Russia’s Religious World Policy
The European power which is doing most to alter the map of the world to-day is Russia. The activity of that power in Europe and Asia, to which so much of the news of the day relates, is in pursuance of a world policy, which has as much a religious as a political significance. That policy is one which looks to the world-wide dominion of Russian orthodoxy. The policy of the Russian state is dictated not by the czar, but by the Russian orthodox church. The church is the ruling power in the empire. According to Mr. Wirt Gerrare, who is the author of a recently issued book on “Greater Russia,” the real inspiration of Russia’s world policy is the idea of setting up the kingdom of Christ on the earth. Other monarchs in past centuries, moved partly by ambition and partly by fanaticism, have attempted the same thing; for example, this was the underlying idea of the “Holy Alliance,” formed in Europe early in the last century, America’s answer to which was the famous Monroe doctrine; and this dream of misguided Christianity still dazzles the minds of those who to-day have a perverted conception of the nature of Christ’s kingdom. Even in the United States, intelligent Christian people have expressed the belief that “the kingdom of Christ is to enter the realm of law through the gateway of politics.” Russia believes this, and is striving, in her way, for its realization. The world policy of Russia is a gradual growth. It is the Christian ideal. The expulsion of the Turk, the conversion of the Asiatic heathen, world-wide dominion of Russian orthodoxy, are nothing more than the realization of Christ’s kingdom on earth. . . . The religious view, that of the orthodox Russian church, is that the Russian creed is the only correct form of Christianity; that Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and heretical sectarianism will merge ultimately into “orthodoxy,” and then, in an age of general forbearance and consent, the reign of violence will be at an end. Its work is to repress proselytism by the heterodox; to convert the heathen. The territorial expansion of Russia is a means to attaining its ends. The view of the Russian church and of the Russian people is that Asia is to be absorbed by Russia, not always by actual conquest, but as destined, in order that Russia’s mission may be fulfilled. The bearing of this upon Protestant missionary activity in Asia is readily seen. Russian orthodoxy, backed up by Russian civil and military authority, will bar out Protestant missionaries wherever it has the opportunity. Over this prospect Protestant missionary leaders are beginning to be aroused. A leading Methodist journal says:— The religious phase of Russia’s world policy is the most important of all phases of that policy, and to it all others are subordinate. Russia will, if she can, “close the door” of Manchuria and other Chinese provinces, not alone in the interest of Russian trade, but in order that Western missionaries and Western religious ideas may not find entrance to the minds and hearts of the Chinese people, over whom she sometime hopes to rule. She is especially hostile to Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, and would exclude from all territory which she controls American and English missionaries. . . . It is of the utmost importance to American and English trade, and of far more importance to China and the world, that the Chinese door be open to American and English missionaries as well as to merchants. Russia is seeking to close the door to a vast Asiatic territory, to shut out Protestant missionaries; and in this Satan is seeking to bar the way of the third angel’s message in the same territory. These doors must be entered before they are closed. The third angel’s message must go now to all the world. “There shall be delay no longer.”