II. The Old Believers
From the point of view of the universal church, the case of the Russian Old Believers was wrong [...]. But whether they were wrong in the historical sense [...] is another question. [1]
1. Introduction
The issue of the Old Believers, who formed the most important group of religious dissent in Russian Orthodoxy, touched upon several of Solov'ev's central preoccupations, namely 1) church reunion, 2) religious freedom, and 3) the moral role of the official church. In the first place, the Old Believers represented a major split within the Russian Orthodox Church, thus posing an internal obstacle to his project of church reunion. Solov'ev addressed these issues in his home environment, in Russia, which, before it could reconcile with the Catholic Church, had to make sure that its dissenters returned to the fold. Secondly, his concern with religious minorities in general, as well as the significant growth of the number of adherents, making it a national issue, also motivated him to speak out on the issue. Finally, he sympathised with the high demands that the Old Believers had with respect to the official church, which paralleled his own position.
Although there are numerous general works on the Old Believers, specific scholarship on the relationship between the Old Believers and the Russian state, the Orthodox Church, and public opinion in 1880-1900 is very scarce. [2] A recent valuable monograph is the study by O.P. Ersova on the relationship between the Old Believers and the state and church power from 1850 to 1905. [3] As for Vladimir Solov'ev's interventions on Old Believers specifically, they have been examined in their own right only briefly. [4]
a) Thesis
My argument consists of the following points. Firstly, when dealing with the issue of the Old Believers, Solov'ev primarily focused on the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, so that he mostly investigated the Old Believers' conception of the church as well as their relationship to the church. As a result, he largely left out other issues concerning the living conditions of the Old Believers. He did defend religious freedom for the Old Believers, but only as part of his global commitment to freedom of conscience. Secondly, his treatment of the Old Believers turns out to be a unique case of lasting affinity with the Slavophiles, that is, not only in his early years, but also after he had turned towards the liberals. To this Slavophile stance he added his own critical points with respect to the Old Faith. Thirdly, contrary to other interventions concerning religious minorities, he engaged in a direct debate with the Old Believers, the underlying motivation of which relates to their conception of history. On the one hand, he shared their fundamental critique that the official church had ceased to act in a Christian manner, and approved of their bringing the simple folk to the fore as the representative of the church and of their theocratic ideal of a truly Christian tsar. On the other hand, he rejected their anathematisation of the tsars, the state and church since the schism, and accused them of delaying the coming of salvation by cutting themselves off from the church. As a matter of fact, he considered their secessionist attitude as an obstacle to his ideal of a harmonious society. Fourthly, his position with respect to the Old Believers was fundamentally ambiguous. He felt an attraction to and, at the same time, an aversion from their worldview. Last but not least, he viewed them as rivals who threatened his own prophetic mission among Russian society. This ambiguity can be best explained from the perspective of the three registers of history present in his texts.
Before embarking on my analysis, I would like to approach the problem of terminology. In official documents as well as in the press of Solov'ev's time, the religious current was referred to as that of the Old Believers [starovery] or Old Ritualists [staroobrjadcy]. [5] Both terms refer to one and the same religious current, Old Faith [staroverie] or Old Ritualism [staroobrjadcestvo] were and are used synonymously. [6] The term schismatics [raskol'niki], which refers to the schism [raskol] pronounced by the official church in 1667, is more problematic: raskol and raskol'niki referred to the event of the schism itself, to the religious current of the Old Believers up to Solov'ev's day, and more generally to all religious dissent from the Russian Orthodox Church, and as such had a negative connotation. [7] Although Catherine II had instructed that they no longer be used in official documents, they remained widely used. [8] Whenever needed, I try to distinguish between the event [the schism], the religious current [Old Faith or Old Ritualism], and the global term [religious dissent].
b) The historical context: the Old Believers in Russia up to 1900
The Old Believers emerged during a period of profound social upheaval, the late 17th century, as a reaction by Russian Orthodox believers to church reforms. As a religious current within Russian Orthodoxy, it developed throughout Russian history, and in the late 19th century represented by far the most important religious dissident group. [9] Between 1654 and 1666, the energetic patriarch Nikon received from tsar Alexis the leadership over reforms of the religious practices that radically transformed and renewed the Russian Orthodox Church. [10] These notably touched upon theological formulations and liturgical practice, originally taken from Byzantium, but wrongly transmitted by copyists in the course of time. Nikon came up against fierce resistance among both the clergy and numerous layers of the population, who saw themselves, and not the Greeks, as the holders of true faith. The land council [pomestnyj sobor] of 1667 nevertheless adopted the reforms and implemented them in the church. The most important of these reforms were the change in the spelling of Jesus' name (from 'Isus' to 'Iisus'), the number of repetitions of the word alleluia (from two to three), the translation of the creed from Greek to Church Slavonic, and the sign of the cross (from two to three fingers). The council condemned the opponents of the reforms as schismatics and heretics. This religious condemnation was completed by political condemnation through the Decree of 1685, in which the government declared the Old Believers enemies of the state, who had to be pursued and punished as such. This two-fold condemnation determined both the movement of the Old Believers, and the attitude of the state and the church towards them.
In their turn, the Old Believers, led by archpriest Avvakum (1620-1682), rejected the legitimacy of the Nikonian reforms and anathematised them as heretic. [11] The conviction spread rapidly that with the reforms, which had been adopted around 1666 and thus bore the cipher of the Beast (six), the new era of the reign of the Antichrist had begun, which the Old Believers henceforth identified with the patriarch and the tsar. Mass suicide, open rebellion, participation in popular uprisings, and flight in the less accessible parts of the empire were the only ways of opposing the immanent Antichrist. [12]
The Old Believers soon split into two main groups, On the one hand there were the priestless Old Believers [bezpopovcy], notably the sect of the Wanderers, who rejected the church as a whole, considered receiving any sacrament under the reign of the Antichrist impossible, refused all contact with the tsar, and thus rejected registration, passport, taxes and even money. [13] On the other hand, there were the priestly Old Believers [popovcy], who under certain conditions accepted Orthodox priests and on the whole sought integration in Russian society. [14] Some were highly active in merchandising, building industries, and families such as the Rjabusinskijs and Morozovs acquired colossal wealth through great energy, parsimony, appropriate financial operations and a spirit of enterprise, On the whole, their strict work ethic, sobriety, and effective organisation made them good professional partners and explain how they managed to integrate in Russian society. [15] In 1800, a third group called unified faith [edinoverie], which held an intermediary position between the Old Believers and the official church, was promulgated by the official church to lure Old Believers back to the fold, an act that to some extent succeeded. [16]
The Old Believers enjoyed relative toleration, until the reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855) who turned towards harsh repression and harassment of all Old Believers' communities, as they were considered a political and religious danger which should be eliminated. However, the aim to jugulate the movement yielded the opposite results. In the mid-1850s, searching for a legitimate church hierarchy, priestly Old Believers founded a centre in Bukovina, the hierarchy of Belaja Krinica (then under Austrian domination, now in Ukraine), which since then functioned as the official Old Believers church. [17] By 1863, the Old Believers were estimated at about a tenth of the population of Russia as a whole, or one sixth of the Orthodox population. [18] Many took steps towards integration in society and reconciliation with the official church, and often enjoyed tacit respect and support from the common Russian people. [19] Yet they were forbidden to publish and spread their own texts, were regularly repressed in the practice of their faith, and hardly had access to education and official functions.
From 1863 onwards, there were two conflicting tendencies in the government's relationship towards the Old Believers. [20] On the one hand, it maintained the system that had been installed in the 1850s to control the Old Believers by first counting and localizing, and then trying to suppress the Old Faith. In this task, it received the full support from the Holy Synod. [21] On the other hand, excommunication was not always applied strictly. Recognition of the full size of the religious current, contributed to a growing toleration towards the Old Believers. On the whole, Alexander II liberalized the situation by suspending the persecution of Old Ritualist clergy and permitted them to practice the old rites in private. The Old Believers were allowed to join merchant guilds in Moscow, were under certain conditions allowed to found their own schools, and in the 1870s were permitted to legally and civilly register their marriages and children, and to be employed in public positions.
The government of Alexander III was not unfavourable to the Old Believers. Contrary to the Polish Catholics and the Jews, their rights were not suppressed, and they were on the whole tolerated. The church behaved ambiguously towards them, at times supporting poor Old Ritualist monasteries and priests and attempting a rapprochement, while at other times sharply refusing to take any steps towards compromise, and even destroying Old Ritualist places of worship. [22] If nothing was done in favour of greater tolerance, this was due to the hate of Old Ritualism among the influential church circles, including general procurator of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonoscev. In 1883, a law on religious dissent was passed, which attempted primarily to normalise its situation. [23] The Old Believers now had at least some defined rights, but were disappointed not to receive equality of rights with other Christian confessions, and it remains unclear whether in practice this law did much to alleviate their condition. [24] This situation was maintained under Nicholas II, until the Tolerance Act of 1905, which guaranteed freedom to all religious groups.
c) Debates on the Old Believers in the Russian press
By the end of the 1870s, the phenomenon of the Old Faith had invaded both secular and clerical press. [25] Apart from the official reports and statistics, a whole body of literature emerged, accessible for public opinion: many newspapers and journals devoted articles to the latest news about the growing popularity of Old Believers among the peasant population, their literacy, the prosecutions they were suffering (schools, publishing), and trials of Old Believers. [26] Two main questions dominated public debate, 'What was the cause of the schism?' And: 'How to relate to the Old Believers as a whole?' [27] Two main camps can be easily distinguished, one that resolutely opposed the attribution of any rights to the Old Believers (clerical conservatives), the other that claimed their right to practice their religion freely (Slavophiles, liberals, populists). [28]
The conservative clerical camp had a long tradition of a primarily denunciatory attitude with respect to the Old Believers. [29] On the one hand, Konstantin Pobedonoscev worked at eliminating that 'cancerous growth on the Russian body' by actively financing anti-Old Believers literature, an activity that Nikolaj Subbotin trustfully fulfilled. [30] Anti-Old Faith views were also common among the clergy. [31] They considered the governmental and clerical repression of the Old Believers to be fully justified since they were enemies of the state and of the church. On the other hand, professors of religious academies (I. Nil'skij, N.I. Ivanovskij, P.S. Smirnov), as well as church historians (E. Golubinskij and N. Kapterev) studied the Old Faith beyond the cliche of the ignorance and primitiveness of the Old Believers. [32] But even though they diversified the explanation of the schism, they too maintained an exclusively religious and critical approach to the phenomenon as an anomaly. [33]
In the 1880s, the Slavophiles (Ivan Aksakov, Nikita Giljarov-Platonov, Tertij Filippov) also interpreted the issue of the Old Faith primarily through the religious prism, but came to the opposite conclusions. They praised the Old Believers' way of life, which corresponded to their ideal of Russian society situated in the pre-Petrine times, and advocated full freedom for the Old believers to practice their rites. [34] Nevertheless, they ascribed the responsibility of the schism to both the church for its repressing the Old Faith and to the Old Believers for their passionate attitude. Aksakov and Filippov advanced that the only solution to this heated tone from both sides was to call together a council for a joint revaluation of the 1667 Council. In a more scholarly vein, Giljarov-Platonov advocated the investigation of the psychological and historical factors underlying the process of conversion and the religious life of the Old Believers as the only way to explain the existence and success of the Old Faith. [35]
Research indicates that this interest in the Old Believers was not prevalent in liberal circles. [36] The liberals advocated that every religious minority had a right to freedom of confession, hence also the Old Believers. But the convictions of the latter as well as their way of life, which the liberals often identified with isolated communities, were in their eyes the product of a primitive, fanatical and reactionary worldview and provoked horror and rejection on their part. [37]
The populists (Aleksandr Prugavin, losif Kablic) saw a revolutionary potential in the Old Believers' critical attitude with respect to the existing social and political structure, and thus approached the Old Faith as a social and political issue. [38] The Old Faith was a legitimate protest of the people against the suppression of its rights by the state, the church, and capitalist exploitation. [39] Despite state repression and church campaigns, it was becoming a threat. [40] By praising the Old Believers' healthy principles of life (honesty, family and domestic values, equality between men and women, solidarity), their remarkable erudition, their autonomous communities, individual freedom, and their anti- materialistic principles, the populists made the Old Believers' ideals coincide with those of the populist intelligentsia. Both groups shared a dissatisfaction and warned that, if the economic and legal conditions were not improved, it could lead to new waves of fanaticism, and revolutionary acts. [41]
As far as debates among Old Believers are concerned, since the publication and distribution of Old Believers' views were prohibited, only illegal publications circulated. [42] In 1878, a major event occurred with the publication of the newspaper Staroobrjadec in Bukovina. [43] This journal encouraged Old Believers to overcome the divergence of views between the priestly and the priestless Old Believers, to foster education beyond local communities, and to set up public banks in order to provide loans to poor fellow believers. [44] Apart from this foreign publication, discussions took place in circles and fraternities [bratstva] that began to appear in the 1880s, notably in Moscow. [45] Even though the populists, liberals and Slavophiles supported their claim of full legal equality, it seems that they did not interact much with the rest of the Russian press. The Old Believers rather addressed the government directly with protest and the firm demand to be submitted to the same law as all other Russian subjects. [46] However, they had to wait until the Tolerance Act of 1905 to be officially allowed to have their own press mouthpieces, to found circles, to elect their religious leaders, to establish church meetings, and to play a more prominent role in Russian political life. [47]
The issue of the Old believers divided public opinion between detractors (clerical conservatives) and defenders of religious freedom and more civil and ecclesiastical rights for them (Slavophiles, liberals, populists). They were a significant target group of the government's official confessional policy as they represented a significant portion of the Russian population, were economically and socially important, and were a potential threat to the state and the church. The 1883 law provided clarity on the subject, confirming that they did not have freedom of speech and press, public cult or proselytising. Yet, the Old Believers enjoyed certain rights (free movement, trade and industry, some minor official functions, private practice of their rites at home or in special chapels), and they reached important positions, which strongly suggests that, despite their specific way of life, they were better integrated in Russian society than other religious minorities.
2. Solov'ev on the Old Believers
a) Solov 'ev 's texts
Solov'ev became interested in the issue of Old Ritualism in the early 1880s, and continued writing on the matter for the rest of his life. We can find many passages on the topic in the most varied texts, ranging from political publicistika to theological essays, columns, lectures, and his 'Kratkaja Povest' ob Antikhriste'. However, he devoted only one article entirely to the Old Believers, namely 'O raskole v russkom narode i obscestve' (About the Schism in the Russian People and Society]. [48] As a matter of fact, Solov'ev integrated this issue in his primary concerns, namely the attitude of the official church, the principle of freedom of confession, and his ideal of the reunification of the churches. The following three perspectives dictated his approach to the issue. Firstly, sharing their high demands with respect to the official church, he sympathised with their initial criticism of the official church and with their religiosity. Secondly, he defended their right to practice their faith freely. But, thirdly, he disapproved of their theological motives on the basis of which they persisted in refusing to return to the Russian Orthodox Church.
In the essay which inaugurated his career in political publicistika, 'O dukhovnoj vlasti v Rossii' [About Spiritual Power in Russia], published in Ivan Aksakov's journal Rus'. Solov'ev first approached the issue of the Old Believers in 1881 through the prism of a fierce criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church. In his eyes, the latter had abandoned the Orthodox spirit since the reforms of Nikon, as four factors showed. [49] Firstly, it was Nikon who introduced religious persecution, a practice typical for Catholicism or latinism but not for Orthodoxy. [50] Secondly, the church itself organised the land council of 1667 in which the schism was declared. Thirdly, it related to Old Believers as despicably as the Jesuits did in Europe, that is, by remaining indifferent to the faith of the believers, as long as they professed allegiance to the official church. Fourthly, the tempering of persecutions was not due to the intercession of the church, which remained hostile to the Old Believers. In order to repair the damage caused by the council of 1667, Solov'ev called for the church to set up a new council, reject religious censorship as a coercing institution and influence the state to suppress all the repressive measures against all religious minorities. Globally, it was only by giving up external, 'policist' power that the church could show its faith and convince others to join it. [51]
However, not only the church, but also the Old Believers were partly guilty of the schism, as he showed in his subsequent publications. In Velikij spor i khristianskaja politika (1883), he denounced the exclusive patriotism of the church as well as of Russian believers that had led to these breaches in history. [52] From 1882 to 1885, Solov'ev worked on the only article that focussed primarily on the Old Believers and which he published several times in different versions and under different titles. [53] For my analysis the most relevant version is the one that most comprehensively discusses the main theological points of Old Ritualism, namely 'O raskole v russkom narode i obscestve' [About the Schism in the Russian People and Society], published in Pravoslavnoe Obozrenie in 1884. [54] Considering Old Ritualism as a form of sectarianism, he sharply condemned it for its exclusive attachment to the human component of religion-additions and transformations brought about by man in the course of time-at the expense of the divine component. He tried to show the inconsistency of the Old Believers' interpretation of the name of Christ and the symbol of faith. [55] Besides, to the positions of both priestly and priestless Old Believers, he opposed his own definition of the underlying concepts of divine grace [blagodat'] (dependent, not independent of human behaviour), tradition [predanie] (universal, not national), and the visible church (concrete institution, not the substitution or negation of it), arguing that next to liturgy, the church as an institution was a moral condition for the realisation of Christianity.
Passages in texts from the following years testify to Solov'ev's concern for the Old Believers' situation in Russia. His foreword to Istorija i buduscnost' teokratii [History and Future of Theocracy, 1885-1887] opened with the central significance of the schism. [56] Beyond the particular points of dissent, the essence of the schism came down to the substantial question whether 'religious truth has to be determined by a decision of the church power or by the faithfulness of the people to the ancient piety.' [57] While acknowledging the positive aspect of each position, he pointed to the exclusive character of the solutions chosen by the church and the Old Believers respectively. As a result, the separation of the latter from the official church was tantamount to a break of the religious order, whereas this order demanded solidarity between the priests and the people in order to implement a reunification with the West.
On two occasions during his stay in Paris in 1888, Solov'ev mentioned the Old Believers in front of a French audience. First, in his lecture L 'idee russe he alluded to the 'millions of our Old Believers' as 'the true representatives of traditional Russia, of Russia of the past.' [58] Secondly, in Saint Vladimir et l'Etat chretien [St. Vladimir and the Christian State], published in the journal L 'Univers in August 1888, he agreed with the content of the Old Believers' revolt because they denounced the cesaro-papist state and the official church. [59] In his eyes, their movement testified to the fact that the soul of the Russian people was truly Christian.
One year later, in 1889, his comprehensive theological work La Russie et l’Eglise universelle, contained few yet significant pages that combined his positive valuation with his criticism of the schism. [60] He repeated his main points: the weak church power as one cause of the schism; the merit of the Old Believers in having denounced the church's deficiencies; the Old Believers' incapacity to move towards solutions to the schism; their central significance in manifesting the religious feeling of the Russian people, as a prefiguration of the regeneration of Orthodoxy. However, contrary to their conviction, the people alone could not realise its ideal, but should be supported by moral regeneration that comes from higher and supra-national instances.
In 1889, he also published the article 'Neskol'ko slov v zascitu Petra Velikogo' [A Few Words in Defence of Peter the Great] in Vestnik Evropy, which contains a few pages on the Old Believers. [61] Solov'ev considered the schism as the 'main fact of our history' and regarding it from an 'exclusively historical' standpoint, he concluded that although its criticism of the official church was justified, it was not capable of realising its ambition to be the true national church, as demonstrated by its endless fragmentation. [62]
After a silence of seven years on the issue, he came back to a more positive appreciation of the Old Believers. [63] In 'Vizantizm i Rossija' [Byzantinism and Russia, 1896], he recapitulated the sins of Nikon (clericalism, narrow-mindedness, and violence against the people). [64] He also broached the issue twice in his Voskresnye Pis 'ma) [Sunday Letters, 1897-1898]. In Letter IV, entitled 'Cto takoe Rossija' [What is Russia?), he addressed the question of how to define Russia. [65] He put the views of official Orthodoxy and its believers on one side and, on the other, those of the Old Believers on an equal footing. Unity between the two had to be restored, and for this purpose, he advanced one practicable solution, namely a free and all-sided discussion on the burning religious and clerical issues. Unfortunately, so far, Solov'ev concluded, Russia could only be defined in terms of division between its Orthodox believers. Further, in Letter XXII entitled 'Dukhovnoe sostojanie russkogo naroda' [The Spiritual State of the Russian People], he countered the common opinion that the Russian people was growing indifferent to religious matters by referring to two remarkable phenomena: mass suicides among Old Believers as an attempt to escape the census, and the proliferation of sects. [66] He concluded that the effects of persecutions of religious dissenters, like those of Old Believers, were disproportionate with their errors.
Finally, in his' Kratkaja povest' ob Antikhriste' [Short Story about the Antichrist] in which he presented his vision of the end of times featuring the ascension, triumph and ruin of the Antichrist, the Old Believers receive a privileged place. [67] The majority of them return to the Orthodox Church and represent a renewed Orthodoxy. Half of them do not give in to the Antichrist's temptation, and remain faithful to the Orthodox leader, starec loan. [68] This element indicates a sign of recognition on Solov'ev's part of the integrity of the Old Believers. [69]
To summarise, Solov'ev felt the issue of Old Believers to be sufficiently important to express himself on it recurrently. However, these interventions were nearly always integrated into the perspective of a criticism of the official church, a commitment to the reunification of the churches, starting with reconciliation within the Orthodox community, and to religious tolerance, to be applied equally to Orthodox, Jews, Catholic Poles, Old Believers and other religious minorities alike.
His views display both continuity and change. A remarkable continuity can be observed in his commitment to religious freedom as applied to the Old Believers. His valuation of the historical role of the Old Faith, particularly with respect to the fundamental question that it addressed to the church, also returns in his charge against the official organs of the Orthodox Church. Equally firm and continuous, however, is his criticism of the movement. He denounced their attachment to rituals as inconsistent and sharply condemned the existence of a parallel church in the Austrian empire (Belaja Krinica), as well as the radical rejection of the church tout court by the priestless Old Believers.
A perceptible change can be discerned towards his abandoning the idea of their reconversion and a growing respect for their position. After 1885, Solov'ev no longer addressed the Old Believers directly, perhaps because he did not expect any rapprochement from them. Nevertheless, he voiced his admiration for the sincerity of their religious feeling. The Old Believers perhaps also obtained a new 'value' once Solov'ev, beyond his aversion for their reactionary stance, could connect them well with his religious ideal of a Christian society. Without abandoning his criticism of these representatives of the Russia of the past, he valued their firm religiosity.
b) Solov 'ev's views and the history of the Old Believers and their situation in his time
In this section I want to show to what extent Solov'ev's concern with the church had an impact on his approach to the issue of the Old Believers as a whole, emphasising some aspects while leading him to distance himself from others that were perhaps crucial to their condition in his time.
Before embarking on this investigation, a first question that arises from his direct address to the Old Believers in the press is whether he had contacts with some of them. I can only advance hypotheses on this issue. While it is highly improbable that he visited Old Believers communities in the countryside, he was certainly informed regarding the priestly centre of Rogozkoe and the priest less centre of Preobrazenskoe, both in Moscow, and it is likely that he knew, at least by name, prominent figures in Moscow such as Ivan Morozov and Pavel Rjabusinskij. The question then arises from which sources Solov'ev drew his information to write on the Old Believers. First, it is most likely that the many press articles that appeared in the 1880s on the Old Believers formed Solov'ev's most direct source. Secondly, he used official reports, at least those by the general procurator, which he quoted explicitly. [70] Thirdly, although there is no evidence that he read specific literature on the Old Believers, he most probably knew the works of Aksakov and Giljarov-Platonov referred to above. [71] Fourthly, there is reason to believe that his main work of reference was the History of Russia from the Oldest Times written by his father Sergej Solov'ev. Without referring to its source, he quoted in passing words by the 17th century Old Believer Pavel Danilovec to patriarch Joachim, which can be found literally in his father's work. [72] All this might suggest that he was satisfied with secondary literature. However, according to two testimonies, Solov'ev was informed about sources related to the Moscow 1667 council, as well as interviews of Old believers and wanted to use them. [73] Finally, he was informed about the oral disputations occurring between representatives of the official church and of Old Ritualism in Kazan', Kaluga and foremost in Moscow. [74] As for terminology, he followed the common use and indifferently used the terms 'starovery', 'staroobrjadcy', 'raskol'niki', sometimes meaning with the latter not only the Old Believers but also all the other groups that literally 'cut themselves off' from the official church, i.e. the sects. [75] With respect to all of them, he disapproved of their exclusive particularism.
His treatment of the issue of the Old Believers is scattered across many texts and has to be reconstructed. One priority clearly dominated, namely that of the Christian church. This focus informs his whole approach of the history of the schism, of which he discussed the following moments: the roots of the schism, the excessive attitude of the church and of the Old Believers around the 1667 Moscow council, the unified faith, and the hierarchy of Belaja Krinica. The role of the state is also approached as a welcome antidote to the church's excess.
Solov'ev identified the roots of the Old Faith in the Russian context of the 16th century and claimed that the principles to which the Old Believers adhered had actually taken shape in Russia at the time of the Stoglav. [76] They had started to dominate the field of faith and piety, so that 'the universal church disappeared in front of a national or a popular [narodnyj] habit, took the appearance of a universal truth.' [77] This preference for a particular form above all others, in other words, this particularism, was the start of 'all this illness.' [78] However, this was not the main cause of the schism, which was rather provoked by the lack of moral authority of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century. In particular its reaction to the refusal by Orthodox believers to adopt the reform betrayed this weakness. Solov'ev incessantly emphasised the authoritarianism and persecutions decided upon by the church hierarchy and its leader Nikon, which showed that the church had ceased to exert religious authority over its believers, and had to turn to an instrument of the lay power of the state, namely force. [79] He also disapproved of the fact that the Old Believers had separated themselves from the official church. Nonetheless he came to value their defence of religious freedom, as is clear from his admiration for Avvakum as 'the fearless and turbulent leader of the Old Believers, the true representative of the religious freedom of the Russian people.' [80] Worth mentioning at this stage is Solov'ev's use of an invalid historical argument, which he suppressed in a later version of 'O raskole v russkom narode i obscestve'. The Old Believers allegedly reacted to the evil acts of the church and state against them, by leaving the universal church. [81] In this argument on the history of the schism, Solov'ev made two connected mistakes. Historically, the exclusion came from the official powers: it was the church, and then the state, which excluded them from the church and made them enemies of the state. Consequently, the Old Believers decided to go their own way not as a result of repression, as Solov'ev seems to suggest, but as a reaction to the very reforms introduced by the church. [82]
In his historical account of the development of the schism, the official church still occupied the central position. The issue of the cultural and intellectual production of the Old Believers is not dealt with. [83] Solov'ev condemned the attitude of the 'hierarchy of the Russian church' from 1667 until his time as revealing a spirit that was not Orthodox. [84] He rightly emphasised that the church did all it could to obstruct new laws that would improve the condition of the Old Believers. Tolerance came from the side of the state, he stated, and repressions were tempered only thanks to the secular power. Peter the Great replaced persecutions by fiscal measures and Peter III, Catherine II, Alexander I, and Alexander II also contributed to the tempering of religious persecutions. [85] In his short account, however, Solov'ev omitted, probably for the sake of argument, the famous counter-example of Nicholas I, who reintroduced repressive laws against the Old Believers. An interesting argument with respect to tsar Peter the Great is the two-fold cause-effect link that Solov'ev systematically made between the schism and the reign of Peter. First, the tsar reacted to the despotic attitude of the Church in the 17th century by reducing its power and creating the Holy Synod. Secondly, thanks to the limited influence of the Old Faith, cultural and intellectual progress was possible, initiated and realised by Peter. [86] However, here again Solov'ev left aside two historical factors. First, he neglected the measures taken by Peter against the Old Believers, such as fiscal measures as well as direct struggle against them: they represented the backward society Peter strove to eradicate, hindered his reforms and even took part in political opposition. [87] Secondly, it was precisely because the Old Believers had seceded from the official church and thus weakened it that Peter's church reforms towards a state church could be made more easily. [88]
With respect to the 18th century, again, a church issue retained Solov'ev's attention, namely the creation of the unified faith [edinoverie]. He approved of the initiative and defended its propagation in his own time, but lamented the fact that despite correct action of the church power to institute unified faith, the 'abnormal' separation of the Old Believers from the church remained.89 However, the refusal by many Old Believers to join even the unified faith also revealed a more profound cause of the schism. The issue at stake was not the rituals, which they were allowed to practice freely within unified faith, but faith itself. [90]
Far more radical was his criticism of the decision by the priestly Old Believers to install a church hierarchy in Belaja Krinica. He convincingly showed that together with the acceptance of 'fugitive priests' [see footnote 14] this revealed a positive element, i.e. their attachment to the divine foundation of the church. [91] However, this hierarchy was established 'according to anti-canonical processes.' [92] It was most difficult for Solov'ev to accept that they had detached themselves from the church whereas they obviously needed it badly. [93] He argued that in order to be consistent, they had to either reject the church as a whole (fugitive priests and Austrian bishop included), or, if they believed in it, join it. One could object that this was precisely what the priestless Old Believers did, on whom, however, he did not pass any milder judgement.
As far as the situation of the Old Believers in his own time was concerned, Solov'ev did not elaborate on it much, and was rather disinterested in empirical data. He alluded to the recently promulgated law (1883) that tempered the former rules against the schismatics, and briskly concluded that 'they have little reason to complain.' [94] How did he value the social composition and the cultural characteristics of the Old Believers? He only repeated many times his judgement on the ignorance of Old Believers, thereby neglecting the rich cultural heritage, which he perhaps regarded as primitive; only one example shows his positive valuation of their rhetoric, argumentative and theological skills in the disputations between members of the clergy and the Old Believers. [95] He also ignored the Old Believers' economic success in business and industry. Although these features, linked to a strict ethics, could well be compared to those of the Jews, Solov'ev did not make this point. [96] Had he done so, the question then arises whether he would have been able to claim (as he did with respect to the Jews [see case study III]) the Old Believers' ability to form the urban industrial class that Russia was missing. Other evidence testifies to Solov'ev's understanding of Old Ritualism as a religious current of mainly the prostoj narod, the simple and ignorant folk. In the title of the second article 'On the Schism in the Russian People and Society', the expression 'schism in the Russian people' refers to the dissident movement of the Old Believers, whereas the 'schism in Russian educated society' is about other, new sects. While it may be generally true that Old Ritualism attracted mostly peasants, Solov'ev did not take into account the highly cultivated figures among the Old Believers, such as art collector Ivan Morozov, as well as the Muscovite bankers and industrialists. The horrifying mass suicides of Old Believers during the 1897 census only confirmed his impression of a group steeped in confusion and ignorance.
Worth mentioning, finally, is his only attempt at an ethnographic approach, made in a footnote. It is very hasty and his interpretation, assimilating the Old Believers to the Finnish ethnic group, is highly dubious. [97] His demographic considerations were more realistic. He rightly estimated the population of Old Believers at 12-15 million, and, over the years, took them increasingly seriously as a significant group of the Orthodox community. [98] This movement also had to be taken seriously because it arose out of free will, not under constraint. With respect to the future, Solov'ev first dreamt of the Old Believers rejoining the Orthodox Church, but with due time gave up on this thought. As his apocalyptic' Kratkaja povest' ob Antikhriste' suggests, the Old Believers would remain separated from the official church until the coming of the Antichrist.
While dealing with the issue of the Old Believers, Solov'ev primarily focused on topics related to the church, namely the attitude of the official church, the separation of the Old Believers from it, the unified faith, and the hierarchy of Belaja Krinica. Most striking about this expert in theological issues is that he neither examined the writings of Old Believers, nor discussed particular authors such as Avvakum, Denisov or Nikodim, whose works he knew. His criticism of the 'official church' in his time raises the question as to who precisely he condemned in the 'official church': this most certainly included Pobedonoscev, who indeed played a central role in determining the policy with respect to the Old Believers, possibly included the bishops, but is unlikely to have included the lower clergy. Surprisingly, he did not comment on the missionary works initiated by the church among Old Ritualist communities, even though it aimed at the same goal as he did, namely reintegration of the Old Believers in the Orthodox Church.
Solov'ev did not broach the issue of the role of the state in the repression of the schism, except in order to emphasise the positive role of Peter the Great in muzzling the church and in fostering cultural progress against the stagnation of the Old Believers. On the one hand, this was because violence was a part of secular power and hence justified. On the other hand, this related to the fact that he essentially focused on the church, the attitude of which had to change thoroughly. As for the 1883 law, it is unclear whether he perceived its ambiguity. Finally, Solov'ev hardly commented on the development of Old Believers's communities (religious centres, living conditions, cultural and economic role in Russian society). Obviously, the Old Believers counted as an abnormal religious minority that deserved freedom, rather than as a cultural, economic, social or political force. In the following section it becomes obvious to what extent this perception of the Old Believers tried to overcome the limitations of various positions in Russian public opinion.
c) Solov 'ev's views and the ongoing debates in his time
His two-fold position of rejecting the theological motives of the Old Believers on the one hand, while acknowledging the historical significance of their protest for a discussion on the church and defending their right to religious freedom on the other, seems unique and ensured that he could not be ranged under one of the main camps. This was also his explicit intention. Between the rejection by the official church and the defenders of 'the Russian idea', on the one hand, and the protective attitude of 'our liberal and radical "Westernisers'" on the other, Solov'ev aimed to give an 'objective' valuation of the schism devoid of the simplifications that he encountered in the two camps. [99] Since he had 'no motive either to depreciate or to overly praise' it, he considered himself capable of achieving this task. [100] However, his ideal of church reunion perhaps made him more sensitive to the existence of the schism than he was ready to admit. As a matter of fact, one can doubt whether his position was so independent after all.
i) The Slavophiles
Although with the years he increasingly sought to distinguish himself from the Slavophiles, his treatment bore great affinity with theirs. He shared their overwhelmingly religious approach of the issue, as well as the emphasis on the Old Believers' moral integrity and justified condemnation of the official church and state. He explicitly referred to Filippov's work as an authority on the historical justification of the Old Believers' position. [101] Like him, and like Aksakov, he advocated a free council between the official church and the Old Believers to reconsider the Moscow 1667 council. Interestingly, he initially distinguished his position from the Slavophiles' idealisation of the Old Believers as the true bearers of the Orthodox faith and fighters for Christian conscience and spiritual freedom. [102] However, in his later, in general less Slavophile period, he came closer to their position on this point, as we see for instance in 'Kratkaja povest". [103] The issue of the Old Believers turns out to be the very point in which Solov'ev showed most affinity with the Slavophile standpoint through the years, whereas on other issues he had clearly distanced himself from them.
The fact that Ivan Aksakov supported him and was willing to publish his first articles on the issue in his own journal attests to their kinship, He praised the young philosopher's article 'O cerkvi i raskole' as a pioneering work that dealt with the problem of the relationship between the Old Believers and the church correctly and with utmost observation, [104] Besides, in the correspondence between Pobedonoscev and Subbotin, Solov'ev was associated with Aksakov, Their critical publications on church policy in Rus' in 1881, in particular against the repression of the schism, were mentioned together. [105] Years later, Solov'ev quoted largely from Aksakov's criticism of the church in his French lecture. [106] The reaction in the church journal Strannik on Solov'ev's writings on the schism was also positive. [107] The anonymous author praised Solov'ev's theological and philosophical analysis as a unique method that allowed fundamental discussion of the schism.
A similarity of his views with Giljarov-Platonov can also be attested. Solov'ev knew about his publications, but there is no evidence that they discussed the issue together. On the whole, the latter's affinity with the Slavophiles, and at the same time his trust in social progress, his opposition to revolution, his distinction between Christianity and true Orthodoxy and his defence of religious freedom, bring him close to Solov'ev in many respects. However, his treatment of the Old Believers shows more inside knowledge than is present in Solov'ev's dogmatic criticism.
ii) The liberals
With the liberals, Solov'ev shared a defence of religious freedom, as well as other views. For example his aversion with respect to the Old Believers as reactionary and ignorant people bears a liberal influence, arguably that of his father. But his exclusively religious approach differed from that of the liberals. An interesting specimen of their reaction to his approach is a review in Vestnik Evropy of Solov'ev's 1882 article in Rus' on the schism. [108] The anonymous author denounced Solov'ev's exhortation that the Old Believers unify freely with the Orthodox Church as not realistic and tactless. The lack of factual considerations, notably the unequal condition of the Old Believers with respect to the Orthodox believers, as well as Solov'ev's superior tone as the possessor of truth, made his position naive. The practical result of the philosopher's call could be easily predicted: instead of a rapprochement, the existing positions would be reinforced, and would leave the problem intact.
iii) The populists
As for Solov'ev's relationship to the populists, he explicitly rejected their protective attitude towards the Old Believers and their perception of 'the hint of a better future for the Russian people' in the Old Believers' way of life. [109] His use of the cliche of the Old Believers' ignorance, as well as his complete silence about their political, let alone revolutionary potential, showed that he was quite remote from the populist valuation of the Old Believers. Interestingly, like the populists he nevertheless perceived ultra-democratic tendencies and a rebellious spirit in the religious current. Only their interpretation diverged: he denounced it as detrimental to church unity, whereas the populists exalted it as bearing the germ of a future, tsarless society.
iv) The clerical conservatives
Solov'ev saved his fiercest criticism for the clerical conservatives. [110] The Old Believers had to receive the right to practice their religion freely. Besides, the church, that this camp tried to protect from criticism, had acted and still was acting in an un-Christian manner with respect to them. Against the clerical conservatives' overall denigrating attitude, he also argued that it was too easy to see in the Old Believers' attachment to 'orthography rather than to Orthodoxy' the action of 'ignorant and stupid fanatics.' [111] Although he himself repeatedly stressed the ignorance of the Old Believers, he saw both ignorance and fanaticism as accompanying circumstances of the schism, not as its true basis. [112] The mouthpiece of the clerical conservatives Pobedonoscev did not spare his scorn of the philosopher who openly dared to criticise the institution of the church. He called him a 'crazy man' and wrote about 'O dukhovnoj vlasti v Rossii': 'What rubbish he talked [Cto on nagorodil]!' [113]
v) The Old Believers
Lack of documentary evidence excludes an elaborate answer on Solov'ev's direct confrontation with the Old Believers. While his thorough discussion of their main claims (spelling of Jesus Christ and sign of the cross) testifies to the fact that he took the religious minority seriously, other statements that he made seem reductive. Firstly, he misunderstood the Old Ritualist movement by associating it too easily with Protestantism. He claimed that the Russian schism "has within itself the germ of Protestantism', and that, in the Old Believers' eyes, only the individual remains the keeper of the tradition. [114] That salvation is an individual matter, concerns only the individual, and excludes participation of the church, is indeed an element that can be found in some currents within Protestantism. However, this can hardly be applied either to the priestless Old Believers, who had a strong feeling of community, or to the priestly Old Believers, who believed in the fundamental role of the church in religious life. [115] He might also have been wrong when claiming that the Old Believers rejected the idea of a universal church. They did not reject it as such, but the priestless Old Believers did not identify it with the visible church of their time, while the priestly adherents identified it with another hierarchy, namely that of Belaja Krinica.
Secondly, one could argue that Solov'ev was as dogmatic as the Old Believers were themselves. For him, the principle of the authority of the church was as untouchable as the body of the liturgical texts and the religious rituals to the Old Believers. Modern developments in cultural anthropology have shown that the distinction between 'symbolic and concrete structures' is fruitless for a proper approach to the phenomenon of Old Belief. [116] 'For the faithful, pre-Nikonian rituals realised rather than represented heaven on earth.' [117] In the eyes of the Old Believers, liturgy plays a central role in religious life, forming a solid link between the believer and the church, to the extent that during liturgy a fusion of ritual and belief takes place. A change in spelling in religious texts and modification of ritual gestures such as crossing oneself have a profound impact on faith itself. From this perspective, the Old Believers' dogmatic attachment to ancient rituals and liturgy are perhaps more understandable now than one century ago. Quite in conformity with the ideals of his time, Solov'ev reacted in a dogmatic way, which differed from that of the Old Believers inasmuch as it was dictated by rationalist considerations, and condemned the Old Believers' particularism. But he missed, or chose to disregard, essential features of their religious practice, which were after all those of Orthodoxy until the Nikonian reforms. [118] His combination of a defence of religious freedom for the Old Believers with a thorough criticism of their theological assumptions and a direct exhortation to return to the official church, was likely to provoke disapprobation no less than recognition among the Old Believers. [119]
As to a reaction of the Old Believers themselves to Solov'ev's writings, we have one indirect testimony. Aksakov seems to suggest that Old Believers had read his criticism of the official church in 'O dukhovnoj vlasti v Rossii', and appreciated that this criticism came, for a change, not from a 'sectarian' but from an Orthodox thinker. [120] However, he declared that the Old Believers had to distinguish between (their own) dishonest criticism and that of Solov'ev. A few decades later, Old Believer Vladimir Rjabusinskij criticised the initially schematic approach of Solov'ev as too formal, which reminded him of a decision by the court of appeal [kassacionnoe resenie], but appreciated that the philosopher had come to a growing understanding of the Old Faith. [121] Besides, in his concluding words, he approvingly quoted from Solov'ev's Dukhovnye osnovy zizni a passage on intellectual strictness to demonstrate that on that point the philosopher had repeated ideas central to the Old Faith. [122] These comments suggest that Rjabusinskij saw some affinity between Solov'ev's views and those of his fellow Old Believers.
On the whole, Solov'ev's treatment of the issue of the Old Believers is typical for his time in three main respects. Firstly, the religious perspective that he adopted, though with an atypical depth and width of perspective, was present in the debates among the clerical conservatives and the Slavophiles. Secondly, when he later moved this perspective to the background, taking a more general stance in favour of freedom of conscience, he shared this position not only with the Slavophiles, but also with the liberals and the populists. Thirdly, Solov'ev shared with the liberals and the clerical conservatives the cliche of the Old Believers' overall ignorance, and regarded their religious practice as symptomatic for their primitivism. At the same time, however, his approach also had specific features that make his interventions a unique contribution to the debate: he engaged in a thorough critical discussion of their theological claims, which he combined with a positive valuation of their historical role.