The Rasputin File (60 page)

But Alix knew that if he hadn’t already decided without her, she would prevail on his return. And she entreated Nicky to ‘come & quickly make the changes … Khvostov hopes that in 2, 3 months one can put all into order with cleverness & decision … how infinitely do I long to help you& be of real use… Some are afraid I am meddling in state affairs (the ministers) & others look upon me as the one to help as you are not here (Andronikov, Khvostov).’

So Andronikov, the ‘shady prince’, had become a good soul.

‘Really, my Treasure, I think he is the man & our Fr. hinted to A[nya] in his wire … Khvostov has refreshed me…I yearned to see a “man” at last — & here I saw & heard him … Nobody is any the wiser I saw him,’ Alix reassured Nicky.

But he continued to waver. He still could not get used to her new role. And he failed to announce the new appointments at the Council of Ministers meeting at Headquarters.

She pressed on. 18 September … I am bothering you with this talk, but I should like to convince you … that this (very fat young man of much experience) is the one you would approve of& that old woman who writes to you I should say too.’

The Friend had during that time been tirelessly sounding out the new candidates.

20 Sept. 1915 … I send you… a summary of her [Anya’s] talk with Beletzky — that does indeed seem a man who could be most useful to the minister of the Interior, as he knows everything … Andronnikov gave Ania his word of honour, that nobody shall know, that Khvostov comes to Ania
(she sees him in her house, not in the palace) or Beletzky, so that her & my name will remain out of this … Our Friend’s wife came, Ania saw her — so sad & says he suffers awfully through calumnies & vile things one writes about him — high time to stop all that — Khvostov & Beletzky are men to do that.

Praskovia had been unable to protect her son. She took leave of the capital, saying that she had to return to Pokrovskoe, ‘because Grigory’s life was threatened with danger’. And in fact he had, as the agents reported, received the following typewritten letter: ‘Grigory! Our Fatherland is being destroyed, they want to conclude a shameful peace …We, the delegates, beseech you to do something so that the ministers will be answerable to the people. And if you do not do that, we shall kill you, there will be no mercy. The lot has fallen to us ten.’

It was devoutly believed in society that everything happening at the top had been inspired by the semi-literate peasant, who had taken control of the tsarina’s will.

The Scandalous Pastors

Simultaneously with the struggle for new, obedient ministers, Alix was involved, and no less energetically, in the struggle for an obedient church.

There was a logic in this. The church was a state institution strictly controlled by the tsars through the Synod. Moreover, ideas about the Anglican Church, which was dependent on the will of the monarch, lay in the subconscious of that ‘English’ princess. Of that last ‘English’ princess, I should add, to struggle for the unlimited autocracy of the times of the indomitable medieval kings.

And on 11 September 1915, she wrote to Nicholas, demanding he replace Samarin, the chief procurator of the Synod. ‘You are the head & protector of the Church & he tries to undermine you in the eyes of the Church. At once my Love, clear him out.’ She wanted to rid the Synod of those bishops who would not submit: ‘you must set yr. broom working & clear out all the dirt that has accumulated at the Synod.’

Unfortunately, however, she had little idea of who was needed to replace them. And the peasant — the man of God next to the throne — had once again to provide the candidates. Who, if not he, should dictate the appointment of church hierarchs? Naturally after discussing it with her. And here Rasputin remained her alter ego.

Before Alix got involved in running the church, Rasputin had had few
church allies among the ‘highly placed’. For the majority of the latter, he remained a suspicious, ignorant peasant and covert sectarian. For Rasputin himself, the official church was the bishops in their medals, something remote from and hostile to him. He held them in contempt and had a peasant’s fear of them. But gradually that fear passed. His royal devotee’s acceptance of his holiness had inspired him with confidence. She was indignant at their presumptuous failure to acknowledge someone who was such a great authority for the ‘tsars’. So that recognition of Rasputin was becoming synonymous with loyalty here, as well. And from about 1912 Alix began to see that high appointments were given to those who revered Our Friend. Thenceforth, his (meaning her) support began moving clergymen into high posts. And now even in the first Russian capital, Mother Moscow, sat someone who venerated Father Grigory, the eighty-year-old Makary. He, too, was from the Siberian hinterland, where he had graduated from Rasputin’s local Tobolsk Theological Seminary.

Another influential member of the Synod was the exarch of Georgia. As already related, Molchanov’s father, a disgraced bishop who had been censured for his liaison with a young teacher, had been appointed exarch of Georgia in spite of the Synod. It was then that Rasputin’s practice began of recommending culpable pastors for high church positions. Above all, those accused of homosexuality, a serious offence from the point of view of both the Russian legal code of the day and the church. Because their situation made them utterly dependent on him. And also because it was connected with the mystical idea of the unity of the male and female principles in the
Khlyst
conception of Christ. And the
Khlyst
Rasputin, who believed that the Holy Spirit had descended on him, apparently sensed that unity in himself — he was above gender. Hence, not only his very civil attitude towards homosexuality but apparently even his possibility of treating lust, and not merely in women but also in men. Perhaps it is here that an explanation is to be found for Rasputin’s extremely close relationship with Iliodor (in the past) and Felix Yusupov (in the future).

But one way or another, after Bishop Alexis died in 1914, Pitirim, a homosexual suspected of
Khlyst
connections whose candidacy had been advanced by Rasputin and, it follows, the tsarina, became exarch of the Caucasus.

The File, from the testimony of Yatskevich:

Pitirim is one of the most infamous names in our church. While bishop of the Tula eparchy, which was actually run by his lay brother Karnitsky, with whom the bishop had a liaison condemned by the church and the law, he had stolen the riches of the bishop’s sacristy, which became clear after his
transfer to the Kursk eparchy. His young lay brother ran the bishop and the eparchy in Kursk, as well. It was then in fact… that he began openly protecting … a society of monks in the Bogodukhov Monastery who had been exposed as
Khlysty
. As a result, he was removed from Kursk. He then became bishop of Saratov, where he found himself another young lay brother, a certain Osipenko, who took the place of the previous one.

That was the sort of person Rasputin had put forward to be exarch of Georgia. And the sovereign (meaning the tsarina) would subsequently cross out all the Synod’s candidates for exarch and write in ‘Pitirim’.

It was at that time, as well, that another homosexual devoted to Rasputin turned up in his vicinity — Father Isidor. The clergyman Isidor Kolokolov, as the same Yatskevich testified in the File, ‘had been accused of sodomy with a lay brother Flavion, and for it had been appointed an ordinary monk at one of the monasteries. Isidor frequented Rasputin’s home and soon afterwards became … the prior of one of the monasteries in Tobolsk, where he took his lay brother…even though the Synod had documentary proof of their cohabitation.’

Isidor became one of those closest to Rasputin. He would be received by the tsarina more than once and mentioned in her letters. ‘Spent a lovely evening with our Friend and Isidor,’ she would write to the tsar (3 November 1916).

And, finally, there was Varnava, another bishop promoted by Rasputin and a most unusual figure.

Varnava, a priest from the little town of Golutvina, lacked a higher seminary education. But he had acquired enormous influence with the local population and the Moscow merchants thanks to his lively, accessible discourse. And Rasputin had noted him at once. He personified, as it were, what Our Friend had been telling the tsars about the pastors of the people: ‘although not schooled but believing; for from the schooled there is no sense to be had, as almost all are non-believers.’ Alix understood that this double of Our Friend was ready to serve. And at the sovereign’s personal wish (meaning, once again, the empress’s), Varnava had been appointed bishop of Kargopol. Even though the appointment of a man without a higher seminary education had provoked a storm in the Synod.

After Molchanov’s father, Bishop Alexis, became exarch of Georgia, Varnava was appointed bishop of Tobolsk. Rasputin should indeed have taken an interest in the spiritual authorities of the Tobolsk eparchy, inasmuch as his own village of Pokrovskoe was under their jurisdiction. Neither he nor the tsarina had forgotten how much trouble the Tobolsk Theological Consistory investigation had caused.

Alix was pleased. She wanted pastors who venerated Our Friend to be everywhere. Varnava immediately enjoyed special status. Not asking the Synod’s permission, as he was supposed to, Varnava would vacate his eparchy and come to Petrograd by special dispensation of Tsarskoe Selo. The tsar rewarded him with a medal, to the Synod’s indignation. He corresponded with the tsarina, not forgetting to inform her of solacing miracles and auspices.

‘Our dear empress …during the procession round the church in Barabinskoe, a cross suddenly appeared in the sky and was visible to everyone for about fifteen minutes, and since the holy church sings ‘The cross is the authority of the tsars, the confirmation of the faithful,’ I gladden you with this vision,’ the bishop telegraphed her.

Varnava knew that in view of the Synod’s hatred of him, he was completely dependent on Rasputin. Although in his soul, according to the testimony of Manasevich who knew both of them intimately, ‘Varnava hated Rasputin after he started drinking … for the sake of Tsarskoe Selo, he forgave him a great deal.’ Rasputin sensed that, and when Varnava’s visits to the capital started to drag on, a drunken call would follow to Varnava: ‘Isn’t it enough? You came here by car, now please go on back home on your own two legs. There’s no taking it easy here.’

So the tsarina wouldn’t learn to believe in Varnava in earnest, Our Friend, who assigned nicknames to everyone, called the Tobolsk bishop ‘The Gopher’. ‘For a certain duplicity,’ Vyrubova would explain. A duplicity, I shall add, that Our Friend sensed in relation to himself. Rasputin’s nicknames were immediately adopted by the tsarina. Fond of mysteries and codes since childhood, she used them in her correspondence with her husband and with Anya. So Varnava, thanks to Rasputin’s light touch, now became ‘The Gopher’ in her correspondence and conversations.

The Tsarina As Patriarch

In August 1915 the tsarina decided to take control of the Synod. To do that she needed to depose Chief Procurator Samarin, the favourite of Ella and the Moscow clique. Rasputin was delighted to take part from Pokrovskoe. He knew very well how to go about it. The scheme was the same as before. Entice Samarin into a scandal, force him to attack Rasputin and ‘ours’. And that would compel the tsar to make a decision.

Rasputin now frequently went to Tobolsk to meet Varnava. There in Varnava’s spacious cell in the Tobolsk Monastery a script was worked out that would be sure to produce a scandal in the Synod. And a basis for the
scandal was found. Buried in the Tobolsk Monastery was the former metropolitan of all Siberia, Ioann Maximovich, who had died two hundred years before. In the commemoration of his bicentennial, the Synod intended to canonize him. And Rasputin agreed with Varnava that this ceremony could not wait. That Varnava would solemnly glorify Ioann’s relics before his official canonization by the Synod. It was a direct challenge to the Synod, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine Samarin’s anger. But first Nicholas needed to be drawn into the story. Varnava sent a telegram to the tsar in Petrograd. From Vyrubova’s testimony: ‘Varnava petitioned the tsar by telegram for permission to chant Ioann’s laudation. The sovereign answered by telegram: “You may chant his laudation but you may not open his relics.”‘ The game was then played out. Varnava, as if misunderstanding the tsar, both eulogized Ioann and opened his relics. Samarin at once summoned Varnava to the capital and prepared to punish the wilful bishop. At the same time he wanted to know what Rasputin’s part in the whole story had been. And a struggle began whose outcome was foreordained.

Alix immediately wrote to her husband: ‘29 August 1915 … Samarin intends getting rid of him [Bishop Varnava], because we like him & he is good to Gr[igory] — we must clear out S[amarin]: & the sooner the better he won’t be quiet till he gets me & our Friend & A[nya] in a mess — it’s so wicked.’ And she would now write constantly to Nicky about it until he removed the detested Samarin.

Meanwhile, Varnava had been summoned by the Synod and had appeared in Petrograd. ‘7 Sept. 1915 … Samarin wishes Varnava to go & tell you all against Grigory …You see, he… only persecutes our Friend, i. e. goes straight against us both,’ Alix wrote to Nicky. Rasputin had for her long become a synonym for them.

‘9 Sept. 1915 … I saw poor Varnava today my dear, it’s abominable how Samarin behaved to him … such cross-examination as is unheard of & spoke so meanly about Grigory using vile words in speaking of Him … vicious about the salutation that you have no right to allow such a thing — upon wh. Varnava answered him soundly & said you were the chief protector of the Church, & Samarin impertinently said you were its servant.’

That was enough.

Victory, Victory!

On 26 September 1915, Samarin was relieved of his duties as chief procurator.

On 26 September 1915, after Prince Scherbatov had made his report, the sovereign informed him of his dismissal as director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.