The force of the conclusion was not weakened by the need for postponing the end of the world, for recalculating the tale of the apocalyptic years. Moreover, the schismatics found it difficult to dispense with priests, and the more moderate among them urged compromise with the state church. After the defeat of Pugačev, no further active revolt was initiated by the raskolniki, the utmost they attempted being passive resistance. In the year 1788 ecclesiastical dioceses were established by the popovcy (the raskol communities with priests), and these were sanctioned by the state church, whose supremacy was recognised by the schismatics. In the year 1800 edinověrie (literally, "unity of faith," the name given in Russia to the religious sect originating in a compromise between the state church and the old believers) was regulated by law, but the schism in the church persists in fact to the present day.[1]
§ 5.
WHILST the religious and ecclesiastical interests of Holy Russia necessitated the borrowing of civilisation from Europe, the practical needs of the state and of its foreign and domestic policy likewise impelled recourse to Europe. The development and equipment of the army upon the European model was essential if Russia were to meet her European opponents victoriously. New barracks and fortresses were requisite for the military arm, and Russia must also have
- ↑ The Russian raskol has from 1850 onwards been the subject of earnest and diversified studies, initiated by Ščapov the historian. Ščapov contended that the raskol had not simply a religious and ceremonial significance, but that, in its later developments at least (from 1666 onwards, the date of Nikon's condemnation and banishment to a monastery), it had in addition extensive social and political bearings, and that these elements had been especially conspicuous since the days of Peter's reforms. According to this view the raskol was an uprising of the lesser clergy against the hierarchy and the Europeanising state, a popular movement of a nationalist and democratic character, aiming at ocal self-government, and adverse to the centralisation of the state authority. Ščapov and his school took an erroneous view of the political significance of the raskol. They forgot that the Russian state and the Russian church constituted a theocracy, and that opposition to the church necessarily became political because church and state persecuted the old believers. The raskolniki were always religious, but their religion had its associated ethics which led logically to action in the political field. The opposition of the raskolniki to the state church was conservative and reactionary, but qua opposition the raskol was often a school for individual firmness of character. Representatives of the modern revolutionary parties go too far however, when they discover their prototypes in the raskolniki.
