Holy Russia

She is entitled to the gratitude of the world, were it only for the protection she has afforded to the oppressed Christians in the East. . . . She alone stood up against their oppressors.

PROFESSOR MORFILL of Oxford.

You cannot understand Russia by her intelligence; you cannot measure her by the ordinary footrule. She has her own peculiar conformation; you can only believe in Russia.

TINTCHEV.

It is a war between two ideals of life; for, even more sharply than our own, the whole Russian attitude to life stands in completest contrast to the German.

PROFESSOR J. Y. SIMPSON of Edinburgh.

I

ON August 3, 1914, I called upon my friend Norman Angell. The ante-room of his chambers in King’s Bench Walk was crowded with people. He came out to me, took my hand, and, still holding it, spoke to those about him, firing eager questions to left and to right. Had a certain hall been taken? It must be taken at once, at any cost. See to it. Were those bills printed? They must be posted at once. See to it. The whole city must be placarded with bills — ‘Stop the War’ bills, and bills announcing a ‘Stop the War’ meeting for that very night. At once, at once. See to it!

He was haggard and excited. The agony of his mind was visible in his face, in his gestures, in the tone of his voice. He is a very slight and delicatelooking man. As he walked to and fro, flinging his arms up, flashing at me the most anxious glances, and speaking in a voice which shook and rang with emotion, he seemed to me like an ant that opposes itself to an avalanche. There was something at once magnificent and ridiculous in this little man’s determination to hurl destiny back out of the path of humanity. One thing that he said to me then has remained in my mind: ‘If this war should come, it will mean a Cossack Europe.’

In the spring of 1915 I went to Russia. When I arrived in Bergen I was taken by a friend of mine to see a distinguished Norwegian statesman. This gentleman, whose manners were not very good, said to me, ‘There is one thing we do not understand — your alliance with Russia.’ He spoke bitterly. I was amazed by his bitterness, and defended Russia. He laughed in my face, and sneered. In Sweden it was the same. It is true that neither the Prime Minister of Norway nor the brilliant Foreign Minister of Sweden said anything harsh to me about Russia; but among other people it was always the same thing: they could not understand our alliance with Russia. The longer I tarried in these countries on my way to Petrograd, the more convinced did I feel that of all the nations of the world Russia has the worst name.

The ignorance of mankind is deeper than the abyss. And it is more dangerous than war or pestilence. The ignorance of the multitude is vast and dreadful; but the ignorance of the educated and cultured, this, too, is colossal and it is the greatest of the dangers which threaten civilization. Why should a man so brilliant and able as Norman Angell speak of a Cossack Europe as if it were something more destructive than a Prussian Europe?¹ Why should all the people I encountered in Scandinavia, refined and educated people, speak of Russia as if she were a danger to mankind? It is because they are entirely ignorant of Russia, — that is to say, of the history, the literature, the character, and the soul of 170,000,000 fellow creatures. They have made up their minds about those millions of people. They have judged them. They have condemned them. The Russians? They are savages!

As an Englishman who loves his country more than any land in the world, and who, seeking to cultivate within himself an international mind and to spread the saving gospel of cooperation and sympathy and brotherhood among all nations, yet feels a passionate worship of his own race, because of its noble freedom and its generous good-nature, let me say this: that of all England’s allies in this struggle with Prussian egotism I am proudest to be allied with Russia — that great Russia who can give to my country a spiritual grace which we lack, and who is so modestly anxious to receive from my country a moral earnestness which she eagerly desires.

A German in Das Forum challenged Romain Rolland to explain his position with regard to Russia. Rolland, as every one knows, has made enemies for himself in France by striving to preserve his nation from hate and by insisting on the great good qualities in his enemy, the German. How, then, does this tolerant and noble-minded man reply to the challenge in Das Forum? ‘You, my German friend,’ says he, ‘know how I love Germany. Not less than you yourselves; I am the son of Beethoven, Leibnitz, and Goethe.’ And he asks, ‘But what do I owe to the Germany of to-day, or what does Europe owe to it? What art have you produced since the monumental work of Wagner, which marks the end of an epoch and belongs to the past? What new, original thought can you boast of since the death of Nietzsche, whose magnificent madness has left its traces on you, though we are unscathed by it? Where have we sought our spiritual food for the last forty years, when our own fertile soil no longer yielded sufficient for our needs? Who but the Russians have been our guides? What German writer can you set up against Tolstoï and Dostoievsky, those giants of poetic genius and moral grandeur?’

But more than this. He speaks of that deplorable, incredible ‘Address to the Civilized Nations,’ with which, as he says, the Imperial army corps of German intellectuals bombarded Europe, — the address which denied everything, denied that Germany provoked the war, that violence had been used against Belgian citizens, that Louvain had been destroyed — that ‘day is day and night is night.’ And he exclaims: ‘Thank God! the crimes of Tsarism never found a defender among the great artists, scholars and thinkers of Russia. Are not the greatest names in its literature . . . the very ones who denounced its crimes?’

But more even than this. He asks, ‘How comes it, then, Germans, that the Poles prefer Russian domination to yours? Do you imagine that Europe is ignorant of the monstrous way in which you are exterminating the Polish race? Do you think that we do not receive the confidences of those Baltic nations who, having to choose between two conquerors, prefer the Russian because he is the more humane?’ And he goes on: ‘Your imperialism, beneath its veneer of civilization, seems to me no less ferocious than Tsarism toward everything that ventures to oppose its avaricious desire for universal dominion. But whereas immense and mysterious Russia, overflowing with young and revolutionary forces, gives us hope of a coming renewal, your Germany bases its systematic harshness on a culture too antiquated and scholastic to allow of any hope of amendment. . . . Know once for all that there is nothing more overwhelming for us Latins, nothing more difficult to endure, than your militarization of intellect.’ He might have added, ‘and your militarization of conscience.’²

Here, then, is a lover of Germany defending, nay, exalting Russian culture, Russian humanity, and Russian spirituality. And I hope to show, for it is not difficult, that M. Rolland’s horror of ‘ Tsarism ’ is not so great as need be.

Let us, then, — quite certain that the Russian is not so black as he is painted by popular error, — endeavor to discover what Russia, in her inmost essence, in her force, in her character, in her destiny, is. What is Russia? It is in our interest to know; for not only is ignorance dangerous, but if it remain when light penetrates darkness, it becomes a sin. The twentieth century belongs — to Russia.

In that violent, passionate, splenetic, and muddle-headed book, Germany and England, by the late Professor Cramb, an English disciple of Treitschke, the brilliant author, who wanted us to set up in our lovely island a war-machine as huge, as menacing, and as intolerable as the Prussian octopus, has a passage which shows us, from a German source, how we should set out to discover the soul of a nation.

He is writing of General von Bernhardi, the military disciple of the professorial Treitschke, and he says that Bernhardi set out to answer the question, What is Germany? — using for his evidence the history, literature, politics, and philosophy of his nation. What is Germany? How can he express in a word, from Germany’s history, literature, politics, and philosophy, what Germany is, what she stands for, what is her value?

And by Germany he understands the vital, onward-striving force flowing in German blood from an endless time down to the present, and from the present flowing onward into an endless future. What, he asks, is the precise value, the precise significance of the force in its present manifestation — Germany? And he has a perfectly definite answer: It is strife; it is war.

If the answer is the right one, let us comfort ourselves; for in nature, where God’s laws are written for our learning, sympathy and coöperation win a manifest victory, while aggression and selfishness perish. You must go to the museum to see one of the strongest creatures that ever existed — the mastodon. And while you will see in your fields great flocks and herds of peaceful cattle, and vast hosts of men laboring the earth to provide food for them, you must go to a menagerie if you would see the tiger, who has nothing to contribute to evolution. But whether the answer of General von Bernhardi is right or wrong, his method is good.

Let us see, from the history, the literature, the politics, and the philosophy of Russia if we can answer our question, What is Russia? — and by Russia let us understand the vital, onward-striving force flowing in Russian blood from an endless time down to the present, and from the present flowing onward into an endless future. What is the precise value, the precise significance of that force in its present manifestation — Russia?

Before we set out on this inquiry, one who knows Russia very intimately, Professor Simpson of Edinburgh, hints to us what our answer will be. For he says of this great war, ' It is a war between two ideals of life; for, even more sharply than our own, the whole Russian attitude to life stands in completest contrast to the German.’ Our answer, then, cannot be like Bernhardi’s, ‘It is strife; it is war.’ Perhaps it will be, ‘It is love; it is brotherhood.’

II

The history of Russia is the history of the struggle of a little people against innumerable enemies who surrounded her on every side. The names of some of these enemies we know — Swedes, Finns, Poles, Cossacks, Turks, Mongols, Lithuanians, Letts, and Germans. The names of many others — such as the Lesghians, Chetchenzes, Bashkirs, and Kirghiz — are known only to the historian. Surrounded by all these enemies, the little nation of Russia, conscious of a divine force stirring her onward, attempted again and again to rise up and be a people of civilization. But at every movement she was fallen upon by the savage races surrounding her. From 1238 to 1462 she was the bleeding victim of a Mongolian invasion. For centuries the barbarians surrounding her swept into her land, burning her cities, laying waste her fields, and bearing off her children, both girls and boys, to be sold to the Turks. In this agony and bitterness and ruin the indestructible soul of Russia waited for the mercy of God. When she had thrown off the Mongol tyrant, and was endeavoring to make friends with civilization, civilization sent its armies against her! And while the hosts of powerful Sweden assaulted her, the Mongol hordes returned, and the Khan of the Crimea sent his devils to afflict her. Not until the beginning of the eighteenth century did Russia win a real place in the world, when Peter the Great threw back the Swedish invader, and Sweden fell from her former glory into a condition of weakness which has continued to this day.

And now see what has happened. This little Russian people has absorbed the hosts of nearly all its enemies. It is the centre of a vast group of peoples. Its empire is composed of nations which were once its enemies. Russia herself is composed of these enemies. When we speak of Russia, we do not mean the descendants of those who held the Grand Duchy of Muscovy in the fifteenth century — we mean all those nations which are now fighting for her under the Cross of St. Andrew, with their souls dreaming of Constantine’s city, from whence came to them that which is infinitely more than life — the spirit of Christ; we mean, the Poles, the Armenians, the Tatars, the Georgians, the Letts, the Lithuanians, the Mongols, and the Cossacks, yes, and we mean also the Germans, Swedes, Roumanians, and Finns who are among the 170,000,000 souls composing the Russian Empire.³ We see, then, from Russian history, that the Russian character not only possesses the great quality of patience or endurance, but that, persisting through almost hopeless conditions of terror and persecution, it has the power to absorb into itself those elements of antagonism which had threatened it with destruction.

And what is the story of Russia from the days of its power? No nation has fought more wars for the liberties of other peoples. Russia alone has opposed herself to the Turkish oppressor of Christian races. She is the creator of Bulgaria. She allied herself with others to destroy Napoleonism. She drew her mighty sword, unprepared as she was for war, to defend Serbia from destruction. ‘ She is entitled,’ said Professor Morfill before the year 1914, ‘to the gratitude of the world. . . . The tide of Mohammedan persecution and proselytism was turned back from the time when Peter the Great showed the rayahs, groaning under the Turkish yoke, that they could look to Russia for help. . . . She alone stood up against their oppressors.’

From the literature of Russia we learn that this patient, persisting, and absorbing people is conscious above everything else of the existence of God. Nothing else really interests the Russian. He looks at politics, he takes a hand in trade, and he does what he can for art: but the supreme obsession of his mind, his heart, and his soul is the thought of God. But mark well, the Russian’s obsessing thought of God is concerned with only one attribute of the Divine Father. He can think of nothing but God’s love. I should say there has never been in the whole world a nation less influenced by the thought of Jehovah. A Russian docs not understand what you mean when you speak to him of Odin or Jove or Jehovah. He smiles and shakes his head. It is something he cannot conceive — this God of unbending justice and black-frowning wrath. His Russian sold has been stunned centuries ago by the tremendous thought that God is Love. It can receive no other impression. To this hour he is absorbed in contemplation of this single aspect of the Everlasting God — that He loves, that He is Love itself.

Even when he goes to war with the Germans, whom he feels in his soul to be the enemies of love, he has no hate in his heart. I have talked to Englishmen and Americans in Russia who have been in the Galician trenches, and they all tell me that you cannot get the Russian soldier to hate. While he is charging, while he is killing, yes, perhaps; but when he comes back with his prisoners, no. He gives the captured German his last bit of chocolate, makes him a cup of coffee, and does not resent his contemptuous complaint that the coffee is of a bad quality and is bitter without sugar; no, he pats the German’s back, strokes his arm, smiles at him, and says, ‘You are all right, now.’

Prince Troubetzkoy, the philosopher and historian, with whom I had a memorable conversation in Moscow, has explained for us what is the underlying idea of Russian literature and Russian philosophy: ‘Humanity united by the Spirit of God in one whole, and in this form become like God — this is the highest expression of God’s project for the world, and this is what must eventually reign in the world.’⁴

Constantinople is for every Russian Tsargrad, — Town of Towns, — because from that defiled but eternal city Christ came to Russia, and because there in Tsargrad still stands the polluted but sacred temple of St. Sophia. Sophia, says the prince, stands for the Wisdom of God in creation, the humanity of the Divine Wisdom, the humanity of God. Professor Simpson thus sums up the prince’s argument: —

‘ But as yet humanity is torn in pieces; it is not our humanity. Nation fights against nation; even their faiths are at war. Humanity is sinful and therefore mortal. But those who were aware of the Spirit saw humanity holy and therefore immortal, one and entire. Restoration of the broken whole of humanity, and so of all creation — for this burn the hearts of those who have seen the Spirit. . . . This is the purpose and progressive achievement of “ Sophia,” — the uniting of humanity and the entire world into one living whole, a living, spiritual organism . . . a communion of beings joined by the Spirit of God in one living substance.’

Before one dismisses this ideal as a chimera, as an impossibility, one should reflect that Russian character, persisting and absorbing, has come down the ages, and is now the sovereign power of Europe. None of its many enemies, not one of all the hosts of barbarism and infidelity, not one of all the mighty kings of Christendom, was able to overthrow and destroy it. It, and not they, has persisted, has conquered, has absorbed, and now rules. It, and not they, is destined to speak the word of the twentieth century.

Concerning the internal politics of Russia, let me point out to you that the violence of nihilism has expended itself, that socialism of an economic character is not violent in its expression, and that the most powerful bloc in the Duma is composed of constitutional progressives who call themselves either conservatives or liberals. M. Rodzianko, President of the Duma, himself a conservative, told me that after this war nothing on earth will be able to prevent free speech in Russia; he said, ‘You might as well attempt to stop the torrents of spring.’

It is most important, too, especially for democratic countries, to know that, although Russia has very few of the forms and institutions of democracy, she more than any other country has the true democratic spirit. That is to say, the classes are much nearer to each other, there is no awkwardness in their relations, and the only superiority acknowledged by all grades in the community is the superiority of holiness. There is not a peasant who would not be perfectly and charmingly at his ease in the presence of the Tsar; not a great prince who would not reverently kneel to a saint. The idea of the family characterizes the Russian state. Professor Morfill speaks in his history of the ‘claptrap abuse with which some western authors season their books on Russia.’ Russia has been exhibited to Europe and America as a tyrannous and brutal power, wielding the knout to right and left of her, driving hordes of her best children to the snows of Siberia, and committing a thousand atrocities among the Jews. This is the grossest and absurdest exaggeration. There is a reactionary party in Russia, many of whom, but not all, are brutal and unscrupulous; and force has been used again and again by this faction in the government to repress, not only anarchy, but constitutional progress. The picture, however, is overdrawn. Hear what Professor Simpson has to say, and remember that the idea of an unbridled bureaucracy is foreign to Russia, and was introduced from Germany in the reign of Peter the Great: —

‘Too often the internal relations of Russia have been depicted in this country as those of a bureaucracy and a democracy continuously in conflict, with the former as a kind of evil genius. There could be no profounder mistake. Bureaucracy is not necessarily an evil. Everything depends upon its spirit, and a bureaucracy can be improved and changed if its spirit is changed. To-day there is a great struggle going on in the Russian bureaucracy itself, between the more progressive and the more conservative elements. That bureaucracy is very far from being a mere homogeneous mass of reactionary outlook.’

This is sober truth. Russia is changing the spirit of its bureaucracy. And if the war end, as it must, in a victory for Russia, a victory which is celebrated for Russia by the Russians singing their great hymn, Christ Is Risen, in St. Sophia, then this movement in the bureaucracy will be swiftly and gloriously triumphant. But if the war should end in a draw, there is a fear, as I gather from what Prince Troubetzkoy told me, that the Russian legions, returning sick and weary from the trenches, may be in no other mood than one of acquiescence. They will be too tired for reform. They will ask for nothing but peace. Should that be so, which God forfend, the reactionaries of Russia would exert a powerful influence in politics.

III

One of Professor Simpson’s Russian friends said to him, ’Humanity has been — is — going through awful experiences. Is not this a miracle, that the German philosophy and the whole German spirit have brought the country under the sway of Beelzebub? Yet in our land there is a great revival of religious interest to-day. Russia was under the French influence of Voltaire till 1812; then in a struggle Napoleon was vanquished, and the result was a widespread religious movement. We were again becoming materialistic, when the Japanese War and the revolution after the war shook us from our spiritual torpor, and the religious life of the nation was quickened. The same is happening at the present moment. From the court to the peasant’s hut a spiritual movement is in progress.’

In these words one has an answer to our question, What is Russia? Russia is so gentle and plastic that she easily comes under foreign influence, and for a time appears to have renounced her historical destiny. But the light of heaven in her soul burns on, and when the darkness is most dark suddenly that light shines forth and is the glory of the world and the hope of many nations. Russia is not strife; Russia is not war; she is love and peace, against whom the hosts of hate and the legions of darkness go up again and again, sometimes flinging her back, sometimes wounding her to the point of death, sometimes making her almost false to her own soul; but again and again the light shines once more, and once more she sees her path straight before her — the path of St. Sophia, the path that leads to Tsargrad and to God.

Love Russia, and she will love you. Oppose yourself to Russia, and sooner or later she will crush you. Nothing can withstand her in the end. And the reason is this. She is the nation to whom Christ has committed his secret. Rome says, ‘Do as I tell you and I will save your soul from hell.’ Protestantism says, ‘Believe this, and work early and late to earn the forgiveness of God.’ Russia says one word only: it is ‘Love.’

She makes many mistakes. She thinks too little of morality, as we perhaps think too much; she is superstitious, she is acquiescent, she is without a social conscience; but she loves, and love makes her exceeding beautiful. It is enough for her millions to lull their souls with the thought that God loves them and that after death they will see their God who is Love Itself — see Him face to face, fall down before his feet and worship Him eternally. What does it matter, with such a destiny before them, if they eat poorly, sleep roughly, dress shabbily, and toil hard to make the corn grow? What does it matter if they sometimes drink too much? What does it matter if they are not quite fair in all their dealings? God is Love, and they love Him from morning to night, drunk or sober.

The intellectuals have a higher thought. Listen to Prince Troubetzkoy: —

“Sophia” is the image of God in the individual and in humanity. He who has the image in his soul, who sees it in every individual and nation, cannot bear any lessening of human dignity. All injustice to humanity rouses wrath in the heart of him who in devotion understands “Sophia.” If Russia is willing to suffer for this and is ready for great deeds, it shows that she has raised the altar to “ Sophia " in her soul, and we can hope that her attempt to restore this altar and make it visible to the whole world in Tsargrad will have success.’

This is Russia — modern, living, and conquering Russia. You will find no such sentiment in Treitschke and Bernhardi, no such sentiment in our own English militarists, no such sentiment in any other nation under heaven. For it is the thought of a nation which has reflected and meditated from its dawn upon the thought of Divine Love; which feels, as no other nation in the world feels it, the infinite beauty of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Humanity; which is undisturbed in the midst of chaos and upheaval and apparent defeat; which is prepared to suffer; which is ready for great deeds, and which believes in its destiny.

A new life begins for humanity. From the moment when Russia raises the Cross in Constantinople, human life will be changed, a new era will be opened, and the intense reality of Christianity, underlying its thousand and conflicting forms, will be seen at last by all the nations of the earth.

‘That which has worked ceaselessly in the depths of the Russian spirit,’ says Nikolai Berdyaev, ‘is no longer to be provincial and confined in its manifestation : the Slav race, with Russia at its head, is henceforth called to a defining rôle in the life of humanity.’

And Dostoievsky, one of the very greatest souls that ever lived, almost as imaginative as Shakespeare and infinitely more spiritual, tells us what is the inmost essence and the ultimate destiny of the Russian nation: ‘Russia must reveal to the world her own Russian Christ, whom as yet the people know not. . . . There lies, as I believe, the inmost essence of our vast impending contribution to civilization, whereby we shall awake the European peoples; there lies the inmost core of our exuberant and intense existence that is to be.’

What is this Russian Christ?

Listen again to Dostoievsky. He is writing to a friend about the difficulty of portraying in fiction ‘a truly perfect and noble man.’ And he says, ‘All writers, not ours alone but foreigners also, who have sought to represent Absolute Beauty, were unequal to the task, for it is an infinitely difficult one. The beautiful is the ideal: but ideals, with us as in civilized Europe, have long been wavering. There is in the world only one figure of absolute beauty: Christ. That infinitely lovely figure is, as a matter of course, an infinite marvel (the whole Gospel of St. John is full of this thought: John sees the wonder of the Incarnation, the visible apparition of the Beautiful).’

There lies, then, Russia’s vast impending contribution to humanity — the Russian Christ, who is Absolute Beauty.

In conclusion let me say something of those elements in Russian life which may be thought to threaten this tremendous destiny.

She is apathetic. This is true, and the wisest of Russians eagerly look for the sympathy and coöperation of other races, particularly, let me say, of the English race. They desire to see their material resources developed (not exploited), and to feel in their existence the quickening influence of a solid conscience. They are aware in themselves of long torpors and immense ennuis. Their physical responsibilities appear to them at times greater than they can bear. They welcomed the German to help them, but the German only exploited them and treated their poor people very arrogantly, and endeavored to change the Russian soul. This was the culminating crime. Russia will work humbly and gratefully with other races, but no race must meddle with her soul.

She is superstitious. Very great, but not very destructive, are the superstitions of Russia. She believes in something more than divine guidance. She believes in interference. But whereas increasing knowledge tends to drive religion out of the heart of those people whose emphasis has been on the morality of Christianity, it cannot greatly shake, I think, the soul of Russia, which has always rested in the thought of God’s love. It is true that the perverted doctrines of Darwin, called ‘Darwinism,’are exerting a baneful influence among the students of certain universities; but before Russia has fallen under this destructive force, the new science of the present century will have made its appeal to the Russian imagination. English influence is destined to be very great in Russia, and English science and English philosophy are moving clean away from ‘Darwinism,’I think that the Orthodox Church may oppose itself for a long time to the Modernism of Europe, but I think that the people of Russia will have no difficulty in absorbing the teachings of Modernism into their worship of God. They are not great dogmatists. They rely, with all their weight, on the instinct of love.

She is not cultured. She is more cultured than many people think. And her culture is not a veneer. It is with her an instinct. The Russian ballet, that revelation to Europe of a spiritual force in dancing, is a natural expression of the Russian soul. Her sense of color values is wonderful, and it is inborn. Her poetry is exquisite. Her novelists are the greatest in the world — Dostoievsky, Turgenieff, Gogol, and Tolstoï. Her music — the people’s music— is sweetness and sadness themselves. Her architecture is beginning to emerge from the vulgarizing influences of Prussia. She has great imaginative painters.

No; I see in her apathy, her superstition, and the simplicity of her masses, the very reasons for strengthening my faith in Russia’s transcendent destiny. It is not conceivable to me that Christ should come again through England and America, those two industrious Marthas of the human family. If England and America had such a destiny before them we can imagine the repellent fashion in which their newspapers and bill-posters would prepare the way. It is unthinkable. No; we have been too busy, while Russia has watched and prayed. The second coming of the Spirit of Christ will steal upon the world as noiselessly as the first; and only those who long for his coming will know him when he comes. The Russians, whose destiny it is to give this Spirit of Christ to the world, will know first of all when he has come, and gradually, after many centuries, perhaps, the rest of the world will know that God has again visited his people.

I see in the miraculous persistence of the Russian spirit, in the silence and humility of its approach to world-dominion, and in the passionate joy which thrills it through and through as the sun shines before it on the dome of St. Sophia, the same Spirit of God which moved upon the face of the waters, the same Spirit of God which stirred in the manger at Nazareth, the same Spirit of God which called Luther to his work, Darwin to his, and through all the ages of blundering, struggling, but still ascending, humanity, has breathed the eternal words, ‘Verily I say unto you, except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.’

The second greatest day in the history of humanity will be that wonderful day when Russia enters the holy city of Constantine; for there will begin the reign of peace — peace on earth, goodwill among men.

On that great day many Russians, I am sure, will pray for the soul of Germany. God’s family must be one.