THE GREAT CHURCH

IN CAPTIVITY

Preface to the Russian edition

Sir Stephen Runciman (1903–2000) was the second son of Viscount Runciman of Doxford. He received the best classical education of his time: by his own admission, he began to study Greek at the age of five, and Latin at the age of six. Runciman, like many other English aristocrats, studied at the Eton School, then at St. John's College. Trinity of the University of Cambridge (1927–1938). In 1932–1938 he lectured at the University of Cambridge. In 1940 he was appointed press attaché at the British Mission in Sofia, and in 1941 he was appointed to the embassy in Cairo. During the war, he lectured on the history and art of Byzantium in Istanbul (1942–1945). From 1951 to 1967 he was chairman of the Anglo-Greek League in London, and from 1960 to 1975 he was president of the British Archaeological Institute in Ankara. He gave lectures at many European and American universities (Thessaloniki, Cambridge, Oxford, London, Glasgow, New York, Chicago, Sofia) and was the chairman of various institutions – the Society of Friends of Mount Athos, the International Association of Byzantinists, the National Trust of Greece, etc.

What is hidden behind this very impressive track record? The name of Stephen Runciman became a symbol in Byzantine studies of the 20th century. His first works appeared in the late 1920s, when many representatives of the old school of Byzantine studies were still alive, the last ones are practically in our days; Runciman stands on the verge of two epochs in the history of science: on the one hand, he is in the full sense of the word representative of the old school with its encyclopedism and broad scope, with its fundamental research on the main problems of Byzantine history; on the other hand, he fully accepted the new, post-war stage in the development of historical science with its detailed study of specific subjects. At the same time, unlike most scientists, he appears before us as a real artist, getting used to the era and giving us a relief, living image of events, characters, national and ethnographic color. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the extraordinary popularity of Runciman's books – they can be read with interest not only by a specialist, but also by a student, schoolboy and just an inquisitive person.

A significant part of Runciman's books are the result of his teaching activities; These are, in fact, processed lecture courses. The same can be said about the work that we offer to the Russian reader. As the author himself writes in the preface to his book, it consists of two parts, and the first is an introduction to the second, which is the history of the Byzantine Church and the history of the Church of the post-Byzantine, Turkish period, which directly continues it. Considering Runciman's work from a scientific point of view, it should be borne in mind that by now it has not only not become obsolete, but, strictly speaking, has not lost its scientific significance, remaining a monument to the history of science.2 This is especially true of the first part, which covers the Byzantine period, although since 1968 there has been a huge number of studies covering the relations between Church and state, East and West. as well as those dedicated to hesychasm.

Of much greater interest is the history of the Patriarchate of Constantinople of 1453-1821, which constitutes the second part of the book. This period of the history of the Greek Church at the time of Runciman's work practically did not attract the attention of Western scholars. If at the beginning of the 21st century it can be said that for the majority of Europeans the Byzantine civilization ends in 1453, then in 1968 this was the case for all Western Byzantinists; post-Byzantine civilization was viewed as a period of degeneration and decline of the Greek spirit of the Palaiologos period. The history of the Greek people of the 19th and 19th centuries was studied exclusively by Greek scholars, whose works at that time were not always at a high level and were often distinguished by bias and unjustified polemical fervor. The first to try to draw Europe's attention to post-Byzantine civilization was the famous Romanian scientist Nicolae Iorga, whose book Byzantium after Byzantium appeared in Bucharest in 1935.3 It was to him that European science owed the introduction of the concept of ????????????? in the programs of conferences and congresses on Byzantine history. However, even after the publication of this book, post-Byzantine studies remained the lot of Greek science or Eastern European Greco-Slavic studies. Stephen Runciman was the first to violate the integrity of European ideas about the Greeks of the Turkish era. Being a sincere, convinced philhellene in the spirit of the English traditions of the 19th century, he set himself the task not only to present the historical events of the corresponding period, but to trace the development of the Greek spirit, to show why the Greeks, after many centuries of slavery, were able not only to liberate part of their territory and create an independent state on it, but also to preserve their national spirit. The author comes to the following conclusion: the Greek people were able to preserve their spirit only thanks to the spiritual power – the Orthodox Church. In this regard, Runciman examines the most interesting phenomenon of the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age, namely the transformation of the supranational Universal Church of Byzantium into the national Greek Church, as the Patriarchate of Constantinople had become by the beginning of the nineteenth century. "Romans", with the barbarians they baptized, who, no matter how hard they tried to reach their level, always had to know their place in the hierarchy of cultured peoples.5 The question of nationalism in the Orthodox Church, and still insufficiently developed, is solved by Runciman in the spirit of traditional philhellenism: at times one gets the impression that he simply perceives the view of the national question in Eastern Europe, However, to Runciman's credit, it must be said that he invariably tries to remain in scientific positions and does not allow himself to descend into national-political speculations. He says with regret that by the end of the 18th century, the Church of Constantinople, under the influence of the secular, Phanariot element, became an instrument of Greek nationalism and completely lost its supranational, universal purpose. The Church should not be an arena of political intrigues, it cannot be an expression of the interests of one people to the detriment of another. Yet Runciman hesitates to condemn the Greek ecclesiastical figures of the time, and leaves unresolved the question of whether the Church would have survived in the Ottoman Empire if it had not been the expression of the Greek national spirit. Most likely, this was impossible, the author's opinion is inclined to this conclusion. Remaining on a strictly scientific position, Runciman does not ignore the theme of the suppression of national enlightenment and self-consciousness among the Slavic peoples of the Balkan Peninsula by the Phanariot clergy, which is usually hushed up in the works of Greek historians. It was the unwise policy of the Greek aristocracy and church hierarchy that led to the fact that in the liberation struggle of the early 19th century, the Greeks did not receive the support of the Balkan Slavs. At the same time, Runciman does not fall into the other extreme, which is characteristic of historians from Slavic countries (including some Russian scholars); For him, Phanariot governance is not an absolute evil; Among the Phanariotes there were many enlightened people who did a lot for the development of the regions subordinate to them.

It is quite natural that for Runciman, as an Englishman, the relations of the Patriarchate of Constantinople with the Anglican Church were of particular interest. Research on this topic was especially in demand under the Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras, with whom the author had close friendly relations.6 Since there is still no generalizing study of Anglo-Constantinople relations in the Russian language, these pages in Runciman's work are of considerable value to us.

Perhaps the greatest interest for the Russian reader should be aroused by the chapters devoted to the relations of Constantinople with the Russian Church. I would like to say a few words about Runciman's approach to this problem. Upon careful reading, some of the characteristics and epithets that the author assimilates to the Russian tsars and princes are perplexing. Thus, for example, he says that the court of the Russian grand prince after the Mongol yoke was more like the court of a cruel oriental despot than that of a Byzantine emperor; Catherine II is characterized as a German and freethinker, who for selfish imperial reasons undertook the Mediterranean campaigns and left the rebellious Greeks to the mercy of the Turks; information about Paul I boils down to the fact that he was insane. The Russian piety of the pre-Petrine time evokes irony in the author – the Russians were more Orthodox than the Orthodox themselves (is this word applicable only to the Greeks?); following the Greeks, he always emphasizes the filial position of the Russian Church in relation to Constantinople, even in the eighteenth century; the Greeks, according to Runciman, should not have trusted the protection of Russia, which had always promised much and done little for them. The eschatological problem of the Third Rome is presented by the author as purely political. In order to explain these seemingly strange accusations, it is necessary to recall the role of England in Greek politics and the "Eastern Question" of the 19th and 20th centuries. British policy determined the position of the Greek state in the international arena throughout the nineteenth century. At the same time, in the "Eastern question" England was the main enemy of Russia; with the "Mistress of the Seas" Russia could never enter into an agreement or measure its naval strength. Due to the fact that the English orientation dominated the policy of the Greek kingdom, and Russia was inclined to support the struggle of the Slavs for their independence, relations between Russia and the Greek government remained invariably extremely strained. This tension was not mitigated either by dynastic marriage (King George's wife Olga was a Russian princess), or by the sympathy of the common people for their brothers of the same faith. Since the political line of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was largely determined by the influence of the Athenian cabinet, the highest hierarchy of Constantinople shared the negative attitude of the Greeks of the kingdom. This became especially noticeable after the Crimean War, when hope for the power of Russia was shaken, and after the proclamation of the Bulgarian schism in 1872, anti-Russian tendencies in the patriarchate intensified even more. British diplomacy played an important role in the aggravation of these relations. Runciman should be given his due, who unequivocally condemns the irreconcilable position of the Greeks on the Bulgarian question of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries; however, his distrust of Russia remains typical of old-school British philhellenes. However, this attitude does not affect the author's scientific horizons: he makes extensive use (for a European scholar) of Russian-language literature not only of the pre-revolutionary, but also of the post-revolutionary period.