Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/288

262 Of this character was the Roman state, and also the Roman Teutonic state which the Teutonic princes and their foreign retainers introduced into Russia, and which was subsequently strengthened by Peter. Thus Homjakov repudiates the western state just as he repudiates the western church, and repudiates therewith the state of Peter, insisting that Peter burrowed inorganic elements from the west and above all from Protestantism.

Homjakov censures Byzantium on the ground that the Byzantine state, corrupted by Rome, imposed restrictions upon the church. His grievance against the state of Peter is of like character, seeing that since the days of Peter the church has passed under the dominion of the state. Homjakov complains of Catholicism for having made the state completely subordinate to itself, whereby the church was secularised; and the church thus became a mere "believing state." Protestantism, conversely, in that the state subjugated the church, secularised the church yet more, and may almost be said to have abolished it. The true relationship between state and church can, he considers, be found only in the east, and he thinks here of a parallelism wherein state and church fulfil their respective duties without any mutual interference. Of course this parallelism must not be conceived in the sense of the modern theory of a free church within a free state. We must think rather of an organic, free, spiritual, reciprocal working of body and soul, and our general outlook must be that of spiritualist and anti-materialist theory.

Homjakov's conception of the Russian and westem churches was unduly abstract and lacked adequate historical foundation, and for this reason he failed to write clearly concerning the relationship between church and state. If we are to avoid discussing this relationship in a purely schematic manner, we must comprehend the actuality of religious and political organisation, must comprehend it in its historic entirety. In the analysis of the church, the nature and the power of the clergy are decisive. The celibate Catholic priest exercises a different power over the faithful from that exercised by the married Russian priest, and the social position of the two is entirely different; quite different again from either is the position of the Protestant pastor, who is no longer a priest. The political and social power of clergy and hierarchy varies accordingly. In this connection we must think above all of