RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Rupprecht Russia
London University; became senior classical master at the City of London School, 1872; fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1879; and headmaster of St. Olave's Grammar School, 1893. He has issued: First Greek Reader (London, 1878); Synopticon. An Exposition of the common Matter of the Synoptic Gospels (1880) ; and The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels (in collaboration with E. A. Abbott; 1884).
RUSSELL, CHARLES TAZE. See Millennial Dawn.
RUSSELL, CHARLES WILLIAM: Roman Catholic; b. at Killough (27 m. s.w. of Belfast), Ireland, May 14, 1812; d. at Dublin Feb. 26, 1880. He received his education at Drogheda, Downpatrick, and at Maynooth College, becoming a Dunboyne student at the latter in 1832; he was made professor of humanity in 1835; was selected for the apostolic
vicariate of Ceylon in 1845, became professor of ecclesiastical history at Maynooth in 1845, and president in 1857. His significance lies in two directions; his influence on the Tractarian movement (Newman attributes to him the major influence in his own conversion to Roman Catholicism), and his scholarship in antiquarian matters. He was appointed to the Historical Manuscripts Commission in 1869; published A Report on the Carte MSS. in the Bodleian Library (8 vols., Oxford, 1871), in collaboration with John Patrick Prendergast; and compiled the Calendar of Irish State Papers during the Reign of James I. (4 vols., 1872-77). He was the author of The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti (1858) ; and, with M. Kelly, translated from the German of Christian Heinrich Schmid the Catholic Tales (3 vols., London, 1846), and also Leibnitz's System of Theology (1850).
Bibliography: DNB, xlix. 428-429.
I. History of the Orthodox Greek
Church. Beginnings (§1).
From the Mongol Invasion (§ 2). From the Patriarchate (§3).
II. Statistics.
1. The Orthodox Greek Church.
RUSSIA.
2. The Evangelical Church.
Lutherans in Russia Proper (§ 1). Lutherans in Finland and Poland
(§2). Reformed (§ 3). III. Sectarianism in Russia. Origin (§ 1).
The Popovshchina (§ 2). The Bezpopovshchina (§ 3). The Khlysty (§4). The Skoptzi (§5). The Molokani (§ 6). The Stundists (§ 7).
I. Early History of the Orthodox Greek Church:
The existence of Christianity in Russia as early as the tenth century is shown by the treaty between the Greeks and the Varyags of Kief made in 944, the Christian Varyags being especially obligated to maintain the peace, being called upon at its conclusion to take the oath in the churches of St. Elias, " for," says the annalist, " many Varyages were
Christians." A few years later Olga,
i. Begin- the widow of Igor, embraced Chris-
nings. tianity; and the annals state that
Vladimir accepted the faith after listening to the arguments of envoys of the Mohammedan Bulgars, the pope, the Jewish Hazars, and a Greek philosopher, his baptism taking place after the capture of Korsun. The scanty account of the monk Jacob (1070) represents that he adopted Christianity of his own accord and through the example of his grandmother Olga, and that he was baptized three years before reducing Korsun. The Christianization of Russia, which was almost contemporaneous with the conversion of Hungary and Poland, was closely connected with Vladimir's alliance with the hardpressed Byzantine emperors and his marriage with their sister. At Kief the idols were thrown into the river, and the people were driven in throngs to be baptized in the Dnieper. At Novgorod baptism does not seem to have been received without resistance, and Murom and Ryasan were not converted until the end of the eleventh century. It was only in the latter part of the twelfth century that Russia could be considered Christian. Vladimir (d. 1015), Yaroslaw, and Vladimir Monomach (d. 1125) sought to make provision for schools and the training of clergy; and the bishops and metro-
politans— the latter, until the Mongol invasion, all Greeks with two exceptions — brought with them a certain degree of culture. But the almost ceaseless wars were unfavorable to the development of clerical life; and theology amounted to little more than polemics against the Latins, with a few ascetic writings, accounts of pilgrimages, annals, and legends. The writings on canon law, however, give glimpses of the civilization of the time. Religious life and culture centered at the eremitic monastery at Kief, founded by a certain Antonius, but influenced more by its second abbot, Theodosius, who introduced the Studite rule. The ideals of the monastery, which was filled chiefly with members of the higher classes, were those of Greek monasticism; but ignorance prevailed, and the cloister exerted influence only over the more cultured grades of society. The masses were openly pagan and utterly ignorant.
The Mongol invasion was a blow to the Church
as well as to the kingdom; the metropolitan was
either killed or forced to flee, and the same fortunes
befell the most of the bishops. After
2. From the establishment of Mongol rule, howthe Mongol ever, the Russian Church shared in the
Invasion, religious toleration of Genghis Khan. The worship, laws, judgments, and property of the Church were undisturbed; and the clergy were exempt from taxation and could exercise jurisdiction over their people in civil and criminal matters. The Russians themselves preferred to bow before the Mongols rather than to submit to Rome. The metropolitans were no longer exclusively Constantinopolitan Greeks, but also numbered native Russians. Meanwhile the grand dukes of Moscow had contrived to enlist the cooperation of the metropolitans as well as the favor of the
Russia