The Public Image of Eastern Orthodoxy by Heather L. Bailey

Author:Heather L. Bailey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2020-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Vasiliev as Appraised by His Contemporaries

In 1865 Guettée wrote to Vasiliev from Moscow that “everyone speaks to me of you … in terms that could flatter anyone,” adding that he would be returning to Paris with “an enormous load of kindest regards, compliments, and respects” for the archpriest. “I feel very happy in Russia to be considered as your friend.”68 When Vasiliev died in 1881, obituaries in both the religious and secular press attested to the fame and importance of this “invincible wrestler for the Orthodox Church” who “raised high its banner in the West.”69 His eulogists remembered him as a highly esteemed and decorated representative of Russia’s white clergy and as an important public servant who dedicated his whole life to the benefit of the Orthodox Church. Religious education was the theme of his entire career, connecting his twenty years of public service in Paris with his work from 1867 until his death as the chairman of the Holy Synod’s Education Committee. As one obituary expressed it: “May you rest in peace, valiant servant of the Church, honorable and tireless toiler of religious education [prosveshchenie]!”70 The artist Vladimir Orlovsky unabashedly declared that no other member of the white clergy “enjoyed such broad fame or fully deserved celebrity” as Vasiliev, whose renown extended throughout Russia and western Europe.71 He added that it was universally felt in Russia that the country had lost an important public figure. Intelligent, tolerant, kind, strong, sincere, upright, a true Christian—such were the descriptors applied to this man of “titanic energy” and “amazing” activities.72

Vasiliev’s eulogists reflected on his achievements: his pastoral care of POWs in France during the Crimean War; his work to prevent Russians from apostatizing and to counter the propaganda of the Russian converts to Catholicism; his correspondence with Jaquemet, Bonald, and Guizot—but especially with Jaquemet; his efforts to educate western Europeans about the Orthodox Church through his work on L’Union chrétienne; his role in joining Guettée and other westerners to the Russian Church;73 the founding of the Russian church in Paris; and his contributions to the reform of Russian ecclesiastical education on his return to Russia in 1867. Vasiliev had supported Popovitsky’s liberal (pro-white clergy) ecclesial newspaper.74 Popovitsky wrote about him in glowing terms, calling him “one of the most valiant representatives of the white clergy,” and their energetic and practically sole defender.75 All Vasiliev’s major achievements in Paris, as identified by his eulogists, were tied to one overarching goal: to enlighten the world about the truth of Orthodoxy, with the church on Daru Street as the pinnacle of his efforts to raise the international profile of Orthodoxy and Russia.

One reason for Vasiliev’s appointment to the embassy chapel in Paris was to deal with concerns that Russians living in Paris were being seduced by Roman Catholicism.76 He was equipped to deal with this problem because he had been an outstanding student at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, where he had written a dissertation on papal primacy. Orlovsky stressed that one of Vasiliev’s main

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