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    "Mom, I Wanna Baptize and Wash My Sins!"

Last decade was encouraging time for Russian Orthodox Church. Fresh out of Soviet-time disfavor, it has swiftly regained power and glory living in love and harmony with worldly authorities. Moreover, the Orthodox Church has recently reacquired its status of the official state religion of Russia. Fashion for crosses, however, is as poor indicator of people’s faith as a spare coin donated to a temple — of individual’s respect to the Church. Fashions change: one day we might feel like painting paschal eggs; the other day we might feel like singing Hare Krishna; and someday we might feel like founding a new religion (some say, making business in this market brings maximum return on minimum investment).
After all, how can one expect true religious feelings and respect to Church from people brought up with the cult of atheism? To bring this people to faith is a hopeless task. It wouldn’t take much brain to understand this fact, and brainy leaders of various spiritual organizations focused their eager efforts on so-called strategic age-groups — children and teens.
Priests and preachers today are as frequent at schools as teachers are; they deliver their messages in classrooms at class-hours; Bible study is being slyly introduced as a compulsory subject in public schools; "specialized" (in orthodoxy) schools grow in number — all these facts witness holy fathers’ zest to sow their seeds while listeners’ minds are unsteady and their judge-ment uncritical. The question is: what are expectations for the harvest? Will our kids grow into highly spiritual and virtuous persons? or into fanatics of rather disputable ideas? Finally, what shall we do when our children come back home from school and say, "Mom, I wanna baptize and wash my sins"? Shall we run to a nearest church? Shall we mock him out of this idea? Maybe, the best way to cope with the problem will be to introduce our children onto some historical facts.
The term "crime against humanity" emerged not long ago, from historical point of view. For the first time it was used to qualify certain Nazi’s practices during the World War II. Meanwhile, it had been several centuries before Nazism, when the Christian Church organized and blessed a continuous massacre of unprecedented scale.
Today the term "witch-hunting" is widely used for allegorical designation of political persecution, whereas historical origination of the term is hardly mentioned. Authors of textbooks are apparently reluctant to enlighten children about facts of days so ancient. The most daring historians limit their explanation of these most horrid processes of witch-hunting era to church-building-up-its-authority, ignorant-and-super-stitious-masses and other rubbish.
Alfred Leman, a German researcher, in his Illustrated History of Superstitions and Witchcraft (1893), writes:
"It was in the middle of 13th century when St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian and Church leader, postulated that Satan may sometimes reveal himself in magic. French inquisition acknowledged this idea de facto and began to persecute witches along with last heretics. As soon as last heretical sects were exterminated, witches became the primary object of persecution; therefore witch processes in France abundantly blossomed as long as until 1390.
In Germany, on the other hand, large-scale witch-hunting had not evolved until 1448, when two Dominicans, Jacob Schprenger and Henrich Institor, received from the Pope Innocent VIII the famous papal bull "summis desiderantis", authorizing them to persecute witches and eradicate witchcraft. In his edict, the Pope cursed witches as devil’s allies, rendered evidence of their guilt, and obliged all members of the Church to assist inquisitors. Nevertheless, witch processes were not very popular at first; people were reluctant to believe fables, even though they were authorized by the Head of Roman Church.

Sorcery Eradication...

or Genocide against Women?
Of course, people used to believe in sorcery and sometimes turned to witches for help, but since the Church had been denying the very possibility of Satan’s magic for many centuries, people kept on refusing to believe in it. Hence, someone had to awake this believe in people. It was Jacob Schprenger who undertook this filthy job. In 1487 he published his ill-famed Malleus Maleficarum (Witch Hammer). The title implied that witches would be smashed with it. The book contained detailed description of witches as Satan’s servants and their evil deeds. But the most remarkable part of the book were court procedures, of which the following two provisions were essentials. First, to bring a witch at court no proof evidence of her witchery was required — denunciation was enough. For this reason, a reporter that had denounced someone as a witch would always go unpunished in case his accusation was disproved, though such cases were few by virtue of the second provision which made torture the only instrument of court trial. If an accused person confessed in witchery she would be found guilty, whilst if after all tortures she kept on denying her guilt, she would be found guilty anyway, because only Satan could give her strength and stubbornness to stand severe tortures. These two provisions are eloquent enough all by themselves to draw any additional arguments why witch processes were so abundant and why only few of accused were found innocent by courts of inquisition.
As Witch Hammer produced the desired enlightening effect in people’s mind and changed their perception of sorcery, and ongoing witch processes produced due impact on human emo-tions filling them with awe, denunciations became more and more plentiful. When, finally, persecution ceased, it turned out that entire areas of Germany were completely rid of women, with sometimes only two or three of them left ... Competent sources name several million as the most probable total number of witches that were burnt.
Now let us undertake an exemplary case study. Six women of Lindtheim town were accused, tortured, and finally confessed that they had exhumed a new-born baby’s corpse and used as an ingredient for a magic cream. Husband of one of these women insisted that the court should open the grave to be sure. Finally inquirers agreed and found the deceased baby’s body safe in its place. Nonetheless, all six ‘witches’ were burnt, for inquisition judged that the buried body might as well be Satan’s deception, while women’s confession of their guilt is evident. Therefore, holy judges would often rather not believe their own power of perception than remove denunciation in witchery. Witch persecution records are profuse with cases similar to the one described above.
***
When reading inquisition proceedings, one only has to wonder, who of either parties was devil-possessed. Anyway, if Satan had been actually present at courts of inquisition, it was not witches over whom he ruled, but rather reverend inquirers." "When reading inquisition proceedings," authors of this and other studies might as well have posed a question that would seem more relevant: why it was women who were chosen as a target for apparently insane genocide inspired by the Holy Church? Somehow authors of textbooks and articles prefer to avoid this question, probably, deeming it too general to be addressed by historians. Fortunately, both foreign and Russian feminist and gender researches help definitely answer this question. Here we present two articles that, while complementing each other, produce a perfect vision of what was medieval Christian Church’s true attitude to women.

At Radiant Dawn of New Time

Steffy Enghert,
historian, sociologist
Germany
In 1487, 510 years ago, five years prior to Columbus’ discovery of America, Witch Hammer was published, a book that systematized the complete expertise European inquisition had acquired in hunting and exposing witches. In Germany persecution of witches reached its peak in 16th and 17th centuries, i. e. after "dark" Middle Ages had long become history, at the "radiant dawn" of New Time. To understand underlying reason of feminicide in Western Europe, let us travel back in time. Let us start with late medieval period.
Inside prevailing feudal society, towns progressively evolve with their own economies based on monetary exchange and trends to separate from rural areas. "Air of town makes people free." After a year and a day of living in town, a person is deemed free of serfdom.
Even the most deprived peasants with no chances of becoming free citizens leave their villages for towns. In rural areas, monetary exchange also evolves to eventually take over feudal-type of economic relations.
Along with free thought, towns produce bourgeoisie, the class that will soon overrule feudal lords. As it usually happens at periods of large-scale social changes, women gain more independence and freedom to choose for themselves. Women take part in their communities’ ascent and trade: open manufacturing an trade enterprises operating not only in silk trade (which is traditionally feminine occupation), but also trading species. In Cologne, community that has always been friendly to women, they were allowed to manage even armor production and metal trade. Therefore, women eventually become more and more economically independent from men; to certain extent, their relations are now based on business partnership, though men still play dominating role in it. In spite of formalized subservience to their husbands, women of higher social groups could attain very high social standing as early as in late middle ages (though certain limiting provisos existed). Notwithstanding the fact that they are as politically deprived as before and may not participate in municipal self-governments, women make most valuable input into spiritual and public life of the epoch. Late medieval was the period when Hildegarda von Bingen wrote and published her bright and easy-to-understand medical tracts; Adelhaid and Theophano for several years ruled the empire; and thousands of noble wives managed their family holdings for absent husbands or immature sons.
Ordinary people’s life of that time is much harder to reconstruct, because data is scarce. For instance, most common outlook is that birth-rate in lower social groups was extremely high. In fact, this fake was invented for the sole purpose: to make ends meet in a larger fable invented to conceal the most actual reason for witch-hunting. In fact, European population increased very slowly — annual growth rate was no higher than 1,300 persons. In late medieval Europe a wide range of birth control gadgets was available and practiced by women — the fact evident from either Genealogic Society data or medieval scripts. Moreover, in 14th century European population was scythed away with blackpox to the extent that in the second half of the century landlords and bourgeoisie experienced acute deficit of labor force.
And soon after that, all at once, total feminicide was initiated: for decades women would be put on fire in scores — and for no visible reason. Witch-hunting was not intended to eradicate heresies; it was intended to put women under total control. Apparent insanity of the Europe-wide massacre was actually a deliberate masquerade designed to hide pragmatic interests and cool calculation of future gains. First, women were eliminated as men’s competitors in such markets as manufacturing and merchandise. False report was enough grounds to strip a woman bare of all her possessions and sentence her to either exile or death. Second, noble landlords and church badly needed cheap labor. To make population grow at the highest possible rate, birth-control tools must be taken away from women, in order to make them humble child-bearing machines entirely controlled by their biologic rhythms and husbands. For example, Jean Beauden (1530 — 1596), a prominent enlightener and statesman of early New Time, boldly asserts that shortage in labor force is a direct consequence of widespread birth-control activities. All means are suitable to achieve public benefit, Beauden goes on. For this reason, it would be expedient to abort any court procedures in relation to witches, he concludes. For sake of "public benefit", Jean Beauden personally judged and sentenced witches. He used to be inventive and merciless in tortures of those accused in sorcery (including children), and his favorite saying was: "Happy is the witch who dies within half an hour on my fire."
Therefore, the major goal of witch processes was to exterminate any know-how of contraception through physical elimination of carriers of this knowledge. Witch Hammer offers the following description of "magic" practiced by witches and sorceress: "They can prevent conception in mother’s womb, and also: change human heart ... impede delivery of babies and provoke premature births."
To make a woman yield to fear of physical destruction, humiliation, guilt for her womanhood — here is the goal "holy fathers" pursued. It was one of Latin Church’s patri-archs who said: "Whatever woman with enough aptitude to conceive mentally will inevitably conceive evil." These words contain profound disclaim of women’s right to think and act on equal with men. Women shall be put under strict comprehensive control, as they are principally evil beings ruled by instincts and Satan. Even such eminent opponent of witch-hunting as von Speher would later advocate women with the following thesis: women are evil, because they are too weak to resist temptations. All in all, the ultimate verdict is the same: women must be controlled, and if not for their reproductive function, extinct women would be the most plausible option.
However, it took several centuries to complete the task of exterminating wise women with enough medical knowledge and skill for healing, and, finally, oppressive artificial selection bore its fruit: women’s nature changed. With last fires extinguished, 18th century witnessed obedient women with two functions left to them: to "keep family hearth" and bear a baby once a year. After all, self-standing, self-realization, sexual claims are not the things to be associated with a perfect housewife, are they? So, finally, they were disrupted and disproved as shameful.

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