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6. Religious-Philosophical Meetings: Celibacy contra Marriage
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6 Religious-Philosophical Meetings Celibacy contra Marriage On October 8, 1901, Dmitrii Merezhkovsky, Dmitrii Filosofov, Vasilii Rozanov, Vladimir Miroliubov, and Valentin Ternavtsev had a private audience with the general procurator of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev, at which they requested permission to have public gatherings of representatives of the clergy and the intelligentsia to discuss questions of mutual religious and social concern.1 That same evening Zinaida Gippius and the members of her inner circle, including the artistsAlexander Benois and Leon Bakst and the poet Nikolai Minsky, visited Metropolitan Antonii (Vadkovsky) of Petersburg at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra with the purpose of gaining his support.2 The metropolitan lived in sumptuous quarters, with original eighteenth-century decor and liveried servants. “Narrow runners lay on the floor, which had been polished to a glassy sheen, and the large windows were crammed with tropical plants.” They were all struck by Antonii’s beautiful white cowl decorated with a diamond cross.3 Gippius also wrote of a visit to the quarters of Bishop Sergii (Stragorodsky), rector of the Petersburg Theological Academy.4 Rozanov whispered to her during the visit that the bishop’s jam was tastier than the metropolitan’s, revealing his characteristic appreciation of the everyday.5 Permission for what came to be known as the Religious-Philosophical Meetings was granted in November , on the condition that attendance by the public remain limited. Pobedonostsev’s uncharacteristically liberal decision was in all like212 lihood the result of the efforts of the broad-minded metropolitan and Ternavtsev, an employee of the synod and mediator between the laity and the clergy. The editor of the Missionary Review (Missionerskoe obozrenie ), Vasilii Skvortsov, also played a positive role; an official of the synod, he worked directly under Pobedonostsev. Skvortsov saw the meetings as an opportunity to proselytize Russian Orthodoxy among the intelligentsia .6 The first meeting was held on November 29, 1901. It took place in a long, narrow hall of the Imperial Geographic Society, housed in the building of the Ministry of Public Education on Theater Street, across from the theater school. A table covered with green cloth ran the length of the hall. At the head of the table sat Bishop Sergii, the chair of the meetings, and the vice-chair, Archimandrite Sergii (Tikhomirov), rector of the seminary. On the right sat the clergy; on the left, the intelligentsia . In one of the corners stood a “huge, terrifying statue of Buddha,” covered with black calico, which Valerii Briusov described as a “Boxer idol.”7 According to Benois, it was not Buddha but a monstrous demon brought back from an expedition to Mongolia or Tibet. It reminded him of the devils “which persecuted [him] in the nightmares of [his] childhood and which were depicted on lubok pictures representing the ‘Day of Judgment.’ This reptile [gadina] had real hair on its head and in its beard, and its whole body was covered with dense black fur. Long, curved fangs jutted out of its gaping, blood-colored mouth, its fingers and toes were armed with sharp claws, and long horns jutted from its head. But the most terrifying part were the idol’s huge, bulging eyes, with their ferocious, merciless expression.”8 Gippius, who originated the idea of the Religious-Philosophical Meetings , had “a black, seemingly modest dress” made for the first meeting. “It was designed in such a way that with the slightest movement the pleats would part and a pale pink lining would show through. The impression was that she was naked underneath. She would often recall that dress with evident pleasure. . . . Either because of that dress or because of some of her other whimsies, the church dignitaries nicknamed her the ‘white she-devil,’” a mythical demonic figure from Merezhkovsky ’s popular novel about Leonardo da Vinci.9 Gippius considered the Religious-Philosophical Meetings as the only semipublic locus of free speech in Russia during those reactionary years. The gatherings, of which there were twenty-two, were banned by Pobedonostsev in April 1903.10 Pobedonostsev was enraged by the intelligentsia ’s attacks on the church and by criticism from within. The Religious-Philosophical Meetings 213 [34.229.110.49] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:19 GMT) desired fusion of the two sides had not taken place. The meeting on April 5, 1903, began with the announcement of the ban. Revised and censored versions of the transcripts were published in the New Way (Novyi put’), also the brainchild of Gippius. The expressed purpose of the...