The Real Rasputin?: A Look at His Admirers’ Revisionist History

by D.P. Anashkin

The edi­tor­ship of Ortho­dox Life is trou­bled by recent signs, even among cer­tain mem­bers and cler­gy of the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church Abroad, of a revi­sion­ist his­to­ry tak­ing hold regard­ing the tumul­tuous and trag­ic events of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry — name­ly, the con­tro­ver­sial and enig­mat­ic fig­ure of Grig­o­ry Efi­movich Rasputin. We there­fore offer this thor­ough and sober inves­ti­ga­tion by a respect­ed schol­ar and his­to­ri­an of the Russ­ian Church. May the ques­tion of “the real Rasputin” be final­ly put to rest, so that with­out dis­cord and tumult in the Church, we may worthi­ly hon­or the life and suf­fer­ings of the Holy Roy­al Mar­tyrs and all the New Mar­tyrs and Con­fes­sors of Rus­sia, espe­cial­ly in the cur­rent and upcom­ing anniver­sary years.

A ver­sion of this arti­cle first appeared in the March 2017 issue of Holy  Trin­i­ty Monastery’s Russ­ian-lan­guage jour­nal Православная Русь.

Russia is liv­ing through com­pli­cat­ed times. The coun­try is being reborn after dis­in­te­gra­tion and abase­ment. A tor­tur­ous search for a nation­al idea is afoot. All these process­es are under­gird­ed by a colos­sal, part­ly fre­net­ic spir­i­tu­al ten­sion in our soci­ety. The huge num­ber of magi­cians, astrol­o­gists, psy­chics, and heal­ers who appear on tele­vi­sion and in print are a clear indi­ca­tion that the pop­u­lace is ill, and grave­ly so.

One symp­tom of this ill­ness is the ven­er­a­tion in cer­tain — albeit nar­row — cir­cles of Grig­o­ry Efi­movich Rasputin. The facts of his life are so wide­ly known there is no need to recount them here. For us, a dif­fer­ent ques­tion is impor­tant — why has a move­ment appeared for this per­son­’s can­on­iza­tion and what are the argu­ments, both for and against? This dis­cus­sion is unavoid­able in order to devel­op a firm posi­tion on such a com­plex ques­tion and so as not to fall under the influ­ence of pseu­do-eccle­sial agi­ta­tors and, in the final equa­tion, to not do harm to our own spir­i­tu­al state.

Attempts to real­ize the can­on­iza­tion of Rasputin are fraught with sev­er­al neg­a­tive con­se­quences. First, admir­ers of “elder Grig­o­ry” make of him a cer­tain sym­bol of “folk Ortho­dox tra­di­tion,” set against the “bish­ops-bureau­crats.” The move­ment there­by car­ries an anti-eccle­sial char­ac­ter. Even after the Com­mis­sion on the Glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Saints of the Holy Syn­od of the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church has expressed its author­i­ta­tive view against the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Rasputin among the saints, his self-willed apol­o­gists nev­er­the­less ven­er­ate him as a saint­ly elder and martyr.

Sec­ond, the can­on­iza­tion of such a char­ac­ter as Rasputin would throw a shad­ow upon the Roy­al Fam­i­ly and would under­mine the cred­i­bil­i­ty of their own glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. Such an act would also be a huge gift to the anti-Ortho­dox media, giv­ing them an excuse to pour dirt upon the Church.

The “Real Rasputin” — Man and Myth

Men like Rasputin appear specif­i­cal­ly at moments of cri­sis and a ten­sion imme­di­ate­ly aris­es sur­round­ing them. About him are lay­ered a large num­ber of the most var­ied myths. Some con­sid­er him a saint, oth­ers — a cun­ning and immoral scoundrel. It is dif­fi­cult to prove or dis­prove any­thing when it comes to Rasputin. The thing is, the extant wit­ness accounts of him con­flict in the extreme. Even descrip­tions of his exter­nal appear­ance made by peo­ple who asso­ci­at­ed with him are so con­tra­dic­to­ry that one is giv­en to won­der. Some write that he was tall, oth­ers — not so tall. Some write that he was, for a peas­ant, tidy, oth­ers — that he was dirty and unkempt. A singer who saw Rasputin many times describes his rot­ten teeth and foul breath; where­as the writer Zhukovska­ia, who knew him well, informs us that his teeth were impec­ca­ble and every one intact, while his breath was fresh. Rasputin’s sec­re­tary writes that he had a wide mouth but that some sort of black roots were vis­i­ble through it. Mean­while Sazonov, an admir­er of Rasputin, describes strong white teeth.

To move on from here to per­son­al­i­ty traits is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult. The sit­u­a­tion is com­pli­cat­ed by Rasputin’s own lack of edu­ca­tion. His papers are com­plete­ly unin­tel­li­gi­ble; they con­tain no infor­ma­tion and express only Rasputin’s inter­est in the mat­ter of the peti­tion­er at hand, although in no way clar­i­fy­ing the sub­stance of the request. Just as unhelp­ful as sources are Rasputin’s let­ters and telegrams, which con­sist of con­grat­u­la­tions, infor­ma­tion about his health, and var­i­ous opaque adages.

Rasputin at the Court of the Tsar

How did a semi-lit­er­ate muzhik from Tobol­sk land in the Impe­r­i­al Court and enjoy the esteem of the Roy­al cou­ple? The prob­lem of Rasputin is in many respects a prob­lem of his­to­ry. Inter­est in “God’s peo­ple” was vis­i­ble through­out con­tem­po­rary Russ­ian soci­ety. For instance, the head of the archive and library of the Most-Holy Syn­od, A.N. Lvov, remarked in his diary for 1984 that some wan­der­er, Antonii, has been roam­ing St Peters­burg bare­foot and in chains. His appear­ance in the capi­tol in such a state was enough on its own to give him a halo of sanc­ti­ty, and such appear­ances become a sign of the times. The shin­ing Peters­burg soci­ety treat­ed even the tongue-tied vagrant, Mitya Kozel­sky, with full credulity.

Defeat in the Rus­so-Japan­ese War and the rev­o­lu­tion of 1905 brought out in the soci­ety, and espe­cial­ly among aris­to­crat­ic cir­cles, a height­ened sense of ner­vous­ness. Per the remarks of the assis­tant to the chair­man of the Extra­or­di­nary Inves­ti­ga­to­ry Com­mis­sion of the Pro­vi­sion­al Gov­ern­ment B.N. Smit­ten, “Rasputin came to fer­tile ground and it enveloped him.” A por­tion of the aris­toc­ra­cy strove to be immersed in the “pop­u­lar faith,” all the while not quite grasp­ing what was meant by this. It is illus­tra­tive that they sought answers to their ques­tions not so much from pas­tors of the Church as from a var­ied crop of new­ly-appeared prophets and “elders.”

Met­ro­pol­i­tan Veni­amin (Fed­chenkov) fair­ly not­ed that the cause of the devo­tion to Rasputin lay not so much in his own per­son as in the atmos­phere which reined with­in high soci­ety. From the start, he left a strong impres­sion even on eru­dite hier­ar­chs. Vla­dy­ka Met­ro­pol­i­tan Veni­amin, hav­ing wit­nessed the first intro­duc­tion of Rasputin to the father con­fes­sor of the Roy­al fam­i­ly, Archi­man­drite Theo­phan (Bystrov),1in future, Bish­op of Polta­va recalls that Rasputin imme­di­ate­ly left a strong impres­sion on the lat­ter, both in the inten­si­ty of his per­son­al­i­ty and in the under­stand­ing of his soul. Fr Theo­phan was com­plete­ly car­ried away, see­ing in him the ide­al of a holy man. Hav­ing over­heard the con­ver­sa­tions between Rasputin and Fr Theo­phan, Vla­dy­ka Veni­amin notes that the for­mer was no char­la­tan or hyp­no­tist; he sim­ply affect­ed peo­ple by the strength of his per­son­al­i­ty. This trait is also record­ed by oth­er contemporaries.

Janus of the Imperial Court

Con­tra­dic­to­ry opin­ions of Rasputin, from mis­un­der­stood and per­se­cut­ed right­eous one to the mon­ster who destroyed the Roy­al Fam­i­ly, are found­ed in the first instance on the con­tra­dic­to­ry traits of his own per­son­al­i­ty. The philoso­pher and con­vinced monar­chist Lev Tikhomirov wrote regard­ing Rasputin: 

To the Roy­al Fam­i­ly, he turns the face of an “elder,” peer­ing into which the Empress per­ceives the spir­it of God rest­ing upon a holy man… Тo Rus­sia, he turns his debauched mug, drunk­en and las­civ­i­ous, the face of a dev­il­ish satyr from the Tobol­sk taiga… 

And from this stems everything… 

The whole coun­try grum­bles, indig­nant that Rasputin is in the Tsar­it­sa’s cham­bers… But in the Tsar and Tsar­it­sa’s cham­bers — bewil­der­ment and bit­ter resent­ment… Why do the peo­ple rage? Because this holy man prays for the unfor­tu­nate heir?… For the grave­ly ill child, whose every care­less move­ment por­tends death? This per­turbs them. Why? Over what?

So this mes­sen­ger of death stands between the throne and Russia…

He kills because he is two-faced.

Many saw in Rasputin a superb actor who took on the role of sav­iour and lived it to such a degree that he would not part from it even at the very end. Many con­tem­po­raries not­ed the remark­able union with­in this man of sin and right­eous­ness. Thus, Prince Zhe­vakhov remarks in his mem­oirs that there is noth­ing sur­pris­ing about the polar-oppo­site eval­u­a­tions of Rasputin in soci­ety, since some saw him as he was in Tsarskoe Selo, and oth­ers — as he was in the tav­ern. From this, we might gath­er that Rasputin was nei­ther a saint nor a con­sum­mate vil­lain and rogue.

He also had pos­i­tive traits. From time to time, he appears a kind, respon­sive, co-suf­fer­ing, and gen­er­ous per­son. Rasputin strove to help many. Notes of his have sur­vived with requests for assis­tance from this or that peti­tion­er, who had laid siege to his apart­ment for whole days. Eye­wit­ness­es recall a time when, in response to pleas from a wid­ow who had come to him lack­ing funds enough to sur­vive, he imme­di­ate­ly turned to a per­son of means who stood there and with­out look­ing at the mon­ey hand­ed to him imme­di­ate­ly turned them over to the wid­ow. After cross­ing the thresh­old of the apart­ment where Grig­o­ry Efi­movich lived, she saw that she had received from him 500 rubles, a giant sum for that time.

As regards his writ­ings (“Life of an Expe­ri­enced Wan­der­er” — 1907; “My Thoughts and Reflec­tions: Brief Descrip­tion of Trav­els to Holy Sites and Reflec­tions upon Reli­gious Ques­tions Raised by Them” — 1911; and oth­ers), these were dic­tat­ed to one of his admir­ers and car­ry evi­dence of sig­nif­i­cant lit­er­ary exag­ger­a­tion. Rasputin’s dialect could not have been intel­li­gi­ble to his eru­dite fol­low­ers. The so-called “Rasputin’s Diary” was writ­ten under the dic­ta­tion of Rasputin’s admir­er, the aris­to­crat Maria Evge­niev­na Golov­ina. Even less reli­able as sources are the tran­scrip­tions of Rasputin’s thoughts, com­posed by his admir­ers; here we see not so much an expres­sion of his thoughts as of their recep­tion by the one record­ing them.

At first, the “Siber­ian wan­der­er” behaved wise­ly and cir­cum­spect­ly. Often gen­uine piety man­i­fest­ed itself with­in him. As not­ed above, he was able to win over not only cer­tain rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the cler­gy but even the Roy­al Fam­i­ly. There are sev­er­al expla­na­tions for such affec­tion. The tsar sin­cere­ly wished to bridge the divide between the pub­lic and the gov­ern­ment, to become as close as pos­si­ble to his peo­ple. Rasputin, to an extent, played for the Tsar the role of the peo­ple’s tri­bune, who would bring all its hopes and needs direct­ly to the Autocrat.

Empress Alexandra, Devoted Mother

If the learned monk and the­olo­gian Theo­phan esteemed him at first as a saint and hap­pi­ly asso­ci­at­ed with him, then it is no won­der that the reac­tion with­in the Roy­al house­hold was the same. In the most try­ing peri­od, he appeared before them as a guide, a teacher, and even an elder from the very heart of the peo­ple. A true “man of God.” Rasputin became a leg­end already in life, and as often hap­pens, the leg­end obscured the char­ac­ter of the real, liv­ing person.

Empress Alexan­dra Feodor­ov­na saw in Rasputin a friend, heed­ed his coun­sels and appraisals, and relied upon the weight of his author­i­ty.2Авторитет is a par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult word to trans­late into Eng­lish. It con­notes a lev­el of exper­tise which is wide­ly acknowl­edged and lends to the one wield­ing it a cer­tain grav­i­tas unavail­able to oth­ers. Rasputin con­duct­ed dis­cus­sions with her on suf­fer­ing, mer­cy, meek­ness, and patience. To her, he seemed an unmerce­nary and spir­i­tu­al­ly gift­ed seek­er of God from among the peo­ple. Under his influ­ence the Empress became a wartime nurse and she received con­stant sup­port from him in this path, which of course con­tra­dict­ed nei­ther her con­vic­tions nor the incli­na­tion of her soul.

One of the main caus­es of the Empress’s love toward Rasputin was his abil­i­ty to ease the heir’s suf­fer­ing dur­ing more than one attack of hemo­phil­ia. Let us not judge the dot­ing par­ents for grasp­ing at any oppor­tu­ni­ty to aid their son, who him­self loved Grig­o­ry Efi­movich. But again aris­es the ques­tion of this char­ac­ter’s two-faced nature. Did he tru­ly love the Roy­al Fam­i­ly? If it were so, he would not have dis­cred­it­ed them in the eyes of the pub­lic by his behav­ior. Or, if he saw that the sit­u­a­tion had got­ten out of hand, then he would have qui­et­ly with­drawn. Instead, he placed self-assured­ness before this. Besides which, sanc­ti­ty does not sig­ni­fy omni­science. Though sin­cere [in their affec­tion], the Roy­al Fam­i­ly mis­judged their “friend.”

It must be not­ed that the “spe­cial inti­ma­cy of the elder” with the Roy­al Fam­i­ly adver­tised by Rasputin’s admir­ers is great­ly exag­ger­at­ed. To be exact, there was no “spe­cial bond” at all. The Tsar, con­trary to com­men­tary of both the pro-Rasputin and the Sovi­et press, did not place blind trust in Rasputin. In a let­ter to the Empress, he writes, “As far as Rasputin’s coun­sels, you know how care­ful­ly one must regard his coun­sels.” As evi­dence, S. Old­en­burg shows in his book, The Life and Rule of Emper­or Nicholas II, that in 1915–16 the Sov­er­eign heed­ed not one of Rasputin’s sev­en­teen recommendations.

No Elder at All

The tragedy of the Roy­al Fam­i­ly, who saw in Rasputin an elder from among the peo­ple, lies in this key fact — he was no elder. As is well known, an elder is a spir­i­tu­al guide, heal­er of spir­i­tu­al infir­mi­ties who leads a sin­ner on the path of sal­va­tion. Apol­o­gists for Rasputin offer evi­dence that he was an ascetic, elder, and seer. Yet, one attribute of a false prophet is that he can­not fore­tell his own fate. Under this cri­te­ri­on, Rasputin can­not be con­sid­ered a true prophet because he could not accu­rate­ly pre­dict his own fate. True, there is his will, in which he says that if mem­bers of the Romanov fam­i­ly kill him, their line will end; but this seems more like a threat, once we take into account that he knew per­fect­ly well how the major­i­ty of the Impe­r­i­al House regard­ed him.

One may sup­pose that for the Sov­er­eign, with whom was tied the sta­tus of head of the Ortho­dox con­fes­sion, it was eas­i­er to turn for help to a man of the peo­ple than, for exam­ple, to Bish­op Kir­ill (Smirnov), who served in Gatchi­na3site of the Impe­r­i­al residence,which made Bish­op Kir­ill eas­i­ly acces­si­ble to the Sov­er­eign –trans. but was his sub­or­di­nate.4Lat­er, Vl Kir­ill was appoint­ed Met­ro­pol­i­tan of Kazan and named by St Tikhon as the first locum tenens of the patri­ar­chal throne. Find­ing him­self in exile upon the death of St Tikhon, he was nev­er allowed by the Bol­she­viks to take up this calling.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Rasputin was some­where below the sum­mit of his fac­ul­ties. Vla­dy­ka Theo­phan notes in his report to the Inves­ti­ga­to­ry Com­mis­sion of the Pro­vi­sion­al Gov­ern­ment, “He [Rasputin] was nei­ther a hyp­ocrite nor a scoundrel. He was a true man of God who appeared from among the peo­ple. But under the influ­ence of high soci­ety, which could not com­pre­hend this sim­ple man, a hor­ri­ble spir­i­tu­al cat­a­stro­phe took place, and he fell. The Impe­r­i­al ret­inue, which wished for this to hap­pen, remained non­plussed and account­ed every­thing that occurred as some­thing friv­o­lous.”  Vlad­kya Theo­phan exhort­ed Rasputin to change his ways, but it was already too late. Lat­er, con­vinced by pre­cise, doc­u­ment­ed evi­dence, Vla­dy­ka broke with Rasputin whilst deeply pained by his dis­il­lu­sion­ment in the Siber­ian wan­der­er. And this dis­il­lu­sion­ment was sup­port­ed by seri­ous foun­da­tions. Rasputin’s daugh­ter, Matre­na Soloviev-Rasputin, described to the inves­ti­ga­tor N.A. Sokolov5Coro­ner of the Impe­r­i­al Court. In 1918, Sokolov would lead the inves­ti­ga­tion into the mur­der of the Roy­al Fam­i­ly and the search for their remains  in Decem­ber of 1918:

He spoke of God remark­ably well when he was drunk. As I already said, when he left to become a wan­der­er, he stopped drink­ing. But in Pet­ro­grad he returned to wine and drank a lot. More than any­thing he loved madeira and red wine. He drank at home, but even more in restau­rants and at his friends’ homes. The Roy­al Fam­i­ly knew that he drank and judged him for it. We also spoke to him about it. He always had the same answer for all: “I can­not drink that which will come after.” The key to his think­ing was that he await­ed some evil for the future of his home­land, and he want­ed to drown in wine the bit­ter­ness caused by this dread anticipation.

Voeikov, the last com­man­dant of the palace at Tsarskoe Selo, described how Rasputin indeed was able to stop the heir’s loss of blood and saved his life more than once. The trou­ble, how­ev­er, was that some­times he was so drunk that it was impos­si­ble to get him to the palace. If help was urgent­ly need­ed, they would bring him the phone, and Rasputin, speak­ing with the tsare­vich, would stanch the blood by phone. 

Researchers have at their dis­pos­al irrefutable evi­dence of Rasputin’s bac­cha­na­lian lifestyle, record­ed by the direc­tors of Russ­ian spe­cial ser­vices, based on the dis­pas­sion­ate and objec­tive infor­ma­tion of their numer­ous agents — e.g. the mem­oirs of Gen­er­al A.I. Spiri­dovich, head of the Sov­er­eign’s per­son­al guard from 1913–1916,and K.I. Globachev, head of the Pet­ro­grad secu­ri­ty depart­ment from 1915–1917. The lat­ter was per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble for the pro­tec­tion and sur­veil­lance of Rasputin in the last years of his life.

Through­out almost the entire­ty of the day, peo­ple from all social stra­ta and rep­re­sent­ing var­i­ous offi­cial and social posi­tions would vis­it him. Some came out of per­son­al sym­pa­thy for Rasputin, oth­ers sought his pro­tec­tion, while still oth­ers sim­ply hoped he would fill their pock­ets. The list of peo­ple who vis­it­ed Rasputin for this or that pur­pose was very long. Besides these, there were the reg­u­lars, which is to say, his entourage, the com­po­si­tion of which mor­phed accord­ing to Rasputin’s per­son­al lean­ings at a giv­en time. The most loy­al of his friends were women — ladies-admir­ers who believed in him as a saint.

As nei­ther an admir­er nor an ene­my of Rasputin, Globachev quite dis­pas­sion­ate­ly describes his every­day rou­tine, which he knew bet­ter than oth­ers. Accord­ing to Globachev, Grig­orii Efi­movich was sim­ply a smart peas­ant who lucked out and oper­at­ed with a great deal of [oth­er peo­ple’s] trust. But Globachev also attests to the close ties between Rasputin and such dark fig­ures as the “doc­tor of Tibetan med­i­cine” Bad­maev and the famous bankers Manus and Ruben­stein, who con­duct­ed major finan­cial trans­ac­tions through him. Besides this, Rasputin’s unwor­thy behav­ior is repeat­ed­ly not­ed in the diaries of out­side observers.

The View of Rasputin’s Contemporaries

It’s no sur­prise that the reac­tion of many of Rasputin’s most notable con­tem­po­raries to him was neg­a­tive in the extreme. Here’s how Pyotr Arkadievich Stolypin6Prime Min­is­ter of the Russ­ian Empire from 1906 until his assas­si­na­tion in 1911, most notable for the pro­gram of eco­nom­ic and agrar­i­an reforms that he ini­ti­at­ed as a means of strength­en­ing the monar­chy recalled his intro­duc­tion to the “elder”: “He ran after me with his milky-white eyes,” writes Stolypin, “and uttered some cryp­tic and dis­joint­ed quo­ta­tions from Holy Scrip­ture, ges­tured with his hands in an odd way, and I felt awak­en­ing with­in me an insur­mount­able aver­sion to this mon­stros­i­ty sit­ting across from me. But I under­stood that this per­son pos­sessed a great pow­er of hyp­no­sis and that he was impress­ing upon me quite a strong moral impres­sion, albeit one of repulsion.”

The Empress’s lady-in-wait­ing, A.A. Vyrubo­va, writes about Rasputin some­what guard­ed­ly. Find­ing her­self, per the tsar­it­sa’s orders, in the vil­lage of Pokrovsk, she notes the local cler­gy’s hos­tile atti­tude towards him and con­cedes that the vagrants who sur­round­ed Rasputin, prey­ing on his sim­plic­i­ty, had stolen him away and got­ten him drunk. Rasputin’s vis­i­tors and entourage left an unpleas­ant impres­sion on Vyrubova.

Those who were part of his inner cir­cle also spoke neg­a­tive­ly about Rasputin, among them Iliodor (Tru­fanov), Min­is­ter of Inte­ri­or Affairs Khvos­tov, and the for­mer Chief of Police S.P. Belet­skii. Many high­ly-placed gov­ern­ment offi­cials char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly viewed Rasputin as a duplic­i­tous man, play­ing the role of a sim­ple­ton and “fool for Christ,” but injur­ing the pres­tige of the monar­chy both in high soci­ety and among the plain folk. Stolypin, Min­is­ter of Inte­ri­or Affairs A.A. Makarov, Ober-procu­ra­tor of the Syn­od A.D. Samarin, and Min­is­ter of the Court Count V.B. Fred­er­icks all held to this view.

Among Rasputin’s adver­saries were also to be found Church lead­ers, lat­er to be num­bered among the saints: the Ven­er­a­ble Mar­tyr Eliza­ve­ta Feodor­ov­na, the Hiero­mar­tyrs Met­ro­pol­i­tan Vladimir of Kiev and Bish­op Her­mo­genes of Tobol­sk. Even those hier­ar­chs who main­tained ties with Rasputin and enjoyed his pro­tec­tion tried not to adver­tise their con­tact with him. It is worth not­ing that, despite the many peo­ple who sought his pro­tec­tion and received help and mon­ey from him, no one spoke out in his defense, as if con­sid­er­ing any men­tion of a con­nec­tion with him to be compromising. 

The Fate of Rasputin

The con­tin­u­ing pres­ence of Rasputin near the Roy­al Fam­i­ly threat­ened to fatal­ly dis­cred­it the Supreme author­i­ty. The neg­a­tive atti­tude of the intel­li­gentsia towards the “elder” was not the most fright­ful con­se­quence of the Rasputin affair. Scari­er still was the atti­tude towards him among the peo­ple. In a report about the role of Rasputin dat­ed Decem­ber 27, 1916, State Duma Deputy V.A. Mak­lakov express­es clear­ly: “Now in the minds and souls of the Russ­ian peo­ple is occur­ring the most ter­ri­ble rev­o­lu­tion that has ever tak­en place in his­to­ry. This is not a rev­o­lu­tion, but a cat­a­stro­phe; the entire age-old world­view, the peo­ple’s faith in the Tsar, in the right­eous­ness of his author­i­ty, in the idea [of monar­chy] as Divine­ly estab­lished.” In the end, the sit­u­a­tion was resolved with the mur­der of Rasputin, which took place on the night of Decem­ber 16, 1916 and was com­mit­ted by a group of peo­ple devot­ed­ly close to the Court and fierce­ly loy­al to the Tsar.

Apol­o­gists for Rasputin say that the con­spir­a­cy was effect­ed by the Masons, who wished to rid them­selves of exam­ples of pop­u­lar piety, a true man of the peo­ple, as the Empress described him. Doc­u­ment­ed evi­dence regard­ing the masons of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry is so con­tra­dic­to­ry that one can ascribe to them any­thing one desires. But Rasputin’s killers were far from rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies. They had no desire to over­throw the monar­chy or to sep­a­rate the Romanov dynasty from the throne. Pur­ishke­vich belonged to the far right; Prince Yusupov was mar­ried to a rel­a­tive of the Sov­er­eign Emperor.

The very pre­tense for invit­ing Rasputin to Yusupov’s home is indica­tive. They wish to intro­duce him to the most beau­ti­ful woman in Peters­burg, and he glad­ly accepts. They clear­ly invite him to a clan­des­tine gath­er­ing, and he goes. At first, they attempt to poi­son him with potas­si­um cyanide, hid­den in the madeira and pastries.

Soci­ety’s reac­tion to the news of the roy­al “friend’s” death wit­ness­es to how far the process of de-mys­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Tsarist regime had come. The news caused jubi­la­tion among the peo­ple. The Ven­er­a­ble Mar­tyr Eliza­ve­ta Feodor­ov­na wrote to Grand Prince Dmitri Pavlovich and Princess Yusupo­va, “May God strength­en Felix after the patri­ot­ic act he has com­mit­ted.” “All my deep and ardent prayers sur­round you all for the patri­ot­ic act of your son. May God pro­tect you.”

Not long after Rasputin’s mur­der, Vasi­ly Shulgin eval­u­ates the event thus: “For all its futil­i­ty, killing Rasputin was a deeply monar­chist act… thus it was under­stood… When news of what had hap­pened reached Moscow (this was in the evening) and pen­e­trat­ed into the the­atres, the pub­lic demand­ed that the Nation­al Anthem be per­formed. And, per­haps for the last time, ‘God save the Tsar’ was heard in Moscow. Nev­er did this prayer have so pro­found a meaning.”

Sev­en­teen sig­na­to­ries from the Tsar’s clos­est ret­inue wrote him a peti­tion for lenien­cy in the pun­ish­ment of Grand Prince Dmitri Pavlovich in con­nec­tion with Rasputin’s mur­der, which they also regard­ed as a “patri­ot­ic act.” Even at the head­quar­ters of the Supreme Com­man­der [of the mil­i­tary forces], the high­er and low­er ranks con­grat­u­lat­ed each oth­er with three kiss­es, as on the day of Pascha.

The Question of Fr Nikolay Guryanov

Sup­port­ers of Rasputin’s can­on­iza­tion often cite elder Niko­lay Guryanov (+2002). The thing is, in the last years of his life, Fr Niko­lay was sur­round­ed by pro­po­nents of the sanc­ti­ty of Rasputin. His cell atten­dants became famous for set­ting loose in his name var­i­ous rumors, among them his sup­posed ven­er­a­tion of Ivan the Ter­ri­ble and Grig­o­ry Rasputin as saints. Now, fol­low­ing the elder’s repose, these rumors spread with new strength since there is no one left in a posi­tion to ver­i­fy their accu­ra­cy. Such accounts are espe­cial­ly exag­ger­at­ed by his for­mer cell atten­dant, sche­ma­nun Niko­la (Goryan). It is unknown where or by whom she was ton­sured. Prey­ing on Fr Niko­lay’s elder­ly infir­mi­ty, his cell atten­dants took pho­tographs of him sit­ting with an icon of Rasputin in his arms.

In my view, the crux of the mat­ter is that the elder’s heart, over­flow­ing with love, received with joy all the good things said about any­one, espe­cial­ly some­one close to the Roy­al Fam­i­ly. But he had no oppor­tu­ni­ty to ver­i­fy this infor­ma­tion. He could not study the archives, dis­cuss with researchers, con­sult with his­to­ri­ans. He received evi­dence only from the peo­ple who sur­round­ed him, who care­ful­ly fil­tered what infor­ma­tion reached him. Fr Niko­lay was a man of prayer, an ascetic and elder, but he was not a historian.

The Sectarian Foundations of the Rasputinites

Ven­er­a­tion of Grig­o­ry Rasputin is a com­par­a­tive­ly recent devel­op­ment. Pri­or to the 1990’s, pro­po­nents of his can­on­iza­tion were com­plete­ly unknown in Rus­sia, let alone out­side the coun­try. In my view, the absence of admir­ers of Rasputin in the Russ­ian dias­po­ra can be explained by the pres­ence with­in the emi­gra­tion of peo­ple close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the Court (e.g., Voeikov and Globachev, not­ed above), who remem­bered the real Rasputin rather than the myth con­coct­ed about him lat­er. It fol­lows that we must seek the roots of this ven­er­a­tion for the “holy elder” in Russia. 

Ven­er­a­tion of Rasputin first appeared in the ecsta­t­ic-mys­tic sect, “The Theotokos Cen­ter,” also known as the “Church of the Reign­ing Moth­er of God.” Cit­ing “rev­e­la­tions of the Moth­er of God,” its leader, John Bereslavsky writes: “Elder Grig­o­ry was for the Impe­r­i­al cou­ple the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of Russ­ian holi­ness and God-bear­ing. The Sov­er­eign lit­er­al­ly quaked before his ‘friend,’ as the Emper­or Nicholas and Tsar­it­sa Alexan­dra affec­tion­ate­ly called him.“7«Белый Свет России» c. 20

The heretics’ praise for Rasputin is not a coin­ci­dence. Accord­ing to the Syn­odal com­mis­sion’s con­clu­sions, “The few works attrib­uted to Rasputin wit­ness not only to the the­o­log­i­cal igno­rance of the Siber­ian ‘elder,’ but also his adher­ence to spir­i­tu­al states, char­ac­ter­is­tic of mys­ti­cal-charis­mat­ic sects.” Let us turn to one of the most impor­tant of Rasputin’s “com­po­si­tions” — “Life of an Expe­ri­enced Wan­der­er.” As is known, sec­tar­i­ans regard Ortho­dox cler­gy with dis­dain. Rasputin’s appraisal is guard­ed­ly crit­i­cal but still clear­ly neg­a­tive. Although the author encour­ages the read­er to vis­it the church of God, par­tic­i­pate in the Mys­ter­ies and respect the cler­gy, one finds per­vad­ing the work the notion that they [the cler­gy] are infirm and in need of condescension.

Gen­uine guides in the spir­i­tu­al life are not priests, but rather spe­cial “expe­ri­enced” peo­ple, and what is very symp­to­matic of sec­tart­ian argu­ments — their “expe­ri­ence” is con­trast­ed with “the let­ter” and “book-learn­ing.” It is “the cho­sen ones of God” who “will speak not from a book, but from expe­ri­ence” and “pos­sess per­fect love.” They can teach even the priests and bish­ops, whose “lips freeze and they can­not con­tra­dict,” inas­much as “their teach­ing remains insignif­i­cant and they lis­ten to your sim­ple words.” These expe­ri­enced spir­i­tu­al wan­der­ers are of course always per­se­cut­ed, in the first instance by priests, pos­sess only the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge. Sim­i­lar­ly, the heretics of the “Theotokos Cen­ter” declare that the Ortho­dox Church preach­es the dead let­ter, while they stand on the path of wor­ship in the spir­it. In real­i­ty, this “wor­ship in spir­it” con­sists of unhealthy ecsta­sy and dark mysticism.

Rasputin in Popular Culture

Today, thanks to the activ­i­ty of pseu­do-eccle­sial media orga­ni­za­tions and sev­er­al uncon­sci­en­tious “his­to­ri­ans” and writ­ers, the cam­paign for the reha­bil­i­ta­tion and can­on­iza­tion of Rasputin is becom­ing increas­ing­ly wide­spread and stri­dent. It should be not­ed that Rasputin’s sup­port­ers attempt to con­duct the debate over their hero’s right­eous­ness not on schol­ar­ly grounds, so as not to attract the atten­tion of seri­ous his­to­ri­ans, but in the pages of lit­er­a­ture, both fic­tion and non-fic­tion. The bright image of a man from among the peo­ple, a bright elder, and friend of the Roy­al Fam­i­ly is being urgent­ly craft­ed. Of such a char­ac­ter are the com­po­si­tions of A.N. Bokhanov, O.A. Platonov, S.V. Fomin (author of the sev­en-vol­ume series Rasputin: An Inves­ti­ga­tion), the pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned Tatiana Groy­an,8the for­mer cell atten­dant of Fr Niko­lay who wrote Mar­tyr for Christ and Tsar, the Man of God Grig­o­ry. Man of Prayer for Holy Rus­sia and Her Most Bright Youth.9i.e. the heir, Tsare­vich Alexei

A fea­ture film and a tele­vi­sion series have been pro­duced — Rasputin, with Gérard Depar­dieu in the title role, and Grig­o­ry R., where the title role is played by the famous Russ­ian actor Vladimir Mashkov. The some­time pop­u­lar singer of folk songs and city romances, Zhana Bichevska­ia, has joined this com­pa­ny by ded­i­cat­ing a song to Rasputin.

It is always worth not­ing that works of art are not schol­ar­ly research. The artist express­es in them his own sub­jec­tive view of this or that event or char­ac­ter. One should not expect objec­tiv­i­ty and impar­tial­i­ty from such works. Rather, the main com­pass for us, Ortho­dox Chris­tians, must be the voice of the Church. No book, no mat­ter how well-writ­ten, no strum of the gui­tar, not even the most spec­tac­u­lar and grip­ping film should out­weigh in our minds the view of the pas­tors and arch­pas­tors of the Church.

Canonization or Ecclesial Peace?

No group of peo­ple has the right to inde­pen­dent­ly declare some­one a saint, paint icons and com­pose a ser­vice. In so doing, they per­form dis­obe­di­ence. In order to sup­press sim­i­lar works, the Syn­od of Bish­ops of the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church Out­side of Rus­sia approved a deci­sion on Sep­tem­ber 20th, 1978 regard­ing the ven­er­a­tion of un-can­on­ized new mar­tyrs and ascetics and regard­ing their icons, in which is stat­ed: “Icons even of the most revered peo­ple are not allowed either in the church nor at home, until they are glo­ri­fied accord­ing to the deci­sion of the Supreme Church Author­i­ty.” If icons of un-can­on­ized mar­tyrs and ascetics are not even allowed, then it is all the more inad­mis­si­ble to pos­sess icono­graph­ic images of such per­sons as Rasputin and Ivan the Terrible.

But the main dan­ger is that pro­po­nents of Rasputin’s can­on­iza­tion pro­voke dis­cord in the Church and set them­selves against the Church hier­ar­chy. The head of the Com­mis­sion on Glo­ri­fi­ca­tion, Met­ro­pol­i­tan Yuve­naly of Kru­tit­sy and Kolom­na, fair­ly notes: “The ini­tia­tors of this can­on­iza­tion can­not but admit that even the con­sid­er­a­tion of such a glo­ri­fi­ca­tion may call forth (and already has caused) con­fu­sion among the Ortho­dox faith­ful, leads to temp­ta­tion and the dis­cred­it­ing even of the idea of can­on­iz­ing saints. Our com­mon task and respon­si­bil­i­ty is not to allow the Ark of the Church to break apart.” We also should be watch­ful and not gullibly trust all sorts of rumors, dia­logues, films, or even “his­to­ri­ans” and “writ­ers,” but rather be con­formed to the mind of the Church. 

Beloved, do not believe every spir­it, but test the spir­its, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)

Dmitri Pavlovich Anashkin is a research fel­low at the St Tikhon’s Ortho­dox Uni­ver­si­ty of the Human­i­ties in Moscow. He pre­vi­ous­ly taught Church His­to­ry at Holy Trin­i­ty Ortho­dox Sem­i­nary in Jor­danville, NY. He is the edi­tor of a com­pendi­um of ROCOR laws reg­u­la­tions titled Законодательство Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей.

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