whole world. It is natural, therefore, that a new interest should have arisen in regard to these ‘newcomers.’ A widespread desire to know more about them has been manifested everywhere, and a large number of books on Russia and her people have recently been published. They tend, however, to give such a conflicting picture of that vast and distant country that the ordinary reader is satisfied that he cannot. understand Russians. He dismisses them as ‘enigmatic.’ This impression is deepened by a habit, common to many recent writers, of treating the Russians primarily as human material for the Communist experiment — those authors who approve of Karl Marx's doctrines praise the Russians; those who oppose that teaching describe them as barbaric and tyrannical.

The Russians often appear from these writings to be a people without any personality of their own; they seem to change their character with every new political system that is imposed upon them, and to lack stability and any distinctive outlook. Such impressions are made and accepted because the Russian background is a blank sheet to most Western people, and any description of that country, however fantastic, sounds plausible, even to readers otherwise intelligent and well-informed.

No nation can be understood without reference to the three major factors which shape the personality of each of its members. These are the land which its people inhabit, the history they have experienced, and the religion they have embraced. On all these points the Russians differ from other nations, for geographically and culturally they belong neither to Europe nor to Asia, but form a link between these two continents. A European or an American does not try to apply his own standards when he approaches Asia; he expects to find there conditions unlike his own. At the same time, when he studies any of the Christian nations, he treats them as a part of Christendom to which he. himself belongs, and he takes for granted a certain amount of common ground.

But where Russia is concerned, he feels lost. Most of the usual ideas he associates with Christian civilization find no confirmation in Russian history; and indeed, many of the typical features of Russian social order, art and religion do not correspond to anything familiar to him.

The secret of Russian culture is that it is both Christian and non-European, and therefore stands apart from the rest of Christendom. The Russians combine in their life and thought elements of Eastern and Western traditions in a way unknown to any other people, and nowhere is this so clearly marked as in the sphere of religion. The key to the understanding of their mind is provided by the study of their own peculiar interpretation of Christianity, for the Russians, more than any other nation, have identified themselves with their Church and have expressed primarily through that channel their most intimate and sacred thoughts.

The study of Russian Christianity has been seriously neglected.

There are scarcely any books in any Western language that deal adequately with the religious history of the Russian people. There are several general as well as more specific reasons for this omission. Religion belongs always to the most intimate, well-guarded aspects of personal or national life. All that human beings possess of good or evil finds expression in their religion. Heroism and cowardice, kindness and brutality, hopes and fears, noble aspirations and low passions — all these are intrinsically bound up with man's attitude to God. Never can an individual or a nation be so unselfish or so aggressive as when inflamed by religious zeal and attracted by a goal which is beyond immediate material concerns.

For this reason, individuals and nations do not easily admit outsiders into the inner chambers of their life. Only as a rare exception, therefore, is a man able to comprehend a religion which is not his own. Unless he feels in sympathy with it, he is, as a rule, prevented from properly estimating the strength and character of its influence. It is possible to form an accurate picture of a political or economic system without approving it, but it is almost impossible to understand a religion without identifying one's own creed with its peculiar tenets.

Such is the general difficulty involved in the study of every religion. There are, in addition, some other more specific reasons which have made the Russian Church a closed world to the Western mind. One of them has been the fashion, prevalent in the period between the two wars, of minimizing the importance of the spiritual factors in history, and of ascribing the predominant significance to economic conditions. Especially in regard to modern Russia, the entire attention of those interested was centered in the reorganization of its means of production, and in its new social order; and but few writers have made any attempt to investigate the religious motive underlying the Communist experiment.

The other reason is the fact that Russian Christians are neither Roman nor Reformed, and these are the only types of Christianity familiar to Europe and America. It means, therefore, that most of the Western authors writing on Russia have tended to describe the Church there either as an oriental copy of Rome, or as a body subservient to the State and suffering from Protestant limitations. But in reality the Russian Church represents a tradition distinct both from Rome and from Protestantism. This is seldom fully recognized by Western Christians, who, whatever their denomination, tend to look down on their Christian brothers from the East, and are unwilling to ascribe any originality or vigor to the Eastern interpretation of religion.

Still another factor is the hostile propaganda against the Russian Church, which has been energetically conducted by past and present generations of the enemies of that country. Those who feared or disliked the Russians have always selected their Church as the main target of attack. Few of them had much knowledge of its inner life, but they were usually addressing people who knew even less and therefore had no means of discriminating between true and false accusations.

Finally, the most important obstacle was the strange silence of the Russian Church itself. It made no attempt to explain its position; hardly any satisfactory literature dealing with its modern history has been available even in the Russian language. It is no wonder, therefore, that it has remained till now a sealed book to the outside world and even to some of its Westernized members. A combination of diverse causes has prevented Russian Christians from discussing their religion in public. As a rule, a person, like a nation, defends his position when it is contrasted unfavorably with others. But Russian Christians have seldom been in direct contact with any other denomination; the majority of them have rarely seen any one who did not share their tradition. They have therefore remained unaware of the special tendencies which divide them from or unite them with the rest of Christendom, and they have felt no need to explain their outlook either to themselves or to others.

Besides this, one of the characteristics of Russian Christians has been their reluctance to use the spoken or written word as a means of conveying their ideas. They have preferred to express themselves through painting, music, architecture and the ritual of daily life. This tendency has made it particularly difficult for them to communicate with outsiders.

Political circumstances have still further restricted their contacts with the West. During the period of the St. Petersburg Empire a heavy censorship was imposed upon them. The study of modern Church history was particularly discouraged, as well as any subjects which dealt with the Christian attitude to the problems of contemporary life. The Imperial Government was unwilling to reveal to the wider world the state of captivity in which the Russian Church had been kept since the time of Peter the Great, and that Christians should be inarticulate suited this policy. The Communist Revolution dealt a final blow at the study of Russian Christianity by prohibiting any reference to it except in anti-religious propaganda. But the same Revolution stimulated at last a genuine wish to understand this silent Church. This desire was created first of all among those educated Russians who, through the blood and toil of the Communist experiment, found their way back to the Church of their fathers. Some of them, who were able to work abroad, published in the interval between the two world wars a number of valuable books on the Russian religion. ¹ The same interest has arisen among the younger generation in the U.S.S.R., who, though brought up in the atmosphere of International Marxism, have suddenly discovered their real roots in their own tradition.

An large number of Soviet novels, poems, films, and historical essays has lately been devoted to appreciative description of the Russian past. The revival of the veneration of the old heroes of Orthodox Russia, like St. Alexander Nevski, Kusma Minin or Suvorov, and the careful preservation of those historic monuments which escaped deliberate destruction during the period of International Communism also show that Russian Orthodox culture has become the centre of a new attention.

The same tendency has been noticeable even among those foreigners who, at first, were drawn to Russia only because of the Communist experiment. An example of such a change of mind is provided by a French scholar, Pierre Pascal, who went to Russia to study Marxism, and came back as an historian of the Russian Church. ² While in Russia, he became interested in the people, and he found out that it is impossible to understand them without a knowledge of their religion. This conclusion is not merely a casual impression; Pascal discovered the way into the very heart of Russian life; he was able to solve the secret of her people, for he had become familiar with the force which shaped their individuality. The Russians cease to be a puzzle as soon as their religious ideas are properly grasped.

Russia has been a stranger to Europe, and the West is equally unknown to the majority of her people, but the time has come for them to meet. It is not easy to break down prejudices, suspicion and misunderstandings that have accumulated during many centuries, but the task is not hopeless, for Russia and the West have built their culture on the same Christian foundation, and they have tried to reach the same ultimate goal, though by diverse paths. They have in common their membership of the Christian Church, and through it mutual trust and understanding can be permanently established.

This book is intended to be an introduction to the history of religion in Russia. It is written in the hope that it will pave the way to that Christian unity which is indispensable for the future progress of true civilization, and which alone can save mankind from those destructive forces which have been brought into existence by the dechristianisation of the modern world.

The Russian people were Christianized at the end of the tenth century (988). This happened some seven hundred years later than the beginning of the Church in the British Isles. It was Prince Vladimir of Kiev (d. 1015) who was responsible for the change of religion among his people. He himself invited to his country missionaries from Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and thus laid the foundation of the Church in Russia.

Russia in the tenth century formed a vital link between Europe and Asia. Such rivers as the Dnieper and the Volga, and numerous lakes, provided safe water-ways for international trade; Greek, Arab, Frankish and Scandinavian merchants flocked to her big cities — Kiev in the south and Novgorod in the north. Through this miscellaneous crowd, the Russians became familiar with the great religions of the world: the Arabs were Mahometans; the Eastern neighbors of the Russians, the Khazars, professed Judaism; the Greeks belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church; the Franks and the Scandinavians were Latin Christians. The early Russian chronicle says that Prince Vladimir, after consulting the wisest men of his land, decided to join the Eastern Orthodox Church, for he believed it best suited the temperament of his people. The Byzantine tradition of Christianity is not so institutional as the Western. It pays less attention to discipline and order but it exults in the beauty of worship and in the sense of divine mercy and forgiveness.

The Russians have always been an artistic race; they find it easier to express their thoughts and feelings through music, color, and design than through books and learned discourses. Prince Vladimir, therefore, made the right choice when he embraced the Eastern tradition. The Russians eagerly accepted their new religion, and soon felt quite at home in the brightly colored churches which sprang up on their great open plain.

Their own pagan background, which contained many features congenial to Eastern Orthodoxy, helped the Slavs to achieve the transition without much inner struggle. The Russians before their conversion had neither temples nor an organized priesthood; they worshipped divine power revealing itself through the various manifestations of nature. The sun, the wind, the earth, and especially the thunderstorm, were considered by them to be the vehicles of divinity. The Russians possessed a keen sense of communion with the departed and held sacramental meals (called "trisna ") on the tombs of their ancestors; they also believed in benevolent and malignant spirits which inhabited woods, fields, rivers and houses. Men and women were treated by the Slavs as equals, and their social organization consisted of small self-governing communities.

Another factor which has no parallel in the history of other nations in Europe also greatly assisted the rapid advance of Christianity among the Russians. This was the all-important fact that they heard the Gospel preached and the services celebrated in the vernacular, and this from the very beginning of their Christian history. Most of the Western nations had been kept by the Church for many centuries in the school of Latin learning. It was a salutary, though sometimes rigid, training, which helped the people of Europe to appreciate logic and discipline and created a bond of unity among them. The Russians have not participated in this experience. They were also brought into the fellowship of the Christian Church, but through a special door, and therefore they remained a peculiar member, differing in many ways from the rest of the body. The Russians shared with other Christians the Bible, the Creed, the threefold ministry, and parish organization. They took the ritual from Byzantium and were profoundly influenced by its beauty and artistic perfection.

But having in common with others the fundamental elements of their newly acquired religion, the Russians found their own approach to it. The majority of Christians saw the Church in the light of the Greek and Latin theological writings. The Russians were the only people in Europe who remained outside this influence; and this made it possible for them to understand Christianity in their own way.

Their attitude to religion was much less philosophical than the Byzantine, and much less institutional than the Latin. It might perhaps appear too direct and too spontaneous to other more learned and sophisticated Christians, but it contained new

and deep insight into Christian truth and stressed a side of Church life which was neglected by other traditions.

Prince Vladimir was the first to display the typically Russian interpretation of Christianity. Before his conversion, this bellicose Prince had little idea of restraint or self-control. He was bold in battle, fond of food and drink, had several wives and a large number of children. His baptism radically changed his behavior, but he did not become morose and retiring; on the contrary, he discovered a new joy in life, and directed his strong and generous nature towards helping the orphaned, the poor, and the sick. His Court retained its fame for the banquets of his heathen days, but, instead of inviting the powerful and the rich, he opened his gates to the hungry and the afflicted. He built homes for the aged and for invalids. Especially striking was his attitude to criminals: this man, who had previously shed blood liberally in fierce battles, realized the sacredness of each human life, and his first impulse was to abolish capital punishment in his vast dominion. This decision greatly surprised the clergy whom he had brought from Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire inherited from its pagan days a system of cruel punishments. Though it was considerably humanized under Christian influence, it nevertheless retained tortures and mutilations for the guilty. The Greek bishops, used to this type of legislation, when consulted by Vladimir, advised the newly converted Prince not to relax the laws against evil-doers; they insisted that the ruler had a duty to punish the wicked severely. Prince Vladimir reluctantly obeyed, but he did not change his mind and remained convinced that tortures and capital punishment had no place in a Christian community. This opinion has been maintained by a large number of Russian Christians, and several outstanding rulers — such as Prince Vladimir Monomakh (d. 1125), the Empress Elizabeth (d. 1761), Alexander II (d. 1881), and Alexander III (d. 1894) — won universal approval by banishing capital punishment from the legislation of the land. The belief that law-breakers ought to be treated as unfortunate victims of their own and others' sins, rather than as persons deserving exemplary retribution, has always been widespread among Russian Christians. ¹ Equally typical of their outlook has been that generosity to the poor which was first displayed by Vladimir, and which often appears extravagant to foreign observers trained in the more reserved atmosphere of the West.

The unusual circumstances, in which Vladimir's two youngest sons lost their lives, serve as another illustration of the peculiarly Russian approach to religion. Vladimir had eleven sons, and, after his death, the eldest of them, Sviatopolk, made an attempt to get rid of his brothers and to become the sole ruler of the country. He chose as the first object of his attack one of them, Prince Boris, who was not yet twenty. Boris was at the head of a strong detachment of his father's troops when he learned about the hostile designs of his half-brother. Though only a youth, he was popular among his men and had already acquired a reputation as a skilful leader in defending the country against nomads. Yet instead of resisting Sviatopolk he gave up the fight and was pitilessly murdered. His contemporary biographer describes his last day as spent in grief and lamentation. He was in the prime of his youth and he wanted to live, but as a Christian he felt that he was not justified in bringing about the death of others in defense of his own life. He was prepared to lead his men into battle when they were protecting their families and homes against barbaric intruders, but this time the situation was different, for this enemy wanted only his destruction. Boris decided to sacrifice his life in order to spare the men under his command.

His brother, Gleb, followed his example and perished a few days later in similar circumstances.

The Russian people were profoundly stirred by the conduct of the young princes. Their behavior had no precedent in the history of the Church. The bishops, sent to Russia from Byzantium, thought the action of the two youths was foolish, but such was not the verdict of the Russians themselves. They declared that the voluntary death of the brothers was a genuine Christian action, a fulfillment of Christ's commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself. The hierarchs, under pressure of public opinion, had to give up their opposition, and Boris and Gleb were the first Saints canonized by the Russian Church (1020). They remain till the present time among the most beloved members of the Christian family of the Russian people, and their example never fails to excite warm admiration. Boris and Gleb were not called martyrs, for they did not die in defense of their faith; they are called instead by the name of "Passion-Bearers," which emphasizes the novelty of their interpretation of what Christian conduct ought to be.

The story of Boris and Gleb shows that the seeds of the Christian religion fell on fertile soil in Russia, and that the nation accepted wholeheartedly the new teaching. It also reveals that Christianity was understood by Russian people neither as a system of doctrines nor as an institution, but primarily as a way of life. The same approach is further illustrated by the peculiar character of early Russian Monasticism. Its founder, St. Theodosius (d. 1074), laid great stress on the social work of the monks, and his famous Monastery of the Caves, near Kiev, became an example of true brotherhood and of generous help to those in distress. Theodosius himself took an active interest in public affairs, and his interventions in the disputes of the Princes saved Russia several times from civil war. The tradition started by him was followed by other Russian monks. They were ready to assist lay people not only in their spiritual problems, but also in their material concerns, believing that the whole of man's life must be illuminated by the light of the Gospel.

The high level of Christian conduct reached by the enlightened section of Russian society is also revealed by Vladimir Monomakh (d. 1125), the most outstanding ruler of the Kiev period of Russian history. He was a man of many gifts. One of the best educated Princes of that time in Europe, he was endowed with exceptional mental and physical energy. He was tireless in the exercise of his princely duties, courageous on the battlefield, wise and merciful in administering justice, generous to the poor, a patron of art and learning. He was a devout Christian and followed Christ in the perplexing and difficult circumstances created by his manifold responsibilities. For example, when one of his sons was killed by another prince, instead of avenging his son's death, according to the custom of his time, he himself took the first step towards reconciliation, for he recognized that his son was the guilty party in the quarrel. His moral authority stood so high that other Russian princes willingly followed his lead, and he several times convoked conferences at which questions of general policy were discussed and settled in the spirit of equality and justice. His philosophy of life has been preserved through his own writing, entitled "A Charge to my Children." After describing various adventures of his successful career, he enumerates the principles which he chose for the guidance of his conduct. He wrote: "My children, praise God, and love men. For it is not fasting, nor solitude, nor monastic life that will procure you eternal life, but only doing good. Forget not the poor, but feed them. Remember that riches come from God and are given you only for a short time. Do not bury your wealth in the ground; this is against the precepts of Christianity. Be fathers to orphans, be judges in the cause of widows and do not let the powerful oppress the weak. Put to death neither the innocent nor the guilty, for nothing is so sacred as the life and the soul of a Christian. Do not desert the sick; do not let the sight of corpses terrify you, for we must all die. Drive out of your heart all suggestions of pride and remember that we are all mortal, to-day full of hope, to-morrow in the coffin. Abhor lying, drunkenness and debauchery. Endeavor constantly to obtain knowledge. Without having quitted his country, my father learned five foreign languages, a thing which won for him the admiration of foreigners."

Prince Vladimir stood above his contemporaries but not outside their ranks. His "charge" enjoyed wide popularity and remained favorite reading for many generations. He expressed ideals universally shared by Russian Christians, and his authority was high because he not only taught well but also behaved in accordance with his teaching.

The period of prosperity and commercial and cultural links with the rest of Christendom enjoyed by the Russians of the Kiev period did not last long, however, and soon a marked decline set in, caused by the collapse of their political order.

The culture and wealth of Russia, and especially that of her big cities, depended on international trade. As long as this flourished, Kiev retained the rank of one of the greatest cities in Europe, and its princes were known and respected in all parts of the world. There was hardly any Royal house in the twelfth century, in France, England, Germany, or Scandinavia, which was not connected, by marriage, with Russia's ruling family, the House of Rurik.

Some idea of the size of the Russian capital is given by the figure of six hundred churches destroyed there by the great fire of 1124. It is no wonder, therefore, that contemporary writers compare Kiev favorably even with Constantinople, the Imperial city of the Christian East.

The basis of Russian prosperity proved, however, to be of an unstable character. In the second part of the twelfth century, owing to the Crusaders and to other causes beyond Russian control, the flow of commerce between Europe and Asia was directed away from the Russian water-ways, and this provoked a rapid decline of the previously flourishing cities. This adversity was further aggravated by the renewal of fierce attacks by the nomads from the Steppes upon the wealthy but poorly protected Russian settlements and by the increase of rivalries and hostility among the Russian princes.

The strength and the weakness of the Russians have always been their tendency to treat their nation as one big family. This offered to men like Vladimir Monomakh a wide opportunity to exercise moral influence over the whole nation and gave to all Russians a sense of belonging to the same body. But it had also some serious disadvantages. The chief among them was the confusion between private and State interests, which led to chaos in the administration of the country. The Russia of the Kiev period was neither one State with a centralized form of government nor a federation of independent principalities. It was a curious country, inhabited by different nationalities and races, containing a number of self-governing cities, and yet ruled by one family, the House of Rurik. Each prince belonging to it had a share in the administration of the land, and his seniority in the family determined the degree of his importance.

The eldest representative of the House of Rurik had his seat in the capital, in Kiev. He was supposed to look after the welfare of the whole land and to co-ordinate the activities of other princes, especially in time of external danger, when common action was required. He was, however, only a first among equals, for others had their own seats in cities and towns, though the younger they were the less important was the centre allotted to them. When the Grand Prince of Kiev died, his seat was taken not by his son, but by his brother. This meant a move for all the other princes, for each of them mounted a step higher, exchanging a lesser for a bigger town. The princes were not autocrats; they were primarily the military defenders of their cities, and also the supreme judges, but the regular administration of a city was in the hands of the local Councils elected by the people's Assembly.

Russian life during the Kiev period was centered in towns, inhabited by enterprising and freedom-loving citizens, who were jealous of their traditional liberties, and any prince who infringed these was in danger of being expelled from his seat by the populace. The system of government evolved during that period favored local autonomy, and yet it kept the whole vast country closely knit together, for the princes, accompanied by their bodyguards and retinues, moved constantly from one place to another and thus maintained intercourse between the remotest corners of the Russian land. There was, however, one serious defect in this order, and that was the insufficiency of power given to the Grand Prince. Instead of equipping him with political and military weapons, strong enough to enable him to secure obedience, the Russians ascribed to him only moral authority. The smooth working of this complicated form of government depended therefore on the personal quality of the Grand Prince. When the seat of Kiev was occupied by such men as Vladimir Monomakh (d. 1125), his father Vsevolod (d. 1093), or Mstislav I (d. 1132), peace reigned in the country, for they commanded respect and could make princes and cities follow their lead without resorting to compulsion. These were, however, exceptional personalities, and they do not therefore disprove the general rule that every political system needs for its stability both moral authority and sufficient force for use against law-breakers. The last condition was neglected by the Russians. The Grand Prince was not a ruler whom the rest of the princes had to obey. All of them enjoyed the right to oppose the Prince of Kiev if they believed him to be wrong. Disputes were inevitable; these led to military clashes, and military clashes brought with them civil war, with its plunder of the defeated, burning of towns and villages, and suffering for the common people.

From the middle of the twelfth century, Russia knew no peace. Her princes became engaged in a never-ending struggle in which the notion of proper succession became utterly confused, and the stronger and more audacious members of Rurik's family began to seize by force the more prosperous towns and hold them till they were ejected by those rivals who had a still stronger army. Kiev, the capital, was the centre of a particularly bitter struggle. During the twenty-three years from 1146 till 1169, it was held by twelve different princes, and only one of them was able to remain in power for as long as six years. In these years of anarchy and political decline, the only force that cared equally for all Russians was the Church. There was a striking contrast between the breakdown of the political system and the steady growth of the Christian religion among the Russians. The leadership in the State was in the hands of the princes; they were all members of the same family, but they were actuated by rivalry and hostility. The leaders of the Church were recruited from the most diverse sections of Russian society, but, though they had no ties of blood, they lived in unity, for they were all baptized by the same Spirit.

The Russian Church was the daughter of the Church of the Byzantine Empire, but the general conditions of the country were so different that its function was considerably modified in Russia in comparison with its manner of working in the land of its origin. This was particularly marked in the relation between Church and State. In the Byzantine Empire, the State was well-established and was supreme. Only after a hard struggle, and when its leaders had realized that they could not destroy the Church, had they accorded to it a recognized place. Church and State remained two clearly defined bodies; their relations were governed by canon law, and the Emperor, who exercised supreme control over all the activities of his subjects, dealt with State matters through the medium of the Senate, and with ecclesiastical matters through the medium of the Ecumenical Councils summoned by him from time to time. The Patriarch of Constantinople, as the senior hierarch of the Eastern Empire, acted as a permanent link between the Emperor and the Church in the intervals between Councils. The foundations of the Empire remained pagan, and the Emperor was still treated as a superhuman being. The gorgeous ceremonies of the Court reflected the pride and vainglory of the Roman State. Christian influence had little chance of penetrating into this stronghold of ancient paganism. The Church had, however, the power to change the life of its members, and thus a gulf was created between the moral aspirations of individuals and the general social and political conditions of the Empire. Many of the best Christians were not able to face these contradictions, and they joined religious communities or fled into the desert in search of an integral Christian life.

The heathen Empire officially ceased to exist at the time of Constantine's conversion in the fourth century, but it was not really destroyed: it tenaciously resisted the spirit of Christian brotherhood, freedom, and forgiveness, and, under cover of religious orthodoxy, maintained its Roman idea of the State.

The situation in Russia was quite different. The nation had no traditions which could compete with Christianity. When the Russians were brought into the fellowship of the Orthodox Church, they were introduced into the superior world of Mediterranean civilization. The level of its culture and its artistic achievements were far above those reached by the Russians themselves, but the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire were, on the other hand, victims of such vice, cruelty, and superstition as were unknown to the childlike Slavonic peoples. Fortunately, however, the channel of communication between teacher and pupil was so restricted by distance and by Russian ignorance of the Greek language, that the bulk of the Slavs became familiar with the spiritual treasures of the Orthodox Church without being seriously affected by the negative features of the great Eastern realm.

The Slavonic translation of the New Testament, the Psalms, the Service Books, a few writings of the Fathers, and, above all, the Eucharistic Liturgy, were the main gifts brought to the Russians by their Church, and on these foundations they built up their culture. The Church in Russia had an open field for action, and though its resources were more limited than in other countries, its members made good use of them.

The mainspring of its life was the parish church where, contrary to Western practice, a prominent part in the worship was played by the lay people. The clergy in Russia occupied a less conspicuous place in the services than they did in the Latin and, later, in the Reformed Churches. There were no pulpits, and a priest never dominated his congregation; he took his position behind the screen, being neither much seen nor much heard by his people. The major portion of the offices was sung or read by the laity. They formed the mixed choirs, they filled the nave of the church, they were inspired by the moving words of the prayers and hymns and by the religious paintings, which covered the screen, the walls, and the ceilings of church buildings and provided instruction suitable even for the illiterate and least educated of the congregation.

The church was for a Russian his university, his theatre, his concert-hall and his picture-gallery. On Sundays and feast days, the entire population gathered for the celebration of the Eucharist. The people listened to the reading of the Scriptures; they recited the Psalms and the Creed, lamented over Christ's sufferings and death and rejoiced in His Resurrection and Ascension. This was a unique training ground for them, which enlightened their hearts and minds and introduced them to the mystery of Divine Redemption.

Close to the parish church stood a school, an almshouse, and dwellings for the clergy. Several times a year, all the parishioners had a common meal near the church, as an expression of their equality and brotherhood. The clergy — priests, deacons, readers and choirmasters, and other minor officials — were all elected by their parishioners and were supported by their voluntary contributions. They were a large body and were exempt from ordinary legislation, for they lived under their own ecclesiastical law. This latter was copied from the Byzantine codes but was made more humane by the Russian translators. This code, known under the name of "Kolmchara Knige," had a wide influence upon all spheres of Russian life. By its means the Church taught people higher ideas of justice, fairer treatment of the defenseless, forgiveness instead of vengeance. Not only all the clergy, but also doctors, nurses, orphans, widows, and all outcasts had the right to be judged by this code. Family disputes, questions of divorce, women's rights to property, daughters' shares in inheritance, were also subjected to the ecclesiastical courts, for a woman enjoyed the special protection of the Church.

Besides parishes, Russian Christian life had its vital centers in monasteries and convents. From these the people learned the art of prayer, self-denial and charity. The bishops were mostly recruited from among the monks, who were better trained than the parish clergy. Missionary work also occupied an important place in the various activities of the Church. The work of evangelization was difficult only among the Finnish tribes. These stubbornly clung to their paganism and actively resisted those who tried to convert them to the new religion. Several missionaries lost their lives whilst preaching the Gospel in the eastern province of the country where the Finns predominated. In spite of this opposition and sporadic acts of violence, Christianity spread rapidly all over the country; it was not imposed by force, and this peaceful penetration contributed to its strong hold on the people's life. By the end of the eleventh century, Russia was a distinctly Christian country, and not only the cities but even remote villages were firmly won to Christianity.

The higher forms of ecclesiastical organization remained undeveloped, however, for many centuries to come. The Bishop of Kiev bore the title of Metropolitan; he was appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople and with few exceptions was a Greek. He had the right of confirming the bishops in their office, but he had no effective control over the rest of the episcopate and no real Metropolitan authority. As the cities and princes tenaciously clung to their independence, so the bishops objected to Metropolitan interference in the affairs of their dioceses. The latter coincided with the frontiers of the chief principalities, and were so enormous that each of them would have been treated as a Metropolitan Province in Greece or Italy.

The bishops took an active part in the civic life of their flock. In the unstable conditions of the country, they had often greater influence than the princes, for they represented the interests of the whole community, whilst a prince was often a partisan of his own cause. This was particularly true in such cities as Novgorod or Pskov, where princes were constantly changing and the only authority recognized by the populace of these commercial centers was that of their bishops.

The entire culture of Russia during the Kiev period of its history (from the ninth to the thirteenth century) was inspired and guided by the Orthodox Church. The few monuments of its art that have survived the Tartar invasion all display a high level. Russian architecture, painting, embroidery, poetry, social customs and legislation could be favorably compared with the achievements of any other Christian nation of that time, but in the sphere of politics the Russians were not so successful. They failed to create a stable order, and this had fatal consequences for them at the tragic hour which struck in the middle of the thirteenth century, when their country was suddenly invaded by the Tartars.

The world-wide conquest started by the Tartars at the beginning of the thirteenth century was the last and most devastating of the waves of invasion which the unknown steppes of Central Asia from time immemorial had sent out to the neighboring countries. These waves brought with them destruction, slavery and death. In the thirteenth century, once more, millions of human beings perished in this unequal struggle.

The Tartars were a branch of the Mongols, and they inhabited the Altai region of Siberia. Split into many tribes, which were always quarrelling with one another, the Mongols, before this period, had been weak and despised by their neighbors. No one could imagine them as a master race, yet they became the builders of one of the greatest Empires of the world. This sudden transformation was the work of a single man known under the name of Chingiz Khan (1155-1227). He succeeded in uniting all the Mongols and in welding them into a compact and efficient war machine, which he, with supreme skill, used for the defeat and annihilation of other States and nations. Central Asia, China, Turkestan, Persia, Asia Minor, Russia, Central and Southern Europe and, later on, India, were, one after the other, devastated by the Tartars. As far as Europe was concerned, the Tartar invasion was a temporary calamity, but for the rest of Asia and for Russia the Mongol assault was followed by a long period of subjugation to the nomadic conquerors. The face of all these lands was radically changed, and Russian history is sharply divided into two periods, before and after the Tartar invasion.

The first appearance of the Tartars in the southern steppes occurred in 1223. Like lightning they struck, inflicting a crushing defeat upon the coalition of Russian princes. Then, instead of pursuing the remnants of the Russian army, the Tartars rapidly withdrew into the depths of Asia, leaving the Russians in complete bewilderment. No one in Russia had ever heard of them before, and no one knew whence they came, nor whither they had gone. Several years passed in peace, and the Russians began to hope that they would not again meet the Tartars. These hopes proved false. The Tartars reappeared fifteen years later. This time, they came with the intention of making Russia part of their pan-Asiatic Empire. In November 1237, Khan Batu (d. 1255), the grandson of Chingiz Khan, at the head of 400,000 horsemen, invaded Russia. This formidable army, at that time the best in the world, was larger than all the military forces at the disposal of the Russians. The command of the Tartars was highly centralized; they had a master-plan for conquest and they acted swiftly and resolutely. The Russians were split into many independent principalities; they had no knowledge of their enemy and no plan for the defense of their country. The fate of the nation was sealed before the battle began. The Russians fought with supreme courage, but they were everywhere outnumbered and outmaneuvered, and by the end of 1240 Russia had ceased to exist as an independent State. The land suffered a terrifying devastation. The Tartars did not fight only the armed forces of their enemies; their aim was the destruction of the entire population. Whenever a town or village was taken, all the houses were burnt down, all the people were massacred or carried away as slaves. Wherever the Tartars passed, only corpses and charred ruins were left behind.

The Papal Legate, Piano Campini, traveled to the Court of the Mongol Khans soon after the fatal blow occurred in 1246. He records that when he entered Russian territory he did not come across any towns or villages, but saw only countless human skulls and the looted remnants of once flourishing cities. Kiev and its fertile plain suffered most, and for the next two hundred years remained a scene of desolation.

Yet the Tartars failed to destroy Russia. Deeply humiliated, severely wounded, the nation refused to die. With stubborn resolution, the people began to rebuild their homes. The central regions of Russia were destroyed beyond immediate repair, but conditions were more favorable on the fringes of the country. In the next two centuries, Russian life became split into three parts, each of which showed its distinct characteristics. These were the south-western provinces of Galicia and Volhynia; the north-western corner dominated by the city republics of Novgorod and Pskov; and the north-eastern woodlands with their chief towns of Vladimir, Rostov, Iaroslavl, and Susdal. All these parts of the country were better sheltered, geographically, from the fury of the nomads, than Kiev and the neighboring steppes — Galicia and Volhynia were close to the Carpathians; the northwest corner was surrounded by the marshes, and the north-east had the excellent protection of immense forests.

The fact that in these three regions the population escaped the wholesale destruction that befell those who lived in the open plains of the south made possible the physical revival of the nation, but the spirit needed for such revival was provided by the Russian Church, and pre-eminently by its outstanding representatives, such as Prince Alexander Nevski, the Metropolitans Cyril, Peter and Alexis, and St. Sergius of Radonezh.

The chance of recovery for the Russian people was also increased by the Tartars' desire to secure an income from the conquered territories. As soon as the horrors of massacre were over, they turned from fierce ravagers into thrifty owners. They became interested in the resumption of normal activities among the remnants of the broken nation. Those Russians who survived were allowed to rebuild their towns and resume their work, though no longer as free people, but as the slaves of their new masters. In order to facilitate administration, the Tartars reinstated the princes of the House of Rurik and ordered them to take the responsibility for the collection of the heavy taxes and for the maintenance of discipline among the conquered people.

The Tartars were not only first-class warriors, they were also able rulers. Chingiz Khan employed as his civilian advisers the experienced bureaucrats of the Chinese Empire. One of them, Ye-liu Chu-tsai, who was a financier, a poet, a scholar and an astronomer, was as much responsible for the success of the conquest as the great military master himself. The combination of the wild courage and inexhaustible energy of the nomads with the high technique of Chinese administration, evolved during long centuries of statesmanship, produced that stable compound which for many years to come endured the terrific pressure of disruptive forces created by the vast expanse of the newly-founded Empire.

The Russians found themselves faced with a hard choice. Either they could give up the struggle as hopeless, consent to be merged in the Mongolian world and so lose their individuality (the fate that befell several Asiatic nations), or they could continue their open resistance, preferring death to slavery. This last course made a strong appeal to many of the Russians.

But it would have meant national suicide, and the country was delivered from this by Alexander Nevski (d. 1263). He took upon his shoulders the burden of responsibility for the choice of direction in the reconstruction of national life. His courage, humility and faith gave him power to lead the people in their first steps along a narrow and dangerous path surrounded by still-smoking ruins. The path he chose was the right one, and it eventually brought Russia back to power and freedom.

Alexander was a youth of eighteen at the time of the Tartar invasion. He lived in Novgorod, and this saved him from death, for the capital of the North was one of the few cities which escaped destruction. "Lord Novgorod the Great," as it was called by the Russians, was a rich merchant-republic in the thirteenth century. It extended its dominion over vast territories in the northern parts of the country, but it continued to invite princes of the House of Rurik to be its military governors and thus remained linked with the rest of the nation.

To be Prince of Novgorod was a precarious business, for the unruly inhabitants of the great city were always ready to expel their governor if he failed to satisfy their demands. At the same time, Novgorod was one of the leading States, and the competing branches of the Rurik family were eager to have one of their faction in control of this all-important post. Prince Iaroslav (d. 1246), Alexander's father, after a hard struggle, succeeded in placing his son in Novgorod (1231), and this opened to the young Prince the arduous road of service to his country in the time of its greatest calamity.

There is a Russian proverb which says, "When misfortune comes, one must open the gates wide," for often one trouble brings with it many others. The truth of this observation was confirmed in the years which followed the Tartar invasion. As soon as the news of disaster reached Russia's western neighbors, they hastily organized a crusade. Its object, however, was not to fight against the heathen Mongols. The crusaders wanted to destroy the last two outposts of Eastern Christianity, Novgorod and Pskov, which had been spared by the nomads. This new attack came from two sides: the Swedes landed on the shores of the river Neva, whilst the Teutonic Knights, who had established their stronghold in Riga, moved eastwards, conquering and subjugating the native population.

The people of Novgorod were panic-stricken. The rest of the country lay in ruins; they themselves could expect any day a renewal of the Tartar assault, and here was a new enemy threatening their very existence. They turned for help to their young Prince, and he had the courage to accept the challenge. He was cut off from the rest of the family. There was nobody whose advice he could ask, but he was a man of deep faith, and his biography ascribes to him the authorship of a prayer expressing his strong conviction that God rules the nations and that nothing happens against His will. This prayer contains the following sentence: "O Lord of truth and power, who dost order all nations to remain in their own dominions, and who dost fix their boundaries, look upon the plight of Thy servants, and give them strength to expel the invaders." Inspired by confidence in the righteousness of his cause, Alexander, at the head of a small army of picked men, defeated the Swedes (1240) and, two years later, on April 5th, 1242, on the ice of the Lake of Chud, he inflicted a crushing blow upon the superior force of the heavily-armed Teutonic Knights. This victory saved Novgorod and stopped the German advance towards the east. Latin Christendom had at last met an obstacle which it failed to overcome. All that was on the western side of the battle-field came under Germanic domination, but on the eastern side the Russians remained masters of their own destiny, and their Church continued to be the spiritual leader of the people.

The threat to Russian integrity from the West was even greater than the danger from the Tartars. The nomads oppressed and ill-treated the Russians, but they had no desire to leave their cultural imprint upon the conquered nation. They were tolerant in religious matters, and they granted privileges to the Russian Church, for they revered divine power under whatever form it was worshipped. The Mongols swept across the Russian plain like a fierce flood, but they receded afterwards with similar rapidity into their own domain of the steppes. The Christian West pursued an entirely opposite policy. It moved slowly, but each time it made a new advance it established a permanent hold on the conquered territory. The crusaders aimed at the final eradication of the Eastern Orthodox tradition and at its replacement by Latin Christianity.

The brilliant victory won by the young hero on the western frontier led to a crisis in the east. The Tartars kept a careful watch over all Alexander's movements, and in 1247 he received a summons from Khan Batu, who governed Russia from his headquarters on the banks of the Volga, to come in person in order to pay homage to the overlord of the Russian land. This visit entailed a grave personal risk for the prince. The Russians still expected their early liberation, and the eyes of all were fixed on the victor over their Western enemies. This was known to the Tartars, who were suspicious of Alexander's intentions. Several Russian princes, whose loyalty to the Mongols was questioned, had failed to return from a visit to Batu, and many feared that this would be Alexander's fate.

He, however, refused to listen to those who advised him to disregard the summons, and he obediently started on the long and perilous journey. He was a man of great courage and exceptional physical strength, but at the same time he was profoundly humble, and this made him a realist. He was free from personal ambitions, his only concern was to serve the nation, he knew that the country had no power to resist the Mongols, and therefore he considered that his duty was to obey Khan Batu. His own safety and honor he was ready to sacrifice for the sake of his people. So it happened that the brilliant victor over the crusaders prostrated himself like a slave four times before the Tartar lord. Batu was a shrewd ruler. As a Mongol, he had a genuine respect for a man of courage, and he also realized the importance of the Russian prince who lay prostrate at his feet. He received him with honor but did not allow him to return home. The Khan ordered Alexander to proceed farther east, and to appear before the Supreme Ruler of all the Tartars, who supervised his immense Empire from Karakorum in Mongolia.

The road across the desert and high mountains of Turkestan and Mongolia was long and full of hardship. It took Alexander three years to complete his journey, but when he returned to Russia in 1250 with the title of Grand Prince of Kiev, he was a man with experience such as no Russian leader had ever had. Alexander saw with his own eyes the extent and strength of the new Empire. He met, in the strange city of tents, in the middle of Mongolia, men from China, India and Persia. After the simplicity of Russian life, he was struck by the splendor and variety of Asiatic customs, and he realized that these nations were kept together by the iron rule of the all-powerful Mongols. He was able to observe the working of the vast military machine organized so efficiently by the Tartars. Owing to the excellence of his communications, the Supreme Khan could put into action, at the shortest notice, vast armies in the remotest parts of his dominion.

Equipped with this knowledge, Alexander returned to his ruined country, and there he had to face the hardest task of his life. This was to teach the Russians two lessons which they were loath to learn: first, that spontaneous outbreaks of revolt, however courageous, had not the least chance of liberating the country from the Tartars; secondly, that their national independence could be secured only when they submitted to discipline and were ready to obey their own rulers. But the Russians, exasperated by the heavy taxation imposed by the Mongols and by the cruelty of the punitive expeditions, would not listen, and staged one rebellion after another. Alexander's own brother, Andrei, led one of the most audacious of them. They were all crushed by the Tartars, and Alexander had to appear several times before the Khans and implore their mercy and forgiveness.

The Tartars knew that Alexander was opposed to these desperate acts of resistance, and his interventions saved Russia from the fury of their Oriental vengeance. His policy was understood by only a few Russians; the hero of the early victories over the crusaders was accused of cowardice and indecision. Alexander had to endure unpopularity, calumny and base insinuations. Even his strong constitution was not able to stand the strain of his service to the nation. Utterly exhausted, he died on November I4th, 1263, at the early age of 42. Death overcame him on his return journey from the Tartar headquarters, after he had once more successfully fulfilled his mission and obtained a pardon — this time for the citizens of Novgorod.

Only when the Russians learned that Alexander was no longer with them, did they realize how much they owed him. A wave of spontaneous grief swept across the country. Cyril, the Metropolitan of Russia, expressed this sentiment when, on being informed of Alexander's sudden death, he interrupted the celebration of the Liturgy and said to the assembled people: "My dear children, know that the Sun of Russia has set. Prince Alexander is no longer with us." The whole congregation burst into tears.

Alexander was canonized in 1380. He was included in the list of the Saints not because he was a successful defender of the country and one of its most far-seeing rulers — national heroes have never been honored in this way by the Russian people.

He is a Saint because he was a Christian of exceptional integrity and faith. He was able to carry the heavy cross of serving his defeated people, without pride or despair, and he remained firm and humble in spite of every kind of derision and insult.

His line of conduct was prophetic. He was in tune with the new Russia which was slowly and painfully rising from the ruins of the Tartar invasion — a Russia with profound experience of suffering and humiliation, a nation which eventually learned the lesson of unity, patience and endurance. Alexander had the moral strength to accept the grim truth that neither he nor his children would see their native land set free. He was not crushed by the knowledge that unconditional surrender to the Asiatic invaders was, for the time being, the only policy open to his people. His firm faith in God, the Ruler over all nations, gave him confidence in the remote yet certain victory of the Christians over their heathen oppressors. He stood far above his generation, and his gaze could penetrate into that distant future when once more Orthodox Russia would be master of the great Eurasian plain. But few of his contemporaries were able to share his vision. The most outstanding among his friends and supporters was the Metropolitan of Kiev, Cyril (1242-81).

Cyril was a Russian, for the Patriarch of Constantinople could not find any Greek Prelate willing to go to devastated Russia. For thirty-nine years this indefatigable man traveled all over the country, consoling and instructing his scattered flock, ordaining priests, rebuilding churches. The Mongols treated the Russian clergy and their Metropolitan with the same respect which they afforded to all ministers of religion. The clergy were the only section of the subjugated population exempt from taxation, and every act of violence inflicted upon them by any of the Tartars was punishable by death. These privileges offered great possibilities for constructive work to men of Cyril's ability and perseverance. He inaugurated a new type of service for the Metropolitans of Russia.

Before the Tartar invasion, the chief hierarchs of the Russian Church were mainly occupied with ecclesiastical matters. After the invasions, the Metropolitans became equally concerned with the national revival of the country. Their authority alone was recognized by all the people, and the esteem paid to them by the Tartars raised their prestige high above that of any of the secular rulers. But none of them made any attempt to obtain political power. Their policy consisted in giving moral support to those princes who showed greater statesmanship and were ready to work for national unity. This conduct brought rich reward, and established friendship and mutual trust between the leaders of Church and State. The subsequent liberation of the country was primarily due to the stabilizing influence of the Church, which was able to inspire with new courage and faith the disheartened and down-trodden people.

It often happens that the harmful effects of a disaster are not fully felt at once. Only after a lapse of time does an individual or a nation experience all the destructive consequences. This happened to the Russians in the thirteenth century. In the first decades following the onslaught of the Tartars, the nation was sustained by the hope of early liberation, and only a few far-seeing leaders, such as Alexander Nevski and the Metropolitan Cyril, were aware that long years of slavery lay ahead for the conquered people. Gradually this knowledge dawned upon the masses, and apathy, despair and cynicism spread like malignant growths, especially among the remnants of the ruling classes.

The end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century were particularly dark in the history of Russia. The North-eastern Provinces, with their main cities, Vladimir, Iaroslavl, Rostov and Susdal, became the helpless prey of renewed competition among the princes, aggravated this time by the intervention of the Tartars. The brothers and sons of Alexander Nevski, with the exception of his youngest son Daniel, displayed his military valor but none of his virtues. They fought each other for the title of Grand Prince and had no scruples about asking the Tartars to help them to defeat their rivals. The Mongols gladly seized this opportunity for further plunder and massacre of the Russian people and laid waste towns and villages. The state of things in Novgorod and Pskov was no better. The citizens of these republics were split into hostile factions and constantly quarreled among themselves. As a result, the Russians lost large slices of territory round the Baltic Sea to the Germans and the Swedes.

The only authority that sometimes could restore peace in these cities was that of the bishops, but even they were often unable to create goodwill between the richer and poorer classes.

The greatest disaster, however, happened to the South-western Provinces of Galicia and Volhynia. These fertile lands, the gateway into Europe, fell into the hands of their Western neighbors, and for many centuries to come the Orthodox population there had to endure subjugation to the unfriendly rule of the Roman Catholics. Yet, at first, that part of the country had been the least affected by the Tartar invasion, and normal life in it had been more quickly and fully restored.

Under the able leadership of Daniel, Prince of Galich (d. 1264), the South-Western Provinces had become the centre of a Russian revival, but the ambitious prince took a line opposite to that pursued by his contemporary, Alexander Nevski, and this led to his defeat. Alexander accepted the Tartar yoke, but he fought stubbornly against the Western aggressors, because he saw that the threat to Russian integrity was greater from the Latin world than from the Orient. Daniel thought differently. He was determined to get rid at once of the Tartars, and as he could not achieve this without foreign aid, he opened secret negotiations with the Western Christians. The Pope promised military help on condition that Daniel should make his submission to Rome. The Russian prince was, however, a staunch Orthodox Christian and had no desire to leave his Church, yet under the pressure of circumstances he played the role of a prospective convert. As a concession, he allowed the Latin emissaries to come to his country. His policy of delay and compromise was a complete failure. The populace was openly hostile to Rome. The Pope, seeing Daniel's reluctance to fulfill his pledge, refrained from sending military help; but the Tartars got cognizance of Daniel's designs and, without further delay, invaded Galicia and thoroughly devastated it. Daniel died, a broken-hearted man. It is true that he received from the Pope a king's crown, but it was a poor substitute for his grandiose scheme of liberating Russia from the Tartars with the help of the Western Christians. His policy had disastrous consequences. He opened the gates to Western intervention, and neither he nor his successors were able to close them again.

The Poles and the Hungarians started to attack Russian territory on the pretext that they were defending Papal rights, violated by the Orthodox schematics. This policy was pursued with particular vigor by King Kasimir of Poland (d. 1370), who spent his long and successful reign in bitter struggle against the Russians. Encouraged by the Holy See, he treated his campaigns for the conquest of Galicia as a holy crusade, and he was joined by the neighboring Hungarians. In 1352, he concluded an agreement with their King, Luis, which had momentous consequences for the future of the lands now known as the Ukraine. According to this agreement, if Kasimir left no male heir, all his Russian conquests were to go to the Hungarians; but, in return, they sold to him those Russian lands which they had been able to seize. At first, neither of the intruders made much progress, but in 1367 Kasimir occupied Galicia with its capital, Lvov, and added to it the Russian territories previously taken by Hungary and handed on to him by her King, Luis. His conquest was facilitated by the extinction of the House of Rurik in the South-Western Provinces. Its last representative, Prince Iuri II, died in 1340, and the party of boiars, or the landed nobility, keen to increase their privileges at the expense of the rest of the population, opposed the proposal to invite a member of another branch of the Rurik family to the throne. The Russian boiars, bearing in mind the fact that in Roman Catholic Poland and Hungary the aristocracy enjoyed far greater privileges than in Orthodox Russia, preferred to invite to the throne a foreign prince, hoping to satisfy in this way their class interests. The peasants and middle classes opposed this policy and civil war flared up in the country. Galicia and Volhynia reached the depth of suffering and degradation in the fourteenth century. The Tartar hordes ravaged the unprotected country. Polish and Hungarian crusaders fought, sometimes against the Russians, and sometimes against each other. The Russian upper classes often behaved as traitors, and the loyal population which tried to defend the land labored under the serious disadvantage of having no recognized leader. Yet, in spite of all these handicaps, it is doubtful whether the integrity of Russian territory would have been lost if another and unexpected Power had not appeared on the scene. It drove a deep wedge into Russian dominions, separated Galicia and Volhynia from the North-Eastern Provinces, and fatally undermined the strength of Russian resistance. This Power was Lithuania. Divided into many small tribes, the Lithuanians had lived from time immemorial in the marshy lands along the banks of the rivers Niemen and Vistula. Being neither Germanic nor Slavonic, they took little part in the history of Eastern Europe, and the Russians treated them as inoffensive barbarians. The collapse of Russia and the new pressure which the Teutonic Knights began to exert on the western frontier altered the situation. Under the leadership of Mindovg (d. 1263), who assumed the title of Grand Prince, the Lithuanians began to expand towards the east, chiefly along the valley of the Dnieper, where only a scattered Russian population was left after the Tartar invasion. At first, this movement was slow and cautious, but, seeing that the Russians had no power to oppose them, the Lithuanians struck boldly south, and Prince Gedemin (1315-39), in 1319, captured Kiev, the ancient capital of Russia, after a short but sharp struggle.

The Lithuanians were still heathen at the time of their victory, and they behaved very differently from the Poles and Hungarians towards the conquered Russians. They treated the Orthodox Church with respect, and many of them embraced Eastern Christianity. Gedemin himself became a patron of learning; he built schools and churches where Orthodoxy and the Russian language were taught, and his capital, Vilna, with its many Orthodox churches and monasteries, looked a typical Russian city.

His successor, Olgerd (1339-77), went even farther than his father. He joined the Orthodox Church, married a Russian princess and identified himself with the interests of the Russian people. He greatly extended his realm, defeated the Tartars and the Poles several times, and, for a while, brought to a standstill the advance of Western intruders. An increasing number of Russians began to look upon the Lithuanian princes as their legitimate rulers, hoping to recover under their leadership the territories they had lost to Latin Christendom. There was a time in Russian history when it seemed that Vilna would be the capital of the reborn nation and that post-Tartar Russia would be governed by a Lithuanian dynasty, and not by the house of Rurik.

This expectation was not fulfilled, however. On the contrary, after Olgerd's death, the Russians and the Lithuanians found themselves split into two opposite camps, and their lack of agreement undermined the strength of the Lithuanian State. Instead of remaining a great political Power, it became a minor partner of Poland, subordinate in every respect to its Western neighbor. The decline of Lithuania was as rapid as had been its rise to importance. The event which provoked these changes was the conversion of Olgerd's son, Yagailo, to Roman Catholicism, in 1386.

Another city was destined to become the capital of the resurrected nation. The process of recovery from moral and physical prostration found its centre in a city called Moscow. In the fatal years following Alexander's death there was only one bit of Russian territory which stood outside the bitter conflicts and enjoyed peace and orderly government, and this was a domain ruled by Daniel (d. 1303), the youngest son of Alexander Nevski.

There are cities which, like people, are marked by destiny. Such a town is Moscow. Both the dark and the bright sides of Russia's life are revealed in her history. The bizarre colors of her red, blue and green cupolas, and the unusual contours of her buildings, reflect the sensuousness of the Orient and the serenity of the North, two elements present in the mentality of her inhabitants. Cruelty and mercy, oppression and tolerance, holiness and lust made in turn a strong appeal both to the rulers and to the people of Moscow. Her Kremlin and her streets are associated with the most heroic and the most shameful deeds of her national history. All that Russia possesses, good and bad, finds its expression in the life of that city, which appeared on the scene of Russian history in its gloomiest hour, and which has since governed the fortunes of her people.

Little is known about the origin of Moscow. The name is mentioned for the first time in the Chronicle of the year 1147. During the Tartar invasion, Moscow was destroyed, but it was soon rebuilt, and allotted to Daniel at the time of his father's death, when he was still a child (1263). During the twenty-seven years of his rule, he transformed the insignificant little town into an important centre of national revival. He achieved this by refusing to take part in the quarrels which absorbed the energy of his brothers and relatives, and by concentrating on the improvement of his small principality.

Daniel was a deeply religious man; he had no taste for war, no ambition to acquire the title of Grand Prince; he was a wise and thrifty landlord, and his position within his domain was different from that of other princes. Most of them had to share their power with the boiars and City Councils; they were still keen to exchange smaller towns for larger, and they were far from being the indisputable rulers of the territory under their control. Daniel, on the contrary, was a true master in his small borough. Moscow had neither a local aristocracy nor wealthy and influential merchants who claimed to share the power of the ruler. The security of his dominions attracted an ever-increasing number of refugees from other parts of the country. These newcomers received from Daniel permission to settle on his land, and they treated the prince as the sole master of the whole domain. So Moscow inaugurated a new form of paternal monarchy, which provided the needed cure for a nation rent asunder by the rivalry of the princes and the incursion of foreign invaders.

Daniel considerably increased his possessions by the purchase of neighboring lands, for he had money, which other princes, who fought each other, always lacked. His policy of peaceful extension was continued by his second son, Ivan, surnamed "Kalita," or "the money bag’ (d. 1341). Under him, Moscow became the seat of the Metropolitans of all Russia and thus secured the spiritual ascendancy over all other cities in the country. Ivan, like his father, had no interest in military matters; he was a good administrator and, above all, an excellent financier. He differed radically from other princes in his attitude to the Tartars. Instead of opposing the Mongols, he entered into collaboration with them and offered to be responsible for the collection of taxes due from Russia to the Khans. He was so efficient in this that he gained the lasting favor of the Tartars. His success was of the greatest advantage to the Russians, for they were at last saved from the major horror of the Tartar yoke: the regular visits of rapacious and cruel tax collectors who were ready to plunder and massacre the people at the slightest provocation. For the first time after many years of war and destruction, the country began to recover.

The Principality of Moscow, because it enjoyed friendship with the Tartars, increased rapidly in strength and size, but Ivan did not once take up arms in order to acquire new lands. Money and diplomacy, not warfare, were his weapons. The overlord of Russia, Uzbek (1313-41), who was the first Khan convert to Mohammedanism, was a much-dreaded ruler. He learned by experience, however, that his revenues from Russia had been steadily rising since Ivan had become responsible for order in the country, and so, instead of plundering the subjected people, as his predecessors had done, Uzbek restrained his hordes from further attacks and granted to Ivan the title of Grand Prince (1328). Ivan accepted it but did not exchange his beloved Moscow, where he was sole master, for the turbulent capital of Vladimir. He began to call himself Grand Prince of Moscow and of all Russia, and in this he was justified, for he was genuinely concerned with the welfare of the whole land. Whenever the integrity of Russia was threatened from outside, he defended it. He even persuaded the Tartars to oppose the Lithuanians and the Germans, who were trying to increase the territory under their control at the expense of Russia. Thus, from being the poor and despised slave of the Mongols, Ivan rose to the status of an ally, whose words commanded respect and under whose orders the fierce Tartars were ready to fight against Russia's enemies.

Ivan's success was due, however, not only to his sagacity. He advanced so rapidly to the position of leader of the nation because he had the backing of the Russian Church. At its head stood a man of outstanding ability and devotion, named Peter (d. 1326). Though a native of Volhynia, he gave all his moral support to Ivan, for he realized that in Moscow, and not in his native Volhynia, was the true centre of the country's liberation. Peter himself had no fixed abode; he, like his predecessors, Cyril (d. 1281) and Maxim (d. 1305), traveled from one city to another, maintaining in this way the spirit of national unity in a land split into many rival principalities. His favorite town, however, was Moscow, and his visits there became more and more frequent. Ivan was a great church-builder. He erected in Moscow its first cathedral, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, which afterwards became the burial-place of all Grand Princes and Tsars. At the express desire of Peter, Ivan also built another cathedral (in Russia several cathedrals are often found in the same city), dedicated to the Assumption, and Peter ordered his body to be buried there. This was an event of great importance. The presence in Moscow of the tomb of one so highly revered, by all the people, elevated the city to a place of pre-eminence and helped Peter's successor, Theognost (d. 1352), to overcome the opposition of other princes and to make Moscow his permanent residence. Thus, during Ivan's reign, the political and ecclesiastical supremacy of Moscow Was firmly established. The walls and the cathedrals of the Kremlin ¹ built by him became the sacred scroll on which the history of the nation was to be inscribed by all succeeding generations.

The work of national restoration, so well started by Daniel, Ivan and the Metropolitan Peter, was brought to the verge of collapse in 1352, when the Black Death from India swept across the whole country, carrying away the greater proportion of the population. Ivan's able son, Simeon the Proud (1341-52), together with his sons and brothers, perished during the epidemic.

The country was depopulated and weakened, and Ivan the Fair, Simeon's successor, was not able to cope with the new problems. Moscow was in danger of losing her pre-eminence. The situation was again saved by a leader of the Church — this time by Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow (1353-78). He was the first representative of the Russian hierarchy to take an active part in the government of the country. Himself a native of Moscow, he was a scholar and a statesman; he knew Greek (a rare accomplishment in that century among the Russians) and was a man of wide interests and knowledge. During the short reign of Ivan the Fair (1352-59), and during the infancy of his son and heir, Dmitri (d. 1389), Alexis acted as regent. His tact, ability and unselfish devotion to the welfare of the country overcame all obstacles and helped Moscow to maintain her ascendancy. Alexis' policy was that of Alexander Nevski — submission to the East, and stubborn resistance to the West.

He was especially successful in securing the favor of the Mongols, and, here, his being a dignitary of the Church was a great asset to him. The traditional respect which the Tartars showed to the clergy was increased in his case by a cure which he performed on Taidula, the wife of Khan Khanibek (1341-57). This influential and domineering lady became the devoted friend of her healer. Her friendship proved of special value after the murder of her husband by his son Berdibek (1357-59). The new Khan was a cruel despot, but the genuine awe with which he regarded his mother enabled her to protect her favorite bishop. Alexis' main concern was the rapid growth of the Lithuanian Principality. Its Grand Prince, Olgred (1339-77), aimed at the incorporation of the whole of North-East Russia. The South-West Provinces were in his hands already. The new enemy was bold enough to attack even Moscow, and its suburbs were burnt down by the Lithuanian army in 1367. This new danger coming from the West made even more imperative the political unification of Russia, for the Lithuanian advance was made possible chiefly by the rivalries amongst the Russians themselves.

The city republics of Novgorod and Pskov and the principalities of Tver and Riazan were the main political rivals of Moscow, for the other cities and principalities were by now too small, and too dependent on Moscow, to cause much trouble. The Metropolitan Alexis was not afraid to use both his political and his ecclesiastical powers to reduce the remaining outposts of provincial exclusiveness to submission. He was especially resolute in dealing with Tver, where a local feud opened the doors to Lithuanian intervention. He even temporarily excommunicated the princes of Tver and of Smolensk because they were plotting with the Lithuanians. He imposed a similar punishment upon the Prince of Susdal, who started a war against his brother. This imposition of ecclesiastical punishment for causing political disturbances was a novelty in Russia, but it was approved by the best men of the nation, such as St. Sergius of Radonezh, because the very survival of Christianity in Russia depended on the political consolidation of the country.

The policy of Alexander Nevski, steadily followed by the Princes of Moscow, achieved through the work of Alexis the long-awaited victory. Three years after his death, the army of reunited Russia was able for the first time to strike a fatal blow against the Tartars. The victory of Kulikovo Pole (1380) was prepared by St. Alexis and inspired by his friend and disciple, St. Sergius of Radonezh.

St. Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh (d. 1392), was one of the most remarkable men Russia has ever produced. He is a landmark in the history of his nation, and no one illustrates better than he the new religious outlook which made possible the cultural growth and expansion of the Russian nation. He is one of those exceptional leaders whose influence never ceases to make itself felt, and whose popularity remains unshaken throughout the whole course of history. His message makes the same appeal to Russian Christians of the twentieth century as it did to the Christians of his own time.

St Sergius was born in the city of Rostov, probably in 1314. His parents were victims of the civil wars and had to flee from their native town. They found refuge in a small village called Radonezh, some fifty miles north of Moscow. There they lived as ordinary Russian peasants, and St. Sergius can therefore be truly called the peasant saint of Russia, the man who knew all the sorrows and joys of the peasant's lot, and who was master of all peasant crafts. He was a slow boy who mastered with difficulty the rudiments of education available in the Russia of his time. He could just read and write, and his only sources of instruction were the Slavonic Bible and the Services of the Orthodox Church. But, limited as these were, they represented some of the greatest treasures known to mankind: the religious ardor of the Hebrew Psalter and of the Old Testament Prophets; the theological inspiration of Christian hymns and prayers; the splendor of the Byzantine ritual and the uniqueness of the Gospels — all these were known to him from his early days. At the age of twenty, Bartholomew (this was the name of St. Sergius before he took monastic vows), in company with his elder brother Stephen, went into the wild forest which surrounded their village. The brothers built a timber hut and a tiny chapel, which they dedicated to the Life-giving Holy Trinity. There they intended to spend the rest of their lives in prayer and meditation. Stephen,

however, was not able to stand the hardships of life in the Russian wilderness. The danger from wild beasts, the scarcity of food, and, above all, the cold of the Russian winter drove him back to the town. There he entered one of the regular monasteries, but Bartholomew remained in the forest. For several years he lived quite alone, unknown to anybody. These years of untold sufferings and privations were the final tests of his character. He was victorious: he mastered his mind and body, disciplined his entire being and thus made himself ready for the service of God and of his people.

Eventually, he was discovered by some peasants, and soon people began to come in increasing numbers to ask the advice of this unusual anchorite. Some decided to join him. St. Sergius never invited anybody, but neither did he ever refuse anyone. Gradually a community grew round him, and he was elected as its Abbot. The sense of peace which emanated from him, his loving kindness and, above all, his complete confidence in God, which made him singularly free from any fear and hesitation, were the sources of his influence and attraction.

The Metropolitan Alexis of Moscow was one of those who were deeply impressed by him. Several times, St. Sergius went at his request to see the princes who endangered the national effort towards unity and freedom by their quarrels. Alexis wanted to appoint the humble monk as his successor, but St. Sergius firmly refused this honor. He was not called to govern but to serve, and he never used any authority except moral persuasion. He possessed, however, the singular gift of changing the hearts even of the hardest and least morally sensitive of men.

Many times, St. Sergius paid visits to princes guilty of perjury and other crimes, and his voice of Christian admonition seldom failed to make them amend their evil ways. His reputation spread far and wide and he became a recognized spiritual leader of the nation, so that it was to him that the Grand Prince Dmitri turned for advice in the critical hour of Russia's struggle for liberation.

The wise and firm rule of Alexis, which preserved the unity of the country during Dmitri's infancy, made the young Prince powerful as no other ruler of Russia had been since the time of the Tartar invasion. The Russians had by now so recovered their sense of independence that Dmitri decided to erect round his capital the stone walls which were forbidden by the Tartars. This act provoked the suspicion of the Mongols, and their Khan, Mamai, decided to inflict an exemplary punishment upon the disobedient Russians. An army 400,000 strong was gathered against Moscow. As in the thirteenth century, the attack on Russia from the East was supported by the Christian West. Yagailo, Prince of Lithuania, promised to assist the Tartars; the Republic of Genoa provided the Mongols with military experts and modern armaments. Russia stood alone against her formidable enemy.

Dmitri of Moscow cannot be called a great ruler, but at that critical moment in his nation's history he proved a worthy leader. He realized that what was at stake was not his personal fame or courage, but the very existence of the Russians as a Christian people. There was a real greatness about his conduct during those decisive months. He made all the necessary military preparations and concluded an alliance with the rest of the Russian princes, persuading them to forget their petty rivalries and old feuds. Then, when he had to come to the final decision, he went to seek the sanction of a man whose moral judgment and wisdom could be trusted by the country. Prince Dmitri chose to consult St. Sergius, who, now that Alexis was dead, was the living representative of the conscience of the whole nation.

On an early autumn day, August I8th, 1380, Dmitri, accompanied by his closest friends, paid a visit to the saint. The Tartars had already crossed the borders, and the Russian army was gathered south of Moscow, in Kolomna, ready to start on its march. No Russian heart can remain unmoved at the mention of this solemn hour in Russian history. There was a striking contrast between the strong, armed men, the best warriors of the country, full of anxiety and concern, and the old monk, serene and peaceful, standing in the midst of his disciples. Prince Dmitri was afraid to take the last step on his own responsibility; there was still a possibility of laying down arms, of imploring mercy in the hope of appeasing the wrath of the Tartars. It was a moment of extreme tension; every one knew the price which would have to be paid for a wrong decision. Since the conversion of the Tartars to Mohammedanism at the beginning of the fourteenth century, their benevolent attitude to the Church had changed to a hostile one. Russia's defeat would therefore mean the massacre of the population, the profanation of the churches, the suppression of Christianity. On the other hand, submission would mean, probably, the destruction of the leaders and the moral collapse of the people. Submission was therefore more than dangerous, but was there any chance of successful resistance? Were not the Tartars always victorious? Had they not suppressed all Russian attempts at liberation during the last century and a half? Such were the questions in every mind, and the eyes of all were fixed upon the old monk.

St. Sergius, usually so reticent, was this time firm and explicit. Confronted with supreme danger, he did not evade its challenge. He gave his blessing to Dmitri and, promising him victory, urged the Prince to meet the attack of the enemy in the open steppes of the south. His last words were, "Go forward and fear not. God will help thee." On August 20th the Russians started towards the south. It was an army which included men from the four corners of the land. Never before had the country seen the Princes of Moscow, of Vladimir, of Serpukhov, of Rostov, of Pskov, of Murom, of Suzdal, marching in a body. The army advanced rapidly. On August 26th it crossed the river Oka; on September 6th it reached the river Don. The Russians were once more in the open steppes where their forefathers had been overwhelmed by the irresistible waves of Mongolian invaders. The military council was assembled and the question debated whether the army ought to cross the river. Cautious voices were raised in favor of waiting, but Dmitri gave the order to proceed further into the unknown plains of the south. He was at that moment the true leader of young Russia. He wanted to meet her enemy in the heart of the steppes, in the stronghold of those who for so long had kept his country in fear and submission. The determination displayed by Prince Dmitri was due to St. Sergius' influence. The old monk stood behind the military leader of the Russian nation. On this fateful day of final decision, a special envoy, sent from Radonezh, reached the camp. He brought from St. Sergius a message addressed to Dmitri and through him to the rest of the Russian men. Its content was as follows: "Be in no doubt, my lord; go forward with faith and confront the enemy's ferocity; and fear not, for God will be on your side."

On September 8th, 1380, the two armies met at last. No battle in Russian history can be compared with that of Kulikovo Pole. Here occurred the clash between two irreconcilable powers. Four hundred thousand nomads, with their camels and horses and inspired by the sight of the Crescent, faced a much smaller army of Russians, gathered under the eight-pointed Eastern Cross. Kulikovo Pole occupies a place in history similar to that of the battle of Poitiers (732), when France saved the West from Mahometan invasion; or to the fatal defeat of Kosovo in 1389, which marked the beginning of the five-centuries-long Moslem domination over the Christians of the Balkans.

The struggle was fierce and the losses on both sides were enormous. At first the Tartars had the upper hand but, at the critical moment, when the main Russian force was precipitated into a disorderly retreat, the fortunes of war were suddenly reversed by an unexpected attack of Russian reserves, and a crushing blow was inflicted upon the Mongols. St. Sergius' prophecy was fulfilled: the advance of the Mohammedans was arrested; Russia was to remain a Christian country.

The victory of Kulikovo Pole was not, however, the end of the Tartar domination. Khan Tokhtamysh (1380-95), who murdered his unfortunate predecessor, Mamai, made an unexpected attack on Russia. He failed at first to capture Moscow but, discovering that Prince Dmitri was not in the city, he offered a truce to its inhabitants which, once accepted, he immediately violated, and massacred the entire population. The annihilation of the Capital induced Dmitri to recognize once more the sovereignty of the Tartar Khans, but the relations between them and the Russians were altered. The Russians no longer looked on the Tartars as invincible; the latter were no longer sure of always having the upper hand. From the end of the fourteenth century, the Tartar yoke meant little more than the payment of tribute, and the two nations began to treat each other as equals rather than as conqueror and conquered.

St. Sergius performed a miracle with the Russians: he changed a defeated people into the builders of a great Empire. He did not, however, employ any of the methods which are usually associated with the work of great leaders and reformers. He never preached a single sermon; he did not write a single book; all his life he behaved like the humblest, the least distinguished of men — and yet it was he who was selected by the unanimous voice of the nation as its teacher and liberator. The secret of St. Sergius' influence lies in the singular integrity of his life: his sole activity was in the service of the Holy Trinity, and he became in himself such a faithful reflection of divine harmony and love that all who came in contact with him grew aware of the Heavenly Vision. The Christian faith that God is the Holy Trinity implies that the Creator of this world is the perfect community of Three Persons whose relation is that of mutual love. St. Sergius was not a theologian in the accepted sense of the word. He never wrote or spoke about the Trinitarian doctrine, but he was himself a living example of that divine Unity in Freedom which is the essence of the Christian revelation of the nature of God. His biography contains the following passage: "St. Sergius built the Church of the Holy Trinity as a mirror for his community, that through gazing at the divine Unity they might overcome the hateful divisions of this world."

This short statement summarizes the life work of St. Sergius and his contribution to the spiritual growth of the Russian nation. Its most remarkable feature was a clear realization of the supreme importance of the Trinitarian teaching for the moral rebirth of a nation. The change which took place in Russia in the time of St. Sergius was profound and far-reaching. The nation was delivered from a paralyzing fear and it recovered its sense of strength. He not only helped the Russians to embrace the inspiring ideal of a Christian society based on unity in freedom, but he also convinced them that there was a road leading to its practical application. The vision of a country living as a united family, and observing the precepts of the Church, became a driving force behind the people's actions. The miraculous victory over the superior forces of the Tartars so stirred the imagination of the Russians that a new sense of messianic vocation flared up in their midst. The first part of the fifteenth century was therefore a period when the new Russia of Moscow was spiritually born, when the foundations on which the Moscow Tsardom was erected, in the course of the next two centuries, were laid. St. Sergius cannot, however, be called the architect of that order, for his teaching was much broader than those ideas which were realized under the rule of the Moscow autocrats.

St. Sergius is a prophetic figure. He is the link between two distinct Russias: the one which became a great political power joining Asia and Europe, and the other Russia of a free Christian community, the Russia of saints, philosophers and artists which has remained, in spite of many disappointments and failures, the aspiration of her people in every age.

St. Sergius freed the Russians from the spell of fear and defeatism which had kept them in chains for more than a hundred and fifty years. The strong current of new life flowing from him transformed the disheartened people into men of courage and vision.

On the Russian plain a mighty Empire was born which incorporated many lands and races. Rarely has its eastward expansion been the result of conquest; usually it has been the fruit of gradual and peaceful colonization. Its pioneers were neither daring military adventurers nor enterprising merchants. They were hard-working peasants and humble monks — the disciples of St. Sergius. These monks, inflamed by the spirit of faith and resolution which they had caught from their teacher, left the narrow stretches of cultivated land along the river valleys to which hitherto the bulk of the Russian population had confined itself. They fearlessly penetrated into the depths of unexplored forests and marshes and there founded their settlements. They were no longer afraid, as their fathers had been, to leave human habitations behind; neither cold, nor hunger, nor wild beasts, nor hostile tribes could hinder them. The monks, who followed the rule of community life, of manual labor and of open hospitality, introduced by St. Sergius, spread the light of Christianity all over the vast plain, and their message reached even the most inaccessible regions of the extreme north, for many of them were also outstanding missionaries.

Over fifty new monasteries were founded by the disciples of St. Sergius during his lifetime; fifty others were started by the men of the next generation. St. Abraham of Galich, St. Methodius of Peshnosh, St. Paul and St. Sylvester of Obnorsk, St. Athanasius, the Iron Staff, St. Savva of Storozhev, St. Cyril and St. Therapont of the White Lake — these are some of the best-known names among these pioneers. They had no desire to enlarge the frontiers of the Russian State; they went out in search of places for undisturbed prayer and quiet labor; but, once they had settled down, other Russians followed in their steps. First came those who wanted to join their religious communities; later, devout peasants, accompanied by their families, built their settlements near the cells of the monks. The peasants discovered a new freedom in the remote forests; they were better protected there from the Tartars and were more independent of their own officials. The monks, seeing themselves surrounded by peasants' huts, pushed still farther, but the peasants, having once uprooted themselves, found it easy to move again. They followed the monks, and thus a spontaneous movement of colonization started, which carried with it an ever-increasing number of people.

Such a flow of population could not escape the notice of the princes, and they began to claim the territories inhabited by their former taxpayers. As a result a new and stronger State came into being, but its builders had to face three formidable tasks. The first one was the liberation of the country from the Mongols; the second was the reopening of communications with the rest of Christendom, through the recovery of the sea coast seized by the Western neighbors during the Tartar invasion; and the third was the establishment of a new political order which could protect the independence of the Russian people.

None of these was an easy proposition, and the Russians had to start their work under adverse conditions. The long subjugation to the Mongols had retarded the normal growth of the nation; the population was scattered, driven from the fertile plains of the south into the cold and inhospitable marshy lands of the north; and the Russians were, besides, deprived of stimulating contact with the more advanced countries of the West, and forced to rely upon their own limited resources. The road to unity and freedom was steep and narrow, but the Russians were not dismayed by these obstacles. Their chief difficulty was that they had to deal with all their problems simultaneously. As soon as they made progress in the east, they were threatened in the west; if they advanced towards the Baltic Sea, they were immediately attacked in the steppes of the south; and they could deal successfully with their hostile neighbors only if they were ready to endure the autocratic rule of their Tsars.

Living in a land utterly devoid of natural lines of protection, with a population inadequate in numbers, with a soil yielding less than that of neighboring countries and requiring more labor, each individual Russian was asked to make infinitely greater sacrifices for his country, and to bear in its defense hardships and privations severer than any suffered by members of other nations.

From the fourteenth century till the present day, the Russians have had to accept a state of perpetual mobilization as the only alternative to the collapse of their entire defensive system. Many of the negative features of the Russian political order, like the extensive powers given to the Tsars, the serfdom of the peasants and the inadequate safeguards of personal liberty, arose out of the extremely unfavorable circumstances in which the nation had to labor for the recovery and preservation of its independence. The Russians of Moscow were obliged to give up their individual freedom, which their ancestors cherished so highly, not because they had ceased to value it, but because they realized they could protect their land only if they were ready to establish a monarchy built on the same pattern as the Empire of the Mongols. But the spirit behind it was different. Its inspiration came from the Christian Church, with its belief in freedom and in the value of each person. Though the political and economic system was often oppressive, yet people were inwardly free, for they knew that they were all brothers, equal members of the redeemed community.

There is no better illustration of the curious mixture of Christian fellowship with Oriental despotism than the story of serfdom in Russia — the greatest blunder in its history. Serfdom resulted from confused political thinking; it arose from the attempt to secure economic stability and better defenses by binding the peasants to the soil. Everyone in Russia had to serve the community: the landed gentry formed a permanent militia, so the peasants in return had to provide their defenders with free labor. All Russians were not ready to carry this heavy burden. The open steppes of the south and the forests of the north offered freedom to those who were not afraid of risk and adventure. The flight of these Russians made the lot of those who remained behind still harder, and in order to stop this flow of population the Government gave to the gentry an increasing power of control over the peasants, until, in the eighteenth century, they became the private property of the landowners.

Nothing is more foreign to the Russian mind than an idea of inherited inequality among men. Serfdom, therefore, was, from start to finish, an abuse, never a law.

The peasants could never be reconciled to the loss of their freedom, and, even in serfdom, they stubbornly retained their community organization, with their elected elders and their primitive village parliament (mir). In spite of oppression, they preserved the sense of equality and human dignity, and in this they were greatly assisted by the Church, which reminded all its members of this truth by communicating both the serfs and their masters from the same chalice, and by insisting that they all had to ask pardon of each other before partaking of the divine Eucharist.

The powerful uprisings of the rural population which several times shook the very foundation of the Russian State (the revolts of Bolotnikov, 1606-7, of Stenka Razin, 1670-71, of Bulavin, 1707, and of Emelian Pugachev, 1773-75), bear witness to the undying thirst for freedom fostered in the Russian heart by the teaching and practice of the Orthodox Church. These rebellions were part of a heavy price the country had to pay for the mistakes committed by its rulers, most of which arose from the exceptional difficulties under which the Russians had to strive as the result of the disaster of the Tartar invasion.

After many efforts and disappointments, the Russians at last created a strong centralized authority, such as the defense of the country required. It was achieved under the leadership of the Grand Princes of Moscow, who became at the end of the fifteenth century the Tsars of all Russia. Their rise to power was a gradual process; the rulers of Moscow, Basil I (1389-1425), Basil II (1425-62), Ivan III (1462-1505), Basil III (1505-33), moved step by step with great caution. They all had much in common: their cast of mind, their policy and their gifts and limitations conformed to the same pattern. None of them was an outstanding person, but each of them was instinctively a ruler. They advanced slowly but always in the right direction, and therefore performed an indispensable service to the nation, helping it to rise from its bed of sickness and prostration.

The Princes of Moscow were thrifty landlords, who regarded the growth of their Principality in terms of the increase of their personal property. In their wills they distributed not only their gold, silver and furs among their children, but also the towns and the provinces of their realm, which they treated as mere private possessions, acquired, as they were, chiefly by purchase and negotiation. They had nothing of the spirit of bravery and military adventure so prominently displayed by other members of the House of Rurik. They possessed, also, little sense of honor. As long as the Tartars were strong, they served them more obediently than any other Russian prince, but, as soon as they had gathered enough strength to oppose the Khans, they boldly proclaimed themselves the successors of the Byzantine Emperors. They were devoutly Orthodox and accepted without question the authority of the Church. They shared with the rest of the nation the conviction of the sacred mission assigned to Russia by God, and they never failed to use every opportunity for the advancement of the great cause.

The first visible fruits of their patient labors were reaped during the reign of Ivan III, surnamed the Great (1462-1505). Under him, Russia made a striking advance in dealing with her three great problems. The autocracy of the Moscow Tsars was established; the eastward drive of Lithuania was stopped, and part of the lost Russian territory was recovered; finally, the Tartar yoke was repudiated and Ivan assumed the title of Tsar. The final liberation of the country from submission to the Mongols was achieved without bloodshed, the balance of power being so obviously in favor of Moscow that the Tartars were unable to oppose the Russians.

The end of the Tartar domination coincided with the absorption by Moscow of the remaining principalities. None of them was able to offer much resistance except the wealthy city of Novgorod. It was the last outpost into the Western world left to the Russian people, and a lively trade was carried on by its enterprising and freedom-loving citizens. Moscow and Novgorod had little sympathy with each other. Novgorod stood for individual responsibility; its people mixed freely with foreigners, and the unruly population was ready to defend its traditional liberties against all those who had any designs upon them. Moscow stood for obedience and caution, was suspicious of all strangers and was prepared to sacrifice freedom for the sake of unity and power.

Moscow and Novgorod needed each other, and the success of their common struggle against both Eastern and Western aggressors depended on their collaboration. But from the middle of the fifteenth century their relations had been strained, each side considering that the other did not keep to the terms of their alliance. Moscow accused Novgorod of secret negotiations with Lithuania; Novgorod retorted that Moscow interfered unlawfully in the domestic affairs of the Republic.

In 1471, an open clash occurred. The citizens of Novgorod, expecting support from Lithuania, rejected Moscow's terms (which stipulated the rupture of all relations with their Western neighbors). Ivan III sent a strong army, and Novgorod was obliged to surrender. The Tsar showed at first great moderation and allowed Novgorod to retain its republican government. But when two further rebellions broke out and he had again to send his armies to storm the city, in 1478 and then in 1479, he lost patience and imposed severe terms upon the thrice-defeated citizens. The leading families were deported and scattered all over Russia. Self-government and the ancient liberties of the city were abolished. The unity of the central and northern provinces was thus achieved, but in a way which proved unfavorable to the nation. The door into Europe was shut, foreign trade came to a standstill, and the spirit of freedom and enterprise so prominently displayed by the people of Novgorod was extinguished.

The Grand Princes of Moscow at last became sole rulers of a vast country, and the problem arose of defining their place in the life of the nation. The answer to it was found in the belief that Moscow was the successor to Constantinople, and that her Tsars were the legitimate heirs of the Byzantine Emperors. The expansion of every nation, the growth of every empire is usually the outward sign of an inward conviction of the people that they have a special mission to perform. The striking transformation of the small Moscow principality into one of the largest States of the world was the result of the deep-rooted belief of her people that they were called to defend Eastern Orthodoxy, left without protection since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The period of a hundred years between the battle of Kulikovo Pole in 1380 and the repudiation of the Tartar yoke in 1480 was the turning point in the destiny of the nation. Several important events, following each other in ever quicker succession, produced a deep impression upon the Russians. In 1380, they gained their first victory over the Mongols; in 1439, they heard, to their dismay, that the Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople, those pillars of Eastern Orthodoxy, had surrendered their Church to the Latin heretics at the Council of Florence. Swift retribution followed, and Constantinople, the capital of Eastern Christendom, was taken away from the Greeks in 1453. In 1472, Ivan III married Sophia Paleologos, the niece of the last Emperor, and took as his coat-of-arms the two-headed Byzantine Eagle. In 1480, Ivan repudiated the Tartar yoke and proclaimed himself Tsar, or autocrat — a ruler independent of any other sovereign.

The Russians, together with the rest of the Eastern Christians, believed that the Church and the Empire were both instituted by God and were indispensable for the maintenance of true religion. The fall of Constantinople was, therefore, a shattering blow for them, and a feeling of doom spread all over the Christian East. But this did not last long, for the hope grew that Russia was chosen by God to resume the same work which was brought to a standstill by the apostasy of the Emperor and the sacking of the Great City.

Such was the origin of the belief in Moscow as the third and last Rome, a belief which had far-reaching consequences for the history of the nation, and which influenced profoundly the outlook of its people. Its universal acceptance was due to its Biblical roots. The Eastern Christians based their vision of a succession of kingdoms raised to pre-eminence by divine providence on the Book of the Prophet Daniel (II, 27-49, VII, I-28, IX, 24-27). The prophecy of the Four Empires was interpreted in the light of the commentaries of St. Hippolytus (d. 223) who identified them with Babylon, Persia, the Empire of Alexander the Great, and Rome. During the ascendancy of the Fourth Realm, the greatest events in human history were expected to take place, including the Second as well as the First Coming of the Messiah. The collapse of the western part of the Roman Empire in the fifth century did not affect this conviction, for the Eastern Christians believed that Constantinople was the New or Second Rome. They ascribed to her the same promises of indestructibility which were originally made in regard to Rome herself. When Moscow became the only capital among the Eastern Christians free from the control of the infidels, it was natural that she should be elevated to the position of the Third and Last Rome. Thus Moscow found herself linked with the ancient realms of the East, but her future, though bright with the aura of divine election, was, nevertheless, clouded by the sobering thought of impending punishment, if she proved unfaithful in the fulfillment of her great mission.

In these decisive years of the second part of the fifteenth century, when modern Europe was about to be born, the Russian people experienced a genuine sense of resurrection. After a long period of suffering, humiliation and despair, they were suddenly raised to a new life of freedom, power and glory. They felt themselves brought out of darkness into light and entrusted with the awe-inspiring task of being the guardians of true faith and worship for the rest of mankind. Philotheus, one of the Russian scholars, an elder of a monastery in Pskov, formulated this wide-spread belief in his epistle addressed to Basil III. He wrote: "The Church of old Rome fell for its heresy; the gates of the second Rome, Constantinople, were hewn down by the axes of the infidel Turks; but the Church of Moscow, the Church of the new Rome, shines brighter than the sun in the whole universe. Thou art the one universal sovereign of all Christian folk, thou shouldst hold the reins in awe of God; fear Him Who hath committed them to thee. Two Romes are fallen, but the third stands fast; a fourth there cannot be. Thy Christian kingdom shall not be given to another."

The claims of a country like Russia, lost in the dark forests of the far-off North, whose very existence was hardly realized in the Europe of the fifteenth century, to be the heir of the great Roman Empire, were not so ambitious and naïve as may appear. They were truly prophetic. Twenty-five years after Philotheus wrote his epistle, the Russian armies captured the Tartar fortresses of Kazan and Astrakhan, and the nation began to expand rapidly towards the east. A hundred years later the frontier of the country reached the Pacific Ocean, and in two hundred years' time the Northern Empire spread from the White Sea to the Black, and from the Baltic to Alaska.

The Russians took upon themselves the cultural mission of Byzantium; they became a link between East and West, the defenders and exponents of the order built on the foundation of Orthodox Christianity. The Russians could not, of course, reproduce that unique combination of the Christian, Hellenistic and Oriental elements of civilization, which was the great achievement of the Byzantine Empire. They did not belong to the Mediterranean commonwealth; they had never stood before the majestic ruins of bygone empires; they had never read the annals of their victories, crimes and achievements. The names of Homer, Aristotle and Virgil conveyed nothing to them. They were saved, therefore, from the danger of becoming mere imitators of Byzantium, the temptation which crippled the development of the southern Slavs. The latter were so fascinated by Constantinople that they exhausted themselves in vain attempts to copy their august neighbor. The Russians followed their own path, and they created a new order, quite distinct from that of the Eastern Empire but inspired by the same ultimate vision of life. Moscow was little indebted to Constantinople in politics, economics and social organization, but it was conspicuously the heir of Byzantium in the realm of the spirit, in art, religion and, especially, worship. Here, the Russians followed the true tradition of the Second Rome, and were able to enrich it along their own lines. It was through the wealth of the Byzantine liturgy that they entered so fully into the cultural inheritance of the ancient world.

Rome bequeathed to mankind the idea of law, discipline and order, and these elements of her civilization were later incorporated in the imposing system of the Roman Catholic Church. Constantinople introduced into the life of Christendom the unique intellectual and artistic achievements of Greece; and the gift of the Second Rome was the formulation of Christian doctrine. Moscow could not compete in either of these spheres with her great predecessors. Her special domain was the art of Christian living; the application of Christianity to the corporate daily life of the people. And here her contribution was of the first importance. Her ideal was that of a Christian State living as one family, in which every man, from the Sovereign down to the poorest and least educated of its members, could have his full share of spiritual benefits and joys. The sense of being one community experienced by the Russians was spontaneous and organic. It arose not from obedience to authority, nor from the idea of duty, nor from intellectual agreement: it was due to a pattern of life, a rhythm of existence which was lovingly designed, built and followed by the entire population. Innumerable Church customs and home traditions provided the content of that ritual of daily life which was the most distinctive mark of Russian culture. The Russian interpretation of Christianity was more artistic than intellectual, being based on the vision of the Church as a living organism rather than an institution. Salvation was conceived not so much in terms of the forgiveness of the sins of the individual, as in terms of a healing and sanctifying process which aimed at the transfiguration of men, of beasts and plants, and of the whole cosmos. St. Sergius was the first to give harmonious expression to this typically Russian approach to religion. He was able to fulfill the highest aspiration of the nation and he became the living example of unity in freedom (Sobornost). This achievement was, however, seldom within the reach of other Russians. Long centuries of mistakes, sufferings and trials separated them from their final goal — that of making their country a genuine family of Christian people. Even St. Sergius' disciples were not always able to follow in his path, and they split into opposite schools, each of which emphasized one side of their common inheritance. One of them, known under the nickname of "the Possessors," laid stress on unity and greatly appreciated the beauty and dignity of ritual both in the conduct of worship and in daily life. The other, nicknamed "the Non-Possessors," insisted on the importance of freedom and taught that nothing was more pleasing to God than a humble and contrite heart lovingly and freely obeying the Creator.

Several outstanding men in the sixteenth century represented those two parties. St. Joseph, the famous Abbot of Volotsk (1439-1515), Genadi, Archbishop of Novgorod (d. 1505), and Daniel, Metropolitan of Moscow (d. 1539), were the spokesmen of the Possessors. St. Nil of Sorsk (1433-1508), Prince Vassian Patrikeev (d. 1531) and St. Maxim the Greek (d. 1556) were the able exponents of the Non-Possessors' point of view. As long as both parties had their full share in the shaping of the country's destiny, Russian life was fresh and vigorous.

The Possessors greatly contributed to the artistic perfection of worship. They were also able administrators, and the monasteries built by them enjoyed order and prosperity. Their religious houses owned large estates, and, because they insisted that the monks were authorized to possess lands and to control the serfs who inhabited them, they received their nickname. The Possessors were the upholders of an autocracy and they were ready to allow the Sovereign to take a leading role in the government of the Church. They preached the doctrine that the Tsars ought to be loved and obeyed as fathers were obeyed by their children