Russian Monasticism Compared With Western.—Palmer’s Visit to the Sergius Hermitage.—First Impressions.—Views on the Relationship of the Churches.—The Exclusivity of the Orthodox Worldview.—Views on Church-State Relations.—Characterization of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow and Members of the Synod.—The Oxford Doctrine on the Significance of Church Forms.—A Russian Prayer Service at a Lutheran Superintendent’s.—A Failed Attempt at Church Communion

Soon after his first encounters with secular and ecclesiastical representatives of Russian theological thought, Palmer had occasion to become acquainted with Russian monastic life.

Russian monasticism is undoubtedly one of the most distinctive expressions of our church-religious life. If one of the characteristic features of Russian and, more broadly, Eastern religious life is a praiseworthy firmness in holding to tradition, in monasticism this firmness reaches its highest limits—limits at which, under certain conditions, it takes on even the character of inertness of religious feeling and rigidity of theological thought, which frequently gives occasion for subsuming the very essence of Orthodox monasticism under those categories. Such is the view of our monasticism taken by foreigners, to whom the inner meaning of this way of life is incomprehensible, and after them by some of our own Westernizing thinkers as well. Russian monasticism is sharply distinct from that of the West, and at first glance it falls far short of the latter in its significance as one of the powerful factors of moral-religious life. But in order to assess correctly the comparative importance of these factors, it is not enough simply to set the present fruits of their outward productivity side by side; one must also take into account the religious-cultural and social conditions in which these institutions must live and act, and above all the idea from which each institution proceeds. We marvel at the extraordinary energy of the monastic orders of the Roman Catholic Church, their extensive charitable and educational activity, by comparison with which the corresponding activity of our monasticism involuntarily provokes a smile of contemptuous indignation from our Westernizing press. But such a view displays a complete failure to understand the essential character of Orthodox monasticism as compared with that of Rome—a character determined first of all by the difference in the foundational idea underlying each church system. Roman Catholicism, by its very nature, is a system of ecclesiastical oligarchy, in which the ecclesiastical element is most rigorously demarcated from the social, with the aim of concentrating all functions of power in the church hierarchy, whose supreme embodiment is the papacy. In order finally to sever the organic bond of the ecclesiastical oligarchy from society, the papacy introduced compulsory celibacy for the clergy, making the latter a compliant instrument of church administration and assigning it a supervisory role with respect to the religious conscience of parishes—keeping that conscience in a state of superstitious awe before the supreme expression of the church system. But social life is not limited to the elementary functions of the parish; its manifestations are infinitely diverse and reach far beyond the parochial sphere. If the agents of papal authority were confined to overseeing the conduct of parish life, then all the more general and important functions of social and national life would have remained outside its control—by the natural law of development, the needs of social life would have produced their own independent agents, whose activity would have been conditioned solely by these living needs, independently of any external system, in this case the papacy. Among these complex functions of social life, popular education stands in the foremost place. Whoever holds popular education in their hands holds popular power: this truth is too real in character for the papal system to have overlooked it, and since ordinary ecclesiastical forces would have been far from sufficient to seize in their hands this source of popular power, the papal system sent forth its legions of male and female orders to this work—orders which, abandoning the original idea of monasticism, gave themselves entirely to practical activity in the sphere of the most important functions of national life. This activity is undoubtedly respectable and serves as a powerful lever for the cultural uplift of the lower classes of the people, who find in the countless monasteries a free school. But as soon as this activity exceeds the elementary boundaries of popular education, its inner character at once comes to light—a character conditioned by its subservient relation to the papal system. All the educational and charitable activity of the Western monastic orders, for all its brilliant outward attractiveness, is in its final analysis nothing other than the colossal labor of the papacy in the service of its dominion over the conscience of the peoples subject to it. This is why, at every awakening of the national spirit, the people seek above all to free themselves from this free school of the monastic orders—and the recent persecution of the Jesuits in France serves as a vivid proof of this.

Orthodox monasticism—and specifically Russian monasticism—is of an entirely different character. While Western monasticism, having become the service instrument of the papal system, took on a practical character and seized various social functions in order to direct them in the spirit of the papal system, Orthodox monasticism invariably preserves its original character as a purely religious community whose ultimate aim is exclusively the religious and moral formation of the people. And such a character is fully in keeping with the inner essence of the Orthodox system. Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism are two completely opposed systems, two opposing world-views, the unclear understanding of whose essence produces an unimaginable confusion in the minds of those who take it upon themselves in our literature to discourse on serious church-social questions. If the papal system—founded upon the ruins of the pagan Roman Empire and having appropriated the idea of world dominion rooted in that empire—represents an ecclesiastical oligarchy sharply separated from «the world» and regarding the latter as the object of its exclusive dominion, for the achievement of which it has set in motion the entire complex mechanism of its administrative forces, then in contrast to this the idea underlying the Orthodox ecclesiastical world-view is a fully social idea. The Orthodox Church is not some kind of hierarchical corporation which, in virtue of such corporate estrangement from the rest of society, would be compelled to arrange various modus vivendi—as is constantly the case with Roman Catholicism. On the contrary, our Church isnna Church in the full and original sense of that word—an Ἐκκλησία in the ancient Greek, popular sense. It is itself the society, albeit the society of the chosen, that is, of believers. The hierarchy within it, by its very nature, is not opposed to the rest of society, but is only its highest representative, the supreme organ of the religious consciousness of that same society, and has the foundation of its existence in the unchanging law of social development, according to which every society has a supreme organ of its self-consciousness—just as every organism has a head, or a central point of its life and movement. Given this convergence of the idea of the Church in the Orthodox sense with the idea of society, it is natural that, in the healthy condition of the whole social organism, there can be no antagonism between them, and therefore the Church, in the specific sense, has no need to strive to seize this or that function of social life in order to direct it in the spirit of its exclusive system. All these functions it can calmly entrust to society itself, retaining for itself only the most general oversight of their moral development and that specific portion of them which is unquestionably of ecclesiastical or religious-moral character—as for example, in the system of popular education, the teaching of the Law of God. Hence our Church has no need to lay upon monasticism a social-practical activity alien to it, and monasticism can freely serve its original idea—to provide an outlet for those contemplative, tender, enthusiastic natures whose soul cannot be reconciled with the vulgarity of everyday social life and yearns for the peaceful realm of solitude, for the realm of the life of the spirit and contemplation. The present reality of Russian monasticism, of course, falls far short of its ideal, but it must be judged not from the standpoint of narrow practicalism, as is usually the case, but from the standpoint of its genuine Orthodox ideal, from which it has deviated and fallen into a state of mental inertia and a dulling of living religious feeling. Nevertheless, in our monasteries the contemplative work of the mind continues unseen to this day, and the best products of speculative theological thought among us have issued and continue to issue from monasteries, and if in the most recent times a regrettable impoverishment of pure theological thought is observed, this impoverishment runs parallel to the impoverishment of the intellectual element in our monasteries, whose outdated organization does little to foster the free life of an enlightened spirit.

As a foreigner accustomed to the Western European forms of church-religious life, it was naturally difficult for Palmer to form a fully impartial and objective view of Russian monasticism—though this is far more pardonable in him than in our own Russian Westernizers. Nevertheless, the feeling enlightened by his «catholic» theory enabled him to grasp the principal motive of this aspect of our church life and spared him the gross blunders in judging it that are so common in foreign literature. This may in part also be explained by the fact that he came to form his opinion only from certain prominent observations, which encompassed, one might say, the model forms of our monastic life in both of our capitals.

During his stay in St. Petersburg, Palmer had occasion to become fairly well acquainted with the life of the Sergius Hermitage, situated a few versts from the capital, and his recollections of it occupy several chapters of his book. There he grew close to the Hermitage’s abbot, the well-known Archimandrite Bryanchaninov, and to several monks who spoke French, and in pleasant conversation with them he spent several days studying the world-view of Russian monasticism and its daily life.

Palmer happened to arrive at the Sergius Hermitage during one of its solemn monastic feast days, when many visitors come from the capital. He went there together with A. N. Muravyov, attended the Divine Liturgy—during which he was permitted to stand in the sanctuary—and afterward took part in the general refreshments and the meal prepared for the visitors by the hospitable brotherhood of the Hermitage. Palmer notes with evident pleasure this sociability of our monasteries, describes with curiosity the «pirogi» he ate there and the «quass» he drank, remarking in doing so that quass is the most beloved beverage in Russia but quite non-intoxicating, and that if one can encounter a great many drunkards among Russians, this is not at all because Russians love quass—as the learned English theologian had initially supposed—but because they also love «vodka.»

Thanks to the kindness of the monks, Palmer was given a separate cell at his disposal, from which he made theological excursions to Archimandrite Bryanchaninov and the other monks. In their conversations the monks displayed a more definite and strict view of church relations than any Palmer had encountered thus far, and even certain traits of a corporate exclusivity in their world-view. When, in conversation with the Archimandrite and other monks, the subject turned to the relations among the churches and Palmer expounded his Branch Theory of the catholic churches, his Russian interlocutors decisively rejected this theory and maintained that their Church is the whole catholic Church—the one Church, representing the Ecumenical Councils and preserving the true orthodox catholic faith, whole and unchanged—whereas the Latin communion and all Western Christians are guilty not merely of secondary errors and abuses, but of heresy regarding the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son as well, which they willfully inserted into the Creed. The apostasy of the Western world from the true Church, in the view of Palmer’s interlocutors, did not occur all at once, but gradually, in different periods. They accused the Latins of having falsified all those passages in the works of Latin Fathers who lived before the Schism on which Latin teaching is now based, and they did not believe that Pope Leo III, while condemning the insertion in the Creed, at the same time allowed—as Latin writers maintain—that the actual doctrine expressed in that insertion was true. As for the relations among the churches, these were expressed in their communion with one another at various times even after this difference in doctrine had come to light, but this is explained by the fact that the Latin heresy had not yet reached its full development, and besides, the Latins at each attempt at reunion tried to conceal the true substance of their teaching, while the Easterns—accustomed to communion and coming into little actual contact with the Latins, owing to the difference in language and rites—could not immediately discern that the error had become general and incorrigible in the West.

«If this is so,» objected Palmer, «then why do you still call your ChurchnnEastern, when you ought to call it the Catholic or Universal Church, and ought in prayer and action to be zealous for the instruction and return to true teaching of so vast a portion of the Christian world which, in your view, has fallen into heresy?» It must be noted that Palmer—ideally disposed by Oxford doctrine in his view of the Church and seeking a catholic or universal Church—was constantly coming into no small confusion when in conversation with Russians he found himself continually hearing them call their Church not the catholic or universal Church, but simply the Eastern, the Russian, the Greco-Russian, or the Orthodox Church. This last name still pointed somewhat, in Palmer’s view, to a catholic consciousness, but it was at the same time so broad and indefinite—given that every church and community calls itself Orthodox or right-believing (orthodoxe)—that in it one could see no concrete awareness of catholicity. As for the other names, they sounded to the ideally attuned ear of the Oxford theologian positively like a kind of local separatism, national and confessional exclusivity, having nothing in common with catholic consciousness. But what troubled Palmer still more was that his Russian interlocutors constantly applied the sacred name «catholic Church» not to their own Church but to the Roman, calling the latter the «Catholic» Church. Palmer repeatedly points to this incorrect usage, observing that it reveals a complete discrepancy between thought and word and feeds the proud sentiment of the Latins, who see in it an involuntary tribute of respect from Eastern schismatics to the truly catholic, i.e. Roman, Church. This usage, however, had so taken root among Russians that Palmer’s remarks were not always immediately grasped by his Russian interlocutors, and only after Palmer had developed his theory of catholicity did explanations begin—explanations which, in turn, were not very clear to the English theologian: that in Russian the words «Catholic» (katolicheskiy) and «catholic» (kafolicheskiy) have a specific meaning distinct from the original Greek meaning of the word. In response to the reproach now expressed by Palmer that a narrow nationalism was supposedly displayed in calling the Orthodox Church «Eastern,» the monks answered solidly: «Our Church is truly the entire Orthodox Catholic Church and she so designates herself distinctively; and the name Eastern, used by us now, does not denote any spatial limitation, as it once did, but rather denotes historical and local origin—for the faith comes from the East: Ex Oriente lux; we pray facing east, we await Christ from the east, and Christ Himself is the everlasting East. The catechumen turns away from the west at his baptism and thereby renounces the kingdom of darkness.»

To this, the English theologian replied on his side:

«If this is so, then you ought to send missionaries to convert us. And yet does it not seem very difficult to suppose that half of the visible Church truly fell into heresy a thousand years ago, and that throughout so many centuries it has not only continued to exist but has grown far larger than the true Orthodox Church, so that now it stands to the latter as two-thirds to one-third? And has moreover produced so many men of remarkable holiness, displayed such mighty and varied energy, and survived so many storms and privations since the separation?» To this tirade Palmer heard from his interlocutors in reply that they do not acknowledge any saints or miracles in the Western Church since its separation; yet nevertheless they did acknowledge in it some form of church existence and compared it to the ten tribes of Israel that separated from the kingdom of Judah, and even hinted at the possibility of a new Ecumenical Council that would restore unity. In their view, the Roman Church, with the Pope at its head, might in time restore its full rights and its place in the universal Church, if it were to correct its errors and once again submit to the ecumenical canons against which it had rebelled.

Delving into the inner life of the Russian monastery, Palmer observed in it the predominant rule of a spirit of asceticism, arising not from the character of external conditions of life but from the very inclinations of its inhabitants. The Hermitage’s abbot himself, who had exchanged a brilliant military uniform for a monastic habit, was a strict ascetic by vocation, and ascetic theology, as Palmer observed, was his favorite subject. In this observation the Western theory of monasticism did not fail to surface in the English theologian’s mind, and he was curious to learn about the literary and pedagogical labors of the monastery’s inhabitants. To this the Russian monks replied that they had few books in their library and that scholarly activity was not among their direct obligations; that their calling was not to engage in learned or any other kind of activity, even in the service of religion, but to perform the divine services and to live, first of all, for the salvation of their own souls, and then also to pray for the rest of the world. When Palmer then expressed the view that it would be far better to turn some of the monasteries into learned and active communities, the monks persistently repeated that prayer and piety are far more effective than any learning or activity of any kind. If Palmer faithfully conveyed these thoughts of his interlocutors (some expressions directly betray a tendentious embellishment, inevitable for a foreigner), then here one cannot fail to see the very rigidity of theological thought into which our monasticism has fallen. The idea of an Orthodox monastery as a refuge for enthusiastic natures from the coarse conditions of everyday life does not in the least exclude learning; on the contrary, it is in this realm of spirit that learning and all manner of book wisdom should by preference flourish, since here the mind is most free from the heavy chains that ordinary practical life so often places upon it, slowing its movement. There was indeed a time in Rus’ when our monasteries stood at the head of intellectual and literary movements, and if now, with the development of social consciousness, intellectual activity has become specialized and found in society itself diverse organs for its expression and development, theological thought ought still to have our monasteries as its source—and if theological thought has become impoverished in them at the present time, this serves as a sufficient sign of their abnormal state. This deficiency of intellectual life in our monasteries has led to the kind of exclusivity of the monastic world-view by which everything non-monastic has come to be regarded with a certain contempt and suspicion. When Palmer remarked to the monks that the Church needs not only prayer but intellectual activity as well, his interlocutors, in defending their view, displayed a certain hostility to the contemporary demands of intellectual life.

«The secular clergy,» said one of them, «are infected with liberalism. They read Lutheran and other harmful foreign books, and even the bishops—though they are better now than they were in the last century—are not sympathetic to monasticism in the true sense of the word. Only five out of fifty (among them the Metropolitan of Kiev) show favor to the monks, and this is because, though they are themselves monks by rank, they are for the most part men of the academies and are under secular influences.» And on another occasion this exclusivity of the monastic world-view expressed itself still more sharply. When the conversation turned to the general moral and religious state of the world outside the monastery, the monks told Palmer: «The morality of the capital is worthy of Babylon; there are theatres, balls, and masquerades, which Russia knew nothing of before Peter I. Our clergy yield very readily to new and strange opinions, read the books of non-Orthodox and even unbelieving writers—Lutherans and others. The Theological Academy is infected with the principles of innovation, and even the Christian Reading journal is infected with them, although it does publish many translations from the ancient Fathers. Russia is perhaps, as far as we know, not far from an explosion of heretical liberalism within her. We have a fine outward appearance: we have preserved all the rites and the Creed of the primitive Church; but this is all a dead body—there is little life in it. The secular clergy are forcibly held in a hypocritical Orthodoxy only by their fear of the people.»

The tirades just cited breathe such exclusivity that even Cardinal Newman found it necessary on their account to remark that «every nation has its parties and classes with their own particular esprit de corps, their traditions, antagonisms, and so on, and therefore one cannot take literally everything that these good monks said.»

But it is precisely thanks to this exclusivity that the tradition of the old church order lives more firmly in the consciousness of monasticism, and the deviation from it is felt more acutely. When, in response to one monk’s complaint that the government had confiscated the monasteries’ property, Palmer expressed the view that it would be desirable to return estates to the monasteries in order to make them more independent of the secular power, his Russian interlocutor replied: «Ah, what we need is a Patriarch. At present Protasov is our Patriarch, though he is a soldier—and this because he is the Tsar’s representative. He goes to balls and theatres, dances beautifully, and is altogether un très galant homme—but…» Palmer began to explain that Count Protasov in his position was nothing other than the ancient Byzantine Grand Logothete (ὁ μέγας Λογοθέτης), but the monk held his ground and said that «in the present state of affairs, if, for example, all the bishops were to rise up against some dangerous innovation, this would be useless unless the Synod were on their side; and if the Synod were to decide, under the influence of the secular power, to do something harmful in ecclesiastical terms, one would have to submit to this, with the only result being that the schism would grow stronger.» Speaking of the current composition of the Synod, the monk found it objectionable that two priests had been admitted to its membership on an equal footing with the bishops. «The only justification for this,» continued Palmer’s interlocutor, «is that these priests in the Synod may be useful as representatives of the married clergy in clarifying the needs connected with their state, since all the remaining members of the Synod are monks.» Having spoken of the members of the Synod, the monk naturally could not fail to characterize for a foreigner its most remarkable member at that time. «Philaret of Moscow,» he said, «became an archbishop at the age of 30, whereas under Peter the Great’s regulations a monk at that age could only become a hieromonk. He is subtle, resourceful, such that he can turn the whole Synod around his fingers and make it acknowledge black as white. Whatever he sets his hand to will be accomplished—that is, if Count Protasov approves. He is extraordinarily well-suited to his present position, precisely the second one; but God preserve us if he were to become Metropolitan of St. Petersburg! He is ambitious, and I fear that if Count Protasov were to plan some innovation, he would take his side and carry all the rest with him. But he is completely orthodox. Old Metropolitan Serafim is a cipher. Metropolitan Philaret of Kiev is a patron of the monks, an excellent and strictly Orthodox man, but one who loves solitude and is not gifted with eloquence. Muravyov leads a strict life, different from the others, and is perhaps not far from entering monasticism. He is the Assistant Ober-Procuror—and to be the Assistant Ober-Procuror is better than to be an archimandrite, or even a bishop, even an archbishop or metropolitan»—laughed Palmer’s interlocutor, proceeding in swift progression. In general, in his view, the present-day relations between Church and State in Russia have deviated far from their ideal, which was once realized in history. «The true type and beau idéal of the proper relations between Church and State, in his view, was represented in Russia by Patriarch Filaret and Tsar Mikhail, when the secular power was in the son’s hands, and the respect, reverence, and sincere obedience due to a father were fully rendered to him.»

In such conversations Palmer spent several pleasant days at the Sergius Hermitage. The monks on their side were interested in the learned foreign theologian and showered him with questions about the distinctive features of the Anglican Church. Does she recognize the sacraments, and how many exactly? How is the Eucharist celebrated—on unleavened or leavened bread? Is communion given in one kind or in both? What vestments do the Anglican clergy wear, what kinds of mitres, crosses, candles? Is incense used in worship? Is the invocation of saints recognized, and the veneration of icons and relics? These and many other similar questions interested Palmer’s Russian interlocutors, and they must surely have marveled not a little when the Anglican theologian answered with regret that the Anglican Church, owing to constant Protestant pressures and other influences, had been completely deprived of the greater part of the church accessories mentioned. One of the principal aims of the Oxford Movement was precisely the restoration in the Anglican Church of the old church forms it had lost—forms to which the Oxford scholars attributed a great religious-educational significance—and so Palmer noted with interest in his diary the incident recounted by the Hermitage’s abbot, which testified to precisely such a significance of church forms. Once, the Archimandrite related, a priest from one of the St. Petersburg parishes, in which a Lutheran superintendent (dean) lived, was summoned to the superintendent’s home to serve a thanksgiving moleben on some family occasion. The priest naturally assumed that the moleben was required by someone among the Russian tenants of this house, but how great was his surprise when he learned afterward that the moleben had been desired by the Lutheran superintendent himself. When the priest expressed his astonishment, the superintendent replied: «Ah, Father! We have none of those consolations that can be found in your rites and ceremonies.»

In conclusion, Palmer finally tried to broach the question of communion. To this end he asked the Archimandrite whether he might accept an alms from him for the monastery, on the condition of praying for the Anglican Church—for its deliverance from its enemies and its union with the Eastern Church. The Archimandrite replied that he could not do this without first asking the Ober-Procuror and the Synod.

«But you do accept alms from private individuals or families and pray for the salvation of their souls; why should you not do the same for the Anglican Church, or for any of her members who desire this?»

«No,» the Archimandrite said firmly, «this is not possible. In a matter concerning other churches we can do nothing without the permission of the bishop and the Synod. We pray daily for the union of the churches, but a special prayer is another matter. If a union of the Eastern and Anglican Churches were to come about, we would rejoice more than at the reunion of the Uniates. The world would be divided no more.»

“To begin this work, one must first learn to sincerely desire it and to pray for it,” said Palmer.

“You are now setting off for Petersburg—and may God speed you in this,” the monks said in farewell to their foreign guest.