THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



389 



What will wash away all the uncleanness, 

 Russians ask, by which the Russian bar- 

 barism directed by the enemy has defiled 

 the Kremlin ? 



It is impossible not to recognize that 

 in the Kremlin are found the history of 

 the art, moral strength, might, greatness, 

 and glory of the Russian land. If ancient 

 Moscow is the heart of all Russia, then 

 the altar of this heart is the Kremlin. 



A sacrilegious attack upon it could be 

 made only by madmen or by men to 

 whom nothing is holy and who are in- 

 capable of understanding (whatever Rus- 

 sia's future is to be) the significance and 

 importance of this monument of Russian 

 history. It cannot be considered a suffi- 

 cient reason that the artillery fire di- 

 rected against the Kremlin had for its 

 object to crush the handful of officers 

 and cadets who were within. 



Not daring to approach, Bolsheviks 

 searched for them with shell, injuring 

 now the dome of the Cathedral of the 

 Repose, now the Church of the Twelve 

 Apostles, now the Tower of Ivan the 

 Great, now the Chudov Monastery, and 

 so on, in turn, almost to the last church. 



Alas ! This crazy fallacy is character- 

 istic of the self-imposed government. 

 What they did in the Kremlin they are 

 doing today throughout Russia. One 

 would like to believe that, if these men 

 were once Russians, all consciousness of 

 love for their country had been drained 

 out of their hearts before their subserv- 

 ience to the enemies of all that is to a 

 true Russian dear and holy ! 



Now these wounds have been bound up, 

 as far as is possible, by merciful hands, 

 as if bandaged, propped up by splints, and 

 covered with sheets of iron, so that the 

 winter shall not do still greater damage. 



the: orthodox church risks from the: 

 ruins 



A seventeenth century tale begins: 

 "What man ever divined that Moscow 

 would become a kingdom?" The twen- 

 tieth century historian may wonder how 

 the Kremlin could have been the target 

 of such violence. 



What further struggle and suffering 

 await the Kremlin no one knows. No 

 foreign eyes friendly to Russia remain 

 in Moscow new to see. 



The violent commotion which is shak- 

 ing the life of Russia, typified physically 

 by the wrecking of the Kremlin, is find- 

 ing its first visible reaction in the reorgan- 

 ization of the Russian Church. 



In the cities, where life courses more 

 rapidly than in the country, the people, 

 or a great part of them, are perceptibly 

 returning to the Church, but in the vil- 

 lages a mental bias, which originated in 

 the cities, amounting to an absolute denial 

 of the Church's moral and religious teach- 

 ings, is apparently prevailing. The peas- 

 ant's faith is shaken, but the Intelligencia 

 are again kissing the Cross. 



The manner in which the revolution 

 is affecting the Church, and its conse- 

 quences with regard to external organiza- 

 tion is already sufficiently clear. 



From the middle of the seventeenth 

 century two opposite paths opened be- 

 fore Russia : the path blazed by St. Serge 

 and the path of Peter the Great. St. 

 Serge's path led up to statehood in the 

 moral consciousness of Russia. Peter 

 the Great drove Russia into the establish- 

 ment of an enforced empire held together 

 by autocracy. 



Peter, in his determination to central- 

 ize autocracy in Russia, placed at the 

 head of the Church administration a col- 

 legium, to which was given the name of 

 the Holy Governing Synod. This con- 

 sisted of ecclesiastics of different grades, 

 over whom, by Peter's decree, the reign- 

 ing Emperor was instituted supreme civil 

 judge. The Holy Synod was assisted by 

 the presence of a High Procurator ap- 

 pointed by the Emperor, an official whose 

 duty it was to see that the Synod's dis- 

 positions should conform to the laws of 

 the State and to its interests. 



The Russian Church has not since that 

 day drawn a free breath. No ordinance 

 of the Synod could be promulgated, 

 unless confirmed by the secular author- 

 ity. The ecclesiastical members of the 

 Synod were appointed and summoned to 

 take part in its labors by the Emperor 

 alone. 



When, in 191 7, the imperial power was 

 abolished, the Russian Church faced the 

 question of organizing her administration 

 afresh. 



Under the past imperial regime, the 

 secular element, in the person of the Em- 



