with the varied mass of the surrounding people, but everywhere and always combats for the same ideals. We have nothing of the kind in our church, which is in reality nothing but a cogwheel in the machine of the state. "25 And comparing in another passage the Catholic clergy with the clergy of the Orthodox Church, the same periodical is forced to admit the vast superiority of the former. "Among Catholics the people take a lively interest in the feasts of the Church; with us there is nothing but a supreme indifference. Observe the Catholic religious. processions. How orderly they are and how marked by pious demeanor. What confusion and disorder, on the other hand, do we not behold in the processions of the Orthodox? We are obliged to recognize and admire the force of cohesion, and the unity of action and the zeal of the Roman Catholic clergy." To these testimonies. might be added others which go to show that the most cultured members of the Orthodox clergy have to-day a very different idea of Catholicism from the one entertained by their grandparents; they no longer hurl at it the anathemas formulated by an undivided byzantine hierarchy. It is even admitted-a thing unheard of in the past-that on certain doctrinal points of difference the Catholics may be right. The Filioque clause for instance, used to be considered a few years back as the most monstrous heresy that had ever appeared, and so the Greek theologians regard it even now. But with the Russians it is different. Kireev, a theologian imbued with the ideas of the "Old Catholics," publishes in the Bogolsovsky Vristrik the most esteemed periodical of the Russian Church, an article in which is shown that from the viewpoint of theological reasoning the Latin Church is in the right; that the controversy concerning the Filioque need not be an obstacle to the reunion of the Churches; that the Latins may teach it freely as a theological opinion derived from the speculations of Origen, St. Augustine and St. Fulgentius. And the same views are shared by the most famous Russian liturgist of modern times, the archpriest Alexis Maltzev, who maintains in his works that an agreement between the two churches is possible, and that the only obstacle is the dogma of papal infallibility. According to this writer, the supremacy of the Roman pontiffs is a doctrine which cannot be gainsaid; the other disputed dogmas are not of a nature to interfere with the reunion of Christendom; and the Vatican Council is responsible for having erected a wall of division between the two churches. Thus it appears that we 25 Tzerkovnyi Viestnik, 1904, n. 47, col. 1482.

26 Ibid. n. 43, col. 1400-1401.

are far removed from the time when the Orthodox theologians, according to a curious document published by Combefis, anathematized ninety heresies of the Latin Church. There are, it is true, some fanatics among the monks who continue to combat Catholicism on the lines of the old Byzantine polemics. At the "Laurel," a monastery of Pociaev, are published tracts and leaflets containing the most odious calumnies against the Catholic Church. Also the bishop of Vitebsk, in order to check the movement towards Catholicism on the part of the exUniats, published in 1906 a pamphlet in which it was asserted that Catholics by paying 50 rubles to their confessor, may receive permission to commit parricide, or incest, or to perpetrate the most outrageous crimes. But even the accredited organs of the Orthodox clergy took up the defence of Catholicism against these calumnies, accusing the monks of Pociaev of falsifying in a most cynical manner the faith and practice of their brethren."

The popular movement which has created so much disturbance in Russia, has brought about in the lower clergy an awakening of conscience together with aspirations towards liberty. All the clerical organs, even the most reactionary (for instance, the Missionerskoe Qbozrienie or Missionary Review of St. Petersburg), speak unceasingly of the slavery of the Russian Church, of the despotism of the "Procurators" of the Holy Synod who, though at times atheists, nevertheless rule the Church according to their ideas; and of the police functions imposed by the government on the bishops and priests. Furthermore, comparing the servile condition of the Russian Church. with the ever renewed energy displayed by Catholicism, these writers recognize that the superiority of the latter is due to its organization under the papacy; and for that reason an effort is being made to copy certain of its characteristics which formerly provoked the anger of the Orthodox writers. In this connection may be mentioned a recent article in the Strannik (the Traveller), a widely read clerical periodical, in which the Roman congregation of the Index was praised and the wish was expressed that a similar tribunal might be instituted in Russia in order to preserve the unity of faith.28

It would, of course, be premature to infer from these Catholic tendencies any ultra optimistic conclusions, for instance, that we are on the eve of seeing religious peace established between the East and the West, for the Russian Church officially considered is ever the

Tzerkovnyi Viestnik, 1906, n. 39, col. 1294.

28 Vol. i, (1906) p. 630-634.

enemy of Rome, but it cannot be denied that there is going on within that body a remarkable change of ideas with regard to Catholicism. Its polemical attitude has lost much of its former bitterness. The Pope is no longer characterized as Anti-Christ or a personification of Satan, and the monarchical constitution of the Church is lauded and held to be an indispensable element in her conservation and

success.

A more striking tendency in the direction of Catholicism, is noticeable among the higher or aristocratic classes of society. Those who, according to the Russian expression, form the "intelligence" of the country, entertain an undisguised contempt for the hierarchy as well as for the inferior clergy. Their quarrel with the former refers to its political slavery, and its aversion to all measures tending towards a reform of civil and political conditions-in a word, its chronic policy of putting religion and the Gospel at the service of the State. It is well known that before Alexander II (the Liberator) decreed the abolition of slavery in his dominions, the Russian bishops were wont to prove from texts of the Gospel that the Church recognized the moral and social advantages of slavery, and that the tortures not unfrequently inflicted on the unfortunate Mujiks or peasants by brutal masters, were good for the purification of their souls. Then, the inferior clergy, as is shown by Prof. Znamensky in a series of excellent articles on the parochial clergy from the time of Peter the Great down to the present time" is the victim of traditions which have always kept the popes at the bottom round of the social ladder and in a moral condition inferior to that of the Mujiks. Indeed, from ancient times the Russian nobility has always looked upon the clergy as domestic servants, and in the Muscovite provinces the nobles have been known to oblige their peasants to receive priest's orders in order to reap the sordid gains connected with that office. The clergy thus despised on account of its degraded condition, has ever remained densely ignorant, surrounded by wretched poverty and contaminated by the vices that naturally follow such conditions, particularly drunkeness, unchastity and miserly avarice. Even the most reactionary of the Russian clerical periodicals admit that the majority of the popes are victims of alcoholism," and that they are Prikhodska Dukhovenstvo v Rossii sovremeni reformy Petra, Pravoslavnyi Sobesiednik, 1872. 30 Missionerskoe Obozrienie, St. Petersburg, 1905, n, 1, p.

17.

far below the intellectual and moral level of the Catholic or Protestant clergy. Whence follows that a Russian of rank or of moderate culture would consider it beneath his dignity to associate with members of the inferior clergy, so degraded has their office become in public esteem. Furthermore, the Russians of the more cultured classes often travel in Catholic countries, and cannot help remarking the superiority of the clergy there over their own ignorant and bibulous popes, as also the wonderful activity of the Catholic Church in all the complex phases of social life and charitable endeavor. In their own church, which, to use the words of Dostaievsky, was long since stricken with paralysis, they behold nothing but a corpse covered indeed with brilliant decorations, but deprived of life and movement. Even the Russian bishops confess that their church is dead, and the pessimistic views of the laity are naturally still worse than those of the churchmen. The press is unanimous in recognizing that the clergy is without any influence on society and that between pastor and flock there is no longer any bond of union. The tendency towards Catholicism on the part of the better classes has its cause in the decay of the Apostolic spirit among the clergy, and the inability of the latter to rise to the intellectual and moral level of cultured society. It is only natural that these tendencies should manifest themselves more particularly among the ladies of rank, who in Russia receive an education not surpassed or perhaps even equalled in other countries. Many of these aristocratic ladies are either Catholics in disguise or at least imbued with Catholicism. This spread of Catholic ideas among the female portion of Russian society is due in a great measure to the activity of a lady of noble birth, one whose name hitherto veiled by anonymity deserves to be known and honored now that she has passed to her reward, for she was indeed a heroine of the Catholic cause in Russia.

In 1888 there was published in Berlin a beautiful volume in Russian entitled The Church, an Historical Essay." With profound erudition the anonymous author passed in review the most important facts of the history of primitive Christianity, and demonstrated by the testimony of the early fathers the doctrine of the supremacy of the Roman pontiffs, together with the necessity of an infallible authority in the Church. The doctrine and logic of this solid volume immediately caused consternation among the professors of the Russian universities, 310 Tzerkvi: istoritcheskii ocerk, Berlin, 1888.

and two able theologians, Bjeliæv" and Katansky, set themselves to the task of refuting it. Their published answers resulted in eliciting a second volume from the pen of the anonymous writer, on the Theological Literature of the Orthodox Church." In this work the objections of the two theologians were dealt with in so clear a manner and with such a richness of proof that the book remained unanswered. These two volumes were attributed to some Jesuit theologian and no one suspected that they were from the pen of a lady, supposed to be of the Orthodox creed, viz. the Princess Elizabeth Grigorievna Volkonsky, who died February 15th, (28th) 1879. Her writings did much to dissipate the prejudices against Catholicism, so common throughout Russia, and to draw a great many souls nearer to Rome.

A similar praise is likewise due to another Russian, Michael Dmitrievitch Terebtzov, (1825-1905), who under the pseudonyms "Basil Livanmski" and "Astakov," published two remarkable volumes, one on the procession of the Holy Ghost, and the other on the doctrinal crisis in the Russian Church. Terebtzov, who was the Court Chamberlain under Nicholas I, Alexander II and Alexander III, belonged to the Russian nobility, and his writings which reveal a deep theological learning, exercised a direct influence on the Catholic tendencies in the higher circles of Russian society.

The credit, however, for having created Catholic currents of thought in modern Russia is chiefly due to Vladimir Solovèv, the great Russian philosopher who died in 1900, while in the full vigor of a glorious career. He was unquestionably one of the greatest mystics that Russia ever produced, and one of the deepest thinkers of modern times. His natural temper of mind as well as the trend of his philosophical and theological training led him to take a deep interest in religious questions, and each successive step forward in his theological researches brought him nearer and nearer to Rome. He pointed out that the radical weakness of the Orthodox position lay in its conception of the Church. According to the definition of Orthodox theology the Church is the congregation of the faithful united in Christ, its invisible head. The constitution of the Church, according to Orthodox canon law, is essentially democratic, and it is on this ground that it rejects so vigorously the doctrine of papal supremacy. Solovev openly advocates the monarchical principle in the Church. "One man," he writes, "who with the assistance of the Holy Ghost 320 Katolitzizmie. Kazan, 1888.

83

Bogoslovskia pravoslavnaia literatura, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1892.