Mikhail Zyzykin (1880–1960) was a Russian lawyer, businessman and historian, forced to leave his country after the Revolution. In exile, he developed an Orthodox political and legal theory based on the Russian tradition, and in the 1930s he proposed an idea about the influence of the Orthodox worldview on international relations. He was one of the first orthodox writers who discussed the role of international organizations from the perspective of Orthodoxy in the 20th century.
The Life and Works of Mikhail Zyzykin
Mikhail Zyzykin came from a family of well-known merchants engaged in wine production in the Tver region. His ancestors were deeply religious and had commercial talent. He graduated from Moscow University’s Law Faculty in 1911 and was appointed as a teacher at his alma mater. After the death of his father, he became head of the family’s winery. While studying law, he continued to manage the family business.
Following the October Revolution and the nationalization of the factory, Zyzykin was forced to leave Russia. In 1920, he and his family moved to Constantinople and then Rome, before settling in Sofia. There, he taught at a local university. Later, he was offered a position as a professor of Orthodox theology at Warsaw’s Orthodox Theological Institute. His son, Valerian, graduated from Milan’s Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. During WWII, both Valerian and his wife were arrested for helping Soviet POWs and placed in two different concentration camps. They survived the war but ended up in different occupation zones. After wandering around Western Europe, the Zyzykins settled in Argentina in the 1950s. Mikhail Zyzykin passed away in Buenos Aires in 1960.
While living in exile, Zyzykin was part of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia. He was also interested in the political ideas of Catholic scholars who studied religion and society.
In the 1920s, Zyzykin wrote books about history, religion, and political ideas. In Bulgaria, he finished his first book, Tsarist Power and the Laws of Succession in Russia, (1924). Later, in 1928, he completed his studies in Paris and wrote a big three-part book called Patriarch Nikon: His Ideas about the State and Religion (1931-1939). In the early 1930s, Zyzykin studied how different countries handle the relationship between their governments and religions. He wrote about Germany’s model in an essay, “On Church Independence in the Latest Arrangements of Church-State Relations” (1932) and about France in another essay, “Philosophy of Authoruty in the Light of Christian Sociology” (1933).
In the mid-1930s, Zyzykin turned to the topic of international law. This was occasioned by the ecumenical conference on practical Christianity in Oxford, held from June 12 to 26, 1937. The conference was called “Church, State, and Society,” and Zyzykin was invited to speak at a session on the law of warfare. He published several articles in preparation for the event, including “L’Eglise orthodoxie et la nation” (Irénikon, vol. 13 (3), 1936, pp 265–277), in which he warned against the dangers of nationalism. He believed that nationalism was not an obstacle to human development, but rather an incentive if all nations were in organized cooperation and the Church’s role was not confused with that of the state. His other essays, in 1934, “International Communication and The Position of the Individual in International Relations” and in 1937, “Orthodox Church and International Law” (besides Russian, Zyzykin published a French text in 1940: L’Église et le droit international (Bruxelles: Éditions de la Cité chrétienne), raised the issue of Orthodox involvement in international organizations for the first time in international doctrine. Unfortunately, this study by the Russian legal scholar did not continue, as it was interrupted by World War II. There was also a break in the ecumenical initiatives. It was not until 1948 that the World Council of Churches established itself at its founding assembly in Amsterdam, following decisions made at the 1937 conference in Oxford. Zyzykin intended to attend the Amsterdam Assembly on behalf of Russian Orthodox Church Abroad but he was unable to do so due to his Church’s position.
In his historical approach, Zyzykin most closely aligns with Mikhail Taube (1869–1961), a prominent Russian international lawyer, statesman, and legal historian. Born into an old Swedish-German family, Taube was a Catholic who had converted from Russian Orthodoxy. From 1892 to 1917, he served with the Russian Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In exile, he lectured in The Hague on the evolution of international law, where he presented his Christian perspective on the subject (Taube M. de, 1926. Études sur le dévelopement historique du droit international dans l’Europe orientale. Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, vol. 11, pp. 341–556).
Zyzykin’s views also resonate with those of another influential Russian lawyer, Leonid Alekseevich Kamarovsky (1846–1912). Kamarovsky studied international law in Heidelberg under Johann Kasper Bluntschli (1808–1881), a Swiss scientist and politician who co-founded the Institute of International Law in Ghent in 1873. In 1909, Kamarovsky represented Russia at the Hague Chamber of the International Court of Arbitration. According to his students, Kamarovsky was a deeply religious Orthodox Christian who would pray to the Iveron Mother of God before making any significant decisions. One of Kamarovsky’s students at Moscow University was Patriarch Alexius I (1877–1970), who led the Russian Orthodox Church from 1945 to 1970.
The Christian Foundation of the Idea of International Law
Zyzykin argued that international law appeared in Europe on a Christian foundation, and the Church has made a significant contribution to its historic design. This contribution differed among the churches of the West and the East due to the split between the two empires of Rome, Western and Eastern, which formed two European Middle Ages: Western European and Byzantine-Slavic, respectively. “The Western European world… represented by the world institution of the papacy, established international law on a Christian ground” (Zyzykin, Orthodox Church and International Law, Warsaw, 1937 (In Russian), p. 3). The Church in the West directly contributed to the development of legal concepts, whereas in Eastern Europe the Orthodox church expressed its voice through emperors who relied on Orthodox law schools. According to Zyzkin, these two approaches to Christian international law evolved separately until they reconnected at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Russia became part of European international relations while remaining an officially Orthodox state. The convergence between Eastern and Western Christian traditions (represented by three modern Christian denominations—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox) manifested itself both in opposition to and in collaboration with international legal issues. “The consciousness of common tasks of both halves of Europe was symbolized by their willingness to cooperate, which was expressed in 1899 at the Hague conference in a note exchange between representatives from the Holy See and the Eastern emperor” (p. 4). According to Zyzykin, Orthodox scholars should continue this collaboration even after Orthodox monarchies become a thing of history. The 1937 Oxford conference, for which he wrote this essay, was an example for such collaboration between Christians for the sake of peace and security in modern times.
International Law and the Christian Understanding of Personality
The development of international law, according to Zyzykin, goes hand in hand with the development of ideas about individual rights. Equality of States in international relations ultimately makes sense because the interests of citizens from different countries are equalized. “The degree of development of international relationships at any given time is determined by how much recognition a person receives on their own” (p. 12) In the ancient world, there were no ideas about equality between individuals from different nations, so in such a society, as Zyzkin believes, it was impossible to establish the principle of equality between states regardless of their size, power, resources or ruling dynasties. The idea of Christian equality has been around for centuries and has led to an international position that limits military violence. While in ancient times, war was seen as a natural relationship between peoples, Christian writers of antiquity saw war as an evil, although inevitable.
Catholic and Protestant Contributions
A significant part of Zyzykin’s essay is devoted to the influence of the Catholic Church on international law. He consistently emphasizes its contribution: the desire to limit military violence is traced in the canons of Lateran Councils, which created formal obligations to protect some individuals (clerics, women, and children) from military aggression and to separate church and peasant properties from military use. He attributes to the educational influence of the Church the spread of the idea of neutrality and the saving of prisoners’ lives without turning them into slaves. Even the limitation of long-range weapons is attributed to the Church. However, the jurist points out that church canons are fulfilled in war only conditionally, like the decisions of peace conferences in the 19th and 20th centuries. But the most significant contribution of the Church to the development of international law is the form of international assemblies, similar to church councils, which have been used since ancient times. In modern times, according to Zyzykin, the League of Nations sets itself tasks similar to those set by the papacy of Europe in previous centuries. The See of Rome, he notes, was the first known permanent mediating institution in world history. Mediation was a more appropriate institution for resolving political disputes than arbitration. The pope’s mediation during peace negotiations has not disappeared with the advent of modern times, but has changed its form: from public councils and congresses to diplomacy and moral authority.
The influence of the Catholic Church on international law, Zyzykin emphasized, was carried out by not only the papal authorities, but also clerics and monastics and laity. As for Protestant contributions, they were represented by sovereigns and scholars from state universities after the era of religious reformers in the 16th century. Protestant doctrines such as individualism and the sovereignty of states are associated with ideas about balance of power. These ideas led to the emergence of a self-governing system of “great powers” in Europe that did not require the mediation of a pope or emperor. Zyzykin argues that this system owes its success to Protestant Christianity’s lack of a central authority. In modern Protestantism, he notes a desire for peace, which is manifested in ecumenical movements. However, he believes that for peace to last, we need institutions similar to those of the medieval papacy, with a balance of powers and an authority that is independent of the states. In other words, the future world should have a hierarchy of moral authority. At the same time, there could be several such authorities, as well, as several centers of moral influence.
The Orthodox Contribution in the Second Millennium
Zyzykin argues that from the Middle Ages until the First World War, Eastern Christianity’s influence on international law was through the emperors, first the Byzantines, then All-Russians. The international role of the Byzantine Emperor stemmed from his being the heir to ancient Roman ideals of Pax Romana. Additionally, he acted as defender of Christians beyond his borders, carrying out “protection of rights and humanitarian intervention” for subjects of non-Christian neighboring states. This eastern principle of humanitarian intervention (as opposed to Western strict sovereignty) survived the Byzantine Empire, and was developed by Russia in the 19th Century, when the issue of intervention became the subject of controversy between European Empires, leading to the Crimean War. The dispute was over Western European Empires’ right to interfere with Russia’s internal affairs in the Ottoman Empire for the benefit of the Christian population. Zyzkin believes that the roots of the Russian intervention concept in the 19th century lie in the Byzantine duties to protect Christianity everywhere. Hence, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s imperative was to liberate Christian Balkan peoples (starting from Greece). This imperative was widely supported in words and deeds by all strata of Russian society. This was an expression of the duty of religious solidarity, not the logic of hegemonic power.
Zyzykin’s understanding of “intervention” is close to French lawyer Antoin Rougier’s La Théorie de l’intervention d’humanité (1910), but the Russian jurist also emphasizes the contribution of religious solidarity to the genesis of this institution.
International Activities of Russian Emperors
The transition from the kingdom to the empire in the time of Peter the Great was already understood as an extension of international peace-keeping duties. “It was a true restoration of the concept of empire as a peace between nations, as a distinct legal entity led by the Orthodox Emperor…” (Zyzykin 1937, p. 106). This understanding led St. Petersburg’s attempts to establish strong diplomatic ties with the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in Vienna. Later Russian emperors tried to organize international law communication: the concept of the Holy League of Alexander I, the initiative to hold conferences on humanizing war by Alexander II and Alexander III (St Petersburg in 1868, Brussels in 1884), and Nicholas II’s initiative to convene two Hague Peace Conferences. In this diplomacy, the four-century-long experience of Russian assistance to Christians in the Middle East proved itself, which was considered by all Eastern patriarchs to be a legitimate duty of Russian monarchs.
Due to Western European countries’ distrust towards Russia after the Paris Peace in 1856, the Orthodox emperor’s intervention was replaced by collective intervention by the European Concert, but this Concert failed to reach agreement, leading to non-involvement, and was actually complicit in the erosion of Christian customs and communities. Therefore, Zyzykin argued, contrary to trends of the Interbellum, that institution of humanitarian intervention should not be diminished but strengthened in international laws.
Zyzykin describes the international role of the Byzantine and Russian emperors, without idealizing the past, but rather to show the logic of the development of international legal ideas among Eastern Christians, and raises the question of the future.
Ideological Foundations of International Communication: The Holy Alliance vs. the League of Nations
In the 19th and early 20th century the search for ideological foundations for international communication became a pressing issue. The Catholic Church, which had previously been the universal basis for international relations between nations, ceased to play this role. French revolutionary thought offered the idea of natural law as a new universal foundation. This idea of natural international law differed from the traditional Christian concept, as it had a strong anti-clerical character. In the Anglo-American world, the concept of civilization became universal, and state sovereignty was linked to obligations to uphold the principles and rules of civilized states, including mitigating war. However, the idea of natural law was not widely accepted in the Christian east, as the concepts of nature and civilization were seen as inadequate to unite all nations. Instead, Eastern legal thinking in 19th century turned to the idea of a “sacred union based on Christ’s commandments.”
This eastern legal consciousness was reflected in Russia’s contribution to the Viennese system. The “Holy Alliance,” an international initiative of Orthodox Emperor Alexander I proposed at the Vienna Congress, was sharply distinguished from the “political combination” established at the Aachen Congress in 1815. The latter was a hegemonic arrangement among the five major powers, who sought to counter revolutionary trends and preserve the territorial status quo.
“This goal, linked to the Holy Alliance, should be distinguished from the main idea—the need to unite the forces of Europe into a society governed by law and morality. Similarly, the Pact of the League of Nations should distinguish between the basic idea that international communication should be organized by law and the status quo established in Versailles” (p. 147).
Emperor Alexander I’s main idea, according to Zyzykin, was precisely an international organization of security and peace based on law, but not separated from morality or religion. The “liberation from religion” in new international organizations, such as the League of Nations have not led to greater security for the people of Europe. In support of this opinion, Zyzykin refers to the Swiss Catholic writer Robert de Traz (1884–1951), who criticized the secular ideology of the League. Zyzykin also strongly criticizes the admission of the USSR into the League of Nations. He believes that this was due, among other reasons, to the religious nihilism of many international lawyers. They created a situation in which “the USSR, officially pursuing atheism and introducing slave labour, could be a member of the League, while not recognizing human rights to life, liberty and the rule of law” (p. 140).
According to Zyzykin, the main disadvantage of the Holy Alliance in 1815 was that it associated with a specific form of government—the monarchy—and all the dynastic laws that existed at the time. As a result, liberal republican movements considered it an enemy of progress. But from a legal perspective, the Alliance was progressive for its times. It developed international law by placing general principles of Christian morality above monarchs, proposing to introduce openness and moral standards into international relations, rather than the idea that communication between states was a space for deception, secrecy, and cunning. Supporters of the Holy Alliance, while they may have confused law with force, did not confuse it with morality. Religion, not military victory, gave them a basis for international morality.
Zyzykin believed that the League of Nations would also like to be a moral authority over states. It follows the example of the Holy See, but the League claims are unrealistic and ambiguous. Zyzykin in 1937 saw the League as almost failed. He still did not suggest what form the international order would take after World War II or how past mistakes would be addressed in the creation of the United Nations.
In the darkest years of world history, the Russian Orthodox lawyer never lost hope for a future where international relations would be built on Christian principles. He envisioned this not as a crusade, but as a work of organization and dialogue. “Christianity has the duty,” he wrote, “to work on this common sense of justice that is grounded in the principles of fairness, enhanced by the concept of Christian love.” (p. 133)
