«Pastoral works» in the memories of A.F. Koni: problems of freedom of conscience in the Russian Empire on the eve of the First russian revolution

Abstract

This publication examines the unexplored topic of the Senate jurisprudence regarding the legal status of Lutheran priests in the Baltic States at the end of the XIX century. The author defines the significance of the policy of state pressure on Protestant pastors in the context of the general attack of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Synod on non-Orthodox religious organizations under K. Pobedonostsev. Consideration of the issue from the position of the higher court of the Empire has not previously been undertaken in the scientific literature. During the preparation of the work, mainly narrative material was used the memoirs of the Chief Prosecutor of the Senate. Due to the small number of cases and the semi-secret nature, the materials of the Senate were not particularly reflected in the collections of decisions and sentences. The problem-chronological approach was applied to study this subject. As a result, the reasons of the weak pressure on Protestant pastors the author associates with the deep rootedness of Lutheranism in the popular environment, the brutal activity of the police and the church, fears of a quarrel with the Lutheran countries of Europe, etc. Few sentences against pastors who seduced the Orthodox into another faith reached the Criminal Cassation Department of the Senate, where they met with resistance a group of senators led by the famous lawyer, humanist A.F. Koni. Among the numerous schismatic and sectarian affairs that A.F. Koni, as chief prosecutor and senator, draw attention to the so-called pastoral affairs, which have not been sufficiently researched in the domestic scientific literature, and yet they well illustrate the church-state policy of the Russian state on the outskirts of the empire on the eve of the first Russian revolution. The author concludes that pastoral affairs are interesting not only from the point of view of the struggle of Russian infidels and the domestic educated intelligentsia for freedom of conscience in Russia, but they also allow to look from the inside at the work of the bureaucratic apparatus of the empire, to understand the work (internal kitchen) of the Governing Senate: internal intrigues, the indirect influence of the monarch and the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod on senators and, accordingly, the decision on religious matters, informal consultations of the Minister of Justice with the chief prosecutor of the criminal cassation department (probing the atmosphere in the case, including through an intermediary), the selection of a senator-rapporteur on a particular important case, etc. Thanks to A.F. Koni, attempts to persecute pastors did not develop, and after 1900 the persecution of priests on religious grounds in the Baltics stopped. The subject is interesting and requires further development and study.