True courage in the struggle cheers the man who knows that God is his ally.

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.  (John 16:33)

Do not wait for the realization of the divine work that you are serving.  Know that not one of your efforts will be useless, but will hasten the hour.  (Daily Reading, May 24th)

The most important acts, both for the one who accomplishes them and for his fellow creatures, are those that have remote consequences.  (Daily Reading, May 28th)

A governor-in-chief of the Caucasus, Mouraviev, noted the following in his private diary:

In 1818 five serfs of the Government of Tambov who had refused to serve in the army were sent away from the Caucasus.  On several occasions they were made to suffer the “bastonade,” a torture that consisted in making them pass between two rows of troops, each soldier in turn striking the victim.  But it did no good.  The defaulting recruits repeated, “All men are equal.  Our sovereign is a man like us.  We will not obey him, we will not pay taxes, and above all, we will not kill men, our brothers, in war.  You may cut us up into pieces, but we will not yield.  We will not wear the uniform, we will not eat at the mess, and we will not be soldiers.  We will contribute our pennies if you like, but we do not wish to receive any of the State’s money.”

These men and others like them were bastonaded until they were left to die.  They rotted in the prison, and nothing more was said about them.  But their number increased, just the same, during the last century.

For example, they say that in 1827 two soldiers of the guard, Nicolaiev and Boddanov, fled into a hermitage of the sect of old believers, erected in the middle of a forest by the merchant Sokolov.  When captured, they refused to serve again or to take the oath, because it was contrary to their conviction.  The chiefs decided to put them to the torture of the bastonade between two rows of soldiers, and then they were placed in disciplinary companies.

M. Koltchine[6] wrote:

In 1830, a man and a woman were arrested in the Government of Yaroslav.  At their examination, the man said that he was named Egor Ivanov, aged 65 years, but that he did not know who he was.  He had never had any other father, he said, than Christ the Savior.  The woman made the same declaration.  During the exhortation made by the priest before the court, the two accused added that they had on earth no other czar than the one in Heaven, and that they recognized no emperor or any civil or religious authorities. 

On another occasion Egor Ivanov, then aged 70 years, repeated that he did not recognize any of the authorities, and that he considered that they had all digressed from the rules of the Christian religion.  He was exiled to the monastery of Solovki to be employed in the works there, but he was shut up – no one knows why – and he remained there until his death.  He kept firmly to the position he had taken.

In 1835 an unknown man calling himself only Ivan was arrested in the Government of Yaroslav.  He declared that he did not recognize the saints, the emperor, or any authority.  He was exiled by order of the emperor to Solovki to be employed in the fields.  In the same year he was transferred to the army, also by imperial order.

In 1849 a recruit of the Government of Moscow, Ivan Schouroupov, aged nineteen, refused to take the oath of allegiance, in spite of all the punishments incurred.  As the motive for his refusal he gave the Word of God, which commands that God alone shall be served.  That is why he did not wish to serve the emperor or to take the oath of allegiance, for fear of committing perjury.  The military authorities, fearing the bad affect that this would have on the others, decided to imprison Schouroupov in the monastery without trial.  Emperor Nicholas I inscribed the following resolution on the report of the affair that was presented to him: “Banish the said recruit to the Monastery of Solovki.”

This is the information recorded in the press relative to some isolated cases constituting evidently one in a thousand of all those who, in Russia, have recognized the impossibility of professing Christianity and at the same time obeying the public authorities.

As to entire communities, counting thousands of members and moved by the same faith, they were very numerous in the last century and still are today.  I shall mention the Molokanes, Jehovists, Khlisti, Skoptsi, the old believers, and many others, who generally dissemble their denial of governmental authority, but consider it as the element of every evil, and as being diabolic.

It was above all the Doukhobors, who, numbering several tens of thousands, forcibly denied all public powers.  Several thousand of these Doukhobors remained firm in their conviction, in spite of all the persecutions to which they were exposed.  They were finally exiled to Canada.

The number of defaulting recruits has increased more and more.  From the time that our government instituted universal military service, the refusal of true Christians multiplied still more.  No persecution and no punishment stopped these young people from what they considered disobedience to divine law.

By chance, I have known quite a number of these men who have suffered painfully for their faith in Russia, and many of whom are still detained in prison.  Here are the names of some of the victims: Zalubovsky, Lubitch, Mokeiev, Drojjine, Izumchenko, Olkhovik, Sereda, Farafonov, Egorov, Gancha, Akoulov, Chaga, Dimchitz, Ivanenko, Bezverkhi, Slobudnuk, Mironov, Bougaiev, Chelichev, Menchikov, Reznikov, Rojkov, Chevchook, Bourov, Goncharenko, Zakharov, Tregoubov, Volkov, and Koschevoi.

Among those who are imprisoned I know Ikonnikov, Kourtych, Varnavsky, Chniakine, Molossai, Koudrine, Pantchikov, Deriabine, Kalatchev, Bannov, Zinkitchev, Martchenko, Prozretsky, and Davidov.

I know others in Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Holland, France, Switzerland, Sweden, and Belgium.  Better still, these refusals to serve in the army have taken place lately and for the same motives in the Muslim world, notably among the Babides, in Persia, and in the sect of the Legion of God in Russia.

The motive for these refusals is always the same, and is as natural, necessary, and incontrovertible: recognition of the necessity of observing the religious law rather than the civil one when these are in opposition.  But a civil law exacting military service, that is to say, the command to kill by order of the chiefs, can only be in opposition to every religious and moral law founded on the love of one’s neighbor.  It is the case for all religious doctrines – Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Brahman, and Confucianist.

The definition of the law of love given nineteen centuries ago by Christ has, in our days, penetrated the consciousness of men, no longer by the observance of Christ’s teaching, but directly, among all those in whom the moral sense is developed.  Here, and only here is our salvation.

It would seem at first sight that the refusals to serve in the army are only isolated cases.  But one forgets that these are not occasional acts, determined by certain circumstances.  They are the result of sincere professions of religious doctrines.

It is evident, then, that this faith ruins everything that is based on principles contrary to it.  Indeed, as soon as men understand that their participation in violence is incompatible with the Christianity that they profess; as soon as they refuse to serve as soldiers, tax collectors, judges, jury, police agents; the acts of violence from which the whole world is suffering will disappear immediately.

[6] The Deported and the Prisoners of the Convent of Solovki.