Anticipating Max Weber: Discussion about the church at the Religious and Philosophical Assemblies in 1901–1903

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This article dwells upon a specific aspect of the discussion about the Church, which took place at the Religious and Philosophical Assemblies in Saint Petersburg between 1901 and 1903. The initial impulse was given in 1901 by Mikhail Stakhovich, who raised the issue of the freedom of conscience. Many representatives of the Russian Church opposed this idea; the article argues that this controversy was fueled by nearly incompatible understandings of the relation between the Church and the society. Participants of the Religious and Philosophical Assemblies represented two different approaches to this ecclesiological problem. Stakhovich and other proponents of religious liberty considered free and conscious faith of the individual as the main sign of the Church. Thus, they regarded the Church as a particular and clearly distinguished community. On the contrary, their opponents were inclined to see the Church as coinciding with the society in general, so that they treated the notions “Russian” and “member of the church” as synonyms. It is suggested that the emergence of these two conflicting concepts during the discussion represented greater processes which took place not only in Russia, but also in Europe and North America. This is supported by contrastive analysis: ecclesiological viewpoints represented in Saint Petersburg are compared to the two notions coined by Max Weber, i. e. “churches” („Kirchen“) and “sects” („Sekten“). It is shown that participants of the Religious-Philosophical Meetings arrived at very similar notions several years before Weber’s works were published. These findings are used to assess the effect of Orthodox apologist’s speeches during the Meetings.