‘Other Confessions in Russia. Position of Non-Orthodox Christians in Russia’ was a book based on the Doctor thesis by serious researcher of the interrelations of State and Church in Russia, M. E. Krasnozhen; it was publ. for the first time in 1900. Later, it was republished; the third publication was titles ‘On the Issue of the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Tolerance. Other Confessions in Russia. Vol. 1: Position of Non-Orthodox Christians in Russia’ (1903). The contemporaries noted, that even the title of the work gave a hope for some ways of solving the problems which were widely discussed in the society and seemed rather complicated – i.e. problems of the freedom of conscience and religious tolerance. In the publicism of the early twentieth century, there were various opinions on the topic; the author wrote in the introduction to the third publication: ‘In the research on people of other confessions in Rus’, based on historical data, I came to the conclusion, that protection for the dominant Orthodox faith and a complete non-interference into the inner religious life of other confessions were those very principles of Russian ecclesiastic and laic administration in their relation to ‘foreign confessions’ through all the space of the history of the Russian state. More religious tolerance, than that which had been provided to them here, ca not exist’.
The book was opened with an introduction, where the author formulated his main aim: ‘to present a historical essay on the position of non-Orthodox Christians in Russia, and to observe their relation to the existent Russian law’; it consisted of three chapters: on the relation of Orthodox Church to non-Orthodox Christians and people of other faiths (the first and the second chapters, correspondingly), and on the position of non-Orthodox Christians, according Russian legislation. In the afterword, he made an attempt establish principles, which ‘should become guidelines for separate confessions in their communications’. But, on the opinion of the contemporary, Professor of Canonic Law M. I. Gorchakov, the title ‘Other Confession in Russia’ did not correspond to the essence of the book, because, according the conventional terminology, ‘other confessions’ meant non-Christians (Moslem, Judaic, Buddhist, etc.), but K. hardly mentioned them. Only the second chapter was an exclusion – in its title the author promised to talk about them, although the real point of his considerations was the relation of Russian ecclesiastic and laic authorities to non-Orthodox Christians of foreign confessions. Thus, more suitable was the subtitle of the book: ‘Position of Non-Orthodox Christians in Russia’. But even that title supposed much broader survey of the topic, than that one presented in the book: the author did not discuss political, civic, and other rights. The book was mostly limited with canonic rules and historical facts. In spite of that criticism, the work by K. was highly evaluated by contemporaries for its obvious scholarly novelty and importance; it was in demand. The Educative Council at the Most Holy Synod recommended it for teachers’ libraries of primary schools and for free popular libraries and reading halls.