favour ? This is the problem. Is it the property of the Greek religion to remain thus stationary, contenting itself with external marks of respect ? Is such a result inevitable whenever the spiritual power falls into absolute dependence upon the temporal? I believe so: but this is what I could have wished to be able to prove by means of facts and documents. However I will, in a few words, give the resiut of my observations on the relations between the Russian clergy and people.
I have seen in Russia a Christian church, which no one attacks, which every one, in appearance at least, respects — a church which every thing favours in the exercise of its moral authority; and yet this church has no influence over the heart; it makes no other than hypocritical or superstitious votaries.
In a land where religion is not respected, it is not responsible: but here, where all the influence of absolute power aids the priest in the accomplishment of 'his work, where doctrine is not attacked either in print or in discourse, where religious practices have, so to speak, become a law of the state, where the customs of the people, which among us oppose faith, serve its cause, the church may be reasonably reproached for its sterility. That church is lifeless; and yet, to judge by what passes in Poland, it can persecute, though it has not the high virtues and talents that might enable it to proselyte : in short, the Russian church, like every thing else in the country, wants that spirit of liberty without which the light of life goes out.
Occidental Europe is not aware of the degree of religious intolerance that enters into Russian policy.
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The worship of the United Greeks (the
Some years ago, a man of mind, and highly esteemed by every one in Moscow, noble both by birth and character, but, unfortunately for himself, devoured with a love of truth — a passion dangerous everywhere, but mortally so in Russia, — ventured to print that the Catholic religion is more favourable to the development of mind, and to the progress of arts, than the Russian Byzantine. The life of the Catholic priest, he says in his book, a life altogether supernatural, or which at least ought to be so, is a voluntary and daily sacrifice of the gross inclinations of nature ; a sacrifice incessantly renewed on the altar of faith, to prove to the most incredulous that man is not subjected in all things to the tyranny of material laws, and that he may receive from a superior power means of escaping from them: he adds, ' By virtue of the changes operated by time, the Catholic religion can no longer employ her virtuality except in doing good:' in fact, he maintained, that Catholicism was wanting to the great destinies of the Slavonian race, because in it alone could, at the same time, be found, sustained enthusiasm, perfect charity and pure discernment ; he supported his opinion by a great number of proofs, and endeavoured to show the advantages of an independent, that is an universal religion, over local or politically-limited religions ; in short, he professed an opinion which I shall never cease to defend with all my powers.
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Even the faults in the character of the Russian women are by this writer attributed to the Greek religion. He pretends that if they are light and frivolous, and do not know how to preserve the authority in their families which it is the duty of a Christian wife and mother to exercise, it is because they have never received real religious instruction.
This book having escaped, I do not know by what miracle or subterfuge, the vigilance of the censorship, set Russia in a blaze. Petersburg, and Moscow the holy city, uttered cries of rage and alarm; in short, the consciences of the faithful were so disturbed, that, from one end of the empire to the other, was demanded the punishment of this imprudent advocate of the mother of the Christian churches, an advocacy which did not save him from being reviled as an innovator: for — and this is not one of the smallest inconsistencies of the human mind, almost always in contradiction with itself in the comedies which it plays upon this world — the motto of all sectarians and schismatics is, that we should respect the religion under which we are born — a truth too much forgotten by Luther and
Calvin ;in fine, the knout, Siberia, the mines,
the galleys, the fortresses of all the Russias, were not enough to reassure Moscow and her Byzantine orthodoxy against the ambition of Rome, aided by the impious doctrine of a traitor to his God and country.
The sentence which was to decide the fate of so great a criminal was expected with the deepest anxiety; it was long in appearing, and the people began to doubt in supreme justice : at last, the emperor, in his unfeeling mercy, declared that there was no ground for punishment, that there was no criminal to make
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an example of, but that there was a madman to shut up; and he added that the diseased man should be placed under medical care.
This judgment was put in execution without delay, and in so severe a manner that the reputed madman thought he should have justified the derisive decree of the absolute head of church and state. The martyr of truth had very nearly lost the reason that was
The pretended madman may now communicate with a few friends. It was proposed, during my stay in Moscow, to take me to see him in his retreat, but mingled fear and pity withheld me ; for my curiosity would have appeared to him insulting. I did not learn what was the punishment of the censors of his book.
This is a quite recent example of the mode of treating affairs of conscience in Russia. I ask again, for the last time, if the traveller so fortunate or unfortunate as to have learnt such facts, has the right to let them remain unknown? In things of this kind, what we positively know enlightens us with regard to what Ave surmise; and from all these things together there results a conviction which we feel under an obligation of communicating to the world if we are able.
I speak without personal hatred, but also without
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PAKALLEL BETWEEN
fear or restriction; for I brave the danger even of wearying.
The country that I have just surveyed is as sombre and monotonous as that which I described formerly is brilliant and varied. To draw its exact picture is to renounce the hope to please. In Russia, life is as gloomy as in Andalusia it is gay ; the Russians are as dull as the Spaniards are full of spirits. In Spain, the absence of political liberty is compensated by a personal independence which perhaps exists nowhere to the same extent, and the
