Alexander Schmemann

6. Russian Orthodoxy (41 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 35

In Byzantium and Moscow Church and state had spoken a single language and had lived within the same dimensions of consciousness. Therefore, despite all the subordination of Church to the state, the Church maintained an immense authority in the life of the state from top to bottom. Now, due to the difference in language and the incompatibility of their outlooks, the Church acquired a slightly anachronistic tinge as a remnant of antiquity, not only outwardly but psychologically, from within. For a long time its theocratic ideology prevented it from simply becoming aware of its captivity in an alien world; and from recognizing all the falseness of its subordination to an empire which was not Orthodox in any of its roots, or from wishing for freedom and recognition of the already accomplished fact of the separation of the Church from the state. There remained silent fright and obedience to the law.

The clergy in Russia after Peter’s era became the “frightened class.” Frequently they dropped down or were pushed back into the depths of society. At the higher levels an ambiguous silence was maintained. The best were locked within themselves and withdrew “into the inward desert of the heart.” This frightened constraint of the clergy was one of the most undeniable results of Peter’s reform. In the future the thinking of the Russian Church developed under this dual restraint, administrative decree and inward fright.[69]

 

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/schmemann-orthodoxy-6-russian-orthodoxy.asp?pg=35