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Authors: Edvard Radzinsky
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‘Russian America’.
A Disastrous Schism In The Russian Church
Later on, in the seventeenth century, new refugees added their numbers to the forests of the Trans-Volga and Siberia. The church reforms under Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich were accompanied by a renovation of the sacred texts and a change in the very mystery of signing the cross. Believers were now required to cross themselves with three fingers instead of two. The new Orthodoxy produced a sea of blood. Many believers declared the ‘new books’ and the new rites to be a temptation of Satan. They held to the old ways, crossing themselves as before, and reading only the old versions of the sacred texts. And they called themselves ‘Old Believers’.
The great schism in church life had begun. The official church harshly chastised the Old Believers. Imprisonment, execution, and mass self-immolation of the adherents of the old beliefs — all of this happened. And the Old Believers now established their holy cloisters beyond the reach of authority in the boundless forests of the Trans-Volga and Siberia.
As industry developed and the forests were logged, the schismatic cloisters in the Trans-Volga also began to retreat beyond the Urals — to the impenetrable forests of Siberia. So that for the entire three-hundred-year history of the Romanov dynasty there existed in Siberia alongside the official Orthodox Church an unofficial but powerful and secret ‘church of the people’.
The Tsar Rules The Church
That which Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich had begun by splitting the Russian Church, his son Peter the Great successfully continued. This reformer tsar destroyed the ancient patriarchate and openly mocked the old church rites. He also established, with a so-called chief procurator appointed by the tsar at its head, a Holy Synod which from that day forth would govern church affairs. And although Nicholas’s father, Alexander III, was a deeply religious man, the official church still remained subordinate to the tsar and still dragged out the same sorry existence under his reign that it had dragged out previously. Serving as the head of the Holy Synod as its chief procurator was the emperor’s favourite, K. Pobedonostsev. He was one of the cleverest people in the country. But, as frequently happens in Russia, his whole mindwas directed towards oppression. The least loophole for freedom of thought and speech was subjected to ruthless attack. He would destroy at the root, any law capable of mitigating even slightly the unlimited power of the tsar over the church. As head of the Holy Synod, this profoundly devout man did everything he could to contain the great and infinite world of church life within the framework of ruthless bureaucratization and to force the church hierarchs to recognize one law only: the command of the tsar and the chief procurator.
The official church found itself in a condition of profound lethargy.
Meanwhile, the social cauldron had begun to boil. Not long before he died, Tsar Alexander III had a conversation with one of his trusted advisers, the adjutant general O. Richter. ‘I sense that things in Russia are not going as they should,’ Nicholas’s father had said, and then he asked Richter to speak his mind. ‘I have given it a great deal of thought,’ Richter answered, ‘and I imagine the country in the form of a colossal boiler in which fermentation is taking place, while around the boiler walk people with hammers. And when in the boiler’s walls the slightest crack is formed, they immediately seal it up with rivets. But eventually the gases within will force such a crack that it will be impossible to reseal it, and we shall all suffocate!’ And, Richter recalled, the sovereign began to moan as if in pain.
The weak official church could no longer offer assistance in the event of catastrophe. The people did not trust it. Those who stood at the crossroads either went with their troubles in the direction of revolution, or turned for help to
A Disastrous Schism In The Russian Church
Later on, in the seventeenth century, new refugees added their numbers to the forests of the Trans-Volga and Siberia. The church reforms under Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich were accompanied by a renovation of the sacred texts and a change in the very mystery of signing the cross. Believers were now required to cross themselves with three fingers instead of two. The new Orthodoxy produced a sea of blood. Many believers declared the ‘new books’ and the new rites to be a temptation of Satan. They held to the old ways, crossing themselves as before, and reading only the old versions of the sacred texts. And they called themselves ‘Old Believers’.
The great schism in church life had begun. The official church harshly chastised the Old Believers. Imprisonment, execution, and mass self-immolation of the adherents of the old beliefs — all of this happened. And the Old Believers now established their holy cloisters beyond the reach of authority in the boundless forests of the Trans-Volga and Siberia.
As industry developed and the forests were logged, the schismatic cloisters in the Trans-Volga also began to retreat beyond the Urals — to the impenetrable forests of Siberia. So that for the entire three-hundred-year history of the Romanov dynasty there existed in Siberia alongside the official Orthodox Church an unofficial but powerful and secret ‘church of the people’.
The Tsar Rules The Church
That which Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich had begun by splitting the Russian Church, his son Peter the Great successfully continued. This reformer tsar destroyed the ancient patriarchate and openly mocked the old church rites. He also established, with a so-called chief procurator appointed by the tsar at its head, a Holy Synod which from that day forth would govern church affairs. And although Nicholas’s father, Alexander III, was a deeply religious man, the official church still remained subordinate to the tsar and still dragged out the same sorry existence under his reign that it had dragged out previously. Serving as the head of the Holy Synod as its chief procurator was the emperor’s favourite, K. Pobedonostsev. He was one of the cleverest people in the country. But, as frequently happens in Russia, his whole mindwas directed towards oppression. The least loophole for freedom of thought and speech was subjected to ruthless attack. He would destroy at the root, any law capable of mitigating even slightly the unlimited power of the tsar over the church. As head of the Holy Synod, this profoundly devout man did everything he could to contain the great and infinite world of church life within the framework of ruthless bureaucratization and to force the church hierarchs to recognize one law only: the command of the tsar and the chief procurator.
The official church found itself in a condition of profound lethargy.
Meanwhile, the social cauldron had begun to boil. Not long before he died, Tsar Alexander III had a conversation with one of his trusted advisers, the adjutant general O. Richter. ‘I sense that things in Russia are not going as they should,’ Nicholas’s father had said, and then he asked Richter to speak his mind. ‘I have given it a great deal of thought,’ Richter answered, ‘and I imagine the country in the form of a colossal boiler in which fermentation is taking place, while around the boiler walk people with hammers. And when in the boiler’s walls the slightest crack is formed, they immediately seal it up with rivets. But eventually the gases within will force such a crack that it will be impossible to reseal it, and we shall all suffocate!’ And, Richter recalled, the sovereign began to moan as if in pain.
The weak official church could no longer offer assistance in the event of catastrophe. The people did not trust it. Those who stood at the crossroads either went with their troubles in the direction of revolution, or turned for help to
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