The first question, the first doubt of a Russian who is beginning to think, is the question about the miracle-working icons and, above all, the relics: “Is it true that they are imperishable, and that they work miracles?” Hundreds and thousands of men put these questions to themselves and are troubled about their solution, especially because the bishops, metropolitans, and all the dignitaries kiss the relics and the miracle-working icons. Ask the bishops and the dignitaries why they do so, and they will tell you that they do so for the sake of the masses, and the masses worship the icons and relics, because the bishops and dignitaries do so.
The activity of the Russian Church, in spite of its external veneer of modernness, learning, spirituality, which its members are beginning to assume in their writings, articles, clerical periodicals, and sermons, consists not only in keeping the masses in that consciousness of rude and savage idolatry, in which they are, but also in intensifying and disseminating superstition and religious ignorance, by pushing out of the masses the vital comprehension of Christianity, which has been living in them by the side of the idolatry.
I remember, I was once present in the monastery bookstore of Óptin Cloister, when an old peasant was choosing some religious books for his grandson, who could read. The monk kept pushing the description of relics, holidays, miraculous icons, psalters, etc. , into his hands. I asked the old man if he had the Gospel. “No.” “Give him the Russian Gospel,” I said to the monk. “That is not proper for him,” said the monk.
This is in compressed form the activity of our church.
“But this is only true in barbarous Russia,” a European or American reader will say. And such an opinion will be correct, but only in the measure in which it refers to the government which aids the church in accomplishing its stultifying and corrupting influence in Russia.