Workers' socialism and the Russian Orthodox Church

I read with great interest the “answer of the labor leaders” on “socialism and Christianity” in the British Weekly (January 17, 1924). To my amazement, it turned out that socialists, as such, are more Christians, for they will establish the Kingdom of God on earth (reviewed by Herbert Dunnico, M. R.), meanwhile, Christians themselves expect it only in the next century... With such Christian exaltation, all the more striking are the completely anti-Christian statements of the “labor leaders” of England about the Russian Orthodox Church and precisely at the moment when it lies exhausted and drenched in blood from their relatives communist socialists, and they go on a rampage at home and begin to triumph in Europe and England, as if providing themselves with “religious freedom of action.” Rev. Herbert Dunnico excitedly says: “The Bolshevik attitude towards the Church (in Russia), even if it cannot be defended, is still understandable. Will the British Weekly defend the shameless, depraved, vile and tyrannical actions of the Russian Orthodox Church? Thus Rev. Herbert Dunnico, apparently, invites all English Christianity to an organized campaign against Russian Orthodoxy, but his too energetic expressions and offensive epithets do not contain any specific instructions and resemble simple curses, which are important for judging only the subject, and not at all about the object of speech... Rev. reports much calmer and more intelligibly. John Lewis that “in Russia the church was immersed in superstition and was entirely at the mercy of a corrupt and blood-stained state, the crimes of which we abhorred until 1914, but after the establishment of the Bolsheviks we begin to forget them.” These cold words, as much as they explain, also refute the previous defamation. Now the matter becomes somewhat clearer. 1. The Russian Orthodox Church is so zealously showered with the most selective lampoons - first of all, obviously because it was “immersed in superstitions.” However, what is the latter dogmatically and practically expressed? After all, the Russian Orthodox Church in all these respects is completely in solidarity with all other Orthodox churches and does not differ significantly from them. What is her special criminal “superstition”? And if this is not the case, then... the real insinuation is characteristic and should be noted only in connection with the aspirations and efforts of Anglicanism towards rapprochement with the Orthodox East and requires a response not from us, but from Anglicans. 2. The second sin of the Russian Orthodox Church against workers' socialism is of a political nature, but if it was “entirely in the power of ... the government,” then, of course, it is powerless to commit “tyrannical actions” and vice versa. Slavishly enslaved - how could she be an enslaver?.. Moreover, both the first and second are completely false. The subordination of the Russian Church to the State is maliciously or ignorantly exaggerated, and in some respects significantly less than in free, classically constitutional England. It is enough to refer, for example, to the procedure for replacing Orthodox episcopal sees even in the Synodal period. For this purpose, our Orthodox Holy Synod elected three candidates for each case and, through the Orthodox Chief Prosecutor, presented one of them to the Orthodox Sovereign for approval. And normally this order was not only not violated, but usually (at least 90%) the Highest Resolution was followed: “to be first.” Is this how things happen in England, does the ecclesiastical authority itself have an equal participation there, and are bishops always the decisive intermediaries regarding Anglican bishops?.. Even less fair is the reference to the “tyrannical actions” of the Russian Orthodox Church in relation, of course, to the “working people.” It’s strange to even hear such absurdity, since the Russian Orthodox Church is the most popular and workers’ church in the whole world, although not socialist proletarian. Its entire hierarchy and clergy are entirely borrowed from the “spiritual class,” living one common life with the people and sharing their fate. And government provision has always been so meager that the clergy must work with their own hands and truly “by the sweat of their brow” earn their bread, not just through painful donations from their flock, but through direct physical labor, mainly agricultural in all its branches. More than 90% of the clergy were imbued with this very method until the revolution itself, and I can name the names of bishops who themselves took a direct, personal part in the field work of their monastery not at all for entertainment. Most do not have government or church premises, which you have to create yourself. My father, who was a priest for about 30 years, left a small wooden house (the only inheritance for a widow with 7 children!), but all the logs were cut down by him personally, carried on his own shoulders, trimmed and built with his own hands, and he was still in a good parish and enjoyed authority. For me, who is quite competent in this area, there is no more cruel slander than the one that the Russian Orthodox Church and its ministers are the enemies of the “working people.” The latter will never say this, and such blasphemous lies come from a non-Russian source, from where a dirty infection spreads throughout the world... The origin of such false slander is understandable, but I just cannot comprehend that it is repeated and sanctioned by the working representatives of cultured England in relation to the Russian Orthodox Church, when it is tormented to the point of bloody sweat - like Christ in Gethsemane - by the ferocious tyranny of their supporters and like-minded people in Russia... Politically, it is extremely symptomatic that representatives of the workers’ party, which takes control of the greatest world power, at this very time reveal such heartlessness and ignorance regarding such an essential international factor as Christianity in general and Russian Orthodoxy in particular, by similar means the Kingdom of God is created on earth, which is what the “labor leaders” deceitfully or deceitfully dream of? You might be interested in: