“Pomorian Answers”: On the Attitude Toward State Authority and Toward Heterodoxy. -Shakhov.
By Mikhail Olegovich Shakhov.
Already in the first decades after the Schism, the state authorities and the official Church acted together as persecutors of the zealots of the ancient piety. Old Belief then faced the necessity of defining its attitude toward the state and toward society. It had to formulate its social position.
The “Pomorian Answers” made their own laconic but very weighty contribution to this task. The principles outlined in the “Pomorian Answers” remain relevant even in our own day.
If we turn to the history of European sectarian and heretical movements, we can easily discover something. Many of them possessed a clearly expressed, theoretically and doctrinally substantiated anti-state, democratic-socialist orientation. In some sects, this reached the point of complete anarchism and the denial of any statehood whatsoever. A striking example is the Anabaptists in 16th-century Germany.
Relying on their own interpretation of Holy Scripture, the heretics preached material equality. The Anabaptists even preached intellectual equality—by destroying libraries. They rejected judicial proceedings, oaths, military service, and the estate structure of society.
After the anathemas of the Council of 1667, and under the influence of the ever-growing scale and cruelty of the repressions, the Old Believer thinkers were forced to abandon the hope of the tsar’s return to the true faith. The deviation of the highest civil and ecclesiastical authorities from the ancient piety—together with the cruel persecutions—confirmed them in one conviction. The last stronghold of Orthodoxy, the Third Rome, had fallen.
The governmental repressions acquired a special significance in the religious consciousness of the zealots of antiquity. They became a vivid confirmation of this thesis. They also became a stumbling block for their civic conscience.
Indeed, if the civil authority lost its right to former respect and lost all authority, then obedience to such authority was no longer entirely natural. Moreover, if the tsar was a servant or instrument of the Antichrist, then obedience to him would be a sin—a service to the Antichrist himself. Struggle and resistance to such a tsar would seem to be a God-pleasing deed.
However, the spiritual leaders of the Old Believers did not draw such a radical conclusion. They did not elevate the struggle against the state to the level of a religious doctrine. The defense of Old Belief against governmental persecutions was of a passive character. Even the most radically inclined Old Believers preferred not armed struggle, but flight to remote regions.
P.I. Melnikov wrote: “Can one fail to recognize the true dignity in the long-suffering patience of the Russian people, which is evident in our schismatics? Had this been in the West, long ago rivers of blood would have flowed—as they flowed during the Reformation or the Thirty Years’ War, the religious wars in England.”
Thus, in contrast to heresies that possessed a definite doctrine, concept, and theological justification for the transformation or abolition of the state, the Old Believer doctrine remained alien to the problems of the political restructuring of the state and society. It did not act as a carrier of the idea of the violent establishment of religious ideals of social justice.
It is indicative that Old Believer literature—whose total volume is enormous—completely ignores issues of state and social structure. All questions arising from the position of Old Belief within a state that is heterodox to it concerned the Old Believers only in one aspect: Is it possible under these conditions to preserve the “ancient piety”?
In all Old Believer writings there is one tendency, one coloring—religious. Not a single word against the life of the state. Not a single hint at the injustice of the social order. Not a single complaint about economic conditions. There are speeches about worldly well-being and mentions of public calamities—but exclusively in connection with religious causes.
Drawing on the theory drawn from Old Testament history—that the transgressions and impiety of the tsar bring down God’s punishment upon the entire people—Old Believer writers pointed to the cause of the sufferings being experienced and those that might yet come. They pointed not in the centralization of state power, not in the trampling of zemstvo rights, not in economic exploitation—but exclusively in the betrayal of the ancient piety.
I.F. Nilsky asserts that Old Believer writings accurately reflect the real interests and views of the Old Believers. The assumption that they did not speak fully openly out of fear of governmental persecution is completely unfounded. Therefore, the absence of social protest in Old Believer literature adequately expresses the absence among the Old Believers of interest in secular social problems.
As is well known, the “Pomorian Answers” were written precisely as answers to the questions of the Synodal missionary hieromonk Neofit. He sought to provoke the Old Believers into statements that could be qualified as an insult to the monarch and the official Church.
Neofit asked: “Does our pious sovereign the Emperor Peter the Great and Autocrat of All Russia, and the Most Holy Governing Synod, and all Orthodox Christians (i.e., the reformed Orthodox) truly and with firm hope have the hope of obtaining salvation, or do you reckon them as Orthodox or count them among some kind of heretics, those who have fallen away from the Eastern Church?” (question 52). And: “For what guilt do people now in the (new-rite) church not attain salvation, but perish?” (question 78).
In the “Pomorian Answers,” on the questions of whether Emperor Peter I, the Synod, and the followers of the new-rite church are Orthodox, it is repeatedly emphasized that the Old Believers do not consider themselves entitled to pass judgment on the piety of the sovereign and the authorities. Only the Lord Himself can judge who abides in the true faith and who will save his soul.
Doubting the Nikonian innovations, the Old Believers said: “We do not examine his Imperial Majesty’s Orthodoxy, but we willingly desire every good for his God-loving Majesty and we pray to the Lord God for it. (…) We do not despise the Most Holy Governing Synod, but we honor it reverently, and we do not revile the episcopal dignity with dishonorable words” (answer 52). And: “To judge others whether they are being saved or not, and for what guilt—this we do not dare, nor do we strive to write articles on this, for we utterly refuse to judge others” (answer 78).
Of course, one must take into account the forced evasiveness of the Old Believers answering the questions of the missionary who sought to convict them of disloyalty to the authorities. But the position taken by the Old Believers is principled. We do not judge other people—the authorities and clergy who have chosen their own path in religious life. We only strive ourselves to follow the patristic tradition and ask that we not be hindered in this.
Characterizing the social position that Old Belief consistently adhered to, two fundamental points must be highlighted:
— Do not judge the salvific quality, truth, or falsity of another faith. Do not judge the righteousness and piety of people of another faith. But preserve one’s own fidelity to Ancient Orthodoxy. Stand for one’s right to preserve the ancient piety.
— The second principle, formulated by the remarkable Old Believer thinker of the 20th century A.V. Antonov: “Old Belief is resistance to evil by non-violence.” In response to evil, to injustice, to discrimination, we do not rebel. We do not resort to violence. But we resist evil by doing good within the framework of law-abidingness. We build churches, engage in charity, preserve spiritual heritage. In a word, we build our own rather than destroy what is alien—even if it is unrighteous.
In the fair opinion of P.I. Melnikov—who specially studied the question of the socio-political moods of the Old Believers—even the most radically inclined Old Believer bezpopovtsy (priestless), who refused to pray for the tsar, in principle recognized the necessity of tsarist authority. They were alien to anti-monarchical and democratic aspirations.
Old Believer writers always proudly mentioned the origin from noble boyar and princely families of the boyarynya Morozova, Princess Urusova, the brothers Denisov (princes Myshetsky). On the contrary, the attempts of A.I. Herzen and V.N. Kelsiev to spread revolutionary-democratic propaganda among the Old Believers met with complete failure.
The Old Believer metropolitan Kirill, in his epistle to the Russian priestly Old Believers, warned them against all enemies and traitors to the tsar—“especially against the malicious atheists nesting in London and from there disturbing the European powers with their writings. Flee therefore from those accursed ones… for they are forerunners of the Antichrist, striving through anarchy to prepare the way for the son of perdition.”
The priestless (bezpopovtsy) soglasie (agreements)—which in the imagination of adherents of theories about a “peasant anti-church movement” appeared to represent an even more favorable environment for revolutionary work—in fact shunned contacts with “unfaithful” revolutionary propagandists no less than with Nikonian heretics. We have not succeeded in finding any information about the success of Narodnik propaganda attempts among the bezpopovtsy.
The Old Believers of the Preobrazhensky Almshouse presented to Emperor Alexander II, on April 17, 1863, in the Winter Palace, a most loyal address. It stated: “Great Sovereign! Many voices are raised to your throne: permit us also to speak our truth: Traitors and agitators sought to slander us before the whole world and to equate us with themselves. They lied about us. We preserve our rite, but we are your faithful subjects. We have always obeyed the powers that be. But to you, Tsar-Liberator, we are devoted with our hearts. In the novelties of your reign we hear our ancient ways. Upon you, Sovereign, rests the spirit of our virtuous Tsars. Not only in body, but in soul we are Russian people. Russia is our native mother; we are always ready to suffer and die for her. Our ancestors were Russian people, they labored on the Russian Land, and died for it. Shall we disgrace the memory of our fathers and grandfathers and of all Russian Christians from whom we received our blood? Enemies, plotting against your dominion, kindle rebellion in Poland and threaten us with war. Great Sovereign! The right hand of God exalted the dominion of your ancestors: it will grant the Tsar-Liberator victory over the ancient enemies and oppressors of the Russian Land, who tore the Russian people from their roots and violated their faith. Your throne and the Russian Land are not alien goods to us, but our own by blood. We shall not be slow to appear in their defense and will give for them all our possessions and our lives. May your dominion not diminish, but be magnified; may our ancestors not be put to shame in us; may our Russian antiquity rejoice in you. All our hopes are in you, and our devotion to your throne is unshakable. Reign long, Great Sovereign, to the glory of Russia and to the consolation of your faithful subjects!”
Alexander II replied to this address with the following words: “I am glad to hear from you and thank you for your sympathy with the common cause. They wanted to blacken you before me, but I did not believe it, and I am convinced that you are as faithful subjects as all the rest. You are my children, and I am your father, and I pray to God for you, just as I do for all who, like you, are close to my heart.”
Three hundred years after the writing of the “Pomorian Answers”, much in Russia has radically changed. The persecutions of Old Belief carried out by the state and the official Church have receded into the past. In our day Old Belief steadfastly preserves the Ancient Orthodox faith—without departing from the negative attitude toward the Nikonian reform that was laid down by the first defenders of Ancient Orthodoxy.
But in the modern world, when the preservation of traditional spiritual and moral values has acquired paramount importance for the preservation of Russia, the social position of Old Belief—its dialogue with Russian society and the state—must develop on the principles laid down in the “Pomorian Answers”: not to become a judge of people of another faith, but to preserve one’s own faith, showing respect and tolerance, finding the possibility of peaceful coexistence and service to the common good.