First Word

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Two Hundred Years Together: Russo-Jewish History, vol. 1 (1795-1916)

Chapter 1, To End of 18^th Century, second installment (see contents).

[G19] “A migration of Jews from Poland to the East, including White Russia [Belarus], should also be noted in the 15^th century: there were lessers of tolls and other assessments in Minsk, Polotsk” and in Smolensk, although no settled congregations were formed there. After the short-lived banishment of jews from Lithuania (1496) the “eastward movement went forth with particular energy at the beginning of the 16^th century.”

The number of jews that migrated into the Muskovy Rus was insignificant although “influential Jews at that time had no difficulties going to Moscow.” Toward the end of the 15^th century in the very center of the spiritual and administrative power of the Rus, a change took place that, though barely noticed, could have drawn an ominous unrest in its wake, and had far-reaching consequences in the spiritual domain. It had to do with the “Judaizing Heresy.” Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk [1439-1515] who resisted it, observed: “Since the time of Olga and Vladimir, the God-fearing Russian world has never experienced such a seduction.”

According to Kramsin it began thus: the Jew Zechariah, who in 1470 had arrived in Novgorod from Kiev, “figured out how to lead astray two spirituals, Dionis and Aleksei; he assured them, that only the Law of Moses was divine; the history of the Redeemer was invented; the Messiah was not yet born; one should not pray to icons, etc. Thus began the Judaizing heresy.” Sergey Solovyov [1820–79; great Russian historian] expands on this, that Zechariah accomplished it “with the aid of five accomplices, who also were Jewish,” and that this heresy “obviously was a mixture of Judaism and Christian rationalism that denied the mystery of the holy Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ.” “The Orthodox Priest Aleksei called himself Abraham, his wife he called Sarah and along with Dionis corrupted many spirituals and lay… But it is hard to understand how Zechariah was able so easily to increase the number of his Novgorod pupils, since his wisdom consisted entirely and only in the rejection of Christianity and the glorification of Judaism [G20]…Probably, Zechariah seduced the Russians with the jewish cabbala, a teaching that captured curious ignoramuses and in the 15^th century was well-known, when many educated men “sought in it the solution to all important riddles of the human spirit. The cabbalists extolled themselves …, they were able… to discern all secrets of nature, explain dreams, prophecy the future, and conjure spirits.”

J. Gessen, a jewish historian of the 20^th century represents in contrast the opinion: “It is certain, that jews participated neither in the introduction of the heresy… nor its spread” (but with no indication of his sources). The encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron [1890-1906, Russian equivalent to the 1911 Britannica] explains: “Apparently the genuinely jewish element played no outstanding roll, limiting its contribution to a few rituals.” The “Jewish Encyclopedia,” which appeared about the same time, writes on the other hand: “today, since the publication of the ‘Psalter of the Judaizers’ and other memorials, the contested question of the jewish influence on the sects must… be seen as settled in a positive sense.”

“The Novgorod heretics respected an orderly exterior, appeared to fast humbly and zealously fulfilled all the duties of Piety,” they “made themselves noticed by the people and contributed to the rapid spreading of the heresy.” When after the fall of Novgorod Ivan Vassilyevich III [1440-1505, English name would be “John son of Basil,” Grand Prince of Moscoy, united the greater Russian territory under Moscow’s rule] visited the city, he was impressed by their Piety and took both of the first heretics, Aleksei and Dionis, to Moscow in 1480 and promoted them as high priests of the Assumption of Mary and the Archangel cathedrals of the Kremlin. “With them also the schism was brought over, the roots of which remained in Novgorod. Aleksei found special favor with the ruler and had free access to him, and with his Secret Teaching” enticed not only several high spirituals and officials, but moved the Grand Prince to appoint the archimandrite [=head abbot in Eastern Orthodoxy] Zossima as Metropolitan, that is, the head of the entire Russian church – a man from the very circle of the those he had enticed with the heresy. In addition, he enticed Helena to the heresy — daughter-in-law of the Grand Prince, widow of Ivan the [G21] Younger and mother of the heir to the throne, the “blessed nephew Dimitri.”

The rapid success of this movement and the ease with which it spread is astonishing. This is obviously to be explained through mutual interests. “When the ‘Psalter of the Judaizing’ and other works — which could mislead the inexperienced Russian reader and were sometimes unambiguously antichristian – were translated from Hebrew into Russian, one could have assumed that only Jews and Judaism would have been interested in them.” But also “the Russian reader was… interested in the translations of jewish religious texts” – and this explains the “success, which the propaganda of the ‘Judaizing’ had in various classes of society.” The sharpness and liveliness of this contact reminds of that which had emerged in Kiev in the 11^th century.

The Novgorod Archbishop Gennadi uncovered the heresy in 1487, sent irrefutable proofs of it to Moscow, hunted the heresy out and unmasked it, until in 1490 a church Council assembled to discuss the matter, under leadership of the just-promoted Metropolitan Sossima. “With horror they heard the complaint of Gennadi, … that these apostates insult Christ and the mother of God, spit on the cross, call the icons idolatrous images, bite on them with their teeth and throw them into impure places, believe in neither the kingdom of Heaven nor the resurrection of the dead, and entice the weak, while remaining quiet in the presence of zealous Christians.” “From the Judgment [of the Council] it is apparent, that the Judaizers did not recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of God, that they taught, the Messiah is not yet appeared, that they observe the Old Testament Sabbath day rather then the Christian Sunday.” It was suggested to the Council to execute the heretics but, in accordance with the will of Ivan III, they were sentenced instead to imprisonment and the heresy was anathematized. “In view of the coarseness of the century and the seriousness of the moral corruption, such a punishment was [G22] extraordinarily mild.” The historians unanimously explain this hesitation of Ivan in that the heresy had already spread widely under his own roof and was practiced by well-known, influential people,” among whom was Feodor Kuritsyn, Ivan’s plenipotentiary Secretary (so to speak the “Foreign Minister”), “famous on account of his education and his capabilities.” “The noteworthy liberalism of Moscow flowed from the temporary ‘Dictator of the heart’ F. Kuritsyn. The magic of his secret salon was enjoyed even by the Grand Prince and his daughter-in-law… The heresy was by no means in abatement, but rather… prospered magnificently and spread itself out. At the Moscow court… astrology and magic along with the attractions of a pseudo-scientific revision of the entire medieval worldview” were solidly propagated, which was “free-thinking, the appeal of enlightenment, and the power of fashion.”

The Jewish Encyclopedia sets forth moreover that Ivan III “out of political motivations did not stand against the heresy. With Zechariah’s help, he hoped to strengthen his influence in Lithuania,” and besides that he wanted to secure the favor of influential jews from the Crimea: “of the princes and rulers of Taman Peninsula, Zacharias de Ghisolfi,” and of the jew Chozi Kokos, a confidant of the Khan Mengli Giray [or Girai].

After the Council of 1490 Sossima continued to sponsor a secret society for several years, but then was himself discovered, and in 1494 the Grand Prince commanded him to depose himself without process and to withdraw into a cloister, without throwing up dust and to all appearances willingly. “The heresy however did not abate. For a time (1498) its votaries in Moscow seized almost all the power, and their charge Dmitrii, the Son of the Princess Helena, was coronated as Czar.” Soon Ivan III reconciled himself with his wife Sophia Palaiologos, and in 1502 his son Vassili inherited the throne. (Kurizyn by this time was dead.) Of the heretics, after the Council of 1504, one part was burned, a second part thrown in prison, and a third fled to Lithuania, “where they formally adopted the Mosaic faith.”

It must be added that the overcoming of the Judaizing Heresy gave the spiritual life of the Muscovy Rus at turn of the 16^th century a new impetus, and contributed to recognizing the need for spiritual education, for schools for the Spiritual; and the name of Archbishop Gennadi is associated with the collecting and [G23] publication of the first church-slavic Bible, of which there had not to that point been a consolidated text corpus in the Christian East. The printing press was invented, and “after 80 years this Gennadi Bible… was printed in Ostrog (1580/82) as the first church-slavic Bible; with its appearance, it took over the entire orthodox East.” Even academy member S. F. Platonov gives a generalizing judgment about the phenomenon: “The movement of judaizing no doubt contained elements of the West European rationalism… The heresy was condemned; its advocates had to suffer, but the attitude of critique and skepticism produced by them over against dogma and church order remained.”

Today’s Jewish Encyclopedia remembers “the thesis that an extremely negative posture toward Judaism and the Jews was unknown in the Muskovy Rus up to the beginning of the 16^th century,” and derives it from this struggle against the Judaizers. Judging by the spiritual and civil measures of the circumstances, that is thoroughly probable. J. Gessen however contends: “it is significant, that such a specific coloring of the heresy as Judaizing did not lessen the success of the sects and in no way led to the development of a hostile stance toward the Jews.”

(continued)