A Look at Socialism in the Official Acts of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Russian Church at the Turn of the 19th — 20th Centuries: Comparative Analysis

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The article compares the assessments of socialist ideology in the official documents of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches in the late 19th — early 20th centuries. As a reflection of the Catholic position, the encyclicals of the Roman popes are considered, first, the encyclical “Rerum Novarum”, published by Leo XIII in 1891. The author considers the program of the course “denunciation of socialism” approved by the Holy Synod in seminaries. A comparison of these documents shows that both churches condemned socialism as an atheistic doctrine and considered it a dangerous utopia. Leo XIII, in “Rerum Novarum”, denounced basic socialist doctrines such as the socialization of private property and class struggle, but at the same time acknowledged the seriousness of the problems of capitalist society and the plight of the workers. The pope opposed the socialist utopias with the Catholic social doctrine, which provided for the active participation of the church in social life, state regulation of relations between labor and capital, and the development of a peaceful labor movement. The Russian Orthodox Church during the period under review was unable to develop its own social doctrine as an alternative to socialism. In the program of the anti-socialist course for Orthodox seminaries, the materialistic and anti-Christian nature of socialism was proved, and Marxism was subjected to detailed analysis and criticism. At the same time, there was no such harsh criticism of the flaws of capitalism on the part of the Russian hierarchy. Such one-sidedness made the position of the Russian Orthodox Church in the fight against socialism much weaker than the position of the Roman Catholic Church.