Russia, one of the largest empires of the world, containing in 1881 an area of 8,500,000 square miles, and a population of 103,716,232 souls, has under its rule about one sixth of the entire surface of the earth, and still continues to expand in Asia. It is in point of territory about equalled by the British empire, but is more than twice as large as any other country. Among the Christian nations it is the foremost standard bearer of the interests of the Greek Church, being not only the only large state in which this Church prevails, but containing within its borders fully seventy-seven percent of the aggregate population connected with it. More than any Catholic or Protestant state, the government of Russia uses its political influence for advancing the power of its official Church at home as well as abroad; and has recently not only cooperated in the reestablishment of a number of independent coreligious states in the Balkan peninsula, but is rapidly planting the creed of the Greek Church among the subjected tribes of Asia, and also, to some extent, in the adjacent countries. The Russian empire, by its vast conquests in Europe and Asia, embraces a variety of religions, even the Mohammedan and heathen. The relation of the state to other forms of religion is deter, mined by Article 40 et seq. of the first volume of the Russian law, as follows: “The ruling faith in the Russian empire is the Christian Orthodox Eastern Catholic declaration of belief. Religious liberty is not only assured to Christians of other denominations, but also to Jews, Mohammedans, and pagans, so that all people living in Russia may worship God according to the laws and faith of their ancestors.” This law, however, is interpreted in such a manner as to mean that religious liberty is assured only so long as a member of an umnorthodox Church adheres to the faith in which he was born; but all unorthodox churches are forbidden to receive as members proselytes from other churches. A severe penalty is imposed upon any one who leaves a Christian for a non-Christian religion.
I. The Russian Church. —
1. Its Origin and Progress.— The Russian empire begins with the elevation in 862 of the Norman Ruric to the throne. At that time, the territory inhabited by the Russians was without Christian churches. A Russian tradition, according to which the apostle Andrew had planted the first cross at Kief, cannot be authenticated. Tertullian, Origen, and Chrysostom speak of the triumphs of Christianity among the Scythians and Sarmatians, and a doubtful inference has been drawn from their words that Christianity had also made converts among the Russians at this early period. If really any congregations were organized, they perished during the migration of nations. It is reported that in the 9th century patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople sent again missionaries to the Russians, and patriarch Photius praised them for their enthusiastic desire for the Gospel — a praise which was not verified by subsequent events. In 955, Olga, the widow of Igor (912943) and regent of Russia during the minority of her son Svatoslav, procured baptism for herself in Constantinople from the patriarch Theophylact, and had her name changed to Helena; but even to the close of her life she could enjoy the services of a Christian priest only in secret. Her pious desire to see her son converted was not fulfilled; but her grandson Vladimir I (980-1014), called Isapostolos (apostle-like), not only embraced Christianity himself (988), but at once decided the triumph of Christianity in the empire. After investigating the conflicting claims of Mohammedanism, Judaism, and Christianity, as represented by missionaries of these various creeds, he was won over by the enthusiastic accounts which his ambassadors to Constantinople made of the splendor of the Eastern service in the Church of Sophia. The people cried when the images of Peroun and other gods were cast into the Dnieper, but without active resistance yielded to the demand of Vladimir that the people be baptized. His son Yaroslav (1019-54) nearly completed the conversion of the Russians who remained in close connection with the see of Constantinople. A metropolitan see was established at Kief, which was called a second Constantinople. The fifth metropolitan, Hilarion (105172), was elected by order of grand-duke Yaroslav at the Council of Kief without the cooperation of the patriarch of Constantinople. A cave convent (Peczera) at Kief became in the 11th century a famous seminary of the Russian clergy and a flourishing seat of Russian literature. Here the monk Nestor (1056-1111) wrote his Annals, the chief source of information for the earliest history of the Russian Church. The rapid growth of the Church, and the great practical strength which it displayed so soon after its establishment, naturally attract the attention of the Church historians, who attribute it chiefly to the fact that the Church, at its foundation, found the translation of the Bible by Cyril and Methodius into the national Slavonic, language ready for use. The practical strength displayed by the Russian Church at so early a period is the more surprising, as Russia alone among the European nations (unless Spain and Hungary be counted exceptions) was Christianized without the agency of missionaries, and chiefly by the direct example, influence, or command of its prince. The Russian Church has dignified its founder, prince Vladimir, with the name of saint, and the same honor has been conferred upon another prince of the 13th century, Alexander Nevski, so called from a victory on the banks of the Neva, in which he repulsed the Swedes. Besides these two saints, two other princes are held in high veneration — the one, Yaroslav (1017), for introducing the Byzantine canon law and the first beginnings of Christian education; the other, Vladimir I1, surnamed Monomachos, for being a model of a just and religious ruler. Ivan I transferred (1325) his residence, and with it the primacy of the Russian Church, from Kief to Moscow. Gradually the metropolitans of the Russian Church became independent of Constantinople. In the middle of the 17th century, Jonah was appointed by the grand-prince metropolitan of Moscow, and recognized by a synod of all the Russian bishops held at Moscow as metropolitan of Russia. He was the first in whose appointment “the great Church” had no direct share. The metropolitan of Moscow remained, however, in close and friendly relations with the patriarchs of the Byzantine empire, and conjointly with them the metropolitan Isidor attended the Union Council of Florence. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 smoothed the way for an entire independence of the Russian Church, which, however, was not fully established until 1587. In that year, the patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople, while visiting Russia to obtain support, consented to turn the metropolitan of Moscow into a patriarch in the person of Job, the patriarchate of Russia thus taking, in the opinion of the Eastern bishops, the place of the schismatic patriarch of Rome. It was further arranged that the Church of Russia be governed by four metropolitans, six archbishops, and fight bishops. Soon after, the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem, sixty-five metropolitans and eleven archbishops of the Byzantine Church, declared their concurrence in the independent organization of the Russian Church. The Muscovite patriarchs continued, however, to apply to Constantinople for confirmation until 1657. Soon after, in 1660, the Russian ambassador received from patriarch Dionysius II of Constantinople and the other Greek patriarchs the documentary declaration that the Russian patriarch night in future be elected by his own clergy without needing a confirmation by the Greek patriarchs. The Roman popes of the 16th century, especially Leo X, Clement VII, and Gregory XIII, made renewed efforts for gaining over the Russian Church to a union with Rome. When Ivan Vasilivitch (1533-84) had been defeated by the Poles, he intimated a readiness (1581) to unite with the Roman Catholic Church as long as he needed the help of the emperor and the mediation of the pope. Gregory XIII sent the Jesuit Possevino to the grandprince, who held a religious disputation with the Russians, in which the grand-prince himself took part. Possevino was, in the end, unsuccessful in Russia; but in those Russian provinces which fell with Lithuania into the hands of the Poles, his efforts had the desired effect. The metropolitan Rahoza of Kief. keenly offended by the patriarchs Jeremiah and Job, convoked the bishops of his metropolitan district to a synod held at Brzesc (1593), where the union with Rome was effected in conformity with the agreement which had been formed in Florence, with a great respect at first for old ancestral usages. Clement VIII announced the union to the Catholic world in his bull Magnus Dominus ac laudabilis, and confirmed the metropolitan in the possession of his traditional rights of jurisdiction (1596), including the right of confirming the bishops of his metropolitan diocese; only the metropolitan himself was to apply to the papal nuncio in Poland for confirmation. For that part of the Russian Church which refused to enter into the union with Rome, Peter Mogila was in 1633 elected orthodox metropolitan of Kief, with the approbation of king Vladoslav IV. As a bar against the further advance of Roman Catholic and Protestant views, Mogila composed (1642) a catechism, which was confirmed by all the patriarchs as an official confession of the orthodox Eastern Church.
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Author: McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia
Keywords: Russia
Source: John McClintock and James Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.
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