Spiritual censorship in Russia

In 1284, in the Russian “Pilot Book” (a collection of church and secular laws), the following norm appears: “If anyone keeps heretical scripture in his house and believes in a sorcerer, be cursed with all heretics and burn books on his head” .

The first mention of a possible “revision” (censorship) of spiritual and liturgical literature in Moscow is contained in the documents of the Stoglav Cathedral in 1551 (chapters five — On the correction of the book and sixth — on the scribes). The question was about the translation of “divine books,” which “scribes write from unapproved translations, but, having written, do not correct, the inventory comes to the inventory, and the incomplete and indirect points. And according to those books in the churches of God they honor, and sing, and study, and write from them. What about this negligence and great neglect from God will be by divine rule? ” The chapter “On Book Scribes” gave the right to the spiritual authorities to seize uncorrected manuscripts, in fact introducing preliminary censorship of manuscript books. A revision of the funds introduced censorship after the fact. Thus, the decisions of Stoglava became the first censorship documents in Russia.

Since the 17th century, censorship of publishing was carried out explicitly in Moscow in the form of control of the Printing House by the Moscow Patriarch himself and other hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate ^[1] . Patriarch Nikon noted in his letters a mass distortion of the well-known icon-painting plots with a folk picture (“popular prints”). In this regard, all popular prints of spiritual content were subject to spiritual censorship.

Significant censorship functions were assigned to the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, created in 1687 .

In the 18th century

As a state body, it was officially established by Peter the Great in 1721 , when the Holy Synod , in accordance with the Spiritual Rules , was instructed to carry out preliminary supervision of the printing of theological and other spiritual books: “If anyone writes a theological letter, he won’t be able to print it soon but present the first to the collegium, and the collegium should consider whether there is any sin in the letter, the teachings of the Orthodox antipathy. ”

At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, spiritual censorship committees arose.

• 1756 it was found necessary to establish a special office to oversee the translation of books. During the reign of Catherine the Second, censorship was officially granted to the Synod Office, the Moscow and St. Petersburg Metropolitans, and, in fact, to clergymen from the academy.
• By a registered decree of September 16 ( 27 ), 1796 , which destroyed almost all private printing houses, mixed censorship committees were established. In each of them, along with two secular censors, there should also be a spiritual person authorized by the Synod.
• In 1756 , a project was appointed from the archive when Moscow spiritual censorship was established by the type of translation office. According to the provision on it, “spiritual censorship established in Moscow” is directly under the jurisdiction of the Holy Synod, consists of a chairman and three members, known for their knowledge of verbal sciences and languages; they are from a monastic or white clergy, according to the consideration and approval of the Holy Synod. The subject of censorship is witnessing, reviewing and correcting both translations relating to the Church and church doctrine, and generally - works published by the “catholic” and non-catholic clergy.
• On March 6 ( 17 ), 1757 , the Synod, in a complaint addressed to the Empress Elizabeth, asked to burn Lomonosov’s “libel” “Anthem to the Beard”, “in which ... he would put the kids far more respectable than the priests, and, of course, call them goats,” and Lomonosov himself send to the Synod "for exhortation and correction." The request of the Synod was not fulfilled; moreover, a few days later he received a promotion (he was appointed adviser to the academic office) ^[2] .

In the 19th century

Prior to the promulgation of the first Censorship Charter of 1804, there were mixed-use censorship committees in the country as “the service of His Majesty”. The censorship statute clearly attributed spiritual censorship to the Synod.

In 1808 , the outline of the rules on the formation of theological schools outlined the basic principles of spiritual censorship committees at theological academies. They were entrusted with the duty of previewing the "classical", that is, educational, books. At the same time, a censorship committee was established at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy . Academic censorship (since 1814 there have already been two committees: Petersburg and Moscow) was directly subordinated to the Commission of Theological Schools, while Moscow censorship still depended primarily on the Synod. In practice, the Committee at the St. Petersburg Academy transferred more and more serious works to Moscow censorship, referring to its incompetence.

On October 27, 1818, the Synod decided to close Moscow censorship and work out a detailed charter for the committees. But in December 1818, the censor of the Petersburg Committee, archimandrite Innokenty (Smirnov) , missed a book by E.I. Stanevich Conversation on the tomb of a baby about the immortality of the soul , directed against the mystics, who were then under the auspices of A.N. Golitsyn . This incident delayed the adoption of a charter for committees until April 22, 1828 .

In 1824, the chairman of the Bible Society, Metropolitan Seraphim, requested that this society be banned due to the spread of Masonic teachings. In April 1826, by decree of Emperor Nicholas I, the activities of the company were discontinued.

The Petersburg Committee often executed the direct instructions of the Synod and in fact enjoyed special influence. A characteristic feature of this committee was the frequent change of its members. More prominent members of the committee during the Nikolaev reign were: Archimandrite Innocent (Borisov) (1827-1830, d. 05.26.1857, archim. Khersonsky in Odessa), Archimandrite Platon (Gorodetsky) (1832-1838, d. 01.10 .1891, Metropolitan of Kiev), Archimandrite Makarii (Zimin) (1831-1837, d. In the 70s at the Zheltikov Monastery), Archimandrite Joasaph (Pokrovsky) (1839-1841 and 1843-1844), professor at the University , archpriest A.I. Raikovsky (10.29.1860), archpriest A.I. Okunev, archpriest T.F. Nikolsky (07.16.1848), John (Sokolov) (d. 17.03.1869 by Bishop Smolensky ) The Ecclesiastical Committee at the Moscow Academy was in the closest dependence on Metropolitan Filaret. Notable members of the committee were: Professor F. A. Golubinsky (1826–1852), Archpriest P. S. Delitsyn (1836–1863), Filaret (Gumilevsky, 1833–1836) and Agapit (Vvedensky, 1834– 1841) The spiritual censorship committees at the Kiev (since 1819) and Kazan (since 1845) theological academies were designed to consider small works on behalf of “the actual department of the department”.

On January 5, 1857, the Kiev Committee was vested with the same rights as the capital's committees, but only with regard to "compositions submitted by persons subordinate to the Kiev Theological Academy." The activities of the Kazan Committee revived only by 1855 , when it was possible to establish its own journal. But in 1859, censorship of the original journal articles was transferred to the Moscow Committee. Only in the second half of 1860 did the activity of the Kazan Committee go back to normal.

In 1857, the St. Petersburg Committee was isolated from the Academy, and from 1869 , the remaining committees were legally. The Presidency of the Orthodox Clergy, approved on April 10, 1869 , was granted to the clergy: a) to print with the permission of local censorship, under the supervision of the diocesan bishop, all generally their works of spiritual orthodox content, with the exception of those which, according to the censorship charter, are not may be published without the permission of the Holy Synod, and b) compile and publish, with the permission of the same censorship, brochures containing extracts from the writings of St. fathers, prayers and hymns of liturgical books and lithographic sacred images. The regulation of the Spiritual-Educational Committee under the Holy Synod of 1867 assigned special rights to it to consider textbooks, manuals and periodicals for spiritual-educational publications, contrary to the charter of spiritual censorship committees.

Approved by the Synod on January 14–16, 1870, the “Commission for the Review of Current Decisions on Spiritual Censorship”, chaired by Archbishop Makarii (Bulgakov), came to the conclusion that it was necessary to “combine spiritual censorship with secular censorship into one common censorship”, with the introduction of “persons special theological education with the highest spiritual degrees. " The synodal review was planned to be left only for the proper church editions. But, by the Highest Decree of December 21, 1870 , this project was submitted to the commission of Senior Secretary Urusov, established on November 2, 1869, and received no further movement. Shortcomings in the work of the committees entailed new decrees and clarifications on spiritual censorship (1884, 1892-1893, 1903, 1898, 1982, 1900).

In the 20th century

The decree on November 24, 1905 canceled "preliminary both general and spiritual censorship for time-based publications in the cities of the empire"; The decree of April 26, 1906 abolished all censorship, which could henceforth be carried out only in court.

The subject of the spiritual censorship committees was the circle of works that was determined by Art. 281-282 on spiritual censorship, as works primarily of the church and requiring synodal consideration: “1) works newly assigned to printing, relating to church service; 2) biographies of saints, published for the first time; 3) essays and translations containing explanations of the books of the Holy. The scriptures; 4) essays and translations containing an exposition of the dogmas of the Orthodox Catholic faith and the rules of Christian activity; 5) essays and translations related to church administration ”and“ books intended for classical use in spiritual subjects in secular schools ”. Moreover, according to the explanatory definition of the Holy Synod of March 8-April 22, 1908, “spiritual censorship institutions should not refuse to consider essays voluntarily provided by authors or publications seeking approval of their works by the spiritual authorities, in forms of greater authority in the eyes of the public. ”

In the modern Russian Federation, according to the Constitution (Article 29, part 5), all censorship is prohibited.

In 1994, the Publishing Council was formed as part of the Moscow Patriarchate to control religiously printed materials published and distributed in the Russian Orthodox Church. The Council was formed on the basis of the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, which in turn was created in February 1945 by a resolution of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1945 . The main tasks of the Council are

• coordination of Orthodox publishing organizations and assistance to publishers
• examination of book publications submitted to examine their conformity with the Orthodox faith and traditions of the Church, to receive recommendations for publication or blessings of His Holiness the Patriarch ^[3]
• reviewing books intended for distribution through the system of church (diocesan, parish, monastery) bookselling ^[4] .

In an interview on April 2, 2007, Patriarch Alexy II said in this connection:

The very word censorship when it appears will cause a flurry of criticism in some circles. We created the Publishing Council and, with it, the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, and we recommend that all parishes, monasteries and private publishing houses involved in the production of spiritual literature undergo an examination of this Council, which gives permission to publish a book. But we do not call it censorship ^[5] .

• Censorship Committee

• Antipov M. Activity of the St. Petersburg Committee for Spiritual Censorship as a publishing structure in the 19th - early 20th centuries. // Theologian.ru
• Kotovich Al. Spiritual censorship in Russia. (1799-1855 gg.). SPb., Printing house "Spring", 1909.
• Kizevetter A. Spiritual censorship in Russia. (Al. Kotovich: “Spiritual censorship in Russia 1799-1855.” St. Petersburg, 1909, p. XVI + 604) / A. Kizevetter // Russian Thought. - M., 1909. - Thirtieth year, Prince. X. - S. 23-42.