Russia and Reunion; A Translation of Wilbois' L'Avenir de L'Eglise Russe, by the REV. C. R. Davey Biggs Together with Translations of Russian Official Documents on Reunion and English Orders (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER VII THE FUTURE OF ORTHODOXY Dearest Friend, My former letters have been written rather for the benefit of other persons, but this is really for yourself. For other persons I have laid stress on the geographical and historical conditions; but you know that they only explain half of the soul of a people, the other half depends on the purpose for which God ordains it. Let us look, therefore, for the vocation of Russia. I must warn you at once where I want to take you. I shall first show that the vocation of Russia is not independent of the vocations of other nations; then, that the destiny of the State is one with that of its Church; as well as that the Russian Church ought to be united with the rest of Christendom. Next, we shall inquire into the conditions of this union. To prove its necessity, as well as to outline its programme, we shall make use of all the positive statements in the letters we have exchanged, in order that our dream, if it is a dream, may at least proceed from certainties. The Necessity Of Union There will be no difficulty about your conceding to me the principle of my two first postulates. Therole of Russia is not to be isolated, for egoism is no more permitted to nations than to individuals, and its external influence cannot tend to merely material conquest, for that would only be another form of egoism. The true missions of States are their religious missions, and the true religion is universal. I shall not waste time on emphasizing this. Let us agree unhesitatingly to the thought placed by Vladimir Solovief at the outset of The Idea of Russia: "In accepting the essential and real idea of the human race?and it is quite necessary that we should accept it since it is a religious truth justified by rational philosophy and confirmed by exac...