If the Russian author is so anxious to convert the British Protestants to
the Græco-Russian, or, as he calls her, “Græco-Catholic” Church, he may
translate her controversial works into English, and build places of
worship where image-kissing, prostration, incense, and holy water, may be
exhibited for the edification of the British heretics, _ad libitum_.
Nobody will interfere with their ceremonies, not even with their
preachings against Protestantism, because its disciples in Great Britain
are satisfied with defending their religion by spiritual weapons, and do
not resort to material arms, except in repressing either public or private
acts of violence. As regards the dogmatic pre-eminence of his church over
that of Rome,—her rejection of the “_anti-apostolic double procession of
the Holy Ghost_,”—which has been, I think, retained by the English Church,
&c., I leave this subject to the decision of theologians, but shall only
observe that the worship of images, relics, and other pagan practices,
which I have described in this chapter, do not prove much in favour of the
_purity of her tradition_. I would also ask whether it is in accordance
with this tradition that the Russian clergy, notwithstanding all their
claims to apostolic succession, are governed by the Czar, who sometimes
delegates for this purpose a colonel of hussars,(125) which office, I
believe, was never known, even in the most militant of churches? It has
been, indeed, well said by the Marquis de Custine, that the Russian clergy
are but an army wearing regimentals somewhat different from the dress of
the regular troops of the empire. The papas and their bishops are under
the direction of the emperor, a regiment of clerks, and that is all.(126)
It is in order to extend the advantages of this military organization to
the Christians of Turkey that Russia, according to the opinion of our
author, “_is __ under the paramount necessity of making their cause her
own_.” All that I say is, that she felt the same necessity of making the
cause of the Greeks and Protestants of Poland _her own_, and that she
ended by making the same thing with their country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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