Church subjects in our fiction

Religion penetrates so diversely and deeply into the life of Russian people and the whole of Russian life that a modern writer of everyday life, striving to embrace it all in his works of art, must inevitably touch upon our religious life and... really does. Church-everyday pictures, types of clergy, their home life, official position, folk customs formed under the influence of the church, rituals, churches and services performed in them, are sometimes included in parts of essays, travels, stories, novellas and novels, sometimes they become themes of entire works of fiction. Given the wide influence that fiction currently has in our society, it would be inexcusable for a specially theological body to ignore this element of our literary creativity. Fiction is currently not only, and not even so much, artistic creativity pursuing the tasks of pure art, but rather a tool for promoting various ideas and worldviews, a popular form of journalism. The younger generation, especially young readers, reads it and, of course, along with the easy and pleasant assimilation of the plot of a story or novel, imperceptibly absorbs ideas of a moral, social, family and religious order and often in the quasi-real heroes of the swallowed works, they actually find models to imitate them on their life path. In view of this, we believe that the readers of the Theological Bulletin, as persons for whom the interests of religion and morality are primarily close and dear, will not consider it a useless waste of time to pay attention to our marks and notes on certain works of our fiction, which we will offer them from time to time. To begin with, let us note some of the artistic works of the Russian Thought magazine over the past year. In the story: “Evil Sickness” by Mrs. N. Annenkova-Bernard (December 1900), two plots deserve attention: 1) Fr. Pavel, at his home treating Vasilisa, who was hysterical from a demon, and 2) Liturgy in a rural church, performed by the same Fr. Pavel. Let us allow ourselves to copy exactly the second of these plots, as the most characteristic. “The small wooden church was poorly lit by three-kopeck yellow wax candles blinking near the images. Only thick candles were burning near the altar images.” “It smelled of calico, chintz paint, gray homespun cloth and tar.” "0. The day before Pavel baptized a rich peasant, and today he had a headache, and his hand somehow nervously and impulsively waved the censer. It shuddered every time, the chains clinked, as if they wanted to express their displeasure about. Pavel regarding careless handling of the censer." “On the choir, next to the sexton singing in a goat’s voice, stood a landowner from a neighboring economy, dressed in a gray dress and with a white tattoo on her head. With her was her son, a high school student, and an adult daughter. All three sang awkwardly, out of tune, helping the sexton.” “But Vasilisa and the wretched rural church and this pitiful singing seemed unusually solemn. With tenderness and passionate hope she looked at the old peeling images and at Fr. Paul waving a censer; She listened in rapture to the false singing and prayed, full of reverent fear. She did not utter any words either loudly or mentally; She completely immersed herself in inner contemplation, and this was her prayer. But she painfully remembered the bows (which Fr. Paul ordered her to make): “how they will sing “Father”... how they will sing “Father”,” she repeated the words of Fr. Paul and bowed with continuous zeal. But already during “Cherubimskaya” she felt an unpleasant tickling in her throat, and the candle somehow strangely began to jump before her eyes. Vasilisa kept bowing and bowing. The candles jumped, flickered, swayed from side to side, went out and flared up again, then suddenly became green, yellow, purple. My ears were ringing; the unpleasant tickling in the throat became unbearable. A sigh poured out of my chest, like a groan. It resonated in Vasilisa’s ears and gave birth to a new one... and another new one... and more... Moan after moan - painful, abrupt, burst uncontrollably from the girl’s chest, and she kept bowing and bowing... The fragrant smoke of incense mixed with the smell of tar and red... Fr. Pavel still waved the censer... From the choir came awkward singing... The people prayed, fell to their knees, breathing loudly, like one gigantic chest..." “Osloboni!.. King of Heaven!” “Vasilisa shouted to the whole church and then she didn’t understand anything.” “A woman standing next to her covered her with a scarf, she was dragged out of the church onto the porch... She vaguely felt how heavily her legs were dragging, as if filled with lead. She fought, cried and, gasping for breath, shouted “Osloboni! "(pp. 30–31). Such is the Orthodox rural liturgy and its effect on the sick. At home, Fr. Paul is portrayed as a rather strict priest. He inspires Vasilisa with respect for her parents (bitter drunkards); sadly shakes her head at her admission that she does not know any prayers, not even “Father”; imposes on her a “strict fast”, consisting in the fact that she must go to church for nine dinners in a row and make a hundred bows (and, meanwhile, Vasilisa does not know how to count up to 9). When Paul then began to read prayers over Vasilisa, “his nasal, monotonous voice had a calming effect on her”; O. Pavel believes that Vasilisa is being tempted by the devil. Speaks about. Paul spoke in some strange language - a mixture of common folk speech and church-book speech; for example: “Now, now, you can read about the Antichrist in the press... There were different leaflets about the mortal end of this mortal world... During the passage of Christ the Savior in this earthly vale, it was usually called that the devil had taken possession of”... Fr. Pavla is fair-haired, beginning to turn grey; there is a lamp in front of the icon, the floor is shiny, painted, etc. (pp. 27–28). Both plots are processed, apparently, with a pretense of artistry. The artist, as if, is completely objective, paints from nature, depicting only what lends itself to his observation and, passively perceiving with his senses of sight, hearing and smell what the contemplated phenomenon provides. It is passive, like an instant photograph and, like it, captures small external details, not wanting to penetrate into the inner mood of the priest, sexton, landowner and others praying in the church. For him, they are all just typical figures of painting or photography. With all that, the impression one gets from the depicted scenes is quite definite, which can be formulated as follows: a rural church, a rural worship service, a rural priest, a sexton, people praying - what nonsense all this is! If we ask what is the distinctive character of our artist’s brush, what is the peculiarity of his technique; then we will answer without any difficulty; in rough realism, in the condensation of colors, which actually irritate the viewer’s nerves. The work “smells of calico, vat paint and tar... the goatish voice of the sexton rattles, the nasal monophonic reading of Fr. Paul; peeling images, three-kopeck candles, incense smoke mixed with the smell of tar and red... Fr. Pavel constantly waving a censer, the false singing of “Cherubim” and “Father”, Vasilisa crying, beating and screaming “Osloboni!” - elements of painting that hit everyone’s nerves quite strongly.” Such a brush is usually applied to popular prints, which are bought up by our common people at fairs, and to caricatures in humorous publications. However, “Russian Thought” is neither a popular publication nor a humorous publication, but one of the thick magazines with a literary and artistic department, and the creation of Mrs. N. Annenkova-Bernard, placed in this latter, cannot be said to be the worst work. What does this mean? It remains to be admitted that such literary daub satisfies modern artistic taste... Or, perhaps, is it really a caricature? - May be. This possibility serves as the surest indicator of the merits of the “fictional” work in question. Mr. Boborykin presented “Russian Thought” with church subjects of a somewhat different nature in a number of his essays on “The Eternal City” and, in particular, “The Vatican”. (Russian Thought, June). However, in these essays Mr. Boborykin is not so much an artist as a publicist and, moreover, on a very interesting topic: he calls on the Russian intelligentsia to take up the modern Vatican and move forward with the issue of the unity of the Russian Church with the Roman Church under the leadership of the Pope. Well? Good afternoon. What, however, gave rise to this idea in Mr. Boborykin himself, and what benefits does he expect from the union with the Vatican that he is promoting? The first part of the question is resolved very easily: Mr. Boborykin became interested in the modern Vatican in the person of its best representatives, headed by Pope Leo 13; he foresees the glorious future of Catholicism as a result of their policy, finds in Russian society itself a “movement of ideas towards Rome” and is surprised at the indifference of our intelligentsia to this movement. “I’ve lived a long time in the world,” he says, “and, really, I don’t remember that somewhere in a secular drawing room, or in the office of a major official, in the editorial office of a magazine, or at a gathering of young people, in women’s or men’s circles, there was a serious conversation on the topic of freedom of conscience, the state church, Orthodoxy, which is obligatory for Russian subjects, and, most importantly, Catholicism, its differences from the Greek law, its real meaning in Christianity, or, even less, about the possibility of that “the union of faith” that is prayed for every day at mass.” (Page 4). On the second part of the question - what will union with Rome give to Russia - from Mr. Boborykin’s reasoning it is quite difficult to say anything definite; Apparently, he means, solely, the triumph of the abstract principle of freedom of conscience, which currently has no place in our legislation as applied to Russians converting to Catholicism, or recognizing the primacy of the pope. “There are already, undoubtedly,” he says, “Russians, if not among the people, then among our intelligentsia, who are inclined to union with Rome 1 . How many there are is not significant. Maybe ten people, or maybe a thousand - you and I will not penetrate someone else's soul. In Rome itself, with the exception of that priest who was recently deprived of his rank in Russia, I have not met such Russians. But they may show up later. And suppose that a small, at first, community of Orthodox Christians is formed, recognizing the primacy of the Roman bishop. There will be nothing unusual in this for Rome. Ministers of almost ten multilingual churches according to the Eastern rite live here, right up to the South Russian Uniate Church. Such a community of Great Russians could openly and freely conduct public worship in Rome, in any Catholic church and in its own prayer house, built according to the Greek rite with an iconostasis. But, upon the return of members of such a community to their homeland, what awaits them and, in particular, those who are suspected of being seduced into the union? This is the whole question. My point of view is purely objective, in the interests of freedom of conscience.” (Pages 19–20). Thus, the precautionary care of Mr. Boborykin to clear the Russian soil for those who are planning to appear among the Great Russians is obligatory. It even more arouses interest in the question: what, in fact, is good in this union that our artist-publicist was so fascinated by the Vatican? Let us turn to the very image of the Vatican given by Mr. Boborykin. In the foreground stands here a whole portrait, so to speak, gallery of contemporary prominent figures of the Vatican. With great interest the reader contemplates the portraits of Fr. Vincenzo Vannutelli, Prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, Cardinal Ledochowski, Secretary of State of the Pope, Cardinal Rampoll and, finally, Pope Leo himself 13. For readers of the Theological Bulletin who have not seen the Pope, and who do not have the opportunity to read the work of Mr. Boborykin, we believe it will not be superfluous to give a full description of the audience of the Pope, which Mr. Boborykin was awarded and which he depicted - in his own words - with perfect accuracy. The audience location is a small living room. “Dad sat alone in a chair and bowed to me from afar; and when I approached him, he pointed me to the nearest chair to his right.” “He was dressed like this: on his head was a velvet skufia with a fur trim, lower and wider than the ordinary papal skufia, known to everyone from the portraits of Leo X and Julius II, and the color of the velvet was scarlet, not dark red. It was as if the skufya covered a white cap that was put on backwards. Two wavy strands of completely white hair protruded from under the skufia. Underneath he is wearing a white cassock, almost cut like that of cardinals, and on top of the cassock is a kind of coat with lapels and long cuffs made of white antique moire. A red robe is draped lightly over his shoulders. At the bottom, this woolen mantle lay in beautiful folds with a red satin lining. Feet in gold-embroidered shoes of dark crimson velvet. On top of the stockings there is also a kind of knitted white boots for warmth. There are white mittens on his hands and a huge ring on one of the fingers of his right hand. In it he kept a dark golden foulard scarf, large and wrinkled, and a short, barrel-shaped snuff-box. On the neck is a gold bishop’s cross and no other decorations.” “I don’t know, maybe in his bedroom, and even in the evening (when Abbot Pierre was received by the pope), Leo 13 is not distinguished by the impeccability of his cassocks, as if often with traces of snuff; but this time, everything on him was brand new and everything was elegant, one might even say dapper, especially these lapels and cuffs made of white antique moire.” “At first, for about three or four minutes, he pronounced the words quietly and slowly with pauses, as if having difficulty expressing himself, although he speaks French fluently and with a moderate accent, almost without errors, sometimes with exclamations in Italian: “e altro!” or “e gio!” In these first minutes he seemed to me much more decrepit than I expected. But a few more minutes passed, and he became animated: almost all the time he spoke himself at a faster pace and without long pauses. He asked me about my writing, whether I deal exclusively with fiction or other branches of literature. Having learned that I was not exclusively a fiction writer, he inquired if I needed to visit the Vatican archives, to which I replied that I had been working for more than 7 years on a book on the history of the European novel in the 19th century, including the Russian one.” “When he came to the topic of Russia, Leo 13 perked up even more noticeably and began to speak faster and more characteristically in his choice of words and expressions.” “Yesterday,” he began, “your resident minister (he pronounces his name in Italian) sat here and I told him about my constant desire to maintain the most friendly relations with Russia. I never omit the opportunity to instill in the Catholic clergy within your fatherland that they should not mix questions of faith with politics, but should adhere to the instructions of the church. How many hierarchs are there in the east who recognize the head of Catholicism - at the same time the pope smiled - and I always instill in them that all power is from God and that they are obliged to obey their legitimate sovereign - the Sultan.” “At the same time, he immediately cited the text from the letter of the Apostle Paul on obedience to authorities, of course, in Latin.” “Unnoticed, he ended up on one of his favorite topics with the Russians: how desirable it would be for the two highest authorities in the old world to agree – spiritual power (at the same time, at the words “toi, comme chef de la catholicite,” he again unexpectedly and very good-naturedly smiled) and, the only secular power of the Russian sovereign in Europe.” “It is clear that this is one of those sweet dreams with which he will end his earthly career.” “Oh, then,” he continued, “getting animated and spreading his arms widely, “it would be possible to fight victoriously against all destructive movements and against nihilism,” he said more sternly and his eyes flashed, “and against socialism... German,” he added meaningfully, and his eyebrows knitted together. This word “allemand” did not come to him right away.” “And the union of churches - I thought; won't anyone talk about him? I knew that Leo 13 never misses an opportunity to talk about this topic, and sadly remarks: “My, je n’entrerai pas dans le pays de Chanaan! Je suis trop vieux pour cela! In other words: I will not live to see the longed-for moment when that “union of faith,” which is proclaimed here during mass, will come true!” “It is not appropriate to ask His Holiness questions, and I did not intend to play the role of a reporter. It was only possible to imperceptibly bring him to this topic, which I tried, taking advantage of the direction of the conversation towards Russia and the relationship of the curia to the Russian government.” “It was appropriate to mention the interest that his two famous encyclicals aroused in the Russian public: the one where he calls on Western Christianity to more generous feelings in everything that concerns the working lesser brethren, and the one where he addresses the Eastern churches with words of reconciliation. He noticeably liked this, especially when I mentioned those facts that directly show that the pope initiated the restoration of the Greek rite in Italy, in Rome itself and its environs, such as in the Grotta Ferrata monastery, where he ordered a return to teaching in school in Greek, and to the ancient Divine service, and even insisted on remodeling the church according to the Orthodox type with an iconostasis, whereas until recently it had been completely Latin.” “His speech flowed even more animatedly; it is clear that he is especially pleased to talk about this land of Canaan, which he does not hope to enter himself.” “For him, this is a completely doable thing!” “Of course, there are differences,” he agrees. And he listed the points known to us from school, which the Greek church blamed on the Latin one. But all this does not constitute an insurmountable obstacle, in his opinion. A great church, adhering to Christian traditions, can retain its characteristics, as long as it does not reject the very principle of hierarchy.” “Here he smiled with his eyes and paused for a moment.” “It is with pleasure,” he continued, “I notice that even England has recently taken a completely different attitude towards the Roman Church. Of course, agreement with Protestantism is impossible, because it denies hierarchy and continuity of grace. And where this is not the case, there is no fundamental impossibility.”... “The audience lasted about half an hour. When I bowed to my dad and bowed down to him (it is the custom of our diplomats to kiss his hand), he said to me again without any blessing gesture: “Je vous serre la main, monsieur” 2! With similar thoroughness, Mr. Boborykin described audiences and conversations with the above-mentioned representatives of the Vatican. What especially pleasantly struck Mr. Boborykin in these audiences and conversations was the ease of use and sincerity of the conversation between these persons and our writer. Coming out of his father’s chambers, Mr. Boborykin thought, for example, the following: “I imagined myself in the skin of a Russian writer in front of some “special person” within the boundaries of our fatherland. I was now received, after all, by the head of two hundred million Catholics, for whom he is almost an “earthly god,” and not only a high priest who speaks the absolute truth, but also a sovereign. Representatives of foreign powers, including ours, treat him like a sovereign. I don’t know if everyone knows that packages coming from the Russian government to the Vatican are inscribed (in Russian) like this: “To His Holiness, Bishop of the Roman Church, Sovereign Pope.” No matter how you look at it, he is the spiritual ruler of almost half of the Christian population of the globe - and he is so easy to use, talks with such sincerity, behaves with everyone as if you were his younger brother in years” (p. 42). We do not want, of course, to weaken in the least this pleasant impression our writer experienced from talking with good people, although, we admit, we are somewhat surprised by Mr. Boborykin’s naivety and extreme kindness. We can’t help but think how little it took from the smart people of the Vatican to attract our writer! Just a few words of obligatory social delicacy. But, after all, Mr. Boborykin himself warned the reader a little earlier that he received access to these good people only thanks to the very strong patronage that he was lucky enough to secure. Is it surprising if he was shown the courtesy of a reception? And, on the other hand, he should not, apparently, so extremely belittle his own personality, as, after all, the literary representative of such a country, which, by the own admission of these good people, is as desirable as the land of Canaan once seemed desirable to the wandering Jew. Such a compliment to powerful, believing Russia in the mouth of Leo the 13th deserves truly deep attention... But, after all, it became such without any assistance from Catholicism and its head, and even if Mr. Boborykin recalls some moments from the history of the Russian state, with very strong opposition from them. And, if modern representatives of Catholicism turned out to be so kind in relation to the Russian writer, then the latter’s duty of politeness obliged only to wish them to make Italy, France, Austria, Germany and other, once Catholic and believing countries, just as powerful and believers and... only, but by no means, no longer obligated them to so frivolously help clear the paths to the land of Canaan, or, to some thus betraying one's fatherland. Meanwhile, Mr. Boborykin, as if not joking at all, took upon himself the mission of clearing the way among the Russian intelligentsia to a kind reception of Catholicism and the primacy of the pope, and was not even averse to sometimes stabbing our hierarchy for failure to fulfill the duty of zeal for the unification of churches and for forgetting respect for the Roman popes, among whom there were quite a few saints. “After all, our readers,” he says in one place, “even outside the schism, who know the “prologue” well, can dwell on the question: what has become of the popes now and why, after so many popes, recognized as saints and by the Orthodox Church, suddenly they are cut off, and no one ever even mentions them? (page 5). Justice requires, however, to admit that Mr. Boborykin was carried away by representatives of the modern Vatican somewhat beyond the limits of simple gratitude (i.e., onto the path of propaganda of the Roman Union) not only by personal moral qualities and courtesy of treatment, but also by the broad principles of freedom of conscience and religious tolerance. This is how this broad religious tolerance of the Vatican and especially Pope Leo 13 himself is illustrated by Boborykin! “Eastern cults,” he says, “Rome has long been reserved for itself, and under Leo 13, with his broad attitude towards heterodox rituals, this can go even further. To be convinced of this, you need to go to the Church of S. Andrea della Valle on the week of Epiphany. There, for eight whole days in a row, there is an early morning service of some oriental rite in the national language, and, later, a sermon in five or six European languages. The sermons are spoken by Germans, French, Irish, Spaniards, Poles; but these priests (sometimes bishops) are all Catholics. And in the mornings there is an exclusively eastern service with all the features of local worship. In January 1898, these masses took place in this order; Syro-Maronite, Syrian, Chaldean (with a bishop), Greek (solemn bishop), Bulgarian episcopal, Coptic, Greco-Romanian (in the church language the liturgy of our rite), Armenian - episcopal. Each tourist can clearly see that churches that preserved their rites were annexed to Rome at different times. And the curia, as it were, does not care about how they pray, as long as they do not represent a schism in the sense of a protest against the supremacy of the Roman high priest... The ecumenical nature of such services is undoubted,” Mr. Boborykin concludes from here (p. 51). From the point of view of a tourist, such broad tolerance of the Curia and Pope Leo 13 himself may be a touching sight. But, since Mr. Boborykin took upon himself the mission of a zealot for uniting churches in the name of religious interests, in the name of religious conscience, he should have looked at this phenomenon completely differently. Ritual in religion is something incomparably more important than Mr. Boborykin imagines. Indeed, what is a religious ritual? This is the outer shell of all religious, dogmatic-moral contemplation, it is the same as the body is for the soul, the word is for thought. The relationship between them is so internal, inseparable, that a perversion or change in ritual in a sincerely religious or pious person produces the same suffering that is produced by the painful state of his body, or the distortion of thoughts dear to him. Indifference and indifference to the ritual can only be found in those who are weak in faith, hesitant, or even a non-believer. A ritual is, precisely, an indicator of the degree of subjective faith, the inner religiosity of a person, especially a clergyman. A deeply religious priest will certainly perform the ritual earnestly; less religious or in a bad mood - carelessly and hastily. Therefore, to find indifference to ritual in a priest and even a high priest, and especially such as that which so touched Mr. Boborykin in Rome, is truly strange. For a priest, as a priest, an indifferent attitude towards the ritual is psychologically unthinkable. A secular ruler, a sovereign of subjects of different faiths, is a different matter. Since the welfare of the latter is dear to him, namely, those who are not indifferent to the ritual, he is obliged to pursue in his policy the principle of religious tolerance, and, while remaining a deep reverence for the ritual of his religion, to guarantee for each believer the special existence of his ritual. His task is precisely to protect in one state the simultaneous existence and operation of different ritual confessions next to each other, but not his task is to merge together, take care of the religious unity and union of subjects of different faiths: this is the special mission of the priest. The truth of these provisions is so clear to everyone familiar with the history of the Church that it does not require proof, and if Mr. Boborykin did not think of them, then this, of course, is because he undertook to talk about a subject little known to him. Of more interest to us is the Vatican policy itself, praised by our writer, and, in particular, the following words of the famous bull Leo 13 himself, justifying this policy. “Guided not by human interests, but by divine love and the desire for common salvation, we urge you to reunite with the Roman Church; we mean complete and perfect union: for such a reunion cannot at all be, which means nothing more than a certain well-known agreement in the dogmas of faith and communication in brotherly love. True unity among Christians, as established and desired by the founder of the church, Jesus Christ, consists in the unity of faith and government. There is no reason for you to fear that, as a result of this union, either we or our successors will diminish any of your rights, patriarchal privileges and ritual institutions of each church.” 3 What seems strange and mysterious to us in these words is how in the minds of the high priest could the religious union of the Eastern and Western churches appear to be “complete and perfect,” while each of them retained the deep discord of ritual institutions to which they have now reached the level of alienation over a number of centuries? To explain the strangeness and mystery of the meaning of these words, it remains to assume one of two things: either this promise is not sincere, or the author himself has lost faith in the effectiveness and salvific value of the ritual institutions of not only the Eastern Church, but also his Western one. No matter how difficult the second of these assumptions is, it finds support for itself in the very work of Mr. Boborykin under consideration. The fact is that the Catholic rite is currently so exhausted, it does not correspond to the modern situation of the Roman Church and the religious consciousness of its children, that in Rome itself, for the Catholics themselves, it has, for the most part, the meaning of only a spectacle, and not at all a sacred rite. This is not our opinion, but the opinion of Mr. Boborykin, drawn from his own observation of Catholic services in various churches in Rome. Here, for example, is a description of the liturgy performed by Pope Leo 13 himself in the beatification hall on the feast of the sixtieth anniversary of his priesthood. “A stretcher appeared, and above the crowd shouting “Viva il rara”, and in some groups and “il para re”, with applause that always seems indecent to us Russians, rose the head of an old man with a parchment face and a sharp profile, in a velvet skufya and a cape of the same dark red color, trimmed with ermine. This service also celebrated the 60th anniversary of the priesthood of Leo 13. He was finishing his 88th year of life. At this age, old age already loses its shades. But, compared to what kind of face he has in photographs - both large, life-size, and landscape - the difference is huge. You also expect, judging by the portraits, that the pope is of decent height, but in reality he seemed like an old man, hunched over with age, less than average height, when he was dressed right there in front of the public, and he rose to the altar, attached to the wall of the hall at some elevation. He served in ordinary priestly vestments made of white lace and without a tiara, but in a white cap, which one of the assistants in purple cassocks and shirts constantly took off and put on, deftly taking it by the tassel. The mass was what the French called “messe basse,” that is, ordinary, pronounced by the priest in a low voice, and not in a chant, without deacons, music and singing. Only when the pope was brought in, and at the end of the service, did the choir, placed on the balcony on one of the side walls, sing.” “From the place where I stood, the entire figure of the pope was very clearly visible during the first mass. It lasted a little more than half an hour.... Dad moved in front of the altar, bent over, in small steps, doing all the turns and kneeling, like an ordinary priest. I kept a keen eye on whether the assistants were holding his hand or his elbow; the filled space between his shoulder and the figure of the assistant - to the right and to the left - was not noticeable. They did not hold him back at all, even when, at the end of mass, he said a prayer, standing on both knees and for quite a long time. For an 88-year-old man, this is amazing! And he pronounced his “quiet” mass in several places quite loudly, in a dull, low voice, with characteristic intonations of vowels, and he could hear some kind of aspiration in them. “This rise in strength to perform the modest duties of a priest in such an advanced age should have evoked a much more tender feeling in the believers. And the public, not counting foreigners of different tribes, was present at this anniversary of the 60th anniversary of the pope’s priesthood - simply as a spectacle. Applause and cries of “Viva il papa-re” echoed the performance and many, many political demonstrations. Nowhere did I notice a single touched face: not in the members of various Catholic societies, not in the priests, not even in the poorly dressed women from the petty bourgeoisie. And it seems that there was enough time for observations.... After serving mass, dad disappeared for a minute behind the drapery on the left. After receiving Communion, he can refresh himself. People who are well acquainted with the Vatican's procedures say that on these occasions he drinks a cup of broth and a glass of wine. – The second mass was celebrated by a young canon. Dad was sitting in a chair. Then the introduction of deputations and societies began, with the kissing of shoes. He said something to almost everyone. They carried him back the same way across the entire hall... he still looked very cheerfully, his face was smiling; He blesses not in the same way as our ruler, but with a rounded movement of both hands in white knitted gloves (mittens) with a huge stone on the ring of his right hand... Only this carrying is beautiful. There was nothing impressive about the rest of the celebration.... The courtyard and the guards up close give the impression of something “not real” - as children usually say. “Guardia nobile” both this time and the other two celebrations did not wear the most ceremonial uniforms. The “Cavaliers of Sword and Robe”, overseeing order, and dressed by 16th-century Spaniards, with cutters around their necks and chains, look like theatrical gentlemen, although the costumes themselves are picturesque. And the audience left just like they were leaving the theatre...” (p. 32). Another triumph of the pope - “the twentieth anniversary of his reign,” according to Mr. Boborykin’s description, in the sense of the liturgical rite, was even less satisfactory. “The mood is even less reverent than in the Vatican at the papal mass. At this point it was already clear that everyone had come running to look at the spectacle, nothing more” (p. 33). But perhaps in both of these cases, religious tenderness was hampered by the anniversary solemnity and different representations 4? Perhaps, on purely church days, penitential days or holidays, the Catholic rite deeply touches the heart, invigorates religiously, and edifies? G. Boborykin resolutely denies this. Here is his general description of the Catholic rite and the Catholic priesthood: “A lot has been written about the services during Holy (in our opinion, Holy) Week in different languages. But a sinful man: I don’t really trust the authors of too beautiful or touching descriptions. I have seen enough of all sorts of solemn services in the Vatican, and in Petra, and in other most significant churches. They are all in the same tune. In them the decorative part predominates and it is, indeed, of very dubious beauty and earnestness. I don’t know how the heroine of the Goncourt brothers’ novel, Madame Gervaise, could turn from freethinking to Catholicism under the charm of local church services. Their effect on Russian ladies is doubtful, which is why, probably, so few of them are transferred to Latinism among us. The well-known pomp of ceremonies in Petra, like the jubilee I attended, in the luxurious frame of the cathedral, is not without beauty, but it does not give a purely religious mood. It is not surprising that you do not see any tender or enthusiastic feeling in the crowd of thousands that has come running from everywhere. I think that it has always been like this, or for a very, very long time. Not only Goethe at the end of the 18th century, but also Montagne, at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, already found that there was nothing to look for religious feeling in Rome - at its religious celebrations. The holidays celebrated throughout the Catholic world are all similar to festivities within the walls of the church. Large masses with choral singing and music, in rich churches, are luxuriously furnished, with a large staff of servants, sometimes with good voices and talented playing of the organist. But even here the spectacle is in the foreground, and the character of the singing is a verse style with a tenor lead singer who hits the notes as if in “Il Trovatore” or “La Traviata”. “For a lover of antiquity, for a genre artist, for a foreigner greedy for every couleur locale - in Rome there are services with a local bouquet throughout the year; but, again, they cannot tune you in the way you would like if you are looking in the church not for a performance, but for a refuge for the soul.” “At Christmas, in the ancient church of Aga Soeli, I heard children from the age of four preaching in front of a chapel decorated with a “nativity scene” with a manger and decorative figures of the Mother of God, Joseph, and the Magi. This is an ancient custom, very curious, but no longer helping the charm of the Latin cult. Another boy, about twelve years old, will shout out quite impressively a tirade he has memorized, but girls of five or four years old, when they are lifted onto the stage, are embarrassed, confused, and the crowd all around laughs good-naturedly and jokes.” “Or in S. Maria Maggiore - there on Christmastide you see long sticks being extended from confessional booths. The priest sits and pokes one of those who come, especially those who kneel. This is a complete indulgence for a certain period of time.” “Didn’t Madame Gervaise really see this, and if she did, then didn’t such traditions and methods of saving the soul upset her religious sentiments?” “In Rome, you do not find yourself anywhere in the air of the fervent, selfless prayer of the people’s crowd, with its sufferings and infirmities, as, for example, somewhere here, at Trinity, near the shrine of the saint.” “At least I didn’t have to find such pilgrims in Rome. There are a lot of people at ceremonial services, but these are walkways, and absolutely everywhere. On simple days, when quiet masses are served, there are usually several people in the church, or a group at the altar, where the priest is in vestments. Such a mass does not make the parishioner a participant in the liturgy, because she is deaf. Occasionally, in some services, there is a custom to answer the priest in unison with Latin words. But in general, the Catholic flock lives much less in divine services than the Orthodox, where the entire ordinary mass is pronounced and sung loudly, or Protestantism, where the crowd itself participates in the singing of prayers and psalms.” “Church life in Latin (and in Rome more than anywhere else) is much less strict than in Orthodoxy and evangelism. Enter any church, on a holiday or on weekdays, in a public service or in a “messe basse” and you will now feel how “more relaxed” everything is here, as our common people say. They come, talk, sit down anywhere, with their backs to the altars, and bring dogs. Only in Petra did I see a ban on bringing dogs, but in all other churches they have free entry.” “But this “freeness” also contains the elasticity of Catholicism. He is more forgiving, softer; gives permission to sins as much as you like; fasting is moderate, with many different kinds of indulgences. Priests can not only snuff tobacco, but also smoke; they are allowed to go to concerts in a cassock, and to theaters in a private dress. Knowledgeable people assure that they are given indulgences in part of the seventh commandment” (p. 48). Reading these descriptions, the responsibility for the accuracy of which lies, of course, with their author, it is natural to raise the question: what does the call of Pope Leo 13, addressed to the churches of the East for a complete and perfect union with the Roman Church, mean? What can this union, or this Western church, whose priesthood has descended to the level of “spectacle”, give? Is it only “freeness” and “elasticity”, but is it worth falling under the yoke of the infallible pope for this? It is not clear why our Mr. Boborykin got the idea to start promoting union with Rome among our intelligentsia... The question of the unification of churches, being completely idle in the formulation that Mr. Boborykin gave it, who noticed in our intelligentsia the non-existent “movement of ideas towards Rome”, is far from being such if we pay attention to the movement of ideas towards the Orthodox East that actually exists in the West itself. When we say this, we mean the movement of Old Catholicism and Anglicanism; We also mean, in the same way, the purely scientific interest with which foreigners from different European countries are currently studying the Orthodox Eastern rite, the architecture of Orthodox, especially ancient churches, monuments of church archeology and church law, and with their scientific publications they lend our own theological science. It is in this movement that a truly true and fruitful path is outlined towards a purely spiritual, moral unity of churches, and not an artificial, external, Roman-Uniate one. What is the essence of this movement? Undoubtedly, in a desire to restore church rites. And so, judging by the above descriptions of Mr. Boborykin, it is the Vatican itself that needs such restoration, first and foremost. What this restoration should consist of is not difficult to understand through the study of the Eastern Church rite. It should consist in cleansing modern Catholicism from those growths that stuck to it in the irrevocably past dark Middle Ages, and, with unreasonable tenacity, are protected hitherto, although they are not given any religious value by the lay Catholics themselves, and perhaps even by the priests themselves. What, in fact, is the purpose of this “carrying of the pope” by his serving people in the church with some kind of church-military orchestra? Why this purple of the cardinals and the tiara of the pope himself? Why these papal guards, these cavaliers of robes and swords, dressed by the Spaniards of the 16th century? All this made sense when the pope was really the sovereign of his state; now, all this museum weaponry, of course, is not capable of instilling any fear in the sovereign pope, but only gives the impression of something truly “not real.” To meet this religious movement of the West halfway is another matter, completely worthy of our intelligentsia, which, unfortunately, nowadays often considers their knowledge of the “law” within the limits of the gymnasium curriculum to be quite sufficient preparation not only for journalism, but also for artistic creativity in the field of religion, of course, only in order to amaze the sincerely religious feeling and consciousness of the reader with its ignorant courage. G. Boborykin is referring to the famous ex-priest Tolstoy and the late Vl. S. Solovyova. Encyclical of Pope Leo 13 on the union of churches. Ed. 2 SPB. 1893, p. 6. Unfortunately, in recent times we have also developed a completely anti-canonical custom of honoring in the Church of God anniversaries of priests, church elders and rich renovators and beautifiers of churches, and the persons being honored are given gifts of precious crosses, icons, addresses and laudatory speeches, sometimes of very low eloquence... An Orthodox church is the house of the Lord (Κυριαχόν = church), in which gifts and praise are offered only to God, and not gifts and praise to people, even if they are priests, elders and ktitors. This innovation should, of course, be prohibited. You might be interested in: