The Treatment of Heretics

Beside the dispute over property runs a second tradition of contrast: that in the affair of the “Judaizers” — a heresy that troubled the Russian Church at the turn of the sixteenth century — the Trans-Volga elders in the spirit of St. Nilus of Sora urged mercy toward the repentant heretics, while St. Joseph of Volotsk urged severity, including the death penalty for the obstinate. This file sets out that tradition and, following the methodology of this collection, marks how much of the sharp contrast is itself a later construction — presenting both sides, naming the scholars, and refusing to caricature either saint.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (hesychast; “Non-Possessors”)

The Affair of the “Judaizers”

In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the Russian Church was disturbed by a movement its opponents called the “heresy of the Judaizers” (zhidovstvuiushchie) — a current, apparently centered in Novgorod and reaching into Moscow, accused of rejecting central Christian doctrines (the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the veneration of icons) and of inclining toward Jewish observances (Fedotov 1966, vol. II; Goldfrank 2008, introduction). The nature, coherence, and even the reality of the “heresy” as its accusers described it are debated by historians, since much of what is known comes from the polemics of its opponents, above all from Joseph of Volotsk, whose great work The Enlightener (Prosvetitel) was written against it (Goldfrank 2008; Fedotov 1966, vol. II). What is clear is that the Russian Church confronted what it took to be a dangerous heresy, and that the question arose of how the heretics were to be dealt with.

The Traditional Contrast

In the received account, two attitudes emerged. St. Joseph of Volotsk pressed for the firm suppression of the heresy and the punishment of the unrepentant heretics, including, for the obstinate and relapsed, the death penalty — arguing, with appeal to Old Testament precedent and Byzantine practice against heresy, that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities were bound to protect the faithful and the faith by severe measures (Fedotov 1966, vol. II; Goldfrank 2008, introduction). Against this, the Trans-Volga elders — the heirs of Nilus’s contemplative and merciful spirit — are remembered as having urged mercy and restraint: that heretics who repented should be received back, that the obstinate should be confined or exiled rather than executed, and that the Church should seek the conversion of the erring rather than their death (Fedotov 1966, vol. II; Goldfrank 2008). On this telling, the affair of the Judaizers becomes a second front of the Nilus-Joseph opposition, with Nilus’s side standing for the gentler, more evangelical handling of error.

The Source-Critical Caveat

This contrast, like the property dispute, must be handled with care, because it too has been sharpened and partly constructed by later tradition. [Disputed: the attribution to Nilus of Sora himself of a clear, public stand for mercy toward the Judaizers is not securely documented; the merciful position is associated above all with the Trans-Volga elders generally and with Nilus's disciple Vassian Patrikeyev, and the famous antithesis between a "merciful Non-Possessor" party and a "severe Josephite" party is, like the property antithesis, substantially a later historiographical construction. David Goldfrank (*Nil Sorsky: The Authentic Writings*, 2008, introduction) stresses the constructed and retrospective character of the neat two-party framing and the thinness of direct evidence for Nilus's personal role in the heresy question; Georges Fedotov (*The Russian Religious Mind*, vol. II, 1966) transmits the contrast of attitudes toward the heretics as broadly historical and as expressing the genuinely different spirits of the two currents. Both agree that Joseph's advocacy of severity is well documented in his own writings, while the "Nilan" mercy is carried more by the milieu and the later tradition than by a documented statement of Nilus himself]. The honest position is that the merciful spirit toward the erring is genuinely characteristic of Nilus and of the tradition he founded — his whole teaching breathes gentleness, discernment, and the refusal of harshness (see Guarding the Thoughts)— but that the specific public stand against the execution of heretics is documented for his heirs (Vassian and the Trans-Volga elders) rather than securely for Nilus in his own person, and that the tidy “two parties” framing of the heresy question is, again, largely retrospective.

What Is Genuinely Nilan

What can be affirmed as genuinely in the spirit of Nilus is a temper rather than a documented policy. Nilus’s writings and letters show a man of extraordinary mercy toward human weakness and error, constantly recalling the struggling to the boundless mercy of God, counseling discernment and gentleness over severity, and refusing the crushing of the weak (see The Tradition (Predanie) and Letters; Fedotov 1966, vol. II; Maloney 1973). It is entirely consonant with this temper that the tradition he founded should have inclined toward mercy in the handling of heretics, and the Trans-Volga elders’ documented advocacy of restraint is the natural fruit of the Nilan spirit (Fedotov 1966, vol. II; Goldfrank 2008). In that sense the tradition that links Nilus’s name to mercy toward the heretics, while it outruns the direct evidence about the man himself, is not a falsification but a fair extension of his known character.

Joseph’s Side, Without Caricature

Fairness requires that Joseph’s severity, too, be understood and not caricatured. Joseph acted from a real and serious conviction: that heresy was a deadly poison threatening the salvation of the faithful and the integrity of the faith, that the rulers of Church and state bore a God-given duty to protect their people from it, and that mercy toward an obstinate and proselytizing heresiarch could be cruelty toward the many souls he might destroy (Fedotov 1966, vol. II; Goldfrank 2008, introduction). His position had ample precedent in Byzantine law and in the Old Testament he cited, and it was held by a saint of evident holiness and immense charity toward the poor (see Two Visions of Monasticism). One may judge, with much of the later tradition and the modern conscience, that the Nilan mercy was the higher and more evangelical way — and the present collection, written in the Nilan tradition, inclines to that judgment — without therefore making Joseph a villain. He was a saint who, on this question, took the sterner of two paths that the Church of his age regarded as open, for reasons that were serious and pastoral, not malicious (Fedotov 1966, vol. II; Goldfrank 2008).

The Meaning of the Contrast

The lasting significance of the contrast, rightly understood, is that the Russian Church carried within it from this period two impulses toward the erring: the impulse to protect the flock by firmness, and the impulse to win the erring by mercy. Both impulses have Christian and patristic roots; both can be held by saints; and the Church’s veneration of both Nilus (and his merciful tradition) and Joseph (and his protective firmness) is again its refusal to absolutize either. That the merciful, contemplative tradition of Nilus speaks with special power to the modern conscience is true and worth saying; that this should be said without unsainting Joseph is the discipline this collection observes (Fedotov 1966, vol. II; Goldfrank 2008, introduction; per METHODOLOGY.md §4).

See Also

References

  • Goldfrank, David M., trans. and ed. Nil Sorsky: The Authentic Writings. Cistercian Studies 221. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2008. (Introduction: the Judaizer affair, Joseph’s documented advocacy of severity, the thinness of direct evidence for Nilus’s personal role, and the constructed character of the two-party framing of the heresy question.)
  • Fedotov, Georges P. The Russian Religious Mind, Vol. II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966. (The Judaizers; the contrast of merciful and severe attitudes; the Trans-Volga elders’ restraint and Joseph’s firmness as expressions of two spirits.)
  • Maloney, George A., S.J. Russian Hesychasm: The Spirituality of Nil Sorsky. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. (The merciful temper of Nilus’s spirituality.)