Greek Orthodox Church. In the Russian language the same word means peasant and Christian: krestianine. For centuries the Russian peasant has in turn repelled the Mohammedan invasion of Tartars, the Catholic invasion of Poles, the Protestant invasion of Teutons, the freethinking invasion of Jews. To the Russian peasant, and mainly owing to the geographical position of the country, nationality and religion are synonymous terms. Religious unity has been the foundation of political unity. The Pravoslavie, or orthodoxy, has become the second principle in the Slavophile Trinity, and even the liberals who reject a State Church believe in a National Church.
But, in addition to this religious cause of the conservatism of the peasantry, all physical conditions seem to neutralize and check political movements. Nature herself seems to conspire against political conspirators and seems to defeat their schemes: climate, the enormous distances and the difficulties of communication, the absence of roads, the scarcity of cities, explained by the absence of a middle class—which is itself explained by the primitive conditions of trade and industry—all these causes are in the way of political agitation.
