FRANCIS, REV. PAUL JAMES-The Prince of the Apostles: A Study.376 ..595 GROENINGS, J., S. J.-The History of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.. HAHN-HAHN, COUNTESS-The Fathers of the Desert. ...602 ..603 JACQUIER, E.-History of the Books of the New Testament...... 92 LEPICIER, REV. ALEXIUS M., O. S. M.-Indulgences, Their Origin Nature and Development. LEPIN, M.-Christologie.. LEWIS, DAVID-The Ascent of Mt. Carmel.. ..376 .594 ...600 .366, 723 ..103 ....603 ...105 ..590 MARECHAL, CHRISTIAN-Lamennais et Lamartine ...102 MAURIN, M. J.-Pauline Marie Jaricot.... ...602 MILES, GEORGE HENRY-A Review of Hamlet. ...603 MULLER, JOHN BAPTIST, S. J.-Handbook of Ceremonies. ...599 O'BRIEN, R. BARRY-Studies in Irish History.. ...594 OTTEN, REV. BERNARD, S. J.-The Sacramental Life of the Church.602 PROCTOR, REV. FATHER, O. P.-Ritual in Catholic Worship......378 ..374 .375 SHARPE, REV. A. B., M. A.—The Principles of Christianity. GERRARD, THOMAS J. GIGOT, FRANCIS E.. HANNA, EDWARD J.. PLATER, CHARLES. TURMEL, JOSEPH. .243, 381 .56, 181, 545, 704 .391, 561 401 .52 129 .163 448, 605 .36, 313, 471, 516 .3,635 ..145 418, 672, 686 493 292, 429, 653 .569 .24 .69 THE NEW YORK REVIEW VOL. III JULY-AUGUST, 1907 No. I CATHOLIC IDEAS AND TENDENCIES IN MODERN RUSSIAN THOUGHT Aurelio Palmieri, O. S. A. The laws relative to liberty of conscience promulgated in Russia in 1905 have laid open a vast field of action for Roman Catholicism in the great Empire. For more than a century Russian politics strenuously supported by the half lay half clerical bureaucracy of the Synod of St. Petersburg, had labored with much constancy of purpose to break down or weaken the influence of the Catholic Church on the Russian frontiers. Its efforts were especially directed towards the annihilation of the uniats of Poland and of Russia Minor, who, after the lamentable defection of Joseph Siemachko (1868) created metropolitan of Lithuania in 1839, had been officially inscribed as members of the Orthodox Church.' Constantine Pobiedonostzev the Ober-Procuror of the Synod of St. Petersburg who for twenty-five years had made the Russian Orthodox church the slave of his political despotism, now revived the methods of Nero in his persecution of Catholicism. The former ex-uniats were especially the victims of his political schemes and many of them were sent to prison or exiled to Siberia, and some even were put to death because of their unwavering attachment to the Roman See. Thirty thousand of them refused with unflinching constancy to accept the spiritual ministrations of the Orthodox popes whom the Synod had installed in their parishes by the aid of armed cossacks; and as the Catholic priests could not attend to their spiritual needs under pain of being exiled to Siberia, the 'Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia. St. Petersburg, 1906, vol. vii, col. 476 unfortunate but steadfast confessors of the faith were forced to diewithout the sacraments, the children were not baptized and marriages: were not blessed. Yet all the efforts of Pobiedonostzev, whom the faithful in Russia consider as the Nero of the nineteenth century, came to naught, for no sooner had liberty of conscience been proclaimed in the country than the former uniats who had against their will been enrolled in the Orthodox church, returned en masse to Catholicism. According to the official statistics of the Tzerkovnyia Viedomosti, the organ of the Synod of St. Petersburg, in the diocese of Chelm during the year 1905, the conversions of the Orthodox to Catholicism numbered 110000; in the diocese of Vilna, 30000; in that of Minsk, 10000, and 10000 in the diocese of Grodno.' It may here be observed that. these figures in reality represent only about one-half of the conversions. In 1905 more than 30000 ex-uniats and orthodox embraced Catholicism and, what is a rare occurrence in Russia, four orthodox priests of whom one was a monk, passed over to the Latin rite. Nor does this movement towards Rome seem to be on the decline. If the government were to remove the barriers that keep out the Catholic clergy from other countries, it is not unlikely that in some measure at least, would be verified the prophecy of the Slavic theologian Khomiakov, who once said: If liberty of conscience were promulgated in Russia the cultured classes would pass over to Catholicism, while the lower classes would join the numerous sects which, holding fast to the traditions of the past, are energetically opposed to the Official Russian Church. Indeed Catholicism seems destined to achieve in the course of time great conquests in Russia. The Slavic mind is by natural temperament inclined to mysticism, and it is a well known fact that the Orthodox Church of to-day with its bureaucratical organization and its servility towards a regime which the Russian people detestand not without reason is in no condition to satisfy this tendency. It is a matter of historical experience that the evolution of religious and social movements is not accomplished in a day nor even in a century; nevertheless there are at present to be perceived in Russia. signs of a doctrinal orientation towards Catholicism, of an aspiration 2Problems of the Orthodox Church in Western and Southern Russia, Tzerkovnyia Viedomosti, 1906, n. 25, p. 2007. Die Katholische Kirche in Russland einst und jetzt. Historisch-politische Blatter,1906, vol. 36, p. 397. towards a religious system, which once free from the fetters of a bureaucratical organization may through its union with Western Catholicism form a universal church. These symptoms are discernible in Russian religious literature of the present day, and it cannot be otherwise than interesting to set them forth at some length, for they may prove to be only the prelude to a great religious and social upheaval. which is already preparing in the realm of the Tsars." In the first place, an indirect doctrinal orientation towards the Roman Church is at present noticeable in Russia. To understand this phase of religious thought in that country, it is necessary to cast. a glance at the condition of the Russian Orthodox clergy. According to the statistics of 1906 the Russian hierarchy comprises 133 bishops, of whom 18 are on the retired list because of age or sickness. The number of bishops in active service therefore is 115, and of these 63 are in Russia proper, and four in Georgia; the others are vicars who by their attributions and duties correspond to our coadjutor bishops. There are in Russia three Metropolitan sees, those of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev, and several Archiepiscopal sees, viz., Vladivostok, Vladimir, Odessa, Riga, etc. The lower clergy numbers 4487 priests, of whom 2340 are protoierei or archpriests; 14960 deacons, and 43552 chanters (psalomchtchiki). The bishops by a law which is not common to the other orthodox churches are monks, the total number of which is over 15000, dispersed in 500 monasteries.. The clergy is thus divided into two quite distinct classes-the monasterial and the so-called "white" or parochial clergy. Those of the former class observe ostensibly the law of celibacy;' those of the second are allowed to marry. Ordinarily the "popes" before receiving priest's orders are required to take a wife. The monasteries are the nurseries of the episcopate because the bishops being bound to the 'Die Katholische Kirche im Russland. Pastor Bonus, Trier, 1905, p. 569-574. Ecclesiastical and Social Life, Kazan, 1906. n. 22, col. 770. Kolokol, St. Petersburg, Jan. 1, 1906. "We say "ostensibly" because as a fact, the majority of the Russian monks have their cernitze or concubines. The most flourishing monasteries are surrounded by houses occupied by these concubines and their children. This license is so well known to the public that not even the clerical press makes any attempt to hide or deny the immoral conduct of the monks. Each of the latter receives a yearly stipend. of from 500 to 1000 rubles, according to the wealth of the monastery, a circumstance which contributes to render these "religious" more vicious than they would other-wise be. Cf. The Causes of the Moral Decadence of Monastic Life, 1906, n. 44. |