Alexander Schmemann

6. Russian Orthodoxy (41 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 24

Western Leanings and Resistance to Them.

Beginning with Ivan III, a real fascination with the West made its appearance in court circles. His marriage to Sophia Paleologos, which made Moscow officially the heir of Byzantium, actually opened the door to the Italian Renaissance and to complex and contradictory Western influences. His successor Basil III was also a Westernizer, whose doctor, Nikolai Nemchin, even conducted a correspondence concerning the union of the churches. It is characteristic that when a new translation of the Bible into Church Slavonic was begun in Novgorod under the enlightened Metropolitan Gennadi, the deciding textual influence was not the Greek text (which was not consulted at all) but the Latin Vulgate. In general, “under Gennadi a whole movement of Latin style can be observed in Novgorod.” It is just as evident in the case of Deacon Viskovaty, who did not accept the new style of the Moscow icons, which were beginning to show the influence of Western models and the predominance of allegory over the symbolic, hieratic style of the Byzantine and Old Russian canon. Particularly tragic was the condemnation of St. Maxim the Greek in 1521. Maxim himself had spent a long time in the West and had undergone a long spiritual development. But in Russia he defended a purely patristic tradition and the creative work of the Christian East.

It was not the encounter with Europe that was so fateful, but the unfree conditions of it. Moscow had defended herself from Byzantium by her own ancient past; she used the same instrument to oppose the West as well. To the fascination with the West on the upper levels, the Church responded with anathemas, not against Western heresies but against the West itself, simply because it was the West.

By confusing the existing with the nonexistent, the ritualistic religious outlook was extended to ordinary objects and customs of everyday life as well: everything native and Russian seemed Orthodox and everything alien was heretical and “heathen.” Russians wore beards, and the beard became an essential symbol of being Orthodox, while the clean-shaven face was a sign of belonging to the Latin heresy. The Council of the Hundred Chapters forbade the celebration of funeral services for those without beards, as well as the offering of communion bread or candles on his behalf; he should be counted with the unbelievers.

Under such psychological conditions free encounter or discussion were impossible. These two extremes in Russia’s attitude toward the West, mortal fear or blind worship, persisted for a long time. When a few young men were sent abroad under Godunov for study, they did not return home but remained in the West and betrayed their Orthodoxy.

 

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/schmemann-orthodoxy-6-russian-orthodoxy.asp?pg=24