Why is Stundism strong?

(Regarding the response of A. Ya. Dorodnitsyn to the article “The Fight against Sectarianism.” Theological Bulletin. January 1893) In the May book “Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment,” one of the zealous missionaries of the Kherson diocese, A. Ya. Dorodnitsyn, published an article entitled “How Stundism is harmful to the church and state,” addressing it to us personally in exactly this way: “answer to Professor N. A. Zaozersky.” For such an honor we offer gratitude to the zealous ascetic, but we do not consider it necessary to hide our bewilderment: to what, or to what questions of ours were we awarded this answer? For we did not ask either A. Ya. Dorodnitsyn personally or any of the missionaries any questions, as can be easily seen from our above-mentioned article. In essence, this so-called “answer” is an expression of the feeling of insult that we allegedly inflicted on the missionary gentlemen. Mr. Dorodnitsyn complains that we have come to a bleak conclusion for the feelings of an Orthodox Christian, that 1) the activity of anti-sectarian missionaries is of little fruit, that 2) the work of the anti-sectarian mission in the form in which it is currently being carried out is not consistent in the very principle that lies at its basis, and that 3) we have diminished the harmfulness of Stundism for the church and the state. For this conclusion, Mr. Dorodnitsyn gives us the following qualities: we are very sympathetic to the Stundists - no less than secular liberal writers; we judge the Stundists like newspaper correspondents “working from the line”: “Such a correspondent will come,” Mr. A. Ya. Dorodnitsyn illustrates his accusation against us, “to the Stundists, they will kindly receive him, offer him a plentiful treat, while saying a lot of pitiful words about the imaginary persecution that they are subjected to by the Orthodox for their faith, for the fact that they do not visit taverns with them and do not want to get drunk, and as a result it turns out in some metropolitan newspaper a florid message about the external decency of the Stundists: sobriety, frugality, good behavior, etc.” 1 Breaking down his accusation against us on these points, Mr. A. Dorodnitsyn at times comes into pathos and exclaims: “So what?... During a particularly strong tension in the religious interests of the Orthodox society, tension caused by the emergence of a sect extremely harmful to the Russian church and state, from the height of the academic department the voice of a learned professor is heard saying something like this: “Gentlemen missionaries, understand that you are fighting windmills, that the shtunda is not at all as harmful as you think, that all your ranting about the dangers of the shtunda is the fruit of your idle imagination! Are we, Russian people, so stupid that we are not able to give a correct definition of the phenomenon of our own life? Are we really so insensitive to our social illnesses that we are unable to determine what ails us and how serious the illness itself is? And finally, those who gathered in Moscow in 1891 Among over 200 people, were the missionaries really so unfamiliar with the phenomenon (we mean sectarianism) about which they were invited to judge, if the verdict they pronounced about the Stunda - the fruit of their collective thought - was fundamentally undermined by the judgment on the same subject of one person, admittedly a representative of science? Whose side is the truth on? Are you on the side of the missionaries, who recognized the Stunda as a particularly harmful sect for the church and state, or on the side of the learned professor, who denies this conclusion of the missionaries? (p. 603). Further and to the end of the article, the harmfulness of Stundism is proven, and it is made clear that Professor Zaozersky does not know anything about Stunda, does not know, for example, such studies as those of A. Rozhdestvensky, Ushinsky and tutti quanti (p. 604). These accusations, grave in themselves, are especially unprofitable for us, particularly because they place us in a completely isolated position between the missionaries and the Stundists. For if you believe Mr. Dorodnitsyn, then we sympathize with the Stundists and therefore are opponents of the missionaries. But here’s the problem: in our article we divide the Stundists into two categories: some of them are “stupid and naive,” others are “evil geniuses” 2 . Where is the sympathy here? With his “answer” the accuser quarreled us with the missionaries; All we have to do, therefore, is to curry favor with the Stundists, but the evil geniuses among them will not accept us, and the stupid and naive ones are not at all interesting to us: the situation is completely uncomfortable. In such an extreme situation, we find ourselves forced to turn to the court of our readers, so that they themselves decide how right the accuser was in creating for us such a situation: “Are we really guilty of what he accused us of?” Frankly speaking, we proceed to our accusations completely calmly, firstly because we do not find ourselves guilty, and secondly because in Mr. Dorodnitsyn’s article we see not any malicious intent against us, but only a simple misunderstanding, which we hope to dispel partly with his assistance. Mr. Dorodnitsyn reproaches us for recognizing the missionaries’ activities as “unfruitful.” So what? Isn't this true? Our article presents quite a lot of data from the messages of the missionaries themselves, and they talk specifically about infertility. Therefore, one of two things: either these messages are not true, then we, of course, told the truth by trusting these messages; or these messages are true - then we are right. We believe that the latter must be recognized, and in this conviction we call our accuser himself as a witness, namely: in the “Kherson Diocesan Gazette” of the current year No. 5 in the report of the Odessa St. Andrew’s Brotherhood there is the following note: “based on statistical data on the number of Stundists in the Kherson province, collected, by order of the honorary Member of the Brotherhood, Mr. Kherson Governor, by the missionary of the Brotherhood A. Dorodnitsyn (this is, without a doubt, you, A. Ya.) compiled, and the missionary priests I. Zubov and F. Stomatev checked the personal lists of Stundists of the Kherson diocese, indicating their places of residence. According to these lists, it appears that in 1891 there were 5,390 people of both sexes in the Stunda in the Kherson diocese, 304 people of both sexes were seduced into Stunda in the same year, and 410 people of both sexes returned to Orthodoxy from Stunda.” (Page 98, Article 14). We willingly admit that 410 persons were returned to the church thanks to the zeal of the missionaries and this, of course, is a lot of fruit: but 304 seductions eat up this fruit, and as a result little fruitfulness remains. But what is there in this truth that is offensive to missionary zeal? Is it measured in the eyes of God by external, quantitative multiple births, which is what we are talking about? Let us recall some examples of missionary zeal. Here is one of the greatest missionaries of antiquity, the Great Isaiah the prophet; he melted away in his jealousy, but how fruitful was this jealousy? - "God. who believes our hearing? And to whom has the arm of the Lord opened?” - he asks and exclaims. (Isa. 53:1). And here is an even more striking example: the beloved disciple of the Lord did not hesitate to testify about the missionary activity of His Teacher like this: “I will do so many signs for Him before them, but I have not believed in Him” (John 12:37). And having witnessed this outward lack of fruitfulness, the Great writer and theologian presents an explanation: “For this reason I cannot believe what Isaiah said: blind their eyes and harden their hearts, so that they neither see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts” (vv. 39, 40). But external infertility should not confuse the missionary, for he is promised hope: “they will see with their eyes, and they will hear with their ears, and they will understand with their hearts, and they will be converted, and I will heal,” the prophet continues the words of God (Is. 6:10). In view of this hope, the missionary must serve his great calling until the end of his life, not embarrassed either by the lack of fruitfulness or by the duration of the blindness and petrification of those on whom he acts. For, when the Prophet asked the Lord, when will this hope be fulfilled: “How long will the Lord? ... and the Lord said: “Until the cities, from not being inhabited, and the houses, from not being human, will be desolate, and the earth will remain empty. And according to this God will continue men, and those who remain on earth will multiply.” (Isa. 6:11, 12). And yet, even in view of this terrible sentence, the missionary must, until his own death and the cross, be zealous in his work: what is human praise for him, or censure for his external lack of fruitfulness? Nothing… Mr. Dorodnitsyn reproaches us for allegedly saying that “the work of the anti-sectarian mission in the form in which it is currently being conducted is untenable in the very principle that lies at its basis” (p. 599, at the beginning of the article). “Not in principle,” we must correct him, “but in method: these are completely different things.” To prove this, we write out a few lines from our article that relate here: “if there were cases of a favorable outcome of the competition for the missionary, then the reason for them was not in the victory over the enemy, won by the power of dialectics and arguments, but in the positive content of the conversation, in the entertaining nature of its content, in the cordiality of relations with those in error, in one’s own sincerity and warmth of inner conviction. The missionary's word must be in the proper sense the word of an evangelist, a word of consolation that itself attracts...etc. 3 “Competitive interviews undoubtedly brought and continue to bring significant benefits in the special environment of the so-called Old Believers, but, of course, provided that they are conducted in good order. However, the above-described kichim competitions, for all their external unattractiveness, are far from fruitless: they awaken thought, etc. (Ibid., p. 153). We do not make further extracts from our article, because we find this activity boring and unnecessary: ​​and these are sufficient to prove that we reverence the work of missionaries in principle, but are dissatisfied with the method of competition introduced by some missionaries, and indicate our own. Mr. Dorodnitsyn brought up a complete lie against us and did not cite a single line from our article with which we would deny the cause of the missionaries in principle. We think that he did this too due to a misunderstanding, which we again consider harmless, because our article itself protects us. Mr. Dorodnitsyn claims that we have belittled the harmfulness of Stundism for the church and the state and thereby allegedly undermined the verdict on Stunda pronounced by the missionaries, and that the resolution of the missionary congress is unpleasant for us. We see his misunderstanding here too, even more important than the previous ones, but at the same time we find it harmless. Here's the thing. Being keenly interested in the question of measures to eradicate the shtunda, we had to touch upon the question of where the root of evil is - as they say: for only having learned the true cause of evil can one seriously discuss the appropriateness of certain measures to eradicate it. For this purpose, we turned to the consideration of the Shtunda from the point of view of its doctrine and cult and from the point of view of its state-political harmfulness. At the same time, in order to avoid groundlessness in judgments on such an important subject, we cast aside the opinions of private individuals and turned for information to the missionaries themselves and official data (extract from the report of Mr. Ober-Prosecutor, resolution of the congress of missionaries and reports of the brotherhood published in diocesan bodies). Does this seem like a reliable source? 4 Based on these data, we characterized Stundism as “church nihilism and a very weak religious sect”: all its internal strength lies in denial, in protest against the church hierarchy and church rituals. (Page 156 of our article). Let the reader judge to what extent this conclusion was logically correct from the above data: perhaps we were mistaken in something; but Mr. Dorodnitsyn did not present a single word to refute the logic of this conclusion, but pointed the readers to Rozhdestvensky and so on. Yes, he published in the article under consideration “the rules of worship of the newly converted Russian brotherhood” and the “liturgy” of the Stundists - Stundist papers that he obtained from the office of the Kherson governor, wanting to convince readers and, in particular, us that Stundism is a sect very harmful to the church. I don’t know about the readers, but we admit, we are not at all convinced by these papers and remain with the same opinion, but more on that later. If Stundism is not strong because of its religious side, then the root of evil, perhaps, lies in malicious political agitation? That's how we reasoned. So what? Turning to our sources, we found that, according to the missionaries, the Stundists dream of a southern Stund king, that stores with silk and other goods will be open to everyone, etc., and called these dreams stupid and naive. (Page 157 et seq. of our article). But dreaming is not considered a crime in any criminal code; meanwhile, in fact, the Stundists regularly serve all state duties, and this is even instilled in them (by the leaders) to do as necessary. Knowing that our criminal code sharply differs in the concept of “extremely harmful” and “less harmful” sects, we found that there is no reason to classify Stundism under the first type, that in the criminality of this sect there are no elements that characterize its extreme “evility” in the criminal sense. It was for this conclusion that Mr. Dorodnitsyn attacked us. This is where, apparently, lies the reason for Mr. Dorodnitsyn’s misunderstanding: he did not distinguish criminal evil from evil in the general sense and attributed to us something that does not belong to us at all. Not finding Stundism an extremely harmful sect from a criminal point of view (to put it more clearly, without equating it in terms of criminal harmfulness with the sects of the Khlysty, Skoptsy, Begunov), we indirectly really did not agree with the missionaries’ petition to recognize the Stundists as an extremely harmful sect in the criminal sense, even more - this resolution simply had an unpleasant effect on us, as A. Ya. Dorodnitsyn put it about us in the conclusion of his article, although this We did not express any unpleasant impressions. Why this resolution had an unpleasant effect on us - we will talk about that later, but now we will only note that A. Ya. Dorodnitsyn’s insight into the author’s feelings does him credit. Not seeing, perhaps due to a lack of insight, any particular attractiveness and strength in the political dreams of the Stundists, we seized with special attention the reasoning of the 2nd Missionary Congress about the conditions and reasons favorable to the spread of Stundism, and in accordance with these reasonings we came to the conviction that the root of evil, the strength of Stundism, was in the economic dependence of the Russian southern population on the German colonists, on the Molokans and on the Baptists, further - and again according to the instructions of the missionaries - in the disorganization of internal parish life: in the insufficient number of Orthodox churches and schools, in the ignorance of the people, in the arrogant and cold attitude of pastors towards the people. This idea is developed in our article (pp. 158 – 163). If this is true, we concluded, then the question of rationalistic sects becomes significantly more complicated and ceases to be a purely ecclesiastical issue. The eradication of evil is a matter of the highest internal state policy. (Page 163). Our article was written in this spirit. Having resolved the issue of Stundism for ourselves in this way, from this angle we looked at the measures to combat it that have been practiced until now, and recognized them as insufficient. Knowing the will of the Sovereign that all measures be taken to eradicate the Shtunda, we saw that in reality not all measures were applied, but only two measures: 1) polemical and exhorting conversations between missionaries and sectarians and 2) police and criminal prosecution for seduction into the Stunda and staying in it. But the use of these measures alone constitutes only a palliative remedy that will not root out evil at the root, and may even cause harm to the cause. This palliative will certainly benefit if stronger remedies are used. By these means we recognize: 1) the elimination of the economic dependence of the southern Orthodox population on the Germans and sectarians - Molokans and Baptists - is a measure of purely state policy; 2) the increase in the number of Orthodox churches, church schools and truly pastoral zeal and love for the poor commoners on the part of church clergy and hierarchy is a purely ecclesiastical measure. When these measures are applied to the case, then both the interviews of the missionaries and the criminal prosecution will bear good fruit. The measures we indicate are the main ones; they must clear the way for those hitherto practiced. As can be seen from here, we not only did not think of recognizing “the cause of the anti-sectarian mission as untenable in principle,” as Mr. Dorodnitsyn accused us; but, on the contrary, they sincerely wished to help this great cause. For now, while the fight against sectarianism is carried out only by missionaries and the judicial and police authorities, an unbearable burden is placed on them. In fact: the missionary converted several Stundists to the Church, convinced him, proving the superiority of the Orthodox Church over the sect; but what next? In the sect they found blood, food, and money, participated in poor prayers and teachings that were accessible to reason and feeling, and when they returned to the Church, they were left without work, in poverty, without a church, without a school. Or the police, having found a Stundist, presented him to the judiciary: except for belonging to a Stunda, there is no criminal material for the accused, because non-recognition of Holy Tradition as a source of revealed religion, non-veneration of icons and relics, hatred of hierarchy and clergy, meetings in private houses for reading the New Testament, religious chants and conversations - all this does not contain absolutely any material for an indictment. Whatever you want, the most zealous prosecutor must be perplexed by such a criminal’s behavior. It’s good for the prosecutor if this Stundist expressed his hatred of the Church and its hierarchy through some action, committed, for example, insulting a shrine, insulting a priest, etc., then the prosecutor’s task is easy. But if there is none of this - because the Stundists have become cautious - then what should the prosecutor do but release the person represented by the police from prosecution. And this is the result: the indignation of the missionaries at the inaction of the judiciary and the triumph of the Stundists that they managed to hold both a trial and a priest, and finally - what is worst of all - to acquire in this a reason to criticize the missionaries that they are in twinning with the police. It is in this satanic-cunning policy of the leaders of the Stunda Molokans and Baptists - large landowners, these “evil geniuses”, a policy that knows how to take advantage of circumstances and quarrel missionaries and priests with the judicial and police authorities, and lies the power of Stundism. From the point of view of this policy, the missionaries’ petition to recognize the Stunda as an “extremely harmful sect” in the criminal sense is a desirable event, because a clever Stundist will appear before the prosecutor as not at all harmful in the criminal sense. That is why we did not like and are not pleased with this intercession of the missionaries. Meanwhile, Mr. Dorodnitsyn, in our attitude to the resolution of the congress, saw our sympathy for the Stundists and could not resist putting the following words into our mouths in his “answer”: “Gentlemen missionaries, understand that you are fighting with windmills.” 5 Not only that, he could not resist prefacing these lines with the following: “At a time of particularly strong tension in the religious interests of the Orthodox society... from the heights of the academic department (!) the voice of a learned professor is heard, speaking approximately like this” 6. This is where Mr. Dorodnitsyn’s lack of understanding led - to an incredible lie, for no one will believe that he has such a strong and sensitive organ of hearing that he could hear our voice from the pulpit in the Kherson province. If he had read our article with great attention and without prejudice and wished to briefly convey its essence, he would have put into my mouth not the above words, but approximately the following words: “Gentlemen missionaries! tell Ratushny, Balaban, Krivoshey, etc. that their Christianity, poor in reason and feeling, and their political dreams are too outdated weapons for the fight against the Orthodox Church, the Russian state and nationality - their strength does not lie in it; With this weapon they will break their own necks and prepare innumerable disasters for others. Their strength, with which they create unrest among the poor southern Russian population, is their practical skill, dexterity in taking advantage of circumstances, petty fraudulent politics; but it is also so brilliant that, at least from the height of the professor’s chair, they were able to clearly examine and evaluate it.” This is the true essence of our article. But Mr. Dorodnitsyn did not fully understand it and, accusing us of something we had not done, began, supposedly in spite of us, to explain the question “why is Stundism harmful,” while we were trying to clarify the question “why is Stundism strong?” With our understanding of the essence of the matter, the anti-sectarian activity of missionaries and the hierarchy should take on a predominantly protective nature: the main concern should be aimed at ensuring that there are no new apostasies and seductions. The number of churches should be increased so much that the Orthodox do not find any difficulty in visiting them on Sundays and holidays. The local diocesan authorities should come with representations to the government so that for large landowners, regardless of their religious beliefs - as soon as hundreds and even thousands of Orthodox workers gather at their place over the years - it would be mandatory to build an Orthodox church: the shepherds of the Church, not only through worship and word of edification, but also in deed, should be the fathers and mothers of their flock, strictly providing active assistance to the hopeless need, helplessness, orphans, the sick, those suffering oppression of all kinds. The very word of edification - in these forms - should by no means be confined to an exclusive circle of dogmatic-theological subjects, but should always include a fiery call for active brotherly Christian love and mutual assistance. In relations with those who are stagnant in the sect, both the shepherd and the missionary must strictly distinguish between the leaders and those who are carried away, “sorrowful by the head”: attack the former, denounce them with thunder and irony, both in person and in absentia; to attract the second with clear, simple admonitions, participation in their morally unhappy situation, as those who, through the simplicity of their minds and the cunning flattery of the leaders, became apostates of the Church, the traditions and testaments of their ancestors and national mores. In the interviews themselves, but in our opinion, the following elements should be introduced: 1) polemical. The missionary must strictly criticize those chants, poems, or treatises like the above-mentioned “rules” found in Ratushny, as well as the Stundist rites that are used in sectarian meetings, and, having shown their weakness, in a short and strong speech express the Orthodox doctrine (for example, part of a symbol) or some church song, which is then sung by a small but harmonious choir. Such parallelism can clearly demonstrate the advantage of the Church over the sect. 2) The very content of the missionary’s sermon should include as many patristic works and church hymns (central traditions) as possible. After all, the Stundists reject church tradition: it is with this tradition that they should be beaten, and not try to theoretically prove the necessity of it. The patristic languages ​​(as well as the language of church hymns) are distinguished by accuracy in the presentation of dogmatic positions, power of expression, often picturesqueness, drama both in the depiction of the events of sacred history and in the depiction of even the inner moods of the human soul. Meanwhile, the conversations of modern missionaries, despite their thoroughness, are dry, scholastic, and devoid of inspired poetic and oratorical words. But we must always remember that living speech is convincing not by the power of dialectics, but by the power of expression: one apt term, a laconic phrase, sinks into the heart of the listener and affects him more powerfully than a long but dry sermon. The works of the holy fathers and liturgical language can serve as an inexhaustible source for missionary conversations on any subject. As an example, let’s take the first member of the “Rules of Confession of the Converted Russian Brotherhood” and compare it with the teaching on the same subject of the tradition of the Orthodox Church. It reads as follows: “We believe and confess that there is only one true and eternal God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who in their nature and character are perfect, eternal and indivisible, so that the Father is the true, eternal God, the Son is the true, eternal God, and the Holy Spirit is the true, eternal God. Man can only achieve knowledge of this God through divine revelation: Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit.” 7 We are positively perplexed that the police found something harmful to the Orthodox faith when they confiscated this and similar members and hid them in the archive: it would have been more expedient to publish them long ago in order to expose the teachers of the Stunda themselves in the poverty of their Theology. For such an exposure, apparently, it is enough to compare the Orthodox Creed, and sing the well-known stichera on the day of Pentecost: “Come faithful, let us worship the Trinitarian Divinity”... A comparison will clearly show the richness and strength of the church tradition in comparison with the poverty of the German tradition, which the Stundists adhere to. After all, the above-mentioned members were confiscated in 1873, therefore, they too are already a twenty-year-old tradition; Where is the stability of the Stundists who confess that they achieve knowledge of the Trinitarian Divinity only through the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Spirit? Their documents reveal that their main teachers in Theology are Quaker and Baptist traditions. For the success of the missionary work, it would be desirable that, in relations with the civil authorities, missionaries would guard and defend the dignity of the Orthodox Church. Missionaries should stay as far as possible from police officials and ministers and in every possible way beware of giving reasons to the Stundists to criticize the twinning of clergy with the police. The missionary's only weapon should be the spiritual; The missionary should resort to the help of the civil authorities only in those cases in which every citizen considers himself to have the right to resort, but no more, that is, when a criminal act punishable by law is discovered on the part of the Stundist. If the police fail to act in such cases, the missionary should demand that they and the higher authorities take legal action; The missionary should treat the judiciary in the same way. For in such cases the matter will not be about persecution for faith, but about legal retribution for shamelessness, impudence, etc., acts that are not tolerated in society. But to ask, to curry favor, or to impose one’s interviews on the Stundists themselves means to uselessly humiliate the dignity of the church and its ministers. The tradition of the Orthodox Church again provides excellent guidance in this regard for the modern missionary. For example, 84 and 85 rules of St. Basil the Great is commanded to treat those who are stubborn in sins in the following way: “If those who irresistibly adhere to their morals and would rather serve the pleasures of the flesh than the Lord, and do not accept living according to the Gospel, then we have nothing in common with them. For we, in a disobedient and discordant people, have been taught to hear this: when you save, save your soul... Day and night, publicly and privately, we must testify to them the truth: but let us not allow ourselves to be carried away by their iniquities; Most of all, let us pray to gain them and take them out of the snare of the evil one. If we cannot do this, then we strive to at least save our souls from eternal condemnation.” The fathers of the Council of Carthage, in the 77th canon, decreed the following: “by the beck and inspiration of the Spirit of God, we have chosen for the best to deal with the above-mentioned people (i.e., the Donatists) meekly and peacefully, although they, with their restless dissent, are very far removed from the unity of the body of the Lord. Thus, to the best of our ability, let it be made completely known to all... caught by their communication and affection, with what pitiful delusion they have bound themselves. Perhaps, while we meekly gather those who differ in their minds, according to the word of the Apostle, God will give them repentance into the mind of truth, and the devil’s nets will arise, having been caught from him into his own will.” 8 This is, according to sacred tradition, the way missionaries act! However, the fathers of the same council not only do not neglect the help of civil authorities, but also directly come with representations to them when those who are persistent in alienation from the church act against it with criminal acts. Thus, in canon 104, the fathers of the Council of Carthage decreed: “Since the episcopal and peaceful way of acting on such people was used and they, unable to answer against the truth, turned to absurd violent acts, so that many bishops and many priests (let us keep silent about the laity) were constrained by slander, and some churches were invaded, and others were also invaded attempted: then the royal love for mankind should take care that the Catholic Church, which gave birth to Christ through the pious womb and raised them with the strength of faith, was protected by their providence: so that in their pious times daring people would not dominate the powerless people through some kind of fear, when they cannot seduce them through persuasion. For it is known and has been repeatedly declared by laws that vile gatherings of renegades are produced... This has been condemned many times and by the orders of the above-mentioned most pious autocrats themselves. Therefore, against the fury of these renegades, we ask you to give us divine help, not extraordinary and not alien to the holy scriptures. For the Apostle Paul, as shown in the true acts of the apostles, defeated the complicity of disorderly people with military help. So we ask that the Catholic ranks strictly protect the churches in every city and different places belonging to every possession.” 9 Following this testament of the sacred tradition of the Catholic Church, we also believe that Orthodox missionaries and diocesan authorities, forced by the rampages of the Stundists and other sectarians, should make representations to the civil authorities, so that the existing laws against the rioters are strictly observed, so that the leaders and leaders of the Stundists are isolated from the community with simpletons and naive people, and so that the latter is served necessary assistance for liberation from economic and moral slavery. The missionary must always treat the latter with love: even visit them in places of detention if they, having succumbed to cunning deceivers, end up there for their outrage against the Orthodox Church that gave birth to them to Christ. Summarizing our pia desideria regarding the method of combating sectarians, we establish the following provisions: 1) hitherto practiced measures of struggle, i.e. interviews aimed at protecting the institutions of the Orthodox Church and persecuting Stundists by the judicial and police authorities, are not sufficient. The missionaries, on the contrary, themselves must destroy the newly invented Stundist Christianity. Do not participate in the criminal prosecution and capture of the Stundists, but leave this matter to the civil authorities and only make representations to the government regarding their inaction in cases of obvious crimes. 2) The main efforts of missionaries should be aimed at protecting the Orthodox from being seduced into the Stunda; the means to which they serve: attracting sympathy for oneself through active participation in moral and... A. Ya. Dorodnitsyn, p. 603. Theological Bulletin. January, page 158. Theological News. January, 1893 p. 151. Mr. Dorodnitsyn assures readers that we are unfamiliar with the research of Rozhdestvensky, Ushinsky, and others. And we, for our part, dare to assure readers that, at their request, we can provide documentary evidence that these studies were known to us much earlier than in the light of our article “The Fight against Sectarianism.” Mr. Dorodnitsyn at this point has already gone beyond what is permitted in the use of the printed word and exposed himself to responsibility. But may God forgive him for this sin against us. Readings in the society of lovers of spiritual enlightenment, 1893 May, p. 602 – article “How Stundism is harmful.” Readings in the society of lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment. May, 605. Book of rules, 77 rule of the Council of Carthage.