Alexander Schmemann

6. Russian Orthodoxy (41 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 15

Independence from Byzantium — Messianic Theocracy.

Dependence of the Russian Church on Byzantium — weakened, and corrupted by its weakness — became less and less justified by the facts and more and more oppressive. Even at the beginning of the fifteenth century the Grand Prince Vasili Dmitrievich of Moscow was obliged to listen to lessons on Byzantine theocratic theory, an example of which we find in an epistle of Antony, the patriarch of Constantinople, to the prince.

The Holy Emperor occupies a high place in the Church; he is not the same as other local princes and lords. The Emperors in the beginning established and maintained piety throughout the universe; they summoned the ecumenical councils; by their laws they established the observance of what the divine and sacred laws say of right dogmas and the proper ordering of Christian life, and they took many measures against heresy. And if with God’s permission pagans have surrounded the possessions and lands of the Emperor, still until this day he is anointed by the great myrrh according the same ceremony and with the same prayers, and is crowned Emperor of all Christians. In any place, wherever Christians may be, the name of the Emperor is mentioned by all patriarchs, metropolitans and bishops, and no other princes or local rulers have this advantage . . . It is impossible for Christians to have the Church but not to have the Emperor. For Empire and Church are in close union and it is impossible to divide them from each other.

We have already learned how profoundly this theory was reflected in the history of the southern Slavic empires, literally bewitched by the theocratic dream. Law-abiding Russia accepted it unconditionally for centuries, although it sometimes attempted to weaken its ecclesiastical dependence on Constantinople.

One must add to this that — under the influence of gloomy reality, Mongol slavery, and general ruin — eschatological expectations generally increased in Russia toward the end of the fourteenth century. For example, it was said in Moscow of the work of St.
Stephen of Perm, who translated Christian literature for his flock: “Before there was no literacy in Perm — why invent it now, after seven thousand years, a hundred and twenty years before the end?” Obviously the fall of the empire, the betrayal by the Greeks, and in particular the place of Moscow in all these events had acquired a new significance. Before this period Byzantium had been the standard of Orthodoxy; the Russians could tranquilly build churches and monasteries, pray to God, and develop their state, for behind it all stood the guarantee of universal Byzantine Orthodoxy and its infallible authority. But now the standard disappeared and the authority came crashing down. “At the holy place, in what has been the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Constantinople, there is now abomination and desolation.”

 

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