www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Vyacheslav Ivanov's Reasons for Converting to Catholicism

Vyacheslav Ivanov was a Russian Symbolist poet and disciple of Vladimir Solovyov. As a major star of St. Petersburg's decandent coffee house culture, Ivanov was also one of the first people to praise the poetry of Anna Akhmatova. After the Revolution, Ivanov fled to Italy, where he became a professor of Old Church Slavonic at the Russicum in Rome. In March 1937, Ivanov was received into the Russian Greek-Catholic Church. Soon after, in an interview for the Russicum's newspaper, Ivanov related his reasons. A translation of the interview appears below. It is excerpted from the book "Theodore Romzha: His Life, Times and Martyrdom," Eastern Christian Publications, 2002. Pages 29-31.

As a child, he used to listen to readings of the Gospels and Epistles. The readings, he said, were performed mystically with an artistic contentment, and the image of Christ was incarnate in the soul of the child. For V. Ivanov, an understanding of Christ, "the person," was experience attached to his heart since childhood. "And then," says Ivanov, "I lost my Faith. I was sixteen years old, and at that age it was a very usual thing. But I could not forget Christ.

"After the period of my faithless youth came a period of 'liberal reigiousness' that was partially influenced by Slavophilism." (Vyacheslav Ivanov characterises this period as 'a period of a mystical mood.') This 'mystical mood' become decisively strong because of a meeting with Vladimir Solovyov. Solovyov acknowledged Ivanov's understanding of literature. Solovyov's teachings on esthetical and mystical humanism also attracted Ivanov, but Solovyov was convinced that Ivanov would go further than that.

And so, influenced by Solovyov, Ivanov made a trip to Kiev, where he prepared for the Sacraments, and then received the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist -- which meant that he recognized himself as a member of the [Orthodox] Church. Now he began his "rooting in the foundation of the Church," and right away the question of Church Unity strikes him.

Ivanov posed a question to Solovyov once, asking, "Why don't you work for Church Unity, or is it too early yet?" "Yes," Solovyov said, "this isn't the time for it." Solovyov didn't break away from the [Orthodox] Church, as some people think, because if he would have, by virtue of his honesty, he would have decline his views in "Russia and the Universal Church."

The Question of Church Unity. "I take seriously the conception of the Church that I joined: If I am a member of the Church, then the Church is an indisputable patrimony to me." -- Said Ivanov. "There is no city outside of the Church. THe Church is one, and everything else that isn't the Church is not within the Patrimony." However, Ivanov was a Humanist and the European cultural heritage was a patrimony to him, too. (He mentioned Francis of Assisi and Dante as examples). They said: "The West is a different world, an area of disintegrating moral interests... but if we take the Church seriously, then she is both an earthly and heavenly patrimony. The CHurch tries to be all-embracing."

The Conception of the Eastern Church. For Byzantines, the relationship to the World is this: you have Heaven and you have the Earth. The Church belongs to Heaven. If you really want to be holy and religious join a monastery, but if you are in the world, then we (in the monastery) are going to pray for you as we pray for our Tsar. But you should still remember that you are a Christian, so keep God's Law as much as you can. In Byzantium, art is either separated from the Church, or it is insufficiently human (Monophysitism of Church art). The Eastern Church is not all-embracing due to the exclusion of the World, and the result of this is division, absence of dymanism, of life of personality; and the existing art exists only to the limits of Canonical necessities. This is how it was in Byzantium and this has passed on to Russia.

So where is the error here? Expectation of Heaven is not an error; Canonical use of art is not an error either; but the error of the Eastern Church is that she was given only partial truth as if it were the complete truth. The Christian World as a whole consists of East and West by God's Providence. It used to be this way in the ancient Greco-Roman World. Both, the Greek World and the Roman World, presented two principles that mutually complemented each other. There is no live communication since the Church's split and Europe breathes only with one lung. Unity is necessary so that Byzantine "Statism and Canonism" would be completed by the dynamism and humanism of the West.

By separating, Byzantium claimed itself as "a self-sufficent entity." The Greeks raised the Russian Church with the same attitude, -- Schism and Willingness to divide, to give "a part" for "the whole."

Theocracy. The Church, that is the Heavenly Patrimony of Man, has not only a Divine, but also a Divine-Human Structure. The Church must be not only praying, but it has to be militant, too.

The Church must permeate all branches oif life: social issues, art, culture, and jsut everything...

THe Roman Church corresponds to such criteria, and by joining this Church I become truly Orthodox.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, I suppose.

Indeed, everyone has an opinion. I find Ivanov's reasoning "odd" as I can't see that the West, these days anyway, is a model of anything I would want to emulate. He "promotes" the West but became a Greek Catholic - something I don't really understand either. He must have had a highly Latinized experience with those who brought him into communion with Rome, but that is my own theory.

In a recent conversation with a Greek Catholic priest friend we discussed how the West has lost its memory. It know longer looks to its Apostolic Tradition, but thinks 100 years is a long time ago and one sees this also, sadly, played out in the devotional life of most Roman Catholics today.

Rybak,
I believe quite strongly that one day the West will recover its memory. When than happens, East and West will each have a great deal to teach each other. As Ivanov said, the Church needs to breathe with both lungs.
In Jesus and Mary,
latinmasstrad

I think that is the struggle of the west right now. But I think that a real problem is that some in the west don't even realize that there is a problem.

As Father Robert Taft said in an article in 2008, the Catholic West does not need to return to a dead and gone forever medieval or Tridentine past. It needs to return to its roots.

Keep in mind these are pre Vatican II remarks (c.1937). Since then the Western Church has gone extreme regarding some aspects of social issues and art. Mr. Ivanov perhaps would be more reluctant to convert now, but his point is well taken.

If you will pardon my bluntness, the Eastern Church has been weak regarding social issues. The Patriarch of Moscow's recent remarks seeking cooperation with Rome to counter modern society's suppression of traditional morality is acknowledgment.

Search Eastern Churches (including Eastern Catholics) for statements regarding birth control, cloning, in vitro fertilization, divorce, churching single parent families, etc. Compared to Rome the East has a paucity of direction.

Sure, there are exceptions, but they are from scattered sources without the strength of unity.

Indeed, the call for unity would be beneficial to both East and West.

Fr Deacon Paul

Of course the Orthodox could say: "By separating, the Roman Church claimed itself as 'a self-sufficent entity.'

Of course, both sides did it to each other.

Father Deacon,

Well said! Eastern Christians (both Catholic and Orthodox) need to be more vocal on these issues and promote them from our own unique theolgical patrimony. Eastern Christians can add much to the Pro-Life movement!