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The Present Status of Slavic Studies in Church History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2010
Extract
There was a time when it was customary to divide religion into two simple categories: the true and the false. The true was wholly true, the false was wholly false. There were no other colors but white and black: gradations of greys from black to white did not exist at all. More than that: it was not Christianity as a whole that was true, but generally only the particular denominational brand which the individual in question professed. Christians who differed in almost everything else, were unanimous in dubbing all but their own views false. But since the days of Schleiermacher, who abandoned both the wooden rationalism as well as the ossified orthodoxy of the eighteenth century, and defined religion as the feeling of dependence, it was found increasingly difficult to deny a genuinely religious character to other than the Christian religion. To-day students of comparative religion, and the majority of thoughtful Christians as well, treat Christianity as but one among many other religious developments, conditioned by different historical environments and at different stages of moral and religious evolution. Such pitiful provincialism as was customary a century ago is unthinkable among educated Christians to-day; we are thinking of religion in terms of world-wide, all-embracing, general concepts, in which the faiths of mankind are accorded their due consideration.
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- Copyright © American Society for Church History 1928
References
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page 217 note 2 Kluchevsky, V. O., A History of Russia, 3 vols., New York, 1910, v i., ch. iGoogle Scholar. Cf. my article on the conversion of Russia in The Journal of Religion, Jan. 1926
page 217 note 3 Golubinsky, J E., Istoriya Ruskoy tserkvi, vol. i, part 1, chp. ii, Moskva, 1901.Google Scholar
page 218 note 1 A. H. Newman, A Manual of Church History. 2 vols.
page 218 note 2 Statistics dealing with the Russian Christendom are so antiquated, confused, and contradictory, that I do not vouch for their accuracy. Correct modern statistics are not available.
page 218 note 3 Fisher, George P., History of The Christian Church, New York, 1896.Google Scholar
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page 218 note 5 P. 413
page 218 note 6 Pp. 556–558.
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page 219 note 1 Stanley, Arthur P., Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, New York, 1873Google Scholar.
page 219 note 2 A. Portescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church, xxvii.
page 219 note 3 Ch. xi; cf. with it Conybeare, Russian Dissenters, in loco.
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page 220 note 1 Fortescue, Adrian, The Orthodox Eastern Church, 3rd. ed., London, 1920Google Scholar.
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page 221 note 1 Bigg-Wither, Reginald F., A Short History of the Church in Russia, London, 1920Google Scholar.
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page 222 note 1 Cf. Kluchevsky, op. cit. i, pp. 12–13; Cambridge Med. Hist., iv, ch. vii; Beazley, A., et al. , Russia from the Varangians to the Bolsheviks, Oxford, 1918, p. 23Google Scholar, and especially Golubinsky, E., Istoriya Russkoytserkvi, i, part i, chp. ii, (Moskva, 1901)Google Scholar.
page 222 note 1 The nearest to fulfilling this need comes the really remarkable work of President Masaryk, T. G., The Spirit of Russia, London, 1919Google Scholar. Cf. my article on the Russian Progressive Religious Thought, in The Journal of Religion, Nov., 1926.
page 223 note 1 With the exception of the two last named novelists, most of whose writings have been translated into English, the other religious thinkers have not been so fortunate. But some of Solov'ev's writings have been translated: The Justification of the Good, (New York, 1918)Google Scholar, and War, Progress, and the End of History, (London, 1915)Google Scholar. The most important works of Eugene Trubetskoy are: The World-view of V. S. Solov'ev, (Mirosozertsanie V. S. Solov'eva 2-vols.); Liberty and Immortality, (Svoboda i bezsmertie); and especially The Meaning of Life, (Smysl Zhizni, Berlin, 1922)Google Scholar. Berdyaev describes the world-view of Dostoevsky in his Mirosozertsanie Dostoevskago (Prague, 1923)Google Scholar. Works of Dostoevsky have been translated into English, with the possible exception of his Journal of a Writer, (Dnevnik pisatelya), in three volumes. The most important of his translated writings is the novel The Brothers Karamazov. Of Tolstoy, 's, My Confession, (New York, 1887)Google Scholar and My Religion, (New York, 1885) afford an exposition of his religious views. There is a good article, by Lossky, N., on “The Successors of Vladimir Solovyev,” in the Slavonic Review, June, 1924Google Scholar.
page 224 note 1 P. Novgorodtsev, Pravoslavnaya, Tserkov, (The Orthodox Church), in Russkaya Mysl, January, 1922, p. 214.
page 224 note 2 Cf. Schevill, Ferd., The Balkan Peninsula, New York, 1922, p. 96Google Scholar, for a much more probable and historical explanation of this matter.
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page 225 note 3 Yanich and Hankey, Lives of the Serbian Saints, New York. Also Velimirovich, F. N., Religion and Nationality in Serbia, London, 1915Google Scholar, (a pamphlet). R. F. Kerner, Slavic Europe, which is the most exhaustive bibliography of Slavic historical literature, cites a few others (p. 278).
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page 227 note 2 Smith, P., Age of the Reformation, New York, 1920, pp. 138–144Google Scholar. As for Lindsay, T. M., A History of the Reformation, New York, 1907Google Scholar, 2-vols., this important work gives no account of the Polish Reformation, with the exception of a chapter on Socinianism.
page 227 note 3 “Krasinskis Werk ist für die Geschichte der polnischen Reformation von geradezu epochemachender Bedeutung” (Vōlker, K., Der Protestantismus in Polen, Leipzig, 1920, p. 195)Google Scholar.
page 227 note 4 Krasiński, Val., Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress and Decline of the Reformation in Poland, 2 vols., London, 1838–1840Google Scholar; Sketch of the Religious History of the Slavonic Nations, Edinburgh, 1851Google Scholar.
page 228 note 1 Paul Fox, The Reformation in Poland, Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series xlii, No. 4, Baltimore, 1924.
page 228 note 2 Dyboski, Roman, “Literature and National Life in Modern Poland” (in the Slavonic Review, June, 1924, p. 120)Google Scholar. The “Messianic idea” is best expressed in Mickiewicz's poem “Dziady,” found in Dziela A. Mickiewicm, vol. iv, Mikolów, 1922. A portion of this poem, under the title “Forefathers' Eve,” has been translated into English by Mrs. Radin, , in her Konrad Wallenrod and Other Writings of Adam Mickiewicz, Berkeley, Cal., 1925Google Scholar.
page 229 note 1 P. Smith, op. cit., p. 144,
page 230 note 1 Cf. for instance the assertion of Newman, Manual, i, p. 616, that “most of his [Hus'] writings are made up almost wholly of excerpts from Wycliffe.”
In this Newman quotes Loserth, Wiclif and Hus, p. 181, as his authority. But against this minimizing tendency of many German writers, compare what the most scholarly and authoritative of the Czech biographers of Hus, Professor V´clav Novotný, of the Charles University of Prague, says in his M. Jan Hus, Zivot a Ucení, Praha, 1921, vol. i, part ii, p. 197: “Although dependent upon Wyclif, and although he acknowledges adherence to Wyclif's views—as far as they were domesticated by native developments—even where he does not take them over verbally, Hus never follows Wyclif blindly, does not select indiscriminately, and does not accept tenets without subjecting them to a critical examination. On the contrary, as in Latin writings he never omitted adding a proper modification, so even here (in Exposition of the Faith, a Czech treatise) he does not follow Wyclif wholly, but if on the one hand he is unusually successful in his additions, he likewise, on the other hand, parts company with him wherever he disagrees.”
It is significant in this connection to note what Count Lützow says about the same matter in the preface (p. vi) to his Life and Times of Master John Hus:
“On the other hand, Protestant German writers have, principally within the last years, violently attacked the memory of Hus. They saw in him mainly the undaunted champion of the oppressed Czech or Bohemian nationality. It was found easier in Germany to render justice to Hus at a time when the national cause for which he struggled so manfully appeared to be doomed, than it is now, when the Bohemian language, which owes so much to Hus, has attained a development that was undreamt of a century ago.”
page 231 note 1 The most scholarly and exhaustive work on the Unity has been recently published by the director of the Herrnhut Archives, Dr. Jos. Theo. Müller. It has been translated into the Czech language by Dr.Barto, F. N.š, under the title: Dĕjiny Jednoty Bratrské, (vol. i, Praha, 1923)Google Scholar. It is this work which makes the assertion regarding the ordination of the first bishop of the Unity not in apostolic succession, but presbyterially. Cf. pp. 80 ff., and 188. The older legendary account is found in practically all older writers.
page 231 note 2 A partial list of Count Lützow's works is as follows: History of Bohemia (Everyman's Library), London, 1910Google Scholar; The Life and Times of Master John Hus, London, 1909Google Scholar; Translation of Comenius's Labyrinth of theWorld, London, 1905Google Scholar; The Hussite Wars, London, 1914Google Scholar.
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page 233 note 5 2 vols., Boston, 1863–64.
page 233 note 6 Bethlehem, Pa., 1885.
page 233 note 7 New York, 1907.
page 233 note 8 I may be permitted to remark that I have worked out the hitherto neglected aspect of Comenius' life, his irenic labors, in my doctor's thesis, under the title: The Irenic Plan and Activity of John Amos Comenius. The work is deposited in the University of Chicago Library. A brief summary of this work appeared in the Oct., 1923, issue of The Christian Union Quarterly. The only fully exhaustive bibliography of the entire subject of Bohemian history is C. Zibrt, Bibliographic Cĕské Historie, of which the fifth volume, (in three parts) deals with Comenius. (Praha, 1910–12). Cf. also Kerner, R. J., Slavic Europe, Cambridge, 1918Google Scholar.
page 233 note 1 Cf. my article “Religious Movements in Czechoslovakia,” in The Journal of Religion, Nov., 1923.
page 233 note 2 The American Journal of Theology, vol. xx.
page 234 note 1 American Hist. Association Report, 1915, pp. 123–150.
page 236 note 1 Since this paper was read, I have found in the Library of Congress a most excellent collection of Russian books, comprising some 120,000 volumes. Several thousand of these deal with Russian church history. This is the largest collection in America known to me.