They must somehow ‘come to terms’ both with the spiritual search for Sophia, and their agonized history of militant atheism; with, as one might indicate it, Vladimir S. Soloviev, and Stalin. It must seek to find some understanding of life as can explain both the best and worst of itself — to itself. Certainly Russia’s dramatic and traumatic contrasts, demand questions almost un-reasonably deep and real, of life and Man, history and society: questions far greater and more profound than any socio-economic-political order, or disorder, structure or restructure; theory or etc., shall ever be able to explain. It is a painful fact — which Russia faces in surfeit to many in the West — that the history of this people and country, cannot be understood, от heartfully accepted, without its being comprehended by some profoundly deep, wise and large conception of life, death, suffering and Man. No such adequate solution can be found amongst worldly, secular, “horizontal” wisdoms. The past seven decades of Soviet history, by themselves, are far too agonized — in heart and soul, body, mind and spirit; for the individual, the collective society and culture — as that they can in any way be adequately explained by some secular system or other. It is a fact of life, that Russia must come to some spiritual reconciliation and understanding with itself. Nothing less is sufficient to the human being — individually or collectively considered — to comprehend this agonized history, in a light adequate to a traumatized mind, and in a depth tolerable to a devastated heart.
Soviet Russia must look deeply into its own earthly and spiritual history, in order to come to such necessary accord with itself. Ultimately it must find such a comprehension as shall include and embrace both the ancient depths of its Christian heritage, the vehement materialism and atheism of Lenin, and the historical influence and impact of both.
And Russia, if it do so wisely, must not only accept and embrace material, worldly, practical help and guidance from the West; but also some intellectual and spiritual clarity — but only from the best of the West.
Too Old, Holy Russia?
It shall not avail Russia ultimately or adequately — such is my contention — to attempt some simple return to, or reembrace of, its deep religious past [68]. Though religious life in Russia shall — with freedom — certainly remain a popular, primary source of meaning and understanding of life; for the deepest and truest — and contemporary — of Russian soul, it is more towards a living, creative spirit, and inspiration, that they must turn.
“Old Holy Russia” was destroyed in “body”, even if it was able to survive, in inner and outer “catacombs”, in soul and spirit Yet a corpse can not be simply revived, to live as it once did; it can only perhaps, somehow, be born anew — “resurrected”. (But this, per Saint Paul, [69] must be a new, risen “spiritual body”.) The people of Russia are no longer in the dreamy state of that “Old World” time. Unquestioning belief can not readily, or appropriately exist for such intellectual and mundane persons as much of life and world has forced most modern Russian men and women to become.
The best of Russia, and Russian Soul, should not rest satisfied with the religions which would only ‘bind them back’ [70] to a sacred past They are too awake, too “modern” for dreamy mysticisms, sleepy ceremonies, passively accepted ancient rituals — no matter how profound in ancient depthfilled meaning and content they may have been — or be. For example:
On April 9, 1988, in the Academic Divinity School Chapel at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra of St. Petersburg (Leningrad), the Millennial Easter was celebrated, as it was in many places in the USSR. Some of the very many people who came to this special occasion to participate, did so with religious devotion and adhering belief in their souls; others came to observe out of mere curiosity or interest, hope, need, or… But it was clear to sight, that very few of the people there, were able not only to escape, inwardly, from the very crowded conditions, but also to enter into the deep, religious mood and feeling which the ceremony should evoke. There was something fundamental, which, I believe, kept the people, crowded into that chapel, from the religious experience which presumably is still intended by the church ceremony. And that was the inner consciousness of the people. They were much too awake in their modern, daily inner and mental life, than in the appropriate moods and feelings of soul; they were much too psychically detached, from this ancient ceremony, and its religious content, to actually enter, in their souls, deeply into the service. They could not really, inwardly, participate in this ceremony around them; because of the inner psychology which they themselves bore. Not only was the service arcane to most, in the procedures and acts of the ritual; but the full spiritual significance and symbolism was certainly only vaguely known. However they may have thought and felt about the service; the souls present, were certainly not able to enter clearly with their minds, and deeply with their hearts, into this Millennial Easter service. It took place outside of them; while it needed to occur, of course, also, inside of them, if it was to be a true “religious experience”. Yet, it was clear that these modern Russians, were certainly not soulfully, religiously engulfed by the special ceremony.
However profoundly needful the people of “Russia Soul” are, of the Resurrection of Easter, these people of Soviet Russia were not open in soul, with the feelings necessary to truly experience this ceremony. Whatever sacred origins may have been the ultimate source of such ritualistic, Holy Celebration; these modern souls were not of such mood and spirit as to enter immediately into its reality. But — it seems to me — these Orthodox forms were not “foreign” because they were in Old Church Slavonic. But rather because they were, and are, ancient — too old to make a readily comprehensible presentation to the modern mind and soul. It occurred around them; but for bow many could one say that, deep in their souls, they were intimate participants of this important ceremony? They could perhaps, at best, hope that the ritual might do something to them; but this is far from feeling the full religious meaning and significance, as a part of one’s own heart and soul. A few generations of a vehement, aggressive, secular, atheist state, seems certainly to have preponderated over the inner and outer mood, soul and culture, which would otherwise probably belong with somewhat greater presence, to a culture and people with ten centuries of Orthodox Christianity. (As one could perhaps say it, the heights of Sophia, had been obscured by the inner earthliness and “wisdom” of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Co…)
The contrast of such ancient ritual, religious belief and meaning, to the skeptical, detached, modern mind, was unintentionally acknowledged in San Francisco, California — at the Chrysopylae of the Pacific — during an Orthodox Service on July 7, 1989. Prince Vasili Romanov [71], a nephew of Czar Nicholas П, had died peacefully at age 81, on 24 June 1989, in Woodside California — not fifty miles south of the Golden Gate of California.
During the eulogy of the memorial service at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, thoughts were expressed by the churchman which make this contrast clear. After reminding those present of the transitory character of all the things in this world, he spoke, approximately, the following words: “If there is not a life after life; if Vasili is not, right now, moving into a new life; then this ceremony [and here he included, by implication, much of life on earth] is meaningless.” In these words, by this clear-minded Russian Orthodox Priest — who lead this service with rituals from very old and ancient sources — the contrast of reason, skeptical, earthly reason, and religious belief and faith, was brought into precisely clear relation. “Belief” was speaking to skeptical reason; saying, to such modern, mundane minds as most people in the West commonly bear, that even though you do not know, or, perhaps, even believe, that Vasili Romanov is right now, in fact, moving towards God’s heaven; if it is not indeed so — in spite of the fact that the surrounding skeptical culture and mind would doubt or deny this — then this ceremony itself, and all of life which suffers the reality of being a transitory fact in this earthly world (Sic Transit Gloria Mundi), is ultimately meaningless. Agnostic “reason”, when confronted and affronted (as Ivan Karamazov was) by the unavoidable death and suffering in life and human history, would rightfully conclude, that life is meaningless. If the beliefs of the Orthodox religion are not Realities, Truths — that there is in fact, a life after death: some continuance of earthly existence beyond the grave, some immaterial meaning and order — then earthly, secular, skeptical reason, is realistic in finding, life as it is, ultimately senseless. Such was the meaning, the unvoiced background of the churchman’s words.
[68] The Slavophile Ivan Kireyevsky wrote, in 1852, at the conclusion of his important “On the Nature of European Culture and its Relation to the Culture of Russia”: “For, if ever I were to see in a dream that some external feature of our former life [Russia’s former culture and civilization], long since outgrown, had suddenly been revived and, in its former shape, become part of our present existence, I would not rejoice at such a vision. On the contrary, I would be frightened. For such an intrusion of the past into the new, the dead into the living, would be tantamount to transferring a wheel from one machine into another, of a different type and size: in such a case, either the wheel or the machine must break.” Quoted in
[69] See 1 Corinthians 15:44.
[70] Religion: “Probably deriving from, certainly very closely akin to Latin
[71] As was reported in the San Jose Mercury News (California), on June 27, 1989: “A week before his death, his daughter asked how he was feeling, ‘Well, I’m not sure how I feel because I’ve never died before…’” Prince Vasili Romanov’s mother was the Grand Duchess Xenia, the sister of Nicholas П, his father was Grand Duke Alexander, the czar’s cousin. “His grandparents were Czar Alexander III and Empress Marie Fedorovna. His great-uncles were the kings of England, Greece and Denmark.”