Formatting notes: This is the format for quotations.
— Endnotes/footnotes appear in this format. — More information.
Note: Your browser needs access to a Unicode font for some characters to be rendered properly.
Alexei Khomiakov
4 September 1852
Sympathy with Palmer * Difficulty concerning (Re-)baptism: not without precedent in Early Church * Criticism of Palmer's attitude towards Rome and the East * Defence of Greek Church and Russian Church against Palmer's strictures * Scheme for reconciling Anglicans to Orthodoxy * A request * Communion with the departed * Proofs of authenticity of Gospels
Most Reverend and Dear Sir, —
I have just received your letter of the 5th of July and hasten to answer it. First, I must say that I was the more rejoiced at receiving it as, considering some circumstances, I was rather afraid that my letters or your answer were lost in some Post Office, which case is not very rare. Secondly, I am in many respects happy to know that you have for some time been back from the East, of which I suppose you are most heartily tired.
On the other side, I am very grieved to see how many difficulties and afflictions beset every step you take to find the true and direct way in the all-important question of Religion; but you will permit me to consider you position (though with the deepest sympathy, you will believe it), yet with a greater calm than, probably, you can have yourself.
Why is your position difficult?
If you were acting as an individual, seeking truth for yourself alone, there would, it seems, be no difficulty at all. I am very far from excusing the Patriarchs or approving their obstinacy; but still, you must admit that the rite of Rebaptising, having been at different times prescribed or rejected with regard to the same schisms or heresies in the early Church, the obstinacy of the Greek bishops, though perhaps blameable, would not yet give occasion to any very important accusation. The discipline of a whole local Church cannot be expected to be altered for one individual, even were the change for the better. The case is different if you are acting as the representative of an opinion common to a certain number of your countrymen (which I take to be granted). Under these circumstances, the stubbornness of the Greek Church becomes offensive, and seems to indicate a certain want of charity and of desire to extend the realm of the true Faith. If you concede this point, and if you admit that you are acting, not as a mere individual, but as a representative of many others, you must likewise feel the extreme importance either of your failure or of your success; and then you will find it most natural that you should meet with the greatest and even the most unexpected difficulties. Such has been, and will probably ever be, the case when the spiritual futurity of a whole Society is to be decided. Mighty Powers will arise against truth, and will raise mighty obstacles by the permission of God, who wills that patience should be tried as well as faith.
Permit me to express the view I take of your position towards Rome and the Eastern Church, and to appreciate your objections to both. Certainly, I may be biased by my own convictions, and may be wanting in impartiality; no man can answer for himself. But one thing I may answer for, that I will express my opinion as candidly as if I were speaking to my own conscience before the visible Majesty of God.
First for Rome. You do not approve of many tenets of her doctrine. I won't say you are right — this being my own particular opinion has nothing at all to do with your case — but I think you cannot join a doctrine [with which] you do not approve. Your only answer to yourself, the only one given by your Latin friends, is: There must be a visible Church, and that Church must be a free one.
This I admit completely; but, I must add, free in its principles, though not always free in its actions or manifestations, which depend much upon accidental circumstances. But I leave this aside. The Church of Rome is the only free one; ergo, the only true one; and all other doubts must disappear.
This seems to me a false deduction. You doubt your individual judgment with respect to particular tenets. Well, I suppose you are right. But why do you not doubt of the boasted freedom of the Latin community? It seems to me a matter of equal, I will say, of greater doubt still. I will admit the freedom of the pope or of the hierarchical power; but is that the meaning of ecclesiastical freedom? The contrary would perhaps be nearer to truth than the affirmative. And shall such a doubtful test, for which we have no authority in the earlier time of Christianity, overrule convictions founded on a mature consideration of the teaching of the Church as it is expressed by all ancient Fathers? That the Latin community is independent I will concede; but that it has anything like ecclesiastical freedom, the liberty of the Spirit, I totally deny. To get rid of the difficulties of your present position, you may lull your convictions to sleep, you may silence them, even conquer them; you will not uproot them. You will enter the Latin communion, as it were, double-minded, with nothing even like a hope of finding the blessed peace of Christ in an undoubted Faith. Pardon me if I speak thus boldly; but the examples of Mr. Newman and Mr. Allies are, in my opinion, conclusive. They were certainly better Christians formerly than they are now; their open-heartedness is gone for ever; they have crippled themselves instead of expanding. For my part, I will say that, happy as I should be if even a small number of Englishmen were to join the communion of the Church, I could not rejoice if all England were to become Orthodox, with a mind divided by conflicting convictions. Pray, tell me, dear sir, does any Symbol begin with the words: I will believe
, or I will not doubt
? Do not all of them begin with the words, I do believe
?
Now let us return to Greece and Russia.
Here you have no need to say: I will believe
, but you say with all your heart, I do believe
that the tenets of their doctrine are in every respect concordant with the ancient and traditional Faith of the Church Universal. I think this is all in all. But you have objections against the two halves i.e. the Greek Church and the Russian Church of the Orthodox Church, against the one for its want of charity, against the other for its want of liberty. For the first, I believe their fault in your case is more a fault of ignorance than of cold-heartedness. That such is the true construction is, in my opinion, clearly proved by the extreme obstinacy of the Patriarchs. You may not have heard (I think you had left the East before that time) that the Constantinopolitan Synod has almost excommunicated the Russian Church for admitting Protestants and Latins without Rebaptism. The thing had gone very far, though I think it is now taking a more conciliatory turn. This event has been a scandal and source of grief to many of my countrymen; but, grieved as I was myself at the beginning, I soon felt my mind at ease. There was energy, though in a wrong direction, in such a step being taken by a poor enslaved community against the powerful Empire whose aid it wants continually. I respect the feeling. The error will soon be dispelled, and proves nothing against us; local Churches are often inclined to temporary errors, from which they are rescued by their belonging to a Catholic Union. I am even glad that you have given occasion to that misunderstanding. The question must and shall be brought to an issue either by the Greeks adopting our discipline through conviction, and then all is won; or by a declaration that a difference in Rite and Ecclesiastical discipline does not in any way affect the Unity of the Church. It is interesting that he gives no consideration to the possibility of the Russian Church adopting the Greek discipline! Generally, the Russians and the Greeks maintain this difference today, although the trend appears to be towards baptising all converts. Much would be gained, even in that case, particularly for the future; but your difficulty would still remain unsolved. The error, at any rate, was, or is, still an error of ignorance, and proves nothing against charity. But I will confess that I am somehow suspicious of the Greeks. They have no lack of zeal or freedom (the two great reproaches brought against them by the Latins); but they cannot get rid of a dangerous inheritance from Antiquity. They are Christians, but they are, perhaps, unconsciously too proud of their having been useful to the Church; Christianity belongs too much to their national history, and their hearts are not completely free from a certain un-Christian aristocratic feeling which makes them look down on other Christian nations, though Orthodox, as their inferiors. This feeling is akin to the one that has given rise to the Latin usurpation. Though being checked by a deeper understanding of the true doctrine, it cannot go the whole lengths it has gone in the West, yet it is not completely conquered; and it gives the Greeks that unbending stubbornness and that unamiable disposition which you have noticed and experienced. But as long as it does not break out in the assumption of undue pre-eminence and power, it cannot be considered as affecting in the least degree the ecclesiastical character of Greece.
Now for Russia. That the Church is not quite independent of the State, I allow; but let us consider candidly and impartially how far that dependence affects, and whether it does indeed affect, the character of the Church. The question is so important, that it has been debated during this very year by serious men in Russia, and has been brought, I hope, to a satisfactory solution. A society may be dependent in fact and free in principle, or vice versa. The first case is a mere historical accident; the second is the destruction of freedom, and has no other issue but a rebellion and anarchy. The first is the weakness of man; the second the depravity of law. The first is certainly the case in Russia, but the principle are by no means deteriorated. Whether freedom of opinion in civil and political questions is, or is not, too much restrained, is no business of ours as members of the Church (though I, for my part, know that I am almost reduced to complete silence); but the State never interferes directly in the censorship of works written about religious questions. In this respect, I will confess again that the censorship is, in my opinion, most oppressive; but that does not depend upon the State, and is simply the fault of the over-cautious and timid prudence of the higher clergy. I am very far from approving of it, and I know that very useful thoughts and books are lost to the world, or at least to the present generation. But this error, which my reason condemns, has nothing to do with ecclesiastical liberty; and though very good tracts and explanations of the Word of God are oftentimes suppressed on the false supposition of their perusal being dangerous to unenlightened minds, I think that those who suppress the Word of God itself should be the last to condemn the excessive prudence of our ecclesiastical censors. Such a condemnation coming from the Latins would be absurdity itself. But is the action of the Church quite free in Russia? Certainly not; but this depends wholly upon the weakness of her higher representatives, and upon their desire to get the protection of the State, not for themselves, generally speaking, but for the Church. There is certainly a moral error in that want of reliance upon God Himself; but it is an accidental error of persons, and not of the Church, and has nothing to do with our religious convictions. It would be a different case, if there was the smallest instance of a dogmatic error, or something near to it, admitted or suffered without protestation out of weakness; but I defy anybody to find anything like that. It were a strange thing to see the Church judged and condemned for such a weakness of her members, however high in the grades of the hierarchy they may stand, when the Church herself has not even a legitimate way of making enquiry about this. Every other Communion is to be judged on its principles; Orthodoxy alone is to be judged on the mere fact of historical accident! Where is the justice of such a test? Is there anything more scandalous than to see that the Headship of the Pseudo-Catholic Church has belonged for many centuries to men of Italian blood as a privilege? But this is accident and no principle; Latinism does not, and indeed ought not, to have to answer for it. Again, many popes have been true slaves to the power of contemporary kings; Latinism does not and should not answer for it. Again, there have been popes who have bought the tiara and have governed by constant simony; Latinism is not and should not be made answerable for it. And yet, if our Synod fails in courage and firmness — the Church must answer for it?! Indeed, most reverend sir, I do not understand your objections. If Greece lacks science and Russia lacks freedom, well! Russia is enlightened for Greece, and Greece free for Russia! Both will reap the fruits of the particular merits of each of them. Do not, if you please, consider them apart from one another. You are not called to a local, but to a Catholic, Church. Let an Orthodox Community arise in the West (a thing which will happen most undoubtedly), its knowledge and liberty will again be the property of the whole ecclesiastical body. Do not give way (permit me to speak this freely) to momentary despondency, or impatience, or irritation. I understand, I feel, how natural, how very lawful, they are to one in your position (speaking in a human, but not quite a Christian sense), and how guilty are those who, either by their ignorant obstinacy, or by their mean and cowardly cold-heartedness, have given occasion to such feelings; but you must, and I am sure you will, overcome them.
The little Essay I subjoin to my letter not included here will show you that the question which you have to decide for yourself and, I hope, for many others, has not yet, in my opinion, been quite satisfactorily stated, and that it is even much more important than it is generally thought to be.
I must request your indulgence. I know I have no right to give advice or to criticise your proceedings; but the interests at stake are too high to admit of any other language but that of a complete sincerity. You are not satisfied with the reception you have met from the Orthodox Communion, and you have an undoubted right to complain; but, in justice to yourself and to the Church Orthodox, you must consider whether the line you have followed has been such as to afford her a fair trial. As soon as you found that your convictions were in concordance with the doctrines of the Eastern Communion, you could have joined it by two different ways. Either you might have acted as an individual, or as being part of a society whose opinions harmonised with your own. In the first case, every Russian priest had a right to receive you into our Communion without any difficulty; a congregation being formed, it would have organised itself naturally first into a Parochial, and later, into an Episcopal flock. Such is the way in which the greater number of local Churches began; such is the way even with the Latinists in countries where there are no resident bishops. This was the simplest, though I will not say the best way, the more difficult one being often the best in God's Providence. It lies open even now, though perhaps it is no longer so easy as it would have been in the beginning. In the second case, you could act as a member of a society with the consent and co-operation of its other members. The authority to which you would have had to address yourself in that case, would no longer have been a priest, but either an independent bishop or a local Church. Your first steps were directed towards Russia. But what was the Society which asked for admission? And to what authority, to what representative of the Church, did it address itself? Has there even been an address? None; nothing but a project of address. Was it at least officially directed to the Synod? No, for some of the most important members of the Synod have only heard of it as a vague project without any serious import or object. This I can say with perfect confidence. What could be the answer? I know very well that an answer could have been given, if you had addressed the project to a member of the Synod zealous enough to have undertaken the whole business by himself, and to have been your advocate and your guide. You have not had that good luck. I neither know, nor want to know who was the man chosen to be your plenipotentiary, as I have no wish to blame or judge anyone harshly when I am not called upon to do so. God will judge the cold-hearted, or the ambitious, or the evil-minded, or the cowards who have not done their duty towards you and the Church. One thing I know, that Gregory of Kazan, one of the most zealous, active, enlightened, and influential members knew nothing about the whole business, and thanked me for having given him information of it; and one thing more, that some persons — and M——ff is of the number — have been, and still are, very angry with me for having tried to bring the whole proceeding into notoriety and life. I do not want to accuse anyone, nor to awake suspicions that may be more or less unjust; but this much I must say for the vindication of the Church, and even of the Synod (though I have nothing to do with the reputation of the latter): that neither Church nor Synod can be accused of anything in your case. All has been going on in a secret and stealthy manner, quite unworthy not only of the Church, but of those earnest and pious men who wanted to join her Communion. That neither you nor your friends are to blame, I am sure; but you trod on ground with which you were not acquainted, and you have met with dead formalities, known as such to all of us, where you thought to find life and action. But the Church is not to be blamed. She knows nothing, has heard of nothing, has not been called to act or decide. Permit me to state my opinion upon the course you have to follow. I can add that this opinion is corroborated by a good and even a high authority.
If you believe earnestly, as I do not doubt you do, in the purity of the Orthodox Doctrine, and if you do not act as individuals (which would alter the case and bring you simply to call on the first Russian priest you meet with), but as a Society, that Society must act openly and boldly before God and man. It must choose a certain number (let us say, two or three) deputies and address them directly to the Synod with credentials. It must
The deputies must be directed to the Russian Synod and have nothing to do with anyone but the assembly of bishops. To prevent delays, or (as is likewise possible, as we may have more enemies than we know) the hostile intervention of any evil-disposed influence or power, which might try to stifle or suppress the whole proceeding, the deputation and its instructions ought to be made known and public by way of print as much as possible. Letters should be directed, either in the name of the deputies or of the Society, to all the bishops of the Russian Church, and sent to them, requesting their good offices, and a letter circular must be addressed to the whole Church (i.e. clergy and laity) to the same purpose — both made as public as possible. I had forgotten one point. As you have addressed yourself to the Greeks (supposing they do not change their mind), you must say that you address yourself to the Russian Church because of her more indulgent discipline, although you do not question the right of the Greeks to maintain their own discipline. In case of any doubts, you must add a request that the Synod should send a bishop to England, not only for the sake of obtaining information, but with a commission to admit converts, ordain priests, and introduce a Liturgy. Pardon me, dear sir, for taking the liberty to give you these recommendations; but my excuse is, my earnest love, not only for you, but for your country and countrymen, which have been dear to me from my earliest childhood; and my desire to see the Church free from accusations, which are indeed groundless, however well grounded they may seem to be. I may add that I am partly commissioned to make these communications. Supposing you cannot, or you do not, choose to follow this course, the only way left is the one I have spoken of in the beginning, viz., to act as individuals and rely for the future upon God, who can develop the smallest particle to the size of the world. I am afraid every course will only give occasion to mistakes, misunderstandings, and unjust accusations. You have called into life a question between Russia and Greece which, though productive of a temporary disturbance, will certainly be followed in time by favourable results. Let me hope you will yet, by God's Providence, be made instrumental in bringing to light the latent energy of our local Church, which is stifled, not by oppression (always easily resisted), but by a delusive (though unconsciously delusive) protection.
After having taken such liberties in giving advice, I will be more indiscreet still in addressing you a request. I have felt it a duty to answer some accusations which are often directed against us by the Latins, and to show that the whole of religious conviction in Europe stands on such a false basis that its triumph over infidelity is quite impossible. I hope I have shown that clearly. Perhaps I have too high an opinion of my own performances, but it seems to me that neither Protestants nor Latins will find it an easy task to answer the very simple explanation I have given of the difference which exists between the principles and character of the Eastern Church and the Western communities respectively. By putting the religious question in a new light, I hope I may be useful to many of those who are thirsting for truth, but cannot find their way through the intricate web of theological Rationalism. This little tract I have written in the French language, inasmuch as it is the most generally known throughout all Europe. As I have said, I consider it a duty to take up the defence of the Church; I consider it an act of justice to make the voice of Orthodoxy to be heard to our long-estranged brethren in the West; but I have no possibility to give publicity to my Essay. I cannot do it in Russia, where it would be prohibited, either as useless, and giving rise only to unnecessary doubts, or as being simply contrary to the rules of the ecclesiastical censorship. Both assertions would certainly be false, but I am tolerably well-acquainted with the timidity of our ecclesiastical judges and know that such would be the case. I cannot absent myself from Russia to have it printed anywhere else, and have no acquaintances out of Russia to undertake the task. At the moment I received your letter, being uncertain whether you had received mine, and whether you were in England or in the East, I had begun a letter to Mr. George Williams in Cambridge to ask him for that favour. In case you would have the goodness either to arrange for the printing of the MS. in England, or to send it over to Paris or Brussels to be printed (this would, perhaps, be the best plan), I include a cheque for the sum which I suppose would be sufficient for its publication. If it is not enough, I will send more. I know that my request is a very bold one; but hope you will consider me as acting under a sense of justice and duty and that you will not refuse me that friendly service, if it does not give you too much trouble. I do not wish to have my name affixed to the publication, lest personal considerations should interfere with the impartiality of the readers, but if it were said by critics that the boldness of its opinions or expressions is owing to the author's anonymity, I would not only authorise you, but even beg of you to make my name public; for I am sure that I have said nothing but what is agreeable to the undoubted doctrine of the Church, and that nobody in Russia will ever dare to quarrel with me for having done so, though I hope that my expressions are quite strong enough, and even believe that they may perhaps not sound quite agreeable to ears little accustomed to the voice of truth. The Essay was published as Quelques mots par un Chrétien Orthodoxe sur les Communions Occidentales under the pseudonym of Ignotus
. It is contained in the volume L'Eglise Latine et le Protestantisme by Khomiakov, published at Lausanne by B, Benda, 1872, republished in 1969.
My firm conviction, most reverend sir, is that Latinism is nothing but Separatism, and that humanity has only one choice: Catholic Orthodoxy or Infidelity. All middle terms are nothing but preparatory steps towards the latter.
My life, dear sir, is quite changed. Its sunshine and holiday are over; nothing is left but the tug and the labour. Life itself would be worth nothing, but for duty. Certainly, I do not repine, although, if misery is to be measured by the happiness lost, I might almost think that nobody has ever had more cause for grief than have I. Perhaps many others have had the same feeling, for every man is apt to consider his load as the heaviest, but, be that as it may, I do not and cannot repine. I had fore-warnings, but did not know or did not choose to understand them, or to make use of them. Everything is better as it is. It is better for her to be happier, as she certainly is; it is better for me to be no longer as happy as I was. Where loving-kindness has proved ineffectual, rigour is likewise loving-kindness. My present state brings me to the following reflections. As I am now, with a good health, independence, and good little children playing and laughing around me, cannot I be happy? How many millions would consider such a situation a great blessing? Yet, for me, there is nothing in all this which is not an occasion of pain and affliction. Evidently, happiness is only relative, and what I called happiness (for so both of us thought and thanked God for it), was only the shadow of possible happiness, probably because the earthly love which is the only source of happiness on earth is only the shadow of true love.
Will there still after death exist something of the relations that were so dear to us upon earth, or not? I am glad we know nothing about that; this is a merciful dispensation of God. Otherwise, we should probably have a desire for something beyond the grave other than God's presence, and this ought not be. This has nothing to do with the Communion of Souls, about which I have no doubt whatever. You will not, I hope, think these reflections out of season, as you have been yourself so lately visited by affliction.
Accept, most reverend sir, the assurance of the deep respect and sincere affection with which I have the honour to be, your most humble and obedient servant,
A. Khomiakov
4 September 1852
P.S. — If you meet or correspond with Mr. Williams, pray be so good as to recall me to his friendly remembrance.
I have lately chanced to read in the Christian Remembrancer a critical article about Alford's edition of the New Testament, Henry Alford is best remembered for his four volume edition of the New Testament in Greek, which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. where I have found some reflections about the proofs for and against the genuineness of the Gospels. I think that the proofs of their being the work of the Apostles are generally insufficient, or rather, not well chosen. The most important proofs have always been left aside. I mean the proofs which are felt to be so by the artist and the man more than by the learned bookworm. In Saint John, considering the spiritual and mystical character of the whole, a most important fact is the omission of the Eucharistic narrative. It evidently proves that the work had no pretensions to stand by itself, and was intended only as a supplement to written narratives known to the members of the Christian community. The absence of parables and the scanty mention of miracles will be found to lead to the same conclusion, but the most evident proof is certainly in the last chapter. An impartial reader cannot doubt that this chapter is an addition to the first edition which was terminated by the last verse of the foregoing one. Scepticism itself cannot dispute that. Now, let anyone explain how this chapter can have been added to a complete edition by anyone, or in any other time, or for any other reason, except by Saint John himself or by his first disciples, either to dispel a false opinion current in the community, or to explain the unexpected death of the author of the preceding narrative. Is there any other possible explanation? But a disciple would not have added the last verse, and even that supposition (though improbable) would still prove that the first twenty chapters were the work of Saint John, or at least thought to be so in his time. I will add (but this is a digression), that this last chapter has an immense prophetic significance. At any rate, the stamp of contemporaneity is as evident as if we had the first authenticated copy of the book. Again, in the last chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel, we find proof of authenticity which will be perfectly clear to a mind open to the feelings of what I would call artistic or human truth. Did not our hearts burn within us?
There is not a word like that in the whole Gospel, which never speaks of the feelings of the Apostles but in the most vague expressions. But here, we do not read, as might have been expected, Were not his words Divine?
or something to the same purport, but Did not our hearts burn within us?
The eyewitness is evident. A common forger could not have invented such a masterstroke, while a man of genius would not have contented himself with only one. In Saint Mark, the end of the last chapter is again an author's signature, though perhaps less evident. He had not seen our Lord; he was not one of His personal disciples. He is the only one who speaks at any length of the signs by which later disciples were to be known. Is not that a most conclusive feature of what I might call personal interest natural to man, even to the inspired instrument of the Word of God? To speak generally, it seems to me that all the critical literature concerning the Scriptures sins by reason of a complete absence of simplicity in its aims and views, and this is greatly due to the bookworm character of the great critics of our time, the Germans (though I have the greatest admiration for them), and to the rhetorical tendency of the earlier critics, the Greeks.
Validated as Strict HTML 4.01 — before Geocities got hold of it!