On the principle of religious freedom

The implementation of the principle of religious freedom in our legislation is ready to meet energetic opposition, as is heard, from the extreme right and especially from the clergy of the Orthodox Church. In opposition to the principles of the Highest Manifesto of October 17, they are wholeheartedly ready to return to the previous principles of oppressing non-believers and sectarians in favor of the dominant position of the Orthodox Church. The phenomenon is very natural. It has support for itself, namely: 1st in the antiquity of these beginnings and 2ndly in zeal for the faith, for the protection and salvation of the Church. Let's see how solid this support is. 1) As for prescription, there can be no dispute regarding it. It is possible to say almost without sinning against the truth that legally throughout our history, from the beginning of Christianity in Rus', there has been no religious freedom and has not been recognized until the present day. From the moment of the baptism of the Apostle of Rus', St. Vladimir, we have established for a long time both in the minds of the leaders of the people and in life itself the immutable principle: “the Orthodox faith of the Greek law is the best and the only holy faith among all faiths.” In accordance with this principle, actual attitudes towards Gentiles, apostates from the faith and rebels against this faith were formed, and legislative laws were formulated in accordance with this same principle norms, since all other faiths were no good in comparison with this faith, then, of course, there could be no question of any competition between them and this one holy faith, and the question of religious freedom could not arise. The first time this question arose was when doubt about the sanctity of this faith was openly expressed and open opposition to it followed from the so-called Strigolniks and Judaizers. By the overwhelming majority, the issue of attitude towards the rebels was decided not in favor of the latter. They were crushed and ceased to exist. The question of religious freedom arose for the second time when a new party of rebels appeared during the time of Patriarch Nikon (the so-called Old Believers). The issue was again resolved very categorically: the schismatics, as enemies of the holy faith, were excommunicated from the church and handed over to the city’s cruel executions. To support this solution to the issue, very convincing references of a canonical and legal nature were given - to the acts of the Ecumenical Councils and the city laws of the Helmsman's Book 1. A new legal dogma has grown up that every rebel against the Orthodox faith and a renegade from it is an enemy of the Church and the state and, as such, must be persecuted, and his wicked conviction must be eradicated by “city”, i.e., state measures. Our criminal legislation on crimes against faith still adheres to this dogma. Until now, the question of the attitude of our Church and state towards people of other faiths (pagans, Mohammedans, Jews) and heterodox churches and societies, as well as towards irreligious persons and extreme liberals in religion, has been resolved somewhat differently. Although at times the same principle of non-recognition of their right to civil existence was applied to them, in general a more lenient and gentle attitude prevailed - tolerance. They can profess their faith, have their own prayer houses, worship services, their own priests and teachers, but they do not at all have the right to propagandize and especially to seduce the Orthodox into their faith. This principle is still maintained in our criminal legislation, and again has the same right of limitation as the first in relation to renegades from the Orthodox Church. (Infidels, or apostates from the Orthodox faith, were treated in the law as persons belonging to the first category if they acted as obvious oppositionists against the faith). So, we must agree that the persecution of one category of non-church societies and individuals and only very moderate tolerance of another have an almost indisputable history. But what follows from this? The least thing to do is to defend these long-standing principles as a relic, like an old dress, from which we, Russian citizens, have already grown and which has become very dilapidated, not to say that it has completely decayed. We need completely different principles. And here's why. Precisely because the antiquity of these principles is far from blameless and because their dignity has been destroyed so that only pitiful shreds, so to speak, remain of them. Who challenged, who smashed these principles? It would be very difficult to list by name individuals who at different moments in church history (Byzantine and Russian) fought against these principles. Their voices were sometimes very loud, sometimes weak, but despite their rather large number, they still drowned, so to speak, in the mass 2. But that's not what's important. What is more important is that in this mass itself, in its consciousness and in its conscience, some inner voices that protested against the triumph of the victors and poisoned the sweetness of victory never died. – These voices are the principles of the Gospel and the Orthodox Church and a natural sense of humanity, humaneness. In the Divine Services of the Orthodox Church, the reading of the Gospel is surrounded by such majestic ritual as anywhere else in Christianity. Reading it is very often and always constitutes a very prominent, so to speak, outstanding part of our ritual: who among those present does not hear it? - Is he deaf and deliberately covering his ears? Meanwhile, the Gospel very clearly and sharply attacks all violence in matters of faith and gives a positive commandment about love for all people, even enemies. And it was this voice that radically undermined the principles of eradication and persecution of enemies of the faith. Our hierarchs, often with pain in their hearts, drowned it out by handing over the trial and executions in cases against the faith to city judges and executors, and leaving themselves only the duty of exhortation and parting words to those executed for their faith, and our simple people always treated those persecuted for their faith either directly as martyrs, or as “unfortunate” and “pityed" them. I consider it unnecessary to prove that in theological science it has long been revered it is an axiom that the principle of freedom of conscience is simultaneous with Christianity, in other words, only Christianity announced it to humanity. Those unfortunate theologians who think to find justification for the oppression of heterodoxy and diversity of thought are forced to bypass the Gospel and look for arguments only in the Old Testament. In addition to the Gospel, our canon law fundamentally undermines any oppression towards those of other faiths and the disobedient. Here is his principle law: Apostolic 27th canon: “We command the bishop, or the presbyter or the deacon, to beat the faithful who sin or offend the unfaithful, and through this to frighten the one who wants to throw him out of the sacred rite. For the Lord did not teach us this at all: on the contrary, when he himself was struck, he did not inflict blows; But maybe it’s impossible to beat an unfaithful priest with your own hand, but is it acceptable that with a wave of his hand a Christian layman can beat an unfaithful one? No, and this is not acceptable. The categorical answer is given in another special rule. (Double communication 9). All that the church authorities can do against their enemy, who is not amenable to measures of moral influence, is to complain to the state authorities and it is up to the latter to satisfy the complaint of the Church in one way or another. Yes, the issue of criminal measures against violators of the principle of religious freedom is entirely a matter of state policy, and not at all a church issue. Our government once adopted this point of view - we mean the order of Catherine II, but, unfortunately, this good intention was not carried into execution. So, prescription is a poor support for opposition to the principle of religious freedom, especially opposition from clergy. It only seems strong: for for the oppression of other faiths and sectarianism, a large mass of ancient laws and very strict, formidable and cruel laws can be cited: but all these are state laws, not church laws - the latter stand in sharp opposition to the former and undermine their crumbling bulk. Here, in this discord between state and canonical views, lies the reason for the phenomenon that both in Byzantium and in ancient Rus' - the laws against infidels and heretics were cruel, but they were never actually consistently implemented - they only threatened with fear, but were inactive, yielding to a soft view, brought up directly by the Gospel and a sense of humanity. Thus, in reality, what happened was that in Russia de jure we did not have religious freedom, but de facto people of other faiths and sectarians lived better here, that is, freer than in Western Europe, where freedom of conscience has long reigned de jure. 2. The second motive for opposition to the principle of religious freedom is zeal for the faith, concern for the protection and salvation of the church from its enemies. In itself, this is, of course, a very nice motive, as based on a feeling of love and worship of a religious shrine. The opposite of religious jealousy is indifferentism - the property of heartless natures, whose reflection has dried up and shrunk the heart. This is true, but the following considerations cannot in any way be overlooked. 1. In reality, very often, hand in hand with sincere zealots of the faith, cruel, heartless egoists, who simply do not believe in anything - hypocrites, hypocrites - go and act under the same banner. Such zealots are terrible: they are worse, more evil, that is, more heartless than Nevers and indifferent people. The Gospel condemns hypocrites and threatens them: woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! And he warns good-natured people against them. Hypocrites are worse than Nevers. This provision does not require proof. We only point to it for the purpose of clarifying that zeal for faith as a political motive has no value. Opponents will take advantage of the weakness of this argument and will interpret zealots of the faith as hypocrites. But this is not enough. What is more important is that even in the most sincere, genuine zeal for faith, there must be a distinction between degrees: there is zeal that is worthy of all praise, but there is zeal that is not very praiseworthy. So eg. The Apostle Paul directly condemns unreasonable zeal: they have the zeal of God, but not according to reason. And so we think that people who call to defend and save the Orthodox Church by means of political, criminal and police oppression have the sincere zeal of God, but it is not very reasonable, and therefore not very valuable. That it is not of a high price is clear evidence that such supposedly Christian zeal is no different from Mohammedan, Jewish, or pagan zeal. Every religion, every sect has its zealots and even some, downright fanatics. So what? Should a Christian really compete with them in such zeal? Let this not happen! This should be a shame for a Christian and here's why. Religious jealousy, like jealousy in general, has its deep psychological basis in the jealous person’s lack of faith or trust in the being he loves: out of fear of losing this being for himself, out of fear that it will be taken away, or will only harm him, insult him, somehow spoil him - with his defenselessness, all the torments of jealousy, all its manifestations, arise, often the insane actions of the jealous person who protects with his forces the object of his worship. At present, there are a lot of such zealots for the Orthodox Church, such defenders and rescuers of it. They either come out in a depressed mood and are ready to despair of the salvation of the church, or with courage and real military tactics they send challenges to the enemies of the faith with the threat of crushing them with their strength. Such zealots of the Christian faith are guilty, in our opinion, of the following three sins: lack of faith, pride and unreason. That the Orthodox Russian Church is currently undergoing a cruel trial is beyond doubt. Troubles rain down on her from the outside, but there is fermentation inside. It is difficult to discern who is her enemy and who is her friend. How can one not be faint-hearted here? How can one not declare a holy war on its enemies? And here we have many zealots who are ready to attach swords to their hips and, following the example of the Apostle Peter, use them to cut off the enemy’s ears and so on. Let them be ashamed of the words of the Lord and open their ears to listen to His words: “Return your sword to its place, for all who take the sword with the sword will perish. Or do you think that I cannot now ask My Father and He will present Me with more than twelve legions of angels” (Matthew 26:53). These words hit, so to speak, point-blank modern lack of faith - the cowardly zealots of the faith. They are also guilty of another sin - pride, and rather unreasonable pride: after all, the very thought of saving the Church is a blasphemous and unreasonably proud thought, not at all the best thought of destroying the Church. Every Christian needs to care about personal salvation through the Church, and not about the salvation of the Church. Weep for yourselves, saviors of the Church, and not for her (Luke 23:28). But the main sin, especially annoying, of such cowardly and little-faithful zealots of the Church is their tactical imprudence, so to speak. Of course, there can be no dispute that measures of repression and intimidation were sometimes tactically suitable and expedient. In ancient times, when the culture of the people was low, the mere fact of the dominance of one or another faith, as well as its external splendor, in itself produced charm and had an impressive effect on the narrow-minded or characterless people - it captivated them into the obedience of faith. But are these measures practical today? No and no! "Persecution irritates the minds of men." This truth was created long ago by the humane policy of common sense and condemned persecution as a naive tactical means. In our time, when science and knowledge, mind and culture have entered into open battle with religion, faith, conscience and the human heart - the "system of intimidation with city executions" in matters of faith is not only naive and inappropriate, but directly harmful to religion itself. For a long time now, our missionaries (against schism and sectarianism) have suffered a lot for their “brotherhood with the police." They are often sincerely hated and intolerable by stubborn sectarians. During the revolution of 1905, the union of the Russian people for their defense of Orthodoxy through pogroms acquired the name “Black Hundred,” and aroused the hatred of both sectarians and intellectuals against themselves. At this moment, the passions subsided significantly. The time has come for state building on the principles of the Highest Manifesto of October 17. State policy towards religion should be established on these principles, namely on the principles of religious freedom. Will the State Duma be able to implement these principles? Let's assume two possibilities: let's assume for a moment that the old system of intimidation for apostasy from Orthodoxy and the system of repression for "disobedience" and propaganda of other faiths will triumph. What will happen then? It can be positively stated that the countless variety of heterodox and sectarians will be united by one feeling towards the Orthodox Church - a feeling of deep hatred. But let's assume another possibility: the principle of religious freedom will triumph. The Orthodox Church will become only first place among heterodox confessions and sectarian communities. It is possible that at first there will be a significant decrease in the composition of its members: deviations into the Old Believers, Mohammedanism, and sects will follow. But this quantitative loss will undoubtedly be rewarded with the following good consequences: firstly, it will more tightly close the ranks of its fellow members who remained faithful to it, and secondly, it will undoubtedly gain the sympathy of the intelligentsia, both sitting on the school benches and working in the political, academic and social fields. This second consequence is highly important. After all, new generations are the basis and hope of all our future well-being. And what is this basis and hope in religious terms? After all, there is no need to indulge in proof of a very sad fact, visible to everyone - the complete absence of religious inclination in her. The mere fact that not too long ago at the end of last year, an American missionary, Miss Rauss, spoke at the higher women’s courses in Moscow speaks volumes and how vividly characterizes the irreligion of our youth! When was it heard of America sending its missionaries to Orthodox Russia?!.. And in view of just this one sad fact, it is worth thinking about and working energetically for the implementation of the principle of religious freedom in our country, for removing from the Orthodox Church the unusual character of an oppressor of religious conscience. And that the introduction of religious freedom will have a positive effect on the Orthodox Church and on the Christianization of our youth, the following considerations convince us of this: 1) A person cannot live without religion: the latter is a need of his heart, which neither science nor art can fully satisfy. Until now, no people have been known to be without religion; only a few are found; let there be many of them at a certain moment, but this is a temporary, transitional phenomenon, the proof of which is the pitiful mood of such units, extremely pessimistic. 2) Of all the existing Christian faiths, the Orthodox is primarily a religion of the heart. This feature of its cult is generally recognized. The principles of its canonical structure are so morally pure and organizationally rational that they can withstand competition with any principles of a cultural social system. One has only to work on carefully dissecting them and bringing them into church life - which, of course, a Church Council is able to do with the friendly joint work of pastors and flocks. Anyone who sincerely believes in the inner dignity of Orthodoxy can not only be at peace about the fate of its efforts to implement the principle of religious freedom in our fatherland, but will also find in this conviction the courage to work energetically to strengthen its moral and social authority in the form of its beneficial influence on our cultural elements, now indifferent or even hostile to it. It is precisely zeal for Orthodoxy that should encourage our pastors to strive for the triumph of the principle of religious freedom. But, the shepherds will object to us, after all, we, precisely as shepherds, have a duty not only to feed our flocks, our sheepfolds with words of teaching, exhortation, reproof and consolation, but also to protect them from wolves prowling outside in freedom, not hiding their wolf breed, then penetrating into our yards - often in the form of humble lambs or affectionate foxes, etc. animals. Should we really not defend ourselves from them, not repel their attacks on ourselves and on our sheep and lambs? In response to this, it should be noted that the implementation of the principle of religious freedom does not at all deprive the Orthodox Church of the right to seek from the state the most complete guarantee of its freedom and the provision of its rights as a primal religion, to which primarily, if not exclusively, the Russian state owes its position in the family of European states, under the strong moral influence of which it was formed, gathered, recovered from repeated unrest and disorder, and which will continue to remain the religion of the majority subjects, and at the same time the most important factor in its progressive moral and cultural development. If it is recognized as an axiom that the tasks of the cultural state include protecting the property rights of individuals, corporations and industrial, scientific, artistic institutions, ensuring their free action and development, guaranteeing and protecting by measures of state force from offenders acting by violence, deception, bribery, forgery and other criminal means: then the Orthodox Church has an inalienable and indisputable right to such a patronizing attitude towards itself on the part of the State. And who knows that a careful review of the current laws that normalize the protective attitude of the Russian state towards the Orthodox Church and non-Orthodox faiths will not reveal the strange phenomenon that the official dominant position of the Orthodox Church, in comparison with these latter, in many respects less ensures its rights and the possibility of successful life than these latter? Will it not turn out, for example, that the material provision of the Catholic, Protestant and even Mohammedan clergy is higher than that of the Orthodox, that in many respects the latter is much more constrained in its actions than the former, etc., etc.? Wouldn’t the implementation of the principle of state equality of rights of the Orthodox Church with other faiths not only be a loss for it, but also a positive gain? But more about this later. See the deeds of Great Moscow. personal 1667 in the edition of prof. N. I. Subbotina Quite a bit of evidence about this is collected in the book of Prof. V.F. Kiparisov on freedom of conscience.