О Таинствах. Освящающая сила Церкви

The Lord Jesus Christ walked the path from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven and reunited the earthly with the heavenly. He sent down from the Father the Holy Spirit, who lives in the Church. Thus, man’s participation in the life of the Holy Trinity was completed. The Holy Spirit, who dwells in the Church, imparts His gifts to her, to each according to his need and measure. This life of grace is accomplished in the Church for each member in his own ways, mysteriously and unsearchable. However, the Lord was pleased to establish a certain accessible way for everyone to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit in the holy sacraments. The sacraments are sacred rites in which, under a visible sign, the invisibly determined gift of the Holy Spirit is taught. For the sacrament, the union of the visible and the invisible, external form and internal content seems essential. They reflect the nature of the Church itself, which is the invisible in the visible and the visible in the invisible. By the divine establishment of the sacraments, order, measure and law are introduced into the area of ​​grace-filled life, and a limit is placed on the disorderly, unbridled and formless ecstasy characteristic of sects (English Quakers, Russian Khlysty), and an objective divine basis is given for the grace-filled life, which in Protestantism is given over to the will of human subjectivism with all its infidelity. In the sacraments, in the manner established by the Church, the gift of the Holy Spirit is always and invariably given, although it is received differently. The Church has the power to send down the Holy Spirit in the sacraments. Pentecost, once accomplished over the face of the apostles, is always accomplished in the Church in the sacraments, through apostolic succession, through the hierarchy. Therefore, the power of the sacraments is directly related to the priesthood - where there is no priesthood, there are no sacraments (except baptism). This does not mean that the Holy Spirit is not there, for His giving is not limited to the sacraments. The Spirit breathes where it wants, and the grace-filled giving of the Holy Spirit, even in the Church itself, is not limited to the sacraments. However, this giving of the Holy Spirit is not subject to any human knowledge, for no one knows where He comes from and where He goes, but in the sacraments of the Church knowledge and a certain way of giving the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given. The Church has true, effective sacraments; this is one of the signs of the true Church. This effectiveness is associated with the existence of a hierarchy of apostolic succession and the preservation of true teaching. Communion in the sacraments and mutual recognition of the sacraments is therefore one of the foundations of church unity 24 . Orthodoxy (the same as Catholicism) contains a sevenfold number of sacraments (baptism, confirmation, repentance, communion, priesthood, marriage, consecration of oil). This teaching, which in modern times has received the force of dogmatic tradition in the Church, took shape only starting from the 12th century, first in the West, then in the East. It should be borne in mind that the sevenfold number is not exhaustive, for the number of sacraments (sacramentalia) in the Church is much greater than seven. Thus, the Church has various consecrations (of the church, holy water, especially in the Epiphany, then of bread, fruits, every thing), burial and tonsure into monasticism (which in ancient times were directly ranked among the sacraments), the consecration of icons and crosses and other rites, which in their effectiveness, as imparting the grace of the Holy Spirit while observing a certain external form, do not differ from the seven sacraments. The latter are only the most important manifestations of the power of mystery inherent in the Church. At the same time, there is no obstacle to distinguishing within the seven sacraments, although they are all equally sacraments in the sense of communicating the gifts of the Holy Spirit - the degree of their universality and even divine establishment. Nothing prevents the Orthodox from singling out baptism and communion from among the seven sacraments, as directly established by the Lord himself and for all Christians, urgently necessary (the so-called “gospel” sacraments), and therefore present at all times of the existence of the Church. Other sacraments, although they have their basis in the word of God and - directly or indirectly - in the words of the Savior, are established by the Church only gradually, and some of them (like marriage, priesthood, even anointing of oil) are not performed on all members of the Church. However, such a distinction is more theological and theoretical than practical. In practice, the basis of all sacraments, except baptism, is the priesthood, although it is not original for the Church, for it takes shape in the post-apostolic age, replacing the apostolate and the original charisma that are leaving the world. The seven sacraments in their totality sanctify the life of a person, both a personal and a tribal being, and provide it with graceful completeness. In particular, each of the sacraments has its own special power. 1) Baptism is a spiritual birth in which, by the power of putting on Christ, the natural man with his inherent original sin dies and a new one is born. This is the assimilation of the saving power of the redemptive feat of Christ. This sacrament is the only one that, in the absence of a priest, can be performed by a layman (man or even woman) by virtue of the universal Christian priesthood. However, it can only be performed by a Christian, by the power of the Church, of which he is here an instrument, and baptism performed by a non-Christian is not valid (as Roman Catholicism allows), for it is a grace-filled action of the Church, and not a magical act. The image of the celebration is a threefold immersion in the Name of the Holy Trinity (and not in the Name of Jesus alone, as was allowed in Catholicism by Pope Nicholas I regarding the Bulgarians). Every Christian baptism in the Name of the Holy Trinity is valid, and not only within, but also outside of Orthodoxy, as is clear from the practice of both the ancient and modern Church, which, as a rule, does not re-baptize those once baptized (except for particularly motivated exceptions). 2) Confirmation is performed in the Orthodox Church immediately after baptism. It cannot be performed by a layman, but only by a priest or bishop, and the sacred chrism for him is consecrated by a council of bishops, so in this sense it is an episcopal sacrament, although directly performed by a priest. It means universal ordination, which in the primacy of the Church was performed on the baptized apostles themselves, although not to the hierarchical rank, but to the sacred rank of the laity. Therefore, it is accomplished by the power of the bishopric in the Church. It opens access to grace-filled life in the Church through participation in all church sacraments. Therefore, Christians who enter Orthodoxy from confessions that have lost the grace-filled priesthood are accepted through Chrismation, through which, so to speak, they are ordained to the rank of laity, members of the Church, and only after Chrismation are they allowed to participate in the sacraments of the Church. Confirmation, in which the anointing with chrism is performed with the words “seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit,” corresponds to the personal Pentecost in the life of every Christian. In it, everyone is given the gift of the Holy Spirit, characteristic of him, the glory inherent in the soul and body of the primordial Adam and lost by him during the Fall (Rom. 3:23), the germ of transfiguration and resurrection is returned. 3) Repentance, sometimes called second baptism, is the application of the power to “bind and loosen” sins given by Christ to the apostles and their succession. Although in baptism the power of original sin in man is destroyed, its power remains in his natural being in the form of an inclination to sin and hence the resulting general sinfulness. For liberation from sins committed by a person after baptism, in repentance, through confessing them before the confessor, a gracious permission is given, erasing sins and again reconciling the person with God. 4) The Eucharist is the eating of heavenly bread in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, according to the institution of the Lord himself. This sacrament can only be performed by a legally ordained priest or bishop. The Church teaches that bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, given for communion (although it does not share the Latin doctrine of transsubstantiatio with the distinction between changing substance and unchanging accidents) 25 . In the Holy Mysteries Christ is truly present, giving Himself in communion. But this last use of St. Gifts in Orthodoxy are limited. It does not know the display of the holy gifts for worship and their deliberate consecration for this consecration, no longer for communion, but for adoration, as is practiced in Catholicism, not without violence against the direct purpose of establishing the sacrament. The consecration of the holy gifts takes place throughout the entire liturgy, the most important final part of which is the pronunciation of the established words of the Savior, accompanied by the invocation of the Holy Spirit with their blessing (epiclesis). All believers receive communion under both types, i.e. not only clergy, but also laity. The Eucharist has the meaning of a bloodless sacrifice, according to the power of the sacrifice of Calvary, it is offered “for everyone and for everything,” for the living and the dead. 5) The priesthood is the sacrament of communicating hierarchical gifts through episcopal ordination with the consent and prayerful participation of the church people. This grace is indelible, and the sacrament is not repeated (although unworthy holders of the priesthood may be prohibited from serving). There are three hierarchical degrees of ordination: bishopric, presbytery and deaconate (the lower degrees: reader and subdeacon, are outside the ordained hierarchy). 6) Marriage is the grace-filled sanctification of the natural union of a man and a woman for a common Christian life and for procreation. In marriage, which takes place “in Christ and in the Church,” the foundation of a small home church is laid, which is the family. 7) Blessing of Anointing is the sacrament of general healing of the entire human nature, soul and body. It combines liberation from private unrepentant sins and assistance in the fight against general sinfulness with healing and healing of the body. The latter can be expressed not only in the restoration of health for life, but also in the giving of strength for Christian death, since the latter is also an act of life. Hence the dual focus of this sacrament: towards healing from an illness through recovery from it, or through a mortal outcome (in Catholicism, only this last goal is established for this sacrament, instructions for death). Along with these seven sacraments, the Church knows in her life of grace many sanctifying acts and rites that have the power of sacrament, sacramentalia, and one can, in a certain sense, say that all acts in liturgical life are such. We will not dwell on these acts separately. We will only point out that in them and through them into the world, through the substance of this world in various forms, the grace of the Holy Spirit constantly flows, preparing the world for the coming transformation, the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. And also for a person, in accordance with his personal need, grace-filled help is given through a prayer blessing or sacred rite (for example, monastic tonsure). The holy and perfecting power here is the Name of God. Blessing and sanctification are performed by the Name of God, and therefore it is surrounded in Orthodoxy with special veneration, which corresponds to the veneration of the Name of God (the sacred tetragram) in the Old Testament. This is the sweetest Name of the Lord Jesus, which is constantly repeated in the Jesus Prayer, the so-called. smart doing, and the Name of the Holy Trinity. Veneration of the Name of God is the basis of Orthodox piety and worship 26. The Orthodox Church does not reject the effectiveness of the sacraments in Roman Catholicism, for here the apostolic succession of the hierarchy is undeniably preserved, although defects in the teaching prevent direct communication of the sacraments with Catholics. Here, indirect or hidden communication is even preserved, which is expressed in the fact that when joining Orthodoxy, Catholics are not anointed (as they are with Protestants who have lost apostolic succession), and Catholic clergy are accepted in their existing rank (this, at least, is the practice of the Russian Church). See my essay: Eucharistic Dogma. The Way, 1930, No. 1–2. See my book: “Philosophy of the Name”. 1953.