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RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE 4i
camps all those Russian subjects who from their origin do
not belong to the Orthodox Church. Up to the present
religion is bound up with race. We, as it were, desire that
’ Russian ’ should mean at the same time ’ Orthodox,’ as
’ Turk ’ means ’ Faithful’ : against the truth and the spirit
of Christianity we are still of the opinion that the Russian
State is not as the other States of this world, but that it is
already a heavenly kingdom, where the other believers
must not have a place. Against our nature, and in
contradiction to our vocation, and in opposition to our
development, we imagine that the civic society and the Church
are identical, and, in consequence, we deprive the Christian
Church in our midst of her character, tear it down from its
height and make of it a bureaucratic settlement."
The more fully a division between State and religion was
attained in the course of European civilisation, the greater
was the moral and material progress. The countries in
which that division has been carried out in a satisfactory
way have secured the highest efficiency in State
administration, and, at the same time, the most enlightened form of
religious worship. In Russia, the claims of the " Orthodox "
religion to be backed up by State power, and the pretension
of the State to be supported by the " Orthodox " religious
belief, meant tyranny in the State as well as in religious
administration.
It is hardly possible to conceive anything more
preposterous than bringing force to bear on religious persuasion.
Belief is the result of an essentially personal inward
experience, a conviction built up by free will, a certitude gained
by a psychic effort ; while force is an outward factor which
may achieve many things, but not religious conviction.
Compulsion does not convince. On the contrary, it defeats
its own aims when applied to matters of religious belief.
In Russia the opposition of the Old Believers and many
other sects which were subjected to persecution, but only
gained in ascendancy and power, provide an unmistakable
proof of this.
The repeated application of force to matters of religion
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