Part 2

The work of Tolstoi is the work of a man; Slav Orthodoxy is the work of the generations. Orthodoxy was first defined by the Christian Jews and Greeks during the first eight hundred years. During the other thousand years Orthodoxy was enriched by the Slav Bible, _i.e.,_ by Slav religious experiences, by Slav martyrs, saints, heroes, by Slav sins and repentances, by Slav struggles and convulsions for Christ. It is a very large record, a very large Bible indeed, a wonderful drama, quite new, fresh, original, although in old forms and words, and signs. Still Slav Orthodoxy is not self-sufficient. She would become by human inertia self-sufficient, unless Providence sent her punishment from time to time. Tolstoi was for Orthodoxy a punishment. He was like a whirlwind which pulls down many things but at the same time purifies the unhealthy air. He was not at all a demon, but a man sent by God to help our Church; and he helped very much indeed--as all the sects and critics of Christianity from the beginning have helped the Christian cause, ridiculing and exposing the Christian Paganism manifested in ecclesiastical pride, in superstitions, prejudices, intolerance, etc.

What are the present needs of Slav Orthodoxy? Oh, her needs are great, her thirst is immense. She does not need so much what Tolstoi proposed for her, or what Harnack could give her, neither does she thirst after the stricter and clearer juristic definitions, nor after a "sweet reasonableness," as Matthew Arnold expressed Christ's being, a new theology or a new worship.

She needs more Christian dramas blended in one. She needs more of Christ on earth, more votes for Christ, all the votes for Christ instead of dividing them between Olympus and Golgotha. She needs to be united with all other Churches in one Christ-like body and spirit, in order that all the pieces of a broken mirror may be recomposed and that Christ could see in it His whole face. She is thirsty for more stigmata, more suffering, more sins. Yes, she is thirsty for more sins, I say, and more virtues; she likes to have all the sins and all the virtues of the world confessed and recognised as the common burden and common good. She is thirsty for a communion of sins and virtues among men, she is thirsty to call you _brothers_. She is thirsty to cry in exaltation to every man under the sun: "Poor child, give me just your sins (you don't need them) and I will give you my virtues, in order that I may be ashamed of your sins and you may be proud of my virtues."

For centuries Slav Orthodoxy seemed to the Western world like an immobile tortoise with a multi-coloured shell and with no great probability of its being inhabited by a living being. The outside world looked at this multi-coloured, hard and unchangeable shell, sometimes with love, sometimes with horror--always with an intense curiosity and almost always with a doubt that there could be any living thing in it. I will try to show you that there was and still is a living being contained therein, with many more movements, dissatisfactions, convulsions, longings and sufferings than it seems possible could exist.

II

SLAV REVOLUTIONARY CATHOLICISM

A FAR AIM AND A NARROW WAY.

If Providence bestows on the English Church only once in every half century a man like Bishop Westcott, this Church, I think, can be sure of a solid and sound longevity. Well, this Bishop Westcott spoke once enthusiastically of "_the noble catholicity which is the glory of the English Church_." My intention in this lecture is to describe to you an island in the Roman Catholic Church among the Slavs, which island is distinguished by a _noble catholicity_. "I believe in the holy _catholic_ apostolic church." This sentence that you repeat in London, as do the Roman Catholics in Rome, and we Orthodox in Moscow, has always two meanings, a sectarian and a universal, or a narrow one and a sublime one. The first meaning belongs to the people who imagine Christ standing at the boundary of their Church, turned with his face to them and with his back to all other "schismatic" peoples. The second belongs to the people who think that Christ may be also beyond their own churchyard; that the dwelling of their soul may be too narrow for His soul, and that their self-praisings and schismatic thunderings are very relative in His eyes. I propose to speak to-night about the people of this second category, _i.e._, of the people who are in the Christian history like a link connecting the different parts, the different Churches, into a higher unity. I will limit my considerations in this lecture to Slav Roman Catholicism. I call my theme of to-night "Slav Revolutionary Catholicism." Why "revolutionary"?

Why not? Is not Christianity a revolutionary movement from its very beginning? Is it not the most wonderful and the most noble among the revolutionary movements in history? Cardinal Newman and many others spoke about the evolution of Christianity. _Revolution_ is the word much more applicable to it. The spreading of this revolution from a poor village in Galilee over all the world--that is the history of the Church; or, if you like, the evolution of a revolution. As a volcano is an internal movement of the earth which gives a new shape to the surface, so the Christian revolution was also an internal movement, which gave a new form to the drama of human life. The Christian religion seemed very simple, it was even poor in simplicity, and still--what an incalculable impression it made! It was simple in aims and in means. It had but one aim, and there was one way only to it: to attain good only by good deeds; to fight for justice only with means that were just; to realise Love only by Love itself; to push darkness away, not by a greater darkness, but by light; to come to God the Perfect by a perfect way. Christ preached a new aim and showed a new way--a very sublime aim and a very limited way indeed. In the pre-Christian world there were manifold aims and manifold ways and means. In Sparta, skilfulness in sinning and hiding sins was tolerated and even applauded. In ancient Rome, till the full sunset of its strength, a good man was regarded as a weak man. Among the pagan Slavs, a prosperous man was envied more than a virtuous man. Christianity cleared the spiritual atmosphere and deepened human life. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." It was very clear. "Narrow is the way which leads unto life." It was very deep. Through Hell you never will reach Heaven. In making the devil your companion you will never come to God. And God is the only aim, Christ the only way to that aim; a very far aim, a very narrow way.

JAN HUSS'S REVOLUTION.

Your great compatriot, Wycliffe, is rightly considered as the beginner of the Reformation. Wycliffe spoke, and his word was his great mission on earth. But his word in Bohemia became flesh--yea, more than flesh--blood and fire. Human words are never great except when transformed into a drama--when incarnated into life. Wycliffe was never so great in England as he became in Bohemia. Christianity in Bohemia was at that time relatively young, nearly three times younger than in Rome. But since Prince Borivoj was baptised by the Slav Apostle, Methodius, never did Bohemian Christianity stand nearer to the primitive Bohemian paganism than at the time when King Wenceslas ruled in Bohemia, and Pope John XXIII ruled in Rome, and Jan Huss served as preacher in a Prague chapel called the Bethlehemian. The paganism under the style of poor Jesus, against which fought Huss, was much more obstinate and aggressive than the paganism under the style of Perun, against which fought St. Methodius. Everywhere was found a substitute for Christ, everywhere a pretext for an easy life and for a broad way instead of the narrow one. Sins and virtues had been equalised by means of money. The Church buildings had been transformed into public places for the exchange of sins and virtues. "_Repentance_, not _Money!_"--exclaimed Jan Huss. But his voice was stifled by the piercing sounds of the drums by which the sale of absolution for sin was announced in the streets. Again exclaimed Jan Huss: "The whole Bohemian nation is longing after Truth." But the traders in Christ's blood and tears laughed him to scorn. The doctors of theology asked their colleague Huss to confess that "the Pope is the head and the Bishops the body of the Church, and all their orders must be obeyed." But Huss did not care very much either about the head or the body, but principally about the _spirit_ of the Christian Church. And this spirit he saw eclipsed. He saw men again falling back to the creed of serving "two masters." He looked to the heart of the Christian religion and saw that it was sick, and his soul revolted against it. But his righteous revolution was regarded as a malevolent innovation, his words as a scandalous licence, and his tendencies as a deliberate destruction of Christianity. Therefore Jan Huss was brought before a tribunal of Christian judges, condemned to death and burnt to ashes, _ad magnam Dei gloriam_, as the Bishop of Lodi preached on that occasion.

The fact was that the Council of Constance was a great innovator, and that Huss stood for the true catholicity of old. He fought for the primitive Christian spirit which always inspired, vivified and purified the Christian world, and his judges introduced a quite anti-Christian, a quite new spirit into the Church, the spirit of _judging_ and _killing_. The sufficient proof--if you need proof at all--of this is that Huss suffered as a Christian martyr and through painful _suffering_ brought his cause to glory; whereas his judges killed him in the hope through a _crime_ to promote the Christian cause, and so covered their names with shame. The truth and glory of Jan Huss's cause were manifested last year throughout the whole of the globe. The whole world celebrated the quincentenary of his martyr death. I participated in this celebration in New York. It was a rare spectacle, that the New World saw. The Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, Methodists and Baptists, all the Churches and denominations participated in it. We went together, we prayed together, and we felt united in one and the same spirit. That was a great moment, for many of us the unique moment, when we _experienced_ what is meant by the _catholicity_, by the noble catholicity, of the Christian Church, as Bishop Westcott called it. It was an elevated and sweet feeling. The diabolical spirit of the Council of Constance never could unite us, but the Christian Catholic spirit of Jan Huss united us. The memory of Pope John XXIII divides the world, whereas the memory of the great apostle of the Bohemian nation unites it. Yet the revolution of Jan Huss was not of a personal character. It was not directed against John XXIII, or against the Vatican as Vatican--it was directed against the spirit of _Forum Romanum_ which crept into the Vatican and dwelled there. It was directed against Jupiter, who took the place of Christ in Rome and who invisibly inspired the Council of Constance; and against Perun, who, disguised, smiled from every church in Prague, and with a smile ruled over the souls in Bohemia under the name of Christ.

THE POLISH REVOLUTION.

Mickiewicz, Sienkiewicz! Two great milestones in the history of the Polish soul; two great milestones in Christian history also! Both Roman Catholics and both revolutionists in religion. The religious revolution they made can be characterised only by the words "noble catholicity." Both of them were attracted by Primitive Christianity much more than by the official Church of their own time. Sienkiewicz's work "Quo Vadis?" is by far better known than Mickiewicz's lectures on "The Official Church and Messianism." Yet the same religious ideal has been pictured in both these works. Mickiewicz put on record as the true Christian _men of suffering, of intuition and of action_ ("_hommes de douleur, d'intuition, d'action"_). Sienkiewicz described the first Christians as being such men. He revived the first days of Christianity in Rome. What striking contrasts between paganism and Christianity! Two quite different worlds in conflict--one world consisting of men of pleasure, and the other of men of suffering. On one side: Nero, Petronius, Vinicius, Seneca himself, and a mass harassed only about _panem et circenses_. On the other side: Paul of Tarsus, Petrus, Lygie, Ursus and many others willing to suffer and to die, and singing in suffering and in dying: _pro Christo! pro Christo!_ On the one side, the proud Roman citizens, who adored force and who gave sacrifices to good and to evil spirits equally in order to save or procure their miserable, fleeting pleasure. On the other the humble inhabitants of the suburbs of Rome who adored only the Good Spirit of the Universe and did not care about pleasure, but about Justice and Love. Nero or Christ! The Emperor of the _Casa Aurea_, who, oversaturated and annoyed by life, finished by suicide; or the Prophet from Nazareth who came to establish the Kingdom of God on earth and who was forcibly crucified by the adorers of darkness!

I have read many Roman Catholic teachers of catechism. I doubt whether all those _teachers_ did for Christianity as much as an _artist_--Sienkiewicz --did with his charming story, "Quo Vadis?" He aroused so much interest, and so many sympathies even among the unbelievers; I am sure he converted to Christianity many more than any _propaganda fides_ working on a half-political, half-scientific foundation. He put Christianity on a purely religious foundation, and he was understood not only by the Roman Catholics but by the whole world. He found the very heart of the "noble catholicity," and he inspired the world. He showed once more that Christianity is a drama and not a science.

Sienkiewicz loved Christianity, but he saw that it was still far from gaining a decisive victory. He knew the horrible injustice done to his Christian nation by the surrounding Christian nations. He was horrified looking at Bismarck. He called Bismarck the "true adorer of Thor," because he was a true follower of a pagan philosophy expressed in the Iron Chancellor's sentence--_Might over Right_. Yet Sienkiewicz prophesied that "Germany in the future cannot live with Bismarck's spirit." She must change her spirit, she must expel Thor and again kneel before Christ, because the "Christian religion of two thousand years is an invincible power, a much greater power than bayonets."

Mickiewicz hoped that only the Christian religion can save mankind. Christ is for him the central person in the world's history. Christ never made concessions to evil. But His Church to-day is making compromises with all kinds of evil. The official Church is publishing diplomatic Notes and promoting the publishing of books. That is all. The Church is afraid of suffering, although "there are even to-day enough occasions for the Church to suffer." "Prelates wear the purple which symbolises martyrdom: But who on earth has heard lately of the martyrdom of a Cardinal?" Mickiewicz bitterly complains that the "high clergy deserted the way of the Cross. They never would suffer. In order to escape suffering they fled as refugees to books, theology and doctrines. But _la force ne vient que de la douleur_." "The lower clergy, the Russian as the Polish, conserved the depot of faith intact," but still they are in a darkness of prejudice and vice. It is remarkable how large a view of the Christian Church had Mickiewicz. He did not care only for the Roman Church. He called the Russian Orthodox and the Polish Roman Church by one name--"the Church of the North." He cared about Christ's Church, and he believed steadfastly in her Messianic _rôle_ in the world. "The men of conventions must be defeated," he said. The pride of the high clergy and the fear of suffering must disappear. "The first need for a modern man is to be inspired and elevated, _de s'allumer et de s'élever_." The Church is the only bearer of inspiration and elevation; not the official Church, but the Messianic Church of "men of suffering, intuition and action," i.e., the primitive Church of Christ, which Sienkiewicz so magnificently described and for which Jan Huss so heroically fought.

THE SOUTHERN SLAV REVOLUTION.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, a preacher of the Gospel in Trieste and Laibach, _Primus Trubar_, published successively the New Testament, Psalter and Catechism in the vulgar Slovene language. It produced the greatest imaginable excitement amongst the Slovene clergy and people. Christ and the Prophets spoke for the first time to the people in mountainous Carniola and Istria in a language that the people could understand. A minority of the clergy shared the popular excitement, whereas the majority was filled with fury against the innovator. But Trubar went his way courageously and continued to publish and republish the sacred books in the Slovene tongue. The affair had the usual ending: the violent persecution of the disturbers of the _semper eadem_, and the victory of the persecuted cause. Trubar died in exile from his country, his books were burnt, the churches in which his books had been read pulled down, and the people who dared to speak with Christ and the Prophets in their native language terrified. At the same time, the Turks, after having devastated Serbia and Croatia, descended on Slovenia with the sword, burning pulling down, and terrifying everywhere.

Yet the great question of the ecclesiastical language could not be stifled. Even before and after Trubar, the Slavs on the Adriatic coast of Dalmatia and Istria insisted on the so-called _Glagoliza_ as the language which should be used in the divine service. _Glagoliza_ is not the common language of the Croats and Slovenes, but it is an old and sacred form of the same tongue. Rome opposed for a long time, declined afterwards, opposed or half-opposed again, till the question is to-day brought to a very acute phase. Pope Paul V permitted the use of the _Glagoliza_ in the Church. This permission was repeated by John VIII. and Urban VIII. There was printed a _Missale Romanum, slavicâ linguâ, glagolitico charactere_ (Rome, 1893). Still, one can say that although it is theoretically allowed, it is practically forbidden. It is used to-day in some new places, like Krk, Cherso, Zara, Sebenico, in Senj, Spalato, etc. But the fact remains that the Southern Slavs, or the Slavs generally, do not like the Latin language in the divine service. For the Slav conscience it is something incongruous: the Latin language of Nero and the spirit of Christ. Every language is the bearer of a certain spirit. Latin is the bearer of a juristic and despotic spirit. Ranke said: "The Papal Church is a legacy of ancient Rome."[1] If this be true, the language doubtless was one of the principal reasons for it. With the language of the Cæsars also crept into the Church the spirit of the Cæsars. This spirit was brought to a triumph in 1870 at the Council of the Vatican.

As the Croats and Slovenes protested against the language of the Cæsars, so they protested also against the triumphant spirit of the Cæsars in the Church. Bishop Strossmayer opposed the dogma of Papal Infallibility with a sincerity, obstinacy and eloquence which can be compared only with the spirit of the "_golden age_" of Christian history. In a letter to an old Catholic friend, he wrote: "It is nonsense to say that the Popes cannot live without these miserable rags called temporary possessions."[2] Is this not true apostolic language? Again he wrote: "What occurs to-day in Rome is obviously God's punishment and at the same time a providential way to those reforms which the Church needs in order to fulfil her mission with more success in the future than she has done till now."[3] And to Dr. Döllinger he confessed quite openly: "And what about my nation and its future? It seems to me quite certain that it will one day get rid of Roman despotism."[4]

[Footnote 1: "History of the Popes," Chap. I.] [Footnote 2: "Letter to Professor Reinkens," Schulte: _Der Altcatholicismus.,_] [Footnote 3: _Ibid._] [Footnote 4: _Ibidem._]

THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION.

By its interference, religion can inspire science, and again science by its interference can purify religion. The most beautiful spectacle in human society is a priest contributing to science and a scientist contributing to religion. The one-sided man is always an imperfect man; and an imperfect man as a teacher of perfection is a dangerous teacher for young generations.

Two Slavs, Nicolaus Copernicus, from Thorn, and Ruggiero Boscovich, from Ragusa, both Roman Catholic priests, were at the same time both ardent scientists. Copernicus postulated the heliocentric planetary system instead of the geocentric. This happened soon after Columbus made a great revolution in geographical science by discovering America. Some people thought the end of the Church had come after Copernicus' discovery that the sun and not the earth is the centre of the world. But Copernicus not only did not think so, but continued quietly in his vocation as a priest and dedicated his famous work to Pope Paul III.

Ruggiero Boscovich was not such a great discoverer as Copernicus; still he was one of the most distinguished scientific and philosophic minds in the eighteenth century. In his "Theoria philosophiæ naturalis," he tried to prove that bodies are composed not of a continuous material substance but rather of innumerable point-like structures or particles which are without any extension or divisibility. These elements are endowed with a repulsive force which can, under special circumstances (of distance), become attractive. Boscovich's philosophical system can be called a dynamistic _atomismus_.

Men with much smaller scientific successes sometimes consider it their duty to separate themselves from the Christian Church. But great men like Copernicus and Boscovich possessed in a high degree the _noble catholicity_ which should always exist between religion and science. For every great revolution in science meant also a great revolution in religion. A scientific revolution could never shake the realities of religion, but only the illusions of religion.

This was likewise the great result of the religious revolutions among the Slavs: not to shake the realities but the illusions of religion. Pride, superstitions and hatred have produced all the revolutions in the Church, the revolutions which meant for the Church real ventilation or punishment. These revolutions gave light and air to the Roman Church. Either the official books admit it, or they do not. No matter; the living Church admits it. She has built monuments to the prophets whom she killed or persecuted. No one is without a glorious monument--neither Huss nor Savonarola, neither Bruno nor Hieronymus of Prague, neither Trubar nor Strossmayer. The living Church always admired men of suffering and not men of pleasure. It was not the self-sufficient prelates who promoted the Christian cause, with their books and notes and discussions, but the sufferers, hungry and thirsty for the Kingdom of God. Christ was victorious over Nero in the Coliseum, but oftentimes afterwards Nero was victorious over Christ in the Church. But Nero must go, and Christ come. We have all pledged our word in our childhood to act so that Nero's spirit may decrease and Christ's spirit increase in the world. We cannot otherwise keep our pledge unless we adhere to the _noble catholicity_ of the Christian Church, which is the very kernel of vulgar and verbal catholicity. But we cannot grasp all the Christian centuries and generations behind us and bind our own life with what is _noble_ and _catholic_ in all of them unless we are men of suffering, intuition and action. And we can be all three.

III

*THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF THE SLAVS*