The Shepherd, December 2009
Even long before the [Russian] Revolution, our liberal intelligentsia, who had strayed far from the Church, were fired up with a hatred of monasticism. Not only by word of mouth, but in the press, attacks upon the monasteries and upon monasticism appeared more and more often. Monasteries were depicted as obsolete establishments, having no practical purpose, as not responding to the spirit of the times. At best they had served a rôle, if such was their rôle, as charitable organisations, but that was all in the past, and now they were due for closure. They accused the monastics of being workshy, of parasitism, of drunkenness, of leading dissolute lives, and of every possible kind of vice, which supposedly flourished in all the monasteries. But it did not stop there; with zest they began to blacken the very idea of monasticism itself. They reproved the monks for abandoning life, for not wanting to be useful members of society, for crying off from serving their neighbour, and so on. Their gravest deviation being that, in leaving the world to struggle for the salvation of their souls, they were, consequently, the most dreadful egoists.
The Revolution came. When the Marxist-Communist Bolsheviks seized power and a savage persecution of the Faith and of the Church was initiated, then first in the line of fire of this savagery were the monks and the monasteries. All the accusations were repeated, even the most disingenuous; “the monks did nothing, they were money-grubbers, drunkards, debauched; they deceived the people, they extorted funds so that they could live an easy, carefree life in clover.” Along with them came all the clergy in general, the “pops” [Russian slang for the priests - ed.], who were exposed to every possible kind of ridicule, mockery, persecution and torment along with the monastics. But nothing was said about the fact that all the monastic property was confiscated, that the monasteries were declared closed, and the monastics dispersed. They repeated the earlier accusation that the monks were egoists, and this was applied to Christianity in general. To care for the salvation of one’s soul was nothing other than egoism. “Religious people rant about caring for themselves; but we, the New People, are concerned about the good fortune of the whole world. We do not think about ourselves, we forget ourselves, and we desire only to minister unto the common good, so that we can build a happy life for all people, paradise on earth.”
In the eyes of many, all these attacks appeared to carry weight and to be well-founded, the more so, unfortunately, because in the latter times many of our monasteries were not distinguished by their former strictness of life. We do encounter negative manifestations which gave occasion to the accusations. And as, in the course of time, many monasteries had accumulated vast riches from the offerings of the faithful, then indeed there were instances of people joining monasteries, who did so not for monastic struggles or for the salvation of their souls but so that they might have a free and easy life; and this did give rise of manifestations of immorality.
But does this give us the right to deny the positive significance of monasticism in general?
… to be continued in the next issue.
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