Western Religious Propaganda in the Holy Land in the Correspondence of V.N. Khitrovo and K.P. Pobedonostsev in the 1880s

Abstract

The author has examined the correspondence of socio-religious figure and founder of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS) V.N. Khitrovo with Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev in the 1880s; the problem of propaganda of the Catholic and Protestant churches in the Holy Land is explored. It is shown that in his detailed reports, historical essays and letters V.N. Khitrovo informed K.P. Pobedonostsev about threats to Orthodoxy in the Holy Land. V.N. Khitrovo rightly supposed that the success of Western propaganda was due to the Western powers’ implementation of their national interests. The religious policy of France and the Protestant powers (England and Germany) was a “tool” for promoting their national interests. “Propaganda” and religious penetration of Western faiths manifested themselves in religious and political forms, which was embodied in the creation of educational institutions, hospitals, the spread of semi-secular women’s orders, and the education of the local population. V.N. Khitrovo associated the success of Catholicism with the activities of Latin Patriarch I. Valerga. A special way of penetration into the Holy Land was biblical research, one example of which was the activities of Victorian General Gordon. V.N. Khitrovo considered that the weakening of Orthodoxy in the Holy Land was due to not only modest funding, but also insufficient coordination of secular and church institutions of the Russian Empire in the implementation of state religious policy. The author comes to the conclusion that the correspondents had trust-based relations and similar views on major religious and political issues.

Keywords

• eastern question
• national interests
• russian orthodox ecclesiastical mission
• foreign church-state policy
• great powers