Those who say Russia is religious are misinformed

Or else they use the word ‘religion’ loosely, to denote a sense of something mystical, spiritual and extra-material in nature.

True enough, few Russians, indeed few people in general, ever deny the presence of something that can’t be described in strictly physical terms. Those who do so are sorely unobservant and also illogical. After all, they argue in favour of their obtuse materialism using a manifestly non-material faculty, their reason.

Yet sensing that there is more to the world than just an aggregate of molecules has little to do with religion. By itself, that perception is more likely to lead to superstition, including all kinds of its brutal forms, or else to abstract natural mysticism.

Yet natural mysticism isn’t a religion, though it can be the first step along the way. Mysticism is amorphous; it is a hazy instinct that hasn’t yet reached, nor may ever reach, God. It is content in search of form, not yet sure of itself and therefore uncertain which form will suit it best.

Only religion can steer a man to God, by crystallising a vague longing into faith and offering a moulded shape into which the longing can flow.

The shape is well defined: whereas amorphous mysticism has to remain abstract, religion is always concrete. There exists no religion in general. There are only specific religions, each with its own revelation, dogma and rituals – its own way of looking at God and his world.

Mysticism, on the other hand, can only exist in general, and in that sense it is not only different from religion but indeed opposite to it. That’s why many who flirt with mysticism, including some of Russia’s greatest writers, such as Tolstoy, only ever use it as a stick with which to beat religion on the head.

As religion is both higher and grander than mysticism, it tends to subsume it, channelling it into religion’s own reservoir. Mysticism, on the other hand, sometimes refuses to be diverted into that conduit.

One can say that mysticism relates to faith the way anarchy relates to liberty. When it is particularly recalcitrant, it may rebel against religion to protect what may appear to be its freedom, but is in fact its amorphousness. When such a rebellion occurs, it can be expressed in ways that are not only non-religious but also actively anti-religious. Thus, while ‘an atheist Christian’ doesn’t sound plausible, ‘an atheist mystic’ does.

It is amorphous mysticism, rather than true religiosity, that is a characteristic Russian trait. This could have led to genuine faith first and real religion second, but, alas, disdain for any formal restrictions to their self-expression has prevented the Russians from following such a progression, en masse at any rate.

This anti-formalism doesn’t just affect religion. It also explains why the Russians have never developed a knack for improving the state or any other public institutions. If they can’t destroy such institutions, they are more inclined to run away, preventing the state from destroying them.

In fact, the Russians tend to be averse to any disciplined form that might contain their fluid substance, which is why all those democracies and free markets can never succeed there even when, or rather if, they are ever tried for real.

This tendency extends even to aesthetics. For example, though all Russians hail Pushkin as the greatest poet of all time (“our all”, as the critic Apollon Grigoriev described him), his classicist form and cut-glass Mozartian cadences had no followers.

According to the philosopher Nikolai Lossky, this disdain for form even penetrated the Russians’ gene pool, having produced so many ill-defined, amorphous facial features clearly different, say, from the chiselled Northern European profile. Indeed many Russians, even those from old families, show a certain lack of straight lines in their faces.

It is as if, having drawn a sketch of their features, God then went over it, smudging every line with his thumb. Lossky’s observation may be too sweeping, but it is certainly evident that the Russians’ amorphousness extends to the way they treat every public institution, from justice to religion.

Traditional Russian lawlessness is well publicised, but mostly in the context of the state being bound by no legal constraints. It is less often mentioned that not only do Russian rulers seldom obey their own laws, but they don’t even insist that the ruled do – for as long as the latter don’t mind being ruled.

In that sense, it is Russia herself, and not just her governments, that has always been lawless. Nor do the people define liberty in any legal terms. The old Russian word for freedom, volia, is etymologically related to ‘will’, which stands to reason. Freedom to a Russian means being able to do as he wills, not obeying just laws that protect his liberties.

Many ascribe this tendency to the Asian part of the Russian character. However, lawlessness in Russia is markedly different from that in the traditional Eastern tyrannies.

There the populace was expected to follow every letter of the law, even if the despots themselves ignored its very spirit. But in Russia lawlessness functioned at all levels even under the tsars. At the top the arbitrary will of the tsar was the only law, and he could punish anyone with utmost cruelty for the slightest infraction. At the same time, he could let anyone get away with murder if such was his wish.

For example, Paul I once ordered the promotion of an officer who had had a trader hanged for having refused to sell hay for his company’s horses. On another day the same officer could have been severely chastised.

Those who derive their knowledge of Russia from Kremlin propaganda, refracted through our press, like to repeat the canard about Russians flocking to churches in their droves. In fact, church attendance in Russia is no higher than in Britain, and no one has ever accused the British of excessive piety.

Only between 0.5 and 2 per cent of Russians in big cities attend Easter services, and overall the number of actively practising Orthodox Christians is only marginally greater. In light of what I’ve said about the Russian character, it could hardly be otherwise.

Orthodox Christianity is an apostolic religion and, as such, imposes a strict discipline of dogma, ritual and doctrine. That sort of thing is alien to much-vaunted Russian spirituality, and many Russians, if they ever go to church at all, prefer various Protestant sects, which they find more conducive to free expression.

I don’t know why I felt compelled to write about this. Perhaps the proximity of Easter has made it hard to think about mundane matters. But this is a passing aberration, and tomorrow we’ll be back talking about Trump.