Freedom and the Church

Until there was “freedom,” it seemed to everyone that this concept was completely clear. Everyone longed for freedom and were not even interested in finding out what the desired freedom was. But then the revolution took place; the people received freedom, a whole collection of “freedoms”. And to the considerable surprise of many, it turned out that freedom is not such a simple thing. Freedom “desired” seemed limitless. The freedom achieved first of all required the definition of its boundaries. In the boundlessness of freedom, freedom itself suddenly began to be lost. However, as soon as one started talking about the “boundaries” of freedom, an indescribable noise arose about the notorious “counter-revolution.” This noise deafened unfortunate Russia and robbed the masses of the ability to intelligently understand surrounding phenomena. Confused by this noise, the people rushed along the path that led to an unheard of catastrophe. Something very similar happened with the church liberation movement. They sought freedom of the Church. But when they achieved it, a discrepancy in her understanding immediately emerged. Two church currents sharply emerged. Some declared: the freedom of the Church should be unlimited. Freedom is freedom. Let the state power, which previously bound church freedom, cease completely to interfere in church affairs. Let it leave the Church entirely to itself, only providing it with “daily food,” that is, paying for the church budget from the state treasury. The Chief Prosecutor's Office put pressure on the church authorities - down with the Chief Prosecutor's Office immediately! There is no need for anyone, neither the chief prosecutor, nor any other intermediary between the Church and the state. The Church itself will convene a council, will organize itself; and let the state only subscribe to church decisions in order to give them state power. Representatives of the old Church and the old church regime spoke in this spirit immediately after the revolution. This understanding of the “freedom of the Church” was simply in the interests of the dominant church circles before the revolution, allowing them to painlessly apply to new conditions of life. Complete freedom of the Church, with the elimination of any participation of state power in the church structure, extremely advantageously resolved the difficulties in which the church leaders of the old regime found themselves. Since the Church will immediately be left to organize itself, then, of course, it will be “arranged” by the old dominant church environment, in whose hands the entire apparatus of church power is in its hands. She will also convene “her” council, which will carry out “necessary” reforms without affecting the interests of the ruling church elements. Naturally, such “freedom” greatly smiled upon the conservative church movement. Another movement in the Church, on the contrary, said that freedom cannot be without borders. The freedom of the Church, to be true freedom, must inevitably be conditional, and especially in the first moments of church reorganization. The transition to “freedom” first of all requires the presence of a certain force capable of ensuring real church self-determination; and such a force can only be state power. The revolution liberated the Church not in order to strengthen the regime of class domination that had previously existed in it; and such a strengthening would have been achieved by leaving the church structure to the old church authorities. The responsibility of the state, which liberates the Church, is to ensure the internal freedom of church self-determination, that is, the emancipation of the church community, hitherto unjustly suppressed. State power does not even have the moral right to withdraw from participation in the matter of church reform until a real, popular-public conciliarity is organized, for at a transitional moment it is the representative of the hitherto dispossessed church people. When the Church receives a conciliar reorganization, then the role of state power will naturally be reduced. Its task of regulating internal church relations will no longer exist. But there will always remain another task of the state apparatus related to church-state relations. As long as the state gives the Church material means, and as long as it assigns state duties and state rights to church institutions and known church acts, until then there can be no talk of the complete elimination of state power from church affairs. The state will rightfully have a certain control over both the expenditure of the funds allocated to it and the use of state rights and advantages granted to the Church, and control is not only formal, but also in essence. Otherwise, there would be a state within a state and a situation would be created that no organized statehood could allow. The Church could free itself from this inevitable control only in one way: separation from the state and transition to the position of a private religious society. However, even in such a situation there still cannot be absolute freedom, because every private society is under some control of the freest state itself. It is not difficult, of course, to see that sound logic is entirely on the side of the second understanding of the freedom of the Church. To dispute his arguments means to go against the grain and practice sophistry. Freedom without borders cannot exist anywhere - neither individual, nor public, nor national, nor church. Unlimited freedom only in flights of thought, experiences of the spirit; but not in the actions of human hands. Unfortunately, this situation is difficult to reconcile with those church circles that demand, in the name of supposed freedom, the complete elimination of the state from the sphere of church affairs and protest against any “intermediaries” in church-state relations, as if mediation is not an inexorable necessity arising from the above state of affairs. These dissatisfied circles vehemently attacked the chief prosecutor's office and agitated against V.N. Lvov; At one time they were not satisfied with the establishment of the Ministry of Confessions. The Russian Ministry of Confessions just did not have time to provoke against itself the same kind of agitation that the revolutionary “chief prosecutor” caused; but had it continued to exist, agitation would undoubtedly have risen. The problem for supporters of unlimited freedom is resolved exclusively by separation, and if the church begins to make impossible demands on the state, then the state will easily come to the conclusion that it is more convenient for it to renounce its rights and renounce its responsibilities towards the church. And if Russian Bolshevism was not directly guided by such a consideration, then the latter would still sooner or later have been brought forward by the course of church policy, which went in an “irreconcilable” direction. We must admit that in Ukrainian church life there is a tendency to repeat Russian mistakes. Irreconcilable churchmen say here too: let the state power give us complete freedom, let the state move away from the Church, not interfering in church affairs, but only issuing loans to it, protecting its rights and privileges. But do these churchmen really want the logic of things to push Ukraine one way or another towards Russian conclusions?