THE name ‘Olga,’ given to the first child of the Emperor Nicolas the Second, recalls facts which some people forget.

That was the name of the first Russian princess, surnamed ‘The Wise’ by her subjects, and the first baptised in Constantinople, 900 years ago. A great abyss divides 955 from 1895. The centuries are spanned by the Greek Orthodox Apostolic Christianity, which from then till now has been and is the most vital factor in the history of the Eastern peoples.

In the last twenty years the central fact has been somewhat obscured for a time by the stress that has been laid upon nationality. During the great crusade of 1876-78, we then talked and wrote more about the Slavonic cause than of the Greek Orthodox Church. But that was a concession to the enthusiasm and prejudices of the West. The principle of nationality at that time was better understood than that of religion, and of course it was quite true that the ties of religion were, in the case of the Bulgarians, the Serbs, Macedonians, and the Montenegrins, powerfully reinforced by the sympathies natural to men of kindred races. In Russia, however, there has never been any change. In 1876 as in 1895, and as in 1854 and in 1827.

The oppressed subjects of the Sultan were simply Christian brothers. It was Christianity that was the bond between the Slavs of the Balkans and the Russian volunteers, as well as the regular soldiers who died at Zaitchar, at Plevna, and at Shipka. It is the common faith which forms the solidarity of Russia and the Eastern Christians of the Balkans.

Russians are nothing if they are not patriotic, but before they are Russians they are Christians. As my brother, General Alexander Kireeff, recently wrote in an article of the Nouvelle Revue (September 1895): ‘I am the son of my Church before I am the son of my country. I am first of all “a Greek Orthodox,” afterwards I am a Russian.’

This is the outcome of all our history.

The first conception which a Russian has of the human beings in the midst of whom he is born is that they are brothers. He does not call them fellow-citizens. He does not address them as fellow-countrymen. Neither does he call them ‘Russians’ in his everyday plain speech, which embodies his simple sense of things as they are; he calls them ‘Brother’ (‘Brat,’‘Bratzi’). He did this long before the French Revolution popularised the doctrine of fraternity. He learnt it in the Church. But it was not ‘the brotherhood of men’; it was the brotherhood of Christians. ‘The brotherhood of all men’ is a phrase; the brotherhood of Christians is a fact. That is a somewhat important distinction. No doubt many Christians are unbrotherly; but all Christians, at least of the Greek Orthodox rite, recognise the reality of their brotherhood both in their religion and in their politics.

What are the two great signs of brotherhood? (1)Equality, absolute equality as of brothers in a family. (2)Readiness to sacrifice for the service of the brotherhood. Tested by either of these principles, the Russians can proudly claim that the Greek Orthodox Church is a sterling reality, and has always been such.

Take, for instance, the question of equality. In the Greek Orthodox Church—as in no other communion of Christendom, unless it be among the Quakers—the most brotherly equality prevails. I am almost ashamed to quote such a venerable authority as Baron Haxthausen, but he was at least a German Protestant, an impartial witness.

Speaking of the Russian Church, he says:

In the submission to the usages of the Church there is no difference visible between a Russian of the highest rank and a common man; everywhere prevails the unity of the national Church and national worship. There is moreover in the Church a principle which is very beautiful: there is not the slightest difference between high and low. In Russia there is complete equality, as there should be in all Christian Churches. Here the lowest does not yield place to the most distinguished. The beggar, the serf, places himself without hesitation above or before the rich man, his lord and master. The latter, on the other hand, claims no precedence. In the Russian churches pews are unknown, and there are in general no chairs, not even stools to kneel on.

What is said here of the Russian equally refers to all the Eastern Churches. Amid all the inequalities of social and political conditions the Church has kept as a living reality during all these centuries the practical brotherhood of believers in complete equality.

The equality will not be disputed, nor can anyone who is honest and impartial deny the reality of the sacrifices which we of the Greek Orthodox rite have made for our brothers—sacrifices, alas! the very mention of which makes the heart bleed. For our history during several centuries has been largely a series of crusades. To the European diplomatist Russian wars have appeared principally a hunger for land or thirst for conquest. To the Russian people they have always been simply the sacrifices necessary for the deliverance of their brothers from the hated yoke of the infidel. Russians have gone forth willingly to die in every age, and ‘greater love hath no man than this: to lay down his life for his brothers.’

The Russian, therefore, never regards himself as primarily a citizen of the Russian State. He is always, and first and foremost, a Greek Orthodox, and as such he is a member of a much wider and greater, more ideal realm than any merely secular community.

This religious nationality is divine in its origin, its aspirations, its objects. Like the English Imperialists, who cling to all the English-speaking races, we feel even more strongly drawn towards all who utter their religious sentiments in the language of their orthodox rites.

The Greek Orthodox world, that is our Fatherland, and all Greek Orthodox are our brethren. The Greek Orthodox Churches of Bulgaria, of Greece, of Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, &c., may be united by ties hardly perceptible, but you cannot help seeing and feeling them in times of united dangers or trials; and among all the Greek Orthodox Churches there is the most absolute recognition of this fact, that it is from Russia alone that some effectual help can come to deliver them from their tribulations.

If this fact be borne in mind you will perhaps be able to realise the reason why Russians never could acquiesce, except under protest, in the presence of a Roman Catholic prince on the throne of Bulgaria. Remember Bulgaria is a Greek Orthodox community; she has been liberated by the sacrifices in blood and money by Russian Orthodox armies. To see on the throne of Bulgaria a man who by his creed may be the deadly enemy of the Greek Orthodox Church cannot be otherwise than painful.

I wish I could refer to the Pope of Rome and his hierarchy merely as zealous representatives of the Gospel, whose only concern was and is the Christianising of the world. But, alas! facts are as they are, not as they should be, and we have to face not so much the apostolic missionary of the Cross as the scheming intriguer enlisting right and left anybody ready to submit blindly, heart and soul, to the Pope.

Russians have no pretence to infallibility, but among their moral shortcomings and weaknesses no one has yet discovered a passion for polemical propaganda. We hold our faith as our own treasure, but we do not thrust it down other peoples’ throats either by spears or ramrods or priests. But Rome practises no such reserves. No means are omitted, good or bad, in view of subjugating the world. Was it not Pope Pius the Ninth who said that the Roman Church was a net in which every mesh was a priest, whose only object was the triumph of his Church?

When, in 1582, Possevin, the Jesuit emissary of Rome (author of Moscovia), had his famous interview with our Tzar Ivan the Fourth, Rome offered us not only Constantinople, but the whole Byzantine Empire, if we would but abjure our orthodox faith. But our Tzar promptly replied: ‘I would not talk with thee on matters of faith, for involuntarily one party ever vexes the other. And now, as to the Oriental Empire, let it be known to thee that I am quite content with what I have got, and do not covet any new dominions in this world. As to the next, I ask but the gracious mercy of God.’

Foiled in his attempt to induce the Russians to forsake the faith by the bribe of the inheritance of Constantine, the holy Jesuit made a last despairing effort to secure the support of Russia for the furtherance of the papal schemes. Possevin most earnestly pressed the Tzar to expel the Lutherans from Russia, alleging that they were a venomous sect of heretics, who denied both the Holy Virgin and the sanctity of the righteous in Christ.

The Tzar remained imperturbable. He replied that Russia would not do Rome’s biddings. ‘The Lutherans,’ he said, ‘as well as all foreigners not of the Russian Church, including Roman Catholics, should enjoy equal liberty and protection, provided they did not communicate their erroneous doctrines to Russian subjects.

The Jesuit returned discomfited. But the bribes which failed in Russia in 1582 may be more successful when they are offered to weaker powers in 1895. Rome boasts of never changing the weapon she used in vain in Russia then; she will use, and is probably using, it in Bulgaria to-day; and if Bulgaria fails, has she not Austria in reserve? Ferdinand is a servant of the Pope, holding an illegal, unconstitutional, unrecognised position in the heart of an Orthodox country, which the papal emissaries are endeavouring to deprive of her faith. The Patriarch of Constantinople has borne strong testimony to their practices only last month. He says:

Since for some time past the Papal Church, abandoning the path of persuasion and argument, has begun, to the general astonishment and amazement, to offend the consciences of the humbler Orthodox Christians by deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ, sending to the East clergy wearing the dress (and head-covering) of Orthodox priests, and using many other deceitful and cunningly devised means for the success of its proselytising aims—on account of these things, and from a sense of sacred duty, we issue this Patriarchal synodical encyclical for the protection of Orthodox faith and godliness, knowing that the preservation of the true canon is the duty of every earnest person, and much more of those who, under Providence, have been found worthy to direct the minds of others.

This is not the place, nor am I the person, to expound wherein the Roman Church has strayed from the Orthodox faith; but I may perhaps be permitted to make one more quotation from the Patriarch’s reply to the Papal Encyclical on the subject of reunion. The Patriarch says:

If the Western Church can prove from the teachings of the holy fathers or the divinely assembled oecumenical councils that the Roman Church, then orthodox in the West, ever, before the ninth century, read the Creed with the addition (filioque), or used unleavened bread, or that it accepted the teaching regarding purgatory, sprinkling instead of immersion, the immaculate conception of the Ever-Virgin, the temporal power, or the infallibility, or the absolute rule of the Bishop of Rome, we have nothing to say; but if, on the contrary, it be clearly shown, as even the lovers of truth among the Latins admit, that the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Church of Christ holds the primitive traditionary doctrines then commonly acknowledged both in the East and the West, and that the Western Church corrupted them by various innovations, it is then evident to children that the more natural way towards reunion is the return of the Western Church to the primitive dogmatic and administrative condition.

But we do not hope for that. All that we can hope from the Pope is that he will leave us alone, leave all of us alone. Hands off! Not being myself in the least an authority on theological questions, I much prefer giving another extract from my brother Alexander Kireeff’s article published in the Nouvelle Revue of the 1st of September: ‘La Reunion des Eglises.’ Referring to a very bitter attack directed against the Greek Orthodox Church, my brother says: ‘My opponent compares the Roman Catholic dogma with ours; he says that the Roman Catholic dogma is essentially alive, permeating the very existence of her children, that it is inseparable from morals participating in the universal movement. I do not know what the author means by “permeating the very existence of her children,” but I often hear Catholics bitterly complaining of the intervention of the representatives of this dogma, the priests in family life through confession.’ ‘Catholic dogma inseparable from morals!’ For argument’s sake, let it be so. But morals, since the year 1870, depend on the goodwill of the Pope, who may be St. Gregory or St. Leo, but just as easily Alexander Borgia. These masters of Christian morality may reach their tiara through their virtues, as did many amongst them; but sometimes also through the goodwill of their mistresses, of a Marosia or Theodora, like Sergius the Third or John the Tenth, and this certainly is not a matter of little consideration. One more remark. The Pope, speaking officially, is said to be infallible, as well in dogma as in morals, which did not prevent the Pope Pius the Ninth to proclaim Alphonsus de Liguori Doctor of the Church; now, that very Alphonsus de Liguori was a Redemptorist, and very near the Jesuits, professing Probabilism—rather too convenient a doctrine!

For my part I confess I fail to see how these new dogmas could make us better Christians.

Further on my brother says that there are sects in the East, such as Monophysites, Arians, and Monothelites, &c. Yes, but the Church has condemned them. They have ceased to be within the pale. The West has also had her Albigenses, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Ancient Catholics, who have been condemned by Rome, and are also not within the pale of the Roman Church. I do not think they are the worse for that. The Albigenses have been converted by Simon de Montfort—a terrible controversialist, no doubt—using his ad hominem arguments, for which the Holy See adorned him with indulgences. The Eastern Church has no Pope, certainly; but when a dogma or a heresy has to be defined, this is done by the Church. We are faithful to Autocracy, no doubt. More than that, we are devoted to Autocracy; but, principally because our autocrat Emperor, though certainly not the head of our Church, is her very first defender and supporter. The pledges he gives at his coronation are most solemn and impressive, and as clear and definite as they are solemn. He is the first to recognise—what we all know—that before Autocracy comes the Church, just as the soul is above all worldly considerations.

There is no Autocracy in Bulgaria, but there is the Eastern Catholic Church. As my brother says, in reply to his critic—

My opponent asserts that Russia, in times of popular perturbations and uncertainty, finds her only guarantee of existence in the autocracy of the Tzar. This is not the case. Thus, for instance, in the terrible interregnum from 1610 to 1613 Russia had no Tzar, and has been saved by her Church, who preserved all her force amidst the ruins which surrounded her.

Having thus explained the relation of Russian Orthodoxy to Russian politics, let me point out its bearing upon the contemporary problems that trouble the East.

Russia’s difficulty with Bulgaria arose almost entirely from the bitterness created by the Roman propaganda.

Our objection is not to Prince Ferdinand qua Prince Ferdinand so much as to Prince Ferdinand the Roman Catholic, the tool of the Jesuits. It is simply absurd to talk of our ‘hostility’ to the Bulgarian people, merely because we are hostile to the hyena that is attempting to devour the offspring of our sacrifices. Russia loved Bulgaria before the English people—with the exception of Lord Strangford—even realised her existence; loved her sufficiently to face hostile Europe and spend 100,000 lives in order to achieve her resurrection. Russia loves her still. But Russia has been loyal to her treaty obligations. She even withdrew voluntarily all her officers, as a protest against the reunion of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia, because that most desirable end was achieved by means revolutionary and illegal. Europe has recognised the loyalty of the Russian Government and all the Powers associated with Russia in their refusal to recognise the papal Coburger.

Now it is asked of us that we should be content if the child-prince Boris is baptised and brought up as a Greek Orthodox. No doubt! If this were really accomplished, if we could be sure that this was done, we might go so far as to say that the chief obstacle to a reconciliation would disappear. But can we trust Prince Ferdinand? Can we trust the Pope and his secret advisers? Is there no secret understanding that the Prince Boris in reality remains Roman? Remember the terrible doctrine of reservationes mentales, which opens the door to the most revolting, deceitful tricks. It would be a poor outcome of the overtures of reconciliation if Russia and Bulgaria were to be duped by Rome. The intrigues and deception of the Jesuits are as plentiful as the sand of the ocean, and Russia, knowing them of old, has to be cautious.

These considerations are of paramount, of vital importance. The overwhelming majority of her subjects are Christian and Greek Orthodox.

She is a Christian empire par excellence, England, on the other hand, reaping the fruit of her splendid victories over fifty millions of Mahomedans, has in reality become a Mahomedan empire, which was so readily admitted by Lord Salisbury himself at the last Guildhall banquet. She has strongly definite views and obligations, and her Christian minority has a greater sympathy with Roman Catholicism than Greek Orthodoxy. But this can be accounted for by the fact that the first has a far stronger propaganda spirit than the latter. It is not only in political intercourse that a stauncher intimacy may be desired between our two countries. Let me recall the wish pronounced by our Archbishop Nicolas (of Alaska and San Francisco) at the last meeting of the Anglo-Russian Society, which is rapidly increasing, and the honorary patrons of which are our present Emperor and several members of the English Royal Family.

Complimenting the president upon the friendly object of that literary society, our archbishop said how useful it would be to found in England also an Anglo-Russian theological society, with the object of closer intimacy and acquaintance of our respective Churches with each other.

OLGA NOVIKOFF.