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On August 11, 1979 Fr. Georges Vasil'evich Florovsky, one of the more influential of twentieth century theologians and historians of Christianity, died. With his death a part of our scholarly world also dies. The scholarly world finds itself in a rather unusual situation. Unlike other renowned writers who, upon their death, have already shared their best works with their contemporaries, only posthumously are Fr. Florovsky's greatest works being published in English — Ways of Russian Theology (in two volumes), The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century, and The Byzantine Fathers from the Fifth to the Eighth Centuries. One pauses with wonder when one realizes that Fr. Florovsky was so influential without these works having been published in a western language.

Fr. Georges Florovsky was born in Odessa in 1893. He was the beneficiary of that vibrant Russian educational experience, which flourished toward the end of the nineteenth century and produced many gifted scholars. The revolution aborted this rich, growing tradition. As a result of the revolution, trained Russian scholars became a part of the Russian emigration in Western Europe and in the United States. A tragic deprivation for Russia became a gift to western culture. One could perhaps compare the flight of Russian scholars to Western Europe and the United States and their concomitant influence with the flight and influence of Byzantine scholars in the fifteenth century. In both cases the western scholarly world was surprised at the high level of learning in both Russia and Byzantium.

Fr. Florovsky personified the cultivated, well-educated Russian of the turn of the century. His penetrating mind grasped both the detail and depth in the unfolding drama of the history of Christianity in both eastern and western forms. He was theologian, church historian, patristic scholar, philosopher, and Slavist. And he handled all these areas exceptionally well. As theologian he wrote brilliantly on the subjects -inter alia- of creation, divine energies, and redemption. As church historian he wrote on personalities and intellectual movements from all twenty centuries. As patristic scholar he wrote two volumes on the eastern and Byzantine fathers. As philosopher he wrote exceptionally well -inter alia- on the problem of evil and on the influence of ancient Greek philosophy on patristic thought as well as on the influence of German philosophy on Russian thought. As Slavist there was virtually no area of Russian life that he had not at some point analyzed.

Many western churchmen found him a positive challenge. Others found him intimidating, for here was one who possessed something similar to encyclopaedic knowledge. Here was one who had the ability to analyze with insight. Here was a voice from the Christian east capable of putting theological discussion, long bogged down in the west by reformation and counter-reformation polemics, on a new theological level with perceptive analyses of forgotten thought from the early centuries of the history of the Church. Fr. Florovsky became the spokesman for what he termed the "new patristic synthesis"; that is, one must return to patristic thought for a point of departure; church history ought not — from this perspective — be analyzed through the thought patterns of the reformation or of the Council of Trent or through the thought structure of Thomas Aquinas: one must return to the earliest life of the church, to that living church which existed before the written testimony of the New Testament and which ultimately determined the canon of our New Testament — the church of the fathers. That Fr. Florovsky influenced contemporary church historians is obvious. It is noteworthy that the best contemporary multi-volume history of the church pays a special tribute to Fr. Florovsky. Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale University, in the bibliographic section to his first volume in The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, writes under reference to Fr. Florovsky's two volumes (in Russian) on the Church Fathers (The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century and The Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth to the Eighth Centuries): "These two works are basic to our interpretation of trinitarian and christological dogmas" (p. 359 from The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: 100-600). George Huntston Williams, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, wrote: "Faithful priestly son of the Russian Orthodox Church . . . , Fr. Georges Florovsky — with a career-long involvement in the ecumenical dialogue between apostolic patristic Orthodoxy and all the many forms of Christianity in the Old World and the New- is today the most articulate, trenchant and winsome exponent of Orthodox Theology and piety in the scholarly world. He is innovative and creative in the sense wholly of being ever prepared to restate the saving truth of Scripture and Tradition in the idiom of our contemporary yearning for the transcendent . . . "

Fr. Florovsky's professorial career led him from the University of Odessa to Prague, where he taught philosophy from 1922 until 1926. In 1926 he was invited to hold the chair of patrology at St. Sergius' Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. In 1948 Fr. Florovsky accepted the deanship of St. Vladimir's Theological School in New York. Simultaneously he taught at Union Theological School and Columbia University. In 1956 Fr. Florovsky accepted an invitation from Harvard University where he held the chair of Eastern Church History until 1964. While teaching at Harvard University, Fr. Florovsky also taught at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School in Brookline, Massachusetts. From 1964 until his death in 1979 Fr. Florovsky was Visiting Professor at Princeton University. It should be remembered that through all the years and during all the research, Fr. Florovsky was a faithful priest of the Orthodox Church, officiating at the numerous liturgical services, presenting sermons, and acting as a spiritual guide and father confessor. The history of the translation of Ways of Russian Theology could by itself be a separate book. Suffice it to say that more persons had a hand in this project than is obvious, especially in the early years of the project. The work of Andrew Blane and friends was quite significant. In late 1974 I received a personal request from Fr. Florovsky to head the entire project and to bring it to completion. I hesitated until Fr. Florovsky insisted that I assume the general editorship of the project. I agreed. From that time on, the organization of the project began anew. The first step was to compare existing translations.

The second step was taken when Fr. Florovsky insisted that Robert L. Nichols be appointed the new translator. The third step was to compare the new translation with the original text. And, finally c. 868 footnotes were added to part One of Ways of Russian Theology. I do not pretend that we have produced a perfect book. There are, I am sure, errors still to be uncovered. But in the main I think the product is "ready," especially in light of the fact that a readership has been awaiting this English translation for approximately forty years.

The footnotes were added for a specific reason. It was thought that there would be two types of readership: theologians who might be unfamiliar with the world of Russian culture in general; and, Slavists who might be unfamiliar with church history and patristics. It was considered unfair to expect Slavists to know Cappadocian theology, just as it was considered unfair to expect a theologian to know the poetry of Tiutchev. It was decided that an index to both volumes would appear only with Part Two of Ways of Russian Theology. I wish to thank my wife, Vera, for her patience and help. A special debt of gratitude is owed to Fr. Janusz Ihnatowicz of the University of St. Thomas in Houston for his indispensable help in tracing references to Polish personalities. And, of course, without the work of Robert L. Nichols and Paul Kachur this work could not have been completed.

Everyone who has participated in this project would, I think, join in our earnest prayer from the Orthodox service: "With the saints, O Christ, give rest to the soul of thy servant, Fr. Georges, where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting . . . For the ever-memorable servant of God, Fr. Georges, for his repose, tranquility and blessed memory, let us pray to the Lord . . . . That the Lord our God will establish his soul in a place of brightness, a place of verdure, a place of rest, where all the righteous dwell, let us pray to the Lord . . . . O God of all that is spiritual and of all flesh, who hast trampled down Death, and overthrown the Devil, and given life unto thy world, do thou, the same Lord, give rest to the soul of thy departed servant, Fr. Georges, in a place of brightness, a place of verdure, a place of repose, whence all sickness, sorrow and sighing have fled away. Pardon every transgression, which he hath committed, whether by word, or deed, or thought. For thou art a good God, and lovest mankind because there is no man who liveth and sinneth not; for thou only art without sin and thy righteousness is to all eternity, and thy word is true . . . . For thou art the Resurrection, and the Life, and the Repose of thy departed servant, Fr. Georges."

In loving memory

Richard S. Haugh Rice University

October 31, 1979.

Over a hundred and sixty years ago, in 1814, Archimandrite Filaret (Drozdov), then a youthful Orthodox reformer and later "ecumenical" metropolitan of Moscow, drew up a charter for the Russian ecclesiastical schools and submitted it to Tsar Alexander I. From that moment can be dated the awakening of modern Russian Orthodox thought. As Filaret told the learned clergy and laity gathered for the occasion, Orthodoxy had been dazzled and diverted by a series of western religious and cultural enthusiasms and now must "show its face in the true spirit of the Apostolic Church." In an important sense, Filaret's summons to recover and proclaim again the faith of the apostles and the Church fathers was answered when Fr. Georges Florovsky's Ways of Russian Theology appeared in 1937 among the Orthodox emigrés in Paris. Or, more accurately, the book represented the culmination of more than a century's effort by Russians, beginning with Filaret, to rediscover their own Orthodox tradition.

Ways of Russian Theology forms an integral part of the attempt to purify Russian Orthodoxy by clarifying its proper relationship to the West. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, the Russian Church found itself intellectually unprepared to deal with the religious and cultural storms bursting in upon it. First came the era of open hostilities between Protestants and Catholics; later came the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Consequently, Orthodoxy absorbed, sometimes unconsciously, western scholasticism, deism, pietism, and idealism, and produced what Fr. Florovsky describes as the "pseudomorphosis" of Russia's authentic religious life derived from Byzantium. Only in the nineteenth century did Russian Orthodoxy seriously undertake to recover its Byzantine heritage and find its way "back to the Fathers," thereby laying the foundation for Florovsky's later program of "neo-atristic synthesis," a concept he elaborates in his own preface to this book and throughout the study.

Although no one has gone so far as to say about Florovsky what the historian S. M. Solov'ev once said about Filaret ("Every day for lunch he ate two priests and two minnows"), his caustic remarks about prominent figures in Russian history prepared the atmosphere for the cool and critical manner in which the book was received. Ways of Russian Theology was not well reviewed. His colleagues at the St. Sergius Institute in Paris collaborated against him in order to shield the students from his influence. Nicholas Berdiaev wrote a long review in The Way (Put J, the leading Orthodox intellectual journal in the Russian emigration, accusing him of arrogance and speaking as though he were God thundering down mal judgment on those with whom he disagreed. Many at the Institute saw the book as a full scale attack on Russia and its faith.[1] They resented the acerbic remarks about those who he be believed to have surrendered to the West: "Feofan Prokopovich was a dreadful person . . . (He) stands forth not as a westerner, but as a western man, a foreigner . . . (He) viewed the Orthodox world as an outsider and imagined it to be a duplicate of Rome. He simply did not experience Orthodoxy, absorbed as he was in western disputes. In those debates he remained to the end allied with the Protestants." Similarly, Peter Mogila, the great seventeenth century churchman, is described as a "crypto-Roman." "He brought Orthodoxy to what might be called a Latin "pseudomorphosis." And, in a manner which would inevitably provoke his Parisian associates, Florovsky wrote that "N. A. Berdiaev drank so deeply at the springs of German mysticism and philosophy that he could not break loose from the fatal German circle.. . German mysticism cut him off from the life of the Great Church." Naturally, the book found even fewer friends among the Russian "radicals" in Paris. Paul Miliukov tried to silence the book by refusing to print Professor Bitselli's review in Russian Notes (Russkiia zapiski).

But aside from the polemical style, why the hostility to the book in Orthodox intellectual circles? Because it effectively questioned the historical basis of many of their strongly held theological views. Florovsky quickly emerged as the most authoritative living voice of Russian Orthodoxy in the West, and he sought to use his position to pose new questions about ecumenicity derived from his reflection on the Russian experience and its Byzantine past. Modern Russian Orthodox ecumenism, if it begins anywhere, begins in Paris with him. Not, of course, only with him, and not only in the 1930s. He had the experience of the preceding century to draw upon. Metropolitan Filaret and the editorial board for the journal The Works of the Holy Fathers in Russian Translation obviously anticipated his appeal for a "return to the Fathers." The Orthodox emigrés in Paris were working clergy and laymen trying to acclimate Russian Orthodoxy to the ecumenical challenges of the twentieth century. All worked on the same problems: a re-examination of Russia's religious past, the meaning of the Revolution for Russia and the modern world, and the role of Russian Orthodoxy in the present and future.

But among all those who thus served the Church in exile, Fr. Florovsky stands alone. Others might explore and refine Orthodox thought but Florovsky altered the context in which discussion of the Church's work, meaning, and character must take place. In so doing, he laid the foundation for reconciling the "Eastern and the Oriental" Orthodox Churches. His "asymmetrical" definition of the Chalcedonian formula first appeared in his 1933 lectures on the Byzantine Fathers of the V-VIII Centuries. In Ways of Russian Theology he clarified the short-comings, achievements, and tasks of the Russian Church. And in the next few years he defined the necessary approach Eastern Orthodoxy must take in order to overcome separation from the other Christian confessions. In 1937, at the ecumenical encounters in Athens and Edinburgh, he explained his "neopatristic synthesis" or "re-Hellenization" of Orthodoxy in such a way as to exercise "a profound influence upon the. . . (Edinburgh) Conference, presenting the eternal truths of the Catholic Faith so effectively, so winsomely, and so clearly that they commended themselves to men of the most diversified nationalities and religious backgrounds."[2] All this, in its essentials, was carried through in a remarkably short period from 1930 until the outbreak of the war.

The war in Europe claimed Ways of Russian Theology as one of its casualties. Nearly the entire stock of the book was destroyed during a bombing raid on Belgrade near which Florovsky had moved to serve as chaplain and religious teacher to the Russian colony at Bela Crkva. Although copies survived there and elsewhere, the book became somewhat rare. The present translation will, therefore, make this monumental work more readily available by bringing it to the attention of a much larger non-Russian speaking English public. The book's great erudition and compassion deserve the widest possible audience. An English translation has long been overdue.

All translators, if they are to any extent conscious of their work, recognize the disparity between the original they read and the work they produce. On very rare occasions a translator perfectly captures his subject, but far more often he only approximates or suggests the original. This book follows the general rule. Fr. Florovsky's Ways of Russian Theology is not an easy book to render into English. It is a highly personal and passionate account of Russian religious thought and Russian culture constructed from words, phrases, and thoughts so deeply rooted in the Russian Orthodox tradition that the English translator can only imperfectly convey their rich associations. Consequently, he must settle for something less, and I have tried to retain the vigor and earnestness of the book by writing English prose rather than providing a literal rendition of the Russian text. I do not claim to have succeeded in capturing Fr. Florovsky's style; I only claim an attempt at avoiding the awkwardness of a more precisely literal reproduction. As Edward Fitzgerald once observed: "the live dog better than the dead lion" (Letters, London, 1894).

The translation of Ways of Russian Theology is actually a work of many. In 1975, when I first became part of the project, rough drafts of several chapters and sections of others had already been completed. These drafts included a portion of chapter 2, chapters 3 and 4, sections 1-7 of chapter 5, section 14 of chapter 7, and chapters 8 and 9. When at the request of Fr. Florovsky and Richard Haugh, the general editor of this project, I agreed to assume the burden of this project previously carried forward by the earlier group, I extensively revised and in some instances retranslated the chapters already in draft form, and translated the remainder of chapter 5 as well as the preface and chapters 1, 6, and 7. To all the chapters I added numerous explanatory notes. The general editor, Richard Haugh, has appended still others. In sum, the translation is a collective enterprise which has taken considerable time to complete, worked on as it has been during summers, holidays, and at other spare moments in working days devoted to teaching, other literary projects, and administrative duties. Of course, I assume full responsibility for any errors in the translation, but the hard, selfless labor of the previous translators must receive full acknowledgement.

One further word about the notes accompanying the text. Those notes designated within brackets as "Author's notes" are of two kinds. One contains material removed from the body of the text, so that it does not interrupt the narrative. Such material is usually, but not always, of a bibliographical character. The other sort provides information taken from the bibliography at the end of the Russian edition. (That full bibliography is not included with this translation. Only a selected bibliography is appended. Readers who wish to use the very extensive Russian bibliography are invited to consult the original 1937 YMCA Press edition). Where necessary, I have provided a more exact citation to a work (i.e., edition, volume, page, etc). than that contained in the original. All notes not directly attributed to the author are mine or the editor's. Transliteration has been done following the usage of the Slavic Review. Generally, Russian Christian names are reproduced here, with a few exceptions where the name is well known (e.g. Lev rather than Leo, except for Leo Tolstoy).

Square brackets are used very sparingly in the text to enclose material added by the translator. In bringing the translation of Ways of Russian Theology into print, it is a pleasure to thank all those who helped me with the task. First to Richard and Vera Haugh, who checked the translation against the original and who have showed a cheerful helpfulness throughout the work. Also, to Mrs. Thelma Winter and Mrs. Maryann LoGuidice who patiently typed the manuscript and to Dean William Nelsen and President Sidney Rand of St. Olaf College who provided financial assistance for the typing. Most of all I would like to thank my wife Sharon and my children who often wondered aloud when the job would be done, but never complained when it was not.

Robert L. Nichols

Saint Olaf College Northfield,

Minnesota June 1, 1978

1. Many of the biographical and bibliographical facts about Florovsky used here are drawn from Professor George H. William's admirable essay "Georges Vasilievich Florovsky: His American Career (1948-1965)," The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Vol. II, No. 1 (Summer, 1965), 7-107. Concerning the quarrel over the book, Williams follows Alexander Schmemann's suggestion (27-28) that the Institute stood polarized at the time between the majority representing the "Russian" school, "who were reworking the major themes of Russian nineteenth-century theology and philosophy," and Florovsky with his "programmatic" return to the Fathers in order to repossess `Christian' or `sacred Hellenism'.

However, the division between "Hellenists" and "Russians" seems over-drawn, for we are actually dealing with at least two trends in modern Russian theology. One directly continued the themes of the Slavophiles, Vladimir Solov'ev, and the Russian "idea"-the theme of Russia's universalizing response to western humanism. (Florovsky directly challenges this school in the final chapter of the book, where he asks why Russia's culture is punctuated with discontinuities and replies that Russia's "universal responsiveness" is "fatal" and "ambiguous.") The other trend, while by no means indifferent to the first, stressed the need to recover "genuine" Orthodox tradition-a major nineteenth century theme centering particularly in the Moscow Theological Academy. It would be more correct to speak of two emphases within Russia's recent theological past which continued to grow and flourish even in emigration after 1917 rather than speak of two groups, only one of which dwelled on the major themes of nineteenth century Russian theology and philosophy. Even Berdiaev, who admonished Florovsky for preferring an abstract and inhuman Byzantinism to Russia's higher spirituality, ends his review by linking Florovsky to nineteenth century Russian themes. See Put', No. 53 (April-July, 1937), 5 3-75.

2. "Role of Honour," (Editorial), The Living Church (New York and Milwaukee), Vol. 98, 1 (January 5, 1938), 1 f. as quoted in Williams, op. cit., 38.

This book was conceived as an experiment in historical synthesis, as an experiment in the history of Russian thought. Preceding the synthesis, as long ago as the days of my youth, came years of analysis, many years of slow reading and reflection. For me the past fate of Russian theology was always the history of a creative contemporaneity in which I had to find myself. Historical impartiality is not violated in this way. Impartiality is not non-participation. It is not indifference nor a refusal to make an evaluation. History explains events, discloses their meaning and significance. The historian must never forget that he studies and describes the creative tragedy of human life. He must not, for he cannot. Unbiased history has never existed and never will.

Studying the Russian past led me to the conviction and strengthened me in it that in our day the Orthodox theologian can only find for himself the true measure and living source of creative inspiration in patristic tradition. I am convinced the intellectual break from patristics and Byzantinism was the chief cause for all the interruptions and failures in Russia's development. The history of these failures is told in this book. All the genuine achievements of Russian theology were always linked with a creative return to patristic sources. That this narrow path of patristic theology is the sole true way is revealed with particular clarity in historical perspective. Yet the return to the fathers must not be solely intellectual or historical, it must be a return in spirit and prayer, a living and creative self-restoration to the fullness of the Church in the entirety of sacred tradition.

We are granted to live in an age of theological awakening bespoken throughout the divided Christian world. It is time to reexamine and recall with great attention all the sometimes cruel, sometimes inspired lessons and testaments of the past. But a genuine awakening can only begin when not only the answers but the questions are heard in the past and in the future. The inexhaustible power of patristic tradition in theology is defined still more by the fact that theology was a matter of life for the holy fathers, a spiritual quest (podvig), a confession of faith, a creative resolution of living tasks. The ancient books were always inspired with this creative spirit. Healthy theological sensitivity, without which the sought-for Orthodox awakening will not come, can only be restored in our ecclesiastical society through a return to the fathers. In our day theological confessionalism acquires special importance among the Church's labors as the inclusion of the mind and will within the Church, as a living entry of truth into the mind. Vos exemplaria graeca nocturna versate diurrna. Orthodoxy is once again revealed in patristic exegesis as a conquering power, as the power giving rebirth and affirmation to life, not only as a way station for tired and disillusioned souls; not only as the end but as the beginning, the beginning of a quest and creativity, a "new creature."

In finishing the book, I recall with gratitude all those who by example or counsel, by books and inquiries, by objection, sympathy or reproach helped and help me in my work. I gratefully remember the libraries and repositories whose hospitality I enjoyed during the long years of my studies. Here I must mention one name dear to me, the late P. I. Novgorodtsev, an image of truthfulness who will never die in my heart's memory. I am indebted to him more than can possibly be expressed in words. "True instruction was in his mouth" (Malachi 2:6).

The history of Russian thought contains a good deal that is problematical and incomprehensible. The most important question is this: what is the meaning of Russia's ancient, enduring, and centuries long intellectual silence? How does one explain the late and belated awakening of Russian thought? The historian is amazed when he passes from the dynamic and often loquacious Byzantium to placid, silent Rus'. Such a development is perplexing. Was Russia silent, lost in thought, and wrapped in contemplation of God? Or was it mired in spiritual stagnation and idleness? Was it lost in dreams or in a semidormant existence?

No historian today would agree with Golubinskii that prior to the revolution wrought by Peter the Great,[2] Old Russia possessed no civilization or literature and hardly even any literacy. At present such sweeping generalizations seem only curious, lacking either polemic or passion. Moreover, few historians would still repeat Kliuchevskii's [3] statement that for all its seeming intensity and power, Old Russian thought never exceeded the limits of "ecclesiastical and moral casuistry." Yet in addition to the Questions of Kirik [Voproshaniia Kirika], [4] there is also the Instruction [Pouchenie] [5] of Vladimir Monomakh.[6] A good deal was tested and experienced during those pre-Petrine centuries. And the Russian icon irrefutably testifies to the complexity and profundity, as well as to the genuine beauty, of Old Russia's religious life and of the creative power of the Russian spirit. With justice, Russian iconography has been described as a "theology in colors."[7] Still, Old Russian culture remained unformulated and mute. The Russian spirit received no creative literary and intellectual expression. The inexpressible and unexpressed quality in Old Russia's culture often appears unhealthy. Many have viewed it as simple backwardness and primitivism and explained it by Old Russia's fatal ties with a pitiful Byzantium. This, in essence, was the view of Chaadaev (la miserable Byaance).[8] In any case, such an interpretation is insufficient. Byzantium of the tenth century was certainly not in decline. On the contrary, the tenth century was a period of renewal and renaissance in the Byzantine Empire. Moreover, strictly speaking, in the tenth century Byzantium was the sole country of genuine culture throughout the entire "European" world, and it long remained a source of living culture, whose creative tension even survived a period of political decline and collapse. Byzantine culture and religious life experienced a new advance, which colored the entire Italian Renaissance.[9] In any event, communion with Byzantine culture could in no way cut off or isolate Old Russia from the "great families of the human race," as Chaadaev believed. In general, one cannot explain the difficulties of Old Russia's development by its lack of culture. The crisis of Old Russia was one of culture, not the lack of culture or non-culture. The undisclosed intellectual aspect of Old Russia's spirit is a consequence and an expression of inner doubts or aporia. This was a true crisis of culture, a crisis of Byzantine culture in the Russian spirit. At the most decisive moment in Russia's effort at national and historical self-definition, Byzantine tradition was interrupted. The Byzantine legacy was set aside and remained half-forgotten. The core and essence of this cultural crisis consisted of Russia's rejection of the "Greeks."

It is no longer necessary to prove that there is a "chronology" in Old Russian culture and letters. The attentive historian now has in sufficient clarity before him all the multifaceted and mutually incommensurate and separate historical moments and formations, so that he need no longer search for a general "formula" or designation for all of "Old Russia," as if it was of one piece from St. Vladimir's[10] times to the reign of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich.[11] In reality Old Russia was not one world but many. Moreover, it is impossible to construct and interpret Russian history as some peculiar and self contained process. Russia was never isolated and separated from the "great families of the human race."

Russia's cultural history begins with the baptism of Rus'.[12] The pagan era served only as a threshold. This certainly does not mean that the pagan past was of no significance. There remained faint (although sometimes quite visible) traces of paganism whose memory was long preserved in the popular mind, customs [byt'], and style. Moreover, Vladimir Solov'ev[13] justifiably described the baptism of Rus' as a form of national self-rejection, an interruption or break in the national tradition. Baptism does indeed signify a break. Paganism did not die, nor was it rendered powerless. As if through some historical underground, this hidden life, simultaneously of two minds and of two faiths, flowed through the troubled depths of the popular subconciousness. In essence, two cultures-one by day and one by night were intertwined. Of course the adherents to the "day" culture were the minority. However, as is always the case, an equation of spiritual potentials does not indicate any historical formation's capacity for life and growth. The newly acquired Byzantine Christian culture did not instantly become "popular" culture; it long remained the property and possession of a literate and cultured minority. This was an inescapable and natural stage in the process. However, one must remember that the history of this "daytime" Christian culture did not constitute the whole of Russia's spiritual destiny. A "second culture" developed in the subterranean regions, forging a new and unique syncretism in which local pagan "survivals" melted together with borrowed ancient mythology and Christian imagination. This second life flowed underground and frequently broke through to history's surface. Yet one always detects its hidden presence as foamy and tempestuous lava. The barrier between these two social and spiritual strata was always fluid and diffuse and constantly permeated from each side by the process of osmosis. But these strata were not fully independent of each other. Their different spiritual and religious qualities were more important and might be defined as follows: "daytime" culture was the culture of the spirit and the mind. This was an "intellectual" culture. "Nighttime" culture comprised the realm of dreams and imagination.

In sum, the inner dynamic of cultural life is always defined by mutual interpenetration of such qualities and aspirations. The unhealthiness of Old Russia's development lay foremost in the fact that its "nighttime" imagination too long and stubbornly concealed itself and fled from the examination, verification, and purification of "thought." Early polemists and sermonists had already noted the strange durability of such syncretic "fables." They thereby detected in this capriciousness of popular imagination one of the fundamental traits of the Russian national spirit. While accurate, this statement must immediately be qualified. In any event, we are dealing here with an historical quantity, not a pre-historical or extra-historical one. In other words, syncretism is a product of development, the result of process, an historical concretion, and not only or merely an inherited trait or characteristic preserved despite the interplay of historical forces.

The defect and weakness of Old Russia's spiritual development in part consisted of its defective ascetic temperament (certainly not of any excess of asceticism) and in part it consisted of its soul's insufficient spirituality, excessive "piety" or "poetics" as well as its spiritual amorphousness. If one prefers, it consisted of its spontaneity.

This is the source of that contrast which might be described as the counterpoint of Byzantine "aridity" to Slavic "plasticity." It must be noted that this does not refer to some lack of "scientific" rationalism (although the disjunction of "piety" and reason or rational doubt is no less a sickness than dreamy imagination). But what is under discussion here is spiritual sublimation and the transformation of piety into spirituality through "intellectual" discipline and through the achievement of insight and contemplation.

The path is not one from "naivete" to "consciousness," from "faith" to "knowledge," or from trust to disbelief and criticism. But it is a path from an elemental lack of will to willed responsibility, from the whirl of ideas and passions to discipline and composure of the spirit; from imagination and argument to a wholeness among spiritual life, experience, and insight; from the "psychological" to the "pneumatic." And this long hard road, this road of intellectual and inner achievement, is the imperceptible road of historical construction.

The tragedy of the Russian spirit was first performed amidst such spiritual and psychological aporia. The split between these two strata is only one very formal expression of that tragedy. And it will not do to ascribe it to some formal categories, mythology, or structure of the Russian spirit. Historical destiny is fulfilled in specific events and acts, in the willingness or refusal to make decisions when confronted with concrete living tasks.

Rus' received baptism from Byzantium. That act immediately defined its historical destiny and its cultural and historical road. Rus' was immediately included in a definite and previously elaborated network of ties and actions. Baptism marked the awakening of the Russian spirit. It was a summons from the "poetic" dreaminess to spiritual temperance and thought. At the same time Christianity ushered Rus' into creative and vital intercourse with the entire surrounding civilized world. Of course, one cannot and should not imagine the baptism of Rus' as a single event for which a precise date can be given. Baptism was a complex and multifaceted process; a lengthy and frequently punctuated event extending not over decades but over centuries. In any case, it began before the reign of Vladimir. "Christianity prior to Vladimir" is a much greater and better defined quantity than is usually assumed. Prior to St. Vladimir's day, cultural and religious ties were already established between Kiev and Tsar Symeon in Bulgaria[14] and perhaps with Moravia. Baptism laid claim to the legacy of SS. Cyril and Methodius.[15] Byzantine influence was not only direct and immediate (it would seem that its indirect influence came first and was the most significant and decisive one). Acceptance of the Cyril and Methodius legacy, not the direct reception of Byzantine culture, proved decisive. Direct spiritual and cultural contact with Byzantium and the Greek element was secondary to that from Bulgaria. Possibly one can even speak of a clash and struggle in ancient Kiev between elements and influences, between those of Bulgaria and those directly from Greece.

However, we still do not know in detail the history of this struggle, and it cannot be surmised or reconstructed. Differences and divergencies among such contending influences should not be exaggerated. One theory suggests that the "Greek faith" and the "Bulgarian faith" were in essence quite different, so that at the very dawn of Russian Christianity two religious ideals or doctrines contested with each other. The victor was not the joyous Christianity of the Gospels, which inspired and enflamed St. Vladimir. Instead, a different and "dark religious doctrine," Bogomilism, triumphed.[16] Many objections can be quickly raised against such a bold interpretation. First, all efforts to separate the "faith of Vladimir," that "joyful and triumphant Christian outlook" "free from ascetic rigorism" from that of Bulgaria betrays an incomprehensible misunderstanding. It would be more appropriate to deduce this "dark doctrine" from the Bulgaria of the priest Cosmas’[17] day, for Bogomilism was then precisely a "Bulgarian heresy." Second, one is hardly permitted to array all of the religious life of the Monastery of the Caves[18] under the rubric of this "dark doctrine" and attribute the monastery's ascetic life to fanaticism. In any case, such a characterization scarcely describes St. Feodosii,[19] who is least of all a "dark" person. But he is undoubtedly a Grecophile personally linked with the Monastery of Studior.[20] And it should not be imagined that the "Greek faith" possessed only a single face. Great caution and precision in making distinctions is needed at this point, but one would do well to compare St. Symeon the New Theologian[21] with his opponents during this same eleventh century. Third, doubt is cast on the work of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Was their labor not a mistake or an extremely careless undertaking?[22] Does not the Slavic language of the Church mark a "break with classical culture?" Translation obscures the original and reduces the need to know Greek in that same way which compelled the West to learn the Latin language of the Church. This "absence of a classical legacy," as one of the chief traits distinguishing Russian from "European" culture, was noted long ago by the Slavophiles, and in particular by Ivan Kireevskii.[23] However, oversimplification will not do. True, neither Homer nor Virgil was known in ancient Kiev, but it does not follow that the Slavic language of the liturgy provided the impediment. Only irresponsible hyperbole could suggest that of all the riches of Christian Hellenism, Rus' received from Byzantium only "one book," the Bible. In any event, it is hardly true that only the Bible was translated, for a long list of other sufficiently diverse literary monuments were translated as well. One must also admit that the "scientific, philosophical, and literary tradition of Greece is absent" in Old Russia's cultural inventory. But again, this was not the fault of the Slavic language.

Most importantly, the very fact or process of translation cannot be diminished. Biblical translation has always been a major ' event in a nation's life and has always signified a particular effort and achievement. The constant sound of the Gospels in the familiar language of the liturgy obliged and facilitated the recollection of Christ and the preservation of His living image in the heart. In general, translation requires more than just a knowledge of the words; it also requires a great creative tension and presence of mind. Translation is a mental vigil and trial, not simple exercise or abstract mental gymnastics. Authentic translation always means the molding of the translator. He must penetrate his subject; that is, he must be enriched by the event and not just have his knowledge increased. Hence the enduring significance of the writings of Cyril and Methodius. Their work shaped and formed the "Slavic" language, gave it an inner Christian leavening, and infused it with ecclesiastical life. The very substance of Slavic thought became transfigured. "Slavic" language was molded and forged in the Christian crucible under the powerful pressure of Greek ecclesiastical language. This was not simply a literary process; it was the construction of thought. Christian influence was felt far beyond and far deeper than in any particular religious themes. Christianity affected the very manner of thinking.

Thus, after its conversion, eleventh century Rus' saw the sudden appearance of an entire literature written in a familiar and wholly comprehensible language. In effect, the entire library of Tsar Symeon's Bulgaria became accessible to Russian writers. Jagic[24] once made the following remark about the literature of Symeon's age: "because of the richness of its literary works of religious and ecclesiastical content, [it] could rightly stand alongside the richest literature of the time whether Greek or Latin, exceeding in this regard all other European literatures." The present day historian of Slavic literature can fully endorse this estimate.

In any event, the outlook of Old Russia's man of letters cannot be described as narrow. The opposite difficulty and danger was actually greater: the transfer of a complete literature might overwhelm a Russian writer or reader, for a new and wealthy but utterly foreign world stood before him-a world that was too rich and remote from the surrounding national life. Once again what was most needed was psychological self-discipline and self-abstraction.

Of course the acquisition of Bulgarian letters should not be seen as a single act or an unique event. In reality their "acquisition" meant that Bulgarian writings became a source from which educated Russians could take what they wished. Bulgarian writings, however, did not obscure those in Greek, at least not during the eleventh century. At Iaroslav's[25] court in Kiev (and soon at the cathedral of St. Sophia as well), a circle of translators labored on translations from Greek. Thus, a long series of literary monuments unknown in Tsar Symeon's Bulgaria was included in the Slavic idiom.

Iaroslav loved religious rules and regulations and was devoted to priests, especially to monks. He applied himself to books, and read them continually day and night. He assembled many scribes, and translated from Greek into Slavic. He copied and collected many books. . . .

It is interesting to note that the literature brought from Bulgaria was largely related to liturgical needs (the Holy Scriptures and patristic writings for reading in the cathedrals), while at Iaroslav's court historical and secular books were more often translated.

Kiev stood at a great crossroads. No one should imagine that the Church of Kievan Rus' was cut off or isolated. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Kiev maintained close links with Constantinople and Mt. Athos,[26] as well as with distant Palestine, which at that time was in the hands of the Crusaders. Ties with the West, too, were constant and well developed. We can confidently surmise how the acquisition of Byzantine Christian literature, that communion with Christian culture, resounded in Rus'. The first Russian chroniclers, hagiographers, and biographers of the new and holy Rus' were raised precisely on this literature. These men possessed a definite and sensitive outlook. They were certainly not naive simpletons. One always detects a clear religious and historical tendency or conception in the development of the chronicles.

Several names are particularly relevant to this discussion. One is Metropolitan Ilarion,[27] best known as the author of the remarkable sermon On the Law of Moses Given to Him by God and on Grace and Truth [O zakone, Moiseom dannom, i o blagodati i istine] which even that constantly carping Golubinskii was compelled to describe as "an impeccable academic speech with which among modern speeches only those of Karamzin[28] can be compared," and "[he was] not a rhetorician of the least distinguished days of Greek oratory, but a true orator during its flourishing period." Golubinskii deemed Ilarion's sermon worthy to stand alongside The Tale of Igor's Campaign, [Slovo o polku Igoreve]. In fact, it is an exemplary model of oratorical skill. The language is free and simple. It discloses the intensity of Christian experiences and it possesses a well made and translucent structure. The sermons of Kirill of Turov[29] belong to the same literary type.

There is little point in speaking about the originality of these writers. They were under the formative influence of Byzantine letters, repeating foreign themes and exploiting well-known material. Yet for the historian it is precisely this fact which is the important and instructive one. Kirill of Turov himself reminds us that he teaches and writes "not from myself, but from books." And "from books" he wrote ably and freely. Kirill's sermons are very dramatic, yet rhetorical '' refinement does not overcome his vital and sensitive heart. Of course his sermons are merely compilations, although they are inspired and living ones. One must also mention Klimentii Smoliatich[30]: "Such a philosopher there has not yet been in the Russian land," the Chronicle says of him. He wrote "from Homer, from Aristotle, and from Plato." Mention, too, should be made of St. Avraamii of Smolensk.[31] To be sure, these men were part of a minority, or if one prefers, of an ecclesiastical intelligentsia. During these early centuries there were no theologians in their ranks. But there were men of genuine Christian cultivation and culture. They made the first flights of Russian Hellenism.

The Tatar invasion[32] was a national disaster and a political catastrophe. "The destruction of the Russian land," as one contemporary puts it. "A pagan scourge." "A cruel people came upon us, violating God and laying waste our land." There is no need to lighten the colors while portraying such devastation and destruction.

However, the Tatar yoke does not constitute a separate period in the history of Russian culture. No interruption or break can be observed in Russia's cultural effort or in its creative mood and aspirations. True, culture moves or is displaced to the north. New centers develop, while old ones decline. Yet this new growth sprang from seeds previously sown and cultivated, not from the "transmission of enlightenment" from the cultured south of Kiev to the semi-barbarous northeast, as until even recently some historians have delighted in describing the process. The north had long since ceased to be wild and unknown. Situated astride a major crossroad, the Suzdal' land hardly stood as a lonely outpost.

In any case, the thirteenth century was not a time of decline or impoverishment in the history of Russian culture and letters.[33] An important series of ideological and cultural tasks was started at that time and included the Paterikon[34] of the Monastery of the Caves, the Palaea[35] (the Old Testament), and a series of anti-Jewish polemics, not to mention the sophisticated level of writing already achieved in the chronicles. As early as the thirteenth century one detects in these literary works new bonds with the Slavic south and the Dalmatian coast. The next century saw those bonds strengthened and multiplied, making it possible to speak of a new wave of "South Slavic" influence. And this new vitality did not merely echo but directly continued the new cultural movement in Byzantium correctly termed the "Palaeologian Renaissance,"[36] which captivated the new South Slavic kingdoms. Rus' was in intimate contact with Patriarch Euthymius'[37] Bulgaria during the fourteenth century, and for this reason the example of Metropolitan Kiprian is instructive. He was born in Turnovo. Later he became a monk at the Studion Monastery and then a monk on Mt. Athos. As the Greek protege and candidate, he came to Russia to occupy the office of the metropolitan. Moscow received him with great reluctance and delay. Yet this reception did not prevent him from leaving a significant mark on the history of Russian culture. As a learned man and bibliophile, Kiprian devoted himself to translations, not, however, with any great success. "He wrote everything in Serbian." More important were his liturgical writings and concerns. He attempted to introduce Russia to the liturgical reform of the well-known Palamite, Patriarch Philotheus of Constantinople.[38] It would seem that the celebration of Gregory of Palamas[39] as a saint in the Russian Church dates back to Kiprian. Kiprian was a convinced non-possessor.[40] He was also a foreigner and a newcomer to Moscow, and quite typical of that incipient movement which he had not begun. Russian ties with Constantinople and Mt. Athos were strengthened and revitalized during the fourteenth century. Russian settlements were founded or refurbished, being settled with many inhabitants who engaged in the copying of books. One notes a sizeable quantity of manuscripts and books in Russian monastic libraries which date back precisely to this period. More importantly, these new writings form a fresh new stream. This time their content was mystical and ascetical, but once again they constituted a complete literature. Indeed, this new translation activity on Mt. Athos and in Bulgaria stems from the Hesychast movement with its deeply contemplative spirit and approach. These translations made the works of the ascetical Fathers known in Slavic literature. Such works included St. Basil the Great's[41] two homilies on fasting entitled De Jejunio, the writings of the Blessed Diadochus of Photice,[42] Isaac the Syrian,[43] Hesychius,[44] the Ladder of St. John Climacus,[45] On Love [O liubvi] , and the "Chapters" [Glavizny] by Maximus the Confessor[46] and various "Hymns of Divine Love" by Symeon the New Theologian,[47] as well as Dioptra by the monk Philipp.[48] Of particular note is the translation of the Areopagite[49] together with the commentaries made on Mt. Athos in 1371 by the monk Isaiah at the request of Theodosius, Metropolitan of Serres. Someone in Russia was reading such mystical and ascetical books.

The fourteenth century witnessed an eremitical and monastic renaissance: this is the age of St. Sergei of Radonezh.[50] One senses during these decades the powerful intensity of a new Byzantine impact in Russian Church art, particulary iconography. It is sufficient to mention the remarkable Theophanes the Greek[51] and his celebration in colors. And Theophanes was not alone, for he had many worthy disciples. Thus, during the fourteenth and part of the fifteenth century, Russian culture experienced a new wave of Byzantine influence.

Yet such new influence occurred on the eve of crisis and schism. True, the crisis had been long in the making, yet cultural self-consciousness had not been prepared for the break. The crisis was above all a national and political one linked with the growth of the Muscovite State and with the dawning of national political self-awareness. Such an awakening also required ecclesiastical independence from Constantinople. With a few interruptions, but always with great incisiveness and intensity, Moscow and Constantinople debated these themes throughout the fourteenth century. The quarrel was broken off rather than resolved. The Council of Florence[52] and the journey to that "unholy eighth council" by the Greek candidate for the Moscow see, Metropolitan (and later Cardinal) Isidore[53] served as a pretext for the break. Greek apostasy at Florence provided the justification and the basis for proclaiming independence. It was an act of ecclesiastical politics. But there were reverberations and consequences for cultural construction. Doubts and disquiet concerning the faith of the Greeks had some rational foundation. The fall of Constantinople served as an apocalyptical token and testimony (and not just in Russia was it given such an interpretation). Even much later Kurbskii[54] could write that "Satan was released from his imprisonment." One must remember how much in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries religious consciousness became agitated and confused by eschatological expectations and by a general foreboding: "night is approaching, our life is ending." "Behold, today apostasy is come," Iosif Volotskii was soon to write.[55]

The first traces of the famous "Third Rome Theory" are sketched out precisely in such perspectives of apocalyptical unrest. The theory is intrinsically an eschatological one, and the monk Filofei sustains its eschatological tones and categories. "For two Romes have fallen, a third stands, and a fourth there cannot be."[56] The pattern is a familiar one taken from Byzantine apocalyptical literature: it is the translatio imperii, or more accurately, the image of the wandering Kingdom-the Kingdom or city wandering or straying until the hour comes for it to flee into the desert.

The pattern has two sides: a minor one and a major one; an apocalyptical dimension and a chiliastic one. The minor side was primary and fundamental in Russia. The image of the Third Rome is brought into sharper focus against a background of the approaching end. "For we await the Kingdom which has no end." And Filofei recalls the apostolic warning: "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." History is abbreviated and historical perspective is foreshortened. If Moscow is the Third Rome, then it is also the last. That is, the last epoch, the last earthly kingdom, has begun. The end approaches. "Thy Christian kingdom cannot remain." With the greatest humility and with the "greatest apprehension," a perfectly preserved pure faith must be observed and its commandments kept. In his epistle to the Grand Prince, Filofei gives warning and even makes threats, but he does not use glorification. Official writers only later reinterpreted this apocalyptical theme in a panegyrical sense. By doing so, the theory became transformed into a peculiar doctrine of semi-official chiliasm.[57] If one forgets about the Second Coming, then it is quite another matter to affirm that all Orthodox kingdoms are brought together and combined in that of Moscow, for then the Muscovite tsar is the last, sole, and therefore, universal tsar. Even in its original form, the Third Rome replaces and does not continue the Second. The task is not to continue or preserve Byzantine tradition unbroken. Byzantium somehow must be replaced or recreated. A new Rome must be constructed to replace the old one, which has fallen away. "The Muscovite tsars wished to become the heirs of the Byzantine emperors without leaving Moscow or entering Constantinople," as Kapterev had put it.[58] The conquest by the Hagarenes[59] provided the usual explanation for the fall of the Second Rome, and the "Hagarene captivity" was understood as a constant menace to the purity of the Greek faith. This fact accounts for the intense caution and mistrust in dealing with those Greeks living "in the pagan tsar's realm of godless Turks." Thus, the Orthodox horizon began to narrow.

It took only a short step to make a complete break with Greek tradition and to obliterate any memory of the Greek past, that is, the patristic past. The danger arose that the historical ecumenical tradition might become obscured and replaced by a local and national one which would confine ecumenical tradition within the arbitrary limits of Russia's specific and national memory. Vladimir Solov'ev rightly termed it "a Protestantism of national tradition." Of course not everyone shared this outlook. Such conclusions were certainly not reached all at once and probably no sooner than the mid-sixteenth century. But it is indicative of the way in which Greek mediation came to be completely excluded and rejected. In fact, the meaning of the story about the Apostle Andrew's sermon in Rus',[60] as amended and restated in the sixteenth century, must be understood precisely in this way. Gradually, but steadily, Byzantium's authority collapsed, and all interest in Byzantium ceased. Russia's national self-affirmation played the decisive part in this estrangement. Simultaneously Russia developed and strengthened its links with the West. By the end of the fifteenth century, many perceived the West as something more real than the destroyed and conquered Byzantium. Such sympathy is perfectly understandable and natural for practitioners of Realpolitik, that is, among men of politics. But sympathy for the West soon arose among other segments of society as well.

The marriage of Ivan III to Sophia Palaeologus is often viewed as a Byzantine restoration in Moscow.[61] In reality, the "marriage of our tsar in the Vatican" symbolized the beginning of Russian westernism. Of course Zoe, or Sophia, was a Byzantine princess, but in fact she was raised in the atmosphere of the union achieved by the Council of Florence. Cardinal Bessarion[62] served as her guardian. The marriage actually did take place in the Vatican, and a papal legate accompanied Sophia to Moscow. Despite the legate's enforced early departure from Moscow, the binding ties with Rome and Venice remained intact. The marriage quickly drew Moscow closer to the orbit of contemporary Italy and did not signify any awakened aware ness for Byzantine traditions and memories. "He lifted the curtain separating us from Europe," writes Karamzin about Ivan III. "Expiring Greece refuses the remains of its ancient greatness; Italy grants the first fruits of its nascent art. The people still stagnate in ignorance and coarseness, yet the state is already operating according to the dictates of an enlightened mind." Ivan III possessed an undoubted taste and preference for Italy. He brought architects from Italy to rebuild and remodel the Kremlin, the palace, and the cathedrals. "More Italico," as Herberstein[63] reports about these new constructions in Moscow built by such famous architects as Aristotle Fioravanti,[64] Aloisio[65] and Pietro Solario.[66] The influence of Byzantium at this time was far less evident. At the turn of the sixteenth century, Russian diplomats were strenuously absorbed in building an alliance with Suleiman I. "the Magnificent,"[67] and had little time for dreams about the "patrimony of Constantine" or a crusade against Constantinople. Western states, carefully calculating the power of Muscovy in the international arena, swiftly noted this development.

There is every reason to consider Ivan III a westerner. Such a description applies even more fully to Vasilii III. The son of the "Greek Enchantress" (as Kurbskii dubbed Sophia), Vasilii took as his second wife (in a disputed marriage) the Princess Glinskaia,[68] who was raised wholly in the western manner. "Thus, the Grand Prince has altered our ancient customs." This remark should not be confined to political or social changes. "Once again our land was in turmoil." It is interesting to note that Vasilii III's favorite physician, Nikolai "Nemchin" ("the German") or Bulev corresponded on such themes as the reunion of the churches. Many men of like mind surrounded him in Moscow. (These were the "modest connections" in higher ecclesiastical circles to which Golubinskii refers). It was Maxim the Greek's[69] fate to engage him in polemic and debate. Curiously, Nikolai "Nemchin" addressed himself to the Archbishop Vassian of Rostov (the brother of Iosif Volotskii) as if counting upon his sympathy or at least interest. Moreover, "Nemchin" was devoted to astrology.

Zabelin[70] has some responsible grounds for writing that many of Ivan III's policies evoke the image of Machiavelli. This applies more fully to Vasilii III, whose cruel and despotic rule, so often the object of complaint in boyar circles, more closely mimics contemporary Italian princes than it does any remote Byzantine basileus.

The Novgorodian lands had already experienced a new religious ferment as early as the fourteenth century. The "heresy of the strigol'-niki"[71] was primarily a protest against the Church hierarchy. Another and more complex movement appeared at the end of the next century: the Judaizer heresy. After capturing the leaders of the married clergy, the heresy shifted to Moscow where it "germinated" in the favorable soil of royal protection. Little is known about the movement, and even that knowledge comes from unreliable witnesses, the partisan opponents and enemies of the heresy such as Archbishop Gennadii of Novgorod[72] and especially Iosif Volotskii. Iosif's Enlightener [Prosvetitel'] constitutes the chief source.[73] There are also many important pieces of information not found in the first edition of the Enlightener which are preserved in Metropolitan Makarii's[74] Great Reading Compendium [Ireliki chet'i-minei]. Generally speaking, it is difficult to distinguish what is of primary importance from that which is secondary or even extraneous in the descriptions provided by these polemists.

The books coming from or circulating in Judaizer circles are much more reliable and instructive. They include Biblical translations from Hebrew and astrological books, as well as translations from Maimonides[75] and Algazel.[76] These translations were written in "Lithuanian," that is, West or Southwest Russian. The Judaizer monk Zakhar, around whom the trouble started, came from Kiev. His background remains obscure. Some scholars speculate that he might have lived among the Crimean Karaite Jews,[77] or he may have had connections with Constantinople. In any case, he was a representative of Jewish learning. "Judaizer" Biblical translations were produced in a Jewish milieu for use in the synagogue (for example, the text of the Book of Daniel is divided into the two categories of haphtarah or parashah[78] according to the days of the week). Thus, the Judaizer heresy expressed intellectual ferment. "Wavering has appeared in the people and in doubting words about the Divine" (The Nikonian Chronicle). "Now in the homes, along the roads, and in the market places, monks and laymen are all in doubt and anguish concerning the faith," wrote St. Iosif Volotskii. Judging by Archbishop Gennadii's first communications concerning the heresy, the ferment and doubts began as the result of reading books. Gennadii sought out books belonging to the heretics, such as Sylvester, Pope of Rome [Seliverst, papa Rimskii], (that is, the story of the white cowl[79] purportedly given to Pope Sylvester I by Constantine the Great) as well as Athanasius of Alexandria, The Sermon of Cosmas on the Bogomils [Slovo Koz my na bogomilov], Dionysius the Areopagite, Logic, the Biblical books of the Prophets, Genesis, Kings, and the Wisdom of Solomon. Menander[80] was also included. The list is a sufficiently diverse and disconnected one. However, the books of the Old Testament clearly stand out. Perhaps "doubts" developed precisely through the interpretation of texts. "They have altered the psalms and the prophecies," writes Gennadii. For the same reason St. Iosif Volotskii barely gets beyond the limits of clarifying texts in his Enlightener. Apparently the Judaizers found it difficult to accept the prefigurative meaning of the Old Testament to the effect that the prophecies have not yet come to pass but still await their fulfillment. Moreover, the Novgorodian heretics failed to discover any evidence concerning the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament theophanies. Possibly an outside or Jewish source accounted for these exegetical difficulties. One should recall that precisely at that moment work was going forward on Biblical texts at the Archbishop's court in Novgorod.

Astrological themes held a special place in "Judaizer" teachings. "You study the laws of the stars and gaze at the stars and arrange human birth and life according to them," Iosif Volotskii accuses the official Fedor Kuritsyn[81] and the archpriest Aleksei. Stargazing was directly imputed to Zakhar, "who has studied every contrivance for evil doing, as well as magic, the Black Book, the laws of the stars, and astrology." One such astrological book mentioned by Gennadii is fully known: the Six Wings [Shestokryl], a set of astronomical tables compiled in the fourteenth century by the Italian Jew Emmanuel bar Jacob. Astrology became an object of interest in Moscow at the outset of the sixteenth century. Even Maxim the Greek undertook to write about "the power and arrangement of the stars," and on the "German fascination for telling fortune and on fortune's wheel." In Novgorod, Gennadii most vigorously attacked Judaizer astrology, which was being used to calculate the date of Easter in connection with the end of the seventh millenium with its expectant apocalyptical catastrophe. According to Jewish calculations, the sixth millenium was only just beginning.

There is no need to recite the full history of the "Jewish heresy" or to attempt a complete reconstruction of its "system." Most likely there was no heretical enclave, only certain predispositions; that is, precisely those "waverings in the mind," or rethinking, referred to in the Nikonian Chronicle.

The historical significance of the "Judaizer" movement becomes clearer when it is related to other circumstances present in contemporary Novgorodian life. Quite probably the Novgorodian heretics adhered to Moscow's point of view. That would explain why Ivan III appointed those "soul harming archpriests" to the leading positions in the Kremlin cathedrals. The heretics found protection and support in Moscow. Meanwhile, in Novgorod a great and very important theological project was being carried through: the compilation and revision of the first complete Slavic Bible. Unexpectedly, the project passed into Roman Catholic hands. Although general supervision and official editorship belonged to the episcopal archdeacon Gerasim Popovka in reality a certain Dominican friar named Veniamin possessed the decisive influence. (Perhaps he came from Cracow or Prague). "A presbyter or monk of the monastery of St. Dominic by the name of Veniamin, born a Slovenian and by faith a Latin." This Veniamin did not come to Novgorod accidentally, and he was probably not alone. Foreigners were already gathering in Novgorod during the time when Evfimii was archbishop (1430-1458). "All who came from strange or foreign lands were received with love and given rest,"[82] wrote Pachomius the Serb. In any event, during Gennadii's day in Novgorod one observes a ferment in the Latin style. Apparently Veniamin brought prepared Biblical texts with him, for the influence of Croatian glagolitic can be detected in the language. No one in Novgorod attempted to use either Greek manuscripts or books. Nor were easily accessible Slavic materials (from the liturgical books) fully exploited. Yet the Vulgate's[83] influence clearly stands out. Whole books — Paralipomena Jeremiah, 3 Ezra, Wisdom of Solomon, 1 and 2 Maccabees -were simply translated from Latin. A German Bible published in 1500 supplied the introductory headings. Latin usage also dictated the inclusion into the text of the deutero-canonical books. One modern investigator characterized the Gennadii Bible as a "many-colored coat sewn from various tatters and patches." I.E. Evseev[84] speaks with leeriness of its "imperceptible approximation" to the Latin Bible ("the diverting of the Slavic Bible from its Greek streambed into a Latin one"). He also notes the "very thick Catholic atmosphere" surrounding Gennadii and the outright "appearance of a militant Catholic spirit in Russian ecclesiastical life."

During the period when Gennadii was archbishop, a good deal was translated from Latin "at the archbishop's residence." A treatise by Guillaume Durandus entitled Rationale divinorum officiorum[85] was translated at least in extracts, with the obvious purpose for use as a guide to the work on the new liturgical statute. (Judging by the language of the translation, one would suppose the translator was a foreigner. Perhaps it was the Dominican friar Veniamin). For the purposes of polemic with the Judaizers, Gennadii instructed the well-known Gerasimov to translate the famous book by the fourteenth century Franciscan Nicholas of Lyra,[86] De Messia eiusque adventu and the writings "against the apostate Jews" by Samuel the Jew.[87] To this same period belongs the very characteristic Brief discourse against those who would violate the sacred movable and immovable property of the Universal Church (Slovo kratko protivu tekh, izhe v veshchi sviashchennyia podvizhnyia i nepodvizhnyia, s'bomyia tserkvi vstupaiutsia]. The Brief Discourse was a defense of Church property and an assertion of the clergy's full independence. That independence included the right to act "with the aid of the secular arm," (that is, brachium saeculare). Undoubtedly, the book is a translation from Latin. Interestingly enough, the final version of saints' lives and instructional books are permeated with Latin constructions. Characteristic, too, is the special twist given to the stories of Varlaam and Ioasaf collected in Metropolitan Makarii's Great Reading Compendium. They were intended to demonstrate the superiority of ecclesiastical authority over temporal power. At the same time, anything "in the earlier redactions which spoke of the insignificance of all worldly blessings has been toned down. Both of these literary monuments relate precisely to that period when the quarrel broke out over Church properties and the relationship between Church and State. When the "Josephites" became dissatisfied with the Grand Prince's arbitrariness, Gennadii and Iosif turned to Latin sources for self-justification. In the course of his struggle with the Judaizers, when Gennadii was compelled to obtain a new Easter Cycle [Paskhaliia], or "Cycle for the creation of the world," he sent off for and obtained one from Rome. These were hardly accidental coincidences. One should recall the critical circumstances surrounding the question of civil punishment of heretics according to the example of the "Spanish king." Georg von Thurn, the envoy of the Hapsburg emperor, related how the Spanish king had "cleansed his land." Orest Miller[88] once made the remark that "in its inner meaning and spirit, the council on heretic held in Moscow under Iosif Volotskii's direction was a second council of Florence." Aside from its inaccuracy, his statement is too emphatic and sweeping. Yet in one respect he was correct: "at that moment the Latin world drew nearer to us than did the world of Greece." In essence, one observes in the celebrated debate between the Josephite and the Transvolgan Elders a struggle between new and old, between Latin and Greek.

Gennadii of Novgorod was replaced by Serapion, a man of completely different style, who is remembered for his tragic encounter with Iosif after he had been removed from office and incarcerated. Afterward, the archiepiscopal see in Novgorod long remained vacant. Obviously the circumstances affecting the development of ecclesiastical culture under Gennadii's direction did not alter. The same cultural atmosphere and purpose persisted and found a typical representative in Dmitrii Gerasimov. As an official in the Foreign Service with important responsibilities, he traveled frequently to Western Europe, including Rome. In his youth he had worked under the direction of Veniamin in Novgorod. Subsequently, he served as a translator for Maxim the Greek. Already "in venerable old age," in 1536, Makarii, then Archbishop of Novgorod, commanded him to translate "from Roman writing and speech" the Interpreted Psalter [Tolkovaia psaltir] of Bruno Herbipolensis (of Wiirzburg)[89] despite the fact that Maxim had been brought to Russia for the very purpose of translating such an interpreted Psalter from Greek. Gerasimov's translation stands as an epilogue to Gennadii's work.

There exists an enormous literature about the conflict and debates between the "Josephites" and the "Transvolgan Elders," yet the meaning of this quarrel and of the "irritations" among the Russian monastics has still to be fully revealed. Historians have addressed "their attention mainly to the debates over monastic property or to the controversy surrounding the punishment of heretics. But those issues were only superficial ones. The real struggle went on deep below the surface and was fought over the very basis and limits of Christian life and construction. Two religious conceptions or, ideals clashed. The dispute over monastic properties served only as a formal pretext, clothing this inner tension. The religious life of the people became enmeshed in this spiritual contest, thereby polarizing the national life.

A detailed inquiry into this fateful historical struggle and schism would be inappropriate here. One needs only to determine its significance for the history of Russian culture. The chief difficulty for interpretation lies in the fact that the clash was one between two truths. St. Iosif's truth is now the harder one to grasp. His shallow and haughty successors badly tarnished it. But there was undeniably a truth — the truth of social service.

Iosif advocated and persuasively preached strict communal life. Although stern and harsh, he was strictest with himself. Life in his monastery was unbearably cruel and hard, requiring an extreme concentration of will and ultimate dedication. That dedication was linked with a measured, highly ritualized, and strictly regulated routine. Iosif's idea of social service and the calling of the Church entirely defined his outlook and reminds one of Russian populism of the mid-nineteenth century (that is, of "going to the people"). During Iosif's lifetime, the need was great for the Church to play such a role. The people lacked firm moral foundations, and the burdens of life were nearly insupportable. Josif's originality derives from his theory and practice of monastic life as a kind of social organization, as a special sort of religious and national service. His ideal "community" contains many new non-Byzantine traits. Formal regulation or ritualizing of life does not obscure his ideal's inner dimension, and that spiritual core is inwardly subordinated to social service and the achievement of justice and charity. Iosif least deserves to be called indulgent. Nor can he be accused of indifference or inattention to those around him. As a great benefactor and "a person, who commiserates with the unfortunate," he defended the ownership of monastic "villages" precisely on the basis of his philanthropical and social convictions. In fact, he received, "villages" from the powerful and wealthy so that he might share and divide their proceeds among the lower classes and the poor. Charity, not merely fear or a sense of obligation, prompted Iosif to carry out good works and convert his monastery into an orphanage and hospice, while setting aside a portion of the cemetery for burial of strangers.

Iosif includes even the tsar in this system of Godly injunctions The tsar, too, is subject to law, and he melds his power only within the framework of God's Law and the Commandments. One owes no service to an unjust or "disobedient" tsar, for he is not really a tsar. "Such a tsar is not God's servant, but a devil; not a tsar but a tyrant." Iosif borders on justification of regicide. One can easily see how subsequent generations of "Josephites" dimmed and emasculated St. Iosif's vision. Their words became unrelated to their deeds, so that even the most learned pastors could simultaneously be very indulgent men. St Iosif's conception and plan, contains an inherent danger, which is not confined to its ordinary defects and modifications. There is a danger of excessive attention to society with a resultant reductionism or minimalism, perhaps not for oneself, but for society.

Iosif was an insatiable, if superficial, reader, and the Volokalamsk Monastery housed a rich library. One source relates that "he possessed all the divinely inspired books on the tip of his tongue." The fact that he largely acquired this wide, if uncritical, familiarity from compendiums and miscellanies rather than from complete collections of patristic writings is of less importance. Yet all of his reading still left Iosif, indifferent to culture. More precisely, culture provided him only with those things which serve the ideals of outward magnificence and splendor, yet Iosif would not accept culture's creative pathos. As a consequence, the Josephites could frequently produce enormous and magnificent cathedrals adorned with an inspired iconography, but still remain distrustful and indifferent to theology. It was precisely this indifference that prevented Iosif from transcending the narrow limits of his reading, or becoming anything but a mechanical reader. Actually, his Enlightener [Prosvetitel'] is almost completely reducible to a series of quotations and references. Even a reserved Kazan' publisher remarked that "one can hardly describe the book as an original work, or even in the strict sense a Russian work." Any originality it may possess finds expression only through the selection and arrangement of the works of others. Iosif's selection is quite daring, for he did not hesitate to include innovations, even western ones, if it was advantageous to do so.

This is not the place to dissect and determine what significance Josephite sermons and activities possessed for life and thought in the religious and political history of the sixteenth century. The important point is that their activities did not promote culture. Such populism (that is, "going to the people") invariably leads directly to cultural indifference, whatever the reason for it. The concept of social justice may easily be reduced to the level, of an equilibrium and status quo which mews creative pathos as a disruptive force.

The Josephites' theological inventory was neither negligible nor limited. The best Josephites demonstrated familiarity and erudition among primary sources on doctrine, the Scriptures, and the writings of the Fathers. Iosif, and to a greater extent Metropolitan Daniil[90] freely manipulated quite varied theological materials. One cannot speak of the poverty of their data. Nevertheless, the question of creativity remains, and these references do not gainsay the fact that the Josephites read only superficially. Yet in an important sense their opponents, too, suffered from the same defect. Like the Enlightener St. Nil's[91] The Tradition to the Disciples [Predanie uchenikam] is designed more as a collection or "link" than as an original discourse.

Somewhat later, the Josephite Metropolitan Makarii[92] conceived of and brought to fruition a plan to gather together all books available in Russia. One of Makarii's collaborators calls him a "Second Philadelphia." He succeeded in choosing literary assistants who could build from his blueprint. The presbyter Andrei (subsequently Metropolitan Afanasii), the compiler of the Book of Degrees [Stepennaia kniga][93] belonged to the "Makarii circle." Other members of the group included the presbyter Agafon, author of the famous Creation Cycle [Mirotvornyi krug]; Savva, later Bishop of Krutitsk, who assisted the work of compiling the lives of the saints; Ermolai-Erazm, the author of many interesting works, such as his Books on the Holy Trinity [Knigi o sv. Troitse] written in the spirit of mystical symbolism. Gerasimov, a holdover from an earlier day, also belonged to the group. However, the Josephites always compiled or systematized writings, they never created or shaped them.

The Josephites cannot be portrayed as traditionalists. They hardly valued Byzantine tradition, while their own national tradition was of relatively recent origin and relatively marginal importance. The Transvolgan Elders, the opponents of the Josephites, grasped the past much more firmly the Josephites are more readily recognizable as innovators. Their iconography makes this obvious. In particular the victory of the Josephites meant the interruption or restriction of Byzantine tradition.

Of course the Transvolgan movement cannot be described simply, as a preservation and continuation of Byzantine traditions (just as Byzantium cannot be reduced to the Transvolgan movement). 'The Transvolgans formed living and organic constitution (and not merely a reflection) of that spiritual and contemplative movement which seized the entire Greek and South Slavic world during the fourteenth century. This was a renaissance in contemplative monasticism. Fundamentally, the Transvolgan movement constituted a new experiment, a new discipline and a trial of this spirit. At the outset, Transvolgans largely sought silence and quiet. Consequently, their movement, signalled a decisive departure or escape from the world, a careful surmounting of all "love for the world." The skete, thus, became the model for their lives. Or else they chose the life of the solitary hermit. "Coenobitical" monasteries seemed too noisy and organized. "Non-possession," that is, to possess nothing in the world, forms their road leading away from the world. The Transvolgans' truth — the truth of contemplation and intellectual construction lies in their flight from the world. Yet one must immediately add that they not only tried to surmount worldly passions and "love for the world" they also sought to forget the world, and not just its vanity, but its needs and sicknesses. They not only rejected it, but denied it as well. For this reason, whereas the Josephites continued to work in the word, the Transvolgan movement had no historical impact.

Of course the Transvolgans did not utterly abandon the world. Their second generation became entangled in political struggles and intrigues (the "prince-monk" Vassian Patrikeev[94] provides a sufficient example). However, the Transvolgans did not approach or return to the world in order to build within it. Rather, they came to argue and fight against secularization of ecclesiastical life and to advertise and insist upon monastic withdrawal from the world. Such was the meaning of their memorable quarrel with the Josephites over Church properties. The Transvolgan's refusal to take direct religious and social action served as a peculiar social coefficient to their movement.

The Transvolgan Elders built an incomparable school for spiritual vigil, which provided a spiritual and moral, preparation for theology. While in the strict sense only with difficulty can one speak of Transvolgan theology, the movement itself signified an awakening of theological consciousness. An intellectual thirst is revealed in the depths of their spiritual concentration. St. Nil of the Sora was a "silent one" [bezmolvnik]. He had no need to speak or teach. Although not a thinker, writer, or theologian, Nil appears in history precisely as an "elder" [starets] or teacher. He was a teacher of silence an instructor and guide for "mental construction" in the spiritual life.

Upon comparison with the wider contemplative tradition of Greece and Byzantium or after comparison with the Philokalia [Dobrotoliubie],[95] one discovers nothing new in St. Nil. Usually one cannot easily distinguish or separate his personal views and thoughts from the uninterrupted stream of excerpts and citations in his writing. Perhaps St. Nil's moral themes and, to a lesser extent, his definitely formed outlook provide his most distinguishing traits. However, if Nil expresses little that is his "own" which is distinguishable from generally accepted spiritual tradition, then at least he expresses it independently. He lives in the patristic tradition. That tradition lives and is alive in him. Only through a complete misunderstanding could historians Russian literature frequently find the beginnings of rationalistic criticism and the collapse of ecclesiastical tradition in St. Nil of the Sora. Such surprising speculations are constructed only in total ignorance of that tradition.

Nil of the Sora came from and remained confined to the ascetical and contemplative tradition of the ancient and Byzantine Church. One should remember that the "freedom" which St. Nil always demands also requires a simultaneous severance of "self-will." If the Transvolgans remained indifferent to formal discipline and obedience nonetheless obedience serves as their fundamental ascetical commandment and task. "Bind yourself with the law of the divine writings and observe it" is St. Nil's point of departure, with the stipulation that "the true and divine writings" not be interpreted either in the, sense of "critical" tradition or as a confinement of the corpus of "scripture" within the limits of "Holy Scripture." On the contrary, in this instance Nil meant the "divine" writings of ascetical literature. In doing so, St. Nil laid particular stress on the ascetical guidance, experience, and advice of "wise and spiritual men." Orest Miller once described the Transvolgans as a "spiritual militia." 'Their movement did amount to a kind of spiritual recruitment, but according to a very high and sensitive standard. The lives of the Transvolgan monks and saints provide a clear and moving demonstration of how their teachings were applied and transformed in life and deeds. Their inward disposition was of chief importance.

The following contrast sums up the disagreements between the Josephites and the Transvolgans: the former sought to conquer the world by means of social labor within it; the latter attempted to overcome the world through transfiguration and through the formation of a new man, by creating a new human personality. The second points the way to creative cultural growth.

The affair of Maxim the Greek provides the most celebrated and instructive episode in the history of the Josephite-Transvolgan struggle. True, in reality political motives largely determined his conviction and condemnation. Acting on his own dreams (and perhaps on direct commission), Maxim took part in political maneuvers to obtain Russian aid against the Turks. His efforts coincided with Moscow's exertions to achieve an eternal peace and alliance with those same Turks. Moreover, Maxim inveighed too greatly against autocephaly for the Russian Church.

Maxim's fate contains an inherent contradiction. As a Greek expert, he was summoned to Moscow to correct translations. Yet only with considerable difficulty could his expertise be used for that purpose. Maxim knew no Russian when he first arrived, while no one who knew Greek could be found in Moscow. This seems almost incredible. However, Maxim was able to translate from Greek into Latin. Other translators then recast the Latin into Russian: "He writes in Latin, and with a copyist we write in Russian."

Maxim's personality is of general interest. He was not only an Athonite monk, but also a man of humanist education. "If Maxim had remained in Italy and taken a position in one of the Italian cathedrals, then we are convinced that among all of the outstanding (Greek scholars and professors then residing in Italy, he would have occupied the most important position," wrote Golubinskii. Maxim studied in Venice, Padua, and Florence. "He was unable to obtain philosophical training in Greece because of the poverty of books" Savonarola[96] produced a strong impression on him, and later in Moscow Maxim sympathetically described the Carthusian monks.[97] Although not a humanist in the western sense of that word, Maxim may be called a Byzantine humanist. In any case, he was a man of genuine literary culture. Acquaintance with his Greek manuscripts shows that he wrote in the original and erudite literary language close to that of the Bible. He did not write in the vernacular. He himself stressed "Athenian Eloquence" [dobroglagolaniia kekropidskago]. He brought an Aldus Manutius[98] edition of the Bible with him from Venice, where he had often visited Manutius about bookprinting. While there, he met the famous Janus Lascaris.[99] Maxim totally and characteristically rejected western scholasticism. He openly admired Plato and "the formal philosophers of the supreme," while "Aristotelian artistry" remained for him a synonym for heresy. Concerning scholasticism, he makes the following remark: "No dogma, human or divine, can firmly be considered reliable among them [scholastics], if Aristotelian syllogisms do not affirm that dogma and if it does not respond to artistic demonstration." Maxim's religious style was also typically Byzantine.

In Moscow he primarily busied himself (or rather was busied) with translations. In addition he argued a good deal, particularly against the "gift of stargazing," and generally against Latin propaganda, Hagarene impiety, the Judaizers, or even the Armenian heresy. Maxim also devoted himself to themes on the prevailing morality. Only a small group of students formed around Maxim, but he produced a great and powerful impression. His miserable fate and incarceration merely gave new grounds to respect his patient suffering. Thus, he was soon canonized, in 1591, during the reign of Fedor I Ivanovich (1584-98).[100] This was a belated but unambiguous rejoinder to those "sly monks called Josephites," who censured St. Maxim for heresy and independent thinking during his lifetime.

Maxim's condition symbolizes and testifies to the break in the Byzantine succession and marks the renunciation of creative continuity. The differences between Maxim and his Russian accusers can be summarized single formula. For a "Josephite," the "Third Rome" meant that great and newly constructed Christian kingdom Muscovy. By contrast, for Maxim, the "Third Rome" signified a City wandering in the wilderness.

Journeying along a wild road filled with many dangers, I came upon a woman kneeling with her regal head held in her hands, moaning bitterly and weeping inconsolably. She was dressed entirely in black, as is the custom for widows. Around her were wild animals: lions, bears, wolves, and foxes . . . . . "Basileia [Empire] is my name" . . .. "Why do you sit alongside this road surrounded as it is by wild animals?" And again she answered me: "O traveler, let this road be the last one in an accursed age" . . ..

R. Wipper, in his popular biography of Ivan the Terrible, cleverly compared the age of Metropolitan Makarii with that of the "Catholic Reformation."[101] The Council of a Hundred Chapters (Stoglav) thus became a Russian Council of Trent. The comparison contains an undoubted truth, for during the era of Metropolitan Makarii in Moscow, there appeared an urge and endeavor to "construct culture as a system." This was an age of compilations. Makarii's followers compiled the past; that is, they systematized Russia's national history. No renewed attention was given to the Greek example. "In the sixteenth century, the Old Russian source replaced the Greek one," as Istrin rightly noted. Yet one must immediately recognize the peculiar fact that the work of compilation began in Novgorod. Should not this effort be connected with the labors of Archbishop Gennadii? In one sense, this sixteenth century "compiling" meant that strengthened Novgorodian habits, customs, and traditions were given a general extension. Tsar Ivan IV did not accidentally cite Novgorodian precedents and examples more often than any others in his speech and questions at the Council of a Hundred Chapters.

The Council's attempt to generalize the Novgorodian example went hand in hand with the western (particularly German) influenced undertaking of Makarii and Sylvester. The exact nature of the mutual relationship between the Select Council [Izbrannaia rada] and the metropolitan is not clear. Politically Sylvester and Makarii were different minds, but on cultural questions they came from the same mold. Breaking with the Greeks (the question of the Greek exam was entirely ignored at the Council of a Hundred Chapters) and submitting to local custom constitute the cultural and religio-psychological achievement of the sixteenth century. Custom, or the ideal of "society," emerged victorious. The average mid-sixteenth century Muscovite's spiritual household no longer had room for the contemplative life.[102] Contemplative mysticism and asceticism-the best and most valuable part of Byzantine tradition-played no role in the conservative Muscovite synthesis. This synthesis, at once selective and tendentious, amounted less to a compilation than to an assortment defined by an overarching idea or will. However, the Athonite translation of the Areopagitica did pass into Makarii's Great Reading Compendium or Menelogos [velikie chet' i minei] and generally enjoyed an unexpectedly wide circulation and popularity. (Ivan the Terrible greatly admired the Areopagitica). One need not discuss the details of Makarii's Great Reading Compendium, which had as its design to gather into one collection "all the sacred books available in Russia." The most important point is that Makarii not only collected the lives of saints, but he also reworked them and adjusted them in relation to each other in order to achieve a codified and systematic model of piety.

Metropolitan Makarii's literary and encyclopedic enterprises did not end with the Great Reading Compendium. His grandiose Biblical codex, which combined Biblical stories with the Palaea[103] and the Chronograph[104] [Khronograf] is no less characteristic and significant. In particular, the Pentateuch is given a free paraphrase. Curiously, this Biblical text generally does not conform to the Gennadii Bible. The codex, profusely illustrated with miniatures, still remains insufficiently studied, but it does disclose a particular cultural and historical purpose. The miniatures provide incontestable testimony and proof about the increasing strength of western influence. Generally speaking, the influence of German engravings is very noticeable in the Muscovite and Novgorodian manuscripts of the sixteenth century (the characteristic vine ornamentation taken from later German Gothic, for example). Moreover, German (perhaps Danish) influence via Novgorod is linked with the first book printing in Moscow. The Triumphal Book [Torzhestvennaia kniga] also deserves mention, for it was composed on the instructions of Metropolitan Makarii as a supplement and parallel to the Great Reading Compendium. It was compiled largely under South Slavic influence. The Book of Degrees [Stepennaia kniga] should also at least be mentioned here.

But most importantly, something must be said about the Council of a Hundred Chapters,[105] one of the most difficult and complex problems in the history of Old Russian life and law. The chief difficulty lies in the notable lack of correspondence and the obvious disjunction in the protocols of the Council between the questions asked and the answers given. The questions were posed by Tsar Ivan IV, that is, by the advisers in the Select Council surrounding him at the time. The questions are generally liberal, or in any case, reformist. They contain very many severe accusations. At the same time, there is a clear effort to achieve uniformity. The "waverings" about which Tsar Ivan complains signify precisely the varied expression of regional customs. Yet the questioners do not indicate whom they are asking or who should reply. Those giving the answers display their dissatisfaction on the point through their tenacious and stubborn insistence on past custom. Even Metropolitan Makarii hardly cared for real reform.

The Council of a Hundred Chapters, conceived of as a "reformational" council, was realized as a "reactionary" one. However, this mid-century council did express something new: the will to construct and fortify a definite order. Such a plan is embodied in that most typical monument of the age, the Ordering of the House [Domostroi]. Sometimes viewed as a picture of actual daily life or as an illustration taken from nature (a view totally unjustified), the Ordering of the House actually more closely approximated a party program or project, an exemplary and idealized plan, or a variety of utopia. The book is didactic not descriptive. It sketches out a theoretical ideal, but it does not depict daily reality. In fact, many elements of undoubted Russian tradition are rejected and condemned. The, trial of Matvei Bashkin[106] provides a perfect illustration of such rejection. A series of prominent Transvolgans were summoned to his trial, not as witnesses or as men of similar views, but for the purpose of condemning them. Artemii,[107] the recent abbot of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergei Monastery, and Feodorit, the "Enlightener of the Lapps,"[108] were similarly condemned. For the historian, the individual charges in these cases are not so crucial. Undoubtedly actual freethinkers were concealed in Transvolgan sketes, and undoubtedly they went too far with their "doubts." Feodosii Kosoi[109] certainly did. Much more instructive is the desire on the part of the judges to generalize their results and findings and to give those findings a wide currency.

The affair of Ivan Viskovatyi, the prominent and influential chancellor of the Foreign Office, is especially instructive and characteristic. Viskovatyi had the temerity to openly criticize the innovations introduced by Metropolitan Makarii and Sylvester. The controversy centered on innovations in iconography. Viskovatyi was offended by the new icons painted by Novgorod and Pskov iconographers in accordance with a directive from the priest Sylvester during the cathedral's renovation after the fire of 1547. The new wall paintings done in the Golden Chamber, which was at that time under construction, also agitated Viskovatyi. It was Viskovatyi, however, who was condemned for innovation. Although a council charged him with heresy and disorderliness, it did not give any satisfactory answer to his questions and bewilderments.

The significance of the debate about icons reaches wider and deeper than is usually believed. Viskovatyi should not be portrayed as a blind defender of a dying past or as one who denied the admissibility of any creative renovation of iconography. Viskovatyi's "doubts" disclose a very profound and penetrating religious understanding.

Russian iconography reached a watershed in the sixteenth century. Novgorod and Pskov reached it first, and from there a new current spread to Moscow. It is easy to determine the importance of this new departure or movement in iconography: it constituted a break with hieratic realism and its replacement by decorative symbolism or, more accurately, allegory. The break found formal expression in the influx of new themes and new "theological-didactic" compositions, as Buslaev[110] so aptly described them. The decisive dominance of "symbolism" signified the decline of iconography. The icon became too "literary." The idea rather than the face came to be depicted, and even the religious idea too frequently became dimmed, lost, or dissolved in artistic ingenuity and embellishment. Frequently icons of that period were simply converted into illustrations of literary texts, sometimes Biblical ones, sometimes of a worldly and apocryphal nature. Occasionally, a miniature is even transcribed over a book cover. Various influences combined to form this literary and illustrated symbolism. A considerable influence derives from the Slavic south as a last wave of the Byzantine Renaissance. But the influence of western engraving forms its exterior.

Viskovatyi correctly sensed and diagnosed this development in iconography. "I beheld that the icons in the human form of Jesus Christ Our Lord were taken down. And those which they put there are such as I have never seen and are of many terrors. I was in fear of contamination and every sort of cunning." It was not innovations, as such, which troubled Viskovatyi. What disturbed him was the idea underlying them. He perceived that idea as a retreat to the Old Testament, a move away from the "truths" of the Gospels toward prophetic "types" or "shadows." He took as his point of departure the eighty-second canon of the Council in Trullo (691-92): "one must portray in human form."[111] Viskovatyi recalled that "it is not seemly to venerate images more than truth." Therefore, Metropolitan Makarii's reply that it is permissible to paint the image of Christ in the form of an angel "according to Isaiah's prophecy," or that the two crimson wings can be depicted "according to the writings of the Great Dionysius" could not soothe Viskovatyi. Such a reply was untimely. For Viskovatyi's "doubts" centered precisely on the point that one should not paint according to prophecies which have already occurred or come to pass, but according to the Gospels, that is, in the fullness of the historical Incarnation. "Let the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ's human form not be diminished." Viskovatyi did not defend the past, he defended "truth," that is, iconographic realism. His quarrel with Metropolitan Makarii was a clash of two religious and esthetic orientations: traditional hieratic realism as opposed to a symbolism nourished by a heightened religious imagination. It was also an encounter between a strengthened western influence and Byzantine tradition. Paradoxically, this "westernism" achieved victory under the guise of "antiquity" and "compilation."

This paradoxical element is quite evident in the make-up of Ivan the Terrible. "He was an orator of natural eloquence in written wisdom and clever in thoughts," one contemporary says of him. Ivan IV was not merely a tolerable man of letters or a superficial reader. He possessed a genuine gift for writing. He wrote with verve and expression, although he abused his citations and quotations. He compiled such quotations into "whole books, paramias [readings from the Old Testament] and epistles," in the sarcastic words of Kurbskii. "A man of wonderful understanding in the science of book learning and very eloquent," writes a later chronicler. "There is grace in his words, and force in his dialects," writes Karamzin. Ivan the Terrible undoubtedly possessed an inquiring religious mind and a fully conceived religious outlook, although it was of a somber, heavy, and lacerating sort from which he suffered and suffered too greatly. Yet Ivan IV did not only face toward the past. Men of western faith always attracted him, even if he would descend upon them with furious accusations and threats. His famous quarrel with Jan Rokyta, the "minister of the Czech [Bohemian] Brethren,"[113] is a sufficient illustration. Nor is it accidental that an enormous influx of "west Europeans" into Muscovy begins precisely during his reign. Ivan flung his preference for the West and for westerners in the face of his contemporaries. Somewhat later, the famous official Ivan Timofeev recalled with a sigh: "Alas, everything within him was in the hands of barbarians." By "barbarians" he meant foreigners. Not only politically but culturally, Ivan IV gravitated to the West and not to Byzantium. He recognized no historical dependence on the Greeks, nor did he wish to make such an acknowledgment. "Our faith is Christian, not Greek," he replied to Possevino.[114]

Among the writers of the sixteenth century, Zinovii Otenskii occupies a unique position. Zinovii was the author of a quite remarkable book The Evidence of Truth, for Those Who Inquire about the New Teaching [Istiny pokazanie, k voprosivshim o novom uchenii], composed in answer to the confusions arising from Feodosii Kosoi's propaganda. Zinovii writes with great liveliness and with a genuinely literary temperament, although his style is rather ponderous and his thought is not always sufficiently disciplined. One senses a great erudition in him. He not only cites evidence, but he weighs it. This is a new trait supplied by Zinovii. His chief argument is always based on a theological reasoning linked with the use of Biblical texts, which are not wrenched out of context.

Zinovii's stance in the prevailing polemics and divisions is not easy to define. He was close to Maxim the Greek. Tradition describes him as "a disciple of the saintly elder." The spirit of Novgorodian independence is powerfully present in him. He judges and criticizes contemporary life with a great decisiveness and conviction, which echoes Maxim the Greek. However, Zinovii disagreed with Maxim and with the entire Transvolgan tradition on one very important point: he was not a non-possessor, and he defended monastic properties, sometimes with irony, but with almost Josephite-like arguments against the "prince-monk." From the Transvolgan movement Zinovii primarily acquired a spirit of theological deliberation, a refreshing experience in spiritual life, and a general religious and moral tension in relation to life around him. In this respect he stood apart from his age. Therefore, most likely Zinovii's book on heretics remained unknown. Only Nikon makes any reference to it.

The spirit of stagnation and torpor in Moscow congealed and hardened precisely during this age of troubled conflict and recrimination.

Heresy in Moscow is borne between fools who deceitfully babble as follows: it is not necessary to study overly much the speech of books, for men lose themselves in books, that is to say, they lose their minds and thereby fall into heresy.

True, this was written by Prince Kurbskii, and it does not follow that one should generalize on this characterization. However, such an attitude remained dominant and victorious until the end of the century. On the very eve of the Time of Troubles, during the reign of Tsar Fedor, decisive ecclesiastico-political deductions were made from the "Third Rome Theory," which by that time had become fully transformed from an apocalyptical premonition into an official state ideology. The Moscow patriarchate was established more as evidence for the independence and preeminence of the Russian tsardom than for the independence of the Russian Church (see, for example, the establishment charter). Establishment of the patriarchate was primarily a political act which reverberated in the very depths of the national spirit. It marked the final rejection of Byzantium.

The sixteenth century constitutes a tragic and troubled period in the life of West Russia. It was a time of political conflict and social unrest, and also a time of religious strife, bitter theological controversies, and factionalism. The political merger of Lithuania and Poland consummated in the Union of Lublin (1569) ¹ created a new situation for the Orthodox minority under their control. Could this minority maintain its identity and continue its own cultural traditions under the new conditions? The problem was both national and religious. Poland was spiritually a Roman Catholic country, but its East Slavic citizens belonged to the Byzantine sphere. Even before West Russia became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ² and the Kingdom of Poland, its Orthodox population had been torn by the pull between Byzantium and Rome. Since 1299, when the metropolitan see "of all Russia" was transferred from Kiev to the north (and subsequently to Moscow), this region had known a constant drive for ecclesiastical autonomy. The motive was mainly political, especially after the annexation by Poland and Lithuania: a non-resident metropolitan, it was feared, might be open to the influence of an alien power. The Patriarchate of Constantinople preferred a single, undivided metropolia, and the epithet "of all Russia" was rigorously maintained in the title of the metropolitan of Moscow. True, departures from this principle were occasionally made, such as the appointment of a special metropolitan for Galicia ³ and later one for Lithuania. However, these "autonomies" never lasted long. An inclination in favor of the Roman West often accompanied this urge for ecclesiastical autonomy in West Russia. It is hardly a coincidence that shortly after his appointment, Gregory Tsamblak, ⁴, the first metropolitan of Lithuania should attend the Council of, Constance (1417-1418). ⁵ Apparently he did so at the request of the Lithuanian princes who at that very time were negotiating with the pope for an ecclesiastical union. Certainly the eventual separation of the Orthodox Church in Lithuania from the Moscow metropolia was accomplished under circumstances peculiarly related to Rome. Isidore, who was appointed metropolitan of all Russia to the Council of Florence, turned out to be one of the strongest partisans of the "Unia" during the council's sessions. Shortly after award, the pope raised him to the rank of cardinal. When Isidore returned to his see, Moscow disavowed and rejected him, but he found acceptance in Lithuania. Unable to remain in Moscow, he retired to Rome. But the story does not end there. In 1457, the Uniate patriarch of Constantinople in exile, Gregory Mammas, ⁸ together with the synod of Greek bishops residing in Rome, appointed a certain Gregory as metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania and totius Russiae inferioris, obviously with the hope that in the course of time Gregory would extend his jurisdiction to "all Russia." This Gregory was a former abbot of the St. Demetrius monastery in Constantinople and an associate of Isidore. Oddly enough, the appointment did not introduce the Florentine Union into Lithuania. Instead, Gregory seems to have sought recognition from the Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople. Wishing to preserve both connections, his successors did the same. This created an ambiguous situation. ⁹ The papacy distrusted this kind of divided allegiance. Early in the sixteenth century the links with Rome were broken, and henceforth the Orthodox Church in Lithuania continued in obedience to the ecumenical patriarchate alone.

The major problem, however, had not been solved. The concept of a pluralistic society was still unknown and unwelcome, and the right to religious freedom was rarely recognized and often even strongly contested. The state for the most part was "confessional, with religious non-conformity" or "religious dissent" regarded as a threat to political and national unity. Certainly this was a fundamental an inescapable issue in the United Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania: the "East Slav problem" was at one and the same time a Polish-Lithuanian problem, for it involved the integrity of the realm. Could the "Orthodox minority" remain an independent cultural unit without endangering the common cultural bond? Could "two Churches" (and that intrinsically meant "two cultures") peacefully co-exist in a single realm? Could the "Orthodox minority" be truly integrated into corporate life of the land without some agreement or at least compromise with Rome? Could the Byzantine tradition be safely allowed in a country more and more attuned to western ways of life? Here lay the crux of the problem of the "Unia." Union with Rome was inseparable from the wider problem of civil unity within the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. In the context of the sixteenth century it was a sociological and cultural problem more than a theological one.

The rapid growth of the vast and impressive Orthodox State of Muscovy aggravated the whole situation. The Orthodox faithful in the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom could hardly fail to turn to Muscovy in times of trouble and distress. The rise and expansion of the Reformation into Lithuania and Poland proper as well as into its West Russian provinces further complicated the picture. Lutheranism did not make much headway, but Calvinism spread swiftly and triumphantly, especially in Lithuania, where it won the open support of local magnates and, at least initially, met no effective countermeasures from the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The Czech [Bohemian] Brethren, ¹⁰ exiled from their own country, also took refuge in Poland and for a time assumed a prominent role in the general "evangelical" movement. Even more conspicuous was the growth of the "New Arians," as the Antitrinitarians were commonly labeled. ¹¹ For a while Poland served as one of the centers of the movement on the European continent.

In general the country became a shelter for all kinds of religious exiles persecuted and prosecuted in their own lands. Poland was ironically described as a "paradisus haereticomus." Radical trends were especially dominant in the reign of Sigismund II Augustus (1548-1572). 12 The situation changed under the subsequent rulers Stephen Batory (1576-1586) ¹³ and especially Sigismund III of the Swedish house of Vasa (1587-1632), ¹⁴ justly called the "Jesuit king." The Roman Church finally regained control with the help of the Jesuit fathers, who were called in at the advice of the Nuncio Commendone ¹⁵ and Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, bishop of Courland. ¹⁶ The Jesuits concentrated their efforts on education but they also succeeded in making their influence strongly felt at the Polish-Lithuanian court.

By the end of the sixteenth century, the kingdom of Poland and Lithuania was once again a Roman Catholic realm and a major stronghold of the Catholic faith in Europe. In this quickened environment the problem of "non-conformity" assumed a new urgency and gravity. The Orthodox of West Russia now found themselves between two opposing camps. For a time the greater threat of a Catholic domination brought them to the support of the Protestants in a common struggle for "religious freedom." Under the circumstances, religious freedom for the Orthodox also meant "national identity." But the alliance was more forced than voluntary, dictated as it was by politics rather than doctrine. Once their independence had been regained, incomplete as this may have been, the Orthodox ended the coalition. The achievement, however, was no simple one, and the struggle left a distinct and deep imprint.

The Orthodox Church in Poland and Lithuania was ill prepared for a militant encounter with the West. With sorrow and anguish contemporaries tell of "the great rudeness and ignorance" of the common people and the local clergy. The hierarchs were little better equipped to do battle. The Orthodox themselves deplored and exposed their low moral standards and worldliness. It was commonly complained that the bishops were more interested in politics, personal prestige, and privilege than in matters of faith or the spiritual needs of the people. A great Orthodox champion of that day, the Athonite monk Ivan Vishenskii, ¹⁷ acidly commented that "instead of theology they pursue the knaveries of men, lawyer's deceptions, and the devil's twaddle." They were, he went on, more interested in the "statutes" of the law than in the "canons" of the Church. True, Vishenskii's rhetoric is passionate, but it discloses the profound disappointment and loss of confidence that contemporaries felt in their hierarchs. Furthermore, the bishops were divided among themselves.

By the end of the sixteenth century, no longer able to withstand the external pressure, they capitulated en masse to Roman obedience. Their flocks, however, would not follow. In order for ecclesiastical union with Rome to be established, coercion and even persecution would be needed. This account, of course, can be differently construed: the bishops did not desert their flocks, rather the laity refused to obey their pastors. Whatever the case, the Orthodox community was rent and an unhappy tension divided the hierarchy from the people. The burden of the defense of Orthodoxy against an enforced union with Rome fell entirely on the shoulders of the laity and lower clergy. Their devout efforts and concerted action preserve the Orthodox faith, making the eventual canonical restoration of order possible. A major task, however, was yet to be accomplished. Orthodoxy urgently needed, and its integral preservation require a creative "reconstruction of belief," a restatement of the Orthodox faith. Such a "reconstruction" had to derive from a conscious confrontation with the West's dual challenge: Roman Catholicism and the Reformation. Could the Byzantine tradition be maintained strictly as it was, or must new forms be devised? Should Orthodoxy remain purely "eastern," or under the new conditions would it in some way have to be "westernized?" Such a task could not be accomplished in an instant. Obviously it was a program for many generations. In the process a new tension bordering on a break emerged among those who remained Orthodox. The result was an ambiguous "pseudomorphosis" of Orthodox thought, and to some extent also of Orthodox life. Even though these seventeenth century efforts by Orthodox theologians of West Russia may have ended in failure or compromise, the nobility and importance of their work cannot be obscured.

The significance of these various events can be comprehended only if set in a wider European perspective. Europe was then divided into two hostile camps, at once political blocs and confessional confederations: the Catholic league and the Evangelical alliance. The Orthodox minority in Poland and Lithuania could not escape entanglement in this larger power struggle. No political stand was possible apart from a confessional commitment, and each confessional choice carried with it a political connotation. The patriarch of Constantinople, too, was heavily involved in this political contest. Since he served both as head of a large church and as national leader of the "Christian nation" [Rum milleti] within the Ottoman Empire, he was a prominent political figure on the international scene. ¹⁸ Also of significance is the interest shown, and active part taken, in the fate of the West Russian Church by the other eastern patriarchs beginning in the last decades of the sixteenth century. However, the historical destiny of the Orthodox Church in Poland and Lithuania ultimately depended upon the outcome of the political struggle between Catholic and Protestant powers which was soon to erupt in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). In this conflict Poland emerged as a strategic center. This explains the lively interest of the Moldavian princes in the ecclesiastical affairs of the West Russian Church and why a Wallachian prince was eventually named metropolitan of Kiev. ¹⁹ This act symbolized more than Orthodox solidarity; it also reflected a common political concern. Non-theological factors thus weighed heavily on the ecclesiastical and cultural situation of West Russia, where by the third quarter of the sixteenth century the Orthodox Church faced a severe challenge from the West, an existential challenge at once religious and cultural.

The strength of the Protestant impact on Orthodox circles in Poland and Lithuania cannot be accurately assessed. It seems to have been considerable, especially in the middle decades of the sixteenth century. And its challenge had to be met. Significantly, the first Orthodox writers in these lands to respond were two fugitives from Moscow, the hegumen Artemii and the celebrated Prince Andrei Kurbskii.

Artemii, whose dates are uncertain, was at one time hegumen of the Trinity monastery. In 1554 a council in Moscow sentenced him for alleged heresies ("certain Lutheran schisms") to confinement in the Solovkii monastery, from which he subsequently escaped into Lithuania. The record of the trial proceedings does not show any heresy. It seems that the real reason for his condemnation was his ideological allegiance. Whereas the leaders of the council belonged to the dominant Josephite party, Artemii adhered to the Transvolgan tradition. Heretics, in his view, should be exhorted rather than persecuted.

Once in Lithuania, Artemii was drawn to the defense of Orthodoxy against the inroads of Protestants and Antitrinitarians. He settled on the estate of Iurii, Prince of Slutsk, where his contacts soon included those tempted or converted by Protestant preaching. For his labors there Artemii would earn the high praise of Zakharii Kopystenskii, ²⁰ a distinguished Orthodox thinker of the next century, who speaks in his Book of Defense of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Ecumenical Church [Palinodiia] of "this blessed monk, who with the help of God, turned many in Lithuania away from the Arian and Lutheran heresies, and through whom God dispelled the danger that all Russian people there might be perverted into these heresies." ²¹ Artemii's approach to dissenters was as much pastoral as polemic. His writings are notable for their humane attitude towards opponents. He deals with them in the spirit of tolerance and true evangelical charity, virtues reminiscent of the Transvolgan elders, but rare in the polemical literature of Artemii's day.

A number of Artemii's epistles have been preserved. ²² They reveal the Orthodox point of view on the issues at stake. Of special interest are two missives to Szymon Budny, an influential Calvinist preacher who later went over to Socinianism and joined its most radical wing (the non adorantes). ²³ In 1562 Budny published a treatise in the Vernacular, The Justification of a Sinner Before God [Opravdanie greshnago cheloveka pered Bogom], and his Catechism [Katekhizis]. ²⁴ He also won renown for his Polish translation of the Bible, which appeared in 1572. Budny sent his books to Artemii. They prompted Artemii's epistles, which, though vigorously attacking Budny's heresies, sought to persuade and to convert. Artemii addressed Budny as "brother" on the grounds of their "common humanity," but he made no effort to conceal his detestation of "the evil faith of false reason" to which Budny was committed. Of necessity large parts of Artemii's letters were devoted to rites and external observances, since the Protestants rejected them. But his heart was else where. Christianity was for him first and foremost an inner reality, a spiritual discipline, "the Cross in action," i.e., an ascetic exploit, the way of silence [hesychia], and spiritual concentration. Artemii was rooted in the patristic heritage. His sources were traditional: St. Basil the Great, ²⁵ St. Isaac of Nineveh (or "the Syrian," as he is usually called in the East), ²⁶ also the Areopagite ²⁷ and St. John of Damascus. ²⁸ Like St. Nil of the Sora, ²⁹ he contended that these sacred writings should be used not by rote but with discernment. It was Artemii who first called Kurbskii's attention to the patristic sources. ³⁰

Prince Andrei Kurbskii (1528-1583) was a distinguished military leader and statesman. Although a refugee from his own country, he readily found a place among the local nobility of Volynia where he was granted honors and privileges. It is not clear how he acquired his wide erudition. But he emerges from his famous and vehement correspondence with Tsar Ivan IV and from his History of Ivan Iir [Istoriia o Velikom Kniaze Moskovskom] as a skillful writer, a powerful polemist, and a man of great intelligence. ³¹ In no sense was he only a spiteful and venomous pamphleteer bent upon voicing his passions and pleading the cause of the boyars against a tyrannical tsar. He was also a man of broad culture and an ardent supporter of the Orthodox tradition. In Moscow he had been close to the circle of Maxim the Greek ³² whom he acknowledged as his "most beloved, teacher" and whose biography he later compiled.

Disturbed by the growth of "foul heresies" in Poland, Kurbskii was no less dismayed by the negligence and indifference of the Orthodox community there: "we are inept and indolent in study and too proud to ask about that which we do not know." He sought to spread learning among the Orthodox. He urged them to return to the primary sources, to the very springs of faith and knowledge. Kurbskii had a special love for the great patristic tradition, and he voiced chagrin and irritation that the Orthodox people around him knew so little of the Fathers and scarcely read them. "Foreigners take delight in our teachers, whereas we, looking at our own, waste away with spiritual hunger." He was amazed that not all the patristic writings had been translated into Church Slavonic, and he expressed dissatisfaction with existing translations. Accordingly, he decided to translate anew.

It may appear strange that Kurbskii chose to translate the Greek Fathers from Latin texts, since for that purpose he had to learn Latin. ³³ But many of the writings that interested him still remained to be published in the original, and to obtain and use all the Greek manuscripts was too difficult a task. Kurbskii himself worked from the Venetian translations. His library contained the complete works of Chrysostom, ³⁴ St. Gregory of Nazianzus, ³⁵ St. Cyril of Alexandria, ³⁶ and St. John of Damascus, ³⁷ as well as Nicephorus Callistus' Historia ecclesiastica. ³⁸ Kurbskii had been impressed by a story told by Maxim about the zeal of Venetian scholars at work translating the Greek Fathers. ³⁹ Apparently he also came to believe that after the catastrophe of Byzantium, those Greek manuscripts, which had been saved, were taken to Italy and stored in the libraries of Venice and Padua. ⁴⁰

The fall of Constantinople was a true apocalyptic disaster for Kurbskii, a time when "Satan was loosed from his bonds." With Byzantium in the hands of the Infidel, he had to look to the West. Kurbskii had no sympathy for Rome, however. The Council of Florence had been, in his phrase, "a true tragedy, with evil and sad consequences." From his contacts on Mt. Athos he sought and obtained copies of the polemical writings of Cabasilas ⁴¹ and others directed against the Latins. Kurbskii's cultural horizon was typically Byzantine. Indeed, with his love of learning and penchant for study he can be properly described as a "Byzantine humanist." Patristic theology and the "wisdom of the Greeks" (i.e. Greek philosophy) were in his eyes an indivisible cultural whole. "Our ancient fathers were trained and adept, in both natural philosophy and the sacred Scriptures." Kurbskii consequently sought to combine study of the Fathers with that of the classical philosophers. Of the latter, he mainly read Aristotle (Physics and Ethics), probably under the influence of St. John of Damascus and Cicero, from whom he derived a Stoic conception of natural law. ⁴²

Kurbskii drew up an ambitious program of translation: all the Fathers of the fourth century. As part of the project, he gathered around him for classical studies a band of young scholars, or baccalaurei as he styled them. And he sent a relative, Prince Mikhail Obolens to learn the higher sciences in Cracow and in Italy. It was not easy for Kurbskii to find enough people fluent in Latin who were also at home in literary Slavonic. He himself did not have complete command of Slavonic. But he was averse to translating the Fathers into the cruder colloquial. Indeed, it was probably at his suggestion that a member of the wealthy Mamonich family in Vilna ⁴³ in 1581 published a Grammar of the Slavonic Language [Gramatika slovenskaia iazyka].

Only a small part of Kurbskii's translation project was ever accomplished. In addition to the sermons of Chrysostom, with which he began, Kurbskii managed to translate the basic works of St. John of Damascus, including the Dialectica and De fide orthodoxa and some of his lesser writings. ⁴⁴ They already existed in part, but in an archaic translation of John, Exarch of Bulgaria ⁴⁵ Kurbskii checked John's text against certain Greek and Latin editions, revised it, and added translations of the missing chapters. To Damascene's Dialectica he also appended an introduction On Logic, based on the Trivii Erotomata, published by Johann Spangenberg in 1552 and 1554 in Cracow ⁴⁶ Apparently Kurbskii intended this work to be a textbook. In 1585 Kurbskii printed in Vilna a translation of John of Damascus' A Disputation between a Saracen and a Christian. But of the other Fathers, he succeeded in translating and publishing only a few sermons and homilies. ⁴⁷ To advance his dispute with the Arians (his major preoccupation), Kurbskii also compiled, and where necessary translated, several exegetical anthologies: The Interpreted Acts and Epistles [Tolkovyi Apostol'], including a special selection of Patristic texts; An Abbreviated Interpreted Book of Prophets [Sokrashchenie tolkovykh prorochestv], which also contained Patristic commentary; ⁴⁸ and an Interpreted Psalter [Tolkovaia psaltyr'] in which, in addition to the basic commentary taken from Theodoret of Cyrus ⁴⁹ and from Pseudo-Athanasius, ⁵⁰ he included a number of rich and apt choices from the other Fathers. In all of this work Kurbskii manifests a vital dogmatic interest and a sober and clear faith.

However modest Kurbskii's achievements were in comparison with the scale of his original plan, that he even conceived such a comprehensive scholarly program is of signal importance. The scheme itself reveals a clear conception of religious culture, grounded in the tradition of a Slavono-Hellenic culture. He opposed this to "Polish barbarism." This was no mere rhetorical phrase. The Polish language was at the time just coming into use for scholary purposes, and Polish literature was still in statu nascendi. In contrast, Church Slavonic literature had existed for centuries and had developed its own elaborate style and tradition. Kurbskii had reason to contend that an accurate translation into Polish from Greek or Slavonic, or even Latin, was impossible. The meaning might be rendered, but the style would be lost.

Far more than a scribe or a dry scholar, Kurbskii had a living feeling for his time. His aims have often been criticized as old-fashioned and out of date. In fact, they were prophetic. He strove for a creative renewal of the patristic tradition, a revitalization and continuation of the Byzantine heritage in the Slavic world. The future of Orthodoxy, he believed, depended upon its faithfulness to the tradition of the Fathers.

Kurbskii was not alone in his literary and educational endeavors. In the second half of the sixteenth century a number of Orthodox printing centers were established in Lithuania and Poland, most by private hands: Ivan Fedorov ⁵¹ and Petr Mstislavets ⁵² at Zabludov, near Bialystok, on the estate of the Chodkiewicz family (1568 to 1570); ⁵³ Fedorov in Lvov (1573-1579, revived in 1591); Mstislavets in Vilna (1574-1576, resurrected by the Mamonich family in 1582); Prince Konstantin Ostrozhskii ⁵⁴ at Ostrog in Volynia (1580-1590). ⁵⁵ The basic motive for these centers was apologetical; their chief aim was to combat Protestant, and especially Arian, propaganda. For this purpose it was deemed more important to publish primary sources than argumentative works. The result was a goodly flow of liturgical manuals, devotional books, religious pamphlets, and sermons.

The most important of these printing presses was at Ostrog where through the energies of Prince Ostrozhskii a center of learning and culture had sprouted. Among the "lovers of wisdom" who gathered there were Gerasim Smotritskii, the educator, ⁵⁶ Ivan Fedorov, master printer, the priests Vasilii Surazkii, author of On a United Faith [O edinoi vere], ⁵⁷ and Demian Nalivaiko (brother of the famous hetman), ⁵⁸ and of special fame, Jan Liatos, mathematician and astronomer. ⁵⁹ Of this community at Ostrog Zakharii Kopystenskii wrote in his Palinodiia: "Here were orators equal to Demosthenes. Here were doctors well-trained in Greek, Latin, and Slavonic. Here were outstanding mathematicians and astrologers." Though an obvious exaggeration, his words indicate the strong impression, which the Ostrog enterprise left on the subsequent generation. Nor can the profound devotion to learning within the Ostrog group be denied. They cherished the same vision of a vibrant Slavono-Hellenic culture, as did Kurbskii.

The school at Ostrog was modelled on the Graeco-Byzantine pattern. Often described as a "Greek school," it was in fact a "school of three languages" [trilingue lycaeum] and of the liberal arts." Non slavonicae duntaxat linguae, sed grecarum juxta atque latinarum artium erexit palaestram." ⁶⁰ Prince Ostrozhskii planned to transform his school into a full-fledged academy and thus more firmly establish Ostrog as a Slavonic-Greek cultural center. ⁶¹ His dream never materialized; moreover, the school itself managed to survive for only a few years. The plan was unrealistic for the times. A critical shortage of qualified personnel existed almost everywhere. Competent teachers were all but impossible to find, especially for the instruction of Greek. In 1583 Ostrozhskii considered hiring several Greek Uniates from the Greek College of St. Athanasius in Rome, but without success. Later he looked to Greece itself. Cyril Lucaris, the future patriarch, taught at Ostrog in 1594 and 1595. ⁶² Ostrozhskii also tried to educate students abroad. An interpreter at the Council of Brest, Father Kiprian, seems to have been one of these students. He studied in Venice and Padua and then stayed for a while on Mt. Athos. Ostrozhskii's success in these various endeavors was modest. Probably his entire project was too ambitious for private enterprise. Even so, the renown which the school at Ostrog gained was justified, not so much for its achievements (although these were significant), as for its noble-spirited pioneering.

From the start the Ostrog community was deeply involved in the struggle with Roman propaganda and later with that of the Uniates. ⁶³ The reform of the calendar introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII created great agitation ⁶⁴ Open resistance was strong in a number of quarters, and in Poland that resistance included some Roman Catholics. Jan Liatos of Cracow attacked it violently. Expelled from the university, he moved to Ostrog where he lent encouragement and support to Orthodox groups opposing the new calendar. (Liatos continued his campaign as late as 1603, still in Ostrog). Another vigorous opponent of the reform was Gerasim Smotritskii, headmaster of the Ostrog school in the 1580's. A pamphlet he published in 1583 sharply denounced it. That same year the Church in Constantinople formally rejected the calendar reform and brought the dispute to an end for Orthodox peoples. In Poland and Lithuania, however, the controversy was kept alive for several more years by persistent attempts to enforce the use of the new calendar throughout the country.

Far more significant than the struggle against calendar reform, and indeed the most spectacular of all the undertakings of the Ostrog community, was the translation and printing of the great Ostrog Bible. With its publication in 1580 (reissued in 1581 with certain technical amendments), the full text of the Bible made its first appearance in Church Slavonic. The Ostrog Bible, as such, remains a landmark in Slavonic Biblical history. It abides also as a magnificent achievement in itself, a monument of scholarship, literature, and theology.

The Ostrog Bible was conceived as a polemic tool and intended for wide circulation. In the Preface, written by Gerasim Smotritskii, readers were strongly warned against those who, pretending their course could be sustained with Holy Writ, "most blasphemously dare to follow Arius in their teaching." National Bibles, of course, have been characteristic instruments of reformationists. The Polish and Czech Bibles and the Slovene Bible of Primoz Truber ⁶⁵ are but a few examples. In the Russian West most Bible translation also stemmed from a Protestant milieu, specifically from Socinian and Antitrinitarian circles who based their labors on the Czech or, more often, the Polish version. Vasilii Tiapinskii ⁶⁶ translated the Gospels in Belorussia from the 1572 version of Szymon Budny, while Valentin Negalevskii ⁶⁷ made his edition in Volynia from the Polish Bible, which Marcin Czechowicz had published in Cracow in 1577. ⁶⁸ Some of these vernacular editions are hardly more than paraphrases, with confessional bias plain in the wording of the text and, even more, in the glosses and explanatory notes. Certainly all of the translations of the Bible made in West Russia by Unitarians deviated considerably from the traditional text of the Orthodox East. This is even true of the famous Russo-Slavonic Bible of Georgii (Frantiszek) Skorina of Polotsk, printed in Prague in 1517-1520 (though never completed beyond the Old Testament). ⁶⁹ Based mainly on the 1506 Bible of the Bohemian Utraquists (i.e., Calixtins), it was connected to the Hussite endeavor, if only indirectly. ⁷⁰ In addition Skorina used the Latin Postillae perpetuae of Nicholas de Lyra. ⁷¹ Kurbskii was sharply critical of Skorina's translation. He lamented that it was taken "from the corrupted Jewish books" and pointed to the similarity of the Skorina edition with Luther's Bible. Probably he meant by this that both translations came from the Latin Vulgate, which in turn depended on the Hebrew text. The traditional Slavonic text, of course, was based on the Greek Septuagint.

The Ostrog Bible stemmed from a conscious and critical attempt to adhere to the Greek textual tradition. And the language of translation was to be traditional Church Slavonic, not any of the vernacular languages. The basic source for the Ostrog edition was the Gennadii Bible ⁷² (with some trouble obtained in a clear copy from Moscow through a Lithuanian diplomat). This text was carefully checked and revised, with many of its "Latinisms" expurgated in the process. On the initiative of Prince Ostrozhskii, new manuscripts were sought in the Slavic monasteries of Bulgaria and Serbia, in "Roman lands," and even as far away as Crete. He also appealed to the patriarch of Constantinople to send reliable and properly corrected manuscripts, as well as "people competent in the Holy Writings, Greek and Slavonic. It is clear from the Preface, however, that the editors of the Ostrog Bible were dismayed by the poor state of the manuscripts with which they worked. Too frequently the texts suffered from variations and corruptions. Still, for their time, the Ostrog scholars had rich and ample material at their disposal. They consulted the Massoretic text ⁷³ and the Vulgate and took into consideration the new Czech and Polish versions. Then once again they checked their text against the Greek, using two printed editions: the Aldine Septuagint of 1518 (Venice) ⁷⁴ and the great Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes, completed between 1514-1517, but not released until 1522. ⁷⁵

With all its obvious imperfections, the Ostrog Bible offers a more accurate and reliable text than the famous Sixtus Clementine version of the Vulgate (1592). ⁷⁶ Modern editions of the Slavonic Bible are still essentially based on the text of the Ostrog Bible. The task which confronted its translators and editors was enormous; their accomplishment noteworthy. It apparently took this competent team of scholars three to four years to complete the enterprise. Technical expertise was rendered by Ivan Fedorov, who already had a number of printing projects to his credit, including the introduction of the art of printing to Moscow. Probably more than anything else, the creative achievement of the Ostrog Bible testifies to the flowering of a cultural and theological renaissance among the Orthodox of West Russia toward the end of the sixteenth century. Of even greater significance, the advent of this Bible reflects a living and unbroken connection with the Byzantine tradition.

Prince Konstantin Ostrozhskii (1526-1608), founder of the Ostrog community, and later the monk Vasilii, was a controversial figure. He was above all a politician and a diplomat, if not a statesman. His approach to religious problems was pragmatic and cultural, rather than theological. As a native of Lithuania, Ostrozhskii was more "westernized" than his friend Prince Kurbskii, who despite his virulent distaste for political and cultural trends in Moscow, and however much his scholarship relied on Latin texts and western publications, remained even in Polish exile an adamant Muscovite and ardent Graecophile. Of the two, Ostrozhskii's cultural horizons were probably the broader, but there was less coherence in his views. He was prone to adjustment and compromise, and his politics frequently vacillated. Without question a staunch defender of Orthodoxy, at the same time he played a role in preparing the way for the Unia, which gave cause to those who would brand him a sympathizer.

In a sense Prince Ostrozhskii can be regarded as the first East Slavic "ecumenist." He had a deep interest in the reconciliation of all Christian communions in Poland and Lithuania, if only to secure order in the realm. He pleaded with Christians to cooperate and to live in honest co-existence. Even his personal position was curiously involved. Though a firm adherent of the Orthodox Church, Ostrozhskii was married to a Roman Catholic and kept close family connections with Calvinists and Unitarians. His eldest son, Prince Janusz, was baptized according to the Catholic rite, and of his other children, only one remained Orthodox, but even he had a Roman Catholic wife. ⁷⁷

The ecumenical interests of Ostrozhskii raised suspicion in several quarters. He was first of all accused of excessive sympathy for the Socinians, who themselves claimed that inwardly he shared their convictions: "quamvis religionem Unitariam, quam in corde amplectebatur no sit professus, Unitariorum tamen Fautor et Patronus fuerit." ⁷⁸ It is true that Ostrozhskii admired their educational system and commitment to cultural values. And he did not hesitate to turn to them for help. On behalf of the Orthodox he commissioned the Socinian Motovila ⁷⁹ to write a refutation of the famous book of Peter Skarga, On the Unity of the Church of God under One Pastor [O iedosci kosciola Bozego pod iednym pasterzem y o Greckim od tey iednosci odstapieniu, z prezest oroga y upominaniem do narodow ruskich przy Grekach stojacych, Vilna, 1577] ⁸⁰ with which the Jesuits launched their literary campaign to win the Orthodox in Poland to union with Rome. ⁸¹ Kurbskii was incensed with Ostrozhskii's act. Motovila was to him "a deputy of the Antichrist" and a follower of the impious Arius, ⁸² Photinus, ⁸³ and Paul of Samosata. ⁸⁴ "Christian leaders have gone to such extremes of insolence and foolishness," he decried, "that not only do they shamelessly harbor and nurture these poisonous dragons in their homes, but they employ them as defenders and assistants. And what is even more astonishing, they summon them to guard the spiritual Church of God against satanic spirits and commission them to write books against the half-Christian Latins." Probably Kurbskii's intransigence was shared by only a few, with many more grateful to Ostrozhskii for also enlisting "heretics" in the Orthodox cause. To hesitate or to linger out of scruple was too high a risk in this struggle.

Ostrozhskii's "ecumenical" overtures were not limited to Protestants; they reached to Roman Catholics as well. On a number of occasions he conferred with the famous Jesuit missionary Antonio Possevino, ⁸⁵ as he did with the Papal Nuncio Bolognetti. ⁸⁶ Both reported to Rome that he was about to be converted. Ostrozhskii brought along to these deliberations a number of laymen and clergy and when the matter of Church unity came up even the king, Stephen Batory, was included. It was at this time also that Ostrozhskii considered obtaining Greek Uniates from St. Athanasius College in Rome to teach at Ostrog, even though according to his plan the Ostrog school was to remain a stronghold of strict Orthodoxy. Later he persuaded Adam Pociej (Potiy), ⁸⁷ future Uniate metropolitan and the real architect of the Uniate Church in Poland, to take holy orders, and then, even though Pociej's Roman leanings were no secret, sponsored his promotion to the episcopate.

Ostrozhskii actually had his own scheme for reunion with Rome and was prepared to go to Rome to confer with the Pope. But when union finally came, Ostrozhskii did not follow, and at the Council of Brest convened in 1596 to promulgate reunion, he led the forces of opposition which disrupted the proceedings. For years there after he was recognized as a leader of the Orthodox resistance movement which sprang up in the western lands. Ostrozhskii was not inconsistent in these acts. His vision of unity was quite different from that negotiated at the Unia. Everything there had been accomplished by the local bishops acting clandestinely and alone. This directly countered Ostrozhskii's plan for a thorough and common discussion of all the issues involved and prior consent from the Churches of Moscow and Moldavia. When in the aftermath of the Council, the Orthodox Church was outlawed in both Poland and Lithuania, Ostrozhskii mounted a fervent campaign to get the decision rescinded. Basing his struggle on the right and necessity of "religious freedom," he once again found himself drawn toward the Protestants, who for some time had suffered discrimination under the law and whose threat to Orthodoxy was now eclipsed by Roman Catholicism.

Before long the Orthodox and the Protestants sought to join forces in their common struggle for religious freedom. The only hope for success lay in concerted action. Having confederated their own forces in 1570 through the Sandomierz Confession [Confessio Sandomiriensis], ⁸⁸ the Protestants in 1595 at the end of the Synod of Toruri took up the issue of closer cooperation with the Orthodox. Ostrozhskii, in a letter, warned this body that a Roman-Orthodox union was in preparation and proclaimed his own solidarity with the Protestants. He declared that, in his opinion, the Orthodox were distant from the Romans but close to the Evangelicals (i.e., Calvinists). ⁸⁹ In 1599 a joint conference met in Vilna, with the Orthodox represented by a small group led by Ostrozhskii. ⁹⁰ The immediate order of business was to formulate a common policy in the struggle for religious freedom. But once the two groups were together, the idea of unity readily arose. To this the clerical members on the Orthodox side proved reticent and evasive, if not openly hostile. Chief spokesman for union in the Protestant delegation was Simon Theophil Turnovskii, president of the Czech [Bohemian] Brethren in Poland. ⁹¹ He argued that under certain conditions Protestants and Orthodox could unite, and cited the negotiations held in 1451-1452 between the Calixtins of Prague and the Church of Constantinople, which ended in agreement. ⁹²

Following the Vilna conference, certain Protestants drafted a memorandum, which prominently listed points of agreement between Evangelicals and Orthodox and placed items requiring further discussion in an appendix. This was forwarded to Constantinople. Although the Orthodox did not share in this action, Ostrozhskii seems to have sympathized with it. Meletius Pigas, patriarch of Alexandria and locum tenens of the ecumenical throne, acknowledged receipt of the missive, ⁹³ but, reluctant to interfere in Polish affairs, he kept his reply evasive and noncommittal. Meletius did authorize his exarch, Cyril Lucaris, then residing in Poland, to discuss the proposal at local levels. Apparently nothing was done. All in all, it was utopian to expect that an Orthodox-Evangelical union could be formed to counter the Brest Union. Still, the whole episode was of sober significance for the future. During the negotiations between the Protestants and the Orthodox, the question of union was posed in terms, which defined "unity of faith" as common opposition to the Latin faith. As a consequence the Orthodox found themselves in a position where their own standpoint had to be worked out within the frame of the western tension: Rome or Reformation.

Although the plan of doctrinal agreement put forward at Vilna received no further development, Orthodox-Protestant cooperation continued. Orthodox polemists made extensive use of Western anti-Roman literature, especially on the question of papal supremacy, where they regularly utilized arguments advanced at the great Reformation councils of Basel and Constance. ⁹⁴ Quite popular was De republica ecclesiastica, the famed book of Marco Antonio de Dominis (1566-1624), one time Roman Archbishop of Spalatro, who left the Church of Rome and then for a period held a position in the Church of England. In translation, his book was widely circulated in manuscript form among Slavs of West Russia. ⁹⁵ But perhaps more typical of the polemical literature adopted by Orthodox writers at this time was the Apokrisis, published in 1597 under the name of Christopher Filalet (Philalethes). It was intended as a reply to Skarga's book on the Council of Brest. Claiming that his book was a translation, which probably fooled only a few, the author disguised himself (in a manner frequent among Socinians who came to the defense of Orthodoxy) behind a Greek literary pseudonym, even though it seems his identity was known to many contemporaries. Current scholarship has established, though not with final certainty, that he was neither an East Slav nor an Orthodox, but the Calvinist Martin Broriski, a Polish diplomat who for a while served as Stephen Batory's secretary. ⁹⁶ He was also an active participant in the meetings between Evangelicals and Orthodox and a close friend of the Ostrozhskii family. ⁹⁷ If indeed Broriski was the author of the Apokrisis, then it is highly plausible that Ostrozhskii for a second time was instrumental in enlisting a Protestant to counter Roman Catholicism "on behalf of the people of the Greek religion." ⁹⁸ The author's aim in the Apokrisis was to analyze the proceedings of the Council of Brest from a legal and canonical point of view. Readily discernible in his work, at least in key parts, is the influence of Calvin's Institutiones Christianae. ⁹⁹ Protestant bias is most obvious in the emphasis on the rights of the laity in the Church and the minimal authority of the bishops. A somewhat similiar bent characterizes the closing section of the treatise, devoted to the papacy. Here the author made extensive use of a new and voluminous book by the Dutch scholar Sigrandus Lubbertus (1556-1625), entitled De Papa Romano (1594), in which the pope is identified with the Antichrist. ¹⁰⁰ Apparently Lubbertus' book, too, had wide circulation among the Orthodox, with several important writers putting it to use: Meletii Smotritskii, ¹⁰¹ in his Lamentation for the One Ecumenical Apostolic Eastern Church [Threnos, 1610]; Zakharii Kopystenskii, in his Pali nodiia; Stephen Zizani, in his "Sermon of St. Cyril of Jerusalem on the Anitchrist and his times." ¹⁰²

The impact which Protestant literature had on the Orthodox faithful should not be overstressed. However, a "taint" of Protestantism was thenceforth to remain a part of West Russian mentality, and even the much stronger Latin influence of later years did not really eradicate it. Far more dangerous, and of greater significance, was the habit which Orthodox writers acquired of approaching theological problems in a western frame of reference. To refute Roman Catholicism is not necessarily to strengthen Orthodoxy, and many Protestant arguments against Catholicism are compatible with Orthodox principles. Nevertheless Orthodox polemists unwittingly or carelessly employed them, with the result that on a number of matters Protestant views imperceptibly took hold. There is, of course, a corollary historical explanation. Patristic literature was scarce, a circumstance compounded by the general unreliability of contemporary Greek literature. Greek theology was at the time passing through a crisis. Greek scholars themselves were studying at schools in the West, in Venice, Padua, Rome, or else in Geneva or Wittenburg. They were more often at home in modern western innovations instead of the traditions of Byzantium. In the sixteenth century they were usually of Protestant hue, whereas somewhat later they took on a Latin tint. Suffice it to name the Orthodox Confession (1633) of Cyril Lucaris, a document which was Calvinist in spirit and in letter. And the works of Lucaris were known and appreciated in West Russia. Perhaps this infusion of Protestantism was inevitable. Whatever the case, under western influence the ancient ideal of Orthodox culture began to dim and blur.

There was, however, another solution to the problem of Rome: to abandon all "foreign learning" and to abstain from discussion and debate. This viewpoint or, more properly, mood, also spread in western lands during the same period. Its greatest exponent was Ivan Vishenskii (d. before 1625). Little is known of his biography, except what can be gleaned from his numerous writings. Born in Galicia, Vishenskii apparently received little formal schooling. He must have left for Mt. Athos when quite young, and he stayed there for the rest of his life. (Once, in 1606 it seems, he returned briefly to his native land, but finding himself no longer at home there he left again for Athos). Vishenskii referred to himself as a simpleton, a "poor wanderer" [goliakstrannik] and in similar vein countered the intellectual sophistications of the West with a "dove-like simplicity" and "foolishness before God." He should not, however, be taken too literally. Careful analysis of his writings suggests that he was fully abreast of the philosophical and literary movements current in Poland and in West Russia.

V. Peretts ¹⁰³ states that Vishenskii was "endowed with literary skill and verve." He was without question a writer of talent, forceful, direct, frequently harsh or rude, but always original and to the point. His prose is full of vigor and humor, occasionally scaling to prophetic heights. Vishenskii probably learned his manner of argument from the Fathers; certainly the Areopagitica left an obvious imprint on his style. He was deeply rooted in Byzantine soil, though not from lack of wider learning. His central emphasis was on tradition and this in its most elementary sense: go to Church, obey the canons and the rules, do not indulge in argument. Vishenskii rejected "pagan wisdom" [paganskaia mudrost'] and "ornate reason" [mashkarnyi razum] without qualification. He opposed all scholasticism in its style, method, and substance and rejected all "refinements of the rhetorical craft" and all "external and worldly sophistications." A true monk, he had neither taste nor love for the polish and gloss of civilization. He addressed himself to lowly men: "O thou simple, unlearned, and humble Rusine, hold fast to the plain and guileless Gospel in which there is concealed an eternal life for thee." To pagan sophistry Vishenskii opposed the simplicity of faith, the "humblywise Octoechos."¹⁰⁴ yet in his own way he, too, could be rhetorical. "Is it better for thee to study the Horologion, ¹⁰⁵ the Psalter, the Octoechos, the Epistles and the Gospels, and the other books of the Church, and to please God in simplicity and thereby to gain eternal life, or to grasp the meaning of Aristotle and Plato and be, called a philosopher in this life and then go to Gehenna?" Vishenskii is here at the heart of the matter. The threat of the Unia could be overcome by inner effort alone, by a renewal and revival of spiritual life. Orthodoxy could not triumph by debates or resolutions, but only through ascetic faithfulness, humble wisdom, and intense prayer.

The difficulty with Vishenskii's position is that in the given historical realities it was impossible to avoid debate. The issues posed demanded response or else the Orthodox risked leaving the impression that they had nothing to reply. Reticence or silence was not a permanent alternative. Opponents needed to be faced, their challenges met; and the encounter had to be at their level and on their terms. Victory would not come by refraining, but by prevailing. In actual fact, Vishenskii himself did not entirely shrink from intervention. It is enough to mention his Epistle to the Apostate Bishops (1597 or 1598). ¹⁰⁶ Still his writing is everywhere concerned with the fundamental predicament: the worldliness of the contemporary Church and the lowering of the Christian standard. Vishenskii's approach to the problem was thoroughly ascetical. The worldliness that threatened the Church he saw as coming from the West, and its antidote was to hold fast to the tradition of the East. His was not simply a call for passive resistance. It was an invitation to enter battle, but a battle of the spirit, an "unseen warfare."

The Unia began as a schism and remained a schism. In the apt phrase of the modern church historian Metropolitan Makarii (Bulgakov), "the Union in Lithuania, or rather in the West Russian lands, originated with anathema." ¹⁰⁷ The Unia was fundamentally a clerical movement, the work of a few bishops, separated and isolated from the community of the Church, who acted without its free and conciliar consent, without a consensus plebis, or as was lamented at the time, "secretly and stealthily, without the knowledge [porazumenie] of the Christian people." Thus it could not but split the Orthodox Church, sunder the community of faith, and estrange the hierarchy from the people.

This same pattern was followed at a later date in other areas, in Transylvania and in the Carpatho-Russian region of Hungary. The result everywhere was a peculiar and abnormal situation: at the head of Orthodox people stood a Uniate hierarchy. The hierarchs viewed their submission to Roman authority as a "reunion of the Church," but in reality the Churches were now more estranged than ever. Whereas following its own logic, the new Uniate hierarchy took the resistance of the people to be uncanonical disobedience to established authority, the rebellion of an unruly flock against its lawful shepherds, the Orthodox believers, on their part, saw the resistance to the hierarchy, their so-called "disobedience," as the fulfillment of Christian duty, the inescapable demand of loyalty and fidelity. "Neither priests, nor bishops, nor metropolitans will save us, but the mystery of our faith and the keeping of the Divine commandments, that is what shall save us," wrote Ivan Vishenskii from Mt. Athos. And he forthwith defended the right of the faithful Christians to depose and drive out any apostate bishop, "lest with that evil eye or pastor they go to Gehenna." This was hazardous advice. But the situation had become fraught with ambiguity and complexity.

The Unia in Poland not only ruptured the Eastern Church, it also severed the Roman Catholic community. By creating a second holy body under papal authority, it originated a duality within the western Church. Full "parity of rites" was never achieved or recognized, nor did the two flocks of common obedience ever become one — indeed, this was not called for in the original agreement. The tensions between East and West now entered into the life of the Roman Catholic Church. As they spread, they intensified. Thus sociologically, the Unia proved a failure. The only way out of this impasse, or so some came to believe, was through the gradual integration (i.e., "Latinization") of the Uniate Church. This tendency was reinforced by yet another sentiment. Many from the start had viewed the Eastern rite as "schismatic," even if within Roman allegiance. They felt it was an alien accretion, a tactical concession to be tolerated for strategical reasons, but destined to give way to full integration into a uniform, that is, Latin, rite. Hence the subsequent history of the Unia in the Polish-Lithuanian State came to be dominated by just this urge for uniformity, this desire for "Latinization."

It has been contended by some on the Roman Catholic side that this development was normal, a sign of organic life and the proof of vitality. In a sense, this is true. But whatever the case, it must be recognized that the Unia in its mature form was quite different from that conceived in 1595, and even from that nurtured by the early Uniate leaders. It has also been argued that such a "Byzantine" institution could hardly have survived in a state which by principle and aspiration was wholly western, all the more so after several East Slavic regions went over to Muscovy and the more "intransigent" Orthodox groups were removed from Polish care. All these are but mild and euphemistic ways of saying that in principle Unia meant "Polonization," which is what happened historically. This was, of course, one of the original aims. The interests of the Polish State called for the cultural and spiritual integration of its Christian people, and it is for this reason that the state first encouraged and then supported the Unia. Indeed, that it survived at all was due to state intervention. But politically, too, the Unia was a failure. It promoted resistance rather than integration and added to the "schism in the soul," a "schism in the body politic." The other primal impulse for Unia (apparently the moving idea of Roman Catholic missionaries such as Possevino) sought a true "reunion of the Churches," embracing the whole of the Russian Church and, if possible, all of the Eastern Churches. This distinctly religious aspiration was dealt a fatal blow by that which was achieved politically and culturally, by precisely what has been praised as the proof of success or vitality.

The Union of Brest remained as it began, a "local arrangement" for the most part generated and preserved by reasons and forces of non-theological character. The Union of Brest did not arise out of a popular religious movement. It was the composition of several Orthodox bishops then in charge of Orthodox dioceses in the Polish-Lithuanian State together with authorities of the Roman Church and the kingdom of Poland. Once it became known that the act would not command the agreement or sympathy of the full body of the Church, it could only continue as a clandestine affair. Seemingly fearful that further delay might subvert the whole enterprise, Bishops Pociej and Terletskii (Terlecki) left for Rome. ¹⁰⁸ But news of their secret plot became public, and even while they were away open protest against the Unia began in the Church. The Council of Brest was convened on their return. It was designed for the solemn promulgation of a fait accompli, not for discussion. But before the members could gather, a split appeared in the ranks of the Orthodox. Two "councils" resulted, meeting simultaneously and moving to opposed resolutions. The "Uniate Council" was attended by representatives of the Polish Crown and the Latin hierarchy, together with several hierarchs from the Orthodox Church. It drew up an instrument of Orthodox allegiance to the Holy See, which was then signed by six bishops and three archimandrites. The "Orthodox Council" was attended by an exarch of the ecumenical patriarch (Nicephorus), ¹⁰⁹ an emissary from the patriarch of Alexandria (Cyril Lucaris), three bishops (Luke, the metropolitan of Belgrade, ¹¹⁰ Gedeon Balaban, ¹¹¹ and Mikhail Kopystenskii ¹¹²), over two hundred clergy, and a large number of laymen assembled in a separate chamber. It disavowed the Unia and deposed those bishops in compliance, announcing its actions in the name and on the authority of the ecumenical patriarch, who held supreme jurisdiction over the metropolia of the West Russian lands. The decisions of the "Orthodox Council" were denounced by the Uniate bishops and — of greater import — repudiated by the Polish State. Henceforth all resistance to the Unia was construed as opposition to the existing order, and any writing critical of the act was branded a criminal offense. Exarch Nicephorus, who presided over the "Orthodox Council," was prosecuted and sentenced as an agent of a foreign state. ¹¹³ As a final measure, it was declared that the "Greek faith" would not be recognized by law. Those who remained faithful to Orthodoxy would no longer be simply stigmatized as "schismatics" but also harassed as "rebels." What to this point for the state had been essentially a problem of "religious unity" was instantly transformed into a problem of "political loyalty." As for the Orthodox believers, they had now to prepare a theological defense of their faith and, more urgently, to fight for legal recognition.

The struggle of the Orthodox against the enforced Unia was above all a manifestation of the corporate consciousness of the people of the Church. At first the main centers were Vilna and Ostrog. But soon Lvov came to the fore, to be joined at the beginning of the seventeenth century by Kiev. Of more importance was the change in the social strata upon which the Orthodox apologists could rely for sympathy and support. Whereas in the days of Kurbskii and Ostrozhskii the Orthodox cause was mainly supported by the high aristocracy [szlachta], in the next generation noble families experienced an exodus into the Unia or even into the Roman Catholic Church. Study in Jesuit schools frequently precipitated or promoted the exodus, and cultural integration into Polish high society invariably demanded it. Another pressure was the exclusion of "schismatics" from all important positions in the civil service, or for that matter in any walk of life. To replace the aristocracy at the front lines of Orthodox defense townsmen came forth. And with the turn of the century, the Cossacks, or more specifically the so-called "Fellowship of Knights of the Zaporozhe Regiment," took up the cudgels. ¹¹⁴ In these same years there also occurred an important institutional shift. The leading role in the defense of Orthodoxy was now assumed by the famous "brotherhoods" [bratstva], whose network soon spread over the whole of the western lands.

The origin of the brotherhoods is still obscure. Various theories have been put forth, but none is fully convincing. The most sensible view suggests that they began as parochial organizations, and at some time in the troubled years preceding the Unia, probably in the 1580's, transformed themselves into "corporations for the defense of the faith," whereupon they received ecclesiastical confirmation. The brotherhoods of Vilna and Lvov had their "statutes" approved by Patriarch Jeremiah in 1586, ¹¹⁵ and then, unexpectedly, received royal charters. ¹¹⁶ In internal affairs the brotherhoods were autonomous. Some also enjoyed the status of stauropegia; that is, they were exempt from the jurisdiction of the local bishop, which in effect placed them directly under the rule of the patriarch of Constantinople. The first brotherhood to receive such status was Lvov, followed by Vilna, Lutsk, Slutsk, and Kiev, and still later by Mogilev. The Lvov brotherhood for a while even had the patriarch's authority to supervise the actions of their local bishop, including the right to judge him as a court of final instance. Any decision of guilt rendered by the brotherhood bore the automatic anathema of the four eastern patriarchs. This unusual arrangement can only be explained by the abnormality of the situation, wherein the least dependable element in the West Russian Church was the hierarchy. Still, to grant such power to lay bodies was a daring venture. No doubt this unprecedented growth of lay power, in all likelihood with concomitant abuses, was a strong factor inclining some bishops towards Rome, in the belief that Rome might succeed in restoring proper authority. The conflict and estrangement engendered between hierarchy and laity in the aftermath of the Unia bred an unhealthy atmosphere deeply affecting the religious consciousness of both. Indeed, no period in the life of the West Russian Church was more trying than that between the Council of Brest and the "restoration" of the Orthodox hierarchy by Patriarch Theophanes of Jerusalem in 1620, by which time the Orthodox episcopate was almost extinct. ¹¹⁷ The misunderstandings and clashes of these years between brotherhoods and local Church authorities were so numerous and serious that even the re-establishment of a canonical hierarchy could not soon restore order to the Church. And the continuance of troubles was merely further assured when the Polish State stubbornly refused to recognize this new hierarchy.

The restoration of a canonical hierarchy was preceded by extended negotiations between Patriarch Theophanes IV and various circles in West Russia, where he stayed for two years. He then went to Moscow, where he had occasion to discuss the situation with the highest authorities there, Patriarch Filaret and Tsar Mikhail. ¹¹⁸ On his way home to Jerusalem, Theophanes again visited Poland. His contacts this time included the Cossacks, then led by Hetman Peter Konashevich-Sagadaichny, an alumnus of the Ostrog school, one of the founders of the Kiev brotherhood school, and a man of genuine cultural bent. ¹¹⁹ moves that were hardly unpremeditated, Theophanes on two occasions arranged to consecrate bishops, creating in all six new hierarchs, among them the metropolitan of Kiev. Several of the new bishops were known for their learning: Iov Boretskii, former headmaster of the schools at Lvov and Kiev, now made metropolitan of Kiev; ¹²⁰ Meletii Smotritskii, an alumnus of the Vilna Academy, who also had attended several German universities; ¹²¹ and Ezekiel Kurtsevich, son of a princely family and for a time a student at the University of Padua. ¹²² In spite of such qualifications, the new Orthodox hierarchs found themselves at once engaged in a bitter struggle for authority. The Uniate Church and the Polish State both contested the consecrations, claiming that Theophanes was an intruder, an imposter, and even a Turkish spy. Only in 1632, just after the death of King Sigismund III, was the Orthodox hierarchy able to gain from his successor, King Wladyslaw IV, the recognition of law. ¹²³ But even then their difficulties were not entirely at an end.

The troubles with the Polish State were not the only ones the Orthodox believers faced. In general it was an untimely season, an age of internecine strife and conflict, an era of wars and uprisings. To be constructive in such conditions was not easy. It was difficult to organize systematic religious activity and to create a regular school system. It was even harder to preserve some form of calmness and clarity of thought, so indispensable to the life of the mind. Nevertheless quite a bit was accomplished, although it is still not possible to assess its full significance.

In the field of education the brotherhoods took the lead. They organized schools, set up publishing centers, and printed books. The early brotherhood schools — like the school at Ostrog — were planned on the Greek pattern. After all, the Greek population in the cities of South Russia and Moldavia was at this time quite sizeable, with the whole region serving as a major area of the Greek diaspora. ¹²⁴ Contact with Constantinople was frequent and regular. Greek influence could be felt in everything, and it did not begin to fade until the end of the seventeenth century. The brotherhood school at Lvov was founded by an emigré prelate, Arsenius, archbishop of Elassona and a former student of Patriarch Jeremiah. ¹²⁵ Here, after 1586, the Greek language became a salient if not the principle feature in the curriculum. Inevitably some of the nomenclature became Greek. Teachers, for example, were referred to as didascals and students called spudei. In 1591 Arsenius compiled a Greek grammar, which he published in Greek and Slavonic. Based mainly on the noted grammar of Constantine Lascaris, ¹²⁶ it also drew on the manuals of Melanchthon, ¹²⁷ Martin (Kraus) Crusius, ¹²⁸ and Clenard of Louvain. ¹²⁹ At his brotherhood school in Lvov, as also in Vilna and Lutsk, it was not unusual for the students to learn to speak Greek fluently. Nor was there a shortage of available Greek literature. The catalogues of the brotherhood libraries list whole editions of the classics — Aristotle, Thucydides, and the like. Preachers would quote from the Greek text of the Scriptures in their sermons. Everywhere Greek titles were the fashion for books and pamphlets, and in general the literary language of West Russia at that time was saturated with Greek terminology. Apparently the whole spirit of teaching as well as the ethos was Hellenic. It is also true that Latin was from the beginning a part of the curriculum at the brotherhood schools. But on the whole "Latin learning" was viewed as an unnecessary frill, or even a dangerous "sophistry." Zakharii Kopystenskii's comment was fairly typical: "The Latinizers study syllogisms and arguments, train themselves for disputes, and then attempt to out-debate each other. But Greeks and Orthodox Slavs keep the true faith and invoke their proofs from Holy Writ."

By 1615, in the same year that the famous Kiev brotherhood was founded, a colony of learned monks was in residence in the Kievan Monastery of the Caves, gathered there chiefly from Lvov by the new archimandrite and abbot Elisei Pletenetskii. ¹³⁰ In 1617 the Balaban printing press ¹³¹ was brought from Striatin to the monastery, where it was put to immediate use. The chief publications were liturgical books and the writings of the Fathers, but other works and authors also merit mention. First of all there is the valuable Slavonic-Ukrainian Lexicon [Leksikon Slaveno-Rossiskii i imen tolkovanie] compiled by Pamvo (Pamfil) Berynda, a Moldavian, and printed in 1627.¹³² Of the original works of the Kiev scholars, the most interesting and significant is the Book of Defense of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Ecumenical Church [Palinodiia] of Zakharii Kopystenskii, who in 1624 succeeded Pletenetskii as abbot of the Monastery of the Caves. It was composed in reply to the Uniate book, Defense of Encounter the Unity of the Church [Obrono jednosci cerkiewney, (Vilna, 1617)] by Leo Krevsa. ¹³³ Kopystenskii sought in his study to elucidate the eastern understanding of the unity of the Church and with great artistry substantiated his argument by the Scriptures and the Fathers. From his Palinodiia and other writings it is clear that Kopystenskii was a man of broad erudition. He knew the Fathers and was acquainted with Byzantine historians and canonists, as well as modern books on the East (e.g., Crusius' Turko-Graeciae) and had also read some Latin books (e.g., De republica ecclesiastica by Marco Antonio de Dominis and De Papa Romano by Lubbertus). Kopystenskii — like Maxim the Greek before him — quietly and soberly rejected western scholasticism. It is plain that Kopystenskii knew his material and had worked through it on his own. He was neither an imitator, nor simply a factologist, but a creative scholar in the Byzantine mold. His Palinodiia, the task of many years, is still a model of lucidity. Unfortunately, it was not published in his day and in fact not until the nineteenth century. Kopystenskii died soon after its completion. His successor at the Monastery of the Caves, Peter Mogila, was a man of quite different temperament and persuasion. He could have had no sympathy for Kopystenskii's book, for it was too direct and outspoken.

Still another name to be added to the list of early Kievan scholars whose writings were significant is that of Lavrentii (Tustanovskii) Zizani (d. after 1627). Before coming to Kiev, he had taught in Lvov and Brest, and had published in Vilna in 1596 a Slavonic grammar and a lexis. Once in Kiev, Zizani turned his talents as a Greek expert to the translation of St. Andrew of Crete's Commentary on the Apocalypse ¹³⁴ and to the supervision of an edition of St. John Chrysostom's homilies. But Zizani's main work remains his Catechism [Katekhizis]. When completed, the book was sent to Moscow for publication. There it ran into difiiculties. First it had to be translated from the "Lithuanian dialect" — as Muscovites denoted the literary language of West Russia — into Church Slavonic. But the translation was poorly done. In addition, authorities at Moscow detected grave doctrinal errors in the book. Zizani, it seems, held a number of peculiar opinions in all probability derived from his foreign sources: Protestant and Roman Catholic. He himself escaped condemnation, but the printed version of his Catechism was withdrawn from circulation and in 1627, burned. However, copies in manuscript form did survive and received wide dissemination and popularity. In the course of the eighteenth century the book was thrice reprinted by the Old Believers ¹³⁵ of Grodno. Zizani, like Berynda, Kopystenskii and most of the early Kiev scholars, worked primarily in Greek and Slavonic sources, and the writings of these learned monks reflect an authentic cultural inspiration. But even as they labored a new tide was rising in that same Kievan milieu.

As the seventeenth century unfolded, Kiev began to feel more and more the impact of "Latin learning." New generations were of necessity turning to western books and with increasing frequency attending Jesuit schools, where, as if inexorably, they became imbued with the Latin pattern of study. Even Elisei Pletenetskii, in his effort to counteract the Uniate initiative of Metropolitan Veliamin Rutskii, ¹³⁶ seems to have had a western model in mind when he sought to create an "Orthodox order." Under his direction, communal life at the Monastery of the Caves was restored, but on the rule of St. Basil rather than the more common Studite Rule. ¹³⁷ A "Latin motif" can also be noted in some of the books published at that time by certain members of the circle at the Monastery of the Caves. On occasion this bias filtered in through tainted Greek sources; at other times it entered directly from Latin literature. Tarasii Zemka, composer of laudatory verses and the learned editor of Kievan liturgical books, ¹³⁸ made considerable use of the celebrated work of Gabriel Severus on the sacraments, which had appeared in Venice in 1600. ¹³⁹ Severus' book was permeated by Latin influence, if only in the phraseology which Zemka liberally adopted. (To take an example, where Severus used "metaousiosis," or the Greek equivalent of "transubstantiation," Zemka employed the Slavonic "prelozhenie suchchestv" ["the metastasis of substances"]). The influence of Latin thought is even more pronounced in Kirill Trankvillion-Stavrovetskii. ¹⁴⁰ His book Mirror of Theology [Zertsalo bogosloviia], published at the Pochaev Monastery in 1618, can be regarded as the first attempt by a Kiev scholar at a theological system. A subsequent study, Commentaries on the Gospel [Uchitel noe Evangelie, printed in 1618], is similarly concerned with doctrine. Both works reflect Thomism, and even something of Platonism. In Kiev and Moscow they were censured for "heretical errors" [ereticheskie sostavy] and sentenced to destruction. But official rejection did not hinder their spread in manuscripts or mitigate their broad acceptance in the south as well as in the Russian north. Even so, disappointed that his books were repudiated by his ecclesiastical superiors, Stavrovetskii went over to the Unia.

Yet another figure in whom a Thomist influence can be seen is Kassian Sakovich (c. 1578-1674), headmaster of the Kiev brotherhood school from 1620-1624. It is most transparent in his On the soul [O dushe], printed in Cracow in 1625. From Kiev, Sakovich went to Lublin, where he established contact with the Dominicans and attended theological classes. He later continued this study in Cracow. And finally, Sakovich, too, joined the Unia, after which he launched a virulent polemic against the Orthodox Church. In this manner, then, in the second and third decades of the seventeenth century the Roman Catholic style of theology began to penetrate into the Kievan scholarly community. The next decade, the 1630's, saw Roman Catholic domination. The shift occurred simultaneously with a change of administration at the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, when Peter Mogila became abbot.

The Unia was less an act of religious choice than cultural and political self-determination. Neither reasons of faith nor of doctrine were fundamental to the secession of the bishops. The early Uniates were quite sincere in contending that "they did not change the faith." They felt they were only transferring jurisdictions and seem really to have believed that the "Latin faith" and the "Greek faith" were identical. This aspect received considerable stress in their pamphlet literature, for example, in the Unia, or A Selection of Principal Articles [Unia, albo vyklad predneishikh ar"tikulov], published anonymously, but reputedly the work of Hypatius Pociej, ¹⁴¹ or in Harmony, or the Concordance of the Most Holy Church of Rome. ¹⁴² Many were equally convinced that under "Roman obedience" they could still be Orthodox. Greek Uniates, too, felt this way and made the most striking attempts to argue the case. In particular this was so for Peter Arcudius (1562-1633) in his De concordia Ecclesiae occidentalis in septem sacramentorum administratione libri septem (Paris, 1619). ¹⁴³ Even more notable was Leo Allatius (1586-1669) in his De Ecclesiae occidentalis atque orientalis parpetua consensione libri tres (Coloniae, 1648). ¹⁴⁴ Such a notion led to the stipulation in the final agreement that the Uniate Church was not to be merged with the Roman Catholic Church but would retain its own hierarchical independence and ritual. It was a clause acceptable even to a man like Ostrozhskii. He ended an opponent of the Unia, not because he perceived it to be a betrayal of faith, but because he knew the action was taken in an unlawful manner and therefore could have neither authority nor relevance for the whole Church.

Those who first turned to Uniatism seem to have been tempted by "undisturbed peace" under Roman obedience, which by implication meant the protection of Polish law. They also hoped to liberate themselves from the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople, long under the control of the Infidel Turk. Others of the early Uniates were more drawn to the splendors of western civilization and wished to partake in its riches. And there was a certain disenchantment with the East. One of the founders of the Unia, Hypatius Pociej, who became the second Uniate metropolitan, declared in a letter to the Patriarch of Alexandria Meletius Pigas: "You cannot be sure of attaining eternal life by heading for the Greek shore. . . . The Greeks distort the Gospel. They malign and betray the Patristic heritage. Saintliness is debased, and everything has come apart or fallen into discord in the Turkish captivity. . . . Calvin sits in Alexandria, instead of Athanasius, Luther in Constantinople, and Zwingli in Jerusalem" (Presumably Pociej was referring to Cyril Lucaris and to Pigas himself, both of whom had Protestant leanings). ¹⁴⁵ And so Pociej chose Rome. No longer was the "wellspring of truth" [studenets pravdy] in the East, only in the West could a pure faith and a stable order be found.

As early as 1577, Peter Skarga ¹⁴⁶ had pointed not to doctrinal differences but to the "Greek apostasy" and to the "backwardness of Slavic culture." "With the Slavonic tongue one cannot be a scholar. It has neither grammar nor rhetoric, nor can it be given any. Because of this language the Orthodox have no schools beyond the elementary which teach reading and writing. Hence their general ignorance and confusion." His judgment is harsh and wrong, though the narrowmindedness it expresses is fairly typical of the time. However true it may be that the Polish language was still not mature enough to serve as a vehicle of learning, the same cannot be said of Church Slavonic. Skarga was unaware of the difference, or he chose to ignore it. As he assessed the situation, the only remedy for the ignorance of the Slavs was the adoption of Latin culture. His attack did not go unanswered. Orthodox defenders such as Zakharii Kopystenskii would reply that the Slavonic tongue is kin to the language and culture of Greece, "and therefore, it is a safer and surer thing to make translations from the Greek and to write philosophy and theology in Slavonic than it is to use Latin, which is an impoverished tongue, too inadequate and too insufficient for lofty and involved theological matters." ¹⁴⁷ Kopystenskii exaggerates as much as Skarga, only with the obverse. But the distinction they point to is a valid one.

From the outset, then, Uniatism was posed and perceived as a question of cultural determination. For Unia implied, regardless of all assurances or guarantees that the rites and customs of the East would be preserved, an inclusion or integration into western culture, or as the Germans say, a western Kulturraum. To state it badly, Unia meant religio-cultural westernization. It could only be resisted and overcome by steadfast allegiance to the Greek tradition. This was fully comprehended by those who toward the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries rose to the defense of the Orthodox Church. It is enough to mention the eloquent vindication made by Gerasim Smotritskii in his Key to the Kingdom Of Heaven [Kliuch tsarstva nebesnago, 1584], and by Zakharii Kopystenskii in his Palinodiia several decades later. Their concern was also shared by the founders of the brotherhood school in Kiev:

We have founded by the grace of God this school for Orthodox children, and have provided it at great sacrifice with teachers of the Slavono-Russian and Helleno-Greek languages, as well as of other subjects, in order that they not drink from the alien spring, and, having imbibed the fatal poison of the schism of the West, be inclined to join forces with the dark and dismal Romans.

The only cultural concession of the Orthodox loyalists was the supplementation of Church Slavonic with the local vernacular, the russkii dialekt. With the passage of time this dialect came into increasing literary use because the common people understood it much better than Church Slavonic. It also came into occasional use in the spoken liturgy, or so it seems from the Lenten Triodion, which was printed in Kiev in 1627.¹⁴⁸ Thus, as the Unia and its inherent westernization spread, a concerted effort arose in Poland to defend Orthodoxy. The issue now at hand was whether, confronted by this expanding western Kulturraum, a Slavono-Hellenic school and culture could survive. In the 1620's it was already an urgent issue; in the 1630's it became a burning one.

In the person of Peter Mogila (1596-1647) there is something enigmatic and strange. Was he a sincere champion of Orthodoxy or a manipulative hierarch of genius? It is hard to judge. Whatever the case, that he played a decisive role in the life of the West Russian Church, and, indirectly, in the later life of the whole Russian Church is indisputable. He was the most able and powerful Church leader in Poland and Lithuania in the whole of the seventeenth century. And it is appropriate that an entire era in the history of the West Russian Church bears his name: the Mogila epoch. Son of a hospodar of Moldavia [woevodich zemel' moldavskikh], ¹⁴⁹ Mogila seems to have had from birth an appetite and talent for power. Even on the throne of the Kievan metropolia he proved more a sovereign than a pastor. Educated in the West, or, more exactly, in Poland and in a Polish fashion, Peter Mogila became in taste and habit a sophisticated and lifelong westerner. Apparently he studied at the celebrated Academy of Zamosc, founded in 1594 by Jan Zamoyski, the Grand Chancellor of Poland, ¹⁵⁰ and seems later to have spent a short while in Holland. Upon the death of his father, Ieremia Mogila, he was taken as the ward of Chancellor Stanislaw Zolkiewski ¹⁵¹ and afterwards of Hetman Chodkiewicz. ¹⁵² In general while a youth Mogila, through family and friends, was closely linked to Polish aristocratic society. And in the future the sympathy and succor of Polish magnates would assure his vocational success.

In 1627, at just thirty years of age, Peter Mogila was elected archimandrite of the Monastery of the Caves. He probably aspired to this when he took monastic vows and first entered the monastery. Certainly when the post became vacant his candidacy was promoted by the Polish government. Once head of the monastery, Mogila set his own course, which sharply contrasted with that of his predecessor. This was most evident in the field of education. At the monastery Mogila decided to launch a Latin-Polish school, inevitably if not intentionally opposed to and in competition with Kiev's Slavono-Hellenic brotherhood school. His decision created great tension bordering on a riot in the city. In the words of a contemporary, Gavriil Dometskoi, ¹⁵³ "There was great indignation among the uneducated monks and Cossacks: 'Why, as we were gaining salvation, do you start up this Polish and Latin school, never before in existence?' Only with great difficulty were they dissuaded from beating Peter Mogila and his teaching staff to death." ¹⁵⁴ But Mogila was no man to be frightened. He emerged unscathed and soon after triumphed. The brotherhood had no choice but to accept him as "an elder brother, a protector and patron of this holy brotherhood, the monastery, and the schools." Pressing his advantage, Mogila first took over the administration of the brotherhood school and then combined it with his own school at the monastery to form a "collegium" on the Latin-Polish pattern. This new institution was housed in the Brotherhood monastery. Its curriculum and organization were modeled on the lines of Jesuit schools in the country, and all new teachers were recruited from graduates of Polish schools. Isaia Trofimovich Kozlovskii, the first rector of the Kievan collegium, ¹⁵⁵ and Silvestr Kossov, the first prefect, received their education in Vilna, at the Jesuit college in Lublin, and at the Zamosc Academy. It seems that for a while they also studied at the Imperial Academy of Vienna. In the same manner, and at the same time he was engaged in organizing the new school at Kiev, Mogila set about to form a school in Vinnitsa. ¹⁵⁶ There is reason to believe that Mogila had plans for spreading across the region a network of Latin-Polish schools for the Orthodox, as well as for creating something like a monastic teaching order, all under the Kiev collegium. ¹⁵⁷

Mogila was an avid and resolute westernizer. His aim was to forge the heterogeneous peoples of the western regions into a single religious psychology and inspiration, into a common culture. Attending all his plans and endeavors, mostly but the symptom of a clash between two opposed religious cultural orientations (Latin-Polish and Helleno-Slavonic), was an intense, if submerged struggle. Mogila was not alone in his projects. His numerous allies included the whole of the younger generation, which, having passed through Polish schools, had come to regard the Latin West rather than the Slavonic-Hellenic East as its spiritual home. In a sense, this was natural and logical. Silvestr Kossov was eloquent and direct on the issue. We need Latin, he would say, so that no one can call us "stupid Rus" [glupaia Rus']. To study Greek is reasonable, if one studies it in Greece, not in Poland. Here no one can succeed without Latin — in court, at meetings, or anywhere for that matter. There is no need to remind us of Greek. We honor it. But Graeca ad chorum, Latina ad forum. Kossov's argument has logic. But the root of the matter was deeper. At one level it was a linguistic problem, but at a more profound level it was an issue of cultural setting and tradition.

For those opposed to the pressures by Mogila's followers for a Latin education there were good reasons for the suspicion that this was Uniatism. Were not the Orthodox partisans of a Latin orientation time and again in conference or negotiation with active Uniates, anticipating a compromise to which both sides could wholeheartedly adhere? Did they not more than once discuss a proposal to join all Orthodox believers in the region, Uniates and non-Uniates alike, under the authority of a special West Russian patriarch, simultaneously in communion with Rome and Constantinople? And was not Mogila himself always promoted for this august office by the Uniate side of the talks? This was, of course, hardly without his knowledge. Rutskii, the Uniate metropolitan, did not doubt for a moment that Mogila was "inclined to the Unia." It is certainly significant that Mogila never voiced doctrinal objections to Rome. In dogma, he was privately, so to speak, already at one with the Holy See. He was quite ready to accept what he found in Roman books as traditional and "Orthodox." That is why in theology and in worship Mogila could freely adopt Latin material. The problem for him, the only problem, was jurisdiction. And in the solution of this problem his outlook and temperament dictated that practical concerns would be decisive: ecclesiastical and political "tranquility" [uspokoenie], "prosperity" [blagosostoianie], "good order" [blagoustroistvo]. For in the practical realm everything is relative. Things can be arranged and agreed upon. The task is one for ecclesiastical tacticians.

An early and revealing episode in Mogila's career was his friendship with one of the new bishops, Meletii Smotritskii, consecrated by Patriarch Theophanes precisely at the time of his "eastern peregrinations." Smotritskii was a learned man. Because of his Slavic grammar, published in Vilna in 1619, he occupies a place in the history of general culture. It was a remarkable achievement for its time. It can even be argued that Smotritskii was — to borrow Joseph Dobrovskii's ¹⁵⁸ phrase "princeps Grammaticorum Slavicorum." When he wrote this text, he was still of a Greek orientation. In it he sought to apply the rules of Greek grammar to the Slavonic tongue. ¹⁵⁹ As an ecclesiastic, too, Smotritskii began in the Slavonic-Hellenic camp where he was a vigorous opponent of the Unia. It is enough to point to his Lamentation [Threnos] written in 1610, which describes the sufferings of the oppressed and persecuted Orthodox flock with a skillful combination of passion and rigor. It is likely that this and similar writings led to his selection in 1620 as bishop of Polotsk. Here he ran into difficulties. First there was conflict with Iosafat Kuntsevich, Uniate bishop of Polotsk; ¹⁶⁰ then he was troubled by doctrinal disagreements among Orthodox polemists as well as abuses in the activity of the brotherhoods. Doubts arose, so Smotritskii decided on a trip to the Near East. At Kiev, on his way to Constantinople, he visited the metropolitan and received encouragement and blessing in his plan to ask the patriarch to cancel the "stauropegia" of the brotherhoods. Smotritskii succeeded in doing so, but the rest of his eastern journey proved a disappointment. This was especially so of his meeting with Cyril Lucaris, whose Catechism Smotritskii read while in Constantinople and who not only failed to calm his doubts but heightened them all the more. By the end of his journey Smotritskii had decided to seek some rapproachment with the Uniates. Back in Kiev he shared certain of these ideas with Mogila and Metropolitan Iov, ¹⁶¹ who were apparently sympathetic. After all, negotiations between the Orthodox and the Uniates, in which both seem somehow to have been involved, had been in progress since the Uniate proposal in 1623 for a joint conference to seek out agreement. Somewhat later, with apparent confidence, Smotritskii sent to Mogila and the metropolitan the manuscript of his Apology [Apologia peregrynacyi do krajdw wschodnich (Derman, 1628)]. It contained a full and vigorous presentation of his new views, and provoked no opposition. By this time, it seems since 1627, Smotritskii had gone over to the Unia, though secretly, in order, as he put it, that "pallio schismatis latens," he might better promote the Uniate cause among the Orthodox. However, his clandestine labors did not escape the attention of Isaia Kopinskii, bishop of Peremyshl and future metropolitan. ¹⁶²

In the spring of 1628 Smotritskii formulated a six point memorandum, wherein, after noting the differences between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, he insisted that they were not of sufficient magnitude or of such a character as to justify division, and submitted this to a conference of Orthodox bishops at Grodko, in Volynia. Once again, it seems, no open objection to his views was voiced. Hence a joint meeting with the Uniates was scheduled for the autumn of 1629. However, well before, at a plenary council of Orthodox bishops and clergy in August 1628, opponents of Smotritskii's ideas stepped forth in force. He was compelled to recant his Apology, which was condemned as heretical and then publicly burned. Within weeks, however, Smotritskii had, by means of a protestation, withdrawn his disavowal, and by means of various pamphlets embarked on a polemical exchange with his accusers. Leading the opposition were members of the older Orthodox generation, among whom suspicions arose about Mogila and the metropolitan, since neither had called for a recantation or condemned its withdraw. They could hardly have done so. Smotritskii's increasing empathy with the Unia had been of interest to Mogila for some time, and there were reasons for Smotritskii to suspect that his Unia plans would have the sympathy and cooperation not only of Mogila but of the metropolitan as well. What disagreement there was between Mogila and Smotritskii was not about ends but means. And the entire episode was all the more confused by an external pressure, referred to in Uniate literature as "the fear of the Cossacks."

Peter Mogila's election as metropolitan of Kiev also transpired under peculiar circumstances. With the death of King Sigismund III, the Orthodox, in April, 1632, seized the occasion of the election of a new king to wrest from the Polish electoral Diet certain "points of pacification for the Greek religion" [Punkty uspokoeniia religii grecheskoi], among them legalization of the Orthodox Church. As expected, the consent of King-elect Wladyslaw IV rapidly followed. Despite a subsequent whittling down of the "points of 1632," in practice, the victory remained. Though its phrasing was patently ambiguous, of particular importance was the right of the Orthodox to fill their vacated sees, including that of Kiev. In fact the sees had all been occupied since 1620 through the consecrations performed without announcement or publicity by Patriarch Theophanes. The consecrations were done at night in an unlighted sanctuary, as if by stealth, so as not to cause any disturbance. These consecrations, of course, had never received official recognition, but the Polish State seems to have come to terms with the fait accompli, if only because it could hardly avoid dealing with the new bishops. Now in 1632, with the new legal concession, it would be reasonable to expect that what was de facto would be made de jure. But nothing of this sort occurred. The Orthodox themselves, strangely enough, made no attempt to take advantage of the new law by applying for royal confirmation of their active hierarchy. It was decided instead that all the old bishops should retire and their bishoprics be turned over to new elects. This was not done because the episcopal occupants were in any way considered to be "illegal," that is, in office without the confirmation of the Crown, nor because the Church judged them to be of questionable merit. Indeed, they could be credited with having restored both order and canonical prestige to the Church in a time of real and present danger. It was simply that, although the old bishops may have played a preponderant role in the protracted struggle with the state in order to obtain recognition, the victory itself was the work of younger figures, partisans of a new and opposing ecclesiastical-political orientation, who had little interest in strengthening the hierarchical authority of their antagonists by a formal legalization. Consequently, what on the basis of the "points of 1632" had been touted as a "restitution" of the Orthodox hierarchy, was in reality an annulment of the existing hierarchy, established years earlier by Patriarch Theophanes. New bishops were now hastily and uncanonically chosen by the Orthodox delegates to the Diet rather than by local diocesan conventions and immediately confirmed by the King. It was in this way that Peter Mogila, aristocrat and Polonophile, was elected metropolitan of Kiev.

Mogila did not expect a peaceful reception in Kiev in his new capacity, even though he had many sympathizers there. Kiev already had a metropolitan, Isaia Kopinskii, consecrated in 1620 in Peremyshl by Theophanes and then translated to Kiev in 1631 at the death of Iov Boretskii. What is more, Kopinskii had already clashed with Mogila over the establishment of a Latin collegium in Kiev as well as in connection with the Smotritskii affair. This is why Mogila's consecration took place not in the city of his new see as was the rule and custom, but in Lvov, at the hands of Ieremia Tisarovskii, the local bishop, ¹⁶³ two bishops of Theophanes' consecration, and an emigre Greek bishop. These clashes also explain why he sought patriarchal confirmation from Cyril Lucaris, who was once again on the ecumenical throne. Mogila received this and more. He was also bestowed with the title "Exarch of the Throne of the Holy Apostolic See of Constantinople." Fortified now with a consecration of double authority, and in the dual role of lawful metropolitan and patriarchal exarch, Mogila returned to Kiev. Even so, he was not able to avoid a grievous struggle with his "demoted" predecessor and finally had to resort to the secular authorities to secure Kopinskii's forcible removal. ¹⁶⁴ Nor did this once and for all solve the conflict. The clash between Mogila and Kopinskii was not simply a competition for position or power. It was a collision of deep-rooted convictions about the fundamental problem of ecclesiastical orientation, in both its political and cultural dimensions.

Isaia Kopinskii was a man of simple and strong faith, somewhat on the order of Ivan Vishenskii. ¹⁶⁵ Immersed as he was in the traditions of eastern theology and ascetics, he viewed "external wisdom" with skepticism and even antagonism.

The reasoning of this world is one thing, the reasoning of the spirit another. All the saints studied the spiritual reasoning coming from the Holy Spirit, and like the sun, they have illuminated the world. But now one acquires his power of reasoning not from the Holy Spirit, but from Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and other pagan philosophers. And therefore, people are utterly blinded by falsehood and seduced from right understanding. The saints learned of Christ's commandments and of his works in the spirit. But these people learn mere words and speech, and therefore all their wisdom is on their tongues and darkness and gloom abide in their souls.

Kopinskii said this of the Latins, but it could have been even more easily directed at Mogila and the Orthodox of the new orientation. Kopinskii's Spiritual Alphabet, subtitled Ladder for the Spiritual Life in God [Alfavit dukhovnyi. Lestnitsa dukhovnago po Boze zhitel 'stva] offers a significant and symptomatic contrast to Mogila's Orthodox Confession [Pravoslavnoe Ispovedanie].¹⁶⁶ Their antithesis of outlook and spirit is the main source for the struggle for power between the two men. Of course there was also a difference of political orientation: Isaia Kopinskii looked to the Orthodox state of Muscovy, while Peter Mogila sought help from the Catholic Kingdom of Poland. In their clash the Polish state had no reason to support Kopinskii and every reason to patronize Mogila. Faced with vigorous protests from Rome, the Polish Roman Catholic hierarchy, and the Uniates, King Wladyslaw IV was obliged if only for raisons d'etat to hold to his commitment made in the Pacta conventa of 1632, although he did find it necessary to make certain concessions to the Uniates at the expense of the new rights of the Orthodox. Wladyslaw hoped, it seems, that over the course of time the western orientation of his new Orthodox leaders might mitigate Orthodox-Uniate tension and even promote the cause of Catholic unity in the realm. It should be noted that within a few years a plan of a "universal union" [universal naia unia] did come forth, and at the center of negotiations there stood Orthodox of the new orientation, most notably Peter Mogila as well as Prince Afanasii Puzina who in the elections of 1632 had been chosen bishop of Lutsk. ¹⁶⁷ Once ensconced as metropolitan, Mogila set out with new zeal to implement his ecclesiastical and cultural designs. His best results came in the field of education, especially (since he was most gifted as an organizer) in consolidating and extending the school system he began when abbot of the Monastery of the Caves. Of great importance also was his publication work, in particular his compilation of the Orthodox Confession and resumption of the printing of liturgical materials. Most critical for the future were Mogila's efforts to revise and reform the liturgies. First there was the Lithos [Rock], published in 1644 under the pseudonym of Evsevii Pimen. It was intended as a defense of the Eastern rite and Orthodox liturgy against the attacks of Kassian Sakovich, who had gone over to Latinism, ¹⁶⁸ but much if not most of the large body of liturgical material in the Lithos came from Latin sources. In 1646 there appeared the famous Evkhologion or Trebnik [Prayer Book].¹⁶⁹ This consisted of a comprehensive collection of rites, offices, and occasional prayers, accompanied by "prefaces" and "explanatory rubrics," which were accompanied by explanatory articles usually taken "z lacinskiey agendy," that is, from the Roman Ritual of Pope Paul V. ¹⁷⁰ Many of the rites in the Trebnik had been reshaped, usually by replacing traditional prayers with prayers translated from the Latin. There has been no comprehensive study of Mogila's Trebnik, but those portions which have been analyzed betray an unmistakable dependency on the Latin sources, and from time to time a deliberate deviation from the Greek pattern (e.g., in the forms for the dedication and consecration of churches, in the blessing of bells, in the rite of "viaticum," ¹⁷¹ in the ordo commendationis ad animae . . .). ¹⁷² No doubt some of the changes were inconsequential. What cannot be dismissed, however, is the close attention given to Latin rites and regulations and the open disregard of the Greek tradition. Moreover, a number of the rites and offices printed in the Trebnik were totally innovative for Orthodox liturgies. Finally, some of the changes introduced by Mogila bore theological implications of importance, as for example, the shift from the declarative to the imperative form of absolution in the sacrament of Penance. Indeed, as a whole the theology of the sacraments articulated in Mogila's liturgical "prefaces" was decidedly western. What resulted from the Trebnik, then, was a radical and thorough "Latinization" of the Eastern rite. This did not escape the notice of contemporaries, especially the Uniates, but also the Orthodox of Moscow, who regarded books of "Lithuanian print," including the Kiev editions of Mogila, with suspicion and apprehension. Ironically, because of the liturgical work of Mogila and his co-laborers, the Orthodox in Poland experienced a "Latinization of rites" earlier than did the Uniates. In fairness it should be noted that Mogila was not the first of the Orthodox in Kiev to borrow from Latin liturgical sources. Iov Boretskii took steps in this direction, as for example, in the Lenten rite of "Passias." ¹⁷³ Nor was Mogila the originator of that process of cultural absorption of Latin liturgical ideas and motifs. Others preceded him. Still in this trend toward the "Latinization" of the liturgy Mogila stands well to the fore because he promoted it on a larger scale and more systematically than anyone else.

To interpret the reign of Peter Mogila with precision is difficult. It has been argued that Mogila sought to create an "occidental Orthodoxy," and thereby to disentangle Orthodoxy from its "obsolete" oriental setting. The notion is plausible. But however Mogila's motives are interpreted, his legacy is an ambiguous one. On the one hand, he was a great man who accomplished a great deal. And in his own way he was even devout. Under his guidance and rule the Orthodox Church in West Russia emerged from that state of disorientation and disorganization wherein it had languished ever since the catastrophe at Brest. On the other hand, the Church he led out of this ordeal was not the same. Change ran deep. There was a new and alien spirit, the Latin spirit in everything. Thus, Mogila's legacy also includes a drastic "Romanization" of the Orthodox Church. He brought Orthodoxy to what might be called a Latin "pseudomorphosis." True, he found the Church in ruins and had to rebuild, but he built a foreign edifice on the ruins. He founded a Roman Catholic school in the Church, and for generations the Orthodox clergy was raised in a Roman Catholic spirit and taught theology in Latin. He "Romanized" the liturgies and thereby "Latinized" the mentality and psychology, the very soul of the Orthodox people. Mogila's "internal toxin," so to speak, was far more dangerous than the Unia. The Unia could be resisted, and had been resisted, especially when there were efforts to enforce it. But Mogila's "crypto-Romanism" entered silently and imperceptibly, with almost no resistance. It has of course often been said that Mogila's "accretions" were only external, involving form not substance. This ignores the truth that form shapes substance, and if an unsuitable form does not distort substance, it prevents its natural growth. This is the meaning of "pseudomorphosis." Assuming a Roman garb was an alien act for orthodoxy. And the paradoxical character of the whole situation was only increased when, along with the steady "Latinization" of the inner life of the Church, its canonical autonomy was steadfastly maintained.

While striving to keep the Orthodox Church in Poland independent, Mogila and his confreres of the new orientation kept to their plans for a "universal union." As early as 1636, a joint conference was sought between Uniates and Orthodox to consider a proposal for an autonomous West Russian patriarchate. Rome was even assured that the scheme would attract many Orthodox, including perhaps the metropolitan. But for some reason the conference never materialized. Yet another project was advanced in 1643, this time in a special memorandum submitted by Peter Mogila. It is known to us only in the paraphrase of Ingoli, secretary to the Office of Propaganda. ¹⁷⁴ Mogila's memorandum apparently consisted of a lengthy discussion of the divergences between the two churches, the conditions he believed necessary for reunion, and an outline of the means to achieve them. Mogila did not see any insurmountable differences of doctrine. Filioque and per filium varied only in the phrasing. What divergence there was on purgatory was even less consequential, since the Orthodox did in some form acknowledge it. In ritual, too, agreement on all points was readily possible. The only serious difficulty was papal supremacy. Even if this were to be accepted by the Orthodox, Mogila stipulated, the eastern churches must still be allowed the principle of autocephalous patriarchates. It appears Mogila was willing to limit the "reunion" to Poland: he did not mention Muscovy, or the Greeks bound in Turkish captivity. Nor did he seek a merger: l'unione e non l'unite. For even under the supremacy of the pope the Orthodox were to retain their constitution. The metropolitan was still to be elected by the bishops, and although it would be expected that he take an oath of allegiance to the pope, his election would not require papal confirmation. In the event that the ecumenical patriarchate should unite with Rome, its jurisdiction in Poland was to be restored. The last section of Mogila's memorandum set out the means by which the new plan of union should be examined and deliberated. First it should be submitted to local and provincial diets for their discussion. Next, a conference ought to be arranged between the Uniates and the Orthodox, without, however, any reference to a perspective union. The findings obtained at these preliminary meetings should then be submitted to the general Diet of the realm. However elaborate, as with the project of 1636, nothing came of Mogila's reunion memorandum of 1643. And a few years later he died (1647).

Peter Mogila's attitude to the problems of the Roman Catholic Church was clear and simple. He did not see any real difference between Orthodoxy and Rome. He was convinced of the importance of canonical independence, but perceived no threat from inner "Latinization." Indeed, he welcomed it and promoted it in some respect for the very sake of securing the Church's external independence. Since Mogila sought to accomplish this within an undivided "universe of culture," the paradox was only further heightened. Under such conditions, Orthodoxy lost its inner independence us well as its measuring rod of self-examination. Without thought or scrutiny, as if by habit, western criteria of evaluation were adopted. At the same time links with the traditions and methods of the East were broken. But was not the cost too high? Could the Orthodox in Poland truly afford to isolate themselves from Constantinople and Moscow? Was not the scope of vision impractically narrow? Did not the rupture with the eastern part result in the grafting on of an alien and, artificial tradition which would inevitably block the path of creative development? It would be unfair to place all blame for this on Mogila. The process of "Latinization" began long before he came on the scene. He was less the pioneer of a new path than an articulator of his time. Yet Peter Mogila contributed more than any other, as organizer, educator, liturgical reformer, and inspirer of the Orthodox Confession, to the entrenchment of "crypto-Romanism" in the life of the West Russian Church. From here it was transported to Moscow in the seventeenth century by Kievan scholars and in the eighteenth century by bishops of western origin and training.

The Orthodox Confession is the most significant and expressive document of the Mogila era. Its importance is not limited to the history of the West Russian Church, since it became a confession of faith for the Eastern Church (though only after a struggle, and its authoritative character is still open to question). Who the author or the editor of the Confession really was remains uncertain. It is usually attributed to Peter Mogila or Isaia Kozlovskii. ¹⁷⁵ More than likely it was a collective work, with Mogila and various members of his circle sharing in the composition. The exact purpose of the Confession also remains unclear. Originally conceived as a "catechism," and often called one, it seems to have been intended as a clarification of the Orthodox faith in relation to the Protestants. In fact, it is now widely assumed that Mogila's Confession was prepared as a rejoinder to the Confession of Cyril Lucaris, which appeared in 1633 and whose pro-Calvinist leanings stirred disquiet and confusion in the whole Orthodox world. In 1638 — after certain collusion and pressure from Kome — both Lucaris and his Confession were condemned by a synod in Constantinople. ¹⁷⁶ These events may explain why when Mogila's Confession came out the Greek Church was drawn to it and, after editing by Syrigos, ¹⁷⁷ conferred on it the Church's authority.

The first public appearance of the Orthodox Confession came in 1640, when Peter Mogila submitted it to a Church council in Kiev for discussion and endorsement. Its original title, Exposition of the Faith of the Orthodox Church in Little Russia, indicates the limited scope intended for the document. Primarily aimed at theologians and those who were concerned with theology, the Confession was composed in Latin. The council in Kiev criticized the draft at a number of points. Divergent views were voiced about the origin of the soul and its destiny after death, particularly in regard to purgatory and "an earthly paradise." ¹⁷⁸ Here Mogila had argued for creationism ¹⁷⁹ as well as for the existence of purgatory. The council in Kiev also engaged in an extended discussion as to when the actual metastasis of the elements occurs in the Eucharistic liturgy. Before it concluded, the council introduced certain amendments into the Confession. The document was again subjected to open discussion in 1642 at what has been referred to as a council, but what was in fact a conference in Iasi, convened, so it seems, on the initiative of Mogila's friend, the Moldavian prince, Basil, surnamed Lupul, the Wolf. ¹⁸⁰ In attendance were two representatives of the ecumenical patriarchate, both sent from Constantinople with the title of exarch, Meletios Syrigos, one of the most remarkable Greek theologians of the seventeenth century, and Porphyrius, metropolitan of Nicea, ¹⁸¹ as well as several Moldavian bishops, including Metropolitan Varlaam, ¹⁸² and three delegates from Kiev — Isaia Kozlovskii, Ignatii Oksenovich, ¹⁸³ and Ioasaf Kononovich. ¹⁸⁴ Meletios Syrigos took the leading role. Syrigos raised a number of objections to the Confession, and when translating it into Greek introduced various amendments. Most of his changes were actually stylistic. He chose, for example, to eliminate certain Scriptural quotations used in the draft. Mogila had followed the Latin Vulgate, which meant that some of his citations were either not in the Septuagint or were so differently phrased that to retain them would have made the Confession highly inappropriate for Orthodox believers.

Mogila was not satisfied with the Confession as amended by Syrigos. He decided not to print it, and in its place he published simultaneously in Kiev a Ukrainian Church Slavonic translation and a Polish version, the so-called Brief Catechism [Malyikatekhizis, 1645].¹⁸⁵ Only a few of the changes proposed by Syrigos for the Confession were adopted in the Brief Catechism. Moreover, it was intended for a different audience, "for the instruction of young people," ["dla cwiczenia Mlodzi"], which is why it was first composed in colloquial language. In 1649 Mogila's Brief Catechism was translated from the Ukrainian Church Slavonic into "Slavonic-Russian" and published in Moscow. In the meantime, the history of Syrigos' revised Greek version of the Orthodox Confession began a new chapter. In 1643 it was officially endorsed by the four eastern patriarchs. However, since the Greek Church showed little interest in publishing it, the first Greek edition appeared only in 1695. From this latter edition, a Slavonic-Russian translation was made and published in 1696 at the request of Metropolitan Varlaam Iasinskii of Kiev ¹⁸⁶ with the blessing of Patriarch Adrian. ¹⁸⁷ This was almost a half century after the Brief Catechism had been published in Moscow. ¹⁸⁸

Mogila's Confession, in complete contrast to Lucaris' Protestant oriented Confession, was patently compiled from Latin sources. As the plan of the book betrays, its arrangement was also on the Latin pattern. It was divided according to the so-called "three theological virtues," Faith, Hope, and Charity. Belief was elucidated through an interpretation of the Creed. Ethics were expounded by means of commentaries on the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, and the Decalogue. Of course the compilers had more than one Latin paradigm before them. The most obvious source was the Catechismus Romanus,¹⁸⁹ which first appeared in Greek translation in 1582. Others seem to have been the Opus Catechisticum, sive Summa doctrinae christianae of Peter Canisius, S.J., ¹⁹⁰ the Compendium doctrinae christianae (Dillingen, 1560) by the Dominican Petrus de Soto,¹⁹¹ and the Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos (Rome, 1581-93) of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621). ¹⁹² To cite further Latin sources is unnecessary. The main point is that taken as a whole the Orthodox Confession is little more than a compilation or adaptation of Latin material, presented in a Latin style. Indeed, Mogila's Confession can justly be categorized as one of the many anti-Protestant expositions, which appeared through out Europe during the Counter Reformation or Baroque era. Certainly the Confession was more closely linked to the Roman Catholic literature of its day than to either traditional or contemporary spiritual life in the Eastern Church.

It is true that in Mogila's Confession key Roman doctrines, including the primacy of the pope, are repudiated. Nevertheless, much of the substance and the whole of the style remain Roman, and not even Syrigos' editing at Iasi could alter that fact. After all, as was customary for Greeks in the seventeenth century, Syrigos had gone to a Latin school. He attended Padua, where he became an adherent of Bellarmine, or, as his contemporaries said of him, "omnino Bellarminum spirare videtur." This is not said to argue that the teaching of the Orthodox Confession was at certain points in error. It was not so much the doctrine, but the manner of presentation that was, so to speak, erroneous, particularly the choice of language and the tendency to employ any and all Roman weapons against the Protestants even when not consonant in full or in part with Orthodox presuppositions. And it is here that the chief danger of Mogila's Latin "pseudomorphosis" or "crypto-Romanism" surfaces. The impression is created that Orthodoxy is no more than a purified or refined version of Roman Catholicism. This view can be stated quite succinctly: "Let us omit or remove certain controversial issues, and the rest of the Roman theological system will be Orthodox." Admittedly, in some ways this is true. But the theological corpus that is thereby obtained lacks or sorely reduces the native genius and the ethos of the eastern theological tradition. Mogila's "crypto-Romanism," in spite of its general faithfulness to Orthodox forms, was for a long time to bar the way to any spontaneous and genuine theological development in the East.

It is instructive from this same point of view to compare the Orthodox Confession with the theological works of Silvestr Kossov, Mogila's follower and successor as metropolitan of Kiev. His Exegesis [Ekzegezis] published in 1635 sought to vindicate the new Latin schools which Mogila organized for the Orthodox. His Instruction, or Science of the Seven Sacraments [Didaskalia albo nauka o sedmi sakramentakh, 1637] was an attempt to answer the charges of Protestantism leveled against him by his Roman opponents. Kossov, it is important to note, chose to respond to these critics in the language of Latin theology. This is particularly evident in that portion of his book devoted to the sacraments, which closely follows the well-known treatise of Peter Arcudius. ¹⁹³ Latin terminology abounds in his work: "transubstantiation" the distinction between "form" and "matter," the "words of institution" as the "form" of the sacrament of the Eucharist, "contrition" as the "matter" of Penance, and others. Since liturgical practice organically follows liturgical theology, it became necessary for the Orthodox of the new orientation to make alterations in the rites. Peter Mogila's Trebnik permanently established a number of those changes, which had developed in practice as well. It also introduced certain new ones. For example, in the sacrament of Confession the formula for absolution was changed from the impersonal "your sins are forgiven you" [grekhi tvoi otpushchaiutsia] to the personal "and I, unworthy priest" [i az, nedostoinyiierei]. It is also at this time that the sacrament of anointing of the sick [euchelation] came to be interpreted as ultima unctio, and to be used as a form of viaticum, whereas previously the eastern tradition had always regarded it as a sacrament of healing. ¹⁹⁴ With the next generation in Kiev, Latin influences on religious thought and practice were to intensify and expand in a more systematic manner.

During the lifetime of Peter Mogila, the Kiev collegium was still not a theological school. The charter, granted on March 18, 1635, by King Wladyslaw IV, made it a condition that teaching in the collegia should be limited to philosophy ("ut humaniora non ultra Dialecticam et Logicam doceant"). Only towards the end of the seventeenth century, with the introduction of a special "theological class" into the curriculum, was theology taught as a separate discipline. Some problems of theology, however, were treated in courses in philosophy. At the Kiev collegium the general plan of education was adopted from the Jesuit school system. This included the curriculum down to the level of even textbooks. The texts began with Alvarius grammar ¹⁹⁵ and ended with Aristotle and Aquinas. Also similar to the Jesuit collegia and academies in Poland were the organization of school life, the teaching methods, and the discipline. The language of instruction was Latin, and of all other subjects offered Greek was given lowest priority. Thus in practically every respect the Kiev collegium represents a radical break with the traditions of earlier schools in West Russia. Though it does seem that the school furnished an adequate preparation for life in Poland, its students were hardly initiated into the heritage of the Orthodox East. Scholasticism was the focus of teaching. And it was not simply the ideas of individual scholastics that were expounded and assimilated, but the very spirit of scholasticism. Of course this was not the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. It was rather the neo-scholasticism or pseudo-scholasticism of the Council of Trent. ¹⁹⁶ It was the Baroque theology of the Counter-Reformation Age. This does not mean that the intellectual horizon of a seventeenth century scholar in Kiev was narrow. His erudition could be quite extensive. Students of that era read a great deal. But usually their reading was in a limited sphere. The Baroque Age was, after all, an intellectually arid era, a period of self-contained erudition an epoch of imitation. In the life of the mind it was not a creative.

The middle of the seventeenth century was a difficult and troubled time for the Ukraine. "The Kiev collegium," to quote Lazar Baranovich, ¹⁹⁷ Archbishop of Chernigov, "shrank in stature, and became like a small Zacchaeus." Not until the 1670's, under the rectorship of Varlaam Iasinskii (later metropolitan of Kiev) was the beleaguered and desolate school restored. During this troubled period it was not unusual, it was in fact almost customary, for students to go abroad to be trained. Varlaam himself had studied in Elbing and in Olomouc, and had done some work at the academy in Cracow. His colleagues in the Kiev collegium were educated either at the Jesuit Academy in Engelstadt or at the Greek College of St. Athanasius in Rome. Even after the collegium regained its strength, this custom did not entirely end. It is known that many of those who taught there at the end of the seventeenth arid the beginning of the eighteenth century had in their student days formally repudiated Orthodoxy and passed under "Roman obedience." No doubt this was facilitated, even necessitated, by the requirement then in effect that admission to the Jesuit schools be conditional upon conversion to Rome, or at least acceptance of the Unia. Stefan Iavorskii, bishop and patriarchal locum tenens under Peter the Great, is a prominent example: ¹⁹⁸ Hence the comment of a newly arrived Jesuit observer in Moscow generally about Russia and particularly about the Brotherhood Monastery in Kiev, where the collegium was located: "There are many Uniate monks, or monks who are close to the Unia, and even more who hold the highest opinion of us . . . In Kiev, there is an entire monastery made up of Uniates." ¹⁹⁹ His remark lends credence to a sharp attack on the Kiev scholars leveled by Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem: ²⁰⁰

In that land, called the land of the Cossacks, there are many who have been taught by the Latins in Rome and in Poland, who thereafter have become abbots and archimandrites, and who in their monasteries publicly read unseemly sophistries and wear Jesuit rosaries around their neck . . . Let it be decreed that upon the death of these archimandrites and priests, no one who goes to a Popish place for study shall be appointed archimandrite, abbot, or bishop.

In later years Dositheus became especially alarmed at Stefan Iavorskii, then locum tenens of the patriarchal see of Moscow. He charged him with Latinism and demanded the immediate withdrawal of all Iavorskii's claims to the Moscow patriarchate. Dositheus, it should be noted, was equally strident with like-minded Greek candidates, declaring that "no Greek, nor anyone brought up in Latin and Polish lands and trained in their schools should be chosen patriarch of Moscow." Because, he warned, "they are associated with the Latins and accept their various manners and dogmas."

What the "manners" and "dogmas" are to which Dositheus refers can be ascertained by examining the lectures and lesson plans as well as others of the writings of various instructors at the Kiev collegium spanning the last half of the seventeenth century. Key examples will suffice. Ioanniki Goliatovskii (d. 1688), rector from 1658 to 1662, was a preacher, polemist, and prolific writer. He acknowledged quite openly that he adapted Latin sources to his purposes. In 1659, for a new edition of Key to Understanding [Kliuch razumeniia], one of his many sermon collections, he appended A Brief Guide for the Composition of Sermons [Nauka korotkaia albo sposobzlozhenia kazania]. For later editions he enlarged it. Like most of Goliatovskii's work, the Brief Guide is characterized by a decadent classicism. There is in his choice and elucidation of texts and subjects — weighted as they are with what he called "themes and narrations" — a forced and pompous rhetorical symbolism. Here is how he rendered advice: "read books about beasts, birds, reptiles, fish, trees, herbs, stones, and the various waters which are to be found in the seas, rivers, and springs, observe their nature, properties, and distinctive features, notice all this and use it in the speech which you wish to make." Of course all public discourse in his day suffered from bizarre analogies and an overabundance of illustration. Even before the oratorical style of Kiev had reached this kind of extreme, Meletii Smotritskii ridiculed the habit Orthodox preachers had for imitating Latin-Polish homiletics. "One enters the pulpit with Ossorius, ²⁰¹ another with Fabricius, ²⁰² and a third with Skarga," ²⁰³ he said, referring to the fashionable Polish preachers of the day. He could also have named Tomasz Mlodzianowski, ²⁰⁴ a sixteenth century preacher of wide acclaim, who was the most imitated and grotesque of all. None of this was really genuine preaching. It was much more an exercise in rhetorics quite suited to the prevailing taste. Still, even while engaged in such verbal excesses, Goliatovskii and others like him staunchly opposed Jesuit polemists, and at length refuted their views on papal authority, the Filioque, and various other issues. But Goliatovskii's cast of mind, as well as his theological and semantic style of argument, remained thoroughly Roman.

The tenor of strained artificiality is even stronger in the writings of Lazar Baranovich, who was rector at the Kiev collegium from 1650 to 1658 and then archbishop of Chernigov. ²⁰⁵ A brave opponent of Jesuit propaganda, he did not hesitate to take on subjects of the greatest controversy, as is evident in his New Measure of the Old Faith [Nowa miara starey Wiary, 1676]. But once again the manner of expression and the mode of thought are typical of Polish Baroque. Baranovich even wrote in Polish, filling his works with fables, "an abundance of witticisms and puns," jests, "conceits and verbal gems." "In those days," of course, as has been noted, "it was considered appropriate to mix sacred traditions of the Church with mythological tales." Yet another Kievan scholar of this variety was Antonii Radivillovskii. ²⁰⁶ All of his homilies [prediki] and sermons [kazaniia] were modelled on Latin examples. And his book, The Garden of Mary, Mother of God [Ogorodok Marii Bogoroditsy, 1676] well illustrates the highly allegorical and rhetorical Latin style exercised on Marian themes common to that era.

Of a somewhat different mold than these Kievan scholars was Adam Zernikav of Chernigov. He deserves mention because of his special place in the ranks of religious leaders at that time in the south of Russia. Born in Konigsberg, and trained in Protestant schools, Zernikav came to Orthodoxy through scholarly study of the early Christian tradition. ²⁰⁷ After a long period in the West, primarily in study at Oxford and London, he turned up in Chernigov. There he made his mark as the author of the treatise, De processione Spiritus Sancti, which after its belated publication in Leipzig in 1774-1776 by Samuil Mislavskii, Metropolitan of Kiev, ²⁰⁸ gained him wide renown. It appears to have been Zernikav's only work, but it is the work of a lifetime. There is manifested in it an enormous erudition and a great gift for theological analysis. To this day Zernikav's work remains a skillful compilation of valuable materials, one of the most comprehensive studies on the subject ever made. It still deserves to be read.

The two most outstanding examples of Kievan learning in the late seventeeth century were Saint Dimitrii (Tuptalo, 1651-1709) and Stefan Iavorskii, though to be sure their religious importance is not confined to the history of Kievan theology. Each played a large part in the history of Great Russian theology. Nevertheless, both figures are quite representative of the later years of the Mogila epoch. Dimitrii, who became bishop of Rostov after his move to the north, is famous for his work in the field of hagiography. Here his main work was his book of saints' lives, The Reading Compendium (Chet i-Minei, 1689-1705). Based for the most part on western sources, the bulk of the work is taken from the renowned seven volume collection of Laurentius Surius,²⁰⁹ Vitae sanctorum Orientis et Occidentis, (1563-1586, itself actually a reworking into Latin of Symeon Metaphrastes' work on the lives of saints).²¹⁰ Dimitrii also utilized various of the volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, which had by his time appeared in the Bollandists' edition, ²¹¹ as well as Skarga's personal collection of hagiographies, Lives of the Saints (Zywoty swgtych, 1576) which, judging from the large number of translations that circulated in manuscript form, must have been popular among the Orthodox for a long time. Skarga's style and language, too, left a deep imprint on the work of St. Dimitrii. Greek and Old Church Slavonic materials, however, are hardly present at all, and there is scarcely a trace of the diction and idiom of the East. St. Dimitrii's sermons were also of a western character, especially those of the early years. The same is true of his morality plays, written in Rostov for school performances, and patterned as they were after the popular Jesuit dramas of the time. The catalogue of Dimitrii's private library which has been preserved tells a similar story: Aquinas, Cornelius a Lapide,²¹² Canisius, Martin Becan,²¹³ the sermons of Mlodzianowski, numerous books on history, the Acta Sanctorum, a number of the Fathers in western editions, and publications from Kiev and others of the cities in the south. On the whole it was a library appropriate to an erudite Latin. True, in his spiritual life, St. Dimitrii was not confined to the narrow mold of a Latin world, but as a thinker and writer he was never able to free himself from the mental habits and forms of theological pseudo-Classicism acquired when at school in Kiev. Nor did he wish to do so, insisting with obstinacy on their sacred character. And in the north, in Russia, where he settled, he never came to understand its distinctive religious ethos and the circumstances that shaped it. To cite but one example: Dimitrii understood the Old Believer movement as no more than the blindness of an ignorant populace. ²¹⁴

A somewhat younger man than St. Dimitrii was Stefan Iavorskii (1658-1722), who came to prominence in the north only during the reign of Peter the Great. Nevertheless he was a typical representative of the Kievan cultural pseudomorphosis," that "Romanized" Orthodoxy of the Mogila epoch. Iavorskii studied under the Jesuits in Lvov and Lublin, and afterwards in Poznan and Vilna. During these years he was doubtlessly under "Roman obedience." On his return to South Russia, he rejoined the Orthodox Church, took monastic vows in Kiev, and received an appointment to teach at the collegium, where he later became prefect and then rector. Iavorskii was a gifted preacher, delivering his sermons with passion and authority. In spite of his simple and direct intent to teach and persuade, his style was that same pseudo-Classicism, replete with rhetorical circumlocution. Still, Iavorskii was a man of religious conviction, and he always had something to say. His main theological work, Rock of Faith [Kamen' very] was a polemical treatise against Protestantism. ²¹⁵ Written in Latin, even though he had left Kiev, it was less an original work than an adaptation or even abridgement of a highly select body of Latin books. His main source was Bellarmine's Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos from which Iavorskii repeated entire sections or paragraphs, often word for word. Another basic source was Martin Becan's Opera (1649). Though a valuable refutation of Protestantism, Iavorskii's Rock of Faith was hardly an exposition of Orthodox theology, although unfortunately it has too often been understood as such. A second book of Iavorskii's, Signs of the Coming of the Antichrist [Znameniia prishestviia Antikhristova, 1703], was also more or less a literal rendering of a Latin work, in this case the treatise De Antichristo libro XI (Rome, 1604) by the Spanish Dominican Tomas Malvenda. ²¹⁶

With the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Mogilan epoch reached a climax, when the school and culture Mogila had established at Kiev came to its fruition. In theology and in other fields as well the period during the rule of the hetman Mazepa (1687-1709) represents the height of what may be termed the Ukrainian Baroque. 217 For a time the Kievan Academy (promoted to the rank of "Academy" in 1701) was even referred to semi-officially as the "Academia Mogiliano Mazepiana." But its climax was also the end. The flowering was also an epilogue. Probably the most representative figure of this final chapter in the Mogila era in Kievan intellectual history was Ioasaf Krokovskii (d. 1718), reformer, or even second founder, of the Kievan school. For a time he served as its rector and later he became metropolitan of Kiev. More than any other figure he seems to exhibit in religious activity and intellectual outlook all the ambiguities and contradictions of Kiev's cultural "pseudomorphosis: Educated at the Greek College of St. Athanasius in Rome, Krokovskii for the rest of his life was to retain the theological set of mind, religious convictions, and devotional habits he acquired there. At Kiev, he taught theology according to Aquinas and centered his devotional life — as was characteristic of the Baroque era — on the praise of the Blessed Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. It was under his rectorship that the student "congregations" of the Kiev Academy known as Marian Sodalities arose, in which members had to dedicate their lives "to the Virgin Mary, conceived without original sin" ("Virgini Mariae sine labe originali conceptae") and take an oath to preach and defend against heretics that "Mary was not only without actual sin, venal or mortal, but also free from original sin," although adding that "those who regard her as conceived in original sin are not to be classed as heretics." ²¹⁸ Krokovskii's acceptance of the Immaculate Conception and his propagation of the doctrine at Kiev was no more than the consolidation of a tradition that for some time in the seventeenth century had been forming among various representatives of Kievan theology, including St. Dimitrii of Rostov. And in this realm, too, it was but an imitation or borrowing from Roman thought and practice. The growing idea of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary was intellectually linked with an evolving trend in the interpretation of Original Sin, but, more profoundly, it was rooted in a specific psychology and attitude developing historically within the bosom of the western Baroque. The veneration of Panagia and Theotokos by the Orthodox is by no means the same. ²¹⁹ It is grounded in a spiritual soil of an altogether different kind.

Although the Ukrainian Baroque came to an end during the early eighteenth century, its traces have not fully vanished. Perhaps its most enduring legacy is a certain lack of sobriety, an excess of emotionalism or heady exaltation present in Ukrainian spirituality arid religious thought. It could be classified as a particular form of religious romanticism. Historically this found partial expression in numerous devout and edifying books, mostly half-borrowed, which at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries were coming out in Kiev, Chernigov, and other cities of South Russia. Interesting parallels to these literary documents can be found in the religious painting and ecclesiastical architecture of the time. ²²⁰

From the cultural and historical points of view, Kievan learning was not a mere passing episode but an event of unquestionable significance. This was the first outright encounter with the West. One might even have called it a free encounter had it not ended in captivity, or more precisely, surrender. But for this reason, there could be no creative use made of the encounter. A scholastic tradition was developed and a school begun, yet no spiritually creative movement resulted. Instead there emerged an imitative and provincial scholasticism, in its literal sense a theologica scholastica or "school theology." This signified a new stage in religious and cultural consciousness. But in the process theology was torn from its living roots. A malignant schism set in between life and thought. Certainly the horizon of the Kievan erudites was wide enough. Contact with Europe was lively, with word of current searchings and trends in the West easily reaching Kiev. Still, the aura of doom hovered over the entire movement, for it comprised a "pseudomorphism" of Russia's religious consciousness, a "pseudomorphosis" of Orthodox thought.

***

For Muscovy, the seventeenth century began with the Time of Troubles. ^l The election of a new dynasty did not put an end to them. An entire century passed in an atmosphere of extreme tension and disquiet and in dissent, differences, and disputes. It was an age of popular revolts and rebellions.

But the Time of Troubles was not only a political crisis and a social catastrophe, it was also a spiritual shock or moral rupture. During the Time of Troubles the national psyche was reborn. The nation emerged from the Time of Troubles altered, alarmed, and agitated; receptive to new ways, but very distrustful and suspicious. This was a distrust that arose from a spiritual lack of conviction or from a sense of failure which was far more dangerous than all the social and economic difficulties into which the government of the early Romanovs was plunged.

It is still very fashionable to depict the seventeenth century as a counterpoint to the era of Peter the Great: a "pre-reform" period, a static and stagnant age, a dark background for the great reforms. Such a characterization contains very little truth, for the seventeenth century was a century of reform. Of course many people still lived according to tradition and custom. Many even felt an intensified urge to rivet every aspect of life in chains or turn life into a solemn, consecrated, if not holy, ritual. However, memory of the catastrophe was still fresh. The past had to be restored and customs observed with great presence of mired and deliberation as precise, abstract legal prescriptions.

Muscovite style during the seventeenth century was least of all direct or simple. Everything was too premeditated, deliberated, and designed. People usually begin to consider and to be disturbed about the indestructibility of ancestral foundations and traditions only when the old customs [byt'] are being shattered. Thus, in the pathos of the seventeenth century can be detected a belated self-defense against the incipient collapse of custom and routine, a kind of failing "retreat into ritual" rather than any coherent wholeness or strength. There is more than enough direct evidence that this shattering of customary life was general.

The most tenacious conservatives and zealots of the old order spoke openly about "correction." Even they felt and admitted that it was no longer possible to survive on the inertia of tradition or habit. Resoluteness and determination were needed. By "correction" these zealots usually meant repentance, moral transformation, and concentration of will [sobrannost'], as in the cases of Neronov ² or Awakum. ³ Their instinct became dulled and an organic sense of life was lost. That is why ritual, model, example, some sort of mooring and external standard, became so necessary. During the process of growth a bandage is not needed. "Confessionalism of custom and routine" [bytovoe ispovednichestvo] is a sign of weakness and decline, not strength and faith.

The seventeenth century was a "critical," not an "organic" epoch in Russian history. It was a century of lost equilibrium; an age of unexpected events and the inconstant; a century of unprecedented and unheard of events; precisely an unaccustomed age (but not one of custom). It was a dramatic century, a century of harsh personalities and colorful characters. Even S.M. Solov'ev ⁴ describes it as "heroic" [bogatyrskim].

The apparent stagnation during the seventeenth century was not lethargy or anabiosis. It was a feverish sleep, replete with nightmares and visions. Not so much somnolence as panic. Everything had been torn down, everything had been shifted about. The soul itself was somehow displaced. The Russian soul became strange and wandering during the Time of Troubles.

It is completely incorrect to speak of the isolation of Muscovy during the seventeenth century. On the contrary, the century witnessed an encounter and clash with the West and with the East. The historical fabric of Russian life now became particularly confused and varied, and the investigator very often discovers in this fabric completely unexpected strands.

This frightened century ends with an apocalyptical convulsion, with the terrifying approach of apocalyptical fanaticism. Had not the Third Rome in turn suddenly become the Devil's tsardom? Such a suspicion and conclusion marked the outcome and the end of the tsardom of Muscovy. Rupture and spiritual suicide followed. "There will be no new apostasy, for this has been the final Rus'." The outcome of the seventeenth century was flight and a dead end. Yet there was still a more horrible exodus: "the pine coffin" — the smoking log cabin of those who chose self-immolation.

Correction of the religious books, that fateful theme for seventeenth century Muscovy, was actually much more difficult and complex than is normally thought. Book correction is linked with the beginning of printing in Muscovy. The discussion ranged over the "correct" edition of books, services, and texts, which had a venerable history and were known not only in a multiplicity of copies from different periods but in a multiplicity of translations. Muscovite editors immediately became drawn into all the contradictions of manuscript tradition. They made numerous and frequent mistakes or went astray, but not only because of their "ignorance." Their mistakes, missteps, and confusions often were caused by real difficulties, although they did not always know and understand exactly where the difficulties lay.

The concept of a "correct" edition is variously understood and ambiguous. The "ancient exemplar" is also an indeterminate quantity. The antiquity of a text and the age of a copy by no means always coincide, and frequently the original form of a text is discovered in, comparatively recent copies. Even the question of the relationship between a Slavonic and a Greek text is not that simple and cannot be reduced to a problem of an "original" and a "translation." Not every Greek text is older or "more original" than every Slavonic one. The most dangerous thing of all is to trust any single manuscript or edition, even though it may be an "ancient" one.

Moscow was not the only place where seventeenth century scholars were unable to reconstruct the history or genealogy of texts. Without a historical stemma (the tree of descent of a text), manuscripts very often seem to display insoluble and inexplicable discrepancies, so that reluctantly a theory of their "corruption" is posed. Compelling haste further complicated the work of these Moscow editors. The books were being "corrected" to meet practical needs and for immediate use. A "standard edition," a reliable and uniform text, had to be immediately produced. "Office" [chin] had to be precisely defined. The notion of "correctness" implied primarily the idea of uniformity.

The choice of copies for comparison is no easy task, and under such hurried conditions the editors had no time to prepare the manuscripts. Because of their ignorance of paleography and language, for all practical purposes Greek manuscripts were inaccessible. Necessity dictated the easiest course: reliance upon printed editions. But in doing so, a new series of difficulties presented itself. In the early years of the century, books of "Lithuanian imprint" were greatly distrusted in Moscow, as were those of the "White Russians" or Cherkassy's whom a council in 1620 ⁶ had decided to rebaptize on the ground that they had been baptized by sprinkling rather than immersion. True, it seems these "Lithuanian" books enjoyed the widest use. In 1628 it was ordered that they should be inventoried in all the churches, in order that they could be replaced by Muscovite editions. "Lithuanian" books owned privately were simply to be confiscated. In December, 1627, Kirill Trankvillion's Commentaries on the Gospel [Uchitel noe Evangelie] was ordered burned by the public hangman, "for the heretical words and composition revealed in the book." Lavrenti Zizani's Catechism, ⁸ which had just been printed by the Moscow Printing Office, was not released for circulation.

No less caution was exercised in relation to the "new translations" of Greek books (that is, those printed in the "Roman cities," Venice, Lutetia [Paris], and Rome itself), "for if anything new is added to them, we shall not accept them, even though they be printed in the Greek language." Even Greek emigrés, after all, usually warned against these "translations" as corrupt, "for the Papists and the Lutherans have a Greek printing press, and they are daily printing the theological works of the Holy Fathers, and in these books they insert their ferocious poison, their pagan heresy." But from practical necessity, the Moscow editors used these suspect Kievan or "Lithuanian" and Venetian books. For example, Epifanii Slavinetskii ⁹ openly worked with the late sixteenth century Frankfurt and London editions of the Bible. Not surprisingly such work evoked widespread anxiety in ecclesiastical circles, especially when it led to deviations from customary routine.

The first tragic episode in the history of the liturgical reform during the seventeenth century stands apart from later events. This was the case of Dionisii Zobninovskii, Archimandrite of the Holy Trinity Monastery, ¹⁰ and his collaborators, who were condemned in 1618 for "corrupting" books. Not all aspects of this case are clear. It is very difficult to grasp why the editors received such a lacerating and impassioned trial and condemnation. They had been correcting the Prayer Book [Potrebnik], using a method of comparing manuscripts which included Greek manuscripts, although the editors themselves did not know Greek. Only in a very few cases did they use the Greek text and then with the aid of a foreign intermediary. In the majority of cases the "corrections" were directed toward restoring the meaning of a text. The accusation brought against the editors hinged on a single correction. The uncorrected text of the prayer for the blessing of the water at baptism read as follows: "consecrate this water by Thy Holy Spirit and by fire." The editors deleted the final phrase and were accused of not recognizing that the Holy Spirit "is like fire" and wishing to remove fire from the world.

This matter cannot be fully explained by mere ignorance or personal calculations. After all, not only the half educated Loggin and Filaret, ¹¹ the strict legalists, but the entire clergy of Moscow as well as the locum tenens, the metropolitan of Krutitsk ¹² aligned themselves against the editors. The learned elder [starets] Antonii Podol'skii ¹³ wrote a comprehensive dissertation On the illuminating fire [O ogni prosvetitel'nom] against Dionisii in which one can discern distant echoes of Palamite theology. In any case, formal departure from the previous and familiar text was not the sole reason for anxiety. Only during the patriarchate of Filaret ¹⁴ did the resolute representations of Patriarch Theophanesls save Dionisii from final condemnation and imprisonment.

The first phase in the work of the Moscow Printing Office was carried on without any definite plan. Books were corrected and printed as need and demand required. Only later, with the accession of Aleksei Mikhailovich (1645), did this work acquire the character of a Church reform. An influential circle of "Zealots" or "Lovers of God" formed around the young tsar. Stefan Vonifat'ev, archpriest of the Annunciation Cathedral and the tsar's confessor ¹⁶ and the boyar Fedor Rtishchev ¹⁷ were the most prominent among them. The circle had worked out a coherent plan of important ecclesiastical modifications and even reforms. Their plan rested on two central pillars: proper order in the divine service and pastoral instruction. Both purposes required corrected books. Thus book emendation became an organic part of the system of ecclesiastical renaissance.

The Zealots of the capital discovered that the road to regeneration or renewal was a road to the Greeks. In their search for a standard by which to bring a disordered Russian Church into genuine unity, they adhered to the Greek example without, however, distinguishing between the "Greek" past and the seventeenth century present.

During the seventeenth century, Muscovite contact with the Orthodox East once again became vital and constant. Moscow teemed with "Greek" emigrés, sometimes men of high ecclesiastical office. These "Greeks" most commonly came to Moscow seeking gifts and alms. In return they were asked about church services and rules. Many of them were quite talkative, and from their stories it became clear that Greek and Russian rites were quite dissimilar. How this had come about remained unclear.

A tragic and passionate quarrel soon ensued. The Zealots were convinced that the Greek example should be followed. They had a genuine attraction or passion for everything Greek, as did the tsar, whose love combined with his inherent taste for decorous order, for inner and outer precision. ¹⁸ From the point of view of religious politics, since "Greek" meant "Orthodox," whatever was Greek automatically came under the dominion of the one Orthodox tsar, who, in a certain sense, became responsible for Greek Orthodoxy. Thus, turning to the Greeks was neither accidental nor sudden.

Kiev assisted in satisfying this interest in "Greeks." "Teachers," monastery elders, and learned Greeks were invited from Kiev "for the correction of Greek Bibles in the Slavonic speech." Epifanii Slavinetskii, ¹⁹ Arsenii Satanovskii (1649) ²⁰ and Damaskin Ptitskii (1650) ²¹ arrived in Moscow at that moment. Simultaneously, Moscow republished such Kievan books as Smotritskii's grammar ²² and even Peter Mogila's Brief Catechism [Malyi katekhizis, 1649]. The so-called fifty-first chapter taken from Mogila's Prayer Book [Trebnik] was included in the Book of the Rudder [Kormchaia kniga, 1649-50].²³ During those same years, the Book of Kirill [Kirillova kniga, 1644] ²⁴ was compiled, while the Kievan Book on the faith [Kniga o vere] ²⁵ was republished. Moscow apparently desired to repeat or acquire the Kievan experience in liturgical and book "reform" carried through by Mogila. Earlier, in 1640, Mogila himself had offered to set up a scholarly hospice in Moscow for the Kievan monks from the Bratsk Monastery where they could teach Greek and Slavonic grammar. In any case, the court circle of Zealots had direct connections with Mogila's Kiev. ²⁶ One must remember that all this was taking place during the years when the Ulozhenie ²⁷ was being prepared, at the very height of the effort toward comprehensive reform of the state.

Concurrently, direct relations with the Orthodox East were being developed. But difficulties appeared at once. Even before reaching his destination in the East and the Holy Land, where he had been sent to observe and describe the local Church customs and rituals, Arsenii Sukhanov ²⁸ got into a stormy quarrel with some Greeks in Iasi and came to the conclusion that the Greek "differences" in rites signified their apostasy from the faith. Meanwhile, the Greeks on Mount Athos burned Russian books.

Another Arsenii, known as "the Greek," ²⁹ who had been left in Moscow by Patriarch Paisios ³⁰ as a "teacher," turned out to have been a student at the College of St. Athanasius in Rome and at one time a Uniate, who then became or pretended to be a Moslem [basurmanin] because of the Turks. He was exiled to Solovki. Subsequently this uneasy connection between "Greek" and "Latin" frequently came to light.

Initiative in Church reform came from the tsar in the face of restrained but stubborn opposition from the patriarch. Soon the eastern patriarchs found themselves questioned as the highest authority of appeal. Thus, in 1651, singing in one voice [edinoglasie] in the liturgy was introduced in accordance with the response and testimony of the patriarch of Constantinople. This decision not only reversed Russian tradition but also overturned a recent decision made by a Church council held in Moscow in 1649, when the proposal was first advanced. The introduction of singing in one voice was not merely a disciplinary measure or a question of liturgical propriety. It was a reform of music or chant, a transition from multi-part singing [razdelnorechnoe] to joint singing [narechnoe], which demanded and presupposed a very difficult reworking of all musical notation as well as a new relationship between text and music.

Nikon, who became patriarch in 1652, did not initiate or conceive this effort at aligning ritual and custom with Greek practices. The "reform" had been devised and decided upon at court. Nikon was brought in on a going concern; he was introduced and initiated into previously prepared plans. However, he invested all the ardor of his stormy and impetuous personality into the execution of these reformation plans, so that his name has become forever linked with this attempt to Hellenize the Russian Church in every aspect of its customs and organization. This "Nikonian" reform combined two motifs: rectification of ecclesiastical error and conformity with the Greeks. And the "reform" took such a turn that the second theme became the major one. It appeared that precisely such a strict and uniform order of service might most quickly arrest any nascent "wavering" of peace. Authoritative decree and strict statute seemed the best guarantee in the struggle against diversity and discord.

In sum, a profound and complex cultural and historical perspective stands revealed behind these literary and liturgical reforms.

Even during Nikon's lifetime (1605-1681) contemporaries spoke and wrote a good deal about him. Rarely has anyone written disinterestedly and dispassionately or without any ulterior motive and preconceived aim. Nikon is the subject of arguments, reassessments, justifications, or condemnations. His name (no longer a name but a sign or symbol) remains a pretext for dispute and acrimony. Nikon belongs to that strange class of people who possess no personality but only a temperament. In place of a personality they offer only an idea or program. The secret of Nikon's personality lies entirely in his temperament: hence his horizons remained forever narrow. Not only did he lack a sense of history, but he often failed to exercise ordinary tact and circumspection. He had a will to history, a great presence of mind or "commanding vision" which explains how he could become a great historical figure, despite the fact that he was not a great man. Nikon was powerful, but he did not crave power, and his abrupt and stubborn nature prevented him from being a courtier. The possibility for action attracted him; power had no such allure. Nikon was a man of action, not a creative individual. Of course "reform of ritual" did not provide the vital theme in Nikon's life. Such reform had been suggested to him and had been placed on the agenda before his appointment. However persistently he may have carried through this reform, he never became consumed or absorbed by it. To begin with, he did not understand Greek. He never mastered it and scarcely even studied it. His admiration for everything "Greek" was dilettantish. Nikon had an almost pathological urge to remake and refashion everything in the Greek image similar to Peter the Great's passion for dressing everyone and everything up in the German or Dutch style. The two men were also united by the uncanny ease, with which they could break with the past, by their surprising freedom from Russian customs and by their purposefulness and determination. Nikon listened to the Greek hierarchs and monks with the same precipitate credulity which Peter exhibited before his "European" advisers.

Yet Nikon's "Grecophilism" did not signify any broadening of his ecumenical horizons. No few new impressions were present but certainly no new ideas. Imitation of contemporary Greeks could hardly lead to a recovery of lost tradition. Nikon's Grecophilism did not mark a return to patristic tradition or even serve to revive Byzantinism. He was attracted to the "Greek" service by its great dignity, solemnity, sumptuousness, splendor, and visual magnificence, His reform of ritual took its departure from this "solemn" point of view.

At the very start of his activity as a reformer (1655), Nikon submitted to Patriarch Paisios of Constantinople a long list of perplexing points concerning ritual. He received a comprehensive reply written by Meletios Syrigos. ³¹ Syrigos frankly and clearly expressed the view that only central and essential matters of faith required uniformity and unity, while diversity and differences in the "ecclesiastical ceremonies" [chinoposledovanii] and in the formal aspects of the liturgy were perfectly tolerable, and indeed historically inevitable, After all, ceremony and liturgical regulation only gradually became intertwined. They had not been created at a single stroke. And a great deal in the Church ceremony depended upon the "pleasure of the superior."

One should not conclude that our Orthodox faith is being perverted if some possess a Church ceremony which differs slightly in inessentials but not in the articles of faith, if on the central and essential matter conformity with the Catholic Church is preserved.

Not all "Greeks" thought in those terms. Moreover, Moscow did not heed this Greek advice. Such strictures by the patriarch of Constantinople fell most heavily on another eastern patriarch, Makarios of Antioch, ³² who with considerable enthusiasm and notable self satisfaction had indicated all the "differences" to Nikon and had inspired him to undertake hasty "corrections" Apparently it was Makarios who revealed that making the sign of the cross with two fingers-was an "Armenian" heresy. And it was this "Nestorian" sign of the cross which visiting hierarchs had anathematized in Moscow on Orthodox Sunday, 1656. ³³

Nikon "corrected" the rites according to a printed contemporary Greek Euchologion, ³⁴ in order to achieve conformity with Greek practice. Such actions did not signify a return to "antiquity" or to "tradition," although it was supposed that whatever was "Greek" was more ancient and more traditional. Nikon adhered to the same system when correcting books. A newly printed Greek book usually served as the basis for a new Slavonic text. True, variants and parallelisms in the manuscripts were then compared with it, but only a printed text could assure genuine uniformity. Nevertheless, discernable discrepancies appeared in various editions of the same book, for new manuscript material was being employed throughout the work.

Six editions of Nikon's service books have been forcibly distributed throughout the Russian realm; and all these service books disagree among themselves and no one book agrees with any other.

Quite legitimately opponents of Nikon's reform insisted that the new books were fashioned from "the Greek books newly printed among the Germans" (i.e., in the West), from defective and discarded books: "and we will not accept this innovation." Moreover, it was also true that some rites were "transformed" or taken "from Polish service books," such as the "Polish prayer books of Peter Mogila and other Latin translations." The manuscripts brought by Sukhanov from the East were not, and could not be, extensively utilized or given the necessary attention. However, it was the abrupt and indiscriminate rejection of all Old Russian ceremony and ritual which gave Nikon's reforms their sharp quality. Not only were those rites replaced by the new ones, but they were declared false and heretical, almost ungodly. Such actions disturbed and wounded the national conscience. In fury and defiance, and moreover in a language not his own, Nikon hurled out a censure of the "old ritual." After Nikon was deposed, Russian authorities spoke reservedly and cautiously about the "old rite." This was true even at the Council of 1666. ³⁵ For Nikon the reform was precisely a ritual or ceremonial reform, and he insisted upon it primarily for the sake of propriety or in the name of obedience. But by then a new motif had been introduced by the "Greeks." Greeks suggested and contrived the resolutions and the "curses" at the Great Council of 1667. ³⁶ Fourteen of the thirty bishops attending the Council were foreigners. The "easterners" at the Council portrayed themselves and behaved as "ecumenical judges" invited and acknowledged as arbiters of every aspect of Russian life. They were the ones who affirmed the notion that Russia's "old ritual" was a "senseless subtlety" and even heresy. "Kievans" such as Simeon of Polotsk ³⁷ joined the "Greeks" in this scornful judgment.

The book concerning the differences in rites compiled for the Council by Dionysios, a Greek archimandrite from Mount Athos, ³⁸ is particularly significant and characteristic. Dionysios had lived for many years in Moscow, where he worked on the book corrections at the Moscow Printing Office. He flatly asserted that Russian books became contaminated and perverted the moment Russian metropolitans ceased to be appointed by Constantinople.

And from this began the infatuation with the sign of the cross, the addition to the creed, the alleluias, and the rest. Overgrown with tares and other wild weeds, this land has remained unploughed and has been overshadowed by darkness.

Moreover, Dionysios insisted that all such Russian additions and differences possessed a heretical tinge: "These disagreements and infatuations derive from certain heretics, who had parted ways with the Greeks and, because of their sophistry, did not consult with them about anything." The "Great Council" decided matters in a style similar to that of Dionysios, often using his own words. At this council, Old Russian ritual was declared suspect, condemned utterly, and forbidden under terrible penalties. The contemporary ritual of the eastern churches was indicated as the model and standard.

The anathemas of the Stoglav Council were rescinded and dissolved, "and that Council was no council, its curses were not curses, and we consider it as nothing, as if it had never existed, for Metropolitan Makarii and those with him recklessly feigned wisdom in their ignorance." ³⁹ Thus, Russian Church tradition was judged and condemned as ignorance and feigned wisdom or as sophistry and heresy. Under the pretext of establishing the fullness of the universal Church, Old Russia was replaced by modern Greece. This outlook did not represent the opinion of the Greek Church, only the views of some itinerant "Greek" hierarchs. It served as the final act for Nikon's reforms.

Yet this same council, called for that very purpose, deposed and ejected Nikon. Among other accusations, Nikon was charged with violating and corrupting ancient customs and introducing "new books and rituals" (according to the testimony of Paisios Ligarides). ⁴⁰ Nikon replied by upbraiding his Greek accusers for introducing new laws from "rejected and unexamined books" (he had in mind the new editions of Greek books). Thus, once again books were the question.

Nikon's trial entangled personal passions with malice and deceit and cunning with agitated ideas and troubled conscience. "Priesthood" [sviashchenstvo] stood trial: such was the theme of Nikon's life.

According to Iurii Samarin, ⁴¹ "the scepter of papism lay concealed behind Nikon's enormous shadow." Yet this is hardly true, for the reverse is more nearly the case. The Nikon affair marks the advance of "Empire." Nikon was right, when in his "Refutation" [Razorenie] ⁴² he accused Tsar Aleksei and his government of attacking the freedom and independence of the Church. Such encroachment could be detected in the Code [Ulozhenie] which Nikon considered diabolical and the false law of the Antichrist. The emphatic "Erastianism" ⁴³ in leading governmental circles forced Nikon into battle, and that fact largely explains his abrasiveness and "love of power."

As with his other ideas, Nikon found his conception of the priesthood in patristic teaching, especially in that of Chrysostom. Apparently he wished to repeat Chrysostom in life. Perhaps he did not always express this idea successfully or cautiously and on occasion used "western definitions," but he did not exceed the limits of patristic opinion by asserting that the "priesthood" is higher than the "tsardom." On this point he was opposed not only by the Greeks, those "Asiatic emigrants and sycophants from Athos," who defended tsardom against priesthood. He was attacked as well by the Old Ritualists [Staroobriadtsy], the partisans of Russian tradition, for whom the "Kingdom of God" was achieved within the tsardom rather than within the Church. Therein lies the theme of the Schism: not "old ritual" but the "Kingdom."

Kostomarov ⁴⁴ once rightly noted that the "Schism hunted for tradition and attempted to adhere as closely as possible to it; yet the Schism was a new phenomenon, not the old life." Therein lies the Schism's fatal paradox: it did not embody the past, but rather a dream about Old Russia. The Schism represents mourning for an unrealized and unrealizable dream. The "Old Believer" [Starover] is a very new spiritual type.

Division and split wholly constitute the Schism. Born in disillusionment, it lived and was nourished by this feeling of loss and deprivation, not by any feeling of power and possession. Possessing nothing, losing everything, the Schism, more with nostalgia and torment than with routine and custom, could only wait and thirst, flee and escape. The Schism was excessively dreamy, suspicious, and restive. There is something romantic about the Schism, hence its attraction for many Russian Neo-Romantics and Decadents.

The Schism, consumed by memories and premonitions, possessed a past and a future but no present. For their "blue flower" [goluboitsvetok] ⁴⁵ the Old Believers possessed the semi-legendary Invisible City of Kitezh ⁴⁶ The Schism's strength did not spring from the soil but from the will; not from stagnation but from ecstasy. The Schism marks the first paroxysm of Russia's rootlessness, rupture of conciliarity, [sobornost'], and exodus from history.

The keynote and secret of Russia's Schism was not "ritual" but the Antichrist, and thus it may be termed a socio-apocalyptical utopia. The entire meaning and pathos of the first schismatic opposition lies in its underlying apocalyptical intuition ("the time draws near"), rather than in any "blind" attachment to specific rites or petty details of custom. The entire first generation of raskolouchitelei ["schismatic teachers"] lived in this atmosphere of visions, signs, and premonitions, of miracles, prophecies, and illusions. These men were filled with ecstasy or possessed, rather than pedants: "We saw that it was as if winter was of a mind to come; our hearts froze, our limbs shivered" (Avvakum) One has only to read the words of Avvakum, breathless with excitement: "What Christ is this? He is not near; only hosts of demons." Not only Avvakum felt that the "Nikon" Church had become a den of thieves. Such a mood became universal in the Schism: "the censer is useless, the offering abominable."

The Schism, an outburst of a socio-political hostility and opposition, was a social movement, but one derived from religious self-consciousness. It is precisely this apocalyptical perception of what has taken place, which explains the decisive or rapid estrangement among the Schismatics. "Fanaticism in panic" is Kliuchevskii's definition, but it was also panic in the face of "the last apostasy."

How was such a mood created and developed? What inspired and justified the hopeless eschatological diagnosis that "the present Church is not a church; the Holy Sacraments are not sacraments; Baptism is not baptism; the Scriptures are a seduction teaching is false; and everything is foul and impious?" Rozanov ⁴⁷ once wrote that "the Typicon of salvation provides the mystery of the Schism, its central nerve, and tortured thirst." Might it not be better to say: "Salvation is the Typicon?" Not merely in the sense that the Typicon as a book is necessary and needed for salvation, but because salvation is a Typicon, that is, a sacred rhythm and order, rite or ritual, a ritual of life, the visible beauty and well-being of custom. This religious design supplies the basic assumption and source for the Old Believer's disenchantment.

The Schism dreamed of an actual, earthly City: a theocratic utopia and chiliasm. It was hoped that the dream had already been fulfilled and that the "Kingdom of God" had been realized as the Muscovite State. There may be four patriarchs in the East, but the one and only Orthodox tsar is in Moscow ⁴⁹ But now even this expectation had been deceived and shattered. Nikon's "apostasy" did not disturb the Old Believers nearly as much as did the tsar's apostasy, which in their opinion imparted a final apocalyptical hopelessness to the entire conflict.

At this time there is no tsar. One Orthodox tsar had remained on earth, and whilst he was unaware, the western heretics, like dark clouds, extinguished this Christian sun. Does this not, beloved, clearly prove that the Antichrist's deceit is showing its mask? ⁵⁰

History was at an end. More precisely, sacred history had come to an end; it had ceased to be sacred and had become without Grace. Henceforth the world would seem empty, abandoned, forsaken by God, and it would remain so. One would be forced to withdraw from history into the wilderness. Evil had triumphed in history. Truth had retreated into the bright heavens, while the Holy Kingdom had become the tsardom of the Antichrist.

A public debate about the Antichrist had been present from the outset of the Schism. Some immediately detected the coming Antichrist in Nikon or in the tsar. Others were more cautious. "They do his work even now but the last devil has not yet to come" (Avvakum) At the end of the century the teaching of a "mental" or spiritual Antichrist became established. The Antichrist had come, but he exercised his rule invisibly. No visible coming would occur in the future. The Antichrist is a symbolic, but not a "real" person. The Scripture must be interpreted as a mystery. "When the hidden mysteries are spoken, the mystery is to be understood with the mind and not with the senses." A new account is now present. The Antichrist stands revealed within the Church. "With impiety he has entered into the chalice and is now being proclaimed God and the Lamb." ⁵¹

Yet the diagnosis, the "approach of the last apostasy," did not change. Disruption of the priesthood in Nikon's Church, cessation of its sacraments, diminution of Grace served as the first conclusion from such a diagnosis. However, the disruption of the priesthood by Nikon's followers meant an end to the priesthood generally, even among the adherents of the Schism. No source could "revive" this diminished Grace. A "fugitive priesthood" [begstvuiushchee sviashchentsvo] did not resolve the problem, while ritual purification taken by "fugitive priests" implied that a genuine and unexhausted priesthood existed among the followers of Nikon. Disagreements and debate about the priesthood developed very early in the Schism. Comparatively quickly the "priestly" [popovtsy] and the "priestless" [bezpopovtsy] diverged and divided. ⁵²

The priestless segment was magistral. Compromises and concessions were not that significant, and only the priestless carried their ideas to a logical conclusion. The priesthood ended with the coming of the Antichrist. Grace withdrew from the world, and the earthly Church entered upon a new form of existence: priestlessness and absence of sacraments. Priesthood was not denied, but eschatological diagnosis acknowledged the mysterious fact or catastrophe that the priesthood had withered away. Not everyone accepted this conclusion. Varying estimates were made about the degree of the coming lack of Grace. After all, if necessary, even laymen could baptize (and "rebaptize" or "correct"), but could baptism be complete without the chrism? In any case, the Eucharist was impossible: "according to theological calculation, at the fulfillment of 666 years, the sacrifice and sacrament will be taken away." Confession was scarcely possible. Since no one could give absolution, it was more prudent to settle for mutual forgiveness. Marriage generated particularly violent quarrels. Could marriage still be permitted as a "sacrament?" Was a pure marriage or a pure bed possible without priestly blessing? Moreover, should one marry during these terrible days of the Antichrist, when it was more fitting to be with the wise virgins? The "anti-marriage" decision possessed a certain boldness and consistency. A more general question arose about how the liturgy could be conducted without priests. Was it permissible in case of necessity for unordained laymen and monks to perform or consummate certain sacraments? How should one proceed? Should ancient services and rituals be preserved untouched and unaltered? Could the liturgy be performed by unordained laymen by virtue of some "spiritual" priesthood? Or would it be safer to submit and be reconciled to the fact that Grace was gone?

The so-called "negativist" movement [netovshchina], that maximalism of apocalyptical rejection, provided the most extreme conclusion: Grace had been completely and utterly withdrawn. Therefore, not only could the sacraments not be performed, but the divine liturgy as a whole could not be conducted in accordance with the service manuals. Oral prayer, or even breathing, was inappropriate, for everything, including running water, had been profaned. Salvation now would come not by Grace or even by faith, but through hope and lamentation. Tears were substituted for communion.

The Schism created a new antinomy. Once Grace had been withdrawn, everything depended on man, on works or continence. Eschatological fright and apocalyptical fear suddenly became transformed into a form of humanism, self-reliance, or practical Pelagianism. ⁵³ Ritual took on particular importance during this exceptional moment of withdrawal. Only custom and ritual remained when Grace departed and the sacraments lost their potency. Everything became dependent upon works, for only works were possible. The unexpected participation of the Old Believers in worldly affairs, their zeal for custom (as an experiment in salvation through the relics of traditional life) derives from this necessary dependence on works. The Schism made its peace with the vanishing of Grace only to clutch at ritual with still greater frenzy and stubbornness. Grace had been extinguished and diminished, but the Schism tried to replace it with human zeal. By doing so, the Schism betrayed itself, prizing ritual more highly than sacrament and overestimating its value. Enduring life without Grace was easier than enduring a new ritual. The Schism attached a certain independent primary value to the "office" and "regulation." Even when in flight from the Antichrist, the dissenters strove to organize an ideal society, although doubts were raised in some quarters about the possibility of doing so during the days of the last apostasy. The Schism withdrew to the wilderness, making an exodus from history and settling beyond its frontiers. "For God dwells only in the wilderness and the hermitages; there He has turned His face."

The Schism always organized itself as a monastery, as "communities" and "hermitages," and strove to be a final monastery or refuge amidst a corrupt and perishing world. The Vyg experiment — the Thebaid and "pious Utopia of the Schism" — is especially characteristic. The Vyg community was built by the second generation of Old Believers on the principle of the strictest communism (so that no one had a penny to his name) and in a mood of eschatological concentration: "care nothing about earthly things, for the Lord is near the gates." This community probably represents the high point in the history of the Schism.

For in this Vyg wilderness preachers orated, wise Platos shone forth, glorious Demostheneses appeared, pleasant men as sweet as Socrates were to be found, and men braveas Achilles were discovered. ⁵⁴

The Vyg community was not merely a significant commercial and industrial center (Peter the Great highly valued the work of the Vyg settlers at the mines in Povenets and Olonets). The Vyg "panwilderness assembly" was actually a great cultural center, particularly during the lifetime of Andrei Denisov, who is described as "clever and sweet in word," and certainly the most sophisticated and cultured of all the writers and theologians during the early years of the Schism. Denisov ⁵⁵ was consumed by the Apocalypse. ⁵⁶ Yet he did not thereby lose his clarity of thought, and one can detect in him a great intellectual temperament. Denisov was not merely well read; he must be recognized as a theologian. His Pomorskie otvety ["Replies of the Shore Dwellers"] is a theological work and an intelligent one. Vyg possessed a well assembled and magnificent library where Old Believers studied the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the "literary sciences." Andrei Denisov himself "abridged the philosophy and theory of Ramon Lull" (a very popular book judging by the number of copies which have been preserved). ⁵⁷ It is particularly interesting that the Denisov brothers, Andrei and Semen, set about assiduously reworking the Great Reading Compendium or Menologos [Velikie chet'i minei] ⁵⁸ as a counterweight to the agiographic labors of Dimitrii of Rostov, who borrowed heavily from western books. ⁵⁹ The Vyg scholars also worked on liturgical books. Vyg housed ateliers for painting icons and contained other workshops.

One is least justified in speaking of the "well-fed ignorance" among the Vyg Old Believers. Their community was a center in the wilderness. Still, Vyg was only a refuge, where its members for a time might be concealed from impending wrath and live in impatient expectation of the last moment. All their business skill and "religio-democratic pathos" derived from this sense of having abandoned the world. In the absence of Grace, the priestless Old Believer knew that he depended only on himself and had to be self-reliant. The Vyg Old Believers took a quiet departure from history.

The "newly discovered path of suicidal deaths" served as another, more violent escape. Preaching in favor of suicide combined several motifs: ascetic mortification (for example, the flagellants, [zaposhchevantsy]), the "fear of the Antichrist's temptation," the idea of baptism by fire ("everyone is begging for a second, unprofaned baptism by fire," relates the Tiumen' priest Dometian, 1679). ⁶⁰ Such innovative preaching produced horror and disgust among many Old Believers. The elder Evfrosin's "Epistle of Refutation" [Otrazitelnoe pisanie, 1691] ⁶¹ is particularly important in this regard. Nevertheless, Avvakum praised the first suicides by fire when he said "blessed is this desire for the Lord." His authority was constantly cited. "The notion of suicidal death was first expounded by the disciples of Kapiton. Such men conceived this evil practice prior to the immolations among the Viazniki and Ponizov'e" (Evfrosin) Kapiton was a crude fanatic who kept rigorous fasts and wore chains. In 1665 an investigation was ordered into his "knavery" and "fanaticism." However, his disciples and "fellow fasters," known as the "Godless hermits" [Bogomerzkie pustynniki], continued their fanatical practices. Preaching in favor of fasting unto death began in the conditions arising from such ascetic flagellation and fanaticism.

Yet other arguments were soon advanced. Vasilii the Hirsute (Volosatyi), acclaimed "legislator of suicides," "did not preach confession or repentance, but entrusted all things to fire: cleanse yourselves from all sin by fire and fasting, thereby being baptized with a true baptism." He did not preach this message in isolation. A certain priest called Aleksandrishche insisted that "in this age Christ is unmerciful; He will not accept those who come without repentance." One foreigner by the name of Vavila ⁶² belonged to the early "Kapitons." The Russian Vinyard [ilinograd rossiiski] describes him as a man "of a foreign race, of the Lutheran faith accomplished in all the arts, who had studied many years in the celebrated Academy of Paris, knew many languages well and how to speak most beautifully." ⁶³ Vavila arrived in Russia in the 1630's converted to Orthodoxy, "proving to be of perfect diamond hard endurance." It was not so important that in their enthusiasm some "Godless hermits" determined to commit suicide. More important is the fact that many different strata of the Old Believer movement quickly seized upon their fanatical ideas. This "death bearing disease" rapidly became something approaching a dreadful mystical epidemic, a symptom of apocalyptical terror and hopelessness. "Death, death alone can save us." The Vyg community had been founded by the disciples of the self-immolators and dwellers along the shores of the White Sea.

The feeling of alienation and self-imprisonment entirely constituted the Schism, which sought exclusion from history and life. The Schism cut its ties, wishing to escape, not in order to return to tradition or to a fuller existence, but as an apocalyptical rupture and seduction. The Schism was a grievous spiritual disease. It was possessed. The horizon of the Old Believers was narrow: the Schism became a Russian Donatism. ⁶⁴ In that regard, it is appropriate to recall the words of St. Augustine, "The field is the world and not Africa. The harvest is the end of the world-not the time of Donatus." ⁶⁵

Following the Time of Troubles, foreign participation in Russian life became more and more perceptible. "After the years of the Troubles [foreigners] ranged so widely throughout Muscovy that every Russian became familiar with them" (Platonov) ⁶⁶ Such contacts were no longer confined to skilled artisans and soldiers, or to merchants and traders. Foreigners are encountered where one least expects to find them. Under B.M. Khitrovo's administration of the Armory, "German" (i.e. western European) artists painted western style portraiture and icons as well. By the mid-seventeenth century, the influence of western engravings on Russian iconography had become so strong that Nikon was compelled to confiscate these profane "Frankish" icons. Their owners gave them up with obvious reluctance, so quickly had they become accustomed and attached to them. At one with Nikon on this point, Avvakum was disturbed by icons, which were "incompatible with Church tradition." But the artists were unwilling to give up their beloved "Franks." ⁶⁷ By the end of the century, churches, notably in Iaroslavl' and Vologda, were being entirely decorated with "foreign art," usually in imitation of such Dutch engravings as those found in the illuminated columns of Johann Piscator's famous Theatrum Biblicum,⁶⁸ a battered copy of which could be found in a damp corner of the bell tower of some local church with some frequency.

Church singing supplies a further example of profound western influence. "Polish" choir singing "in harmony with the organ" existed in the St. Andrew Monastery under Fedor Rtishchev's ⁶⁹ direction and in the New Jerusalem (Voskresenskii) Monastery supervised by Nikon. ⁷⁰ For his choir, Nikon acquired the compositions of Marcin Mielczewski, the famous director of the Rorantist chapel in Cracow. ⁷¹ As Avvakum reports, "They observe Latin rules and regulations, they wave their hands, shaking their heads and stamping their feet to the accompaniment of the organ as is the custom among the Latins."

During the reign of Tsar Fedor, the Polish "foreigner" N.P. Diletskii, who was invited to organize Church singing, quite openly introduced the theory and practice "of Roman Church composers." ⁷² Diletskii exercised considerable influence in Moscow where he created a complete "western" school of music. ⁷³ These are not random or disconnected facts, but a group of interrelated phenomena. The fact that during the seventeenth century various western features and details figured in Muscovite usage is not as important as the fact that the actual style or "ritual" of life was changing. Psychological habits and needs gave way to a new politesse. Western influences, derived largely from Kiev, grew steadily stronger. "The West Russian monk educated in a Latin school or in one modelled on it in Russia served as the first disseminator of western learning to be invited to Moscow" (Kliuchevskii).

However, the first generation of "Kievan elders" called to the north were still not westerners. Epifanii Slavinetskii, the most prominent among them, combined scholarship and love for education with a true monastic humility and piety. He was more at home in a monk's cell or study than in society. Less a thinker than a bibliophile, philologist, and translator, he was — according to his disciple Evfimii — "not only a judicious man and very learned in rhetoric and grammar, but he was also a renowned investigator of philosophy and theology as well as a formidable opponent in matters of the Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and Polish languages." Slavinetskii had been summoned to Moscow as a translator rather than "for the teaching of rhetoric." He translated a good deal, including parts of the Bible (particularly the New Testament), liturgical manuals, the Fathers, and even some secular works such as a book on medical anatomy written in Latin and based on the writings of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels. ⁷⁴ Epifanii had a superb command of Greek, although it is not known where he studied it, and he typifies the erudite humanist of the time. He usually worked from western printed editions and not from manuscripts. Apparently in his youth he became enraptured with "Latin wisdom," but by deepening his Greek studies he resisted being seduced. Later he bluntly condemned "Latin syllogisms." ⁷⁵ In any case, Epifanii trained his most prominent pupil, Evfimii, a monk of the Chudov Monastery, in a pure, almost fanatical Hellenism. Both student and teacher became literary captives of the Greeks, and they translated, as Fedor Polikarpov put it, in an "unusual Slavonic style which sounded more like Greek." ⁷⁶

The later Kievan and "Lithuanian" emigrants had a very different spirit and style. Simeon of Polotsk (Sitianovich, 1629-1680) was the most typical and influential among them. A rather common, if well read and bookish West Russian, Simeon was clever, resourceful, and quarrelsome in everyday matters. He knew how to rise high and securely in the confused Muscovite society at the time of his arrival in 1663. More precisely, he rose at court, where he served as a poet, versifier, and as an educated man capable of performing any task. At first he worked as a teacher for servitors in government departments. Inescapably, he relied on Alvarius' grammar. ⁷⁷ Later he became the tutor for the tsareviches, Aleksei and Fedor, composed speeches for the tsar, and wrote solemn official declarations. He was entrusted with the "arrangement" of the agenda for the councils of 1666 and 1667 and instructed to translate Paisios Ligarides' polemical tracts. His own treatise against the Old Believers, The Scepter of Government [Zhezl pravleniia] proved of little worth, ladened as it was by scholastic and rhetorical arguments which could scarcely be convincing to those for whom the book was written. Simeon of Polotsk was pompous and arrogant, rhetorical and verbose, as his two volumes of sermons The Spiritual Feast [Obed dushevnyi] and The Spiritual Supper [Vecheria dushevnaia] testify. Both volumes were published in 1682-1683, shortly after his death.

Simeon of Polotsk's notebooks illustrate how he reworked Latin books of such authors as Johann Meffret of Meissen, a fifteenth century preacher, whose book on the Church, Hortulus reginae, Tsar Aleksei had given to Arsenii Satanovskii for translation in 1652; Johannes Faber, Bishop of Vienna (1531), known as Malleus Haereticorum from his book against Luther; ⁷⁸ the fifteenth century Spanish theologian Juan Cartagena, who had written on the sacraments of the Christian faith; ⁷⁹ as well as Bellarmine, Gerson, Caesar Baronius, Peter Besse, Alfonso Salmeron, and Juan Perez de Pineda. ⁸⁰

In preparing his own textbooks, Simeon relied on Latin works. Thus his book on Gospel history The Life and Teaching of Christ Our Lord and God [Zhitie i uchenie Khrista Gospoda i Boga nashego] which abridged the work of Gerald Mercator and was supplemented by additions from the writings of Henry More, the celebrated Cambridge Platonist. ⁸¹ In his own way, Simeon of Polotsk was pious and upright, but the prayers he composed appeared bombastic. He developed only a knowledge of Latin and obviously knew no Greek ("he knew less than nothing"). "Unable to read Greek books, he read only Latin ones and believed only Latin innovations in thought to be correct" (Osten) ⁸² His work was always guided by Latin and Polish books, that is, "by the thoughts of men like Scotus, Aquinas, and Anselm." Simeon's opponents rightly made these accusations. He was more at ease with the Latin Bible than the Slavonic one.

A "Belorussian" by birth, apparently he studied in Kiev where he became a student of Lazar Baranovich, with whom Simeon remained close for the rest of his life. ⁸³ Baranovich gave Simeon a letter of introduction to Paisios Ligarides, when Simeon went north to Moscow. During Nikon's trial, Simeon became particularly intimate with Paisios, serving as his interpreter. Of course, he translated from Latin.

Paisios Ligarides (1609-1678) is a very instructive example of the perplexing state of affairs prevailing in seventeenth century Muscovy. A graduate of the College of St. Athanasius, where he brilliantly distinguished himself, he was ordained in Rome by the West Russian Uniate Metropolitan, Rafail Korsak. ⁸⁴ In his estimation and report, Leo Allatius, a dignitary of St. Athanasius, ⁸⁵ declared that Paisios was "a man prepared to lay down his life and give up his soul for the Catholic faith." Paisios returned to the Levant as a missionary. The Propaganda Fide also later sent him to Wallachia. There, however, he made a close acquaintance with Patriarch Paisios of Jerusalem and accompanied him to Palestine. Soon afterward he became Orthodox metropolitan of Gaza. All this time Ligarides played a dual role. Greed served as his guiding passion. He tried to convince the Propaganda Fide of his fidelity and asked that his suspended missionary stipend be restored. No one believed him. The Orthodox also distrusted Ligarides, seeing in him a dangerous papist. He soon fell under a ban and was still under it when he arrived in Moscow. When asked about Ligarides during Nikon's trial in Moscow, Patriarch Dionysios of Constantinople replied that "Ligarides' scepter is not from the throne of Constantinople, and I do not consider him Orthodox, for I hear from many that he is a papist and a deceiver." ⁸⁷ Nevertheless, he played a decisive role at the Great Council of 1667. The boyar party used him to secure their ecclesiastical and social position and their program (known as the "questions of Streshnev"). ⁸⁸ Nikon was not entirely wrong when in reply he dubbed the tsar a "Latinizer" and the boyars and hierarchs "worshippers of Latin dogmas." In any case, the obvious Latins, Simeon and Paisios, spoke for them.

The new western orientation took shape at court. Tsar Aleksei's son and successor had been wholly educated "in the Polish manner." A revolution or turning point had become obvious. Disagreements were apparent since the turn of the century. As Ivan Timofeev noted very early, "Some look East, others West." ⁸⁹ Many tried to look both ways. As western influence grew, anxiety about it increased as well. By the end of the century, a public quarrel had broken out.

Characteristically, the pretext for the debate came as a result of a disagreement on the question of the moment the Holy Sacraments became transformed during the liturgy. Seemingly, the topic of debate was a limited one, but in reality, despite all the political and personal passions or outright stupidity displayed in the matter, the clash involved basic axioms and principles amounting to a conflict between two religious and cultural tendencies. This side of the debate — the principal side — is by far the more interesting one. The individual arguments put forward by the warring factions are of interest only in so far as they enable one to detect the quarrel's mainsprings.

During the seventeenth century, the western view concerning the transformation of the sacraments during the liturgy, that is, the Words of Institution, became generally accepted and customary in the Russian south and west. ⁹⁰ Such a view, "derived from newly made Kievan books," spread northward. Simeon of Polotsk, along with his disciple Sil'vestr Medvedev, ⁹¹ insistently gave it currency. By 1673 Simeon and Epifanii Slavinetskii had a dispute, or rather a "discourse " [razglagol'stvie] in the presence of the patriarch and other authorities at the Krestyi (Holy Cross) Monastery. Outright quarreling broke out later, after the death of Simeon of Polotsk. The monk Evfimii and the newly arrived Greeks, the "brothers Likhud," entered the lists against Medvedev. ⁹² Patriarch Ioakim also took their side. ⁹³ The "bread worshipping heresy" [khlebopoklonnaia eres'] served less as a cause than as the excuse for these arguments and conflicts. The actual quarrel centered on the question of Latin or Greek influence.

The Likhud brothers were also men of western education, having studied in Venice and Padua. Quite likely they were connected with the Propaganda Fide in one way or another, but in Moscow they distinguished themselves as opponents of Rome and as principled and informed purveyors of a Greek cultural orientation. ⁹⁴ Even Evfimii often employed western and Kievan books. For example, his Vumilenie, designed to be used by the priest as a service manual, was composed on the model of Mogila's Prayer Book [Trebnik] and according to the appropriate articles in the Vilna service manual which had also been heavily influenced by Roman Catholicism. However, for all that, he remained an outright Hellenist.

Simeon of Polotsk and Medvedev not only embraced individual "Latin" opinions, but there was also something Latin in their spiritual demeanor and make up. Together they constituted a "Belorussian" element in the schools. The Kievan monks openly supported the Roman cause. ⁹⁵ Both factions frequently exchanged polemical pamphlets of a serious and substantial sort, despite all their abusive tone and crude methods. The Latin party was conquered and condemned at a Church council held in 1690. The following year, 1691, Medvedev became implicated in the revolt of the streltsy. ⁹⁶ He was unfrocked and executed. An impartial observer might deem Patriarch Ioakim's harshness somewhat excessive and unfounded. Was it really necessary to fan the flames of this "Sicilian fire" in the "Bread worshipping" controversy? In the first place, the Romanizing side took the initiative, or more precisely, went on the attack, apparently in connection with plans for opening a school or "academy" in Moscow. In the second place, as contemporaries explicitly stated, genuine Roman Catholics played a concealed but a very real part in the conflict.

Juraj Krizanic (1618-1683) ⁹⁷ did not come to Moscow as an isolated figure. During the 1680's an influential Catholic cell took shape. Although the Jesuits living in Moscow were expelled in 1690 over the "Bread worshipping" controversy, a few years later they renewed and extended their work with undoubted success. As a contemporary wrote, "The Romans use every means to buy their way into the Russian tsardom, and through learning introduce their heresy." Two foreign Catholics occupied very prominent and influential positions in Moscow at the time: the diplomat Pavel Menesius, sent abroad as an envoy to the pope, ⁹⁸ and the noted general Patrick Gordon. ⁹⁹ By the century's end, the Jesuits had even opened a school in Moscow for the children of prominent aristocratic families. However, given the nature of the Petrine wars and reforms, such a school had little chance to grow. In any case, this configuration of historical circumstances fully accounts for and explains the "xenophobia" displayed by the last patriarchs, Ioakim and Adrian. ¹⁰⁰

By now Moscow was aware that the Russian and Kievan emigrants during their study abroad in local Jesuit schools had become Uniates. Of course, such an act could usually be justifled subsequently on the grounds that they did so with insincerity, "not with the heart, but solely with the lips." However, justifiable doubts lingered about precisely when these emigrants were actually feigning sincerity. Did they accept the Union or reject it? As a contemporary put it, "a Jesuit residue still clung even on those who did not fall away." The deacon Petr Artem'ev converted to Catholicism while accompanying Ioannikii Likhud on a brief trip through Italy. ¹⁰¹ Palladii Rogovskii's fate serves as a characteristic illustration of this problem. At one point, when he was already a monk and a deacon, he fled Moscow, for he had apparently been united with the Roman Church by the local Jesuit mission. Abroad he studied with the Jesuits in Vilna, Neisse, Olomouc and finally at the College of St. Athanasius in Rome, where he was ordained a priest monk or hieromonk. He departed from Rome as a missionary, taking with him a magnificent theological library furnished by the Propaganda Fide and the Duke of Florence. Upon his arrival in Venice, he asked the Greek metropolitan to restore him to Orthodoxy. After returning to Moscow, he addressed a penitential letter to the patriarch. Meanwhile, the Jesuit mission in Moscow continued to regard him as one of their own and sympathized with his delicate position. Ultimately, Palladii regained the confidence of the higher ecclesiastical circles, and after the removal of the Likhud brothers, he was appointed rector of the Academy. ¹⁰² Palladii died shortly afterward and did not succeed in exercising any influence on the Academy. His sermons, which have been preserved, provide a picture of his true outlook: he remained fully within the sphere of Roman Catholic doctrine. Palladii merely came first in a long line of such men. During the reign of Peter the Great, this semi-concealed Roman Catholicism inspired the extension of the school network throughout Russia.

Conflicts with Protestants in Moscow had occurred earlier. Most important were the drawn out disputes between Russian plenipotentiaries and Protestant pastors when discussing the proposed marriage of Tsar Mikhail's daughter with the Danish Crown Prince Woldemar in 1644.¹⁰³ The debate touched with sufficient decisiveness and comprehensiveness on a variety of questions. During the second half of the seventeenth century, a quantity of literary anti-Protestant tracts were in circulation. These works, often derivative or translations, testify to the vital character of the polemic. Some among the emigrants from abroad could with reason and justice be suspected of Calvinist or Lutheran persuasion. Jan Belobodskii, who came from the western borderlands with the aim of acquiring a position in the newly conceived and newly planned academy, may be taken as an illustration. The Latinophile party among Simeon of Polotsk's circle gave him a cool reception and exposed him. The Likhud brothers did the same later.

By the end of the century, the "German suburb" [Nemetskaia sloboda] ¹⁰⁴ was no longer so isolated and sealed off. The fantastic affair of Quirinius Kuhlmann, who had first been condemned and denounced by his own followers, provides a further opportunity to peer deeper beneath the surface into the life of this colony or suburb, which contained a variety of religions. Kuhlmann, one of those mystic adventurers, dreamers, or prophets who frequently made their appearance during the Thirty Years War, often journeyed throughout Europe, maintaining close ties with mystical and theosophical circles. He wrote a great deal, and among the authorities on mysticism he revered Jacob Boehme. ¹⁰⁵ Kuhlmann's Boehme Resurrected [Neubegeisterter Bohme] appeared in 1674. The intiuence of Jan Comenius' Luxe Tenebris on Kuhlmann should also be noted. ¹⁰⁶ He arrived in Moscow rather unexpectedly and began preaching about the thousand year reign of the righteous [monarchia Jesuelitica]. Although he discovered only a small nucleus of followers, he generated great excitement. Along with his adherents, Kuhlmann was accused of freethinking, and in 1689 he and his collaborator Condratius Nordermann were burned to death in Moscow.

There is no need to exaggerate Muscovite "ignorance" during the seventeenth century. What was lacking was not knowledge, but proper cultural and spiritual perspectives. After mid-century, the issue of schools was posed and resolved. But in the process a debate arose: should these schools have a Slavono-Greek orientation or a Latin one? The question quickly became complicated and intensified through the antagonism displayed by itinerant Greeks and emigrants from Kiev.

Generally speaking, the Kievan emigrants proved superior to these Greek vagrants who frequently sought only adventures and advantages. But the Kievans were willing and able to introduce a fully Latin school both in language and in spirit, whereas the Greeks, even those who were outspokenly Latinophiles, always underscored the decisive importance of Greek. "Having abandoned and neglected Greek-the language from which you acquired enlightenment in the Orthodox faith-you have lost wisdom," declared Paisios Ligarides. True, this was meant as an attack on Russian tradition rather than as an attack on Latin.

In 1680, at the request of Tsar Fedor, ¹⁰⁷ Simeon of Polotsk composed a "charter" [privilei] or draft statute founding the Moscow Slavono-Greek Academy, modelled on those in Kiev and on Latin schools in the West. The Academy was to be all-encompassing, providing "all the liberal sciences," from basic grammar "even unto theology, which teaches of divine matters and cleanses the conscience." In addition to "Helleno-Greek" and Slavonic "dialects," not only was Latin to be taught, but Polish as well. Moreover, the Academy was not to be merely a school but a center for directing education and possessing very wide powers in guiding cultural activity in general. It was proposed that the Academy be empowered and charged with the duty to examine foreign scholars for their scholarly competence and for their faith. Of course, books were to be censored. A particularly stern clause in the charter concerned teachers of natural magic and books of divination which are so hateful to God. S.M. Solov'ev¹⁰⁸ on this occasion cleverly noted that "this was to be no mere school, but an awesome inquisitorial tribunal with the superintendents and the teachers pronouncing the words: "guilty of unorthodoxy," while lighting the criminal's pyre. . . ." The patriarch greeted Simeon's "charter" with severe criticism and had it reworked from a Hellenistic point of view. Only this reworked text is preserved; one must surmise the character of the original. However, the "charter" never received confirmation. Later, in 1687, the Academy opened rather humbly without a "charter" or statute as the Slavono-Greco-Latin school. The Likhud brothers opened the school and operated it during the first few years. Primarily they taught Greek, followed by rhetoric and philosophy in the usual scholastic manner. The Likhud brothers did not remain until theology could be taught. After their departure, the school became deserted, for there was no one who could replace them. Later, Palladii Rogovskii became the rector and Stefan Iavorskii ¹⁰⁹ received the appointment as superintendent.

Particular notice must be given to Metropolitan Iov's educational experiment in Novgorod, ¹¹⁰ where a battle broke out between the Latin "party" and the "eastern" faction (Archimandrite Gavriil Dometskoi and Hierodeacon Damaskin). ¹¹¹ T'he school in Novgorod had been founded on the Greco-Slavonic model, and the Likhud brothers were summoned there to teach. Latin was not taught at all, thereby emphasizing Novgorod's divergence from Moscow. With the appointment of Feofan Prokopovich ¹¹² as archbishop in Novgorod, these Novgorodian schools were eliminated. The close of the century brought a pseudomorphosis in Muscovite education. Moscow struggled with an incipient Latinophilism coming from Kiev. But nothing among its own defective and disheveled reserves could be used as a counterweight. For all their erudition, the Greeks invited to Russia offered little promise. Kiev emerged victorious.

Reform of the church was not an incidental episode in Peter's system of reforms. The opposite is the case. Church reform constituted the principal and the most consequential reform in the general economy of the epoch: a powerful and acute experiment in state-imposed secularization. As Golubinskii once noted, "[it was] so to speak a transfer from the West of the heresy of state and custom." The experiment succeeded. Herein lies the full meaning, novelty, incisiveness, and irreversibility of the Petrine reform. Of course, Peter had "predecessors," and the reform was in "preparation" prior to his reign. Such "preparation," however, is hardly commensurate with the actual reform. Moreover, Peter scarcely resembles those who came before him. The dissimilarity is not confined to temperament or to the fact that Peter "turned to the West." He was neither the first nor the only westerner in Muscovy at the end of the seventeenth century. Muscovite Russia stirred and turned toward the West much earlier. In Moscow Peter encountered an entire generation reared and educated in thoughts about the West, if not in Western thinking. He also found a firmly settled colony of Kievan and "Lithuanian" emigrants and scholars, and in this milieu he discovered an initial sympathy toward his cultural enterprises. What is innovative in this Petrine reform is not westernization but secularization.

In this sense, Peter's reform was not only a turning point, but a revolution. "He produced an actual metamorphosis or transformation in Russia," as one contemporary put it. Such is the way in which the reform was conceived, accepted, and experienced. Peter wanted a break. He had the psychology of a revolutionary and was inclined to exaggerate anything new. He wanted everything to be refurbished and altered until it passed beyond all recognition. He habitually thought (and taught others to think) about the present as a counterpoint to the past. He created and inculcated a revolutionary psychology. The great and genuine Russian schism began with Peter. The schism occurred between church and state, not between the government and the people (as the Slavophiles believed). A certain polarization took place in Russia's spiritual life. In the tension between the twin anchor points — secular life and ecclesiastical life — the Russian spirit stretched and strained to the utmost. Peter's reform signified a displacement or even a rupture in Russia's spiritual depths.

State authority underwent an alteration in its perception of itself and in its self-definition. The state affirmed its own self-satisfaction and confirmed its own sovereign self-sufficiency. And in the name of such primacy and sovereignty, the state not only demanded obedience from the church as well as its subordination, but also sought some way to absorb and include the church within itself; to introduce and incorporate the church within the structure and composition of the state system and routine. The state denied the independence of the church's rights and power, while the very thought of church autonomy was denounced and condemned as "popery." The state affirmed itself as the sole, unconditional, and all-encompassing source of every power and piece of legislation as well as of every deed or creative act. [...].

The acts of the ecumenical councils were also to be employed. Moreover, modern books by non-Orthodox authors could be used on the unswerving condition that Scripture and patristic tradition provide confirmational testimony in the exposition of even those dogmas where no direct disagreement between Orthodox and "non-Orthodox" exists. "However, their arguments are not to be believed lightly, but shall be examined to determine if there is such a phrase in the Scriptures or in the patristic books, and whether it has the same meaning as they assign." Of course Feofan understood "non-Orthodox" to mean "Romanists" and all of his warnings are directed against "Roman" theology. "And a misfortune it is that these gentlemen scholars [panove shkoliariki] cannot even hear papal tidbits without exalting them to be infallible."

Feofan himself profusely and sedulously used "modern" and "non-Orthodox" books, but these were Protestant books. His theological lectures most closely approximate those of Polanus von Polansdorf, the Reformation theologian from Basel.¹⁶ One frequently detects the use of Johann Gerhard's compendium Loci communes theologici (first edition Jena, 1610-1622). ¹⁷ In the section on the Holy Spirit, Feofan does little but repeat Adam Zernikav. ¹⁸ Bellarmine's Disputationes ¹⁹ was always ready at his fingertips and not simply to be refuted.

Feofan must be termed an epigon, but he was not a compiler. He fully commanded his material, reworking it and adapting it to his purpose. A well educated man, he moved freely in the contemporary theological literature, especially Protestant writings. He had personal contacts with German theologians. And. it must immediately be added that Feofan did not simply borrow from seventeenth century Protestant scholasticism, he belonged to it. His writings fit integrally into the history of German Reformation theology. If the title of Russian bishop had not appeared on Feofan's "treatises," it would have been most natural to imagine they were written by a professor of some Protestant theological faculty. These books are saturated with a western Reformation spirit. Such a spirit can be detected through out in his turn of mind and choice of words. Feofan stands forth not as a westerner, but as a western man, a foreigner. It is not an accident that he felt more at home with foreigners, foreign pastors, and learned German scholars at the Academy of Sciences. ²⁰ He viewed the Orthodox world as an outsider and imagined it to be a duplicate of Rome. He simply did not experience Orthodoxy, absorbed as he was in western disputes. In those debates he remained to the end allied with the Protestants.

Strictly speaking, Feofan's theological system contained no instruction on the church. The definition of the church which he provides is wholly insufficient.

God desired to unite His faithful, who were established in Christ, as a civil society or republic, which is called the Church — in quadam certum republicam seu civitatem compingere, quae dicitur ecclesia — so that they might better know themselves, give mutual assistance, rejoice, and with God's aid defend themselves against their enemies.

Feofan neither experienced nor noticed the mystical reality of the church. For him the church was merely a union for Christian mutual assistance and identity of outlook. Such an attitude makes comprehensible his entire ecclesiastical-political program and activity.

Feofan begins his system with a treatise on Scripture as the impeccable and wholly self-sufficient primary source of religious instruction. In doing so, he closely follows Gerhard's theological system, whose section on the Scriptures practically replaces the section on the church. Feofan ardently inveighs against Roman Catholic authors, while insisting on the completeness and self-sufficiency of Scripture. Scripture fully contains and utterly exhausts the entirety of all necessary truths and beliefs. In theology, and in faith itself, only Scripture is principium cognoscendi. Scripture alone, as the Word of God, possesses authority. Human thoughts and reflections can achieve no greater force than that of theses or "arguments" and certainly cannot become a standard of "authority." Scriptures are subject to exegesis and analysis. Rather than lower the level of reliability through auxiliary and human commentaries, the most promising method is to use Scripture to interpret itself. The ecumenical councils possess a subordinate right to provide interpretation. Even the consensus patrum is merely humanium testimonium as far as Feofan is concerned. Such testimony represents only an historical witness about the past, about the opinions of the church in a given epoch. Feofan reduces the theologian's function to juxtaposing and arranging texts. In this sense, following his western teachers Feofan speaks of theology's "formal" character and, meaning. For all of his distaste for Roman Catholic "scholasticism," Feofan, like the majority of Protestant theologians during the seventeenth century and earlier (beginning with Melanchthon), remained a scholastic. Despite his great familiarity with "modern" philosophy (he read Descartes, Bacon, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Wolff), Feofan was much closer to Francis Suarez, ²¹ who had so many Protestant successors. At no point did Feofan leave that entrancing sphere of western academic theological polemic which fossilized the whole tragic problematics of the Reformation debates.

Among Feofan's special "treatises," numbers seven and eight dealing with man innocent and fallen are particularly important and interesting. Feofan wrote another treatise in Russian on this same theme entitled The Dispute of Peter and Pau1 on the Unbearable Yoke. ²² Feofan's teaching about justification in this pamphlet served as the first opportunity for his opponents to speak about his "points contrary to the church," his corruption by "the poison of Calvinism" and his introduction of Reformation subtleties into the Russian world. Such reproaches and suspicions were fully justified. Feofan proceeded from the strictest anthropological permission which explains his tendency as a young man to completely discount any human activity in the process of salvation. Therefore, he limited the significance of theological reflection. Man had been broken and reviled by falling into sin; he had been imprisoned and entangled by sin. Will itself had been incarcerated and deprived of strength. Feofan understood "justification" as a juridical concept — justificatio forensis. Justification is the action of God's grace by which the repentant sinner who believes in Christ is freely accepted by Him and declared righteous. His sins are not attributed to him, but Christ's justice is applied ("gratis justum habet et declarat non imputatis ei peccatis ejus, imputata vero ipsi justitia Christi"). ²³ Feofan emphasizes that salvation "is effected" through faith and that human actions have no power to achieve salvation.

There is no need to engage in a detailed analysis of Feofan's system. A general sense for its inner spirit is more important. On that score there can be no debate or hesitation about the proper conclusion: "Feofan was actually a Protestant" (A.V. Kartashev).²⁴ His contemporaries often said so. Feofilakt Lopatinskii, ²⁵ and especially Markell Rodyshevskii, ²⁶ wrote about it. ²⁷ Both suffered cruelly for their boldness. A crafty and clever man, Feofan knew how to parry theological attacks. His pen imperceptibly transformed any expression of disagreement into a political denunciation, and he did not hesitate to transfer theological disputes to the court of the Secret Chancery. The most powerful weapon of self-defense — and the most reliable one — was the reminder that on any given question Peter approved and shared Feofan's opinion. Thus the Monarch's person came under attack, and Feofan's opponent found himself guilty of directly offending His Majesty: a matter subject to investigation and review by the Secret Chancery and not a matter for unimpeded theological discussion.

"Peter the Great, a monarch no less wise than he is powerful, did not recognize any heresy in my sermons." Such a reference to Peter was not simply an evasion, for in reality Peter agreed with Feofan on many points. The struggle with "superstition," begun by Peter himself, was openly proclaimed in the Regulation. Feofan always wrote with a special verve against "superstition." Characteristic in this regard is his tragicomedy Vladimir, Prince and Ruler of the Slavonic-Russian Lands, Brought by the Holy Spirit from the Darkness of Unbelief to the Light of the Gospels. ²⁸ The play is a malicious and spiteful satire on pagan "priests" [zhretsy], and their "superstitions." Transparent references to contemporary life abound. Feofan openly despised the clergy, especially the Great Russian clergy, among whom he always felt a stranger and a foreigner. He was a typical man of the "Enlightenment," who did not conceal his repugnance for ritual, miracles, asceticism, and even the hierarchy. He fought against all such "delusions" with the tenacity of an arrogant rationalist. At any rate, even if he was insincere in this struggle, at least he was forthright. "I despise with the utmost strength of my soul mitres, capes, scepters, candelabra, censers, and other such trifles." True, he made this remark in an intimate letter to a friend. Of course at that time there was a great deal of superstition in Russian life and customs. But Feofan and Peter wished to war upon it not only in the name of the faith, but in the name of common sense and the "general welfare."

Prior to Elizabeth's reign, ²⁹ government authority and even state law extended a certain special and preferential protection to Protestantism. Peter's government, not just from considerations of state uttility and toleration, was very often ready to identify the interests of the Protestants with its own interests, thereby producing the impression that Orthodoxy is a peculiar, moderate, ritualistic Protestantism and that Orthodoxy and Protestantism are equally reconciled ("Facillime le itime ue uniantur" as Feofan's friend, the St. Peterburg academician Kol' wrote in his characteristic book Ecclesia graeca lutheranisans, [Lubeck, 1723]).³⁰ Catherine II later maintained that there is "practically no difference" between Orthodoxy and Lutheranism: ole culte exterieure est tres different, mais l'Eglise s'y voit reduite par rapport a la brutalite du peuple & raquo; During Anna's ³¹ reign, that is, under Biron, ³² the state pursued a particularly harsh policy toward the church.

They attacked our Orthodox piety and faith, but in such a way and under such a pretext that they seemed to be rooting out some unneeded and harmful superstition in Christianity. O how many clergymen and an even greater number of learned monks were defrocked, tortured and exterminated under that pretense! Why? No answer is heard except: he is a superstitious person, a bigot, a hypocrite, a person unfit for anything. These things were done cunningly and purposefully, so as to extirpate the Orthodox priesthood and replace it with a newly conceived priestlessness [bezpopovshchina].

Such is the Elizabethan preacher Amvrosii Iushkevich's ³³ recollection of Anna's reign.

Peter became dissatisfied with Stefan Iavorskii for raising the issue of Tveritinov ³⁴ and for his critical and forthright statement on the points of difference between Orthodoxy and Lutheranism. Rock of Faith [Kamen' very] ³⁵ was not published during Peter's lifetime precisely because of its sharp polemical attacks upon Protestantism. The book was first published in 1728 under the supervision of Feofilakt Lopatinskii and with the permission of the Supreme Privy Council. This edition of the Rock of Faith received many blows in Germany. Buddeus' "apologetic" rebuttal appeared in Jena in 1729. ³⁶ Gossip ascribed this rejoinder to Feofan. Johann Mosheim ³⁷ criticized Rock of Faith in 1731. In Russia, Father Bernardo de Ribera, the household priest of the Spanish envoy Jacobo Francisco, Duke de Liria, came to Iavorskii's defense. The quarrel, becoming evermore entangled and complex, was finally resolved in the Secret Chancery. A decree of 19 August 1732 again suppressed Rock of Faith and removed it from circulation. The entire edition was seized and sealed up.

Our domestic enemies devised a stratagem to undermine the Orthodox faith; they consigned to oblivion religious books already prepared for publication; and they forbade others to be written under penalty of death. They seized not only the teachers, but also their lessons and books, fettered them, and locked them in prison. Things reached such a point that in this Orthodox state to open one's mouth about religion was dangerous: one could depend on immediate trouble and persecution. (Amvrosii Iushkevich) Iavorskii's book was restored to free circulation by imperial order only in 1741.

Rock of Faith was persecuted and suppressed precisely because it contained a polemical rejoinder to the Reformation. For this reason however, even those Orthodox who had no sympathy or enthusiasm for Iavorskii's Latinism greatly valued his work. Pososhkov was one such Orthodox. ³⁸

The book Rock of Faith composed by His Holiness the Metropolitan of Riazan' Stefan Iavorskii of blessed memory should be published in order to affirm the faith and preserve it from Lutherans, Calvinists, and other iconoclasts. Five or six copies of it should be sent to each school, so that those aspiring for the priesthood might commit this very valuable Rock to memory in order to reply automatically to any question.

Pososhkov was sincerely worried and confused by this "iconoclastic" danger, by "senseless Lutheran theorizing," and by the "idle wisdom" of Lutheranism. He enthusiastically supported Peter's reforms, but he did not believe that it was either necessary or possible to repudiate one's own ancestral religion for the sake of any such renovation or for the "general welfare," or replace it with something newly conceived and superficial. As vigorously as Feofan and Peter, Pososhkov criticized the religious ignorance and superstition of the people, even the clergy, as well as the widely prevailing poverty and injustice. He insisted on the general introduction of schools; demanded the "ability to read" [grammaticheskoe razumenie] from those seeking to become deacons; and invited those pursuing a monastic life to study and "become skilled in disputations." However, Pososhkov's ideal remained the "religious life" and not lay or secular life. Thus, despite Stefan Iavorskii's Latinisms Pososhkov felt a closeness to and a confidence in him. Above all, Stefan provided him with a good deal of useful material.

In this way circumstances unfolded in which Stefan, writing theology on the basis of Bellarmine, by the same token was able to defend the Russian church from the introduction of the Reformation. Those circumstances became so complex that the fate of Russian theology in the eighteenth century was resolved in an extended debate between the epigoni of western post-Reformation Roman Catholic and Protestant scholasticism. Feofan eventually emerged victorious in that debate; he did not do so immediately. Due to a certain historical inertia, the earlier Roman Catholic Kievan tradition persisted until mid-century, even in the newly created schools. New ideas only slowly gained wider currency. Feofan conquered as a scholar; this was a victory for Protestant scholastic theology.

In the section of the Regulation entitled "Teachers and Students in Educational Institutions" Feofan outlines a coherent and reasoned program for education in the new schools. "When there is no light of learning there can be no good order in the Church; disorder and superstitions worthy of much ridicule are inescapable as are dissensions and the most senseless heresies." The Kiev Academy remained Feofan's model or template. He proposed the establishment of the "Academy" model for Great Russia. Such a school was to be uniform and general, lasting several years and containing many grades. All grades would progress together. The school was to aim for general education with philosophy and theology forming the capstone. A seminary was to be opened in conjunction with the academy, and it was to be a boarding school "on the monastic level." In Feofan's estimation, this marked the point of departure. Once again he is relying on western example or experience ("these things have been made the subject of no little pondering in foreign countries"). He most likely had in mind the College of St. Athanasius in Rome, where he had studied. The life of the seminary was to be insulated and isolated with the greatest possible effort made to separate it from the surrounding life ("not in a city but aside"), away from the influence of both parents and tradition. Only in this manner could a new breed of men be reared and educated. "Such a life for young people seems to be irksome and similar to imprisonment. But for the person who becomes accustomed to such a life, even for a single year, it will be most pleasant; as we know from our own experience and from that of others."

Feofan immediately tried to establish such a seminary, and in 1721 he opened a school in his home at Karpovka. The school was only for the primary grades. Foreigners, including the academician Gottlieb Bayer ³⁹ and Sellius, ⁴⁰ taught there. The school was abolished when Feofan died. Zaikonospasskii Academy in the Zaikonospasskii Monastery in Moscow became the leading school in Great Russia. By 1700 or 1701, it had already been reorganized on the Kievan model as a Latin school under the protection of Stefan Iavorskii. Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem ⁴¹ justifiably rebuked him for introducing "Latin learning." Meanwhile the Jesuits in Moscow, who had founded their own school for the sons of Moscow aristocrats, commented very favorably on it. Students of the two schools maintained friendly relations and arranged joint scholastic conversations. It would seem that for a time Stefan had friendly relations with the Jesuits as well.

All the teachers at the academy came from Kiev and among them Feofilakt Lopatinskii deserves special mention. Later during the reign of Anna, he became archbishop of Tver and also unbearably suffered at the hands of cunning men. He suffered most greatly from Feofan, whom he accused and attacked for Protestantism. Feofilakt possessed a wide knowledge and a bold spirit, but he was a typical scholastic theologian. His lectures follow Thomas Aquinas. He also later supervised the publication of Iavorskii's Rock of Faith. ⁴²

Generally speaking, the schools of that time in Great Russia were usually created and opened only by hierarchs from the Ukraine. (There was also a time when only Ukrainians could become bishops and archimandrites). They founded Latin schools everywhere on the model of those in which they themselves had studied. Usually these hierarchs brought teachers (sometimes even of "Polish extraction") from Kiev or summoned them afterward. It sometimes happened that even the students were brought from the Ukraine. Such an emigration of Ukrainians or Cherkassy was regarded in Great Russia as a foreign invasion. In the most direct and literal sense, Peter's reform meant "Ukrainization" in the history of these ecclesiastical schools. The new Great Russian school was doubly foreign to its students: it was a school of "Latin learning" and "Cherkassian" teachers. Znamenskii ⁴³ makes this point in his remarkable book on the ecclesiastical schools of the eighteenth century.

To the students all of these teachers quite literally seemed to be foreigners who had traveled from a far away land, as the Ukraine seemed at the time. The Ukraine possessed its own customs, conceptions, and even learning, coupled with a speech which was little understood and strange to the Great Russian ear. Moreover, not only did they not wish to adapt themselves to the youth they were supposed to educate or to the country in which they resided, but they also despised the Great Russians as barbarians. Anything which differed from that in the Ukraine became the object of mirth and censure. They exhibited and insisted upon everything Ukrainian as singularly better.

There is direct evidence that many of these emigrants remained unaccustomed to the Great Russian dialect and constantly spoke Ukrainian. This situation altered only during Catherine II's reign. By that time several generations of indigenous Great Russian Latinists had grown up. The school remained Latin. As a "colony" it grew stronger, but it never ceased to be a colony.

Without exaggeration one can say that "that culture which lived and grew in Russia from Peter's day onward was the organic and direct continuation not of Muscovite tradition but of Kievan or Ukrainian culture" (Prince N.S. Trubetskoi) ⁴⁴ Only one reservation needs to be made: such culture was too artificial and too forcibly introduced to be described as an "organic continuation."

Considerable confusion and disorganization accompanied the construction of the new school network. By design the new school was to be a "class" school compulsory for the "clerical rank." The children of the clergy were recruited by force, like soldiers, under threat of imprisonment, assignment to the army, and merciless punishment. In the Ukraine, on the contrary, the schools had a multiclass character. Moreover, in the Ukraine the clergy did not become segregated into a distinct class until Catherine's reign. In addition to the Kievan Academy, the Kharkov Collegium also provides a characteristic example. Founded as a seminary in 1722 by Epifanii Tikhorskii, ⁴⁵ the bishop of Belgorod, and with great material assistance from the Golitsyn family, the school had been reorganized in 1726. Sometimes it was even called the Tikhorian Academy. The theology class was inaugurated as early as 1734.

In any case, the hierarchy was obligated to establish new schools and to do so at the expense of the local monastery or church. These schools were founded from professional considerations "in the hope of the priesthood," for the creation and education of a new breed of clergy. However, their curricula provided for general education with theology studied only in the very last year. Very few surmounted the long and difficult curriculum to reach that class. The majority left the seminaries with no theological training whatever. Not just the poorer students left early ("for inaptitude for learning" or "for inability to understand the lessons"). Very frequently the better students were lured away to the "civil command" [svetskaia kommanda] in search of other professions or simply to enter "into the bureaucratic rank." Yet throughout the entire eighteenth century the ecclesiastical schools formed the sole, durable, and extensive educational system.

The expansion and development of such a network of multigrade schools seemed an impossible task, as was duly foreseen. Above all, the necessary number of teachers could nowhere be found or acquired, especially teachers sufficiently trained in the "highest learning" (i.e., theology and philosophy). In any case, only four of the twenty-six seminaries opened prior to 1750 taught theology and four more offered philosophy. Due to the lack of able teachers, this situation only slowly improved even at the Aleksandr Nevskii Seminary in St. Petersburg ⁴⁶ Enlisting students proved difficult, although failure to appear was treated similarly to desertion from the army.

A police state draws no distinction between study and service. Education is regarded as a form of service or duty. The student (even the youngest) was looked upon as a servitor discharging his obligation and bound to perform all the tasks belonging to his office under threat of criminal prosecution and not simply punishment. Thus, only with the greatest reluctance were even the least capable students (including boys of unconquerable delinquency, cruelty, and violent brutality) excused from enlistment in the education service, and when that happened, soldiering replaced their education. "In this regard, seminarians became sons of church soldiers [tserkovnye kantonisty]." Those failing to appear, those who disappeared, or those who deserted were tracked down and forcibly returned — sometimes even in chains — "for that training and testing of them depicted in the Spiritual Regulation." All of these measures failed to deter deserters. Sometimes nearly half the seminary ran away, and class lists contained the epicentry: semper fugitiosus.

Such wild flights by students and their concealment by others did not result from some dark quality, laziness, or obscurantism on the part of the clerical rank. The reason for such rejection of education did not derive from some ignorant or superstitious quality in the clergy, a topic on which Peter and Feofan so eloquently declaimed. The reason lies concealed in the fact that the new Russian school was foreign and exotic: an unexpected Latin-Polish colony on the Russian clergy's native soil. Even from the "professional" point of view such a school can be shown to have been useless.

The practical mind detected no benefit in Latin grammar, that is, in some `artful mannerisms' acquired in the seminaries and utterly failed to discover any reasons to abandon the old familiar ways of preparation for pastoral duties at home in exchange for new unfamiliar and doubtful ways. It still remained to be proven who was better prepared for the clerical life: the psalmist who had served in the church since childhood and learned reading, singing, and liturgical routine through practice or the Latin scholar who had learned a few Latin inflections, and a few vocabulary words. (Znamenskii) In the Latin schools, students grew unfamiliar with Slavic and even the Scriptural texts used during their lessons were presented in Latin. Grammar, rhetoric, and poetics were studied in Latin. Rhetoric in Russian came later. Understandably, parents mistrustfully sent their children to "that damned seminary to be tortured," while the children themselves preferred imprisonment if it meant escaping such educational service. The dismaying impression arose that these newly introduced schools, if they did not actually alter one's faith, did replace one's nationality.

During Peter's reign Russia did not acquire the "humanist foundations" of European culture, but merely western routine. This routine was introduced through compulsory measures, and such means frequently proved morally debasing, particularly in the "all-embracing poverty," that is, outright destitution which prevailed in the schools even as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow, speaking about his own school days, noted that clerical youths "from the lowest grades to the highest prepared themselves for church service more through fortitude and endurance than because they possessed any material advantage." True, in the second half of the century this situation improved and another, more fruitful, pedagogical ideal prevailed. Even French became part of the curriculum. The ideal found scarcely any reflection in life.

The establishment of schools undoubtedly constituted a positive step. Yet the transplant of Latin schools in Russian soil signified a breach in the church's consciousness: a breach separating theological "learning" from ecclesiastical experience. The rift could be felt all the more keenly when one prayed in Slavic and theologized in Latin. The same Scripture which rang out in class in the international language of Latin could be heard in Slavic in the cathedral. This unhealthy breach in the church's consciousness may well have been the most tragic consequence of the Petrine epoch. A new "dual faith," or at least "dual soul," was created. "Once one has gone to the Germans, leaving them is very difficult" (Herzen). ⁴⁷

The cultural construction was western; even the theology was western. During the eighteenth century the term education usually designated scholarly "erudition." This theological erudition of Russia's eighteenth century Latin schools came to be regarded (and with reason) as some foreign and superfluous element in the church's life and customs, responding to none of its organic needs. Such erudition was not neutral. Theology studied according to Feofan's system resulted in all questions being posed and viewed from a Protestant standpoint. Psychological transformation accompanied this new erudition; the spiritual dimension was "Reformed." Is this not actually the most powerful reason for that lack of faith in and obstinate indifference to theological culture which still has not yet been outgrown among the wider circles of the congregation and even among the clergy? This is also the reason for the continuing attitude towards theology as a foreign and western appendage forever alien to the Orthodox East which has so tragically impeded (and continues to impede) the recovery of Russia's religious consciousness and its liberation from both ancient and modern prejudices. This is an historical diagnosis, not an assessment.

"Many seminarians who are studying Latin language and Latin subjects have been observed to become suddenly bored," as it was noted in a very curious request for the reinstitution of Russian entitled "Lamentations of Sons of Merchants and Those of Mixed Ranks" addressed to the then archbishop of Tver, Platon Levshin, ⁴⁸ in 1770. Such "boredom" and even "affliction" (that is, injury to the mind) sprang from a spiritual contusion or rupture. Quite sufficient reasons and grounds for disbelief and suspicion were provided not only during Peter's rein but subsequent years supplied them with greater frequency. Learning opposed "superstition" and often faith and piety were understood to come under that hated designation. Naturally this was the "Age of Enlightenment." The business-like and utilitarian struggle with superstition during Peter's reign anticipated the luxurious freethinking and libertinism of Catherine's reign.

In dealing with "superstition" Peter proved more resolute than even Feofan, for he was cruder. Still, Feofan was no apprentice. In this regard, the Petrine legislation regulating monasteries and monasticism is very instructive. Peter considered monasticism as knavish and parasitical. "Whenever several [such] sanctimonious bigots went to visit the Greek emperors, they more frequently visited their wives." "At the very outset [of Russian history] this gangrene became widespread among us." Peter found Russia climatically unsuited to monasticism. He planned to convert existing monasteries into work houses, foundling homes or veterans homes. Monks were to become hospital attendants and nuns were to become spinners and lacemakers, for which purpose skilled lacemakers were brought from Brabant. "They say pray, and everyone prays. What profit does society get from that?" The prohibition against monks studying books and engaging in literary affairs is quite characteristic, and a "rule" to that effect was appended to the Regulation. ⁴⁹

For no reason shall monks write in their cells, either excerpts from books or letters of advice, without the personal knowledge of their superior under penalty of severe corporal punishment; nor shall they receive letters except with the permission of the superior. In conformity with the spiritual and civil regulations no ink or paper may be owned, except by those permitted by the superior for a general spiritual use. This shall be diligently watched among the monks, for nothing destroys monastic silence as much as frivolous and vain writings.

Apropos of this prohibition, Giliarov-Platonov ⁵⁰ once rightly noted that :

When Peter I issued the decree forbidding monks to keep pen and ink in their cells, when that same rule ordered by law that the confessor report to the criminal investigator those sins revealed to him in confession; then the clergy must have felt that henceforth state authority would come between them and the people, that the state would take upon itself the exclusive instruction of the popular mind and strive to destroy that spiritual bond, that mutual confidence, which existed between shepherds and their flocks.

True, Peter also wished to educate the monks in the true understanding of the Scriptures. As a first step, all young monks (that is, those less than thirty years old) were ordered to assemble for study at the Zaikonospasskii Academy. ⁵¹ Such a decree could only produce further unrest, for it could only be understood as an effort to extend the educational-service requirement to monks (which was fully in keeping with the spirit of the "reforms"). Such service was to be done in Latin schools at that. Somewhat later Peter proposed to convert the monasteries into nursery beds for the cultivation of enlightened men especially capable of translating useful books.

Above all, the new school was regarded as a form of state arbitrariness and interference. These new "learned" monks of the Latin-Kievan type (the only sort Peter and Feofan wished to train)⁵² whose uncomprehending and excited minds were forcibly acquiring and being drilled in lifeless Latin knowledge, could hardly be reconciled to the closure and destruction of the old pious monasteries or with the silencing of God's service within them. ⁵³

The Petrine State extorted the acceptance of this religious and psychological act. Precisely because of this extortion religious consciousness in the eighteenth century so often shrank, shrivelled, and covered itself with silence, quiet endurance, and a refusal to pose questions for itself. A single common language — that sympathetic bond without which mutual understanding is impossible — was lost. The quips and banterings in which Russia's eighteenth century Kulturtrager and enlighteners rapturously engaged further facilitated this process. In general, all these contradictions and contusions during the eighteenth century powerfully and unhealthily resounded and found expression in the history of Russian theology and Russian religious consciousness.

Feofan's influence in education did not become immediately apparent. He taught for only a short time in Kiev and he left no disciples behind him. His "system" remained uncompleted, while his notes were prepared and published much later. Feofan's system penetrated the school routine approximately at mid-century (in Kiev after Arsenii Mogilianskii ⁵⁴ became metropolitan in 1759). During the first half of the century theology continued to be taught in the earlier Roman Catholic manner. ⁵⁵ Course plans written by Feofilakt (that is, on the basis of Thomas Aquinas) usually constituted the theology taught in the new seminaries. At that time peripatetic philosophy ⁵⁶ — Philsophia Atistotelico — Scholastica-was taught everywhere and usually from the same textbooks as those used by the Polish Jesuits. Philosophy passed from Aristotle to Wolff ⁵⁷ almost simultaneously with the passage of theology from Aquinas to Feofan Prokopovich. Baumeister's textbook long remained required and widely accepted. ⁵⁸ The sway of Protestant Latin scholasticism began. Latin remained the language of the schools, while instruction and study went unchanged. Direct use was made of the systems and compendiums written by Gerhard, Quenstedt, Hollatius and Buddeus. ⁵⁹ Compilations, "abridgments," and "extracts" were made from these Protestant handbooks in the same manner such books had been compiled from Roman Catholic texts. Few of these compendiums were published. The lectures of Sil'vestr Kuliabka, Georgii Koniskii, or Gavriil Petrov ⁶⁰ were never printed. Only much later did such compendiums appear in print: Feofilakt Gorskii's Doctrina (published in Leipzig in 1784 and based on Buddeus and Schubert); Iakinf Karpinskii's Compendium theologiae dogmaticopolemicae (Leipzig, 1786); Sil'vestr Lebedinskii's Compendium (St Petersburg, 1799 and Moscow, 1805); and finally Irinei Fal'kovskii'a compendium published in 1812. ⁶¹ All of these authors followed Feofan. One looks in vain for any free expression of thought in these books and compendiums. They were textbooks: the fossilized "tradition of the school" and the weight of erudition. The eighteenth century witnessed the age of erudites and archaeologists (more as philologists than as historians), and such erudition found expression in their teaching. The whole purpose of eighteenth century education resided in compiling and assembling material. Even in the provincial seminaries the best students read a great deal, especially the classical historians and frequently even the church fathers more often in Latin translation than in Greek, For the Greek language did not belong to the "ordinary" course work, that is, it was not one of the chief subjects of instruction and was not even required. ⁶² Only in 1784 was any attention paid to instruction in Greek out of "consideration for the fact that the sacred books and the works of the teachers of our Orthodox Greco-Russian Church were written in it: A more likely explanation for this decision is to be found in the political calculations related to the "Greek Project." ⁶³ The reminder about Greek produced no direct practical results and even such an advocate as Metropolitan Platon of Moscow ⁶⁴ found only ten or fifteen students willing to study in his beloved and well tended Trinity Seminary) Platon himself learned Greek only after finishing school. He hoped the seminarians might achieve the ability to speak "simple Greek and read "Hellenic Greek." He succeeded, for some of his students did acquire the ability to write Greek verses. The works of the church fathers as well as other books were translated from Greek and Latin at both the Zaikonospasskii Academy and the Trinity Seminary. Greek, along with Hebrew, became compulsory with the reform of 1798.⁶⁵

Among the Russian Hellenists of the eighteenth century first place must be given to Simon Todorskii,⁶⁶ the great authority on Greek and Oriental languages and student of the famous Michaelis ⁶⁷ Todorskii's students in Kiev, Iakov Blonnitskii and Varlaam Liashchevskii, both worked on the new edition of the Slavic Bible. ⁶⁸ This was no easy task. The editors needed genuine philological tact and sensitivity. A decision had to be made about which editions to use as a basis for corrections. The Walton Polyglot, ⁶⁹ to be consulted in conjunction with the Complutensian Polyglot, ⁷⁰ was finally decided upon. No immediate solution was devised on how to deal with cases of faulty translation in the old and new editions. One suggestion involved fully printing both editions — the old one and the new corrected one — in parallel columns. The printed Bible, however, merely gave an extensive index of all changes. The editors took the Septuagint as their guide. Feofan had opposed comparing the translation not only with the Hebrew text, but also with other Greek texts "which did not come into common use in the Eastern Church." His argument was to be repeated a century later by the adherents to "the return to the time of scholasticism." Iakov Blonnitskii at one time served as a teacher in Tver' and Moscow. Without completing the work on the Bible, he secretly journeyed to Mt. Athos, where he lived ten years in the Bulgarian monastery of Zographou ⁷¹ and continued his study of Slavic and Greek.

Biblical realism — the effort to grasp and understand the sacred text in its concreteness and even in historical perspective — constitutes the positive side of the new Biblical instruction. Moralistic and didactic allegorism formed a powerful element in eighteenth century exegesis. Nevertheless, above all else the Bible was regarded as a book of Sacred History. An ecclesiastical apperception began to take shape.

In 1798 church history became part of the curriculum. Since there was no "classical" book (that is, textbook), Mosheim, Bingham, or Lange were recommended. ⁷² Translation of historical works occupied considerable attention at the Moscow Academy in the 1760's. Pavel Ponomarev the rector of the academy in 1782 (later archbishop, of Tver' and then Iaroslavl'), translated the Memoires of Tillemont ⁷³, but the work met with the censor's disapproval. Ieronim Chernov, prefect at the academy in 1788, published his translation of Bingham. Mefodii Smirnov rector from 1791 to 1795 (later archbishop of Tver'), prefaced his theology lectures with an historical introduction. His Liber historicus de rebus in primitiva sive trium primorum et quarti ineuntis seculorum ecclesia christiana, the first survey of church history in Russia, appeared in 1805. The book's style and content wholly belong to the eighteenth century. Petr Alekseev (1727-1801), archpriest of the Archangel cathedral, a member of the Russian Academy, and a man of very advanced views, taught for many years at Moscow University. His chief work, the Ecclesiastical Dictionary [Tserkovnyi slovar'], which provided explanations for church articles and terms, went through three editions. ⁷⁴ He began to publish the Orthodox Confession [Pravoslavnoe ispovedanie] and had printed the entire first part and thirty questions of the second part when the printing was halted "because of bold remarks, which have been appended." His own Catechism [Katikhizis] was also subsequently detained.

Mention should also be made of Veniamin Rumovskii, ⁷⁵ who became widely known as the author of New Table of Commandments [Novaia skrizhal'], which first appeared in Moscow in 1804. He also translated Jacobus Goar's Euchologion. ⁷⁶ Veniamin died in 1811 as archbishop of Nizhegorod. Irinei Klement'evskii ⁷⁷ (who died as archbishop of Pskov in 1818) was known for his commentaries and translations from the Greek of the church fathers.

Very early in the century a new dimension — pietism — was added to the older Protestant scholasticism. Simon Todorskii (1699-1754) must once again be invoked in this connection. As he says himself, after leaving the Kiev Academy, "I traveled across the sea to the Academy of Halle in Magdeburg." Halle at that time formed the chief and very stormy center of pietism (Christian Wolff was expelled in 1723). At Halle, Todorskii studied oriental languages, especially Biblical languages. Such intense interest in the Bible is highly characteristic of pietism, which rather unexpectedly fuses philosophy and morality. ⁷⁸ At one time Todorskii served as a teacher in the pietists' famous Orphan Asylum in Halle. ⁷⁹ While at Halle, Todorskii translated Johann Arndt's On True Christianity [Wahres Christentum].⁸⁰ The book was published in Halle in 1735. He also translated Anastasius the Preacher's Guide to the Knowledge of Christ's Passion and the anonymous Teaching on the Foundation of the Christian Life. ⁸¹ These books were forbidden in Russia and removed from circulation in 1743, so that henceforth no such books would be translated into Russian.

Todorskii did not return home directly from Halle. "Having left there, I spent a year and a half among the Jesuits in various places." He taught for a time somewhere in Hungary. He acted as a teacher for Orthodox Greeks and then returned to Kiev in 1739.

Pietism and sentimentalism became quite widespread during the second half of the century. Both became fused with mystical freemasonry. The impact of such dreamy moralism became quite noticeable in the ecclesiastical schools. Probably it was most visible in Moscow in Platon's day. Even "Wolffianism" became sentimental and Wolff's theology justifiably came to be known as the "dogmatics for the sentimental man."

The structure and organization of the church schools experienced no substantive alteration during the entire century, although the spirit of the age changed several times. A small commission for "founding of the most useful schools in the dioceses" had been formed at the outset of Catherine's reign. Gavriil, then bishop of Tver', ⁸² Innokentii Nechaev, bishop of Pskov, ⁸³ and Platon Levshin, then still a hieromonk, constituted its membership. The commission discovered no reason to modify the Latin type of school and proposed only the introduction of a more complete uniformity and greater coherence in the school system (and curriculum). The successive steps of instruction were to be dismantled; four seminaries (Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Kazan' and Iaroslavl') given an expanded program of study, and Moscow Academy was to be elevated to the rank of an "ecclesiastical university" with a universal curriculum. The commission clearly posed the question of the necessity for improving the social status and condition of the clergy. ⁸⁴ A new spirit pervades the entire proposal: social development is less accented, while discipline is moderated and manners softened. The proposal aimed "to inculcate a noble sense of integrity in the students, which like a mainspring, would govern their actions." Modern languages, too, were to be added. A characteristic feature of the proposal would have entrusted all the ecclesiastical schools to the ultimate authority of two protectors, one secular and one clerical, in order to give greater independence to the schools. It became quite clear that genuine reform of the ecclesiastical schools was impossible without "betterment" and support for the clergy. The commission on church properties (Teplov played a guiding role in that commission) ⁸⁵ had actually pointed out this fact in 1762. The commission's proposals in 1766 had no practical result. However that year a group of young seminarians was sent abroad to study at Gottingen, Leyden, or Oxford. With the return in 1773 of those sent to Gottingen, the question again arose about creating a theological faculty in Moscow under the supervision of the Synod where the returning specialists could be used in teaching. In 1777 a detailed plan was drawn up for such a faculty, but once more nothing resulted. When Moscow University was established in 1755, a department of theology had been rejected: "In addition to the philosophical sciences and jurisprudence, theology should be taught in every university however, the concern for theology, properly speaking, belongs to the Holy Synod." ⁸⁶

Only one student who had studied in Gottingen was appointed to a position in the ecclesiastical schools. This was Damaskin Semenov Rudnev (1737-1795), later bishop of Nizhnii Novgorod and a member of the Russian Academy. While in Gottingen as the supervisor for the younger students, he had studied philosophy and history rather than theology and translated Nestor's chronicle ⁸⁷ into German. However, he did attend theology lectures and in 1772 published Feofan Prokopovich's treatise On the Procession of the Holy Spirit with additions and commentaries. On his return, he took monastic vows and became a professor and rector of the Moscow Academy. Even by the standards of Catherine's age, he was a "liberal" hierarch, educated in the philosophy of Wolff and natural law. It is said that Metropolitan Gavriil "indicated to him that he should stop all that German nonsense buzzing in his head and more seduously apply himself to fulfilling his monastic vows." Of those students who studied in Leyden, one, Veniamin Bagrianskii, ⁸⁸ later became bishop of Irkutsk. He died in 1814.

During roughly those same years, a proposal was made to reform the Kiev Academy. One plan suggested transforming the academy into a university by expelling the monks and subordinating the school to the secular authorities in society (the suggestion came from Razumovskii, ⁸⁹ Rumiantsev, ⁹⁰ and at the desire of the Kiev and Starodub nobility in the Commission of 1766-1767). Another plan, that of Glebov, the governor-general of Kiev, advocated the creation of new faculties (1766). The Academy remained unchanged. However, within a short time instruction improved in secular subjects and modern languages "which are necessary for social life" (French had been taught since 1753). Characteristically, during Metropolitan Samuil Mislavskii's ⁹¹ administration, teacher candidates were sent to study at the University of Vilna or in the Protestant convent in Slutsk (however, they went to Moscow University).

The 1798 reform of the ecclesiastical schools also left their foundations intact. The seminaries in St. Petersburg and Kazan' received the designation of "Academy" together with an extension and elaboration of instruction. New seminaries were opened; the curricula were somewhat revised.

Metropolitan Platon Levshin (1737-1811) was the most important contributor to church education in the eighteenth century: the "Peter Mogila of the Moscow Academy," in S. K. Smirnov's ⁹² apt phrasing. Platon was a typical representative of that ornate, dreamy, and troubled age, whose every contradiction and confusion condensed and reverberated within his personality. "Plus philosophe que pretre," was Joseph II's ⁹³ judgment of him. Platon attracted Catherine for that very reason. In any case, as a sufficiently "enlightened" man, he discoursed on "superstitions" according to the spirit of the age. Nevertheless, Platon remained a man of piety and prayer and a great lover of church singing and the liturgy. Impetuous, yet determined, both direct and dreamy, easily aroused and persistent, Platon always acted openly and forthrightly with himself and with others. He could not possibly have lasted long at court, nor could he have preserved any influence there.

Platon advanced because of his abilities as a preacher, another trait in keeping with the style of that rhetorical age. He could compel even courtiers to shudder and weep. Yet it is his sermons which vividly disclose the utter sincerity and intensity of his own warm piety. Behind his mannered eloquence, one detects a flexible will and deep conviction. While a teacher of rhetoric at the Trinity Seminary, Platon took monastic vows, and did so from inner conviction and inclination, "because of a special love for enlightenment," as he himself put it. Platon regarded monasticism from a quite peculiar standpoint. For him celibacy was its sole purpose. "As concerns monasticism, he reasoned that it could not impose any greater obligations upon a Christian than those which the Gospel and the baptismal vows had already imposed." ⁹⁴ Love of solitude — less for prayer than for intellectual pursuits and friendships — provided a strong attraction. Platon consciously chose the path of the church. He declined entry to Moscow University, just as he refused offers to other secular positions. He did not wish to be lost in the empty vanity of worldly life. Traces of a personal Rousseauism can be seen in his efforts to leave Moscow for the Holy Trinity Monastery, where he could build his own intimate asylum: Bethany. ⁹⁵

Platon was a great and ardent advocate of education and enlightenment. He had his own conception of the clergy. He wished to create a new, educated and cultured clergy via the humanistic school. He wished to improve the clerical rank and elevate it to the social heights. He chose to do so at a time when others were trying to reduce and disolve the clergy in the "third estate of men" and even in an impersonal serfdom. Hence Platon's anxious desire to adapt the instruction and education in the ecclesiastical schools to the tastes and views of "enlightened" society. He was able to do a great deal in particular for the seminary at the Holy Trinity Monastery. Zaikonospasskii Academy enjoyed a renaissance under Platon. He founded Bethany Seminary in 1797 on the model of Trinity Seminary. However, Bethany opened only in 1800.

Education of the mind and heart "so that they might excel in good deeds" constituted Platon's ideal: a sentimental novitiate and inversion of the church's spirit. Under his influence a new type of churchman — the erudite and lover of enlightenment — came into being. Neither a thinker nor a scholar, Platon was a zealot or "lover" of enlightenment — a very characteristic eighteenth century category.

Although a catechist rather than a theologian, Platon's "catechisms" and conversations (or Elementary Instruction in Christian Law) which he delivered in Moscow during his early career (1757 and 1758) signify a turning point in the history of theology. His lessons for the Grand Duke Paul ⁹⁶ entitled Orthodox Teaching or a Brief Christian Theology [Pravoslavnoe uchenie ili sokrashchen khristianskoe bogosiovie, 1765] marks the first attempt at a theological system in Russian. "Ease of exposition is the best feature about this work," was Filaret of Chernigov's comment, yet his faint praise is not quite just. Platon was less an orator than a teacher; he pondered over education more than he studied oratory. "I never troubled long over an eloquent style." His determination to persuade educated men provided his expressiveness and clarity, "for the face of truth is singularly beautiful without any false cosmetics." His polemic with the Old Ritualists is quite instructive in this connection, for tolerance and deference did not preserve him from superficial simplification. His project for the so-called "single faith" [edinoverie] ⁹⁷ can scarcely be termed a success. In any case, Platon's "catechisms" actually were incomplete. Platon tried to bring theology in contact with life. He sought to do so in conformity with the spirit of the time by converting theology into moral instruction, into a kind of emotional-moralistic humanism. "The various systems of theology now taught in the schools have a scholastic air and the odor of human subtleties." All of this belongs to an age which preferred to speak of "turning the mind toward the good" rather than toward "faith." Platon sought a lively and living theology, which could be found only in Scripture. When commenting upon Scripture, when "searching out the literal sense," above all one avoid any bending or force in order not to abuse Scripture by seeking a hidden meaning "where none exists." Texts should be juxtaposed in order that Scriptures might be allowed to explain themselves. "At the same time, use the best commentators." Platon understood this to mean the church fathers. The influence of Chrysostom and Augustine are easily detected in his writing. He hastened to speak more intimately about dogma, and his doctrinal "theology" can scarcely be distinguished from the prevailing vague and moralistically emotional Lutheranism of the time. The sacramental meaning of the church is inadequately presented throughout his theology, while moral appositions (the scholastic usus) are overdeveloped. The church is defined very imprecisely as "an assembly of men who believe in Jesus Christ" (elsewhere Platon adds, "and who live according to his law"). Such imprecision is quite characteristic.

Platon was wholly a part of modern Russia and its western experience. For all his piety, he had too little sense of the church. Yet this limitation does not detract from or overshadow the true importance of his other achievements. The fact that Platon gave attention to the study of Russian church history and encouraged others to do so as well is of great importance. ⁹⁸ Moreover, he published the first outline of that history (but only in 1805). Much later this sympathetic return to history produced a more profound ecclesiastical self-awareness. Platon's historical limitation is visibly expressed in his attitude toward the Russian language. He himself not only preached in Russian but published his "theology" in Russian. Yet his book on theology had to be translated into Latin for school use. Such was the case, for example, at the Tula Seminary.

Platon attempted to improve the instruction in Russian for the lowest grades. Russian grammar and rhetoric on the basis of Lomonosov's ⁹⁹ writings replaced Latin. However, he feared that elementary instruction in Russian grammar and composition might impede progress in Latin subjects. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the greatest emancipation which could be achieved in theology lectures at Trinity Seminary was the interpretation of texts from Holy Scripture according to the Slavic Bible without translation from Latin. (Znamenskii) Mefodii Smirnov was the first to do so, and then only in the 1790's.

Rare experiments had been attempted earlier. At the time Platon became archbishop of Tver' in 1770, he discovered theology being taught in Russian. Makarii Petrovich ¹⁰⁰ introduced this innovation in 1764. His lectures were published posthumously as Orthodox Teaching of the Eastern Church, Containing Everything which a Christian seeking salvation needs to know and do (St. Petersburg, 1783).¹⁰¹ Makarii translated scholastic disputations into Russian, trying to refashion them as conversations with people holding different views and remold them on the patristic model ("whenever reading of the holy fathers is relevant"). Makarii's successor at the Tver' Seminary, Arsenii Vereshchagin ¹⁰² followed his example. Platon's appointment altered everything and restored the Latin routine.

Much later (1805), when discussing a new reform of the church schools, Platon strenuously objected to Russian as the language of instruction. He feared a decline in scholarship and especially an erosion of scholarly prestige.

Our clergy are regarded by foreigners as nearly ignorant for we can speak neither French nor German. But we maintain our honor by replying that we can speak and copy Latin. If we study Latin as we do Greek, we lose our last honor, for we will not be able to speak or write any language. I beg you to retain it.

Platon's statement very clearly demonstrates how greatly his outlook had been restricted by scholastic tradition and how little he sensed the church's needs.

At the same time, the weakest feature of the eighteenth century ecclesiastical school derived precisely from its Latin character. Somewhat later Evgenii Bolkhovitinov, ¹⁰³ another man of the Enlightenment, justly noted that "our present curriculum, prior to the course philosophy, is not one of general education, but merely a course in Latin literature." Education conveyed in the Russian language was regarded with a strange lack of confidence during the eighteenth century. It seemed to be an impossible dream, if not actually a dangerous one. The bold hope expressed in the foundation charter (16 March 1731) of the Kharkov Collegium remained unfulfilled. That hope was "to teach the Orthodox children of every class and calling, not only poetics and rhetoric, but also philosophy and theology in the Slavonic, Greek and Latin languages, while at the same time endeavoring to introduce these subjects in native Russian." Latin prevailed.

In 1760, when the metropolitan of Kiev, Arsenii Mogilianskii, ¹⁰⁴ ordered that the Orthodox Confession be read in Russian, his directive was considered a fruitless concession to weakness and ignorance. Basic theological lectures continued to be delivered in Latin, "preserving the pure Latin style and guarding it from the vulgar common dialect." Archimandrite Iuvenalii's ¹⁰⁵ System of Christian Theology (Sistema khristianskago bogosloviia], 3 parts, (Moscow, 1806), published in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was not intended for school use. The western example, with a certain time lag to be sure, inspired this tenacious school Latinism. As a result the Russian language atrophied.

The educated Russian theological language, a sample of which can be seen in the theses presented at school disputations at the Moscow Academy, had so little development that it occupied an incomparably lower position than even the language of ancient Russian translators of the holy fathers and of the original theological works of ancient Rus'. (Znamenskii).

Things reached such a point that students were unable to write easily in Russian, but first had to express their thought in Latin and then translate it. The students even copied in Latin or wrote with a substantial admixture of Latin words the explanations given by the teacher in Russian.

Whatever argument one used, whatever fundamentum one put to his opugnae, each argument sovendus by the defendant and his teacher.

"From such [an environment] came priests who knew Latin and pagan writers adequately, but who knew poorly the authors of the Bible or the writers of the church" (Filaret of Moscow). Such a situation was not the worst feature: still worse was the inorganic character of an entire school system in which theology could not be enlivened by the direct assistance and experience of church life.

The scope and significance of the scholarly and even educational achievements of the eighteenth century should not be underestimated. In any case, the cultural-theological experiment was quite important. An elaborate school network spread throughout Russia. But Russian theology . . . all of this "school" theology, in the strict sense, was rootless. It fell and grew in foreign soil . . . A superstructure erected in a desert. . . and in place of roots came stilts. Theology on stilts, such is the legacy of the eighteenth century.

Freemasonry proved to be a major event in the history of Russian society — that society born and elaborated in the upheaval of the Petrine era. Freemasons were men who had lost the "eastern" path and who had become lost on western ones. Quite naturally they discovered this new road of freemasonry by starting from a western crossroads. The first generation raised in Peter's reforms received its education in the principles of a utilitarian state service. The new educated class arose from among the "converts," that is, among those who accepted the Reform. At that time such acceptance or acknowledgment defined one's membership in the new "class." The new men became accustomed and schooled to interpret their existence only in terms of state utility and the general welfare. The "Table of Ranks" replaced the Creed [Simvol very] and all it implied. ¹⁰⁶ The consciousness of these new men became extroverted to the point of rupture. The soul became lost, disconcerted, and dissolved in the feverish onslaught of foreign impressions and experiences. In the whirl of construction during Peter's reign there had been no time to have second thoughts or recovery. By the time the atmosphere became somewhat freer, the soul had already been ravished and exhausted. Moral receptivity became addled; religious needs choked and suffocated. The very next generation began speaking with alarm on the corruption of morals in Russia. ¹⁰⁷ The subject was hardly exhausted. This was an age of absorbing adventures and every sort of gratification. The history of the Russian soul has not yet been written for the eighteen century. Only fragmentary episodes are known. But a general weariness, sickness, and anguish clearly echo and reverberate in such episodes. The best representatives of Catherine's age testify to the searing ordeal, which compelled them to set forth in search of meaning and truth during an age of freethinking and debauchery. They had to contend with passing through the coldest indifference and the most excruciating despair. For many, Voltarianism became a genuine disease both morally and spiritually.

A religious awakening — a revival from a religious faint — occurred in the second half of the eighteenth century. Not surprisingly, such an awakening often bordered on hysterics. "A paroxysm of conscientious thought," as Kliuchevskii described this freemasonic awakening. Yet freemasonry was more than a simple paroxysm. Russian freemasonry's entire historical significance lies in the fact that it was anascetic effort and attempt at spiritual concentration. The Russian soul recovered itself through freemasonry from the alien customs and dissipations in St. Petersburg.

Freemasonry did not signify a passing episode, but rather a developmental stage in the history of modern Russian society. Toward the end of the 1770's freemasonry swept through nearly the entire educated class: In any case, the system of Masonic lodges, with all its branches, extended throughout that class.

Russian freemasonry had a history rich in disputes, divisions, and fluctuations. The first lodges were, in essence, circles of Deists who professed a rational morality and natural religion, while seeking to achieve moral self-knowledge.¹⁰⁸ No distinctions or divisions existed between "freemasons" and "Voltarians." The mystical current in freemasonry emerged somewhat later. ¹⁰⁹ Yet the circle of Moscow Rosicrucians became the most important and influential among the Russian freemason centers of the time.

Freemasonry is a peculiar secular and secret Order with a very strict inner and external discipline. And it was precisely its inner discipline or asceticism (not just healthy spiritual hygiene) which proved to be most important for the general economy of Masonic labors in squaring the "rough stone" of the human heart, as the expression went. A new type of man was reared in such asceticism; a new human type which is encountered in the subsequent epoch among the "Romantics." The "occult sources" of Romanticism are by now incontestable.

Russian society received a sentimental education: an awakening of the heart. The future Russian intelligent first detected in the masonic movement his shatteredness and duality of existence. He became tormented by a thirst for wholeness and began to seek it. The later generation of the 1830's and 1840's repeated such searching, such Sturm und Drang. This was particularly true for the Slavophiles. Psychologically, Slavophilism is an offshoot of the freemasonry of Catherine's reign (as it certainly did not derive from any rustic country customs).

Masonic asceticism embraces quite varied motifs, including a rationalistic indifference of the Stoic variety, as well as ennui with life's vanities, docetic fastidiousness, at times an "outright love for death" ("joy of the grave"), and a genuinely temperate heart. Freemasonry elaborated a complex method of self scrutiny and self-restraint. "To die on the cross of self-abnegation and perish in the fire of purification," as I.V. Lopukhin ¹¹⁰ deigned the goal of the "true freemason." One must struggle with oneself and with dissipation; concentrate one's feelings and thought; sever passionate desires; "instruct the heart"; and "coerce the will." For the root and seat of evil is found precisely within oneself and in one's will. "Apply yourself to nothing so much as to be in spirit, soul and body, utterly with-out `I'." And in the struggle with yourself, you must once more avoid all self-will and egoism. Do not seek or choose a cross for yourself, but bear one if and when it is given to you. Do not try to arrange for your salvation as much as hope for it, joyously humbling yourself before the will of God.

Freemasonry preached a strict and responsible life; moral self-direction; moral nobility; restraint; dispassion; self-knowledge and self-possession; "philanthropy" and the quiet life "amidst this world without allowing one's heart to touch its vanities." Yet freemasonry not only demanded personal self-perfection but also an active love — the "primary expression, foundation, and purpose of the kingdom of Jesus within the soul." The philanthropical work of Russian freemasons of that time is quite well known.

Mystical freemasonry constituted an inner reaction to the spirit of the Enlightenment. All the pathos of freemasonry's Theoretical Degree ¹¹¹ was directed against the "inventions of blind reason" and "the sophistries of that Voltarian gang." The accent shifted to intuition, the counterpoint to eighteenth century rationalism.

The age of scepticism was also the age of pietism. Fenelon ¹¹² was no less popular than Voltaire. The "philosophy of faith and feeling" is no less characteristic of the age — the age of sentimentalism — than the Encyclopedie. Sentimentalism is organically linked to freemasonry and not only designated a literary tendency or movement, but initially signified a mystical trend: a religio-psychological quest. The sources of sentimentalism must be sought in the writings of Spanish, Dutch and French mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Sentimentalism educated the soul in reverie and feeling, in a certain constant pensiveness, and in "holy melancholy" (cf. the spiritual path of the young Karamzin ¹¹³ as well as the later development of Zhukovskii).¹¹⁴ This was not always accomplished by the concentration of the soul. The habit of too ceaselessly and excessively examining oneself often resulted in quietism of the will. Men of that period frequently fell ill from "reflection," and this "sentimental education" most powerfully influenced precisely the formation of the "superfluous man." "Holy melancholy" invariably contains an aftertaste of scepticism.

In those days men became accustomed to living in an imaginary element, in a world of images and reflections. They may have penetrated the mysteries or they may have been having bad dreams. Not accidentally, the epoch witnessed on all sides an awakening of a creative fantasy — a powerfully great poetic plasticity and modelling. The "Beautiful Soul" [Prekrasnaia dusha] became paradoxically impressionable, starting violently and trembling at the slightest noise in life. Apocalyptical presentiments had been gaining strength since the end of the seventeenth century. The so-called "awakening" [Erweckung] typified the age, especially among the broad mass of the population. The theoretical appeal to the heart provides additional testimony about this awakening. The "awakening of Grace" [Durchbruch der Gnade], as the pietists expressed it, above all meant a personal ordeal: a gift of experience.

"Dispassion" is wholly compatible with such a vision. Contemporary mysticism possessed a restrained will, but not a temperate heart or imagination. A new generation grew up with this outlook. Scarcely by accident did the Rosicrucian A.M. Kutuzov ¹¹⁵ translate Edward Young's Complaint, or Night Thoughts. ¹¹⁶ Young's book did not merely serve as a confession of a sentimental man, but as a guide for this newly awakened and sensitive generation. "I twice read Young's Nights as the good news, not as a poem," recalled one of that generation. The qualification should be made that such a melancholic "philosophy of sighs and tears" signified only a transfigured humanism. "O be a man, and thou shalt be a god! And half self-made. " Man alone has been summoned to labor, not in the world but within himself, in "seraphical dreams." "Mankind was not created for broad knowledge or for profound understanding but for wonder and reverent emotions." The call was to inner concentration. "Our worldly deeds have been curbed — one must not conquer things but thoughts — guard your thoughts as best you can, for Heaven attends to them." Such an attitude served as a barrier to freethinking. I.G. Schwartz ¹¹⁷ reportedly devoted a very large portion of his lectures to criticizing "freethinking and godless books," of such writers as Helvetius, Spinoza, and Rousseau ¹¹⁸ and vanquishing "those rising obscurantists." As A.F. Labzinlly recalls, "a single word from Schwartz struck corrupt and godless books from many hands and put the Holy Bible in their place."

The turn to mysticism produced an abundant literature (printed and in manuscript), most of it translated, as can be seen in the activities of the Typographical Company, opened in Moscow in 1784, as well as in the productions from secret presses. Western mystics were best represented, with Jacob Boehme, ¹²⁰ Claude de Saint-Martin ¹²¹, and John Mason ¹²² the most widely read. S.I. Gamaleia ¹²³ translated all of Boehme's writings (the translation remained unpublished). Valentin Wiegel, Johann Gichtel and John Pordage ¹²⁴ also appeared in translation. A great many "Hermetic" writers were translated, including Welling, Kirchberger, Triridarium Chymicum, the Chemical Psalter by Penn, Chrizomander, and Robert Fludd. ¹²⁵ Moreover, there was a wide assortment of modern and ancient writers such as Macarius of Egypt, St. Augustine's selected works, the Areopagitica, and even Gregory Palamas, The Imitation of Christ, Johann Arndt's On True Christianity, L. Scupoli, Angelus Silesius, Bunyan, Molinos, Poiret, Guyon, and Duzetanovo's Mystery of the Cross. ¹²⁶ A great deal of reading was done in the lodges according to a strictly prescribed order and under the supervision and guidance of the masters. Those outside the lodges read with equally great avidity. The publications of the Moscow freemasons sold well. Thus, the newborn Russian intelligentsia all at once acquired a complete system of mystical enthusiasms and embraced the western mystical-utopian tradition and the rhythm of post-Reformation mysticism. The intelligentsia, studied and grew accustomed to quietist mystics, pietists, and (to some extent) the church fathers. (Late in life Elagin ¹²⁷ developed a complete system of patristic readings, apparently as a counterweight to Schwartz.).

Freemasonry did not limit itself to a culture of the heart. Freemasonry had its own metaphysics and dogmatics. Its metaphysics made freemasonry an anticipation and premonition of Romanticism and Romantic Naturphilosophie. The experience of the Moscow Rosicrucians (and later of freemasonry' during Alexander I's ¹²⁸ reign) prepared the soil for the development of Russian Schellingianism ¹²⁹ (especially in Prince V.F. Odoevskii) ¹³⁰ which germinated from those same magical roots. Two motifs are important in this magical mysticism, this "divine alchemy." The first is the vital feeling for world harmony or universal unity, the wisdom of the world and the mystical apprehension of nature. "We always have before our eyes the open book of nature. Divine wisdom shines forth from it with fiery words." The second motif is a vivid anthropocentric self awareness: man as the "extract of all beings."

Naturphilosophie was not a chance episode or deformity of freemasonry's worldview; it was one of freemasonry's essential themes, representing an awakened religio-cosmic awareness — "nature is the house of God, where God himself dwells." ¹³¹ Naturphilosophie also represented an awakened poetic and metaphysical sense for nature (for example, the renewed sense of nature in eighteenth century "sentimental" analysis). Yet, ultimately mystical freemasonry gravitated toward disembodiment. Symbolic interpretation makes the world so attenuated that it is nearly reduced to a shadow. In essence, the dogmatics of freemasonry signified a revival of a Platonized gnosticism: a revival which had begun during the Renaissance. The fall of man the "spark of light" imprisoned in darkness — prevides freemasonry's basic conception. This acute sense of impurity, not so much of sin, is highly characteristic of the movement. Impurity can rather better be removed through abstinence than through penitence. The entire world appears corrupt and diseased. "What is this world? A mirror of corruption and vanity." The thirst for healing (and for cosmic healing) aroused by the "search for the key to Nature's mysteries," derived from this view of nature.

None of the freemasons of Catherine's reign was an original writer or thinker. Schwartz, Novikov, Kheraskov, Lopukhin, Karneev, and Gamaleia ¹³² were all imitators, translators, and epigoni. Such qualities, however, do not diminish their influence. During the 1770's Moscow University stood entirely under the banner of the freemasons, and its "devout-poetic" mood was preserved in the university pension for the nobility established later.

G.S. Skovoroda (1722-1794) ¹³³ provides the only original mutation in this mystical strain. He spent little time in the masonic lodges, yet he was close to masonic circles. In any case, he belongs to the same mystical type. He sympathized even more deeply with German mysticism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, preferring Valentin Wiegel to Jacob Boehme. Hellenistic motifs are also powerfully present in him.

In his Life of Skovoroda, Kovalinskii ¹³⁴ enumerates Skovoroda's favorite authors: Plutarch Philo the Jew, Cicero, Horace, Lucian, Clement of Alexandria Origen, Nil, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maxim the Confessor "and similar writers among the moderns." Skovoroda's patristic reflections fused with the motifs of the Platonist renaissance. Latin poets exercised a strong influence over him, as did some modern ones, for example, Muretus, ¹³⁵ whom he often simply translated, thereby allowing the influence of the schools to be seen. However his book on poetics composed at the Pereiaslavl' Seminary is a highly unusual work. In any case, Skovoroda's Latin was stronger than his Greek. As Kovalinskii notes: "He spoke Latin and German flawlessly and quite fluently, and he had a sufficient understanding of Greek." Skovoroda's Latin style was graceful and simple, but generally speaking he felt less at home in Greek. Curiously, when using Plutarch in the parallel Greek and Latin edition, he read only the Latin translation. Skovoroda did not acquire his Hellenism immediately and directly. His philological inspiration must not be exaggerated. He always used the "Elizabeth Bible," ¹³⁶ while simply borrowing all his mystical philology from Philo.

How Skovoroda developed his outlook is difficult to determine. Little is known about the places he stayed or the people he met when he was abroad. Probably he had already acquired his Stoic, Platonic, and pietist interests in Kiev. His wanderings and lack of native roots (he had "the heart of a citizen of the world"), which lent him the quality of a near apparition, constituted a peculiarly characteristic feature of Skovoroda's make-up. His personality vividly displays an ascetical pathos, a concentration of thought, an extinction of emotions (which are insatiable), an escape from the "emptiness" of this world into the "caverns of the heart." Skovoroda accepted and interpreted the world according to the categories of Platonic symbolism. "At all times and in all places he was like the shadow of the apple tree." Shadow and sign were his favorite images.

Basic to Skovoroda's view was his counterposition of two worlds: the visible, sensible world and the invisible, ideal world. One is temporary, the other eternal. He always had the Bible in his hands. ("The Bible was the most important thing," as Kovalinskii notes). But for him the Bible formed a book of philosophical parables, symbols, and emblems: a peculiar hieroglyphics of existence. "A world of symbols, that is to say, the Bible," as Skovoroda himself said. He sharply reacted against any historical understanding of the Bible by "those Christian historians, ritual sophists, and theologians of the letter." He sought a "spiritual" understanding and saw the Bible as a guide to spiritual self-knowledge. Curiously, Skovoroda totally rejected monasticism. "In monasticism," writes Kovalinskii, "he saw the sinister web of compressed passions unable to escape themselves, while pitifully and fatally suffocating life."

In an important sense, Skovoroda's wandering led him away from the church and away from church history. (Even Ern ¹³⁷ admitted that Skovoroda was a "potential sectarian.") His return to Nature is a variety of pietist Rousseauism. He trusted nature: "the entire economy throughout nature is perfect."

Freemasonry provided the nascent Russian intelligentsia with many new and acute impressions. This development gained complete expression only with the following generation at the turn of the century. Yet the experience of freemasonry was a western experience, and in the final analysis such asceticism outside the church served only to arouse dreaminess and imagination. The soul developed an unhealthy inquisitiveness and mystical curiosity.

The second half of the century also marked an increasing dreaminess and mysticism among the people. All of the basic Russian sects — the Khlysty, ¹³⁸ Skoptsy, ¹³⁹ Dukhobors, ¹⁴⁰ and Molokans ¹⁴¹ developed during those years. In the Alexandrine age, these two currents, the mysticism of the lower and the higher classes in many ways converged, thereby revealing their inner affinity. They shared precisely that "anguish of the spirit" which was by turns dreamy or ecstatic. It should be noted that during Catherine's reign substantial settlements, or colonies, of various German sectarians had been created in Russia and included the Herrnhutters, the Mennonites, and Moravian Brethren. Their influence on the general development of contemporary spiritual life still has not been sufficiently investigated and studied, although that influence became perfectly obvious during Alexander's reign. The majority of these sectarians brought with them this apocalyptical dreaminess, or often outright adventism, and the disposition toward allegory and a "spiritual" interpretation of God's Word.

Oddly enough, the colony of Herrnhutters in Sarpeta had been approved by a special commission which included Dimitri Sechenov, ¹⁴² the metropolitan of Novgorod, who had investigated the dogmatic teachings of the "Evangelical Brethren." The Synod also stated that in its dogmatics and discipline the brotherhood more or less conformed to the organization of the early Christian communities. ¹⁴³ The Synod found it inconvenient to openly permit the colonists to do missionary work among the natives, as they persistently requested. Permission to do so was granted informally. However, such missionary work did not develop.

The freemasons of Catherine's reign maintained an ambivalent relationship with the church. In any event, the formal piety of freemasonry was not openly disruptive. Many freemasons fulfilled all church "obligations" and rituals. Others emphatically insisted on the complete immutability and sacredness of the rites and orders "particularly of the Greek religion." However the Orthodox service, with its wealth and plasticity of images and symbols, greatly attracted them. Freemasons highly valued Orthodoxy's tradition of symbols whose roots reach back deeply into classical antiquity. But every symbol was for them only a transparent sign or guidepost. One must ascend to that which is being signified, that is, from the visible to the invisible, from "historical" Christianity to spiritual or "true" Christianity, from the outer church to the "inner" church. The freemasons considered their Order to be the "inner" church, containing its own rites and "sacraments." This is once again the Alexandrian dream of an esoteric circle of chosen ones who are dedicated to preserving sacred traditions: a truth revealed only to a few chosen for extraordinary illumination.

Members of the clergy sometimes joined masonic lodges, although they did so very infrequently. In 1782, when the Moscow masons opened their "translation seminary" (that is, they formed a special group of students to whom they provided stipends), they chose the candidates for it from among provincial seminaries by consultation with the local hierarchs. During the investigation of 1786, Metropolitan Platon found Novikov an exemplary Christian. However, the Moscow metropolitan's standards were not very strict.

The end of the eighteenth century did not resemble its beginning. The century had begun with an effort to realize the Reformation in the Russian church. During Catherine's reign "reforms" were also drafted but in the spirit of the Enlightenment. ¹⁴⁴ Yet the century ended with a monastic revival and with an unmistakable intensification and increase of spiritual life. Deserted and devastated monastic centers such as Valaamo, Konovitsa, and others were reinstated and took on a new life. Curiously enough, Metropolitan Gavriil Petrov ¹⁴⁵ zealously promoted this monastic restoration. This great and important bishop of Catherne's reign (to whom the Empress dedicated her translation of Marmon tel's Belisaire ¹⁴⁶) strictly observed the fasts, devoted himself to prayer and pursued an ascetical life not just in theory but in practice. His close supervision secured the publication of the Slavonic-Russian edition of the Philokalia ¹⁴⁷ translated by the elder [starets] Paisii Velichkovskii and his disciples. Thus the church replied to the shallowness of an Enlightened Age with a renewed spiritual concentration.

The image of St. Tikhon Zadonskii (1724-1782) ¹⁴⁸ stands out in bold relief against the background of the eighteenth century. His personality contains many unusual and unexpected traits. In spiritual temperament Tikhon entirely belonged to the new post-Petrine epoch. He studied and then taught in the Latin schools (in Novgorod and Tver'). In addition to the church fathers, he read and loved modern western writers, and particularly enjoyed "reading and rereading Arndt." That his chief work, On True Christianity [Ob istinnom khristianstve] bears the same title as Arndt's book is scarcely an accident. As Evgenii Bolkhovitinov long ago pointed out, another of Tikhon's books, A Spiritual Treasury Gathered from the World [Sokrovishche dukhovnoe ot mira sobiraemoe], is very similar in content to that of a Latin pamphlet by Joseph Hall. ¹⁴⁹ Tikhon's language is suffused by the new age. Frequent Latinisms occur in turns of phrase which, however, increase his range and strengthen his expressiveness. He had a great gift for words; he was artistic and simple at the same time. His writing is always surprisingly limpid. This limpidity is his most unexpected quality. His grace and lucidity, his freedom — and not merely freedom from the world but also in the world — is the most striking quality in St. Tikhon's personality. He has the easy grace of a pilgrim or traveler neither deflected nor restrained by this world. "Every living being on earth is a wayfarer." However, this conquering grace was achieved through painful trial and ascetic effort. The dark waves of deep weariness and despair are quite clearly visible in Tikhon's limpid spirit as they rush over him. "Constitutionally he was a hypochondriac and somewhat choleric," writes Tikhon's "cellsman" (monk servant). His peculiar subjective despair, his special temptation to melancholy as a form of uncustomary disclosure of the soul, is wholly unique in Russian asceticism and more readily suggestive of the Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. ¹⁵⁰ At times Tikhon would fall into a helpless torpor, confinement, and immobility, when everything around him was dark, empty, and unresponsive. Sometimes he could not compel himself to leave his cell; at other times he seemingly tried to escape physically from despair by moving about. Tikhon's whole spirit had been overwhelmed in this ordeal, yet that trial left no traces or scars. The original luminosity of his soul was only purified in his personal progress.

His was not merely a personal asceticism, for St. Tikhon's temptations were not just a stage in his personal progress. He continued to be a pastor and a teacher in his monastic retreat. Through his sensitivity and suffering he remained in the world. He wrote for this world and bore witness of the Savior before a perishing world, which does not seek salvation: an apostolic response to the senselessness of a free-thinking age. Tikhon's encounter was the first encounter with the new Russian atheism (for example, the well-known episode of the Voltarian landowner who struck Tikhon on the cheek). ¹⁵¹

Dostoevskii cleverly detected this phenomenon when he sought to counterpose Tikhon to Russian nihilism, thereby disclosing the problematics of faith and atheism. Tikhon had still another characteristic trait. He wrote (or more often dictated) with inspiration, under the influence of the Holy Spirit. His "cellsman" recounts this practice.

As I heard it from my own lips, but also as I observed myself, whenever I took dictation from him, the words poured from his mouth so rapidly that I scarcely succeeded in writing them down. And when the Holy Spirit became less active in him and he became lost in thought or began thinking of extraneous things, he would send me away to my cell; while he, kneeling, or at times prostrating himself in the form of a cross, would pray with tears that God should send him the All-Activating One. Summoning me once again, he would begin to speak so torrentially that at times I failed to follow him with my pen.

St. Tikhon constantly read the Scriptures and at one time contemplated making a translation of the New Testament from Greek "into the modern style." He considered useful a new translation of the Psalter from Hebrew. His favorites among the church fathers were Macarius of Egypt, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Augustine.

Tikhon's writings contain all the borrowed ideas about redemptive "satisfaction," the distinction between form and substance in the sacraments, and so on. ¹⁵² Such is his tribute to the schools and to the age. Far more important is the fact that several western features are expressed in his experience. Above all this means his unremitting concentration on the memory and contemplation of Christ's sufferings. He saw Christ "covered with wounds, lacerated, tortured, and bloody," and he urged the contemplation of His suffering. "He had a great love for the Savior's sufferings, and not only as he beheld them in his mind, for he had portrayed in picture nearly all of His holy passions" (The pictures were painted on canvass). Tikhon preserved a peculiar insistence and a certain impressionism when speaking of the Humiliation and the Passion of Christ. Moreover, a renovated Byzantine contemplative life is powerfully present in his experience, in his radiant visions, illuminations by the light of Tabor, pathos of the Transfiguration, and premonitions of Resurrection spring.

The resurrection of the dead is a constantly recurring thought for Tikhon and is embodied in the image of spring. "Spring is the image and sign of the resurrection of the dead." This will be the eternal spring of the God-created world. "Let faith guide your mind from this sensible spring to that sublime and longed for spring which the most gracious God has promised in His Holy Scripture, when the bodies of the faithful who have died since the beginning of the world, germinating from the earth like seeds by the power of God, shall arise and assume a new and exquisite form, shall be clothed in the garment of immortality, shall receive the crown of blessedness from the hand of the Lord." This will be no idyll of apokatastasis. On the contrary, nature stained by sin will be condemned even more for its aridity and tarnish and will acquire a still more niggardly appearance. Eternity is not the same for all: there is an eternity of bliss and an eternity of weeping. Tikhon had these visions of Tabor frequently, sometimes daily. The heavens would be torn asunder and would burn with unendurable radiance. Occasionally he even saw this light in his cell and his heart would rejoice in such contemplations.

St. Tikhon combined an intense concentration of the spirit with an exceptional capacity for tenderness and love. He spoke of love of thy neighbor, of social justice and charity no less resolutely than did St. John Chrysostom. St. Tikhon was an important writer. Grace and plasticity of images adorn his books. His On True Christianity in particular has historical significance. The book is less a dogmatic system than a book of mystical ethics or ascetics, yet it marks the first attempt at a living theology; the first attempt at a theology based on experience, in contrast and as a counterweight to scholastic erudition, which lacks any such experience.

Tikhon Zadonskii and the elder Paisii Velichkovskii (1722- 1794) ¹⁵³ had little in common. As spiritual types, they little resemble one another. However they shared a common labor. The elder Paisii, was not an independent thinker, and he was rather more a translator than even a writer. Yet he occupies his own prominent place in the history of Russian thought. There is something symbolic in the fact that as a young man he left the Kiev Academy where he was studying and wandered first to the Moldavian sketes and then to Mount Athos. In Kiev he had firmly refused to study and had ceased to do so, for he did not wish to study the pagan mythology which alone was taught in the Academy: "where I often heard of Greek gods and goddesses and pious tales, and heartily despised such teaching." Obviously he had in mind the mere reading of classical authors. At the Academy, Paisii got no farther than syntax, and "I had studied only the grammatical teachings of the Latin language." Sil'vestr Kuliabka, ¹⁵⁴ served as rector at that time. According to tradition, Paisii reprimanded him for the fact that the church fathers were so little read at the Academy.

Paisii left the Latin school for the Greek monastery. However, he did not retreat from or reject knowledge. His actions mark a return to the living sources of patristic theology and thinking about God. Above all, Paisii was a founder of monasteries — both on Athos and in Moldavia. He restored the best "rules" of Byzantine monasticism. He seemed to be returning to the fifteenth century. Not accidentally, the elder Paisii was very close to St. Nil of the Sora, ¹⁵⁵ whose interrupted work Paisii revived and continued (his literary dependence on St. Nil is fully obvious). This work signified the return of the Russian, spirit to the Byzantine fathers. While still on Mount Athos, Paisii began gathering and verifying Slavic translations of ascetical writings. This turned out to be an arduous task, due to the lack of skill of old translators and to the carelessness of copyists. Moreover, even collecting Greek manuscripts proved extremely difficult. Paisii did not find the books he needed in the great monasteries or sketes but in the small and isolated skete of St. Basil built not long before by newly arrived monks from Caesarea in Cappadocia. There he was told that "since these books are written in the purest Hellenic Greek, which now few Greeks other than scholars can read, and which the majority cannot understand, such books have been almost completely forgotten."

After his resettlement in Moldavia, the elder Paisii's translation project became more systematic, especially in the Niamets monastery. Paisii clearly understood all the difficulties of translation and the thorough knowledge of languages it required. At first he relied on Moldavian translators. He formed a large circle of scribes and tranlators, and he sent his students to learn Greek even in Bucharest. He engaged in this work with great enthusiasm.

How he wrote occasioned wonder: his body was so weak from sores: sores covered his right side; however, until he went to rest on his deathbed, he surrounded himself with books: there, side by side, stood the Greek and Slavic Bibles, Greek and Slavic Grammars, and the book from which he was making a translation by candlelight; and like a little child he sat bent over writing all night, forgetting his bodily weakness, severe illnesses and difficulty.

Paisii was an exacting translator and he was afraid to circulate his translations widely "if they were lame or imperfect." His disciples also made translations from Latin.

Under Paisii's guidance, Niamets monastery became a great literary center and a source of theological-ascetical enlightenment. This literary activity was organically linked with spiritual and "intellectual construction." The biographer of the elder Paisii notes that "his mind was always joined with love for God; his tears serve as witness." The message of spiritual concentration and wholeness possessed particular significance for that age of spiritual dualism and cleavage. Publication of the Slavonic-Russian edition of the Philokalia constituted a major event not only in the history of Russian monasticism but generally in the history of Russian culture. It was both an accomplishment and a catalyst.

Feofan Prokopovich and Paisii Velichkovskii make an interesting comparison. Feofan lived entirely on expectations. He stood for what was modern, for the future, and for progress. Paisii lived in the past, in traditions, and in Tradition. Yet he proved to be the prophet and the harbinger of things to come. The return to sources revealed new roads and meant the acquisition of new horizons

[...] This personal conviction and sense of being a prophet who has been called or sent, the perception of an extraordinary mission or task, and a certain ecstatic egocentricity all characterize this type of fanatic. Fotii might be termed a man possessed rather than a hypocrite. In any case, the voice of the church's history and ancient traditions can scarcely be detected in Fotii's violent appeals and outbursts. He was too ignorant to do so, for he knew very little about patristic or even ascetical writings. He almost never refers to them. "I do not possess the [writings of the] Holy Fathers, I have and read only the Holy Bible." In this regard, Fotii did not depart from the custom of that "Biblical" age. Neither a rigorous defender nor guardian of the church's customs and traditions, Fotii loved to do everything to suit himself, which, resulted in quarrels with the church authorities. Usually he argues on the basis of personal revelations and inspirations; on the basis of visions apparitions, and dreams. In short, Fotii was not so much superstitious as fanatical.

Fotii studied at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy "under the sharp eye of Archimandrite Filaret." But he did not graduate because of an illness, which took the form of a paroxysm induced by fears and spiritual exhaustion. Fotii became confused and paralyzed by the mysticism then prevalent in society. Many at the academy read too deeply in the poisonous books of the liar and apostate Jung-Stilling.

Newly published writings, such as Stilling, Eckartshausen, and similar novelistic and freethinking books could be read at the academy. . .Quarrels broke out over the Thousand Year Reign of Christ on earth, eternal damnation, and other religious questions; some loved to deviate from the Holy Scriptures, others found mysteries everywhere. The academy library would not lend the works of the Holy Fathers, for no one gave permission or provided the example. German and other foreign commentators on the Holy Scriptures, who caused more harm than they did good, were recommended and passed around.

Fotii became utterly confused in such an environment. He also seems to have learned a good deal during the little more than a year he spent at the academy, although there is little likelihood that he learned and became trained "to discover mysteries everywhere." Nor did the academy infect him with a fashionable mania for interpreting the Apocalypse and divining the times through apocalyptical texts used as signs. Where Fotii's actual or imaginary enemies adduced the Kingdom of a Thousand Years from such texts, Fotii discerned the Antichrist. "The wood is already stacked and the fire is being kindled."

After leaving the academy, Fotii became a teacher at the Aleksandr Nevskii schools, where he was under the supervision of Rector Innokentii. ¹¹¹ In 1817, Fotii accepted tonsure and was quickly appointed a teacher of religion in the second military academy. ¹¹² While his field of vision expanded, Fotii continued to gather polemical materials, reading, re-reading, and reviewing newly printed seditious books, "especially those either manifestly or secretly revolutionary and pernicious." His assortment and inventory of such books was rather diverse and disjointed and included books on English materialism, French pornography, freemasonry and magic, German philosophy, the sorcery of Boehme, Stilling, and similarly "satanic books," "revolutionary and evil" books, "wretched Masonic" books, the works of that "Masonic heretic" Fenelon and that "foul French woman " Guyon, and other works such as those "setting forth the teachings of the Methodists and the quietists, that is, of that Jacobinism and philosophy which hides behind the mask of Christianity." Fotii always remained mistrustful of the "newly educated" clergy: "not a single collaborator was found suitable; each was prepared to put the truth up for sale."

The Russian Bible made its appearance against this background. At first Fotii attacked actual Masons. As he put it, "At the risk of my life, I acted to counter Messenger of Zion [Sionskii Vestnik], Labzin, the Masonic lodges and heresies, trying to halt the spread of their schisms." Fotii was correct about many things, but he described all such defects with an hysterical intensity which could be more irritating than convincing. He possessed a peculiarly ecstatic suspiciousness which disfigured his accurate observations through the addition of imaginary and imperceivable traits. Metropolitan Mikhail appointed Innokentii to calm Fotii. But Innokentii only further aroused him with his own bitter remarks about the snares of the devil. Fotii later wrote a Life [Zhitie] of Innokentii after his own likeness or in keeping with his imagined ideal. In reality, Innokentii was more subtle and profound, although he lacked sufficient self-control and patience.

Fotii soon came to be too obstreperous for the capital and was dispatched to Novgorod as abbot of the Derevianits Monastery, then Skovoroda Monastery, and finally the Iur'ev Monastery, where he served as archimandrite. While at the Iur'ev Monastery, Fotii formed a close friendship with Countess A.A. Orlova, ¹¹³ which proved to be the decisive event in his life. Through "Countess Anna," Fotii unexpectedly began his friendship with Prince Golitsyn during those same years. Their correspondence which has been preserved, possesses a warm and sincere character. ¹¹⁴ In his "autobiography," Fotii recalls his long and extensive conversations with Golitsyn at Countess Orlova's home. These talks sometimes lasted nine hours without interruption. Fotii emphasizes that Golitsyn passionately came to love him and was prepared to fulfill his every wish. Judging by Golitsyn's actual letters, Fotii did not exaggerate. He succeeded for a time in reconciling Golitsyn with Metropolitan Seraphim. Golitsyn saw in Fotii another St. John Chrysostom and a "youthful starets" [elder]. At the time, Fotii was barely thirty. Fotii did not conceal his own warm feelings: "You and I — the two of us — are like one body and soul, one mind and heart; we are one because Christ is in our midst."

The "uprising" broke out in 1824. As Filaret recalls, "The uprising against the Ministry of Religious Affairs and against the Bible Society and the translation of the Holy Scriptures had been organized by people guided by personal interests, who not only spread farfetched and exaggerated suspicions, but even produced fabrications and slanders, hoping to attract other, well-intentioned people to their cause." Arakcheev's¹¹⁵ role in this intrigue needs no elaboration. For him the intrigue was the denouement and the means for removing from authority and influence a powerful rival with personal ties to the Tsar.

The appearance of Gossner's book On the Gospel of Matthew [O Evangelii ot Matfeia] in Russian translation served as the occasion and the pretext for decisive action. The translation could only have been an excuse, for the book was indistinguishable from the multitude of such edifying and pietistic works then being published. Several times Fotii wrote frenzied letters to the Tsar, warning him of danger. He did so with the knowledge and conviction that he had been consecrated and sent to testify in defense of the beleaguered church and fatherland. An angel of the Lord had been sent to him on Palm Sunday. The angel, appearing before him during a dream, held in his hand a book with large letters inscribed on its cover: "this book has been composed for revolution and at this moment its intention is revolution." The book, it turned out, was A Summons to men to follow the inner inclination of the Spirit of Christ. ¹¹⁶ Fotii defines the basic idea of this cunning and impious pamphlet as "an appeal to apostasy from the faith of Christ and a summons to alter the civil order in all of its parts."

The only argument which might possibly undermine the combined ministry in the eyes of Alexander I was "revolution." Fotii candidly says that: "Such political activities and plots had much greater influence on him [Alexander] than did the welfare of the whole Church." Religiously, Alexander was no less radical than Golitsyn. Fotii testified that "residing in this city for one and a half months, I secretly observed Gossner and learned that he was preparing revolution in those minds which he had been brought here to teach. He has been so well protected that no one dares touch him; he was summoned here because none among our Orthodox clergy could be found capable of such schemes." Fotii's letters aroused the Tsar's interest precisely because of their hysterically apocalyptical character. Consequently, he wished to meet Fotii personally. He had earlier met with Metropolitan Seraphim. After his audience with Alexander, Fotii twice visited Golitsyn and at the second meeting cursed him to his face.

Fotii stands before the holy icons: a candle burns, the holy sacraments of Christ are before him, the Bible is open (at Jeremiah 23). The prince enters like a beast of prey (Jeremiah 5:6), extending his hand for the blessing. But Fotii gives him no blessing, speaking thus: in the book Mystery of the Cross [Tainstvo kresta], printed under thy supervision, it is written: the clergy are beasts; and I, Fotii, a member of the clergy, am a priest of God, so I do not want to bless thee, and anyway thou dost not need it. (He gave him Jeremiah 23 to read). However, Prince Golitsyn refused to do so and fled, but Fotii shouted after Golitsyn through the door he left ajar: if thou dost not repent, thou shalt fall into Hell.

That is Fotii's version. In his Notes [Zapiski], Shishkov adds that: "Fotii shouted after him; `Anathema! Thou shalt be damned.'"

That same day, a rescript was issued exiling Gossner from the country and ordering that the Russian translation of his book be burned at the hand of the public executioner. Furthermore, the translators and censors were to be placed under arrest. Fotii greatly feared the Tsar's wrath for his daring anathema, but he continued to send his appeals to the court, including one outlining a "plan for the destruction of Russia" as well as "directives for the immediate destruction of this plan in a quiet and felicitous manner." The question of the Bible Society was posed most forcefully. "The Bible Society must be eliminated on the pretext that since the Bible has already been printed, it is now no longer needed." The Ministry of Religious Affairs was to be abolished, and its present dignitary deprived of two other posts. Koshelev ¹¹⁷ should be removed, Gossner expelled, Fessler ¹¹⁸ banished into exile, and the Methodists driven out, or at least their leaders. Once again Fotii invoked divine inspiration: "Divine Providence does not now reveal that anything more should be done. I have proclaimed God's commandment; its fulfillment depends on Thee. Precisely twelve years have elapsed from 1812 to 1824. God conquered the visible Napoleon who invaded Russia. Through Thy person let Him conquer the spiritual Napoleon:" During the ensuing days, Fotii sent the Tsar several more of his alarming "massives." "A great, fearful, and illegal mystery is at work, which I am revealing to thee, O thou powerful one with the strength and spirit of God." The goal was achieved and on 15 May 1824, Golitsyn was dismissed, the combined ministry abolished, and the former departmental divisions reestablished. Nevertheless, Golitsyn did not fall into disfavor or lose his personal influence, even after Alexander's death.

The aged Admiral Shishkov, "the half-dead Shishkov dug up from oblivion," was appointed minister of a separate Ministry of Education. Although Shishkov did not become Minister of Religious Affairs, inertia perpetuated the politics of the combined ministry only in reverse, for he persistently interfered with Synodal affairs. Shishkov had no very precise religious views. He was a moderate free-thinker of the eighteenth century, who limited his rationalism out of national-political considerations. Even close friends who were well disposed toward him testified that Shishkov held "views closely approximating, if they did not actually coincide with, Socinianism." ¹¹⁹ Fotii referred to him rather evasively: "He defended the Orthodox Church to the extent that he possessed any knowledge." Fotii knew perfectly well such "knowledge" was rather meager and related more to the church's role in a state, which had called upon it to be a pillar and a bulwark against rebellion and revolution. However, Shishko had his own firm opinions about Biblical translation. The very idea of translating the Bible seemed to him the foulest of heresies, although above all a "literary heresy," in Sverbeev's ¹²⁰ clever phrase. For Shishkov denied the very existence of a Russian language. "As though it was something distinct," he would say perplexedly. "Our Slavic and Russian language is one and the same, differentiated only into higher language and common speech." This was Shishkov's basic religious-philological thesis. Literary or colloquial Russian in his view and understanding is "only the dialect of the common people" within a Slavic-Russian language. "What is the Russian language divorced from Slavic? A dream, a riddle!. . . .Is it not odd to affirm the existence of a language which does not contain a single word?" The lexicon is one and the same for both styles of dialects. "By Slavic we mean nothing else than that language which is higher than colloquial and which, consequently, can only be learned by reading; it is the lofty, learned literary language."

In the final analysis, Shishkov distinguished between the two languages: the "language of faith" and the "language of passions " or to put it another way, the "language of the church" and the "language of the theater." Biblical translation appeared to him to be a "transposition" of the Word of God from the lofty and dignified dialect to that low-styled language of the passions and the theater. He believed that such a step was being taken in order to deliberately belittle the Bible, hence his constant fuss over "the observance of Orthodoxy in literary style." He also considered the translation hastily made; "thrown to a few students at the Academy with instructions to do it as quickly as possible." The Russian translation's departure from Church Slavic cast a shadow on a text, which had become familiar and hallowed by church usage and thereby undermined confidence in it. "The pride of some monk [Filaret?] or learned braggart says: thus it is in Hebrew. Well, who will convince me that he knows the full force of such a little known language, written so long ago?" Quite frequently Shishkov speaks as if Slavic was the original language of Holy Scripture. "How dare they alter words considered to come from the mouth of God?"

Shishkov was not alone in these religious-philological reflections. Curiously enough, for similar reasons, Speranskii also completely opposed a Russian translation of the Bible. The language of the "common people" seemed to him less expressive and precise. Would it not be better to teach everyone Slavic? Speranskii advised his daughter to use the English translation, not the Russian, when she encountered difficult passages. Many others shared this opinion. ¹²¹

Shishkov detected a particularly sinister scheme in the publication of the Pentateuch "separately from the Prophets." Whereas in fact, the Pentateuch represented the first volume of a complete Russian Bible and had been planned for publication prior to the succeeding volumes in order to speed the work. Shishkov suspected that this separate publication had been conceived and executed in order to push the common people into the arms of the Molokane heresy or simply into Judaism. Might not someone understand the Mosaic law literally, particularly the observance of the Sabbath? . . . .Should not a qualification be added that all this can be explained figuratively and as shadows of the past? With the support of Metropolitan Seraphim, Shishkov succeeded in having the Russian Pentateuch burned at the brick factory of the Aleksandr Nevskii Monastery. Subsequently, Filaret of Kiev ¹²² could not recall this destruction of the Holy Scriptures without a terrible shudder.

Shishkov saw no need to distribute the Bible among laymen and the people generally. "Will not this imaginary need, by demeaning the significance of the Holy Scriptures, result in nothing other than heresies or schisms?" Would not the dignity of the Bible be lowered by having it in the home? "What can come of this? . . . .A vast sum will be expended in order that the Gospel, heretofore regarded with solemnity might suffer the loss of its importance, be sullied, ripped apart, thrown under benches, or serve as wrapping paper for household goods, and have no more ability to act on the human mind than on the human heart." Shishkov writes still more emphatically that "this reading of the sacred books aims to destroy the true faith, disrupt the fatherland and produce strife and rebellion." He believed that the Bible Society and revolution were synonyms.

Quite consistently, Shishkov also objected to translation of the Bible into other languages such as Tatar or Turkish, for who could vouch for the fidelity of the translation? Shishkov also feared commentaries on the Bible. Who will explain the Scriptures once they are so widely distributed and so easily accessible?

Without qualified interpreters and preachers, what will be the effect when large numbers of Bibles and separate books of the Bible have been disseminated? Amidst such an unchecked (and one might say universal) deluge of books of the Holy Scriptures, where will room be found for the Apostolic teachings, practices, and customs of the Church? In a word, for everything which heretofore has served as a bulwark of Orthodoxy? . . . All of these things will be dragged down, crushed, and trampled under foot.

Similarly, Shishkov viewed the publication of the Catechism [Katekhizis] as a dire plot. Why print so many copies, if not to spread an impure-faith? (A total of 18,000 copies had been printed). Once again the Russian language more than anything else frightened Shishkov. "It is unseemly in religious books to have such prayers as `I believe in One God' and the Pater Noster transposed into the common dialect." The Catechism contained scriptural texts in Russian.

The catechism composed by Filaret (a task originally entrusted to Metropolitan Mikhail) had been issued in 1823 with the approval of the Holy Synod and by imperial directive. "At the request of the Minister of Education," accompanied by the use of the Emperor's name, the Catechism was removed from sale at the end of 1824. Filaret immediately lodged a protest against its removal and openly raised the question about Orthodoxy. "If the Orthodoxy of the Catechism, so solemnly confirmed by the Holy Synod, is in doubt, then will not the Orthodoxy of the Holy Synod itself be called into question?" In reply, Metropolitan Seraphim insisted that the question of Orthodoxy had not been raised and that there was no doubt or dispute on that point. The Catechism had been suspended solely because of the language of the Biblical texts and of the "prayers." Seraphim, with some disingenuousness, went on to say, "You may ask why the Russian language should not have a place in the catechism, especially in its abbreviated form intended for young children entirely unfamiliar with Slavic and therefore incapable of understanding the truths of the faith expounded for them in that language, when it, that is, Russian, has been retained in the sacred books of the New Testament and in the Psalms. To this and many other questions, which might be asked in this connection, I cannot give you any satisfactory answer. I hope that time will explain to us that which now seems clouded. In my opinion, that time will soon come . . ."

Seraphim's answer could signify that he either had not personally or actively participated in the new course of events, or that this apparent inconsistency could be quickly overcome by extending the ban to include both the Russian translation of the New Testament and the Bible Society. In any case, Seraphim simply lied when he denied that the Catechism's Orthodoxy had been questioned. Fotii emphatically and publicly pronounced it heretical, compared it with "canal water," and unfavorably contrasted the Catechism with the older Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogila. ¹²³ The Catechism was subjected to examination, if not officially, then at least officiously. Apparently Archpriest I.S. Kochetov (1790-1854), a candidate for a higher degree, who had graduated with the first class of the reformed St. Petersburg Academy, and at that time a religion teacher at the Tsarskoe Selo lycee, had been entrusted with the review. His evaluation, quickly arrived at, did not favor the catechism. Kochetov took more interest in questions of language than of theology. As a philologist, he served as a member of the Russian Academy, beginning in 1828. Later he achieved full membership. ¹²⁴

Metropolitan Evgenii, ¹²⁵ who recently had been summoned to attend the meetings of the Holy Synod, maintained a very critical attitude toward the Catechism. Filaret's successor at Tver' and Iaroslavl', Simeon Krylov-Platonov, ¹²⁶ contemptuously dubbed the Catechism "a miserable pamphlet," containing unheard of teaching and "insufferable insolence." In any event, a revised edition of the Catechism was recirculated only after careful re-examination of all Biblical texts and citations, including their "presentation in Slavic rather than in the Russian dialect." Even the language of exposition was deliberately adapted or made more nearly approximate to Slavic. However, only insignificant changes in content were made at that time.

Shishkov obtained Emperor Alexander's permission to forbid translations of the Bible as well as to close the Bible Society. He was able to supply some arguments himself, and others were suggested to him by such zealots as M. Magnitskii ¹²⁷ and A.A. Pavlov ¹²⁸ (who worked in the office of the Over Procurator of the Holy Synod). Fotii described Pavlov as that "brave warrior of 1824." Metropolitan Seraphim acted as one with Shishkov. However, Seraphim acted on suggestion. A timid man, he lacked "sufficient clarity of mind" to distinguish responsibly enthusiasm and suspicions amidst the cross-currents of rumors and fears. Left to himself, Seraphim would have insisted only on the dismissal of the "blind minister." All further reasons were suggested or even imposed on him. At one time Seraphim had studied in Novikov's "seminary," and he had been an active member of the Bible Society, both as archbishop of Minsk and later as metropolitan of Moscow. He often delivered speeches filled with pathos in the meetings of the Moscow Bible Society. However, his sentiments were changed when he transferred to St. Petersburg. He immediately broke with Golitsyn. Following Golitsyn's removal from office, Metropolitan Seraphim, as president of the Bible Society, began to importune Emperor Alexander about abolishing and closing down all Bible societies and transferring all their affairs, property, and translation projects to the Holy Synod.

Such demands were not quickly realized, coming as they did only during the next reign under the fresh impact of the Decembrist revolt, ¹²⁹ the responsibility for which Shishkov convincingly blamed on the "mystics." However, the rescript of 12 April 1826 closing the Bible Society contained an important qualification: "I sanction the continued sale at the established price for those who desire them the books of the Holy Scriptures which have already been printed by the Bible Society in Slavic, Russian, and in other languages spoken by inhabitants of the Empire." Even Nicholas I ¹³⁰ was not fully prepared to follow Shishkov. In practice, however, the publications of the Bible Society were taken from circulation and only the committees concerned for prisons continued to supply the Russian translation of the New Testament to exiles and prisoners from their stocks.

Curiously enough, in 1828, Prince K.K. Liven, the former superintendent in Dorpat and a prominent and influential figure in the former Bible Society, replaced Shishkov as Minister of Education. Later, in 1832, he became the head of the revived German Bible Society. Prince Liven belonged to the Moravian Brethren. "Sometimes an official sent from somewhere with an important dispatch would discover him in the reception hall in front of the lectern, loudly singing the Psalms. Turning to the official, he would listen to him, but without answering, continue his liturgy" (Vigel'). Of course, Liven was a German and a Protestant; and it was the German Bible Society, which was restored. Yet as Minister of Education, he was called upon to administer to the whole empire. In any case, by that time, "the views of the government" had changed once again.

[...]

The full significance of the Alexandrine era ^l for Russia's overall cultural development still remains to be discerned and evaluated. An agitated and pathetic moment, a period of powerfully constructive tensions, the Alexandrine years, with bold naivete, witnessed and experienced the first joys of creativity. Ivan Aksakov ² successfully characterized this formative moment in Russia's development as one in which poetry suddenly seemed for a time an incontestable historical vocation; poetry "took on the appearance of a sacramental act." A peculiar vitality and independence, a "creative feeling and joy of artistic mastery" suffused all contemporary poetical work. Russia experienced an awakening of the heart.

However, one must immediately add that there was still no awakening of the mind. Imagination remained unbridled and untempered by mental struggle or intellectual asceticism. Thus, people of that generation easily and frequently fell under charms or into dreams or visions. Alexander's reign was generally an age of dreams; an epoch of musings and sighs, as well as a time of sights, insights, and visions. A disjunction of mind and heart, of thought and imagination, characterized the entire period. The age did not suffer so much from the lack of will as it did from an irresponsible heart. "An esthetic culture of the heart replaced moral precepts with delicate feelings," in Kliuchevskii's words. The great frailty and infirmity of pietism provided precisely this defect in the heart.

The Russian soul passed through the ordeal or seduction of pietism at the outset of the nineteenth century — the apogee of Russia's westernism. Catherine's reign seems absolutely primitive in comparison to the triumphant face of the Alexandrine era, when the soul completely gave itself over to Europe. In any event, such a development occurred no earlier than the appearance of Letters of a Russian Traveler (1791-1792).³ Rozanov ⁴ once aptly remarked that "in the Letters of a Russian Traveler, Russia's soul turned to the marvelous world of Western Europe, wept over it, loved it and comprehended it; whereas in the earlier years of the century, her soul gazed on that world with dulled eyes fixing on nothing."

But in immediately succeeding generations a "Slavophile" opposition, which was not so much a national-psychological opposition as a culturally creative one, began to take shape. The westernism of Alexander's reign, in a real sense, did not mean de-nationalization. On the contrary, this was a period of increased national feeling. However, at that moment the Russian soul took on a perfect resemblance to the Aeolian Harp.

Zhukovskii's with his ingenious diapson and sympathetic, creative ability at reincarnation, with his intense sensitivity and responsiveness, and with his free and immediate language, typifies the period. Yet Zhukovskii was and forever remained (in his lyrical meditations) a western man, a western dreamer, a German pietist always gazing, "like a poet, through the prism of the heart." Hence his astonishing ability for translating German: his German soul simply expressed itself in Russian.

Quite characteristically, this attack of dreaminess broke out under wartime conditions. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, nearly the whole of Europe had become a theater of military operations. Europe was transformed into an armed camp. It was a time of great historical turning points and divisions, of epoch-making storms and stresses. The beginning of the nineteenth century — the era of the Great Fatherland War 6 and Napoleon — witnessed a new migration of peoples: "the invasion of the Gauls accompanied by the twenty nations." Unrest highly charged the surrounding environment. Events acquired a feverish rhythm; the wildest fears and premonitions came to pass. Bewildered, the soul was torn between hopeful anticipation and eschatological impatience. Many believed that they lived in an ever-closing apocalyptical circle. "This is not the quiet dawn of Russia, but the stormy twilight of Europe," Metropolitan Filaret ⁷ once said.

For a generation of dreamers possessing such unreliable and quite easily aroused imaginations, the ordeal of those violent days proved to be a very harsh trial. Apocalyptical fear awoke and the feeling spread widely that some tangible and immanent Divine guidance had assumed and dissolved individual human wills within itself. The idea of Providence acquired a superstitious and magical reflection in the consciousness of that generation. Men no longer believed in their own abilities. Many experienced and interpreted the Great Fatherland War as an apocalyptical struggle: "A judgment of God on the icy fields." Napoleon's defeat was accounted a victory over the Beast.

Something majestic and almighty could be detected everywhere and in everything. I am almost certain Alexander and Kutuzov had gained the ability to see Him and that His wrathful countenance had shone even on Napoleon. (Vigel') ⁸

In the prevailing sentiment the spirit of dreamy withdrawal from and rejection of the "formal" or "external" in Christianity combined with the most unrestrained expectation of the visible approach of the Kingdom of God on earth. One must remember that Romanticism and the Enlightenment equally bear the mark of chiliasm. Romanticism's visionary utopianism is partially the heir to the eighteenth century belief in the imminent and immediate realization of ultimate ideals. Whether as an Age of Reason, a Kingdom of God, or as any number of designations, everyone expected a new Golden Age. The goddess Astrea ⁹ would return. Earthly Paradise once more would be revealed. "Then a genuine New Year shall descend upon the earth."

The psychological history of that age and generation can be understood only from the perspective of these awakened socio-apocalyptical expectations and in the context of all those contemporary and universally stunning events and acts. The history of that age displays a streak of theocratic utopianism.

Emperor Alexander I may justly be termed the eponym of his age. He typified the epoch in his spiritual formation and style and in his tastes and inclinations. Alexander was reared in the influences of sentimental humanism. From there the step to the mystical religion of the heart was neither long nor difficult. At a very early age, Alexander became used to living in an atmosphere of dreams and expectations, in a peculiar intellectual mimicry, in aspirations and dreams for "the ideal." That pathetic oath sworn by the two monarchs over the grave of Frederick II occurred as early as 1804.¹⁰ In any event, Alexander entered the sphere of mystical enthusiasms long before "the flames of Moscow illumined his heart."

Speranskii, ¹¹ writing from Perm, reminded the tsar about their conversations on mystical themes: conversations, which clearly reveal a "subject matter corresponding to the emperor's innermost feelings." However, an even stronger influence was exercised by Rodion Koshelev (1749-1827),¹² an old Mason personally acquainted with Lavater, Saint-Martin, Eckartshausen, ¹³ and even more closely with Prince A. N. Golitsyn. ¹⁴ In 1812 Alexander composed a revealing memoir entitled On mystical literature [O misticheskoi literature] for his favorite sister, the Grand Duchess Catherine. He repeats, or reformulates, the advice and program of others, yet one instantly realizes that Alexander has fully assimilated that program, acclimated himself to its style, and that he had already formed definite tastes and preferences. He preferred St. Francis de Sales, ¹⁵ St. Teresa of Avila, ¹⁶ The Imitation of Christ, ¹⁷ and J. Tauler. ¹⁸

The Great Fatherland War served only as a catalyst for Alexander, resolving older tensions. He read the New Testament for the first time on the very eve of Napoleon's invasion. The Apocalypse most greatly affected him. Similarly the prophets attracted him most in the Old Testament. From that moment onward, Alexander became curious and credulous of every manner of interpretation and any interpreter of the enigmatic and symbolic Book of Revelation. Precisely such curiosity drew him to Jung-Stilling (J. H. Jung), ¹⁹ Baroness Krudener, ²⁰ Pastor Empeitaz, ²¹ Oberlin, ²² the Moravian Brethern, the Quakers, and the Herrnhutters. ²³ Later, two priests from Balta, Feodosii Levitskii and Fedor Lisevich (who considered themselves "two faithful witnesses" from Revelations) were summoned to the capital specifically in order to interpret the Apocalypse. ²⁴ Apparently Alexander was prepared to listen to Archimandrite Fotii ²⁵ because Fotii interpreted Revelations and prophesied and threatened in the name of the Apocalypse and all the prophets. In such historical circumstances, it was not strange to believe that the end was approaching.

Alexander neither loved nor sought power. But he acknowledged that he was the bearer of a sacred idea and revelled in that fact. This belief constituted the source of his moral and political obstinacy (rather than tenacity). Many of that generation detected in themselves a special sign of predestination. The Holy Alliance ²⁶ was conceived and concluded in precisely such a mood. In a way similar to the theories of the Age of Enlightenment, this alliance presupposed a faith in an omnipotent and benevolent Lawgiver, who designed or established an ecumenical peace and a universal happiness. No one had to suggest this idea to Alexander; he discovered it for himself in those events, which seemed so cunningly devised. "The Redeemer Himself teaches the idea and the precepts which we have announced."

The Holy Alliance was conceived as a preparation for the Kingdom of a Thousand Years. As Golitsyn put it: "It will be apparent to anyone who wishes to see, that this act can only be understood as a preparation for that promised Kingdom of the Lord on earth even as it is in Heaven." The act of "Fraternal Christian Alliance" was signed "in the year of Grace 1815, the 14th/26th September," and the fact that the day coincided with the feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross ²⁷ according to the Eastern Orthodox calendar is scarcely an accident. The Holy Synod ordered that the Act of Holy Alliance be displayed on walls and in every city and village church. And each year on the feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross the act was to be reannounced from the ambo, along with an accompanying manifesto, "so that each and every person might fulfill his vow of service to the one Lord and Savior, who speaks through the person of the Sovereign for the entire people." A special "combined ministry," a Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Enlightenment, was established specifically in order to fulfill that vow. ²⁸ According to Speranskii, it was "the greatest governmental act since the introduction of the Christian faith." Strictly speaking, this was to be a Ministry of Religio Utopian Propaganda. The combined ministry was founded "so that Christian piety would always serve as the basis for true enlightenment." In other words, this was a scheme to place religion at the head or center of culture as a whole: "a redemptive union of faith, knowledge and authority." The latter element of this synthesis is the characteristic one, for the idea was to use the power of "authority" to reconcile "faith" and "knowledge." To a significant degree the new ministry served as Prince A. N. Golitsyn's personal department. Perhaps personal regime would be more accurate. With the fall of Golitsyn, the combined ministry was abolished and its departments once more established on separate footings.

Prince A.N. Golitsyn (1773-1844) is perhaps the most characteristic man of that age. In any case, he was certainly its most sensitive and expressive representative. His ability to absorb impressions nearly constituted a sickness. He suffered from an outright mystical curiosity. A man of the Enlightenment no longer in his youth, Golitsyn suddenly experienced a turning of the heart. Yet the sensitivity of this newly converted heart combined with an insensitive and somewhat arid intellect. Prince Golitsyn's dreamy and authoritarian religious temperament rather unexpectedly grew into an organic unity. An aristocratic grandeur sharply pierced his sentimentalism. A man with a trusting and sensitive heart, Golitsyn could and wished to be a dictator, and actually became one for several years. His peculiar "dictatorship of the heart" proved very tiresome and intolerant. Fanaticism of the heart is especially prone to, and easily combined with, a sneering compassion.

Golitsyn converted to "universal Christianity," to a religion of tender imagination and experience of the heart. These were the only qualities in Christianity, which he prized. Hence his interest in sectarian "conversions" and "awakenings," which for him revealed the essence of religion stripped of all its useless trappings. He valued and understood only the symbolism, only the emotional-mysterious inspiration of ritual in "formal" worship and church life. Within that context Golitsyn was totally sincere and sensitive, for to the end of his days he was a man on a quest. The spirit of propaganda or proselytism is very characteristic of such forms of piety. As head of the combined ministry, Golitsyn discovered himself.

At the same time, the combined ministry represented a new link in the chain of Peter I's church reform, a new step toward the realization of that novel ecclesiastical-political regime established at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Still earlier, on the strength of the intimacy and favor bestowed upon him by the emperor, and as friend and "imperial confidant," Golitsyn, as Over Procurator, succeeded in becoming a sort of governor-general of the "Synodal Department." True, in individual cases he defended the church against state encroachments, as for example, when he rejected Speranskii's proposal to turn over to the secular authorities the right to grant divorces. With the establishment of the combined ministry, his earlier demonstrated success took on the full force of law. The Synod became formally integrated within the state administration for "religious affairs," as a special "division for the Greco-Russian confession." The manifesto establishing this new administration expresses the matter as follows:

Of course the affairs of the Most Holy Governing Synod will be attached to it (i.e., the ministry) in order that the Minister of Religious Affairs and Public Enlightenment will have exactly the same relationship to the Synod in these affairs as the Minister of Justice has to the Governing Senate, except, however, in judicial matters.

Fundamental to the design of the combined ministry, as well as to the entire conception of the Holy Alliance, is the religious leadership or supremacy of the "Prince," ruling and administering not only "by the grace of God," but also by Divine authority. As the "treatise" on the Holy Alliance phrased it, "thus confessing that the Christian world, of which they and their subjects form a part, has in reality no other Sovereign than Him to whom alone power truly belongs." The definition provided by Novosiltsev ²⁹ in his "Statutory Charter" makes an interesting comparison: "As the Supreme head of the Orthodox Greco-Russian Church, the Sovereign is elevated to all the honors of the church hierarchy" (Article 20). Such a step forward went beyond Peter and Feofan. The Petrine State subordinated the church from without, and in the name of a secular cause, "the common good," extorted toleration for secularized life. During Alexander's reign, the state once again conceived itself to be holy and sacred, proclaiming religious leadership and imposing its own religious ideas. The Over Procurator seemingly "joined the clergy of the Church" as the "locum tenens for the external bishop" [mestobliustitel' vneshniago episkopa], as Filaret, the future metropolitan of Moscow, greeted Golitsyn on his appointment; or "the great chimera of universal Christianity," as Joseph de Maistre ³⁰ sardonically put it.

The Emperor Alexander professed a mongrel form of Christianity, and pretentiously claimed the right to rule in the name of this "universal" religion. All confessions within the Russian Empire were urged to accommodate themselves to a particular place within the overall system. The combined ministry was to join, if not unite, all confessions or "churches" not only in a common task but with a single inspiration. In this regard, the very complex and highly symbolical plans for the cathedral of Christ the Savior drawn up by A.L. Witberg ³¹ are very instructive. "I did not wish to raise up an edifice to God, but rather a prayer." This cathedral was not to be merely an Orthodox one, but was also to embody and express "an all-embracing idea." As Witberg himself said: "Its very dedication to Christ proved that it belonged to the entirety of Christianity."

The combined ministry became a cruel and coercive regime. Religious mysticism was invested with the full force of law, with fully decisive sanctions against those who disagreed or who simply acted evasively. Simple lack of sympathy for the ideas of "inner Christianity" was considered a crime, and consequently an act of opposition to the views of the government. One article from a contemporary statute on censorship reads as follows: "Any act is condemned which, under the pretext of defending or justifying one of the Christian churches, reproaches another, thereby destroying the unity of love which binds all Christians together in one spirit in Christ." On the strength of such a statute, analysis of Protestant beliefs from the Orthodox point of view became impermissible. Such a prohibition had existed earlier under Peter and Biron.

The regime of the Holy Alliance signified the ensemblement of conscience and spirit, and constituted the most pretentious form of statism: theocratic statism. Too frequently, the combined ministry proved to be a "Ministry of Obfuscation," as Karamzin dubbed it. And yet, an awakening occurred in this extremely confused and ambiguous historical setting. The state attempted to strengthen and augment the religious needs of the mass of the population. "The efforts of Prince Golitsyn," writes the historian Chistovich, ³² "were directed toward arousing the Russian people from the slumber and indifference which he seemed to find everywhere; awakening in them higher spiritual instincts; and through the distribution of religious books implanting in them the living stream of an inwardly comprehended Christianity." That same historian notes that "the period of unrestricted existence of the Bible Society marks the only time since the outset of the eighteenth century when secular society, applying itself to religious subjects with a lively and intense interest, gave first priority to the moral and spiritual development of the people." The message of "inner Christianity" did not pass away without a trace; it sented as a summons to moral and religious self-reliance. In any case, it acted as a dialectical counterweight to the enlightened secularism of the previous century. At that time a conscious effort had been made to force the clergy into the lower social classes and dissolve it in "the common sort of men." ³³ Now the ideal arose of an educated and enlightened clergy occupying a place in higher society. The new regime's program allotted the bearers of religious ideas and inspiration a greater place or role in the entire system of state and national life. Discipline was the hallmark of Peter's reign education that of Catherine's; now creativity became the sign of the times.

Roman Catholic elements also existed in the prevailing mystical syncretism. In an important sense, Joseph de Maistre belongs to the history of Russian mysticism. As a youth he experienced freemasonry, and his outlook owes a good deal to Saint-Martin. During his years in Russia, he continued to believe that in non-Catholic countries freemasonry posed no danger for religion or for the state. However, the Bible Society, whose working operations he could observe firsthand in Russia, he considered quite dangerous. These impressions found a place in his theocratic synthesis. As G. Goyau ³⁴ perceptively noted, when de Maistre wrote On the Pope, he had two countries in mind: France and Russia. De Maistre exercised a considerable influence in Russian aristocratic circles. ³⁵

During the first years of the new century, the influence of the Jesuits could also be strongly felt. One need only recall the names of Abbes Nicole ³⁶ and Rozaven. ³⁷ For a short time, from 1811 to 1820, the Jesuits even managed to achieve the creation of a special educational district for their schools within the empire. Polotsk Academy served as its administrative center. To the south, Odessa became a hotbed of Roman proselytism and its College des Nobles raquo; , was soon reorganized as the lycee Richelieu with Nicole as director. However, by 1815 the Jesuits had been expelled from both capitals, and by 1820 they were dispatched beyond the empire's frontier. Their schools were either closed or reformed. However, such measures did not entirely eliminate Latin influence.

The Alexandrine era consisted of contradictions, ambiguities, and duplicities. Life and thought became divided. An open (if not free) social and religious debate arose for the first time. Such was the beginning of a new, stormy, and significant era.

A mystical intensity can be detected from the outset of the century. Masonic lodges revived and reopened. Publication of mystical books resumed, providing a renaissance in the Novikov tradition. ³⁸ Men such as Lopukhin, E. Karneev, Koshelev, I. Turgenev and Labzin, ³⁹ who had been formed in those earlier years, came forward to renew their activities.

The work of A. F. Labzin (1766-1825) most characterized the early years of the century. By 1800, while conference secretary for the Academy of Arts, he opened the St. Petersburg lodge "The Dying Sphinx," an exclusive and separate circle of Rosicrucians. For a time he had been an ardent follower of Schwartz, ⁴⁰ and during Paul's reign he translated the history of the Maltese order from German ⁴¹ Labzin now tried to repeat the experience of Moscow in the 1780's, and actually did so in publishing. By 1803 he had revived the printing of translated mystical works, especially those of Jung-Stilling and Eckartshausen. Along with Boehme, Saint-Martin and (in part) Fenelon ⁴² served as authorities or "models." In 1806 Labzin undertook publication of Messenger of Zion [Sionskii hestnik]. The political climate of those years did not yet favor such publications, and Labzin was compelled to suspend his journal. Labzin indicates the models on which he fashioned his own journal: Pfenniger's Sammlung zu Einem Christlichen Magazin ⁴³ and Ewald's Christliche Monatsschrift. ⁴⁴

The real swing toward mystical literature occurred only after the Great Fatherland War in connection with the activities of the Bible Society. Only "by Imperial order" in 1817 was Messenger of Zion reopened. By that time there was a sufficient demand for such "mystical books." Judging by the statements and memoirs of contemporaries, many people possessed such books. Characteristically for that period, mysticism became a social movement and for a time enjoyed governmental support. A strong mystical type was created. Contemporary biographies usually contain a mystical period or episode.

Labzin's message was simple and typical: a mixture of quietism and pietism; above all, a message of "awakening" or "conversion." He called for introspection and reflection, concentrating full attention on the moment of "conversion:" The new teaching acknowledged as real the sole "dogma" of "conversion." Renunciation of proud Reason led to agnosticism (sometimes practically aphasia) in theology. All religious experience diffused into waves of captivating and oppressive enthusiasm. "In the Holy Scriptures we find absolutely no guidelines for the understanding of Divine matters." Reason, with its insights, is contrasted with Revelation; not so much a historical or written Revelation as an "inner" one (that is, a certain "enlightenment" or "illumination"). "Holy Scripture is a mute instructor, using signs to inform the living teacher who dwells in the heart." Dogmas, and even the sacraments, are less important than this life of the heart. In fact, one cannot please God with "opinions." "We do not find the Savior providing any explanations of dogmas, only practical axioms teaching us what to do and what to avoid." Thus, all confessional divisions stem from the pride of Reason. The true church is greater than these superficial divisions and consists of all true worshippers in the spirit, encompassing the entire human race. Such a truly ecumenical or "universal" Christianity becomes for Labzin a peculiar supratemporal or suprahistorical religion. Such a religion is one and the same for all peoples and all times. It is found in the book of Nature, in the Scriptures, among the Prophets, in the mysteries and myths, and in the Gospel. A single religion of the heart. Each man possesses a secret chronology of his own era from the day of his rebirth or conversion, from the day when Christ is born or begins to dwell in his heart.

A sharp distinction in steps or degrees characterizes all of this mysticism, as does the unrestrained and impetuous aspiration to seek or acquire "higher" degrees or initiations. Only the "lowest orders of men, those barely catechumens," could be satisfied with the pious rituals in the historical churches. Dream and reason strangely intertwine in a mysticism which contains a romantic simplification of all questions and an excessive transparency and lucidity. "His reason presented everything clearly and simply, basing everything on the laws of necessity and on the law which unites the visible and the invisible, the earthly and the heavenly. This, I thought, is a science of religion; a great and important discovery for me." ⁴⁵

Opinions divide on Labzin. His polemical and resolute attacks on Voltarianism and all forms of freethinking attracted and reconciled many to him. Even Evgenii Bolkhovitinov ⁴⁶ remarked that "he detected many, if not from the depraved life, at least from those depraved ideas which combat religion." Filaret admitted that Labzin had pure intentions. "He was a good man, with certain peculiarities in his religious views." Others render a much harsher and utterly implacable judgment. Innokentii Smirnov ⁴⁷ regarded Labzin's translations as completely harmful and dangerous. Many were of a similar mind. Fotii saw in Labzin one of the chief instigators of heresy. In fact, Labzin's propaganda was extremely immodest, willful, and annoying. Intolerant, he had a pathos for conversion. Moreover, he achieved success. Apparently even clergymen (the archimandrites Feofil and Iov ⁴⁸ have been named) joined his lodge. Witberg, too, became a member. Curiously enough, Kheraskov composed his famous hymn "How Glorious" ⁴⁹ precisely for Labzin's lodge "The Dying Sphinx." The hymn is a typical example of the prevailing mystical and pietist poetry.

Mikhail Speranskii (1772-1834) is another representative of the mystical mood. Like Labzin, Speranskii was in essence a man of the preceding century. The optimist and rationalist of the Age of Enlightenment is strikingly evident in him. Speranskii surprised and even frightened his contemporaries by his extremely abstract manner. Forceful and bold in the realm of abstract constructions, schemes, and forms, he quickly tired and became lost in life, occasionally even failing to observe moral decorum. Not only did Speranskii never liberate himself from this innate rationalism, even through many years of reading mystical and ascetical books, but his thought grew still more arid, if more developed, in this ordeal of meditations. He achieved insensitivity, not impartiality. Speranskii derived his great strength as well as his weakness from this rationalism. He became an inimitable codifier and systemizer, and he could be a fearless reformer. But his thoughts lack vitality: they were frequently brilliant but even then they retained an icy chill. There is always something intolerably rhetorical in all his projects and speeches. His clarity and lucidity possessed an offensive quality, which explains why no one loved him and why he could hardly love anyone else. A highly directed and deliberate man, he had an excessive passion for symmetry and too great a faith in the omnipotence of statutes and forms. (Both Filaret and N.I. Turgenev ⁵⁰ concur in this evaluation). Despite the daring logic of his many proposals, Speranskii had no original ideas. He possessed a clear but superficial mind. His outlook lacked timbre and fibre; he had no living muscle. He even accepted suffering in a dream-like manner. Speranskii simply was not a man of thought. It is all the more characteristic that a man of that style and type could be attracted and drawn into a maelstrom of mysticism. Speranskii came from the clergy. He went through the usual curriculum of an ecclesiastical school, became a teacher and then a prefect in that same Aleksandr Nevskii Seminarys where he had studied. However, he developed an interest in theology at a later date. About 1804 he became acquainted with I. V. Lopukhin and began reading mystical books under Ms guidance. His reading during those years was largely comprised of "theosophical" books, including Boehme, Saint-Martin and Swedenborg. ⁵² Only later, when in exile in Perm and Velikopol'e, did he shift his interest to "mystical theology," that is, partly to quietism and partly to the church fathers. He even translated The Imitation of Christ. At the same time he studied Hebrew in order that he might read the Bible in that language. Still later, in Penza, he began learning German.

Speranskii makes the typical distinction or dichotomy of those years between "outer" and "inner." He possessed more than a mere indifference to history and sharply and maliciously described "historical" and "external" Christianity as "that disfigured Christianity adorned with all the colors of a sensual world." Once Speranskii wrote to his former schoolmate P. A. Slovtsov, that "to search the Holy Scriptures for our fruitless and empty historical truths and for a useless system provided by the logic of our five senses is to act the child and amuse ourselves with pointless scholarship and literature." Speranskii viewed the Bible as a book of parables and mysterious symbols; he considered it more a mythical or "theoretical" book than an historical one. Such an approach to the Bible generally characterized the prevailing mysticism and pietism. Speranskii's visionary paternalism, his juggling of abstract schemes, and even his lack of images are surprising. Curiously, he maintained a reserved attitude toward Jung-Stilling and all apocalyptical literature. There was too much that was apocalyptical in life and history to suit him.

Speranskii was a Mason, adhering to Fessler's "scientific" system rather than to Rosicrucianism. De Maistre, on insufficient grounds, considered Speranskii "an admirer of Kant." Fessler's invitation to Russia is a symptomatic episode. A prominently active Mason who had reformed German freemasonry on more rationalistic and critical lines, he was summoned by Speranskii to occupy a chair in the newly reformed St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Subsequently Speranskii emphasized that Fessler's invitation came "by special Imperial instruction." He was offered a chair of Hebrew, which Fessler had previously held in Lvov. ⁵³ Upon Fessler's arrival, Speranskii discovered he possessed an outstanding knowledge of philosophy and entrusted him not only with the chair of Hebrew, but with that of philosophy (Speranskii considered himself the "patron" of that chair). Baron Korf, Speranskii's early and official biographer, guessed that there may have been ulterior motives for Fessler's appointment. ⁵⁴ Since that time, the interesting comments by Gauenshil'd, who served for a time under Speranskii in the Commission on Laws, have become available. ⁵⁵ Gauenshil'd tells of a Masonic lodge organized by Fessler in St. Petersburg in which Speranskii became a member. Meetings were held in Baron Rosenkampf's home. ⁵⁶ "A proposal was made to found a central Masonic lodge with filial branches throughout the Russian empire, in which the ablest spiritual people of every station would be obliged to join. These spiritual brethren would be required to write articles on various humanitarian questions, deliver sermons, and so on. Their writings would then be submitted to the central lodge." Gauenshil'd recalls that at their first meeting Speranskii spoke of "reforming the Russian clergy." One may infer that Fessler had been brought to St. Petersburg and appointed to the Nevskii Academy for that purpose.

Fessler was a freethinker, not a mystic. He subscribed to the ideas of Lessing and Fichte, ⁵⁷ and he suggested that the goal of a true Mason could be found in the creation of civic consciousness and in reeducating the citizenry for the coming age of Astrea. Moscow Rosicrucians greeted the news of Fessler's appointment with indignation and fear, for "he is a stealthy enemy who rejects the divinity of Jesus Christ and acknowledges him merely as a great man" ⁵⁸ Fessler also met with hostility in St. Petersburg. However, prominent people joined his lodge, including S. S. Uvarov, ⁵⁹ A. I. Turgenev, ⁶⁰ a group of Carpatho- Russians from the Commission on Laws (Lodi, Balugianskii, and Orlai), ⁶¹ the court physician Stoffregen, the famous doctor E. E. Ellisen and the philanthropist Pomian Pezarovius, founder of the Russian Invalid and Alexander's Committee for the Wounded. ⁶²

Fessler did not teach long at the academy. His Socinian cast of mind soon became apparent. The syllabi for his proposed course were found to be "obscure." Fessler was quickly transferred to the position of "corresponding member" of the Commission on Laws. Subsequently Speranskii, who had defended Fessler and his syllabi, and who until then had been the most active member of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Schools, stopped attending its meetings altogether and even asked permission to resign. These events occurred in 1810. The following year, Fessler was required to visit the Herrnhutters in the southern Volga region. In 1818 he returned once more to St. Petersburg in the capacity of Lutheran General Superintendent. By that time he was enjoying the favor of Prince Golitsyn. The whole episode well characterizes those troubled years. The complete confusion and ambiguity of religious views is so eloquently expressed.

Reform of the ecclesiastical schools began during the very first years of Alexander's reign. This reform formed a part of a general reconstruction of the entire educational system and the creation in 1802 of a new department or ministry of "public enlightenment." On 5 November 1804 a new statute for universities and other public schools was published and implemented. In 1805 Evgenii Bolkhovitinov (1767-1837), then vicar of Staraia Russa, drew up the first "sketch" for a new statute for the ecclesiastical schools. Reports which had been elicited about desired improvements were submitted to him, and he based his proposal on them. Only Metropolitan Platon of Moscow ⁶³ opposed the idea of reform. However, none of the bishops consulted proposed more than specific corrections or changes within the framework of the existing order. Avgustin 'Vinogradskii, bishop of Dmitrov and vicar to the metropolitan of Moscow, provides the sole exception. He proposed that education be divided into distinct levels and that the academy be organized as a school exclusively for the "higher sciences" and not just theology. He also recommended that the Moscow Academy be transferred to the Holy Trinity Monastery.

Even Evgenii Bolkhovitinov made only moderate suggestions, proposing to refurbish the curriculum and reduce the sway of Latin in instruction by reserving it exclusively for theology and philosophy. "But these (subjects] should be taught from translations as we have always done." The administration of the Aleksandr Nevskii Academy voiced the same opinion. Evgenii's sketch embodies only a single interesting detail, although a somewhat old-fashioned one. He proposed that a special scholarly (or more accurately, scholarly-administrative) department or "learned society" be formed in each academy's district. These societies would have sufficiently diverse responsibilities and areas of competence such as "encouragement of theological scholarship," publication and censorship of books, supervision of subordinate ecclesiastical schools, and responsibility for textbooks. Evgenii's idea became a part of the subsequent statute. ⁶⁴

Evgenii was and remained a man of the eighteenth century. His personal tastes gave him a secular outlook, and he did not conceal the fact that he took monastic vows in order to advance his career, describing (in correspondence with a friend, to be sure) his tonsure with almost profane levity: "Like spiders, the monks spun a black habit, is mantle, and cowl around me." Evgenii studied for a time in Moscow, where he had some connection with the Friendly Society of Learning. In any event, he preferred Shaden's ⁶⁵ lectures to academy lessons. Theology had little interest for him; his subject was history, although he never became more than a compiler. According to Innokentii Borisov, ⁶⁶ he had "a chronicler's mind." Pogodin ⁶⁷ dubbed him "history's statistician." "Evgenii's great breadth of erudition is as astonishing as its capacity to stupefy the power of thought," said Filaret of Chernigov. ⁶⁸ Evgenii lacked strong analytical abilities; his mind ventured no further than curiosity. As an antiquarian and bibliographer, he rendered many incontestable services, but not in the history of theology. It is not surprising that Evgenii later joined the ranks of those who favored the "return to the time of scholasticism. He disliked theology, and as metropolitan of Kiev, he did not encourage such interests by the students of the Kiev Academy. He considered it more worthwhile to divert the best talents into archival and bibliographical work. At one time he became attracted to modern literature and read Shaftesbury, Diderot, D'Alembert, and Rousseau. ⁶⁹ He loved Racine and Voltaire's tragedies and enjoyed sentimental novels and tales. He even translated Pope. ⁷⁰ Yet Evgenii always maintained a guarded hostility toward philosophy. For this reason, then, his "sketches" could not be sufficiently flexible or