Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 357 The Principles of the Church

Guo Kang's plan received positive responses from the priests.

The various branches of the Worship of God actually have great organizational potential, especially the Orthodox Church.

Although in many places, a town may not be able to have a standard church, but this is due to the insufficient number of trained priests, which is a limitation caused by objective reality, not a theoretical problem.

Even without the Purple Horde, the Orthodox church itself has a relatively complete organizational system.According to the priests, Brother Tian once told his disciples, "Where two or three gather in my name, I am among them." Therefore, according to their traditional teachings, three believers can build a church, Began to organize and hold religious activities.

The church has also been trying to explore theories and organizational methods in this regard, even more actively than the Catholic churches in Western Europe.The only problem is that the Orthodox Church was broken up due to military failures, so these jobs can only stay on paper for a long time.

The first batch of recruits was less than 1000, and more than a dozen priests and nearly a hundred monks were needed according to the plan.This number seems to be a high proportion, but the absolute number is actually not difficult to meet.

Moreover, these monks are not necessarily formal clergy, because Guo Kang believes that since it is an experimental model army, it has tested all aspects at once.In other words, this army is not only an exploration of how to organize new recruits, but also various supporting parts.How the church can better support the military is also one of them.

Ordinary monks who join the plan are actually trainees.According to the plan, when the second batch of expansion fills up the establishment of the three brigades, a group of trainee priests will also be stuffed in.It is not only soldiers and officers who are trained and run-in in the army, but also these priests.They also need to adapt to this new environment, exercise their abilities, and constantly discover problems to help them make adjustments.

Of course, in this process, the elimination rate will definitely be high.Priests usually prefer civilian work, and life in the army is quite different.Especially this method is still relatively new, and the majority of people who cannot adapt to it may be the majority.Even if only one-tenth of this group of priests is screened out in the end, they are considered successful.Guo Kang was not in a hurry either.

"You can go and choose people. I plan to go to the slums this time, and I will bring a few priests with me. The patriarch has already signed up for the priests, and I am going to let them come with me." He thought for a while, and finally Said to Father Mikhail: "You just said that you hope that I can understand the daily life of ordinary believers. I agree. And I think everyone should have such an understanding."

"Our priests have different backgrounds. Some grew up in Greece, some in Romania, and some in Ross. The environment they usually come into contact with may not be the same as here."

"Moreover, those who can learn to read and write are basically citizens; those who can become apprentice priests are also relatively educated people in their respective parishes. These people and our recruits may not necessarily live in the same environment."

"If our priests and priests cannot understand the soldiers, their social environment and cultural background, the living conditions of their families, their basic ideas and simple desires, and only know how to read scriptures, It will definitely not have any effect. You have been preaching among the people for many years, so you should be very clear."

"That's true." Father Andre also agreed: "If you want to fulfill your duties as a pastor, you have to let go of your arrogance, and try your best to communicate with believers, understand and help them, just like the priests in the apostolic era. I think other brothers will agree with this conclusion."

Guo Kang nodded.

He thought Andre was on to something.The problem of arrogance is indeed the biggest obstacle to the development of the church.

This is particularly evident in East Asia.The failure of the Roman Catholic Church can be summed up in two words: eyes above the top and bullying the weak.

In the early days of the mission, Matteo Ricci and the Jesuits he belonged to proposed that the traditional etiquette of Seris was in line with the doctrine and could be compatible.They; but Dominicans and Franciscans believe that these ceremonies and doctrines conflict, and believe that Matteo Ricci and others are performing heresy.The two sides have been at odds with each other, involving a series of disputes about doctrine and culture, as well as complex political and sectarian struggles, which lasted for hundreds of years and were called "the dispute over Chinese etiquette".

From beginning to end, however, doctrine was not the main reason.After so many years of preaching by the church, there are many customs and local religions recognized by the church, so there is no need to worry about such things.But because of the party dispute between the two religious orders, things went to the point where they couldn't be accommodated.

In 1704, the Pope ordered the prohibition of ceremonial activities such as worshiping ancestors, worshiping Confucius, and mourning for the dead, and sent a special envoy to announce the order.The following year, when the special envoy came to the capital, Kangxi went out in person to explain the situation to the special envoy, explaining that ceremonies such as worshiping heaven and ancestors were just to express respect and had nothing to do with religion.

The two sides debated scriptures many times, and even invited the priest who caused the accident to explain and testify on the spot.But even though the Qing Dynasty stated that etiquette was of great importance and was willing to admit that the other party's god and one's own heaven were the same concept, the church was still unwilling to compromise, and the negotiations ended in vain.

In 1707, the Pope's special envoy came to Nanjing and unilaterally announced the ban.Kangxi immediately arrested the special envoy and ordered the Portuguese to lock him up in Macau. At the same time, he declared that the missionaries must abide by the "Ricci rules" or they would be expelled.

But at this time, Kangxi still hoped to persuade the other party, and sent missionaries several times to Rome to explain the situation to the Pope and defend the disputes over scriptures.But the Holy See still insisted on its own opinion, and detained the French missionary who was the representative of the Qing Dynasty, forcing Kangxi to write another letter to intercede before agreeing to release him.

In 1720, the Pope sent a special envoy to the Qing court for the second time, and Kangxi came forward again in person to explain the origin of the Confucius tablet and other issues.However, this defense was still fruitless. In 1721, the official document of the Holy See’s ban was sent to Kangxi, and the Qing government gave up and announced the ban on preaching.

However, until the Yongzheng era, the prohibition was not too strict, and the Jesuits made a last effort to compromise and reformulated a set of workarounds to replace the "Ricci Rules".But this attempt was quickly rejected by the church. In 1742 (the 7th year of Qianlong), the Pope officially issued an order prohibiting missionaries from discussing issues such as etiquette, ending related issues.The ban took effect throughout the East Asian cultural circle, and basically ended the history of missionary work.

And the end of this ban will be even more dramatic.

In May 1932, an incident occurred in Japan: At Sophia University founded by the Jesuits, an army officer led some students to pay homage to the Yasukuni Shrine. Among them were Catholic students who refused to salute on the grounds that it was idolatry.The Japanese military was extremely dissatisfied with this, and the incident gradually fermented. In October, the Japanese media, which was instructed, began to report on the matter extensively, calling it the "Shanghai University Student Participation Rejection Incident".

Just one month later, the Holy See announced that visiting a shrine is a ceremony to express respect and respect, not idolatry, and Catholics are allowed to participate.The ban, which lasted for 200 years, became invalid in Japan.

In 1934, under the control of Japan, the Puppet Manchukuo government proposed to the Roman Church that Catholics should also participate in activities such as offering sacrifices to Confucius, and the Church also immediately gave in.The ban in mainland East Asia has also expired.

In this case, the original provisions have lost their meaning. In 1939, the Pope officially issued a document announcing the official recognition of activities such as worshiping ancestors and Confucius.The centuries-long dispute over etiquette came to an end.

In this way, the problem that Kangxi and Yongzheng failed to solve many times in the debates on the scriptures was solved by Puyi...

This incident made the face of the church swollen.Anyone who understands this period of history will not be surprised why the church has such a bad reputation in the modern East—this is not just a matter of arrogance towards other civilizations.

(End of this chapter)