law of celibacy are chosen from the monks. The priests of the parochial clergy, should they happen to become widowers, may aspire to episcopal honors, but to attain thereto, they must first embrace the monastic life. From this arrangement results a strange paradox, viz. that the monks who are supposed to have withdrawn from the world in order to live in humility and seclusion, really form an ambitious class which wields the supreme power in the church, shares the absolutism of the civil government and possesses great wealth; while the parochial clergy, though having to bear all the burden of the priestly office, have no voice in the direction of church affairs and are often exposed to suffer the direst want and misery. Thus in the Russian church we find a democratic element consisting of the lower clergy and an aristocratic element, viz. the clergy of the monasteries.

With the diffusion of liberal ideas the social and economic disparity between these two classes of the clergy who, as regards their tendencies and interests are so opposed to each other, has become more and more striking and it has brought about a schism which though still latent, may soon be openly declared. The "white" clergy in its struggles against the episcopate, has espoused the cause of democracy, and that all the more readily as democratic principles form the doctrinal substratum of the constitution of the Orthodox Churches. According to Khomiakov, whose church theories are at present greatly in vogue among the ranks of the lower clergy, especially the progressive ones, the Roman Church derives its constitution from the spirit of absolutism and centralization, prevalent in the Roman Empire, while the Eastern branch, to which Russian Christianity traces its origin and development through Byzantium, never sacrificed to authority the just exigencies of religious individualism. A favorite principle with this writer is the following: The Church recognizes only brotherhood and repudiates all class distinctions. To his mind, Protestantism is a rationalistic form of idealism; Catholicism is a rationalistic form of materialism, while the Orthodox Church represents liberty in unity, life in reason according to the law of love.10 Love in the theological system of Khomiakov takes the place of the hierarchy. The church is one in the union of all believers freely

"History of Recent Russian Literature, St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 36.

The Fundamental Principles of the Conciliary Regime. Tzerkovnyi Golos. St. Petersburg, 1906. n. 7-8.

10 Zavitnevitch, Alexis Stepanovitch Khomiakov. Kiev, 1902. vol. ii, p. 1275.

united in the spirit of Christian brotherhood, and participating in the same graces of the Holy Ghost."

True Orthodoxy according to this Russian theologian avoids on the one hand the absolutism of the Catholic theocracy, and on the other, the inherent disintegrating elements of Protestantism with its consequent division into countless sects. Orthodoxy, while admitting the hierarchical principle, refuses nevertheless, to recognize the hierarchy as a juridical institution in the church, i. e., as the basis of a lawful superiority of bishops over priests.

These theories have been amply discussed by the theologians of the lower clergy in the sessions of a Commission, which, on the suggestion of the Synod of St. Petersburg, undertook to prepare for the convocation of a Russian National Council. Ever since 1714 the Russian Church has been ruled by the lay patriarchs of the Synod, and now there is a movement, powerfully seconded by the lower clergy, in the direction of a radical reform of the constitution, the reestablishment of the patriarchate and the suppression of the lay bureaucracy. In the discussions which took place in the Commission the partisans or representatives of the "white" clergy vigorously maintained that the church is not a hierarchical; or episcopal organization." According to Zaozersky, a very learned canonist of the ecclesiastical Academy of Moscow, the distinction between pastor and flock does not exist in reality. The distinction between the ecclesia docens and the ecclesia discens has no sanction in the Christian. dispensation." "The Gospel proclaims that all are equal," writes the Archpriest Rojdestvensky, professor in the Ecclesiastical Faculty of St. Petersburg. The Orthodox Church rejects the infallibility of the Pope, and a fortiori it cannot accept the infallibility of the Episcopate. The acknowledgement of the supremacy of bishops over priests does not differ from the acceptance of papal absolutism." The bishops can do nothing without the Church, and consequently they are not invested with an authority which raises them above the others." In the Tzerkovnyi Golos, a periodical which is the organ of the lower clergy, we read that the idea of a primacy is foreign to the true notion of the Church; the bishops merely represent in

"Ibid. p. 1402-1404.

12Tzerkovnyia Viedomosti, 1906, n. 18, p. 1064.

13 Ibid. n. 23, p. 1649.

14Ibid. p. 1653.

15 Ibid. n. 16, p. 843.

16

the church a more exalted symbolism, but their rights in the government of the Church are no greater than those of the priests and laymen. Such are the radical theories which have been defended by the official organs of the four Russian theological universities, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and Kazan.

17

As might be expected, the hierarchy and the monasteries rose in alarm against these democratic tendencies on the part of the lower clergy. The bishops in their public documents speak of the dangerous tendencies of modern Russian society, which no longer has -confidence in the bishops, and of the consequent danger for the Church,' and Prof. Golnbev, of Kiev, unhesitatingly declares that the Russian clergy is becoming infected with Protestant ideas. Antonius, Archbishop of Volinia, who has become the head of those who are striving to maintain the rights and prerogatives of the monks and the monopoly of the episcopate by the same, thus describes the deep chasm that has been opened between the two sections of the clergy:

18

"In the Russian Church there are at present two tendencies, one administrative and the other popular. The former is based on the Latin traditions and those of the medieval schools, and its ideals are religious; the latter places its religious ideals in the observation of feasts and fasts, and in the carrying out of the external ritual of the Church." "The reform party," he continues. "would lead Russia into religious religious nihilism. The Theological Academy of Moscow openly teaches Protestantism; the spiritual fathers are preaching the suppression of the episcopate; the ecclesiastical schools recommend the laicization of everything, and all within the church are clamoring for equal privileges....The clerical press is replete with ideas copied from Protestant sources. What are the means of combating these internal enemies of the Orthodox Church? Bishop Antonius, although a strong adversary of Catholicism, propounds a theory which is contrary to the fundamental maxims of Orthodox theology. This, in fact, maintains that all the bishops are equal; that there is no head in the Church other than the invisible head, Christ; and thus the Roman supremacy is in direct contradiction to the democratic constitution of the Church. Instead of this, the Archbishop of Volinia ascribes all the evils and dangers that beset 16 Ibid. n. 2, 1906, p. 34, n. 3, p. 67.

17Ibid. 1906, n. 21, p. 1318.

18 Ibid. p. 1312.

19 Tzerkonov-Obclitch jizn, 1906, n. 6, col. 205.

7719

the Russian Orthodox Church to the fact that it is deprived of an. advantage enjoyed by the Latin branch of Christianity, viz. a legitimate head, while it is plundered by a bureaucracy composed of laymen. The Russian Church, he says, is founded on a violation of the canons. Christian Orthodoxy never recognized national churches. deprived of their legitimate heads.20 He maintains that the general council, in which is vested the supreme legislative authority of the Orthodox religion, cannot be convoked unless there be a Patriarch having the power to do so. The Russian Church cannot exist without a spiritual sovereign, without a patriarch who, representing and personifying Jesus Christ, will constitute a bond of union between Christians." He deplores the fact that in the Russian Church there does indeed exist a spiritual sovereign wielding a far greater power than that accorded to any patriarch, but this spiritual head is merely a layman."

In fact, the Russian bishops who are the most esteemed for their learning and purity of doctrine, give expression to the same ideas. In trying to oppose the semi-Protestant movement which is stirring the ranks of the inferior clergy, the Russian hierarchy seems to lose sight of the fundamental canons of the Orthodox Church, and takes to maintaining the monarchical character and constitution of the Church of Jesus. In the episcopate all are not equal. One bishop should be above all the others. To him it belongs to represent the Church before God, before the civil power and the people. And this bishop has the right to judge his brethren in the episcopate.

Strange to say, several of the most noted and esteemed professors of the Russian theological faculties have explicitly recognized the existence of a primacy of jurisdiction in the Church, and they invoke in favor of their thesis those very texts to which Catholic theologians appeal in demonstrating the prerogatives of the Roman pontiff. Prof. Nicholas Glubokovsky, one of the greatest Russian exegetical scholars, made the following statement in one of the sessions of the Commission. preparatory to the Council: "We do not believe in the primacy as understood in the Roman confession; yet we read in the Gospel that among the twelve Apostles, Simon, called Peter, was first: πρῶτος Σίμων ὁ λεγόμενος Πέτρος. These words are not devoid of meaning, since to Peter was granted the great privilege of confirming his

20 Ibid. col. 206. 21 Ibid. col. 208. "Ibid. col. 209.

brethren in the faith in the most difficult and critical moments in the historical life of the Church. Wherefore, I see no reason for repudiating the notion of a primacy which is justified by the authority of Holy Writ, and which is postulated by the normal constitution of the Church." These are precisely the chief reasons brought forward by Catholic theologians to demonstrate the necessity of a supreme legislative and judicial authority in the Church of Christ.

Glubokovsky, however, did not dare push his arguments to their ultimate logical conclusions, and admit that the texts so appositely quoted refer plainly to Peter and his successors. But other able ecclesiastical writers, whose views may be looked upon as independent and impartial, have set aside all reticence, declaring that the primacy in the Church belongs to no other than to Peter and his successors in the See of Rome. We may quote especially in this connection the historian of the Byzantine Church, Alexis Lebedev, professor of Church history in the University of Moscow, who has devoted a chapter of one of his recent works to prove that in the Apostolic Age and in the first three centuries of Christianity the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff is a fact resting on such a mass of evidence that it cannot be reasonably called in question." And if the primitive church renders such clear testimony to the divine institution of this primacy, the Orthodox Church in repudiating it assumes a position contrary to Christian tradition and to the Gospel.

On the other hand, the religious press recognizes the immense power and advantage that Catholicism derives from the institution of the papacy. To the point is the following extract from the Tzerkovnyi Viestnik, an organ of the lower clergy, edited by the professors of the theological faculty of St. Petersburg: "If we had the papacy with its theory of the mutual relations between the civil and ecclesiastical power, things would go differently. The life of the Russian Church would take on that character which we observe among the Catholics of the West. In Catholicism the Pope is the personification of a principle; he concentrates in himself all the tendencies and all the aspirations of Catholic life. This principle which is fully independent, impresses its characteristics upon all that comes in contact with it. The Catholic clergy is an army which is sent into all parts of the world by its chief residing in Rome, in order to bring about the triumph of the papal views and policies. This army never fuses 23 Terzkovnyia Viedomosti, 1906, n, 22, p. 1516.

24The Clergy in the Ancient Universal Church, Moscow, 1906, part ii, chap. 7.