The Log House Has Not Burned Down - It is Still Burning. Part 3. #

V.V. Buzhinsky

To learn more about the disasters of the 1920s and 1930s, one can consult the works of modern historians. Some place the blame for all misfortunes on the Bolshevik regime. Others—those with nationalistic leanings—blame Moscow and the Russians.

Yet, several millennia before the events in question, Holy Scripture described in minute detail precisely what would befall us. This astonishingly photographic accuracy of events occurring thousands of years later may cause even the unbeliever to pause and reflect. In the Scriptures, God names both the true culprits of all calamities and their true causes…

“But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee” (Deuteronomy 28:15). “Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy cattle and the flocks of thy sheep. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken Me” (Deut. 28:16–20). “The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee” (Deut. 28:21). “The Lord shall smite thee with consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew” (Deut. 28:22). “And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air” (Deut. 28:26). “Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof” (Deut. 28:30). “The fruit of thy land, and all thy labors, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway” (Deut. 28:33). “The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations” (Deut. 28:36–37). “Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity” (Deut. 28:41). “The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail” (Deut. 28:43–44). “The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young” (Deut. 28:49–50). “And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (Deut. 28:53).

And all of this has come upon us. The ritual murder of the Tsar, ruin, typhus, dekulakization, famine, cannibalism. We served idols of stone and bronze; sons and daughters were taken captive by the godless, by those of another faith. Foreigners were exalted—and are still exalted—above all. They have taken over the markets, seized oil, aluminum, and so forth. Foreigners are already in power. We are captives to them in our own land. “And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (Deut. 28:52). No wonder our people say: “Sow the wind—reap the whirlwind.”

The fate of Solovki is particularly telling. That place of prayerful monastic struggle was turned into a concentration camp. Did anyone then recall the tragedy of 1676? Back in the 17th century, some 1200 to 1500 defenders perished there due to our forgetfulness—about 400 were killed, the rest died during the siege from scurvy and disease. How many perished in the camp? God alone knows. Over two decades, hundreds of thousands passed through the Solovetsky Special Purpose Prison (STON!). Few returned.

History repeats itself—but always for us, it seems, as tragedy. Why is it that it repeats itself as tragedy only for us? Or has it already become mere farce?

Eventually, as the builders of socialism and communism developed a new ideology, and as a punishment for the Revolution and the Civil War, a satanic force matured—fascism. Then came the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. And then, finally, they remembered God. Churches were reopened, processions were held, icons were carried around Moscow and Leningrad. With God’s help, we stood firm. Though 20–25 million were lost. And how many maimed, how much grief, how many unborn?

The war ended. Stalin seemed to leave the Church alone. But then Khrushchev came—and again began a worse time: more than half of the surviving parishes were shut down. It was apparently under these circumstances that the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, in 1971, repealed the anathemas on the old rites and resolved:

1. To confirm the decree of the Patriarchal Holy Synod of April 10 (23), 1929, recognizing the old Russian rites as salvific, just as the new ones, and of equal worth with them.

2. To confirm the decree of the Patriarchal Holy Synod of April 10 (23), 1929, concerning the rejection and annulment, as if they had never been, of condemnatory expressions directed against the old rites, and especially against the two-finger sign of the cross, regardless of where they might appear or by whom they might have been uttered.

3. To confirm the decree of the Patriarchal Holy Synod of April 10 (23), 1929, abolishing the anathemas of the Moscow Council of 1656 and the Great Moscow Council of 1667, which were pronounced against the old Russian rites and the Orthodox Christians who observed them—and to regard these anathemas as if they had never existed (Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, May 30 – June 2, 1971. Documents, Materials, Chronicle. Published by the Moscow Patriarchate. Moscow, 1972).

Thus—“as if they had never been!”

In the report read at the council, Nikon’s reforms were described as a “harsh and hasty destruction of Russian liturgical tradition,” undertaken due to the mistaken belief that ritual differences constituted differences in faith.

And that’s all?

This belated recognition of the “equal worth” of the old rites obliges modern-rite followers to treat the Old Rite Christians with sensitivity and to avoid displays of disrespect, arrogance, and the like toward them. In general, it seems that the number of cases that touch upon the still-sensitive wounds of the Old Believers has declined. But such cases still occur. Thus, in 1991, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus’, the Solovetsky Paterikon was published by the INTO publishing house at the request of the Synodal Library of the Moscow Patriarchate. It recounts the lives of 35 ascetics of the Solovetsky Monastery: 17 from before the schism and 18 from after. Among the latter is the life of a former Old Believer who was arrested and placed under supervision at the Solovetsky Monastery for “correction.” For ten years he could not be broken—but in the end, they succeeded, and he renounced his beliefs and began to attend services. That is, according to the text, his asceticism consisted in the fact that he renounced the Old Rite! One cannot help but exclaim: “Clearly, the builders of the Solovki concentration camp had learned from someone!”

If such disregard is permitted, it means that this issue is of little significance for the Russian Orthodox Church; it means that its hierarchs have not reflected on the Schism as a fateful moment in history. Even many non-Old Believers—such as Solzhenitsyn—believe that the fall of Russia began with the Schism. And that is true. But it is also true that, as a result of the Schism, there emerged a remnant of people with firm faith, ready to stand for it to the end. Thus was preserved the Church of Christ, even as apostasies loomed ever nearer. In this way, the preservation of Holy Rus’ became possible.

One might try to ignore the Old Believers—they are few, scattered across the world, and even among themselves are unable to overcome internal divisions and schisms. But try ignoring a splinter. The moment you move the wrong way and brush against it—pain. And what if it festers? And it has not been possible to pull it out for 350 years, despite all efforts. The first victims of Nikon’s reform—Archpriests Login of Murom, Ioann Neronov, Daniil of Kostroma, and others—were tortured in the very first year of the reform in 1653, and Bishop Pavel of Kolomna the following year [12]. Incidentally, it is known that Bishop Pavel of Kolomna was burned alive on Holy Thursday.

Clearly, the “splinter” was not driven into the body, but into the soul. And it could not be removed because the Lord did not permit it. And the ruling dynasty paid the price for this sin. And so did Russia—in this, Solzhenitsyn is surely right.

But perhaps we need that “splinter.” It reminds us of something. It reminds us of the circumstances under which it was embedded. The Lord sees that our memory is poor—so He drove the splinter in. Now would be the time to cast aside politics, to repent, and to confirm repentance with deeds—perhaps then the punishment would be delayed. Or are there not enough signs sent from the Lord? Is it not frightening to behold the weeping icons? In the 1920s, churches and domes were being repainted on a mass scale, and at Optina Hermitage blood flowed from a cross [14]. Might this not have been one of the causes for the aforementioned Synodal decision of 1929? If we compare the early 1920s—when these signs occurred—with the start of the Great Patriotic War, we can see how little time we had left. One ought to reflect on this fact: the icons among the Old Believers do not weep.

Scripture says: “…for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me” (Exodus 20:5). But there is also a way out: “Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all My statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live” (Ezekiel 18:19). The phrase “Children do not bear the guilt of the fathers” undoubtedly pertains only to the spiritual sphere. Each person may be saved for eternity.

Physically, however, we suffer greatly—for both the sins of our ancestors and our own. Around us live many childless families; infants die—though of course they are innocent of any sin; strong and healthy young people perish for various reasons; children are born with severe physical disabilities. Some are born who will never be able to recall anything at all—that is, a spiritual degradation of society is taking place, and a spiritually degraded society will also degenerate physically. This means that parents—and grandparents, the ancestors—did something wrong; they squandered the grace that their own ancestors had once earned through prayer.

There are examples when one who sins grievously against God finds his own continuation in descendants cut off. Our history is full of such names: Vasily III, Boris Godunov, Lenin, and so on. Nikon, it turns out, had three children, all of whom died in early childhood [15]. True, this happened while Nikon was still young and had no inkling of his future patriarchate. But that changes nothing. The Lord knew everything about him, just as He knew about Judas’s betrayal. As for Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, his male line endured for only three generations. And this despite the fact that he had five sons by Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya! Of the five sons by his first wife, three died even before Alexei’s sudden death. After the Tsar’s death, the throne passed to Fyodor Alekseevich. But he was frail, having suffered an accident in childhood, and died in 1682 at the age of twenty-one. His reign lasted only about seven years. Under him, Polish customs and fashions began to be introduced: hair was cut in the Polish style, and Polish was taught [10]. Zealous defenders of the Old Rite were persecuted with renewed cruelty. On Great Friday, April 14, 1682, in Pustozersk, Archpriest Avvakum, Priest Lazar, Deacon Feodor, and Monk Epiphanius were executed by burning in a log cabin—and two weeks later, on April 27, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich died.

A tragic, yet not accidental, convergence in the fates of father and son. The son did not reflect upon his father’s end and, poor soul, followed in his very footsteps. A fatal forgetfulness fell upon the House of Romanov—the very kind of forgetfulness that causes great dynasties to come to an end, great nations and powerful civilizations to pass from the stage of history. Forgetfulness, like a disease, infects both individuals and entire peoples.

One could say that Tsar Fyodor died suddenly, as roughly two and a half months before his death he had entered into a second marriage. His first wife died in childbirth. The infant outlived her by only six days [5].

After the death of Tsar Fyodor Alekseyevich, of his five uterine brothers only Ioann Alekseyevich remained. He had three daughters, one of whom—Anna—would later become Empress. This came about as a result of a dynastic crisis, since the forgetfulness of the heirs of Alexei Mikhailovich continued. Thus, Peter I, son of Tsar Alexei and Natalya Naryshkina, resolutely turned toward “enlightened” Europe. He had no patience for those who resisted his course. For this reason, he executed his own firstborn son, Alexei. The young son of Peter I, Tsarevich Peter, soon died. The son of the slain Alexei Petrovich, the briefly reigning Peter II, died in youth from smallpox. The throne then passed to Anna Ioannovna. She had no children and, shortly before her death, named as her heir the infant son of her niece Anna Leopoldovna—this child was Ioann VI, who was later murdered by order of Catherine II. Anna Leopoldovna became regent during his minority. However, as a result of a palace coup, power was seized by Elizaveta Petrovna, daughter of Peter I, who exiled Anna Leopoldovna, her husband, and their children—including the heir to the throne—into banishment. Elizaveta Petrovna had no children, and she bequeathed the imperial throne to her nephew Karl Peter Ulrich (Peter III), the son of Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp and Elizaveta’s elder sister Anna. She married him to his own second cousin, Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, who later became Empress Catherine II. Incidentally, Orthodox canon law forbids marriages between second cousins.

Thus, in fact, the Romanov line in the male lineage came to an end as early as the beginning of the 18th century. Paul I had 1/8 Romanov blood through the female line. His sons—who later became emperors, Alexander I and Nicholas I—had only 1/16, as Paul was married to the German princess Wilhelmine. Finally, Nicholas II had only 1/128 Romanov blood, and his children only 1/256 Russian blood.

As a result of the “reforms” of Nikon and Alexei Mikhailovich, the Church became one of the departments of the state machinery for morality and public order. The peasantry was firmly bound in serfdom, and Russia received foreign emperors, some of whom cared little, if at all, for her interests. In the end, we reaped what we had sown.

To be fair, it must be noted that at times our rulers became far more Russian than many of us. Everyone remembers Alexander III’s remark that Russia has only two allies: her army and her navy. Here is another vivid and little-known testimony to the idea that one is not born Russian, but becomes Russian—a case in which one can see the clear hand of God. According to the logic of the narrative, it might seem that Catherine II, by killing both her second cousin and husband Peter III, and the more legitimate heir to the throne, Ioann VI¹, should have cut short not only the Russian (1/4 through the female line) branch of the Romanovs, but also her own. Nevertheless, her son Paul I had four sons and six daughters, and the Romanov dynasty was thereby strengthened. This may also have been due to the fact that during his reign there was a struggle against the influence of French freethinking. He imposed strict censorship, closed private printing presses, and banned the import of foreign literature that promoted revolutionary ideas. And although, as B. Bashilov claims [16], Paul I had joined a Masonic lodge even before ascending the throne and for some time supported the Masons, by the end of his reign they had fallen out of favor. The Masons’ hopes for Paul I were not realized—and this may have led to his eventual assassination. He was deeply religious, and the same can be said of his wife. B. Bashilov notes that “among the Old Believers, he was able first and foremost to see Christians worthy of all respect.” Under Paul I, they were not persecuted [16].

Even Catherine II herself may have had merits before God, for under her, the Old Believers were able to breathe more freely. Moreover, some sources report that the Empress compelled both governing structures—the Senate and the Synod—to sign a manifesto prohibiting the persecution of Old Believers. This occurred at a joint conference of the Senate and Synod on September 15, 1763, where Catherine II delivered a famous speech. This speech was reproduced from archival sources by the Edinoveriye priest Ioann Verkhovsky and was first published in Volume III of Historical Studies Serving to Justify the Old Believers by V.M. Karlovich.

Here is an excerpt from her [Catherine II’s] speech: “‘You,’ says the Holy Synod to us, ‘are destroying the throne.’ But, gentlemen, we have already seen what service the Russian high episcopate has rendered to the throne since the time of Nikon—what a chasm it dug between throne and people. All that was best, most noble, most lively and energetic in the Russian people in those times took the side of protest. And the rulers who followed Nikon burdened themselves with gullibility and made the people see them as tyrants and, as we have said, antichrists. Gentlemen! The righteousness of the protest is clear to you. Your own conscience tells you that it was not the new Synodal Church but the people’s protest that stood firm; that it was not the protesting people who became schismatics, but rather the archpastors who ignored the protest and severed communion with the faithful. They became the schismatics. And, finally, that all accusations leveled against the Old Rite are lies, slanders born of the wounded pride of the archpastors.

“But perhaps you are troubled by this thought: if the people’s protest was just, then why did Christ abandon it—leaving it without a single bishop and, therefore, outside the Church—while the party of troublemakers and schismatics retained the hierarchy and the right to be called the Church? How could the Lord, contrary to His promise to remain with the faithful, forsake the true bearers of the Church’s essence, the true defenders of the Church itself, and thus allow the gates of hell to prevail?

“O Providence! I thank Thee, I thank Thee, I thank Thee!

“Your confusion, gentlemen senators, I hope to clarify with a few words. In leaving the protest without bishops, the Lord did not abandon it. First, He granted the protest the honor of preserving the invincibility of His bride—the Russian Church, our holy mother. Had there been no protest, the Church-essence of the Russian Church would have utterly crumbled, presenting the world with a spectacle of complete ruin, such as we see now. Though her churchliness has decayed and lies in ruins, as long as the people’s protest lives, no one has the right to say the Russian Church has entirely fallen or ceased to live. It is not she—the Russian Church, a member of the one, holy, apostolic Church—who has sinned, but rather her hierarchy alone.

“Secondly, the entire hierarchy fell. Practically speaking, only the people—and even only a part of the people—remained faithful to the Church. Have you understood, gentlemen, the full significance, dignity, and sanctity of this great popular steadfastness? Do you see its tremendous merit before our national Church and the Church universal?

“Yes, the common folk, the unlettered people, have given the greatest lesson in Church-mindedness to their archpastors. The latter have proved stubborn and malicious. Upon the protest, they poured forth curses, tortures, and executions. But the people—be amazed, gentlemen senators—stood firm and unshaken for centuries! A spectacle of majestic grandeur, a vision worthy not of earth but of heaven.

“In our national Russian Church, hell and Christ stand in open battle: on the one side, all power, all malice, and every worldly intrigue—through spiritual governments, deceived tsars, and archpastors; on the other side, silent endurance and patient wordlessness. Who will triumph in this struggle?

“I would not be a sincerely believing daughter of the Church; I would be unworthy of the great Russian people, who bear the name of Holy Rus’, if I doubted for even a moment the victory of Christ, the victory of the people, the victory of the protest, the victory of the Old Rite.

“O Providence! Let the tsars deceived by the archpastors, together with those very archpastors, multiply their fury and plots tenfold! Let this battle—the battle between primordial evil and eternal good, between hell and heaven—go on another hundred, another two hundred years! The heavier the trials, the longer the suffering, the more awe-inspiring the victory, the more memorable and instructive the lesson, the more radiant the glory of Christ, the Church, and the protest…

“But one thing, gentlemen senators: we pledge ourselves never to become tools of hell against the people loyally devoted to us, against the voice of the great Russian Church, against Christ Himself.”

During her speech, Catherine II, demonstrating confidence in her position and the falsehood of the anathemas imposed nearly a century earlier, several times crossed herself using the two-finger sign—to the horror of the assembled clergy. Perhaps this is why the Lord extended Catherine’s lineage, forgiving her mortal sins? But for us, one thing is clear: perhaps it was due to this single episode—this sign that she had understood and embraced in her heart the great tragedy of the Russian people—that the German-born Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst became Catherine II, a true Russian Tsarina.

To Catherine’s merits, one might also add that by the end of her reign, nearly all the known Freemasons were imprisoned. Unfortunately, the period of tolerance toward the Old Believers was short-lived. During the reign of Nicholas I, Catherine’s grandson, the repressions against them became especially severe.

Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor, twelve years before the revolution, signed the “Supreme Decree on the Strengthening of the Principles of Religious Toleration.” Seals were removed from the altars of Old Believer churches. During this period, according to F.E. Melnikov, more than a thousand new churches were built by the Old Believers. They also carried out active educational and charitable work. Yet as Melnikov wrote: “The golden age in the history of Old Belief was not entirely golden; it was filled with all kinds of impurities. Alongside the newfound freedom came growing coercion, violence, and persecution for religious beliefs, deeds, and facts. The dominant church was unwilling to part with its former persecution of Old Belief and continued to revert to the old path—the pre-Nicholas path—when Old Believers in their own native land had no rights at all.”

“The Supreme Decree of April 17 did not even grant the Old Believers the rights that had already been enjoyed in Russia before this act by heterodox and even non-Christian confessions: Muslim, Jewish, and pagan. But against these rights, neither the Synod, nor the hierarchy, nor the missionaries, nor the Church protested. As for the meager rights received by the Old Believers, they caused widespread fear and horror, and an aggressive campaign against them began from the very first year those rights were made public.”

“In December 1907, the Synod issued a resolution ‘On Legislative Proposals Concerning the Implementation of Freedom of Conscience’ (No. 8198). The rather long document of the Synod may be reduced to the following points:”

1. The state status, freedom of action, and freedom of religious propaganda belong exclusively to the Synodal Church. All other confessions may only exercise such freedoms as are granted them by the dominant Church.

2. Anyone departing from the dominant confession is subject to a forty-day period of admonition and may only be permitted to convert to another confession upon presentation of a certificate from the spiritual authorities confirming the failure of admonition.

3. Old Believers and members of other confessions have no right to disseminate their doctrines. Governors and the police suppress all such activities, arresting and prosecuting Old Believer and other preachers, and assisting the clergy of the dominant Church in missionary efforts.

4. The construction of Old Believer churches and prayer houses, as well as the performance of processions and similar acts, is permitted only with the approval of the diocesan authority of the dominant Church.

5. Religious communities are forbidden from spreading their teachings among members of the dominant confession.

6. Clergy of other confessions are prohibited from wearing vestments and clerical garments that resemble those of the clergy of the dominant Church.

7. To these points, the Kiev Missionary Congress added a further demand: that religious legislative proposals be removed from the jurisdiction of legislative bodies and instead be subject solely to review by the Governing Synod, after which they would be submitted for approval by His Imperial Majesty.

These points constituted the Synod’s ecclesiastical-political program. Even the official newspaper Novoye Vremya acknowledged that it “expresses a zealous and partisan spirit, to some extent that of the prince of darkness, which has overtaken certain churchmen.” All notions of freedom were utterly eliminated by this Synodal program.

However, the Synod could not change the 1905 Constitution, according to which laws were made not by the Synod but by the State Duma and the State Council. It must be noted, however, that the process of drafting and passing legislation took considerable time and faced fierce resistance, while at the local level bureaucracy and arbitrariness prevailed.

Melnikov [12] cites numerous examples of the extremely humiliating conditions in which Old Believers often found themselves: “Especially outrageous in its lack of principle, its anti-national and anti-state character, was the Synod’s demand that Old Believers not be commissioned as officers. We have already noted that in the Russian army there were officers and generals—some even in the highest ranks—from various confessions (Catholics, Lutherans, Muslims) and from various nations (Poles, Germans, Frenchmen, Armenians, Tatars, Turks, etc.), and only the Old Believers—most loyal sons of their Fatherland, pillar-like Russians—were denied the right to serve in the officer corps of their own native army. After April 17, 1905, this situation should have changed. And indeed, Old Believers began to be promoted to officer ranks. But the Governing Synod launched a campaign against this new development.

In early 1910, Metropolitan Vladimir of Moscow, in response to a Synodal inquiry into the ‘character and distinguishing features of the doctrine’ of the Old Believers of Rogozhskoye and Preobrazhenskoye cemeteries, described these distinctions in a missionary tone and concluded that it was ‘inappropriate to promote Old Believers of both cemeteries to officer ranks.’ Based on this, in February of the same year, the Synod, in decree No. 1746, ‘deemed it dangerous to commission into officer ranks all Old Believers of the Austrian persuasion [3], including those belonging to the Rogozhskoye Cemetery.’ In March of the same year, the Synod issued decree No. 2401 stating: ‘To recognize the entire schism and all sectarianism as phenomena both harmful and unlawful; therefore, all schismatics, regardless of their groups or alignments, must be denied the right to be promoted to officer ranks.’ This ruling was addressed to the General Military Headquarters.”

The All-Russian Congress of Old Believers in 1913 was described in Old Believer journalism as a “Congress of sorrow and grief, of groans and lamentation.” Articles appeared with titles such as: “Ominous Shadows,” “Ominous Shadows Gather,” “The Grave of Religious Freedom,” and so on.

Melnikov writes: “Some articles of this sort rose to the level of prophetic foresight. ‘Our freedom lies in the grave,’ says one of these articles. ‘Only there is the free confession of our faith permitted, only there its widest and even unpunished preaching. But… are the enemies of freedom not digging their own grave?’ At that time, many Old Believers were troubled by a sense of impending catastrophic events. At the 1913 All-Russian Congress, P. P. Ryabushinsky declared: ‘If the day of justice does not come, then the day of necessity will.’ ‘A historical wave is carrying us toward events hidden in the great mystery of the future,’ wrote the journal Church the same year. ‘What God gives, that we shall receive. But for now, we are being prepared for something. And we must be ready.’ Already in 1910, the same journal wrote: ‘It is hard to answer for the future. It is always so mysterious and enigmatic, and so often surprises us with shocks—sometimes very deafening, terrifying in their blows and catastrophes.’ That future came very soon—in 1917, when the great all-Russian revolution broke out, drenching the entire vast land in blood.”

As St. John Chrysostom once said [17], God subjected Adam to the punishment of death so that “having through disobedience become guilty of sin, he might not continue to sin forever. And I might add something else. What is that? That by subjecting him to this punishment, God did not stop the benefit with Adam alone, but willed that his descendants might be instructed by his fate.”

Judging by the ongoing—and especially recent—moral degradation of society, it appears we have not yet taken the lesson to heart.

REFERENCES #

2. Melnikov, F.E. A Brief History of the Old Orthodox (Old Believer) Church. Barnaul: BGPU Publishing, 1999. 557 pp.

3. Denisov, S. A History of the Fathers and Martyrs of Solovki. Moscow, 2000.

4. Fomin, S. Rus’ Before the Second Coming. Zhytomyr–RIKO–PRESS–REKLAMA, 1995. 576 pp.

5. Kostomarov, N.I. The Schism: Historical Monographs and Studies. Moscow: Charly, 1994. 608 pp.

6. Bashilov, B. A History of Russian Freemasonry, Issues 7 & 8. Moscow: Nash Sovremennik, 1995. 128 pp.

7. St. John Chrysostom. Selected Homilies: A Collection of Sermons on the Ten Commandments of God. Reprint by the Transfiguration Mhar Monastery, 2001. 589 pp.