Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/160

Rh vain, and even worse, as they have tended to deprive Russian civilization of the humanizing influences of the arts; but the spirit of formalism, of feticism, with which the Church has been so often, so bitterly, and so unjustly reproached, arises rather from the realistic, material character of the races subject to its sway, from their ignorance and proneness to superstition, and from their low intellectual development. For the Russian peasant, whose mind is still imbued with vague traditional reminiscences of his ancestral pagan worship, form and ceremony alone constitute religion; and his attachment to outward observances, his fidelity to rites consecrated by ancient usage, have given rise to obstinate schisms and dissensions, which still disturb the Church.

In the process of time, and notwithstanding their common origin, material differences have arisen in the form of the rites and ceremonies practised by the Eastern and Western Churches; these differences have been accompanied by a gradual, and finally a radical, divergence of opinion as to the essential meaning and importance of the ceremonial observances. The two Churches have the same sacraments, inherited from the same source, but they are conceived in a widely different spirit, and have a very different application and influence in the one, and in the other.

Among the Orthodox, baptism is administered by immersion only, and the validity of the Western ceremony, of merely sprinkling, is, by many of them, gravely questioned; it was for a long time absolutely denied, and converts to their faith were rebaptized, as a necessary introduction to the true Christian communion. In the Greek Church of Constantinople this custom is still maintained, and constitutes the only essential point of difference from the Russian Church, where, in this respect, more liberal ideas now prevail. 10