Albert Farley Heard

“ In no other country has a moral and religious system ever been based upon deliberate and degrading mutilation of the body. It were vain to seek a parallel during the darkest days of paganism, or in the most carefully hidden mysteries of Grecian mythology. Enthusiasts, like Origen, may have sacrificed their manhood in order to secure tranquillity of mind and perfect freedom of thought, but neither the priests of heathen deities nor Christian fanatics have ever raised the act to the height of a moral obligation, or endeavored to found upon it a creed and a religion. ”

“ The "Moltchalniki," or the "Taciturn," push their extravagance to denial of all religious belief; they reject the Bible and all traditions; recognize no priesthood nor Church; have no forms, ritual, nor prayer; disbelieve in a future life and in God, and carry their principle of negation to extremes. Every man is a revelation and an authority to himself, which suffice for the present day.
Another sect worship the portrait of the "Beatified" Redeemer, and give themselves up to the holy ecstasy which its fixed contemplation arouses. ”

“ Already, in these obscure dissensions of the Middle Ages, the fundamental principle of the Raskol—that is to say, scrupulous regard for the letter of the law, formalism—begins to assert itself. An annalist of Novgorod, in the fifteenth century, mournfully complains that some of the clergy have impiously changed the ancient invocation of, "Lord! have pity upon us!" for "O Lord! have pity upon us!"
The manner in which the Russian people were converted to Christianity, suddenly, by order, as it were, made religion appear to them as consisting in form, in words, rites, and ceremonies. ”

“ We reverence our metropolitan, and crave his blessing, but he walks humbly on earth, and seeks not, in pride, to raise himself above princes. There is but one Holy Father, and He is in heaven; whoso calleth himself the companion of Jesus Christ, but is carried on men's shoulders, as if borne up on a cloud by angels, is no true shepherd, but a wolf in sheep's clothing. ”

“ Victorious in war, Ivan was, in peace, a wise, enlightened, and magnificent prince. He assumed great state, embellished his capital, welcomed at his court scholars fleeing from the infidel conquerors of Byzantium, and endeavored, in Moscow, to revive the glories of Constantinople. He extended his favors to all members of the Greek communion; prelates came to the Russian metropolitan for consecration, and the patriarch of Jerusalem found refuge in Russia from the tyranny of the Sultan of Egypt. While solicitous for the national faith, he was tolerant of other religions. ”

“ His arbitrary government, while left as regent during the absence of the tsar in the field, his haughtiness and impatience of advice in civil, as well as in ecclesiastical, affairs, excited the bitter animosity of the great lords and boyars, who submitted with ill-concealed repugnance to the supremacy of a low-born peasant. A double danger threatened the all-powerful favorite—jealousy and hatred on the part of the great nobles and the high dignitaries of the Church; superstitious fears and a holy horror of sacrilegious innovations on the part of an ignorant and fanatical people and clergy. ”

“ Peter was absent from Russia, but, hurrying back, he abolished the institution, and wreaked such fearful and bloody vengeance upon the rebels as to call forth remonstrance, "in the name of the Mother of God," from Adrian, who was then patriarch. "Get thee home," was the fierce reply; "know that I reverence God and his most Holy Mother more earnestly perhaps than thou dost. It is the duty of my sovereign office, and a duty that I owe to God, to save my people from harm, and to prosecute, with direst severity, crimes that tend to the common ruin." ”

“ While rejoicing in the favor of the State, the Church does not apprehend thereby serious danger to its independence as a Church; confident in the immutability of its dogma, which no authority can impugn, and in the pious devotion of its adherents, upon which the government dare not trespass, it is fully alive to the fact that the interference of the sovereign is limited by the unwritten law of tradition, and that, to undue encroachment, it has but to oppose its passive power of inertia, and to rely upon the fidelity of its followers. ”

“ What Jerusalem and the Temple were to the Jews, Kiev and the Petcherski are to the Russians. The vast and mysterious catacombs are peopled by the bodies of thousands of holy men, who still rest in the caverns where they lived; miracles are worked by their remains, and keep alive the ardent devotion of innumerable worshippers at their shrines.
When Christianity was introduced in Russia the schism dividing the East and the West, although threatening, was not declared, and the Russian establishment was a branch of the Church universal, still, in theory, one and indivisible. ”

“ Then follows a spectacle, such as may be seen among the dervishes of the East; the hearers commence the sacred dance, at first in solemn measure, turning in slow cadence, then with, quickly increasing rapidity, until the whole congregation is revolving round in a bewildering, giddy maze; men and women, old and young, in transports of contagious frenzy, are borne away in the crazy whirl with frantic distortions and gesticulations to imitate the flutter of an angel's wings, and lost to all sense of time or place. Each follows his own fancy, according to the devotional inspiration of the moment ”

“ In the sombre and mysterious recesses of the Russian mind, in the constantly active workings of popular thought, there is a strange admixture of the fantastic and monstrous heresies of the early and middle ages fermenting with modern progressive ideas, crudely conceived and partially understood; the grossest and most materialistic impostures of the past are revived in presence of vague and indefinite aspirations for a better knowledge of the truth, as seen in the clearer light of the present day. ”

“ Gerontius, the metropolitan, was no less urgent: "Be thine, oh, my son! the courage and strength of mind that belong to a soldier of Christ. A good shepherd will die, if needs be, for his flock. May God protect thine empire and give thee the victory!" [1]
As Ivan still hesitated, and from his camp continued negotiations, Vassian again argued and earnestly besought him, in "the name of the metropolitan and of us all, representatives of Jesus Christ," to march against Akhmet, blessing "him and his son and his warriors, children of Christ." ”

“ In 1580, when Russia was sore beset on every side, a council assembled at Moscow eagerly responded to the monarch's call for aid, and relinquished to the crown all the landed estates which the Church had acquired by gift or purchase from the princes of Moscow. At this critical juncture Ivan's wonted energy deserted him. Hidden from his people in the gloomy retreat of Alexandrov, he revelled and caroused with his favorites, giving his son in marriage and espousing his seventh wife, while defeat and disaster overwhelmed the empire. ”

“ From the Troïtsa monastery the courageous Dionysius, by emissaries and letters, made earnest and constant appeal to the patriotism of the people. The Polish governor of Moscow and the rebellious Russian nobles ordered Hermogenes, as head of the Church, to forbid any national uprising. "I will forbid it," was the reply, "when I see Vladislas baptized and the country, freed from Poles; if this is not to be, then I enjoin upon all to rise, and I absolve them from their oath to the king's son. I will give my blessing to all who are ready to die for the Orthodox faith." ”

“ The ready acceptance of doctrines so strange and fanciful must be ascribed in great measure to the existence among the people of vague aspirations, similar to those among the ancient Jews, to ardent desire for freedom and for relief from slavery, to a universal longing for emancipation from serfdom and its burdens, to the hope and expectation of a future repartition of the soil. Promises of coming liberty and assurances of participation in the wealth of their masters, based on Biblical prophecies, were welcome to an oppressed and suffering population. ”

“ Musical instruments have always been prohibited, and the human voice only has been heard in its chants, as in its prayers. Its efforts in this direction have been in vain, and even worse, as they have tended to deprive Russian civilization of the humanizing influences of the arts; but the spirit of formalism, of feticism, with which the Church has been so often, so bitterly, and so unjustly reproached, arises rather from the realistic, material character of the races subject to its sway, from their ignorance and proneness to superstition, and from their low intellectual development. ”

“ The vitality and persistent energy of the sectarian spirit are remarkable, inasmuch as most of the causes provoking its manifestation either exist no longer, or are rapidly disappearing. Effects, however, are often perceived after the first impulse has ceased to act. Sect begets sect, as the plant is reproduced by its yearly seed. It is hopeless to expect to stifle the spiritual aspirations of a vigorous, quick-witted, eager race, and to arrive at the dead level of unity of faith and obedience to one Church, which the emperor Nicholas conceived to be the consummation most devoutly to be wished ”

“ In the active effervescence of a vigorous people, young in civilization, freshly emancipated from ancient servitude, mental and corporeal, still inexperienced and undisciplined, brought into sudden contact with modern progress and ideas, while yet strongly imbued with old prejudices and superstitions, imposture and fanaticism assume the language of inspiration, favored by the religious instincts of the masses, and feebly opposed by the doubting spirit of the few. ”

“ The victim, who is persuaded by promises of glory in the life to come and honor in this world, to offer up herself a living sacrifice, is ever afterwards held as holy. [3] Ferocious and savage practices of this nature are totally at variance with the naturally mild and kindly character of the Russian peasant; but under the influence of religious exaltation he is transformed into a wild beast, reckless of consequences; ready in the past for murder or for self-immolation, as his frenzy might dictate, and capable at the present day of excesses as brutal and as extraordinary. ”

“ Notwithstanding vigorous measures of repression, the great mass of the people were infested with the poison of Dissent; sect after sect arose, each with its local following and peculiarities, but all professing, as their single common bond of union, opposition to reform and to the established Church, as having fallen away from the ancient and true faith.
As Peter grew to man's estate, a giant in mind and body, his haughty, imperious nature could ill brook a divided authority. ”

“ Since the days of Peter the Great the spirit of doubt and scepticism, characteristic of the eighteenth century, has pervaded the nobility and governing classes; among them Atheism is as general a doctrine as Christianity, and infidelity has supplanted faith; but the great body of the people have never risen above that degree of civilization in which all new ideas generally, and naturally, are imbued with a tincture of religion or superstition. ”

“ Ordination in the Russian Church is not necessarily for life; a priest may be relieved of his vows by the Holy Synod. If convicted of crime, he may, like any functionary, be degraded from his office; the death of his wife (a second marriage is not permitted) deprives him of his sacred character, and he can no longer officiate. In a word, the Russian pope is rather a minister at, and a servant of the altar, than the representative of the Deity.
The clergy of the Orthodox, like that of the Catholic, Church is divided into the regular and secular bodies ”

“ Russian peasants are very devout, especially those who belong to the dissenting sects; among others, of the Orthodox creed, religion is rather a mechanical ritualism, but it holds them under bonds as severe as those of the most intense fanaticism. Evidence of the wonderful vitality of the religious principle among them is seen in its fecundity; it has given rise to innumerable sects, and others are constantly appearing; but this principle, so deeply rooted in the heart of the Russian peasant, is not entirely, and necessarily, always Christian in its nature. ”

“ This old man, whose heart was filled with gall and envy, whispered suggestions which found ready response in Ivan's diseased fancies.
"If," said he, "you wish to be absolute monarch, have no confidant wiser than yourself; give orders, but receive advice from no one; always command and never follow the lead of others; thus you will be indeed a king, terrible to your lords. Remember, above all, that a counsellor, even of the wisest prince, inevitably becomes his master." [3]
The poisonous seed bore fatal fruit. Ivan, then but thirty years of age, seemed to lose all faith in mankind. ”