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The saddest thing is that ideas are spreading among the priesthood and church hierarchy that contradict traditional church views on the nature of the Church and its boundaries. “It seems that we already live on the outskirts of Babylon, if not in it itself,” St. Philaret (Drozdov) once said, impressed by the reality around him 75 . But it is difficult to completely defend against the multitude of humanistic ideas that are gradually penetrating the Orthodox church consciousness, and Metropolitan Philaret himself introduces a new concept into the church lexicon: “The Christian Church can only be either “purely true” ... or “not purely true”” 76. And although the expression “not purely true” is in itself dubious, and when applied to the Church - the Bride of Christ, it sounds at least strange, it is taking root in verbal usage in church circles.
In the Orthodox environment, the statement of Metropolitan Platon of Kiev (Gorodetsky 1891) that “our human partitions do not reach heaven” 77 (as reported by Metropolitan Evlogii (Georgievsky): “The partitions that people built in the church do not reach heaven” 78) is also becoming widespread.
The protopresbyter of the military and naval clergy in 1911–1917, Father Georgy Shavelsky, saw “unification around the name of God and around St. churches of people separated by temporary, non-divine partitions" 79, in the following events of army life: "Military ranks - Protestants, Catholics, Calvinists - not only soldiers, but also officers, along with the Orthodox, carefully attended their regimental Orthodox church, ... observed Orthodox holidays and customs; in wartime, before battles, even officers often confessed and received communion from regimental Orthodox priests” 80.
A similar attitude towards heterodoxy is gradually penetrating among monks and laity. And now the nuns of the Virovsky monastery, led by Abbess Anna, greet “the priest bearing the Holy Gifts with a low bow and with burning candles” and accompany “him to his sick bed” 81. And Russian soldiers during the First World War did not hesitate to participate in Eucharistic communion with the Uniates: “The poor soldiers who went to the front, and therefore, to certain death, did not have the opportunity to receive communion, went to the Uniates, prayed and received communion there. “They told me,” Metropolitan Evlogii recalled, “how in the Uniate monastery they, together with the Uniates, exclaimed: “Holy Hieromartyr Josaphat, pray to God for us” (this is the Josaphat Kuntsevich, who was a famous persecutor of Orthodoxy)” 82.
At this time, Russian theologians provide an ideological basis for actions of this kind. “Thus, Archpriest P. Ya. Svetlov argues that Western Christian faiths, along with the Orthodox, are Christian Churches and belong to the Universal Church, and not extra-church societies separated from the Church - that the existing Christian Churches in the West and East are local Churches or parts of the Universal Church, and therefore the assignment of the rights of the Universal Church to any of them is illegal” 83.
In the atmosphere of the noted ideas and morals, which were increasingly captivating the Russian people, defending traditional views on the Church, as mentioned above, became for Vladimir Troitsky the beginning of a confessional feat, which he carried with honor throughout his life.
Quote by: Florovsky Georgy, prot. Paths of Russian theology. Rep. ed. – Vilnius: [b. i.], 1991. P. 184.
Filaret (Drozdov), Metropolitan. Creations. – M.: Father's House, 1994. P. 408.
Quote by: Sergius (Stragorodsky), Patr. The attitude of an Orthodox person to his Church and heterodoxy: Collection of articles. – M.: Publishing house. parish of the church of St. right John the Russian, Moscow publishing house. Patriarchies, 2001. P. 82.
Eulogius (Georgievsky), Metropolitan. The path of my life: Memoirs. – M.: Moscow worker, VPMD, 1994. P. 202.
Shavelsky Georgy, Protoprev. Russian Church before the revolution. – M.: Artos-Media, 2005. P. 387.
Eulogius (Georgievsky), Metropolitan. The path of my life: Memoirs. P. 244.
Hilarion (Troitsky), schmch. Creations: In 3 volumes. T. 3: Church-journalistic works. – M.: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House, 2004. P. 498.