On the issue of the relationship between the state and the church

Val. Sesan. Kirche und Staat im romisch- byzantinischen Kirche seit Konstantin dem Grossen und bis Zum Falle Konstantinopels. J Band. Die Religionspolitik der Christlich- romischen Kaiser von Konstantin d. Gr. Bis Theodosius d. Gr. (313–380) Czernowitz. 1911. The general title of the work - church and state in the Roman-Byzantine empire of Constantine the Great before the fall of Constantinople - promises to provide a multi-volume historical and legal study, of which only the beginning has now been published, constituting the 1st volume under the special title: “Religious policy of the Christian-Roman emperors from Constantine the Great to Theodosius the Great” (313-380) 1 It will serve as the subject of this review. Of course, the fact that only the beginning of the planned work is available for the reviewer poses the danger of being reproached for the premature assessment. But in this case, there are circumstances that fully justify this prematureness, namely: 1) the volume under consideration represents an integral historical monograph, covering a period of time in which the state-church structure was definitely outlined, existing with minor modifications in Byzantium before the fall of Constantinople. 2) The volume under review so clearly expresses the fundamental views of the author, scientific means and method of research that it does not present any difficulty in characterizing them and without expecting a continuation. 3) The author of the book is a scientist just starting to work and his book is the fruit of outstanding diligence and efficiency. He did so much in a relatively short time, as much as a young talented worker can do. Specially Russian scientific bibliography should be especially attentive to it. Mr. Shesan's book, written in German, is covered with the names of Russian scientists who have spoken out on the issue that interests the author. From the first to the last page, along with the names of German, Greek and Slavic scientists, there are the names of Pavlov, Suvorov, Berdnikov, Lebedev. Spassky and others. The author listened to lectures at Moscow University and the Moscow Theological Academy for a whole year, entered into private relations with professors of Russian universities and academies, just as he did in Vienna, Prague, Athens, not to mention the Chernivtsi University, where he received a special legal education. But this is not enough. In Mr. Shesan’s book there is also a feature that gives it, in addition to purely scientific, social and practical interest on a pressing issue. The fact is that his monograph, although the title is church-historical, specifically dedicated to centuries long past, the author is far from an archaeologist, not only a lover of antiquity. On the contrary, he is keenly interested in the current moment being experienced by the Orthodox Church (in its entire composition) and the states professing the Orthodox Church - a moment of ecclesiastical and political excitement, fraught, as they say, with deeply important consequences. It is this church-political element that gives Mr. Shesan’s book such vital interest, which prompts the reviewer to familiarize the Russian press with Mr. Shesan’s work immediately, without waiting for its completion. “My task,” says the author, “is to present the relationship between the state and the church in Roman-Byzantine times on the basis of the totality of these facts, which I, however, will consider in the light of the reasons determining them, in order, on the one hand, to indicate the true relationship between the state and the church in the Byzantine Empire, and on the other hand, to extract from this past the points of support necessary for the correct resolution of this issue in the present 2. The author expresses his church-political credo in the following provisions: 1) When resolving the issue of relations between church and state, one should not lose sight of its two-sidedness: the relationship of the state to the church and the relationship of the church to the state. The Church is unchanged in its essence, and its principles in relation to the state are also unchanged, no matter what form of organization it receives. On the contrary, the form of government is the result of historical development, and positive state law in its relations to the church sometimes varies greatly under the pressure of temporary legal views. Although this difference in the forms of government may entail a change in attitude towards the church, it should not, because in its essence state power is something identical in all states that differ in form. It is possible, for example, that an unlimited monarchy, a constitutional one, and a republic will coexist in complete harmony with the church. 2) Experiments in solving this great problem of world history in the West began a long time ago. In the Middle Ages, the main difficulty was that the state did not want to recognize the system of attitude developed by Catholicism: in the last two centuries it was the other way around: neither Catholicism nor even Protestantism could agree with the system of attitude developed by the state. The result was a cultural struggle. 3) A different phenomenon is observed in states professing the Greek-Eastern Church - in the east. In principle, the independence of the church in its internal affairs in the Byzantine state was recognized. This principle is expressed in the following formula imp. Justinian: “the priesthood and the kingdom are the two highest gifts of God, each of which has its own circle of affairs; but both have one source and must act in mutual agreement, hand in hand, for the good of mankind.” However, neither the Byzantine state nor the Eastern Church developed a complete and definite system that would delineate the boundaries of the state and church spheres of activity. They lived with each other sometimes well, sometimes badly, as circumstances determined. Some Byzantine emperors themselves ensured the complete independence of the church, and even allowed a fairly large participation of the church in government, in achieving purely state goals; for its part, the church allowed a very broad influence of state power in church affairs. But there were also emperors who greatly constrained the church, but then the church opposed them with all determination. And if the church, under such circumstances, suffered a lot from the arbitrariness of emperors who acted with physical violence, then this sad fact, however, did not change anything in principle: as soon as a just emperor appeared to replace the oppressor, the disharmony between the state and the church disappeared. This actual joint life of state and church, oscillating in one direction or another, is also observed in other countries professing the Greek-Eastern Church and, most notably, in Russia. In the modern period of time, when the political leaders of these countries began to be educated in the schools of the West and especially Paris, the principles of the latest state law began to be applied in states professing the Greek-Eastern Church and since, as a result, the latter began to be in danger of finding itself incomparably more dependent on state power than in which it had hitherto been, and it came to the realization that such an unsystematic joint life in the future was becoming impossible. If the principles of a modern legal state are transferred in full, and the independence of the church is more and more limited, the consequence of which is the diminishment of the authority of the church in the eyes of the people: then this will have a very harmful effect not only on the church, but even more on the entire life of the people and on the state itself. The guardians of the rights of the church, that is, the canonists, as well as the bishops, now have the task of formulating a system consistent with the essence and purpose of the Greek-Eastern Church, which in principle was recognized and established by the Byzantine emperors, and implementing it under the present system of state power. (Italics are ours) But, unfortunately, there are also canonists who, from individual facts of the past, try to derive a formula for the relationship not of the church to the state in the spirit of the church, but, on the contrary, a formula for the relationship of the state to the church. At the same time, they base their system on the pure facts of the past, on the one hand, in clear contradiction to the legal axiom, factum non probat jus, on the other hand, they act in a biased manner - presenting some facts that correspond to the personal arbitrariness of the emperors, and passing in complete silence others that are opposite to them. The very name Caesaropapism, quite rightly applied to this system, contains its condemnation. But Caesaropapism, as a system, for example, how. “the highest episcopate of local princes”, or like the Protestant “episcopal or territorial system” is not applicable to the Byzantine structure of relations between the state and the church: for such a system there was not enough constancy, there was not enough recognition of the church, and if at times it seemed as if the emperor acted completely arbitrarily, then - never motu proprio, but only on the conviction of the bishops, or intervened in the management of church affairs only in extreme circumstances, protecting the unity of the church and the purity of its teaching. It is noteworthy that the defenders of Caesaropapism as a system point to the sayings of heretical emperors, namely Constantius and Leo III the Isaurian. But can such sayings really be considered sufficient grounds for a legitimate system?! 3 Rejecting the system of Caesaropapism, as an attitude of state power contrary to the essence and tasks of the church, the author has a very unfavorable attitude towards the newest theory of a purely legal (non-religious) state, experiments in the application of which (in Greece in 1906 and Romania 1909) 4 gave very sad results. “Unfortunately,” he says, “even in the states professing the Greek-Eastern Church, there is currently a view that the state should become legal in the modern (Western sense of the word), despite the popular view that is opposed to this. Thus, Romania, relying on the Napoleonic Code, introduced the so-called compulsory civil marriage and thereby marked the beginning of the rupture of the union of church and state: however, the people are not satisfied with this innovation and honor a marriage concluded without the blessing of the church - a concubinage: but at the same time, the state would like to bring the church into even greater dependence on state power, in Romania the church turns out to be some kind of toy in the hands of two political parties - liberals and conservatives, replacing one another in managing the destinies of the state and the church” 5. The application of the newest state-legal principle of complete separation of church and state, which, by the way, is not feasible where Christian citizens constitute the overwhelming majority, for a state recognizing the Greek-Eastern Church would mean nothing more than that such a state, depriving itself of the highest sanctification and dignity, wants to consciously shake the foundations of its existence, for Christianity here for more than a millennium has penetrated so deeply into the people's and state life, that the rupture of both, if only it were possible, would bring greater harm to the state than to the church" 6 . “The state can, without hesitation, agree with the Greek-Eastern Church and leave without derogation full independence within the sphere of its action, which it has never expanded in the same way as the Roman Catholic Church did. In the same way, the Greek-Eastern Church, during its long, almost two-thousand-year past, did not give the state the slightest reason to fear hostile intentions, but always remained faithful to the words of Christ: “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” and to the admonition of the Apostle Paul to obey the authority of the state out of conscience, and not out of fear, as the pagans did.” 7 “The Byzantine past, presented in its true light, just like the past of Russia before the days of Peter the Great and the past of Romania before the time of King Alexander Cuza provide solid support for the establishment of relations between church and state that are fully consistent with the essence and purpose of the church” 8. These are the church-political views of Mr. Shesan. To present in its true light the relations between church and state as they were reflected in historical data from Constantine the Great to Theodosius the Great is the task of historical research, which is the subject of this volume. Since there is a huge literature on this issue, the author’s main efforts were aimed at studying it. He does not present a list of his literary sources: but instead, he offers a classification of them according to the main directions that their authors followed in solving this or that historical issue. This classification is presented, for example, in section II of the introduction under the heading: ancient and new views on the religious policy of Constantine the Great (pp. 26–37); the same classification is presented in § 12 under the heading: on the content of the Edict of Milan (pp. 246–247), etc. To what extent this classification is exhaustive - we leave it to the experts of church history to judge this, limiting ourselves, for our part, to pointing out the nice side of Mr. Shesan’s book, that it is very attentive to Russian literature on this issue. But what does Mr. Shesan bring to the existing literature on this subject? His merit, which gives his book the right to appear in print, is the scientific criticism of this literature. The author’s critical work reveals itself with the greatest energy in the first section of his research under the general heading: “Constantine the Great as the first Christian emperor” (pp. 69–127) and in the 2nd under the heading: “On the text and content of the Edict of Milan” (pp. 138–237). It is not difficult to understand why the author’s critical work was directed precisely at these departments. A small acquaintance with church history is enough to know how diverse and unstable the views on the personality of Constantine the Great, as a Christian and emperor, are, as well as how many different opinions have been expressed on the issue of the text and content of the Edict of Milan. Meanwhile, the personality of Constantine and the Edict of Milan are two cardinal points in the history of religious politics of the entire period from 312 to 380, to which our author’s work is dedicated. What results did this scientific work of our author lead to? The answer is the following provisions of the author. 1) The time from the publication of the Edict of Milan in 813 until the publication of the Edict De fide catholica in 380 forms a complete, integral period. This is the first period of friendly relations between church and state. But this is also a time of religious fermentation of the Roman state, a time of religious rebirth of a pagan state into a Christian one. 2) This period of time represents an unprecedented phenomenon, since during it the Roman state, in contradiction with its past, had two state religions existing next to each other. But that the time of this peculiar parity (Paritat sui generis) was and should have been only a transitional moment - this seems clear now, but at that time it was not a secret. 3) Paganism, dying internally, could no longer provide important support to the state as a state religion in the future, and had to cede this role in the state to Christianity, full of vitality. For, according to the views of that time, a state cannot exist without a religious basis, that is, without a state religion. Fully aware that the old religion was not only useless for the state, but even harmful for its further development, it, for reasons of self-preservation, considered it its most important duty to eliminate as quickly as possible the “remains of a wounded, dying world” 9, on the one hand, and on the other, to carry out the process of Christianization through active measures. The insignificance and internal emptiness of paganism, the truth and internal vitality of Christianity fully justified such steps of the state, taken for reasons of self-preservation. 4) Volens-nolens must recognize that Constantine the Great, in his extremely difficult dual position as emperor of all his subjects - the Christian minority and the pagan majority, and even more so in the implementation of his great task of Christianizing the state as quickly as possible, precisely by establishing the parity of both religions, became in a relationship that was just as well as expedient. Only in this way could proper respect be simultaneously given to the religious beliefs of the overwhelming majority of citizens and the only true religion (minority). The Roman state cult could not oppose such parity, because it had long ago realized that it had already lost its exclusivity - new foreign and better deities had long ago found a place for themselves among the Roman state deities. Likewise, Christianity could not object to such parity, because it wanted nothing more than the freedom of its faith. By preserving the freedom of worship and faith, Constantine the Great only fulfilled the desire of Christian apologists, expressed during the era of persecution. 5) Under the auspices of this parity, a great thing was accomplished - the natural process of Christianization of the great Roman state was completed. When he reached the point where paganism had lost all political and quantitative significance, so that there was no fear of rebellion against the state order on his part, then religious parity fulfilled its great mission. It was no longer needed, and could even hinder the elimination of the remaining remnants of paganism. Power must be used against these latter: for they now represented nothing more than rotten growths on the body, which, although they could not grow, still weakened the body. This step in religious politics was taken by Emperor Theodosius the Great 10. This is a description of the religious policy of the Roman emperors, made by the author on the basis of his historical and critical research. According to the author himself, such a view is far from new: it was expressed long before him: he set himself the task of substantiating it more scientifically and weakening the arguments of opponents of this view 11 . That the author accomplished this task with great success, in our opinion, everyone who carefully reads his book should agree with this. You can, of course, agree or disagree with the author’s fundamental views; but that his historical-critical work, which resulted in a scientifically substantiated, and therefore the most accurate, coverage of the historical era in question, is a valuable contribution to scientific literature, there is apparently no doubt about this. It remains to be wished that the author will continue his further work according to the intended program with the same success. The second volume, according to the author, which is being prepared for publication, will contain the legal position of the church in the Roman state for the same time. Preface, page 7. The author considers Prof. N. Suvorova. Correct coverage of the relationship between church and state in Byzantium is given, in the opinion of the author, by Rev. Nikodim Milash in his course on church law. Schultze, Geschichte d. Untergangs. I, 453. Ibid., pp. 327–332, §22. You might be interested in: