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Journal of Eurasian Studies 3 (2012) 161–167

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Journal of Eurasian Studies

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The problem of religious freedom in late imperial Russia: The caseof Russian Baptists

Alexander Polunov*

School of Public Administration, Moscow State University, Lomonosovskii prospect, dom 27, korpus 4, Moscow 119992, Russia

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 17 August 2011Accepted 18 January 2012

Keywords:Orthodox ChurchAutocracyBaptist movementReligious legislationAdministrative repressionsFreedom of conscience

* Ul. 26 Bakinskikh Komissarov, dom 4, korp 3, kv.Russia. Tel.: þ7 (495) 433 4578, þ7 (916) 127 4084E-mail addresses: apolunov@mail.ru, polunov@spa.m

Peer-review under responsibility of Asia-Pacific ReseUniversity.

1879-3665/$ – see front matter Copyright� 2012, Adoi:10.1016/j.euras.2012.03.006

a b s t r a c t

The paper deals with the development of the Baptist movements (Stundism and Pash-kovism) in late Imperial Russia, their perception by the ecclesiastical and secular author-ities, the measures undertaken by the Church and government in order to combat theProtestant sectarianism. Different approaches of the contemporaries to the religiousdissent are being investigated. While the members of educated society, liberals andmoderate conservatives viewed evangelical movements as a reflection of social changes inpostreform Russia and a reaction to the shortcomings of the official Church, the ecclesi-astical authorities treated the rise of evangelicalism as a result of the sectarians’ “igno-rance” and as a threat to the political and social order of Russia. When conservative tsarAlexander III ascended in 1881 to the throne, his former tutor and the Chief Procurator ofthe Holy Synod Constantine Pobedonostsev launched an energetic campaign against theheterodoxy based on a combination of repressive and educational measures. Thiscampaign turned out to be a failure mostly due to passiveness of the official Church whichwas paralyzed by the strict control of the state. The position of the secular administrationwhich was not eager to be drawn into religious struggle also hampered the attempts tocombat the heterodoxy. Finally, the effective repressions against the sectarianism wereparalyzed by the protests of the Senate, supreme juridical body of the Empire which had tooverview the compliance with the law. Though the repressions against the Baptists werestopped in 1905, they made a negative impact on the Russia’s development contributing tothe sharpening of the social and political contradictions on the eve of revolution.

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In 1900 Constantine Pobedonostsev, the Chief Procu-rator of the Holy Synod (the lay head of the RussianOrthodox Church), complained in his report to the tsar thathis attempts to combat the development of Protestantsectarianism in Russia were paralyzed by decrees of theGoverning Senate, the supreme juridical body of theEmpire.1 This statement in fact summed up results of theyears-long struggle waged by the Russian state and Church

1 The history of the struggle between Synod and Senate is described indetails in the memoirs of A.F. Koni, the head of the Senate’s CriminalCassation Department. See: Koni, 1913a.

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A. Polunov / Journal of Eurasian Studies 3 (2012) 161–167162

against the evangelical movements – Baptism (Stundo-Baptism) and Pashkovism. Though the main legal prohibi-tions on the sectarians’ activities were lifted only in 1905, ithad become clear much earlier that the authorities losttheir battle against evangelicalism. Why did the Imperialstate and the official Church of Russia failed to combat thenon-violent religious movement which comprised only thetiny minority of the Russian population? Why the Churchand state could not cooperate effectively in the fight againstheterodoxy? Why a significant part of the secular bureau-cracy was reluctant to launch the war against the “here-tics”? All these issues provide an important insight in thehistory of the Russian religious life, in the inner working ofthe governmental apparatus and in the Church–state rela-tions on the eve of the epoch of revolutions.

Before addressing these problems, another importantquestion should be asked: why did the official authoritiespaid so much attention to the movement which neverchallenged the foundations of Russia’s social and politicalorder? “The spectacle which is thus represented to us of theauthorities”, wrote with this regard the well-known Britishjournalist W.T. Stead, “animated as it were by some strangesuicidal mania, spending their time, thought and energy, inharrying and destroying those who, as all experience hasproved, would be the most trustworthy and loyal subjectsof the Emperor if they were but allowed to obey theirconscience in the matter of religion, is melancholy indeed”.Due to such a policy, Stead stressed, Russia in matters ofreligious liberty was regarded in the West as a medievaland barbarous power rather than a civilized state of nine-teenth century.2

The persecutions of evangelical sectarians became, asa modern historian puts it, a real “public relations debaclefor the autocracy”, attracting a close attention of Russianand Western public and engendering harsh criticism of thereligious policy of the government.3 “There is scarcelya prison in South Russia, that does not contain Stundists”,wrote a British writer R.S. Latimer, “there is scarcelya convoy of convicts on the way to Siberia which has not inits midst a Stundist preacher. It is no longer a matter ofmere persecution; it is a determination to extinguishthem”.4 Though the scope and cruelty of the repressionswere to some extent exaggerated in the writings of Euro-pean and American observers, it goes without saying thatthe sectarians experienced serious sufferings as a result ofthe governmental policy. What, then, was the reason forthis struggle against religious non-conformists thatreminded the Western observers the times of Torquemadaand Archbishop Laud if not those of Nero and Diocletian?

The Protestant sectarianism in late Imperial Russia hasbecome over past several years a subject of a number offundamental works which seriously deepened our under-standing of this important historical phenomenon. In their

2 Stead, 1888a, pp. 389, 372.3 Breyfogle, 2005b, p. 219.4 Latimer, 1909. “Religious intolerance”, noted in his book a famous

American writer George Kennan, “is just rampant in Russia today as it wasin England during the reigns of the Tudors, and it is only prevented fromgoing to the extremes of personal torture and the oublic stake by thedread of Western opinion” (Quoted in: Lowe, 1895).

books Heather Coleman, Nicholas Breyfogle, and SergeiZhuk elucidated significant aspects of the sectarian move-ments, investigating the content of their belief, their role inthe spiritual awakening inpre-revolutionary Russia, and thereconsideration of religious, political, and national identitiesin Russian society engendered by the rise of sectarianism.5

In my article I would like to stress another dimension ofthe sectarians’ history analyzing religious dissent as theobject of the governmental policy and exploring itsperception by the Church and secular authorities.

Touching upon the development of Protestant sectari-anism in late Imperial Russia, it should be noted that its risewas deeply connected with the changes in Russian social,economic, spiritual life engendered by the abolition of theserfdom in 1861. It is not a coincidence that evangelicalsectarianism first emerged in the areas where the capi-talism was intensively developing. The first and mostprominent trend in the Protestant movement, Stundism,appeared in the late 1860s on the territory of contemporaryUkraine in Kiev and Kherson provinces. The model for thefirst Stundists were sectarians in the German colonies whogathered at particular "hours" (in German, Stunden) forprayer, Bible reading and song. The movement quicklyspread throughout the South and West of the RussianEmpire, to Volyn’, Podol’sk, Ekaterinoslavl, Chernigov,Taurida, Poltava, Bessarabia, Minsk, and Mogilev provinces.By the middle of 1880s, in the Kherson region alone therewere about three thousand Stundists, and there were abouttwo thousand in Kiev Province.6

The reasons which urged Russian and Ukrainian peas-ants to join the new sect were linked mostly to their searchof the spiritual and moral revival stimulated by thechanging conditions of social and economic life. The officialOrthodox Church could not often satisfy the men andwomen who were looking for the freedom of individualitywithin the new communities with higher moral standards.Thus, peasants in the Kherson region being brought to trialtold the police “that the main reason for converting to theStunde sect was ... a desire to withdraw from a society inwhich all kinds of corrupting vices prevailed, such asdrunkenness, rowdy behavior, thievery, and laziness.Whenthey joined the religious sect they broke off all ties withtheir former associates and entered a new life which gavethem material sufficiency”.7 It should be added that thenew religious movements, with their communal self-government, charity work, and mutual aid, together withthe active teaching of pastors who were often elected,proved to be much better adapted to postreform realitythan was the bureaucratized official Church.

Of course, the search for the moral awakening was notconfined in the late Imperial Russia only to the lower strataof the population, peasants and workers. In the middle of1870s, a second important Protestant movement emerged,this time among the high society of St. Petersburg. Underthe influence of the British preacher Lord Radstock, the

5 Breyfogle, 2005b; Coleman, 2005a; Zhuk, 2004.6 Klibanov, 1965, pp. 189–92,203–3,206–9.7 RGIA (Russian State Historical Archive), f. 797, op. 55, otd. 2, st. 3, d.

96, 1.12.

A. Polunov / Journal of Eurasian Studies 3 (2012) 161–167 163

members of the Petersburg aristocracy started to held theevangelical meetings and organize religious communities.8

The sectarians who soon became known as Pashkovites(after the name of his leader, Guard Colonel V.A. Pashkov)distributed religious literature, built and supported schools,hospitals, teashops, cafeterias, shelters, crafts shops, andcheap housing for workers. The newmovement also beganto spread among the common folk, primarily in theindustrial center of European Russia: St. Petersburg, Tver,Moscow, Yaroslavl, Olonets, and Arkhangel’ sk province.“Pashkovite propaganda” was also found in Simbirsk,Astrakhan, Orel, Kaluga, Voronezh, Tambov, Riazan, andTobol’sk province.9

The third important trend of the evangelicalism wasrepresented by the members of the old Russian sectariangroups, Dukhobors andMolokans, who emerged in Tambovprovince in central Russia, but were largely resettled in1830s to Transcaucasia. In 1860s and 1870s some of thesesectarians started to reconsider their beliefs and practices,stressing the elements of rationalism in their teaching. Intheir doctrine, Stundism, Pashkovism, and the “new”

Dukhobor and Molokan movement actually representedBaptism. They rejected hierarchy, church organization, andthe worship of icons, and they acknowledged the Bible astheir sole authority. The different branches of the RussianProtestantism tended to unification.The Molokane Baptistsof the Caucasus arranged contacts with Pashkov’s organi-zation, and in 1884 there was a congress of Caucasian andUkrainian Baptists. An attempt was even made to convenea congress of evangelicals in St. Petersburg.10

An appearance and rapid growth of the Protestantsectarianism in Russia which had hardly any experiencewith religious Reformation became in the second half ofnineteenth and early twentieth centuries a matter of acutepublic discussions. Contemporaries tended to assess thisphenomenon in different ways. The members of educatedsociety, liberals and moderate conservatives viewed evan-gelical movements as a reflection of the profound changesin postreform Russia and a reaction to the shortcomings ofthe official Church. N.P. Giliarov-Platonov, a well-knownSlavophile journalist, suggested that “the Stunde, like anysect, appeared for one reason: because the establishedChurch was not satisfying people’s spiritual needs.... Itwould be a mistake to seek the reasons for the Stunde inthe outside influence of Protestantism.... No Lutheransoldier could convert anyone to Stundism if the soul of thehearer were not ready for it. ... There are those who thirstfor spirit; well, give them spirit! ... Do not drive them awayfrom the Church altogether with police techniques andrestrictive disciplinary requirements”.11 The hierarchs ofthe Orthodox Church rejected resolutely such an approachclaiming that religious dissent represents a threat both tothe Church and to the state and should be suppressed bythe police and administrative measures. But of a specialinterest was a reaction to the new sectarianism of the

8 Heier, 1970.9 RGIA, f. 797, op. 54, otd. 2, St. 3, d. 63a, 11. 3-6, 44-53 ob., 85 ob.-86.

10 Ibid., 11. 12-13,389, and d. 63b, 11. 8-18, 51-69.11 Giliarov-Platonov, 1906, pp. 449–50.

secular authorities which were supposed to implement themeasures of repression.

Though officially obliged to assist the dominant Church,the lay officials strove in many cases to avoid the admin-istrative and police persecution of the religious non-conformists. While dealing with the subjects of Empire,the tsarist bureaucrats tended at the second half of thenineteenth century to make an emphasis on their politicalloyalty and the economic effectiveness, not on the religiouspurity of their views. Facing the rise of religious dissent, thelocal administrators stressed in their reports that thesectarians were not breaking any civil laws and posed nothreat to the state order, that persecution would embitterthe non-conformists and provoke conflicts while provinguseless and creating an aura of martyrdom aroundheterodoxy. Accordingly to the Chief Procurator, onegovernor in southern Russia openly refused to deportStundists, declaring: “These Stundists have not committedany crime; they live quietly, they pay their taxes, they obeythe authorities, and they should be allowed to stay.”12

An important factor which hampered the state perse-cution of heterodoxy was an evolution of the Russia’s legalsystem after abolition of serfdom, especially with regard tothe Church–state relationship. The logic of the path onwhich the country had embarked during the reforms of1860–70s demanded that the Orthodox Church be sepa-rated from the state, that all faiths bemade equal before thelaw, and that subjects be given the freedom to choose andprofess any religion. These tendencies were clearly mani-fest in administrative and juridical practice. After thelegalization of Baptism as a “foreign religion” in Russia(1879), local authorities began to extend to Russian Prot-estants the same rights that the German Baptists enjoyed.13

Finally, in 1883 a law was passed that conferred on allreligious dissidents certain civil rightsdin particular, theright to hold services in prayer houses, to carry internalpassports, and to occupy public positions.14

The hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, as it was notedearlier, protested against these tendencies striving toportray the dissidents as the enemies not only of theChurch, but also of the state and social order. ”This is notjust a religious evil but a political and national evil”, wrotethe Exarch of Georgia to the Chief Procurator in 1882.“Among the masses of the people infected with Stundismthe enemies of Russia and the accomplices of ProtestantGermany are being trained.” In 1884 Bishop Nikanor ofKherson suggested that Stundism was spread primarily by“foreign persons,”who, “acting as enemies of the OrthodoxChurch, are no less hostile to the Russian state aswell.” “TheChurch has appealed to the civil authorities, and does sonow, petitioning for measures to curb grave crimes againstthe faith”, asserted the hierarch.15 Similar feelings wereregularly expressed by the Orthodox clergymen during all

12 RGIA,f. 797,op. 59, otd. 2, st. 3,d. 156,11. 11 ob.-12.13 Bobrishchev-Pushkin, 1902a, pp. 36–37, 39-41, 46, 68-69. Coleman,2005b, pp. 19–20.14 Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii. Collection 3. Vol.3. No.1545.15 RGIA, f. 797, op. 54, otd. 2, St. 3, d. 63a, 11. 384 ob.-385, 54; op. 55, otd.2, st. 3, d. 96,11.21–23,26.

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the period of 1860s and 1870s. At that time, however, theyhad little chance to get an understanding from the civilauthorities. The situation changed in 1881 when the liberaltsar Alexander II was assassinated by the revolutionariesand his conservative son Alexander III ascended to thethrone. One of the most influential advisors of the new tsarbecame his former tutor Constantine Pobedonostsev whooccupied since April 1880 the post of the Chief Procurator.

Though often portrayed as an ordinary imperialbureaucrat who cynically used the Church as an instrumentof the autocracy, Pobedonostsevwas in reality amuchmorecomplicated figure with a specific set of views regardingthe relationship between the religious and secular spheres.As John Basil puts it, the famous Chief Procurator was notjust high-placed official but also “a churchman” and “areligious teacher” for whom “no political argument orregime could ever satisfy the chief needs of humanity”. Themodern state, in his understanding, was nothing more thana lifeless gadget which could only achieve moral intelli-gence from surrounding life. The governmental machinewas in need of moral direction and spiritual inspirationwhich could be obtaining only by linking state leaders tothe Church of the majority of population. In fact, asProfessor Basil stressed, the state for Pobedonostsev wasmore in need of aid of the Church than vise versa.16

Touching upon the issues of social and political life, theChief Procurator asserted that society has to be joinedtogether by a religious vision and a moral tradition, and ina healthy nation, the civil action and the values of thedominant religion should present a common front. Sucha unity was of a special need for the postreform Russiawhich underwent a process of radical and often painfulchanges. It goes without saying that many of Pobedo-nostsev’s observations related to the real and very acuteproblems of Russia’s modernizing society. At the bottom ofhis thinking, however, laid a very archaic and in facta primitive idea that the society would perish without anabsolute, monolith-like unity both in secular and religiousspheres. “On paper it is possible to draw a clear line andseparate the field of political activity from that of spiritualand moral activity”, wrote a conservative statesmen. “Inreality it is not. No matter what level of perfectiona logical structure of relations between the Church and thestate may achieve intellectually, it cannot satisfy the simpleminds of the masses of believers”.17

Such an approach urged Pobedonostsev to reject thefreedom of conscience and religious pluralism, which in hisunderstanding would be harmful for the spiritual unity ofRussia. It should be added that the conservative statesmanwas deeply skeptical about the ability of Russian people,weak and immature in his views, to act independently andto survive without a state tutelage. Freedom of conscience,Pobedonostsev declared, will allow “our enemies tocapture masses of our Russian people and turn them into

16 Basil, 1995. On the religious policy of Pobedonostsev see also:Polunov, 1996.17 Pobedonostsev, 1894, pp. 2–3, 22.18 OR RGB (Manuscript Division of the Russian State Library), f. 230, k.4410, ed. khr. 1, 11. 139–40.

Germans, Catholics, Mohammedans, and so on, and wewilllose them forever for the Church and for the fatherland”.18

In this situation, support of a strong visible link betweenthe state and Church was treated as a main prerequisite ofRussia’s survival.

Of course, the Chief Propcurator clearly understoodthat the religious dissent could not be defeated only bythe means of administrative and police repressions. Suchmeasures, Pobedonostsev asserted, should have onlyprotected the Church and created the favorable condi-tions for its educational and missionary activities. In linewith this conception, the Chief Procurator sprang intovigorous action. In May 1880, literally just days after hisappointment, he appealed to the tsar to put a stop toPashkov’s activities. In this connection, a special confer-ence was convened under the head of the Committee ofMinisters P.A. Valuev. The conference decreed thatPashkovite meetings be prohibited and that Pashkov andhis close collaborator Count M.M. Korf be deported. Afterthat, Pobedonostsev kept close track of the situation toensure that Pashkov could not come back to Russia.When necessary he appealed directly to the tsar.19 In1884 the Pashkovite Society to Encourage Spiritual andMoral Reading was closed, the literature it published wasconfiscated, and an “index” was compiled of prohibitedreligious publications in which Protestant tendenciescould be detected. Local authorities were told to ferretout instances of Pashkovite “propaganda”, with the helpof the higher clergy.20

In addition to above-mentioned measures, several otheradministrative orders were issued. In 1886 the Minister ofJustice, in agreement with the Chief Procurator, instructedjudicial authorities “to pay special attention to the neces-sity of more extensive” use of experts from official Churchin cases of crimes against the faith, and a year later heordered that “the procuracy be in strict observance of theinstitution and swift and proper conduct and resolution ofcases” involving heterodoxy.21 Pobedonostsev did it besttrying to arrange the smooth working of the spiritual andlay authorities in the fight against sectarianism. In thecourse of this work, the clergy reported cases of “propa-ganda” to the Chief Procurator, and the latter took them totheMinister of Justice and theMinister of Internal Affairs orhis deputy, who was in charge of the police. The civilauthorities had to report back to the Chief Procurator whatmeasures they had taken. All these steps should havecreated the base of the spiritual activities of the Churchwhich, as Pobedonostsev hoped, would play the main rolein the fight against the heterodoxy.

Touching upon the measures to be undertaken by theChurch, it should be noted that they played a special role inPobedonostsev’deyes.He sincerely believed that the religiousdissent did not have any deep roots in social conditions of

19 RGIA, f. 797, op. 54, otd. 2, st. 3, d. 63a, 11.45–47. Pis’ma Pobedo-nostseva k Aleksandru III, Moscow (1925), Vol. 2, pp. 158, 163.20 RGIA, f. 797, op. 54, otd. 2, st. 3, d. 63a, 11.16-24,77-81.21 Obzor deiatel’nosti vedomstva pravoslavnogo ispovedaniia za vremiatsarstvovaniia imperatora Aleksandra III, St. Petersburg (1901), p. 470.Vsepoddanneishii otchet ober-prokurora, Sviateishego Sinoda K. Pobe-donostseva za 1887 god, St. Petersburg (1898), p. 76.

25 RGIA, f. 797, op. 56, otd. 2, st. 3, d. 21, 1. 149. Pobedonostsev, wrotewith this regard W.T. Stead, was “doing his best to galvanize the Churchinto a spasmodic display of propagandist zeal”, but he could not “tempt

A. Polunov / Journal of Eurasian Studies 3 (2012) 161–167 165

Russian life, was linked mostly to the “ignorance” of thesectarians who were deceived by their leaders. “The convic-tion that the sectarian doctrines are true lives only among themasses of its benighted and illiterate followers,” Pobedo-nostsevwrote. “The sectarian leaders themselves ... recognizethe falsity of the doctrine that they preach, but they persistbecause they derive considerable material benefits forthemselves.”22 Thus, school and sermon, together withgovernmental repressions, should have played a decisive rolein thefight againstheterodoxy. In linewith this idea, theChiefProcurator launched a set of measures aimed at the revitali-zation of the Church’s educational and missionary activities.Two weeks after the Pashkovite society was closed, Pobedo-nostsev suggested that Bishop Nikanor of Kherson organizea higher clerical assembly to deal with the struggle againstStundism. The assembly, which was held in Kiev in 1884,passed a number of resolutions designed to weaken theStunde. It called for increased study of “rationalistic sectari-anism” in the spiritual seminaries, the distribution of specialliterature, and the appointment of special missionaries tocombat heterodoxy. Worthy priests were to be assigned toparishes where religious dissent had gained a foothold, andparish trustee councils were to take up collections for thepoorest parishioners (as a counterweight to the mutual aidoffered by the sectarians). The clergy were ordered to openschools and libraries, to organize public readings, to conductworship services properly, to forbid extortion, and to conductthemselves decently.23

In addition to these measures, a congress of the higherclergy, held in Kazan in 1885, ordered the recruitment ofdiocesan missionaries. In 1887 the First MissionaryCongress in Moscow introduced district missionaries.24 Acampaign of educational and propagandist activities wasstarted including the public debates of the missionarieswith sectarians, religious educational sessions designed tostrengthen the Orthodox practice, publication and distri-bution of anti-sectarian pamphlets. All these measurespermitted the Chief Procurator to report to the tsar that thereligious dissent was losing its influence and woulddisappear soon. In reality, however, the program launchedby Pobedonostsev faced serious obstacles and finallyturned out to be a failure.

The main reason for this failure was that the dominantOrthodox Church had no independence from the govern-mental supervision, its administrative structures werebureaucratized and over-centralized, and its parishes wereplaced under strict administrative control. In this situation,the Orthodox clergy and laymen remained mostly passiveand did not join the fight against the sectarianism despiteof all Pobedonostsev’s attempts to revitalize their activities.“I entreat, I beg, the Metropolitan to replace bad priestswith good ones in the parishes that have been infected”,wrote in 1887 the Chief Procurator to the governor-generalof the SouthwesternProvinces concerning the Kiev Diocese.

22 Izvlechenie iz vsepoddanneishego otcheta ... za 1883 g, St. Petersburg(1885), pp. 266,271.23 Obzor, pp. 259–62.24 Ibid, pp. 268–78, 287–300. The Second and the Third MissionaryCongress were held respectively in Moscow and Kazan in 1891 and 1897.

“Unfortunately, the Church authorities are not acting withthe vigor that they ought”.25 At the Kiev assembly, Pobe-donostsev complained to Nikanor, the bishops offered “alist, a repetition of commonplaces submitted for theirsuperiors to approve” instead of making “an overall diag-nosis of their internal ailments” and agreeing amongthemselves on general measures of Church discipline.26

The combination of repression and education in theactivities of the Church and state which, as Pobedonostsevhoped, would play a decisive role in the fight againstsectarianism, proved to be essentially impossible. Becauseecclesiastical leaders were convinced that they had backingfrom the state, which could halt the sectarianswith a simplecommand, they made no particular attempt to engage inactivitieswhen the outcomewas unpredictable. In responseto resolutions passed by the Kiev Assembly the chief proc-urator wrote: “Too much space is given to orders that thecivil authorities are to be asked to provide, and in this regardmuch that has been noted is so out of keeping with thecircumstances of the time. .. that one sometimes feels likeexclaiming, ’O sancta simplicitas!’ “ .27 On the local levels,the police officials and administrator complained, thepriests andmissioners too oftenmade “the demands.withrespect to favoring Orthodox religious rites”which “exceedthe rights and duties of the police. asking the police to useforce to make the parishioners attend the Church of God”.28

The Chief Procurator did his best to convince religiousleaders that the struggle against heterodoxy was nowprimarily their task. “There are many now who are beingpunished by the courts and are being banished in accor-dance with administrative procedures,” Pobedonostsevwrote in 1893 to Archbishop Illarion of Poltava concerningthe Stundists. “The courts have punished many, and thegovernment has deported them, but these are only auxil-iary measures. The main remedy against the Baptists is tobe found in the Church. Unfortunately, however, almost allthe diocese’s reports on the Stunden focus on formalexhortation and administrative measures: there is noevidence of any effort to find out what kind of man theparish priest is and howwell he performs”.29 Most of theseadmonitions, however, were in vain. Having no realauthority and independence from the secular bureaucracy,the higher clergy also refused to take responsibility. Thepassiveness of the Church hierarchy was not the onlyreason for the failure of Pobedonostsev’s program. Anotherserious factor was connected with the position of thegovernmental authorities. These authorities, despite theenergetic pressure of the powerful tsar’s advisor, were noteager to be drawn in the war against heterodoxy.

the stolidity indifferent Orthodox to bestir themselves about extendingwhat they regard as the true Orthodox faith” (Stead, 1888b, p. 336).26 Perepiska K.P. Pobedonostseva s preosviachennym Nikanorom, epis-kopom Ufimskim, Russkii arkhiv, 7 (1915), p. 374.27 Ibid.28 RGIA, f. 797, op. 56, otd. 2, st. 3, d. 21, 1 149.29 Pis’ma K.P. Pobedonostseva preosviashchennomu Illarionu, arkhie-piskopu Poltavskomu, Russkii arkhiv. 1-6 (1916), pp. 153.

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The members of the lay bureaucracy, as it was shownearlier, treated the religious struggle as a task which wasalien to them and strove not to participate in the measureswhich carried the risk of the social upheaval. Althoughsome administrators (the governors of Kherson, Vitebsk,and Mogilev and the chief civil administrator of the Cau-casus) did cooperate with the Church authorities, theleadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was notenthusiastic about the prospect of religious struggle.30

When the governor of Kherson raised the issue of Stund-ism in 1883, “the ministry reacted to his reports withcomplete apathy,” Bishop Nikanor wrote to Pobedonostsev.“Theywon’t even address this issue at theministry, becausein their view it lies solely within the purview of the reli-gious department.”31 Besides the inter-departmentalrivalry, there was another and more serious reason forthe apathy of the Ministry and its agents. The religiousauthorities were trying to prosecute even affiliation withheterodoxy, whereas state agencies could punish onlyspecific violations of the law. This led to the regularconflicts. In 1887, for example, Father Arsenii, a missionary,accused the authorities in Kiev District of aiding andabetting Stundism. On investigation it was found that theleader of a Stunde, who according to the missionary waskeeping his own birth and death registries with impunity,was under trial for this behavior, but no crime was proved.The missionary’s claims that the Stundists had ties withsocialists were not confirmed. An unannounced search wasconducted of a Kiev bookshop which the missionary hadclaimed served as a center of Stundist propaganda, butnothing illegal was found.32

Facing the resistance of secular bureaucracy, Pobedo-nostsev made vigorous effort in order to persuade it to takepart in the struggle against sectarianism. At the ChiefProcurator’s request, in 1889 the Minister of Internal Affairsissued a special circular instructing provincial administra-tions and police not to permit any indulgence towardsectarians and to cooperate with the clergy.33 By the end of1880s, Pobedonostsev succeeded in changing of themembership of the local administration which started tocooperate more energetically with ecclesiastical authori-ties.34 But then the Senate, the body charged with ensuringcompliance with the law, lodged a protest. Its CriminalCassation Department, headed by a well-known jurist A.F.Koni, rescinded the decrees closing Stundist prayer houseson the basis of the law of 1883. In 1892 A.P. Ignat’ev,governor-general of the Southwestern Provinces, used his

30 As Nicholas Breyfogle revealed in his research devoted to theDukhobor sectarians in Transcaucasia, the central authorities oftendemonstrated flexibility in their approach to the dissidents and strove tocurb the violent and illegal actions of local officials (Breyfogle, 1888c).31 Nikanor. Kievskii sobor 1884 goda, Russkii arkhiv, 9 (1908), p. 92.32 RGIA, f. 797, op. 56, otd. 2, st. 3, d. 51, 11. 108-16.33 Ibid., op. 59, otd. 2, st. 3,d. 156,11. 11 ob.-12.34 At this stage of the struggle against heterodoxy, the elements ofagreement between eccelesiastical and secular authorities became espe-cially visible. “Local government authorities”, wrote Heather Coleman,often cited “their religious counterparts as sources” and “complained to theMinistry of Internal Affairs that evangelicalismwas threatening notmerelythe spiritual orderof the Russian empire, but its civil stability and territorialintegrity as well” (Coleman, 2005c, pp. 21–22).

authority to forbidthe Stundists’ prayer meetings, but theSenate again ruled that action illegal.35

By the beginning of the 1890s the openwarfare betweenthe judicial and the ecclesiastical departments, backed up bylocal administrations, reached unprecedented heights. “Thejudicial authorities are now dreadfully antagonistic to thechurch authorities,” Tserkovnyi vestnik wrote in 1892.36 Atissue were changes in the laws on heterodoxyd-that is,counter-reform, abolitionof the lawof1883.At thebeginningof 1891 Bishop Anatolii of Uman, vicar of the Kiev Diocese,demanded inpress that the Stundists’ freedomofmovementbe restricted, that their children be taken away from them,that their places of worship and prayer meetings be closed,and that any judicial proceedings involving Stundists bespeeded up and simplified. In the same year the SecondMissionary Congress demanded that Stundists (as well asMolokane, Pashkovites, and certain other movements) beforbidden to hold public posts, to come together in prayermeetings, and to buy or lease land. K.K. Arsen’ev, an observerwriting for Vestnik Evropy, remarked that this actuallyamounted to a demand that the law of 1883 be repealed.37

In 1893 the tsar expressed his unhappiness at thediscord between the courts and the administration, and on4 July 1894 a statute of the Committee of Ministers wasapproved declaring Stundism to be the “most dangeroussect” and forbidding its followers to hold prayer meet-ings.38 This measure, however, proved to be largely unen-forceable. Before it could prosecute non-Orthodox, a courthad to determine that they belonged specifically to theStundist sect, but in its doctrine Stundism was actuallyBaptism, which was recognized as a tolerated “foreign”faith, and the Senate pointed out that the Baptists were notcovered by the Statute of 1894.

Elaborating on the Statute of 1894, the Minister ofInternal Affairs and the Minister of Justice sent a circular tothe local authorities in which they stated that “thefollowers of the Stunde sect reject all Church rites andsacraments, and not only do they fail to recognize anyauthority and refuse to take oaths or serve in the military...but they also preach socialist principles”.39 The Senatedemanded that the courts treat as Stundists only thosenon-Orthodox whose views and behavior were found toinclude all the features listed in the circular, which injudicial practice never occurred. When experts from theecclesiastical department were summoned to court, theytried to prove that all sectarians were Stundists, but theSenate ruled that the experts’ assertions could not bedecisive in the absence of factual proof of Stundistmembership. Moreover, it proved impossible to determinewhat was and was not a prayer meeting.40

A.M. Bobrishchev-Pushkin, a legal scholar, wrote that, inhanding down a verdict in a case involving Stundists,

35 Koni, 1913b, pp. 610–615.36 Tserkovnyi vestnik. 36 (1892).37 Tserkovnyi vestnik. 8 (1891). Obzor, pp. 297–98. Arsen’ev, 1904, p. 153.38 RGIA, f. 797, op. 63, otd. 2, st. 3, d. 402, 11. 2, 21.39 Ibid., 1. 33 ob.40 Bobrishchev-Pushkin, 1902b, pp. 119–20, 141–43; Mel’gunov, 1907a,pp. 60–65.

A. Polunov / Journal of Eurasian Studies 3 (2012) 161–167 167

a judge “realizes that he is engaged in nothing more thanpaper shuffling when it is impossible to motivate ... theverdict because there is no corpus delicti in the legal sense– nothingoutwardly manifest, no actionsdbut there arepunitive laws.”41 Invariably the Senate overturned verdictsin cases involving Stundists. The battle between the judicialand the religious departments continued unabated,sending ever-stronger tremors through the state mecha-nism. No fundamental progress occurred in this sphereuntil April 1905, when the edict granting freedom ofconscience took the question of the state’s battle againstheterodoxy off the agenda.

Though the administrative persecution of religiousdissent ended in 1905, the negative consequences of therepression campaignwere felt until the end of the “ancieneregime”. It drove many non-conformists into politicalprotest persuading them that they could achieve a fullreligious freedom only after the overthrow of themonarchy. “Persecution by governmental authorities,” asthe historian S.P. Mel’gunov suggested, “brought sectarianstogether into an opposition camp and forced them toanalyze the existing state order”.42 Revolutionaries alsomade extensive use of cases of religious persecution in theirstruggle against the established order. The propensity toput down religious heterodoxy with “strong-arm” tacticsled to harsh reprisals by village authorities against non-Orthodox, and sometimes to mob justice. V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, an expert on religious movements, wrote:“Sectarians were forced to pluck nettles with their barehands; they were lashed with birch rods and their bodiesburned with cigarettes; their hands were squeezed in visesand burned with hot iron; their backs were burned andtheir beards pulled in vises down their spines; andwomen’s nipples were pinched until they bled”.43 The non-Orthodox, too, responded with violence. It is not difficult tosee here the first signs of the wave of brutality that grippedRussia in the period of revolution and Civil War.

Summing up the history of the state repressions againstthe Protestant sectarians in the second half of nineteenthand early twentieth centuries, it should be noted that thekey issues of Russia’s social, political, and religiousdevelopment were at that time at issue. Could the reli-gious non-conformist be a loyal subject of the Empire?Was it possible to introduce in Russia the modernconception of a secular citizenship? Should the religiousmatters be separated from the governmental supervision?The authorities gave at the end of nineteenth centurya negative response to all these questions launching thecampaign of the persecution of religious dissent. Thiscampaign, however, proved to be a failure. It was impos-sible to organize effective ideological repressions in thestate where the independent judiciary and relatively freepress existed and where the contacts with the West were

41 Bobrishchev-Pushkin, 1902c, pp. 141, 144, 145.42 Mel’gunov, 1907b, p. 78.43 Ibid. p. 74. The brutality and arbitrariness of the local authorities, asNicholas Breyfogle has shown, played significant role in deteriorating ofthe relationship between the government and religious dissenters(Breyfogle, 2005d, pp. 242, 245).

maintained. The position of the secular administrationwhich was not eager to be drawn into religious strugglealso hampered the attempts of the ecclesiastical authori-ties to combat the heterodoxy. In 1905, the governmenthad to make concessions and to introduce religiousfreedom in Russia. It was too late, however. In 1917, a newideocratic regime emerged, based on the Marxist ideologyand the official atheism, which suppressed not only Prot-estant sects, but the Orthodox Church as well.

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my deep gratitude to the St.John’s College, University of Cambridge, for a possibility towork with the English-language sources in the library ofthe university.

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Alexander Polunov (born 1966) is an Associate Professor at the School ofPublic Administration, Moscow State University (MSU). He graduatedfrom the MSU Department of History in 1989, and in 1992 got his Ph.D.degree (Candidate in History) at the same Department. The sphere ofAlexander Polunov’s scholarly interest includes the development ofconservative political thought and the history of Church–state relation-ship in Russia. Dr. Polunov is an author of more than sixty publications. Hismost recent monograph entitled Russia in the Nineteenth Century. Autoc-racy, Reform, and Social Change (2005) was published by M.E. SharpePublishers in the prestigious series “The New Russian History”. Dr. Polu-nov has been a visiting scholar at several academic institutions, includingthe Harriman Institute of Columbia University, the Kennan Institute forAdvanced Russian Studies, Maison des sciences de l’homme in Paris andUniversity of Cambridge.