A Spectacular Success

This chapter focuses on the Russian Orthodox press, which represented the new church as a spectacular success. It explains why, according to Orthodox publicists, the Paris church was signified as the light of Orthodoxy that was dawning in the West and represented a critical step in Russia's providential task of reuniting Christendom. Even though Orthodox publicists had great expectations that the new church represented a harbinger for overcoming the schism that divided West and East, like French discourses about the Paris church, the Russian accounts described in the chapter reinforces the dichotomy between the Orthodox Christian and the heterodox other. It also discusses the French Catholic polemicists that clung to the law of schismatic churches and their narratives about the enslaved Caesaropapist Russian Church when the papal question unsettled in the 1860s. It investigates the elements of backlash against the Russian Orthodox Church's closer proximity and greater visibility that was indirectly caused by the establishment of a Russian church in Paris.

The Church Chained to the Throne of the “Czar”

This chapter assesses the establishment of the Russian church in Paris that contributed to the widespread dissemination of an alternative narrative that challenged the tsar–pope myth. It analyzes affirmations that the Orthodox Church recognized no head but only Christ and that anti-Orthodox sentiments did not disappear. The chapter also demonstrates that with the fate of Rome and the papacy unresolved in the 1860s, the tsar pope and enslaved church myth remained an integral part of Catholic narratives defending the pope's temporal as well as spiritual authority. It describes the backlash against the heightened visibility and closer proximity of Russian Orthodoxy among Roman Catholics in the French capital. It also points out how Orthodox press in Russia conveyed a sense that the light of Orthodoxy was dawning in the West due to the founding of the church, Guettée's Orthodox turn, Vasiliev's polemics, and L'Union chrétienne.

The Archpriest as Publicist and Polemicist

This chapter focuses on the early efforts of the two priest-publicists, Vasiliev and Guettée, to challenge anti-Orthodox prejudices. After recounting the circumstances that led the two priests to found the first Orthodox periodical in the West in 1859 called L'Union chrétienne, the chapter discusses the most significant polemical works of Vasiliev. It analyzes Vasiliev's letters to two French bishops and the French historian François Guizot. It talks about Russian publicists that utilized the relative freedom of the press in western Europe to promote their visions of Russia's national interests. It also describes Orthodox publicists that had to contend with a western press that was hostile to Russia.