Baptistic Theologies, 2009

racteristics Pobedonostsev considered as tolerable (and this is a very important observation) because in spite of them people kept their faith. 55 Pobedonostsev criticised materialism and positivism from the perspective of Orthodoxy and he thought that the Orthodox faith which Russians ‘feel with their soul’ contained the truth. Now this shows somehow a mystical understanding of faith, something like a special feeling, rather than a transformed life. And even today many Orthodox believers are not concerned with things that people call ‘the evils of society’. This is not essential because people ‘have faith’. During his whole life, Pobedonostsev was fighting against all possible revolutionary movements. In this fight he proposed strengthening the Church by developing clerical education in Russia, and by persecuting nonconformists. 56 He used his authoritative position in politics and religious circles to achieve his goals. He was trying to destroy any form of nonconformity in Russia and religious nonconformity was one of his major 52 K. Pobedonostsev, Moscow Album, n.p. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 ‘Pobedonoscev Konstantin’, in Enciklopedicheskii Slovar Brokgausa ee Evfrona, n.p. 56 A.Shikman, Deyateli Otechestvennoi Istoryy. Bibligraphicheskii Spravochnik, n.p. Relationships between Evangelicals and the Orthodox Church in Russia 83 57 concerns. He tried to define certain rules for sectarians and Old Believers and also he wanted to bring the dissidents back to the Orthodox Church through missionary work. In his article, Diseases of our Time , Pobedonostsev addressed the problems of society, arguing that all people’s mistakes are caused by a wrong perspective that people acquire, being chaimed by something new: Do not we see the same, for example, in the histoiy of different sects, beginning from Gnostics or Arians, and finishing with Pashkovites... Tolstoy followers or Nihilists? The reason for it is in a person following the impression, accepting a wrong point of view, proving the point to him and thinking that the whole Universe is circling around him, and he seeks the truth about everything and everywhere, and he is indignant with eveiything and eveiybody, accuses eveiything [while] excluding himself [although] with the same sins and passions.... What an odd thing, what a fatal mistake! 59 Observing the work of different charity organisations and the Pashkovites in particular, Pobedonostsev accused them of being hypocrites who had forgotten love and compassion: See a meeting where speeches are said... see - o, the top of social hypocrisy! - charity bazaars where [there is] some woman-seller who sacrifices nothing of her own, wearing a costume which costs sometimes not less than is gained from the total sale - and we call it the act of Christian love!.. 60 He worked against the activities of the Society for the Encouragement of Spiritual and Ethical Reading forbidding the publications of