A CONFESSION [33]
who explained it all and explained it so that I never asked any one
any more about it. I said that for every unbeliever turning to a
belief (and all our young generation are in a position to do so)
the question that presents itself first is, why is truth not in
Lutheranism nor in Catholicism, but in Orthodoxy? Educated in the
high school he cannot help knowing what the peasants do not know --
that the Protestants and Catholics equally affirm that their faith
is the only true one. Historical evidence, twisted by each
religion in its own favour, is insufficient. Is it not possible,
said I, to understand the teaching in a loftier way, so that from
its height the differences should disappear, as they do for one who
believes truly? Can we not go further along a path like the one we
are following with the Old-Believers? They emphasize the fact that
they have a differently shaped cross and different alleluias and a
different procession round the altar. We reply: You believe in
the Nicene Creed, in the seven sacraments, and so do we. Let us
hold to that, and in other matters do as you pease. We have united
with them by placing the essentials of faith above the
unessentials. Now with the Catholics can we not say: You believe
in so and so and in so and so, which are the chief things, and as
for the Filioque clause and the Pope -- do as you please. Can we
not say the same to the Protestants, uniting with them in what is
most important?
My interlocutor agreed with my thoughts, but told me that such
conceptions would bring reproach o the spiritual authorities for
deserting the faith of our forefathers, and this would produce a
schism; and the vocation of the spiritual authorities is to
safeguard in all its purity the Greco-Russian Orthodox faith
inherited from our forefathers.
And I understood it all. I am seeking a faith, the power of
life; and they are seeking the best way to fulfil in the eyes of
men certain human obligations. and fulfilling these human affairs
they fulfil them in a human way. However much they may talk of
their pity for their erring brethren, and of addressing prayers for
them to the throne of the Almighty -- to carry out human purposes
violence is necessary, and it has always been applied and is and
will be applied. If of two religions each considers itself true
and the other false, then men desiring to attract others to the
truth will preach their own doctrine. And if a false teaching is
preached to the inexperienced sons of their Church -- which as the
truth -- then that Church cannot but burn the books and remove the
man who is misleading its sons. What is to be done with a
sectarian -- burning, in the opinion of the Orthodox, with the fire
of false doctrine -- who in the most important affair of life, in
faith, misleads the sons of the Church? What can be done with him
except to cut off his head or to incarcerate him? Under the Tsar
Alexis Mikhaylovich people were burned at the stake, that is to
say, the severest method of punishment of the time was applied, and
in our day also the severest method of punishment is applied --
detention in solitary confinement. [Footnote: At the time this
was written capital punishment was considered to be abolished in
Russia. -- A.M.]
The second relation of the Church to a question of life was
with regard to war and executions.
At that time Russia was at war. And Russians, in the name of
Christian love, began to kill their fellow men. It was impossible
not to think about this, and not to see that killing is an evil
repugnant to the first principles of any faith. Yet prayers were
said in the churches for the success of our arms, and the teachers
of the Faith acknowledged killing to be an act resulting from the
Faith. And besides the murders during the war, I saw, during the
disturbances which followed the war, Church dignitaries and
teachers and monks of the lesser and stricter orders who approved
the killing of helpless, erring youths. And I took note of all