For someone who lived abroad and who studied religious relations in the West on site, the construction of a Russian Orthodox Church in Paris is a matter of the greatest importance, especially if we take into account that in a short time there appeared in various parts of the western Christian world four public Orthodox churches: one Greek (in London) and three Russian (in Potsdam, Wiesbaden, Nice). But these churches have a too-local setting to serve as representatives of Orthodoxy in the West. The Paris church is indisputably called to this great purpose.
—Protopriest Vasily Polisadov, Strannik, 1860
The Paris church was planned and inaugurated right after the Crimean War had sounded the death knell of the Concert of Europe and destroyed “the entire concept of European solidarity [of legitimate rulers] upon which Nicholas had based his foreign policy.”1 For westerners and Russians, the conflict raised doubts about Russia’s European identity. Within the Russian Empire, the years immediately following the conflict were crucial for the formation of Russian Panslavism, an ideological expression of hunger for a renewed sense of “historical mission” and thirst “to restore Russia’s sense of national destiny and the country’s prestige vis-à-vis the West.”2 The narratives about the new church in the Russian press reflected Slavophile and Panslav aspirations that appealed “to Russian national pride—a pride that had been wounded at Crimea and exacerbated by German and Italian unification.”3 In the aftermath of defeat, Orthodox publicists believed Russia would rise again to carry out the great salvific task Divine Providence ordained to it—reuniting Christendom. The inauguration of the church in Paris proved that this process was already underway.
Orthodox publicists who aspired to raise the profile of the Russian Church and educate western Europeans about Orthodoxy ascribed monumental importance to St. Alexander Nevsky Church on Daru Street. They saw it as a symbol of ascendant Orthodoxy and projected that image to the Russian educated public. While the consecration was widely reported in the Parisian press, it was treated mainly as miscellany, with little analysis. A liberal like Texier could welcome the new church for broadening the scope of France’s religious toleration, or an ultramontane like Coquille could find in it an occasion for anti-Russian diatribes, but the French press did not endow the church with any particular historic significance. Russian publicists treated the consecration of the new church as a historic spectacle that unfolded before throngs of foreign (to them) heterodox people and “made a very forceful impression” on them.4 They were not reporting but were ideologizing about Russia’s providential mission.5 There was a definite sense that having a bishop present to serve at this event had heightened its overall impact. “The other-believing [inovertsy] were for the first time witnesses of the majestic Russian hierarchical service, which made a deep impression in Parisian society and served to elevate the authority of the Orthodox Church.”6 Eager to share their interpretations of the impressions that the new church made on the heterodox crowds, Russian publicists and participants in the drama portrayed the church and its consecration as spectacular successes.
Just after the consecration, Victor Ivanovich Kapelmans (1824–1871), Polisadov, Guettée, Popovitsky, and Pelleport provided accounts of the Parisian spectacle to the Russian reading public. With the exception of Kapelmans, a Russo-Belgian Jew whose journalism career placed him in the role of a Russian publicist, these writers were all devotees of the Orthodox Church, although Guettée was not yet officially Orthodox.7 With the exception of Popovitsky, an active religious publicist known for introducing Russian theological literature to western readers and vice versa, they were eyewitnesses of the consecration.8 Since Popovitsky was not present, he drew heavily on the accounts by Guettée and Kapelmans. Beyond what appeared in the French newspapers and tour guides, there are few sources from which to glean any sense of French firsthand impressions about the church and the consecration, except the sources written by Russian publicists. Yet their accounts present their perception of the impressions the spectacle made on foreign observers. Their perceptions reveal more about their priorities, their ideas about Russia, and their stance toward Roman Catholicism than about what the non-Orthodox foreigners were thinking.
According to the Russian publicists, the consecration was a stunning success because it struck and astonished western Europeans, represented a harsh blow to the papists—especially the Jesuits—and was a harbinger of reconciliation between the churches. Paradoxically the reporting on the church emphasized, on one hand, how commonplace negative prejudices about Orthodoxy were among western Europeans, and on the other hand, that the moment was ripe for reconciliation among the churches. Believing that the papacy was on the verge of collapse, the Orthodox publicists viewed the Paris church as a historic landmark in the realization of a providential plan. It represented the light of the truth coming from the East to bring the West out of schism and back to the authentic image of the Savior.
Kapelmans’s account of the consecration was a bit of an outlier because it was written for the secular press. It appeared in Journal de St.-Pétersbourg (St. Petersburg journal), an organ of the Russian Foreign Ministry,9 and in Russian translation, in Dukhovnaia beseda (Spiritual conversation). He spoke in glowing terms about the church and the consecration ceremony, considering the edifice “a superb sight” that was “beautiful and irreproachable in all respects.”10 The artistry of the building and its decorations elevated rather than detracted from the spiritual character of the church.11 Kapelmans described the ceremony, singling out two moments that “made an especially strong impression on those who attended”: the Great Entrance, and the emotional moment during Leonty’s address when he acknowledged and blessed Vasiliev for his efforts to found the church, while Vasiliev began to sob.12 Beyond the emotional intensity of these moments, it is unclear why Kapelmans singled them out (e.g., whether they were topics of conversation after the fact, whether there was any kind of visual or audible reaction from the crowd, or whether they just struck him personally). While Orthodox publicists saw the Paris church as a forerunner of Christian unity, Kapelmans ended his account with what was essentially a prayer that the church would be a sign and symbol of religious tolerance and brotherhood among peoples.
May these walls remain for all time a peaceful expression of the brotherhood of men with one another and a symbol of accord between two great peoples! … May this church remind each believer who enters here for prayer, as well as everyone in general who rests their gaze on it, that toleration, joined with love, is commanded to us by divine law, and that people should always love and help each other—for, differing by nationality, they above all are children of One and the Same God!13
With this sentiment, Kapelmans echoed the theme of religious tolerance that appeared in the French liberal press and in Le Nord, but his prayer was also disseminated in an Orthodox weekly tied to the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary.
Polisadov wrote the fullest account of the episcopal entourage’s voyage to the West and of the consecration. His letters to his brother-in-law, the editor of Dukh khristianina, were intended for publication and appeared both in Dukh khristianina and as an offprint.14 The notion of an Orthodox spectacle in Paris figured prominently in Polisadov’s account, which emphasized that Orthodoxy offered the corrective to papal errors and that the Paris church had a significant role to play in the reunification of the churches by virtue of the fact that it attracted and astonished throngs of heterodox foreigners.
On seeing the Paris church for the first time, Polisadov noted—apropos of the depiction of Christ, the true head of the Church, in the main cupola—that it was “a wonderful confession of the true faith, in denunciation of the Latin teaching about the headship of the Roman archpriest!”15 The architecture, design, and iconography of the church testified against papism and had been executed so as to present Orthodoxy in its true light in a non-Orthodox land. “Every Christian who enters this temple will clearly experience here the vivid and powerful spirit of the common Christian idea.” Orthodox Christians would find “a superlative expression” of their faith. Protestants would be startled by “the aesthetic expression of religious thought revealed so religiously and naturally in the sacred images,” while the Catholic would “see here what the essence of the Christian faith—obscured in his faith and worship by the person of the pope—[really] is.”16
As part of Leonty’s entourage, Polisadov conveyed a feeling shared by participants in the consecration that they were involved in a truly historic event, since the consecration of the Paris church by a Russian bishop was the first time since the Great Schism that an Orthodox bishop had consecrated a church in the West. Once common, such journeys had ceased in the fifteenth century. The reappearance of an eastern bishop in the West in the mid-nineteenth century represented a harbinger for the reconciliation of the churches. “Marvelous are Thy works oh Lord! Oh, if this journey would be the beginning of a brotherly union in Christ of East and West!”17 Leonty recalled feeling blessed to have been the first and only (as of 1887) Orthodox prelate since the Great Schism to have been called to fulfill such a charge. It was by “God’s Providence” that he had been sent on a mission to acquaint western Europeans with Orthodoxy.18 While French sources sometimes reported that the consecration of the Russian church represented the first time since the Great Schism that an Orthodox bishop consecrated a church in the West, a point the Paris priest-publicists made in Description de l’Église russe de Paris, French observers did not appear to attach any particular importance to the consecration of the church by a bishop, other than that it enhanced the element of spectacle.19 If anything, it would have struck them as odd if a bishop had not officiated at the service.
Related to the idea of the Paris church as a harbinger of Christian unity, Polisadov emphasized how much the church, the presence of Bishop Leonty, and the consecration attracted the crowds and the attention of the Parisians, portraying the church as an object of universal admiration and interest. He did not focus on describing the rites that were familiar to Russian readers, but on “the peculiarities of this celebration, as it happened in a non-Orthodox city, in sight of, for the most part, foreign spectators.”20 Among the foreign spectators at the consecration were French dignitaries and clergy, including two bishops.21 His description of the procession (krestnyi khod) drew special attention to the foreign observers. “It would be necessary to see this procession before thousands of foreign people, people of other faiths, in order to appreciate all its grandeur and all the joy of Orthodoxy!”22 He cited from Le Nord, about the crowd of spectators spontaneously removing their hats at the appearance of the bishop, “thus rendering homage to the confession which just received hospitality in France.”23
After the service, Polisadov reported, thousands of people “who had avidly and impatiently been waiting” for the chance to see the church “inundated it” and “marveled at everything they saw in it.” He noted the presence of laymen, priests, and “even sisters of mercy, who are the most distinguished among all Roman Catholics by [their] intolerance, so as not to say bigotry.” Then he recounted his conversation with a Roman Catholic priest. “Having noticed once a certain Latin priest, I went up to him and said: how do you find the Russian church? ‘Oh! What a magnificent church! What beauty, my God, what richness! I could not even dream of anything like this,’ ” bemoaning an unwillingness among the French to spend money on churches. Polisadov added that he could relay “many other opinions about our church which cheer the Orthodox heart.”24
Polisadov reflected on what attracted foreign visitors to the church and on their perceptions of it when Leonty officiated on September 13 and 15. The greatness of the liturgy, the bishop, the vestments, the singing all held the attention of those in attendance who stood and watched so attentively and silently—as if they were holding their breath—until the very end of the service, despite the large crowd and the absence of pews. They testified afterward that the divine service “touches” and “strikes” the soul, and that they were struck by the choral singing of particular hymns (e.g., “Holy God”), as well as by the grandeur of the little and great entrances.25 The choral singing appears to have provoked many compliments, and Polisadov observed in particular that when the choir from St. Petersburg sang, the French thought they were hearing an organ or some other instrument.26 Citing from Guettée, Polisadov discussed the crowds of non-Orthodox who eagerly sought a personal blessing from the Russian hierarch, adding a footnote to point out that an elderly French woman elbowed her way to the front of the crowd just to get a blessing, which she received tearfully.27
Reflecting their broader preoccupation with the Eastern Church’s international reputation, Orthodox publicists emphasized that the world was witnessing a new degree of visibility and respectability for Orthodoxy. Part of the great Russian success story was that western papers in English and German reported on the consecration, meaning the impact and echoes of the event reached well beyond France. Polisadov explained that this attention was due to the fact that before the inauguration of the Paris church, westerners had not seen Orthodox temples of such dimensions or witnessed Orthodox rites. Because the church was a novelty for westerners, many of the papers did not limit themselves to just one report, and some even described Orthodoxy and the differences between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.28 While the events in Paris garnered international attention, Leonty and his entourage also spent time in Germany before returning to Russia. So Polisadov stressed that the relatively new church at Wiesbaden—“this tangible ‘Sermon on the Mount’ about universal Orthodoxy on the banks of the Rhine”—was also drawing foreign visitors, and that the hierarchical liturgy held there during Leonty’s visit received attention in the press.29
Polisadov reproduced Leonty’s pastoral address from the consecration ceremony, which was published in at least three Orthodox journals.30 Although the foreigners could not understand the words, they were “struck” because they could easily apprehend that Leonty’s style was simple and natural. “They understood with their hearts that the arch-pastor conversed with believers, as a father with children, and fully approved such a conversational tone, contrary to the oratory of the French bishops, who, forgetting both their years and most importantly their apostolic importance, enter the great cathedrals and from here recite their artistic speeches.”31 Then the foreigners were even more struck by Leonty’s humility when Leonty expressed his thanks to Vasiliev and blessed him right in the middle of his address. “ ‘This is truly apostolic,’ the French said afterward.”32
The success story par excellence about the consecration and Bishop Leonty’s visit to Paris was the account Guettée published in L’Union chrétienne, written in French and intended for an audience that was not exclusively Russian or Orthodox.33 Guettée identified himself as a priest of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Polisadov translated and cited excerpts from Guettée in his account. For Russian Orthodox publicists, Guettée’s version of events demonstrated the favorable impression that the church and its services could make on a French ecclesiastic. By virtue of their intelligence and learning, Leonty and the other Russian clergy—especially Polisadov, Archimandrite Avvakum (the renowned Sinologist), and Protopriest Ivan Ianyshev (from Wiesbaden)—impressed Guettée and other (unidentified) French ecclesiastics.34 Guettée affirmed the “antiquity and entirely apostolic character” of the services, with nothing “of modern invention.” There was one sad thought that entered his mind as he attended these services: that the Roman Church stigmatizes the Eastern Church as schismatic and heretical when the Eastern Church’s only “fault” has been to oppose Roman innovations, such as new dogmas (e.g., the Immaculate Conception) and the introduction of superstition “in place of true Christian worship” (e.g., veneration of the Sacred Heart). Guettée ended the article with the hope and prayer that the Roman Church would renounce its errors.35 While Guettée by this point was clearly taking the stance of an Orthodox publicist—during Leonty’s visit to Paris, Guettée told the bishop of his wish to join the Russian Church—his portrayal of events, for a mixed readership, could be used to show (as it was used by Polisadov and Popovitsky) what a powerful impact Orthodox worship could make on the Latin mind.
In his second installment, Guettée focused on Leonty’s officiating at divine services held on September 13 and 15. Unlike the consecration, these services were open to the public, and were attended primarily by non-Orthodox visitors.36 Guettée noted the presence of a great crowd of French people, with Roman Catholics being in the majority, and emphasized how their prejudices melted away in the presence of the Orthodox divine services. They all appeared “greatly impressed with the majesty of the eastern worship” and with its ancient character.37 Guettée explained that these Roman Catholic observers wanted to know “why the Roman Church anathematized such good Christians who have the same belief and a worship so edifying.” When they were told that it was due to the Eastern Church’s opposition to “the encroachments of papal despotism,” their response suggested that “they gave their entire and absolute approval to this opposition.”38 The Protestants who attended the services, according to Guettée, did not “show as many external signs of respect as Catholics.” Nonetheless, they “bowed respectfully when the bishop blessed them with the cross and the candlesticks” and indicated that “they were profoundly touched by what they saw,” finding in the Orthodox worship “simultaneously something of the primitive, simple and grand, like everything that belongs to the first centuries of the Church.”39
By Guettée’s account, Leonty’s presence, his officiating, and his blessings bestowed on the large crowds, all had an enormously beneficial impact on the French spectators, by drawing attention to the Eastern Church and causing prejudices to fall by the wayside. “Used to considering the Eastern Church as schismatic and heretical” and believing “the Easterners don’t have any beliefs of the Roman Church, and that this latter church alone possesses the true faith and the true Christian worship,” the Roman Catholics who attended services were surprised to find the church “decorated with images of Jesus Christ, the Holy Virgin, and the saints” and to see with what “piety,” “faith,” and “dignity” the bishop and “venerable priests” officiate and celebrate the Eucharist. “We have heard a mass of reflections from the mouths of Roman Catholics which have given us to understand that many prejudices have disappeared from their minds.”40 Guettée imagined that Leonty’s “heart beat more briskly” when he blessed the non-Orthodox “who did not belong to his church but in whom he saw brothers, imprinted by the divine character of Christ.” In fact, Leonty’s presence was so beneficial that Guettée suggested that having an eastern bishop come to Paris periodically could be “one of the most powerful ways to prepare the path to union.”41 Ultimately, the rapprochement of the churches could only be achieved through a groundswell of popular support that would lead the bishops and the pope to understand “that it is better to love each other than to anathematize.” It was precisely the firsthand encounter with Orthodoxy that could brush prejudices aside and produce this kind of change in public opinion that Guettée saw as a necessary precursor to the reunion of the churches.42
Like Polisadov and Guettée, Popovitsky also highlighted the ecumenical significance of the Paris church. At a time when the “age-old prejudices” were disappearing and “many distinguished members of the Catholic clergy” were looking to the Orthodox Church and “seeking in it the origins and beliefs of the true Church of Christ, unfortunately long forgotten in the West,” St. Alexander Nevsky Church would provide a meeting ground for the working out of reconciliation. “A newly built Orthodox temple in the capital of France can serve as a kind of footing on which, with God’s blessing, brothers who have been separated can gather and join forces for the reconciliation of two churches, that formerly represented the one holy Church, with one Pastor and Head, our Lord Jesus Christ.”43 Basing his article on Guettée’s portrayal of events, Popovitsky expressed the conviction that “many” Catholic clergymen were experiencing a change of heart toward Orthodoxy. As far as Catholic clergymen go, the “many” was probably just Guettée and a handful of others. Given Guettée’s comments that the Roman Catholic Church calls the Eastern Church heretical and schismatic, when all the Eastern Church has done is to oppose innovations, Popovitsky exclaimed: “Such are the ideas that can enter the mind of an impartial inoverets [a non-Orthodox Christian] when visiting our Orthodox temple! And to what favorable results for the Church similar ideas can lead with the help of God!”44 Popovitsky described Guettée as “impartial” because the French abbé was favorably rather than hostilely disposed to Orthodoxy, a relative rarity in France at the time. But Guettée, who was full of antipapal zeal, was hardly “impartial.” Using L’Union chrétienne as an example of how the foreign papers “were full of the most enthusiastic opinions about the celebration that took place,” Popovitsky closed his article with the prayer that “the Orthodox Church of Paris would serve as a symbol of brotherhood and mutual love between peoples and as a voice of reconciliation between the separated churches.”45
In less conciliatory language, Pelleport combined Orthodox providentialism with the theme that the Parisian church alarmed the Jesuits, who after all—and there is truth to this idea—bore significant responsibility for distorting westerners’ understanding of Orthodoxy. In a letter to the editor of Pravoslavnoe obozrenie, Pelleport described the new temple as the end of “centuries of eclipse,” as a breach in a wall of ignorance that Roman Catholics, especially Jesuits and ultramontanes, had built to defend themselves from the true light of Orthodoxy.46
This wonderful event alarmed the whole ultramontane party. The Jesuits, who looked with indignation at the building that was erected, jealously kept an eye on everything that Fr. Vasiliev, the Paris proto-priest, silently and without sensation, accomplished as much for the French Orthodox as for the edification of the Russians living in Paris. At last it fell to the lot of the Jesuits to see what an extraordinary impression the visit of His Grace Leonty—his officiating, his noble, worthy, and good-natured Christian manner with each and all, the very celebration of the consecration of the House of God, the solemnly perfect liturgy according to the arch-hierarchical rite—made on the Parisian population.47
Naturally, crowd size at the consecration and subsequent services was central to the narrative of the new church as a spectacular success. Although French sources corroborate the general idea of large crowds at the consecration, it is difficult to develop a clear sense of the ratio between Orthodox and non-Orthodox in attendance at the consecration. After listing some of the most notable of the Russian and French dignitaries who attended the consecration, L’Opinion nationale reported that “several members of the Institute of France and a great number of notable figures from the world of letters” were present.48 Le Nord’s correspondent claimed that in addition to the Orthodox worshippers, “more than four hundred guests foreign to this confession crowded into the church.”49 There was a French audience for the occasion, but it is also evident that Orthodox publicists had a tendency to exaggerate when talking about the size of the crowds.
Concerning the consecration, privately Ambassador Kiselev wrote in his diary that of the three hundred invitations Vasiliev had sent out to French Catholics, only about fifteen or sixteen people came.50 Kiselev’s account is more sobering than that of the enthusiastic Polisadov, who talked about so much clamoring for tickets that a hundred additional invitations were added to the original three hundred, and who estimated that by the time the carriages began to arrive, up to six thousand spectators not fortunate enough to have tickets had gathered across from the church to watch events unfold.51 Kapelmans did not estimate the size of the crowd in attendance, but pointed out that it was “numerous,” and “mixed,” with representatives of all nationalities and all confessions, including five Catholic priests.52 Popovitsky’s numbers are close to those of Polisadov: twelve hundred people inside the church and about five thousand spectators outside.53 Pelleport indicated that every time Leonty served, there were fourteen to eighteen hundred in attendance representing all social estates. He added that “officially it is known that in the course of the first five days after the consecration of the church, during divine services more than six thousand people were present, but up to eighty-four thousand people looked around the temple.”54 That would have required a steady stream of people to be entering and exiting the church throughout the day.
With more hyperbole, Pelleport wrote that these crowds “unanimously declared that the divine service of the Russian Church struck them with the impression of its ancient and apostolic character.”55 Guettée expressed such an opinion, and perhaps Monseigneur Baudry did too. While other observers reportedly left with positive impressions, we know little about what the crowds thought. But Pelleport was confident that “the Russian Church gained entrance into the hearts of several thousand people not belonging to its depths.”56Although many of the visitors were Italians and Anglicans, he portrayed the event as an enormous success with the French public, adding that ten days after the consecration “anywhere that we go, everyone is still talking about it and they speak favorably, even with emotion.”57 Like some other publicists, Pelleport may have had a tendency to superimpose the comments or reactions of a few individuals onto the crowd as a whole.
Many of the people who visited the church, Roman Catholic or otherwise, may have left with favorable impressions or some kind of fresh perspective, but the specific extent or nature of such shifts in perspective are elusive. So while the founding of the new church and its consecration by a bishop were reported to the Russian educated public as significant events spreading the light of Orthodoxy, the cautious tone of Pravoslavnoe obozrenie’s correspondent in Stuttgart, Deacon Replovsky, provided a certain counterbalance to the exuberance conveyed in the other accounts. Agreeing that Leonty’s trip to the West “was an important event in all respects,” and acknowledging that people in Russia have most likely “heard and read time and time again how well the celebration of the Orthodox divine services affects people, few though they may be, who are capable of rising above fanaticism,” Replovsky suggested that similar events would be beneficial; yet he cautioned that real rapprochement between the Christian confessions was still far off.58
Besides the accounts of the consecration, Vasiliev’s contemporaries found other occasions to express their conviction that the Paris church was a spectacular success, profoundly influencing the way Europeans perceived Orthodoxy and confirming Orthodoxy’s rising international prestige.
Of course, Empress Eugénie’s visit could not go unmentioned. Vasiliev described her December 1861 visit, which had taken him by surprise, in a businesslike report to the over-procurator and in a warmer and more detailed letter to Leonty. In January 1862 Strannik published an account of the episode that contained many of the details mentioned in Vasiliev’s letter to Leonty, but that was also embellished to emphasize how impressed the empress was by the church and by Vasiliev. The archpriest reported to both the over-procurator and the bishop that the empress stayed about twenty minutes. Strannik reported that she stayed about an hour and fleshed out the conversation between Vasiliev and the empress into a full-fledged dialogue. An important detail in all three accounts was that Empress Eugénie had heard that the consecration was magnificent. She expressed feeling a sense of reverence in the church, was very curious about the altar, and asked Vasiliev about the differences between the western and eastern churches.59 Vasiliev’s letter to Leonty and the Strannik article both reported that she asked whether the bishop who had come to Paris for the consecration was married. When Vasiliev explained that bishops had to be monastics, the empress replied, according to Vasiliev, “too bad that you cannot be a bishop,” and according to Strannik, “what a pity … that you are married … and that such an excellent priest can never attain the episcopal office!”60 The Strannik article also featured the empress expressing her approval of giving communion to children, a detail absent in Vasiliev’s letters.61
While the factual discrepancies between the Strannik article and Vasiliev’s letters are not that substantive, Vasiliev complained to Leonty about them, not wanting to be blamed for them and wanting Leonty to use the authentic version of events to correct rumors.62 Leonty confided to a colleague that it was unfortunate that the “very interesting” conversation between Empress Eugénie and Fr. Vasiliev was altered when it appeared in Strannik; yet he did not have Vasiliev’s letter about this matter published but gave it to “Vladyka” (presumably the metropolitan of St. Petersburg) who read it in the Holy Synod.63 The incident is illustrative of how, in their eagerness to believe and zeal to demonstrate that the Parisian church was having a decided impact on European opinion, the Russian publicists sometimes played fast and loose with the facts.
Leonty shared the aspirations and impressions of the Orthodox publicists and viewed the new church as a significant development. “What is written about the impression of our divine services on the minds and hearts of the Roman Catholics is fully justified. The harvest is plentiful! Very many are visiting our church (as Fr. Vasiliev writes) even now, every day.”64 Leonty’s memoirs (1887, published 1913–1914) suggest that he had an exaggerated notion about the media attention the consecration garnered, recalling that his picture appeared “in almost all the European and even in some Asian papers,” and that his homily was translated and published the day after the consecration “in the French papers.”65 In actuality, the two French-language papers that published his address—which talked about the new church as inhabited by God in the “illustrious city” of Paris, reminded the faithful that the church connected them with the faithful in Russia, and called on the faithful to love the church and to pray—were both Russian organs: Journal de St.-Pétersbourg and L’Union chrétienne. It appeared in the latter only in December 1861.66 Nonetheless, media attention gave Leonty a certain celebrity status that followed him back to Russia. He clearly enjoyed the fame while it lasted, reminiscing about his time in Paris as the most pleasant experience of his life.67
The fact that he was treated as a celebrity when he returned to Russia after the consecration confirms that his contemporaries attached importance to the new church. Leonty found, however, that there was a downside to his celebrity status. Repeating himself to all the “various high-ranking people, men and women,” whose visits left him no peace, lost its charm.68 He also indicated that his fame provoked envy. While the over-procurator of the Holy Synod, A. P. Tolstoy, “on account of his apathetic character” listened “coldly” to his report, Foreign Minister Gorchakov, who sought rapprochement with France, expressed his pleasure. Gorchakov expressed the sentiment that Leonty’s “commission” had been fulfilled “superlatively,” exceeding the foreign minister’s expectations.69 Eventually, Leonty recalled, the public clamor about events in Paris faded and the bishop embarked on the next phase of his career. Shortly after his trip to Paris he was assigned to the “second-class” diocese of Kamenets Podol'skii in western Ukraine.70
Vasiliev’s daughter Liudmila Avtonomova left a memoir about her father that was published, like Leonty’s memoirs, a few years after the fiftieth anniversary of the church’s founding. While some of the contemporary accounts highlighted the polemical aspect of the church in its witness against papal errors (e.g., Polisadov) or its ability to instill fear in the hearts of the Jesuits (e.g., Pelleport), Avtonomova drew on Jesuit conspiracy motifs, although she did not conflate Roman Catholicism entirely with Jesuitism. Her memoir, inaccurate on some points, not only highlights her strong conception of Jesuitism as antithetical to Russian identity but also obscures how cautious the Russian government was about the whole endeavor.
According to Avtonomova, her father had terrible difficulties getting authorization for the church from the French government, succeeding only after Vasiliev overcame “various hindrances” placed in his path by the Jesuits: “All the other confessions, even non-Christians, had their places of worship; but the French government—under the pressure of the Jesuit order, which was very strong then—obstinately declined every petition, considering Orthodoxy a harmful sect that defected from Catholicism, and called us nothing other than schismatics.”71 In fact, it had taken Vasiliev three attempts and ten years to get authorization from the Russian government. His “two unfruitful attempts” were even explicitly mentioned in Description de l’Église russe de Paris, but some Russian accounts either omitted this point or suggested the Jesuits and French government were responsible for the first two denials.72 Given Napoleon III’s interest in an entente with Russia, Kiselev appears to have had little difficulty getting the approval of the French government. Vasiliev’s daughter, however, provides a colorful version of events that involves her father having to bear the full weight of seeking the authorization from the French government because the Russian government would not. In her version, Vasiliev obtained permission after a face-to-face meeting with Napoleon III. During this purported meeting, the French emperor questioned Vasiliev at length about the Orthodox sect, demonstrating such “profound ignorance,” that there could be only one explanation: the Jesuits. “No doubt it was the doing of the Jesuits to keep Napoleon [III] in complete ignorance concerning the Orthodox faith which they fanatically loathed, probably conscious of its rightness, truth, and therefore fearing it.”73 But after Vasiliev gave Napoleon III a lesson in church history, the former received the necessary authorization, although with prohibitions against spreading propaganda among Catholics and against bells.74
Avtonomova confirmed that by and large Catholic clergy did not visit the church, but the clergy were not representative of the French population in general, who took great interest in it.75 As anti-Jesuitical as her account is, it is also notable for the fact that she explained differences in French and Russian customs, demonstrating the reciprocal nature of the church as a contact zone. She recounts some of the issues that arose when the church was inundated with curious visitors. Many tried to wear their hats into the church, and French ladies would even try to sneak in their little dogs. So the wardens had their work cut out for them, knocking hats off the heads of the unruly and, if necessary, pulling a little dog by the scruff of its neck from under a cloak and flinging the poor creature down the stairs. The Russians had to put up signs to let visitors know that hats and dogs were prohibited inside the temple. But Avtonomova explained that the French did not consider it “improper” to bring a dog into a church because everything is God’s. She recalled seeing dogs roam freely among the pews when she was among devout Catholics in Italy.76 By her recollection, the icons in the church were what really struck the French, because in their churches they bowed before the crucifix and statues of Christ or the Mother of God, but they were not accustomed to venerating icons.77
Avtonomova went so far as to suggest that the Jesuits threatened Vasiliev because of the church’s success in attracting curious French Catholics. The French clergy was “so startled and embittered by the wonderful impression made on Catholics by our church, and especially by the visit of Empress Eugénie, that the Jesuits sent father anonymous letters in which they threatened: ‘Beware, we’ll blow you into the air with your gilded shop.’ ”78 But with time the “passions” and the “religious rivalry” subsided and foreigners continued to attend services, behaving appropriately.79
The Russian church on Daru Street was a “showcase” of Slavophilism.80 Orthodox publicists heralded the new church as a spectacular success. Their representations of the church expressed Orthodox ecumenical aspirations and Slavophile dreams about Russia’s historical destiny to reunite the Christian churches.
The Paris church bridged the two movements of Slavophilism and early Russian Panslavism by translating Slavophile ideas of Orthodox destiny into concrete action with the limited, albeit still political and diplomatic goal of raising Russia’s and the Eastern Church’s visibility and prestige. Neither Slavophilism nor Russian Panslavism represented well-defined, cohesive ideologies. The former was rooted in the belief that the Orthodox had preserved the primitive faith and that Russia’s historical destiny was inextricably linked to the preservation and defense of Orthodoxy. Russian Panslavs more actively aspired to the cultural and/or political unity of the Slavs. Russian Panslavism was “the ideological heir” of and “practical extension” of Russian Slavophilism, and Panslavs sought to apply Slavophile ideas to the realm of foreign policy.81 Both movements involved disparate elements of educated society, including some government ministers and members of court circles, but neither had official state sanction.82 The religious nationalism that emerged in discourses surrounding the Paris church was suggestive of a primarily spiritual goal, and the aspiration of reuniting the churches was a universal goal that exceeded the bounds of the Slavic world. Given this universal vision and the emphasis on Orthodox cultural unity, the Paris church was more an embodiment of Slavophilism than of Panslavism, and the religious nationalism surrounding it was distinct from the more explicitly political and militant forms of Panslavism that emerged in and after 1867.83
Russian reports of the consecration emphasized that the new edifice, before, during, and after its consecration drew crowds of western heterodox foreigners to the church. Even though Russian Orthodox participants in and publicists of the consecration believed the new church would narrow the distance between Orthodox and non-Orthodox confessions, paving the way to reunion, the spectacle they presented simultaneously expressed and reinforced their own sense of distinctiveness and their claim, in opposition to the Roman Catholics, to have the full deposit of the faith. While the establishment of the church blurred the lines between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and even though Orthodox publicists saw the Paris church as a stepping-stone on the path to reunification of the churches, the Russian narratives simultaneously sharpened the lines between confessions by reinforcing the idea of western heterodox foreigners being confronted with the truth of Orthodoxy. Of course, the Orthodox publicists acknowledged other confessions as genuinely Christian, theological differences aside.
The founding of the church had a significance for the Orthodox publicists far greater than what it had for contemporary French observers. It was the pinnacle of a public relations campaign that demonstrated that the Russian educated public was self-conscious under the European gaze. Russians cared a good deal about how westerners perceived them and their faith. Along with Vasiliev’s letter to the bishop of Nantes which made the archpriest famous in Russia in the spring of 1861, the church and the success story told about it in the religious journals, especially in the fall of 1861 and early 1862, had symbolic importance for the Orthodox reading public in the aftermath of the Crimean War. St. Alexander Nevsky Church of Paris was comparable to what the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur represented to French Catholics after 1871—a symbol of national regeneration following a national trauma.84 The Paris church suggested that Providence was raising Orthodoxy and Russia to prominence at precisely that moment when the fate of the papacy was uncertain, promising—it could be hoped—a reappraisal of authority in the western church and healing of the schism.
But the temporal power did not entirely collapse, and even as it was challenged, the papacy was consolidating its spiritual authority. With the papal question unsettled in the 1860s, French Catholic polemicists clung to the law of schismatic churches and their narratives about the enslaved Caesaropapist Russian Church. The same anti-Orthodox and sometimes Russophobic attitudes proliferated after 1861 as before. While not directly caused by the establishment of a Russian church in Paris, it is possible to see in some anti-Orthodox narratives of the 1860s elements of backlash against the Russian Orthodox Church’s closer proximity and greater visibility.