An essay in universal history from an Orthodox Christian Point ofView part the age of revolution

57. THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND THE ANGLICANS

It was in the reign of Tsar Nicholas I that a beginning was made to ecumenical relations with the western confessions. Surprisingly, in view of the political tensions between the two Great Powers, it was with England and the Anglican Church that these relations were the warmest. This was largely because certain individuals in the Anglo-Catholic arm of the Anglican Church, believing fervently in the “branch theory” of the Church, according to which the Orthodox, the Catholics and the Anglicans were the three branches of the One Church, were very eager that their theory should be tested in Russia…

The pioneer in these ecumenical relations on the Orthodox side was Alexei Khomiakov, whose correspondence with the Anglican Deacon William Palmer is one of the earliest and best examples of how to conduct ecumenical relations without betraying the truth. He was very well informed about the religious situation in both East and West, clearly longed for union, and was not seeking merely to “score points” over an adversary. He was generous about what was good in the West, and not afraid to admit weaknesses in the East. But he was politely but unbendingly firm in his defence of the Orthodox position on questions of faith (e.g. the Filioque) and ecclesiology (i.e. where the True Church is and where it is not). Now Palmer was shocked to learn that the Greeks would receive him into communion by baptism, and the Russians by chrismation only. In spite of Khomiakov’s attempts to explain the Orthodox use of condescension or “economy”, Palmer remained dissatisfied by what he saw as a difference in ecclesiology between the Greeks and the Russians, and eventually joined the Roman Catholic Church.
In spite of his ardent desire for union, Khomiakov was pessimistic about its prospects; and this not so much because of the doctrinal obstacles, as of the moral obstacles. As he explained to Palmer: “A very weak conviction in points of doctrine can bring over a Latin to Protestantism, or a Protestant to the Latins. A Frenchman, a German, an Englishman, will go over to Presbyterianism, to Lutheranism, to the Independents, to the Cameronians, and indeed to almost every form of belief or misbelief; he will not go over to Orthodoxy. As long as he does not step out of the circles of doctrines which have taken their origin in the Western world, he feels himself at home; notwithstanding his apparent change, he does not feel that dread of apostasy which renders sometimes the passage from error to faith as difficult as from truth to error. He will be condemned by his former brethren, who will call his action a rash one, perhaps a bad one; but it will not be utter madness, depriving him, as it were, of his rights of citizenship in the civilized world of the West. And that is natural. All the Western doctrine is born out of the Latins; it feels (though unconsciously) its solidarity with the past; it feels its dependence on one science, on one creed, on one line of life; and that creed, that science, that life was the Latin one. This is what I hinted at, and what you understand very rightly, viz., that all Protestants are Crypto-Papists; and, indeed, it would be a very easy task to show that in their theology (as well as philosophy) all the definitions of all the objects of creed or understanding are merely taken out of the old Latin System, though often made negative in the application. In short, if it was to be expressed in the concise language of algebra, all the West knows but one datum, a; whether it be preceded by the positive sign +, as with the Latins, or with the negative -, as with the Protestants, the a remains the same. Now, a passage to Orthodoxy seems indeed like an apostasy from the past, from its science, creed, and life. It is rushing into a new and unknown world, a bold step to take, or even to advise.
“This, most reverend sir, is the moral obstacle I have been speaking about; this, the pride and disdain which I attribute to all the Western communities. As you see, it is no individual feeling voluntarily bred or consciously held in the heart; it is no vice of the mind, but an involuntary submission to the tendencies and direction of the past. When the unity of the Church was lawlessly and unlovingly rent by the Western clergy, the more so inasmuch as at the same time the East was continuing its former friendly intercourse, and submitting to the opinion of the Western Synods the Canons of the Second Council of Nicaea, each half of Christianity began a life apart, becoming from day to day more estranged from the other. There was an evident self-complacent triumph on the side of the Latins; there was sorrow on the side of the East, which had seen the dear ties of Christian brotherhood torn asunder – which had been spurned and rejected, and felt itself innocent. All these feelings have been transmitted by hereditary succession to our time, and, more or less, either willingly or unwillingly, we are still under their power. Our time has awakened better feelings; in England, perhaps, more than anywhere else, you are seeking for the past brotherhood, for the past sympathy and communion. It would be a shame for us not to answer your proferred friendship, it would be a crime not to cultivate in our hearts an intense desire to renovate the Unity of the Church; but let us consider the question coolly, even when our sympathies are most awakened.
“The Church cannot be a harmony of discords; it cannot be a numerical sum of Orthodox, Latins, and Protestants. It is nothing if it is not perfect inward harmony of creed and outward harmony of expression (notwithstanding local differences in the rite). The question is, not whether the Latins and Protestants have erred so fatally as to deprive individuals of salvation, which seems to be often the subject of debate – surely a narrow and unworthy one, inasmuch as it throws suspicion on the mercy of the Almighty. The question is whether they have the Truth, and whether they have retained the ecclesiastical tradition unimpaired. If they have not, where is the possibility of unity?…
“Do not, I pray, nourish the hope of finding Christian Truth without stepping out of the former protestant circle. It is an illogical hope; it is a remnant of that pride which thought itself able and wished to judge and decide by itself without the Spiritual Communion of heavenly grace and Christian love. Were you to find all the truth, you would have found nothing; for we alone can give you that without which all would be vain – the assurance of Truth.”²⁹⁰
*
In spite of Khomiakov’s pessimism, successive over-procurators, supported by the Holy Synod, took great interest in the idea of an Orthodox mission in England. Thus in 1856 the convert Stephen Hatherley, who had been baptized in the Greek Church, turned for help to the Russians, who decided to bless and financially support his idea of a mission church in Wolverhampton. However, the Russians did not satisfy Hatherley’s request that he be ordained for that mission; so he turned to the Greeks and received ordination in Constantinople in 1871. But then the Greeks, succumbing to intrigues on the part of the Anglicans, banned Hatherley from making any English converts. Hatherley obeyed this directive, which unsurprisingly led to the collapse of his mission…²⁹¹
For all the enthusiasm of the Russians, the fruit of their labours in England was meager. Some of the reasons for this were well pinpointed by Archpriest Joseph Wassilief in a report sent to the Holy Synod in 1865 after a visit to England:
“’… 2. Plans for union with the Orthodox Church are curiously conceived by those who promote this movement and they cannot be reconciled with Orthodox or any other theological approaches to their realization. Thus the practical and mutual benefits of union are given preference over and against the necessity for a preliminary agreement in doctrine.
“’3. Only a few individuals recognize the necessity for unity of dogmas and labour to reconcile the differences, but without decisive concessions on the part of the Anglican Church.’
“Father Wassilief,” continues Fr. Christopher Birchall, “was frustrated by the lack of any real desire to face the dogmatic issues and ascribed this, in part, to the fact that the Church of England had existed for centuries without any real unity of belief. Consequently, [they] assumed that union with the Orthodox could be achieved on the same basis. Part of the Anglican hierarchy would have liked to strengthen its position by being recognized by the Orthodox, but nothing could be done without the consent of Parliament and the laity, who would resist any change. ‘The past and its customs give support to any opposition,’ he wrote, ‘in England they are virtually idolized.’ Echoing the ideas of Khomiakov, he continued, ‘One of the reasons for the Anglican’s faithfulness to his tradition and establishment lies in an exaggerated sense of superiority before other people, and in personal and national pride. He also extends this feeling to his Church, which is a national creation and thus national property. It is extremely difficult for the Anglican to admit that his forefathers constructed the Anglican Church unsuccessfully, that this sphere of life is higher, truer and firmer in Russian and among other Eastern peoples, who in all other respects are less favoured than the English.’
“Another factor hindering unity, Wassilief noted, was the Anglican Church’s ‘enormous possessions and income.’ ‘If only some of the Anglican bishops together with a number of priests and faithful would unite with the Orthodox Church in rejecting the 39 heretical Articles of the Anglican Church as ratified by Parliament, then the government might well consider this society a sect, and might deprive its pastors of their worldly benefits by which they profit in the Anglican Church and condemn them to a life which would be the more arduous since their present life is so full of abundance and luxury. For a bishop or a dean to renounce his salary, he would have to possess an immutable belief and an exceptional faith…’”²⁹²
*
In 1864, four years after Khomiakov’s death, Pastor Jung, a delegate of the New York convocation of the Episcopalian Church with authority from some of the bishops there to enter into relations with the older Russian hierarchs, came to Russia. In a meeting with Metropolitan Philaret and other bishops, he explained the significance of the 39 articles for the Anglicans and Episcopalians. The metropolitan said that a rapprochement between the Russian and American Episcopalian Churches might create problems with their respective “mother churches” in England and Greece. For example, the Greeks were less accommodating with regard to the canonicity of baptism by pouring than their Russian co-religionists. The metropolitan probably had in mind here the experience of William Palmer…
In 1867, the metropolitan expressed the following opinion: “A member of the Anglican Church, who has definitely received a baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, even though it be by effusion (pouring), can, in accordance with the rule accepted in the Church of Russia (which the Church of Constantinople considers to be a form of condescension), be received into the Orthodox Church without a new baptism, but the sacrament of chrismation must be administered to him, because confirmation, in the teaching of the Anglican Church, is not a sacrament…
“The question as to whether an Anglican priest can be received into the Orthodox Church as an actual priest awaits the decision of a Church Council, because it has not yet been clarified whether the unbroken Apostolic Succession of hierarchical ordination exists in the Anglican Church, and also because the Anglican Church does not acknowledge ordination as a sacrament, although it recognizes the power of grace in it…”²⁹³
In another meeting with Pastor Jung, Metropolitan Philaret posed five questions relating to the 39 articles:

1. 
   How can the 39 articles not be a stumbling-block to the union of the Churches?
   
2. 
   How can the teaching of the American Episcopalian Church’s teaching on the procession of the Holy Spirit [the Filioque] be made to agree with the teaching of the Eastern Church?
   
3. 
   Is the uninterruptedness of apostolic hierarchical ordination fully proven in the American Church?
   
4. 
   Does the American Church recognize reliable Church Tradition to be a subsidiary guiding principle for the explanation of Holy Scripture and for Church orders and discipline?
   
5. 
   What is the view of the American Church on the sevenfold number of sacraments in the Eastern Church?
   

At another meeting the pastor gave preliminary replies to these questions, and insisted that the 39 articles had a political rather than a spiritual meaning, and did not have a fully dogmatic force.

Although the two sides parted on friendly terms, nothing positive came from the meeting. The public in America were not ready for this, and there even began something in the nature of a reaction. Learning about this, Philaret sadly remarked: “The reconcilers of the churches… are weaving a cover for division, but are not effecting union.” “How desirable is the union of the Churches! But how difficult to ensure that the movement towards it should soar with a pure striving for the Truth and should be entirely free from attachment to entrenched opinions.” “O Lord, send a true spirit of union and peace.”²⁹⁴
“Will the idea of the union of the churches, which has lit up the west like a glow on the horizon, remain just the glow of sunset in the west, or will it turn into an Eastern radiance of sunrise, in the hope of a brighter morning? Thou knowest, O Lord.”²⁹⁵
*
Perhaps the most distinguished Western converts to Orthodoxy in this period were the Anglicized German Dr. Joseph Overbeck and the Frenchman Fr. Vladimir Guettée. “Dr. Julian Joseph Overbeck (1820-1905)  was perhaps the most well-known of  Western Roman Catholic converts to Orthodoxy in the later half of the 19th century in the English speaking world.  A German by nation[onality], he was raised in the Papist Faith, eventually becoming a priest in it.  He was also an extremely learned man, knowing around 12 ancient languages, and many modern. His grasp of ancient and medieval Christian history was as good as any; any mistakes he makes are generally no worse than that of other scholars.  However, as Dr. Overbeck stated “history was always the weak point of the Jesuits, and consequently of the Papists.” His study led him away from Romanism; in initial despair he contemplated perhaps having something to do with some form of high Lutheranism.  Yet, he could not ultimately swallow such.  He eventually immigrated to England and became a Professor in German at the Royal Military Academy in 1863.  In 1865, convinced of the equal untenability and imminent collapse of both Papism and Protestantism, and sure of the Truth of the Orthodox Faith, he was received into the Orthodox Church by Fr. Eugene Popoff, chaplain of the Russian Embassy in London. 
“For the next 40 years he was a constant antagonist of the heterodox, an opponent of the earliest forms of proto-ecumenism (which he saw as being fundamentally of Anglican-Protestant origination and heresy), and thus the finest proponent and only apologists and polemicist for the Orthodox Christian Faith in the English speaking world.  He was in concourse with the famed Fr. Vladimir (Guettée) (i.e. Abbe Guettée) who had a similar story to Dr. Overbeck; the difference being that Dr. Overbeck, having left Roman Catholicism and the Papist priesthood, was later married. However, upon his conversion to Orthodoxy, the Russian Church told Dr. Overbeck that he could not serve as a priest since he was married after ordination (the Russian Church had the practice of receiving Roman Catholic clergy by vesting); though, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow had supposedly informed him that if he had joined Orthodoxy via the Greek Church, he would have been baptized, and the question would have been handled entirely differently.  Despite this, Dr. Overbeck continued his work. His errors are no more than those of the time and of the contemporary Russian Church (i.e., a semi-scholasticized understanding of some of the Mysteries); his projects, while seemingly ‘fantastical’ to the Anglican critic (and modern) were supported by the Synod in Russia (and others), and while many never came to full fruition in his own lifetime, they did demonstrate a wholesale devotion to Orthodoxy in all matters (thus, his gaining approval from the Holy Governing Synod of Russia and the Ecumenical Patriarchate for the idea of an Orthodox Western rite based upon Orthodox Canon Law and pre-Schism praxis of the West [something entirely ignored by the later Antiochian proponents who found Dr. Overbeck equally repugnant for his polemic against Anglicanism and nascent anti-ecumenism]; the resurrection of local Orthodox sees in the West, etc.).
“Dr. Overbeck was a constant opponent and antagonist of the Anglican heresy just as much as he was the Roman.  The Romans, in general, tried to ignore him and belittle him (as they did Fr. Vladimir until the spigots of threats were turned on); the Anglicans tried the same, but found themselves unable.  At the Bonn Conference in the 1870s, an early attempt by the Orthodox Church to bring the nascent Old Catholic movement wholesale into Orthodoxy, Dr. Overbeck was present at the commission discussions. He and other Russian Church delegates had stalwartly opposed the introduction of Anglican representatives to have any part in the debates between the Orthodox and Old Catholics. Overbeck saw them as meddlesome interlopers who would only muddy the water and provide cover for the Old Catholics on issues that caused their continuing separation from the Church.  However, the Anglicans insinuated themselves into the affair, and the results were largely disastrous; the Old Catholic movement, though abandoning the Filioque clause in 1877, was never to make good on anything. It was continually to degenerate and fall more and more into the Anglican orbit (ecclesially, theologically, liturgically), which is exactly what Dr. Overbeck had noted would happen if they did not become Orthodox. He thus wrote them off, just as he did the Anglicans, looking only for individual conversions. 
“The experience of the Anglicans with Dr. Overbeck at the conference had made Overbeck a target for Anglican criticism and slander for the rest of his life.  Yet, despite this, he continued to publish the first apologetic, polemic, and historical journals in English that taught the Orthodox position in the English language (the Orthodox Catholic Review; it is difficult to find copies of all the volumes which were published monthly from 1867-1885)… 
“… Dr. Overbeck (and many other Orthodox) foresaw massive changes ahead with the creation of “Papal Infallibility”; which in essence is the elevation of man above God.  He says as much when addressing it. He stated, ‘The poisonous seed is sown: what may the plant, the full grown plant be? We do not indulge in fancies or unsubstantial apprehensions.’  Well, we know today more than ever.
“Indeed, if Dr. Overbeck were walking upon the Earth today, it would not just be Papism and Protestantism he would target, but, it would be the modern Ecumenical Patriarchate and its sister Patriarchates for their desired union with the former in the heresy of ecumenism; not to mention their wholesale embrace of the modernist heresy.”²⁹⁶