Page:History of Freedom.djvu/377

 DÖLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAL POWER 333

a synoò, \vhich is appointed on the Russian model by the Governlnent. The clergy, disabled for religious purposes by the necessity of providing for their families, have little education and little influence, and have no part in the revival of the Grecian intellect. But the people are attached to their ecclesiastical system, not for religion's sake, for infidelity generally accompanies education, but as the defence of their nationality. In Russia the Catholic Church is considered heretical because of her teaching on the procession of the Holy Ghost, and schismatical in consequence of the claims of the Pope. In the doctrine of purgatory there is no essential difference; and on this point an understanding could easily be arrived at, if none had an interest in widening the breach. In the seventeenth century, the Russian Church retained so much independence that the Metro- politan of Kiev could hold in check the power of the Czar, and the clergy were the mediators between the people and the nobles or the crown. This influence was swept away by the despotism of Peter the Great; and under Catherine I I. the property of the Church was annexed to the crown lands, in order, it was said, to relieve the clergy of the burden of administration. Yet even now the Protestant doctrine that the sovereign is supreme in all matters of religion has not penetrated among the Russians. But though the Czar does not possess this authority over the national Church, of which he is a member, the Protestant system has conceded it to him in the Baltic provinces. Not only are all children of mixed marriages between Protestants and schismatics brought up in the religion of the latter, by which the gradual decline of Protestanism is provided for, but con- versions to Protestanism, even of J e\vs, Mohammedans, and heathens, are forbidden; and, in all questions of doctrine or of liturgy, the last appeal is to the emperor. The religious despotism usually associated \vith the Russian monarchy subsists only for the Protestants. The Russian Church is dumb; the congregation does not sing, the priest does not preach. The people have