Church sermon for the twelve feasts. Part 1

I respectfully dedicate this work to Vasily Feodorovich Pevnitsky, Honored Ordinary Professor of the Kiev Theological Academy, highly respected mentor of church preaching. The source of wisdom is the word of God in the highest The holy men of God are enlightened by the Holy Spirit Let us praise the glorious men, and our fathers in being: men renowned for their strength, advising with their minds Their names live on throughout generations. People will proclaim their wisdom, and the Church will confess their praise “Glorified art thou, O Christ our God, who founded our fathers as a light on the earth, and taught us all to the true faith: most gracious, glory to you” (Trop. 7 weeks after Easter). “We have church writers who not only wisely, but also eloquently revealed the word of God in their creations... Reading their works, a perceptive person, even without any special intention of becoming eloquent himself, if only he constantly delves into the subjects presented there, - from handling these creations he imperceptibly becomes saturated with the style or way of expressing them.” (“Christian Science”. Blessed Augustine. Book IV, pp. 343, 252. Kiev. 1835). We have received a rich inheritance from the God-wise and God-bearing fathers and teachers of the Church, who not only themselves adhered to the correct word of teaching (Titus 1:9), had the image of sound words... and kept a good testament by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 1:13-14), but also passed on the teaching they heard to their future successors, faithful people who were content (who would be able) and teach others (2 Tim. 2:2), as well as all Orthodox Christians. The writings of the holy fathers and church teachers represent a precious treasury of good teachings. Is it that the works of Sts. Fathers have not all been translated into our native language, and those that have been translated sometimes, due to the difficulty of the language, present a considerable difficulty for inexperienced readers to understand - can this alone obscure the greatness and benefit of these creations for some. In this sense, patristic literature can be called the richest mine of true wisdom, which, however, requires labor and art to extract it. But it is certain that whoever studies the works of the patristic fathers with attention and diligence will find in them as many treasures of true enlightenment as cannot be found in any other works of the human mind. The Holy Fathers are men who, after the apostles, rightly ruled the word of the Lord’s truth in the Church, gave birth to many children of the gospel of Christ Jesus, and with their writings became for all subsequent generations mentors of life, the rule of faith - both through their writings and through the writings of others about them. It is to them, therefore, that today’s Christians should turn their gaze, especially in case of any perplexity or confusion in the matter of faith and Christian life. To our deepest regret, we must admit that Christians of our time have many books, some from this century, others from the century of church rebellion, but there are no patristic books at all; hence the weakness in faith, lack of art, even falling away. It is necessary to pay attention to this deficiency in the methods of education and make up for it. The holy fathers and teachers of the Church lived and worked for us: even if we read the works of God’s holy men who preached the gospel with the Holy Spirit, we will begin to heed their fatherly covenants. According to the promise of God, happy are those children who honor their fathers: so we will be happy when we honor the saints. our fathers in Christ by our attention to their instructions, according to the Apostolic commandment: remember your teachers who spoke the word of God to you (Heb. 13:17). Representing a mine in which lies the entire sum of theological knowledge in its immediate purity and integrity, the writings of the wise fathers and church teachers have an obligatory guiding value, especially for the shepherds of the Church of Christ. The patristic words and conversations contain a rich store of preaching experience for every pastor. Devoted with all their souls to their work and guided by the Spirit of God, the holy fathers and teachers of the Church, from the first centuries of Christianity to the latest, always offered their listeners an effective word, full of wisdom and power with all its apparent simplicity. As the fruit of the holy life of the saints of God, the patristic words bear the stamp of anointing from the Spirit of God, which, according to the immutable saying of the Lord, abides in the Church of Christ. That is why the patristic sermons speak so directly to the human heart and find such a living, effective response in the human soul; That is why these spirit-bearing words and conversations were so deeply revered by our pious ancestors, and are revered by all truly Orthodox people, who find in them proven means for Christian self-improvement and much healing to help those who are tempted. The patristic teachings will never cease to be a word of consolation and edification for the Church, as well as for every Christian individually, despite the fact that the circumstances and conditions of religious and moral life are now far from being the same as the contemporaries of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church. It was not in vain that the Trullo Council made it an indispensable duty for the pastors of the Church to diligently read the patristic works as they did to read the Holy Scriptures, and to teach the people according to their example. The 19th canon of the Trullo Council reads: “The heads of churches must teach the people all the days, especially on Sundays, the words of piety, choosing from the Divine Scripture understandings and reasonings of truth, and without already transgressing the established limits and traditions of the God-bearing fathers: and if the word of Scripture is examined, then let them not explain it otherwise than as the luminaries and teachers of the Church have set forth in their writings, and let them be more satisfied with these than with composing their own words, so that, if they lack skill in this, they will not deviate from what is proper. For through the teaching of the above-mentioned father, people, receiving knowledge of what is good and worthy of election, and of what is unprofitable and worthy of disgust, correct their lives for the better.” And in the letter of appointment given to each newly ordained priest, the pastors of the Church have the instruction for themselves - “to be wholeheartedly diligent in reading the Divine Scriptures, and not to interpret this differently, but like the church luminary, our holy and God-bearing fathers, the pastor and the teacher, interpreted with great agreement, and so the people entrusted to him teach.” The Orthodox Church, having assigned ancient teachings from the Holy Scriptures, added to them many teachings from the writings of the Fathers. In the ancient Church, preaching was a necessary, indispensable accessory to every liturgical meeting of believers; Primarily, the morning Divine service was the time in which Christian instructions were offered to the people: the memory and law of this were preserved in chapters 48–51 of our Church Charter, where a fair number of readings are prescribed at the all-night vigil, especially on great holidays. Along with the adoption of Christianity, our ancestors adopted from Greece the pious custom of reading during church services the edifying works of the ever-memorable fathers and teachers of the Church: from the treasures of patristic teaching offered in churches, the seeds of piety and that steadfastness in faith that always distinguished the ancient Russian man grew. Although at present this valiant custom is sometimes consigned to oblivion, the modern Divine Service Charter has not abolished these readings, in which a soul-saving interpretation of events and holidays remembered by the Church is taught and sublime examples of righteous life are indicated. And if our Divine service, due to its duration, is not always conducive to statutory readings - sermons, then the latter, always with the greatest benefit for the edification of believers, can be read at outside of liturgical interviews. Our Typikon indicates patristic teachings on great church holidays under the number of the known service of the holiday, usually like this: “and we honor the word of the saint (name), its beginning (such and such)”, or: “and the reading of the holiday”, etc. But these teachings are not collected and published in one book; and were placed separately in Greek and Slavic languages ​​in the Chetya Menaion, Prologue, Solemnists, as well as in the Russian translation - in Christian Reading, in Sunday Reading, Church Gazette, etc. Regarding the spirit and nature of the festive statutory teachings in general, it should be noted that they belong to the most famous fathers and teachers of the ancient Christian world - men whose names have been glorified by all centuries of Christianity. Ecumenical teachers and saints, Sts. Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, John of Damascus, Andrew of Crete, Epiphanius of Cyprus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius the Great and many others alternately appear to us as evangelists and inspired interpreters of one or another holiday. To them we can apply the words of St. Chrysostom, said about the apostles and evangelists: “they did not die, but live for us, and talk with us through their life-giving writings.” Conversations of St. Fathers of the Church on the feasts of the Lord and the Theotokos were so close to the liturgical language that many of their passages were subsequently converted into liturgical stichera. Thus, the Easter stichera - “Resurrection Day, and let us be enlightened by triumph”, “Yesterday I buried You”, “The Lord’s Pascha, Pascha”, “This appointed and holy day” are borrowed from the words of St. Gregory the Theologian on Holy Easter (see pp. 4–9 of this part); Some stichera on the feast of Pentecost, for example: “The Holy Spirit is and is and will be,” taken from the words of St. Gregory the Theologian on Holy Pentecost (see pp. 237–241 of this part). Even Blessed Augustine, the author of the first Christian homiletics, attached particular importance to reading and studying the works of the best church speakers - the works of the fathers and teachers of the Church; and he gave preference to this kind of practical study of church eloquence over theoretical ones. In the 4th book of his famous “Christian Science,” Blessed Augustine writes: “Whoever wants to speak to the people not only wisely, but also eloquently (there is no doubt that the combination of both will be more beneficial!), I advise him to read, listen and imitate speakers: for in the words and speeches of eloquent people, all the rules of eloquence are completely fulfilled... It is easier to become eloquent by reading and listening to speakers than by precise study of the rules of oratory: we know very many men who, without knowing the rules of rhetoric at all, were more eloquent than people who carefully studied these rules; on the contrary, I do not know a single person who would become eloquent without reading and listening to speakers... A zealous lover of church literature can absorb both the spirit and language of these writers into himself if he carefully and tirelessly reads and listens to them, especially if he does experiments and exercises in imitation of them. And those who speak, memorize and offer to the people wisely and eloquently written teachings of the fathers and teachers of the Church, should not think that they are stealing, since he who steals someone else’s steals, and the word of God is not alien to those who obey God.” The famous Russian church leader, the ever-memorable Moscow Saint Philaret, also wrote in his time: “There is no need to indicate examples of church teachings. One thing that needs to be noted is to look for them... mainly in the writings of the ancient Fathers of the Church, according to which the most famous preachers of modern times were formed and in which lie the treasures of the apostolic spirit, only little-known because they are in great number and in vast repositories.” (Collected opinions and review, vol. I, p. 146). And indeed, by carefully reading and studying the patristic sermons, one can not only learn a clear presentation of the truths of faith and piety, but also comprehend all the ways in which the fathers and teachers of the Church successfully influenced the minds and hearts of their listeners, and powerfully captivated their will into obedience to the word of God. Using the statutory church teachings for great holidays, the modern “preacher will be imbued with and imbued with the spirit of the ancient Christian spirit, will extract it from the ashes of smoldering charters, and give it life in the souls of his contemporaries.” Due to all these considerations, and also taking into account the fact that not every church library has even the most widespread sermons of the God-bearing fathers and teachers of the church (moreover, some publications are no longer available for sale), we decided to collect in this edition the words, conversations and teachings of the patristic people, including those prescribed by the Charter of the Orthodox Church, for the twelve feasts. At the same time, to the sermons of St. Fathers and teachers of the Church on the twelve feasts, we added words, conversations and teachings and the most famous church writers, both ancient (for example, Emperor Leo VI the Wise...) and relatively recent (Saints Elijah Minyaty, Leonty Karpovich...), whose sermons earned themselves “worthy praise” from the Holy Synod, which saw in them “undeniable usefulness”; as well as sermons from ancient teaching collections, which had a tremendous impact on the Russian people with the inspiration that has always distinguished the speeches of the ancient fathers and teachers of our Church. We mean: “Prologue”, “Collection”, “Collection of various teachings, divided into three parts”, “Statir”, etc. - these, unfortunately, are forgotten treasures, which, however, deserve special attention from both the clergy and all lovers of soul-saving reading. Some sermons in this edition have been translated into Russian for the first time; others (the ancient translation of which has become completely obscure and incomprehensible) have been translated into modern Russian speech; in some sermons we replaced certain outdated forms of words with modern ones for greater clarity; We present other sermons in greater or lesser abbreviation. In the footnotes we indicate where we found this or that sermon or part of it cited by us, and at the end of the book we indicate the sermons prescribed by the charter of the Orthodox Church for reading during a certain Divine service. You might be interested in: