Applications. Lives of the Saints

Fundamental work of St. Demetrius of Rostov "Lives of the Saints" ("Cheti-Minea") is an extensive collection of hagiographic texts, organized by months and days of the church calendar, covering the lives of Orthodox saints, martyrs, reverends, prelates and other saints of God. The Months of the Hours and Menaions became generally accepted in the Russian Orthodox Church, and now forms the bulk of our church calendars. Work on the composition lasted more than 20 years (1684-1705). In 12 volumes (for each month of the year), the author systematized and processed materials from Greek, Latin, Polish and Church Slavonic sources: the Bollandist collection “Acta sanctorum”, “De probatis sanctorum historiis” by Lawrence Surius, the life of St. Simeon Metaphrast, the work of Peter Skarga “Żywoty świętych”, the Assumption list of the Great Menaion-Fours, the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon, etc. The work contains 765 articles, not counting memories (short, often one-phrase notes about persons and events that are not the subject of larger articles): lives of saints, Words for major holidays (22 in total), synaxari for the Lord's, Mother of God and other holidays, individual historical discussions, 2 articles are devoted to calendar issues (March). According to the time and place of the asceticism of the saints, the lives are divided into four groups: the life and exploits of the Old Testament (24 lives), general Christian (571 lives), Russian (65 lives), Yugoslav (4 lives). Each life includes biographical information, descriptions of miracles and feats of faith, moral teachings (themes of faith, repentance, piety, the fight against sin, love for one's neighbor, the desire for holiness, anticipation of the Last Judgment). For each article, the saint used several sources, trying to collect as much information as possible, which he combined into one whole and added his own transcriptions. The collection also contains elements of scientific reference apparatus: links to sources, indications of similar plots in the lives and miracles of various saints, references that turn into research. The language of Chetyikh-Menya is not dry and academic, but lively, colorful, and addressed to the reader’s heart. The saint uses vivid images and metaphors taken from the Holy Scriptures, nature or everyday life. For example, a martyr is compared to a warrior winning a battle, or a farmer reaping a harvest. The Lives are replete with dialogues between the martyrs and their persecutors, between the saints and God. This brings the story to life and helps the reader “hear” the characters. Saint Demetrius aims not only to tell, but also to convince the reader of the truth of the faith and the need to imitate the saints. Thus, the speeches of the martyrs become theological treatises in miniature. In them, the saints prove the meaninglessness of idolatry, the truth of monotheism and the divinity of Christ. The author shows the inner world of the heroes: their struggle with fear, doubts, prayerful readiness and ultimate determination. The description of this internal struggle makes the saints relatable and understandable, and their victory worthy of emulation. "Lives of the Saints" by St. Demetrius of Rostov had a huge influence on the spiritual, cultural and literary life of the Russian people. They were the main source for daily reading in churches, monasteries and homes, shaping the religious consciousness of the people. In Synodal Russia they were used in schools and seminaries, forming a national identity based on Christian ideals. The publication presents an Appendix to the book of the lives of saints: “Holidays and Memories” (pre-revolutionary revision of the publication into Russian, edited by V.O. Klyuchevsky in 1904-1911). Here are the book additions for March, April, May, July and August. The chapters contained in the appendix are devoted to the beginning of time, the moving holidays of the pre-Easter and Easter periods (the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, the Passion of Christ, the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord, Pentecost), and the memory of the I-VI Ecumenical Councils. The collection also contains the life of the saint. Afanasy of Brest. Contents March Beginning of times Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem Passion of Christ Resurrection of Christ April Appearances of our Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection May Ascension of the Lord Pentecost (Descent of the Holy Spirit) Remembrance of the First and Second Ecumenical Councils July Life of the Holy Martyr Athanasius of Brest August Remembrance of the Third Ecumenical Council Remembrance of the IV Ecumenical Council Remembrance of the V Ecumenical Council Remembrance VI Ecumenical Council See also: Book VII – March The first of all months is the month March 1. Among the Jews, before the Babylonian captivity 2 it was called the first month (Ex.40:2; Lev.23:5; Num.9:1; 28:16; 2Chron.29:3; Ezek.45:18) 3, and after the captivity - Nissan 4. It was about this month that the Lord spoke to Moses 5 and Aaron 6 during the stay of the Jews in Egypt 7: let this month be for you the beginning of months, let it be the first for you between the months of the year (Ex. 12:2). In this month, the Lord created the visible world and its ruler - the first man - Adam, for whom He planted paradise in the east. The Lord brought Adam here, commanding him to rule over the whole earth - beasts, livestock, reptiles, fish swimming in the seas, and birds flying under the heavens. This month, the Lord commanded the Israelites in Egypt to celebrate Passover and brought them out from here with His strong hand, drying up the sea before them and drowning Pharaoh with all his army, who was chasing the Israelites. In this month, the Only Begotten Son of God Himself, the Eternal Word of the Father, descended to earth, Who, being God, dwelt in the womb of the Immaculate Youth, the Blessed Virgin Mary, during the influx of the Holy Spirit upon Her at the news of the Archangel. In this month, our Passover was sacrificed for us - Christ, Who, being buried as a mortal man, rose with glory as the Immortal God, and brought with Him from hell, as Israel once did from Egypt, Adam and with him all the forefathers and in general all righteous people, drowning the prince of hell in the Red Sea 8 of His bloody suffering. So, in this month the light of salvation has shone for us; in this month, ancient Adam and Eve were renewed and received a new paradise, superior to the ancient paradise; in this month hell was defeated, heaven was opened, death was destroyed, life was given, corruption was abolished, in its place our mortal nature was clothed in incorruption; in this month the human race was freed from slavery to sin and received freedom and the inheritance of the Kingdom of heaven. That is why this month, in which at the beginning of time the visible light was created, and at the end of time the invisible light of holy faith shone, is the beginning of all months and all time, the first month in a row. From the first day of this month, the calculation of the circles of the solar 9 and lunar 10, vrucelet 11, leap year 12, equinox 13 begins, and in general, the course of the days of each new year begins from this month. Therefore, it would be from this month, and not from September, that the chronology should begin 14. September, by its very name, shows that it is not the first month, but the seventh 15th from March, and March is the first month from the creation of the world. The beginning of the calculation of indicts 16 from the month of September was laid by Augustus 17, Emperor of Rome, in the twelfth year of his reign, thirty years before the birth of Christ. This happened because this emperor, like all pagans who did not know the One true God, the Creator of every creature, did not know anything about the beginning of the world, nor about the first man - Adam, and did not count from the creation of the world, because he assumed that the world was not created in time, but existed from eternity, without having a beginning of its existence. Usually the pagans reckoned time from one or another glorious, in their opinion, events: some counted from the foundation of some kingdoms and monarchies, such as the Assyrian, Median, Persian; others counted time from the establishment of a certain Greek festival called the Olympics 18. This festival was celebrated and celebrated by the pagans with great triumph, and during the Olympiads, spectacles and horse competitions were organized. This festival was established by the Greeks in ancient times; the Romans dated their chronology from the time of the founding of Rome 19; other nations based their chronology on other events. When Augustus became Emperor of Rome, he introduced his new chronology, calling it indict; Consequently, indicts do not originate from the creation of the world, since there were absolutely no indicts before Emperor Augustus. But modern indicts, starting in September, originate not from Augustus, but from the first Christian king, Saint Constantine the Great 20. This latter, having defeated the persecutor of Christians Maxentius 21 and liberated the Roman Empire from his tyranny, granted Christians freedom of religion and introduced his own new indictments, which were approved by the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council 22 and were accepted as the beginning of Christian freedom. So, the real indicts originate not from Augustus, but from Constantine. It is necessary to distinguish between the years from the existence of the world, calculated from the month of March, and the years from the beginning of the indict, calculated from the month of September and received their beginning from the Emperor Constantine. In the month of September, as the seventh month from March, it is gratefully remembered that God, having created the world, which had its beginning in the month of March, rested from His works; therefore, in the Old Testament, God commanded to celebrate the seventh year as a time of general rest and peace (see: Lev. 25: 3–5). True, in the Old Testament the new year sometimes began in September (and not in March), according to the command of God; but from September, not the years from the creation of the world were counted, but the years of the holiday of general rest and peace, repeated every fifty years, as is narrated in the 25th chapter of the book of Leviticus 23. The Jews carried out, beginning in September, a calculation of the years of rest, repeating every fifty years, and completely independently of this, they also carried out a calculation of the years that had passed since the beginning of the world; this last reckoning began from the month of March, and not from September. And now the Holy Church, under the shadow of New Testament grace, in the month of September commemorates the creation of the world, which began in the month of March; In September, the indictments of Emperor Constantine also began, which marked the beginning of the renewal of humanity, given to them by God with Christian freedom. That in the month of September, the seventh from March, the beginning of our renewal was laid, this is also evident from the fact that the Creator of the world Himself, who rested from His works on the seventh day, renewing His creation, came in the seventh month from March (September) to the Jewish synagogue and read here the prophecy written about Himself - namely, that the Spirit of the Lord is on Me; for He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor, and He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18-19) 24, the time for which came when the fullness of the years of the world, created in the first month - March, was fulfilled. The indictments introduced by the Christian kings and starting from the month of September only remind us of the beginning of the years since the creation of the world; the very beginning of those years was the month of March. Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem The last days of the Lord's earthly life were approaching. The time was approaching when the Only Begotten Son of God, who came into the world to save sinful people, would be given a shameful and painful execution - crucifixion on the cross, as one of the criminals. But before performing this great and saving sacrament for us, the Lord deigned to reveal His Glory for the last time as the Messiah promised by the prophets to the Jewish people, 25 as the King not only of heaven, but also of earth. Not long before this, the Lord performed one of His greatest miracles: He raised Lazarus from the dead, who had already been lying in the tomb for four days. The news of an unprecedented miracle performed in Bethany 26 spread throughout the surrounding area of ​​​​Jerusalem. Everyone wanted to see the great Wonderworker and Lazarus resurrected by Him. As if responding to the desires of the people, the Lord set out to go to Jerusalem. Having learned about this, the whole people began to move; many, out of impatience to see the great Wonderworker as soon as possible, left the city to meet the Savior. The Lord and his disciples were already approaching Jerusalem. When He came to the village of Bethphage 27, located near the Mount of Olives, 28 He called two of His disciples and said to them: - Go to the village opposite. When you arrive there, you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Having untied him, bring him to Me. If anyone tells you anything, answer that the Lord commanded so. The disciples went and did everything the Lord said. Having brought a young donkey, they threw their clothes over it, and the Lord sat on top of them 29 . When countless crowds of people, who so passionately longed to see the Lord, finally saw Him, they joyfully exclaimed: – Hosanna 30 To the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! General delight intensified as the Lord approached Jerusalem. Now the solemn, slowly marching procession approached the last hill, from which it was necessary to descend down to Jerusalem itself. Jerusalem presented a beautiful sight from here: right before our eyes towered the majestic Temple of Jerusalem with its dazzling white marble columns and its golden dome, which reflected the hot rays of the southern sun with a thousand lightning bolts. But next to the church stood the huge tower of the Antonieva fortress 31, dominating the height of the church and, as it were, visually expressing the humiliation that the Jewish people suffered under the Roman yoke. Immediately the praetorium of Pilate was revealed to the eyes, where the Greatest Righteous One would soon be taken to the unjust trial. The palaces of the high priests seemed somewhat distant from the church, as if as a sign of the spiritual distance of their inhabitants from the God of their fathers. The palaces of David 32 and Solomon 33 have now turned into ruins, barely noticeable among the many other new buildings. Among all these impressions, each of which brought to mind in the heart of the Jew both the once former ancient glory and the present humiliation of the fatherland, the eyes of each and every one somehow involuntarily turned to Jesus of Nazareth 34, who now, walking on a donkey, seemed to bring to Jerusalem its former holy greatness. In joyful delight, looking at Jesus, many took off their outer garments and spread them along the procession path; others cut branches from the abundance of growing date palms 35 and covered the path with them; others held them in their hands or solemnly shook them in the air. - Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! - was heard incessantly from all sides. Thus, Jerusalem met its King, the Messiah, with triumph and jubilation. Thus, what was predicted in ancient times by the prophet Zechariah 36 came true: rejoice with joy, daughter of Zion, triumph, daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and saving, meek, sitting on a donkey and on the colt of a donkey, the son of the yoke (Zechariah 9:9). But despite this joy and rejoicing of the people, there was deep sorrow in the soul of the Lord. He grieved because the Jewish people did not want to know the hour of their visit. He knew that the very people who met Him today with such triumph and jubilation, crying out to Him: “Hosanna, Son of David!” - in a few days they will furiously cry out: “Crucify, crucify Him!” “He foresaw the imminent destruction of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. His holy eyes now clearly saw how the walls of this glorious city were crumbling, how hundreds of thousands of now rejoicing Jews were perishing from the enemy’s sword, and all Israel, like dust blown by the wind, was scattered across the entire face of the earth. Having already completely approached Jerusalem and looking at it again, the Lord burst into tears and said: - Oh, if only on this day you knew what serves for your peace! But this is now hidden from your eyes!.. The days will come when your enemies will surround you, entrench you on all sides and squeeze you from everywhere; They will beat your children and ruin you, so that they will not leave one stone upon another in you - and they will do all this because you did not know the time of your visit! The Lord's solemn journey ended near the church. Following this, the Lord went to the church to teach the people. Noticing merchants and money changers here who had turned the house of God into a house of trade, the Lord expelled them from the church and menacingly remarked to them: – My house is a house of prayer. You made it a den of robbers! Those who were crippled, lame and blind in the church and near the church came to the Lord, and He healed them all. The young children who surrounded the Lord in the church, having seen such miracles, could not remain silent, but with a general joyful feeling they exclaimed: Scribes 37 and Pharisees 38, these stern guardians of ritual legality, with gloomy minds and cold hearts, who were unfamiliar with the artless joy of simple souls, and this time darkened the triumph. They approached the Lord and reproachfully said to Him: – Do you hear what they say? – What do you find surprising in that? Haven't you read in the Scriptures: From the mouths of babes and sucklings You have ordained praise (Ps. 8:3). Leaving them, the Lord went to Bethany, where he spent the night. This is how the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem took place. This event had a deeply instructive meaning and significance both for the Lord’s contemporaries themselves and for us – Christians, despite the fact that we are separated by two whole millennia from the moment when the glorious King of Israel triumphantly entered Jerusalem. For the Lord's contemporaries, the Lord's entry was instructive because the Lord revealed Himself upon entering Jerusalem as the Messiah, as the glorious King of Israel. Until now, the Lord has not yet spoken completely openly. He preached and taught constantly, on every occasion and at every opportunity, but he preached and taught, apparently, as one of many, as a rabbi, as a national teacher of the law. True, many of the Lord’s listeners felt that His teaching was somehow special, unlike the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees, a holy, sublime teaching, and they subordinated their hearts to this teaching. Moreover, the numerous miracles performed by the Lord so many times told the hearts of all His followers that Jesus of Nazareth was not an ordinary man, but a great Wonderworker, the Son of God. But still, many still needed open public testimony that Jesus of Nazareth was truly the Son of God, truly the promised Messiah. Such a testimony was offered to everyone at the entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, when thousands of people exclaimed: Having declared himself the King of Israel, the Lord at the same time pointed out an essential feature of His Kingdom - its spiritual character. Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and saving, meek (Zechariah 9:9), said the ancient prophet. And indeed, the entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, with all its majesty, was filled with meekness and humility. The Lord does not enter Jerusalem on a chariot, and spearmen do not accompany Him. He deigned to sit on a donkey, covered with the poor clothes of his disciples. Do we need an even greater lesson in humility when we see that the King of kings and Lord of lords (Tim. 6:15), seated on cherubim (Ps. 98:1), now sits on a colt, in fulfillment of ancient prophecy? The King of Israel will not come to Jerusalem in order to reign on the earthly throne and enrich the people with earthly goods. No, it is the meek and saving King who is coming (Zechariah 9:9), this King brings with Him spiritual salvation and eternal peace. Thus, having declared Himself the King of Israel, the Lord at the same time warned the Jews that His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36) and that, therefore, all the dreams of the Jews about the sensual kingdom of the earth should be abandoned. The entry of the Lord into Jerusalem is no less instructive for us in its symbolic (prototypical) meaning. Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus 39 indicates the following symbolic meaning of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem: “Who does the colt mean? he asks. - An unbridled pagan people, on whom no one sat, that is, neither law, nor fear, nor an Angel, nor a prophet, nor Scripture, but only One God - the Word, Who in Bethlehem reclined in the same manger with the dumb, so that, having freed us from dumbness, He would teach the knowledge of God. What does the abandonment of a donkey mean? – Liberation from idolatry and the cessation of idolatry sacrifices... In commemoration of what did the children spread their clothes? – To commemorate the putting off of the old man, the stripping and devastation of the synagogue. Who did the singing children mean? – Without a doubt, the faithful people of the Church, the generation of Christ. What did the Lord's descent from the Mount of Olives signify? – Nothing other than the descent of God the Word from heaven to us. To whom do the branches of the olive tree foretell? - For merciful souls; the road marks the path on which virtuous deeds are acquired, stripping us of the old man. What do date branches represent? – The pure souls of the righteous, who prosper like dates and like cedars in Lebanon 40 are planted in the house of the Lord; They also signify victory over the devil and hell and freedom from their power, which the Victorious Christ will bring. Who did the predecessors mean? - The righteous prophets, and those who walked behind were the apostles and the pagans who believed after them; the city signified Jerusalem above, and the sanctuary signified the Kingdom of Heaven, from which Christ expelled the Jews as unworthy.” And now, almost two thousand years after the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem took place, we Christians, with green willow branches and candles, stand before the Lord in churches and in a joyful feeling we cry out to the “Conqueror of Death” 41: – Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! But for us, just as for the ancient Jews, vai are not a simple decoration, not a simple accessory to a celebration, but a sign of the victory of Jesus Christ over death and the kingdom of darkness. The candles we hold in our hands along with the fronds signify for us the unflickering light of our blessed resurrection in eternal life. So instructive and significant, both for Christ’s contemporaries and for us, is the event of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey 42 . The next day, the Lord from Bethany, where he spent the night, again went to Jerusalem. On the way, He became hungry and, seeing a fig tree from afar, approached it to eat its fruit. The fig tree was barren; there was nothing on it but leaves. Then the Lord, turning to the fig tree, said: - May there be no fruit from you forever. And immediately the fig tree withered. Seeing this, the disciples were surprised and said to the Lord: “How could it happen that the fig tree would dry up immediately?” The Lord said to them in response to this: “If you have faith, firm and unshakable, free from any doubt, you will do not only what I did with the fig tree, but much more: if you say to this mountain: “Move from your place and be cast into the sea,” then your word will be fulfilled. If your faith is strong, then whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive. Then again, according to His custom, the Lord went to the church, where he taught the people. The chief priests and elders of the people, out of envy of the Lord, approached Him and asked Him: - By what authority are you doing this? Who gave You such power? The Lord answered them: – I’ll ask you about one thing; If you tell Me about this, then I will tell you by what authority I do this. Tell me: where did the baptism of John come from - from heaven or from people? The high priests and elders reasoned with themselves like this: “If we answer from heaven, then He will tell us: why didn’t you believe him? But if we say – from the people, then we will incite the people against us, because they regard John the Baptist as a prophet.” In response to this, the Lord said to them: – And I won’t tell you by what authority I am doing this. Then the Lord began to denounce the unbelief and hard-heartedness of the high priests, scribes and Pharisees and said to them: “Truly I tell you that publicans and sinners are going ahead of you into the Kingdom of God.” Behold, John (the Baptist) has come to you, leading a righteous life. He told you that the Messiah the Deliverer would soon come, He called you to repentance, but you did not listen to him. The publicans and sinners listened to him and believed him. You saw this, but even having seen it, you did not repent, but remained with your unbelief and hardness of heart. After that, the Lord offered them this parable: “A certain householder had a vineyard. He carefully looked after it and processed it: he surrounded it with a fence, dug a sharpener in it, and built a tower. Then, having handed him over to the hands of the winegrowers, the householder left for another country. When the time for harvesting approached, the owner of the vineyard sent his servants to the tenants to take from them the fruits of the vineyard. But the winegrowers not only did not give fruit to the sent ones, but, having seized the sent ones, some of them were severely beaten, and others were completely killed. Then the owner of the vineyard sent even more servants to the winegrowers. But the same was done to them. Finally, the owner of the vineyard sent his son to the vinedressers, saying to himself: “Perhaps they will be ashamed of my son.” But the vinedressers, seeing the son of the owner of the vineyard, said: - This is the heir. Let's go, kill him and take possession of all his inheritance. And they seized him, took him out of the vineyard and killed him.” Having told this parable, the Lord turned to the scribes and Pharisees with a question: “What will the owner of the vineyard do with these hard-hearted winegrowers?” – These evil winegrowers He will put to an evil death; He will give the vineyard to other winegrowers, who will gather the fruits of the vineyard in their own season. - Yes, that’s right what you said. Behold, this is exactly what will happen to you: the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to another people, who will bear the fruits of this Kingdom. Hearing this, the high priests, scribes and Pharisees understood that with this parable the Lord was rebuking them for their unbelief in His preaching and their hardness of heart. Unable to bear the accusations, they already wanted to seize the Lord in order to lead Him to the judges, but they were afraid to do this now, not wanting to irritate the people who revered the Lord as a great prophet. Not daring to take the Lord by force, the Pharisees moved away from Him and began to consult how to catch the Lord in words. For this purpose, they sent their disciples to the Lord along with the Herodians, 43 who said to the Lord: - Teacher! We know that You are a just man and teach the true way of God, not caring about pleasing people. Tell us: should taxes be paid to Caesar or not? But the Lord, knowing their wickedness, said to them: “Why are you tempting Me, you hypocrites?” Show Me the coin that is used to pay the tax. They brought Him a denarius. The Lord asked them, pointing to the coin: – Whose image and inscription is this? – This is the image and inscription of Caesar. “Render then what is Caesar’s to Caesar’s, and what is God’s to God.” Hearing this, the lawyers did not know what to object to the Lord, and they departed from Him. On the same day, the Sadducees 44, who denied the resurrection of the dead, came to the Lord and said to the Lord: - Teacher! Moses (see: Deut.25:5) said that if someone dies without having children, then let his brother take his wife and restore seed to his brother 45. We had seven brothers. The first, having married, died and, having no children, left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened with all the other brothers. Then their wife died too. On the resurrection of the dead, whose wife will she be? The Lord answered them: “You are sorely mistaken, because you know neither Scripture nor the power of God.” In the resurrection they do not marry or be given in marriage, but remain like the Angels of God in heaven. About the fact that there will be a resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read what God said in Scripture: I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Ex. 3:6). God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. After this, the Sadducees retreated from the Lord in shame. One lawyer, tempting the Lord, turned to Him with a question: - Teacher! What is the greatest commandment in the Law? – Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37). This is the first and greatest commandment. Another, similar to it, reads like this: love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39). The entire Law and the Prophets are based on these two commandments. When the Pharisees and scribes gathered again, the Lord asked them: – What do you think about Christ? Whose Son is He? The Lord asked them again: - How does David call Him Lord when he says: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool (Ps. 109:1). So, if David himself calls Him Lord, then how is He his son? But the scribes and Pharisees did not find it possible to answer these words of the Lord and left the Lord. The days of the Lord's suffering on the cross were approaching. Wanting to prepare His disciples for His departure from this world and to accustom them to constant vigilance over themselves, the Lord one day offered them the following parable: “The kingdom of heaven,” He said, “is like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.” Of these there were five wise and five foolish. The foolish ones took their lamps and took no oil with them. The wise took oil in vessels along with their lamps. Since the groom slowed down, they all dozed off and fell asleep. Suddenly at midnight a cry was heard: - The groom is coming, go out to meet him! The wise virgins arose and prepared their lamps; The foolish said to the wise: “Give us oil from your lamps, because our lamps are going out.” But the wise virgins answered them: - So that there is no shortage for both us and you, you better go to the sellers and buy oil from them. But while the foolish virgins went to buy oil, the groom came. The wise virgins entered with him to the wedding, and the doors of the bridal chamber were shut. After some time, other virgins come and say: “So,” the Lord concluded this parable, “keep watch, because you do not know either the day or the hour in which the Son of Man will come.” The Lord offered another similar parable to His disciples: “The Son of Man,” said the Lord, “at His second coming will act like a man who, going to a distant country, called his slaves to him and entrusted them with his property. He gave one of the slaves five talents, another two, another one - each according to his strength and abilities, and set off from that country. The one who received five talents used them in business and acquired five other talents with them. The one who received two talents did the same and acquired two more talents. The one who received one talent did not put it into circulation, but buried it in the ground. After quite a long time, the master of those slaves comes and demands an account from them. The one who received five talents came up to him and said: - Master! You gave me five talents. Here are the other five talents I acquired with them. His master answered him: - Okay, good and faithful slave! You were faithful to me in small things. Now I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master! The second slave did the same. And his master praised this. Then the third servant, who received only one talent, comes up and says: - Master! I knew that you are a cruel man, because you reap where you did not sow and gather where you did not scatter, and, fearing you, I hid my talent in the ground. Now I give it back to you. - Evil and lazy slave! If you knew that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter, then should you not have given my silver to the merchants, so that when I came, I would receive mine with a profit? Let this talent be taken from you and given to the one who has ten talents, for to everyone who has more will be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. Let the worthless slave be thrown into utter darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Having finished the parable, the Lord cried out loudly: - He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Having reminded His listeners of the obligation to constantly be awake in spirit, so as not to fall into sin, and to actively use the powers and abilities given by God, so as not to be irresponsible at the terrible judgment of God, the Lord further depicted this very judgment. “When the Son of Man comes,” He said, “and all the holy Angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His Glory. All nations will be gathered before Him. Having separated one from the other, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, He will place the sheep on the right side and the goats on the left and say first: - Come, you blessed of My Father! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger and you accepted Me; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. The righteous will answer Him: - Lord! When did we see You hungry and feed You? Or did they give drink to the thirsty? When did we see You as a stranger and accept You? Or naked and clothed? When did we see You sick or in prison and came to You? But the Judge will answer them: “Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of My brothers, you did it to Me.” To those on the left He will say: “Depart from Me, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels!” For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and they did not accept Me; I was naked, and they did not clothe Me; I was sick and in prison, and they did not visit Me. Then they will say in response: - Lord! When did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not serve You? But the Lord will answer them: “Truly I say to you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of My brothers, you did not do it to Me. And they go,” the Lord concluded, “into eternal torment, but the righteous go into eternal life.” Then the Lord turned to His disciples and said to them: - Know that in two days there will be Easter, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified. At this time, the high priests, scribes and elders of the people had already gathered secretly and decided to take the Lord by cunning and kill Him, setting a time for this before the holiday, so as not to disturb the people, who flocked to Jerusalem for the Easter holiday in very large numbers from all over Palestine. The next day the Lord went to Bethany, to the house of Simon the leper. Here one woman, a sinner, approached the Lord with an alabaster vessel of precious myrrh and poured this ointment on the head of the Lord. Seeing this, some of the disciples said: – Why such a big waste of money? It would be possible to sell this ointment and give the proceeds to the poor. - Why are you embarrassing a woman? She did a good deed for Me, for you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me. Having poured myrrh on My body, she prepared Me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached, what this woman did will also be told. The Pharisees, priests, scribes and elders had long hated Jesus for his constant denunciations. He revealed to the people their hypocrisy, their hypocrisy, their moral insignificance. His last fiery speech directed against them brought their hatred to the final limit 46. They could not fight with Jesus openly, entering into a dispute with Him in front of the people, for He always defeated them with His divine word. But they also could not tolerate His preaching any longer: it could take away from them power, the respect of the people, and property security. A council was held in the palace of Caiaphas, at which they decided to get rid of Jesus by killing Him. They wanted to save themselves from the truth by crime! However, they were afraid of the people: Jesus was loved by the people, and His violent death could cause outrage against the murderers. Therefore, it was decided to carry out the plan secretly, by cunning. Unexpected help came from where it was least expected: one of Jesus’ disciples agreed to betray Him. It was Judas. He agreed to show them when and where it would be possible to find Jesus alone, in the absence of the people, and to seize Him without fear of popular indignation 47 . Judas was the only Jew among all the apostles. All the rest were Galileans. This, of course, put him to a certain extent in an isolated position and alienated him from the rest of the students. His character was apparently closed, secretive and stern. He was called “Judas of Kerioth,” apparently based on his place of birth: he came from a small Jewish town 48 . But at the same time, in the Hebrew language it turned out to be a kind of play on words. “From Kerioth” at the same time meant “evil man”; and this nickname was all the more noticeable because among the disciples of Christ there was another Judas, to whom his fellow disciples gave him the nickname Levway, that is, a good man, “soul-man.” Such nicknames, added to the name, were the custom of the Jews and often wittily and subtly characterized their bearer. All this gives reason to think that Judas did not enjoy the favor of the other disciples and stayed somewhat aloof. The sons of Zebedee, John and James, especially did not like him. This is directly evident from the indignation with which Saint John always mentions him. The latter was Christ’s favorite disciple, and this should have aroused burning jealousy in the closed and self-loving soul of Judas. This man nurtured all his thoughts and feelings alone, without sharing with anyone; and this gave all his experiences a special depth and poignancy. Like most Jews, deep down in his soul he loved brilliance, pomp, and power, but he knew how to endure hardships and suffer for the sake of domination and primacy in the future. Part of his love for power and primacy was satisfied when Christ assigned him to guard the treasury of the first Christian community. But in the future he counted, of course, on more. He remembered the words of his Teacher: “the last will be first,” and built selfish hopes on them; let them now wander homeless and unrecognized, but then they will receive first places in the coming kingdom of the Messiah. Like a true Jew, he was full of messianic hopes. He considered his people chosen and destined for the kingdom. Let him now suffer under the Roman yoke and be in the position of slaves, but soon the Messiah, predicted by the prophets, will appear, overthrow the yoke of the pagans and sit on the throne of eternal glory, and this unfading glory will be the glory of all the chosen Israeli people. Judas believed that Jesus was just such a Messiah. After all, he cast out demons, stopped the raging sea, performed miraculous healings; He foretold the coming kingdom. Undoubtedly, in this kingdom the best, first places will go to His disciples, who shared with Him all the hardships, who went with Him along the entire thorny path from obscurity to glory and power. For the sake of this splendor and dominion in the future, in order to be one of the first disciples of the Messiah and with him to lead the Israeli people to power, for this sake it was worth enduring painful humility and the hard lot of homeless wanderers in the present. Judas was truly a greedy man, as he is usually called, but rather in the moral sense of the word. There is not only petty, vulgar, everyday greed, which encourages accumulation for the sake of worldly contentment and satiety, there is also moral greed, the greed of strong, but spiritually greedy natures: it can lead to abstinence, to work, even to a virtuous life, to exploits - but all this for the sake of future rewards and honors. It was in this sense that Judas was deeply self-interested: he acted for the sake of a future reward when he followed Christ, and this seemed completely natural to him, coinciding with all his beliefs. It is difficult to imagine the soul of a petty trader 49 or an inveterate villain in the one whom Jesus chose as one of His closest disciples, who shared life with Him, who traveled with Him through cities and villages, who refused for His sake ties with their homeland and family. If he had been devoted to petty worldly greed, he would have left Jesus long ago and would have found a more profitable occupation for himself than a beggarly wandering life: if he had been an inveterate villain, he would not have repented after his crime and would not have returned the money. The suicide of Judas reveals in him a deep shock of conscience and the despair of complete unbelief, and such states are not experienced by ordinary petty or hopelessly criminal people. What reasons could have prompted Judas to commit betrayal? This very betrayal and all the behavior with which it was accompanied reveal in Judas an unshakable hatred of Christ. He acted without any regret, quickly and confidently. The meek words of Christ did not shake his decision at all. He behaved impudently towards the Teacher when Mary anointed His feet with the precious composition: he tried to convict Him of contradiction; no less boldly he asked Him about the betrayal at the Last Supper: “Isn’t it me, Rabbi?” Finally, he betrayed Him with cold contempt and evil mockery. All this leaves no doubt that Judas has lost all respect and love for his Teacher; complete disappointment and hatred replaced the previous feelings. He could lose respect and love, of course, only by losing faith in Him. Only a complete loss of faith in Christ as the Messiah gives us the opportunity to understand the act of Judas, as earlier this same faith explained why he followed Him. For some time now, Judas began to notice that the actions of Christ did not at all correspond to his messianic hopes. His teachings were too gentle; He cared too little about the upcoming accession to the throne and the overthrow of the Roman yoke. Finally, His sad predictions were added here, completely incompatible with the idea of ​​a reigning Messiah. The miracles He performed were mostly healings, but to gain power over the people, brighter signs were needed that would show everyone that He was the true Messiah. Once the doubt arose grew and quickly turned into complete disbelief. The whole life of Jesus and all His words, upon closer examination, proved to Judas that He was completely different from the Messiah whom he wanted to see in Him. And this was true, for the kingdom of Christ is a kingdom “not of this world,” and Judas desired and expected precisely a worldly kingdom. Then his Teacher appeared to him as a false prophet, a false messiah, and he hated Him. He considered himself deceived and decided to take revenge. As a Jew, he was vindictive and unforgiving. False prophets were subject to death, and he decided to betray Jesus. He knew that the Jewish priests hated Jesus, and he thought that the truth was on their side. The approaching Easter holiday awakened a religious feeling in him. He felt his unity with the Jewish people and was afraid that he was a traitor. If he now betrays Jesus, Judas thought, then he will take revenge on Him for his deception and, by delivering Him according to the law into the hands of the priests, as a false prophet, he will thereby relieve himself of guilt and return to the bosom of Judaism. After all, if Christ is not the Messiah, then those who persecute Him are quite right. Such thoughts led Judas to the enemies of Christ and forced him to act in concert with them. The Jews were happy and gave him money. He accepted this as a just reward; he felt they were completely right. They gave him a paltry sum of thirty shekels (twenty rubles in our money), the usual price of a slave, 50. On Thursday morning the disciples asked Jesus: – Where do you want Easter to be prepared for you? 51 He sent Peter and John to Jerusalem and gave them a mysterious commission: at the entrance to the city gates they will meet a man carrying a vessel of water; They must follow him and, turning to the owner of the house where this man will enter, entrust him with the Teacher’s intention to eat Easter with his disciples. All this was accomplished. The apostles were provided with an upper room with a table and places to recline. It is unknown who owned that house. Some indicate that Joseph of Arimathea, and others - John Mark. In the evening, Jesus and his disciples came from Bethany to the place designated for the supper 52. In the East, at meals they usually reclined on cushions around a low table made of brightly painted wood. The place in the middle of the table was considered honorable. Jesus took over. It seemed quite natural to the apostles that their Teacher took first place, but then the question involuntarily arose: who should recline next to Him, which of them is closer to the Teacher, who is greater? Similar disputes about primacy had already taken place among Jesus' disciples; Perhaps now such a dispute served as the occasion for that act of Christ, which will forever be preserved in His teaching, as a living parable, as a feat of love and humility. The Teacher washed the feet of His disciples (John 13:1–20) 53. He did what was usually assigned to the last slave, as a burdensome and despicable duty. He washed off the dirt and dried his feet with a towel. Simon Peter was confused: - Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him meekly: “You don’t know what I’m doing now, but you will understand later.” But the impetuous, fiery disciple could not allow the Son of God, the king of Israel, the One who owns the words of eternal life, to wash the feet of His disciple like a servant; he saw it as humiliation. “You will never wash my feet!” - he exclaimed. “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me,” answered Jesus. - Lord, not only my legs, but also my arms and head! It seemed so terrible to him to “not have a part” with the One to whom he was devoted with all his soul. But Jesus answered: “The one who has been washed only needs to wash his feet, because he is all clean; you are clean, but not all. Saint John interprets these last words as an allusion to Judas: “He knew His betrayer, that’s why he said: you are not all clean.” Then Jesus Himself, in a few words, explained to the apostles the meaning of His action: – You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say it correctly; for I am exactly that. So, if I, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, then you should wash each other’s feet. Every act, every word of Christ can be viewed from two sides: on the one hand, it is a historical fact, an event that occurred in Judea during the reign of Herod and witnessed by the evangelists, on the other hand, it is an eternal symbol preserved in the Christian Church, which more and more reveals its meaning; from this point of view, His words and actions are a chain of immortal thoughts and images that reveal to us the way, the truth and the life. The washing of feet performed by Him at the evening showed what a Teacher is in the spirit of Christ. This is not a proud leader leading in his own name, not a high priest around whom humble servants crowd, no, this is a humble servant of his disciples, not seeking primacy on earth, pomp or worship. He cleanses his disciples from the dust of the earth, from the dirt of sin that sticks to their feet, for they walk in the world, but he “lies all in evil.” He who must wash the souls of people should not be afraid of this filth, this sin; he should not fearfully avert his gaze for fear of seeing and touching uncleanness. Christ did not avoid sinners; they were closer to Him than the self-satisfied righteous. Among those whose feet Jesus washed was Judas. He did not waver in his plan. Perhaps his bitterness even increased. Judas did not penetrate into the meek spirit of the teachings of Christ and was now even more confirmed in his conviction that Christ is not the true Messiah. The true Messiah, he thought, would not humiliate himself by performing the duties of a slave, he would not wash the feet of his disciples, but majestically and proudly, like a king, would lead them to the brilliant feat of liberating the Jewish people. And Judas’ hatred of the Teacher increased. His decision was finally solidified. Such a mood of the student, of course, could not hide from the discerning gaze of the Teacher; Jesus was "troubled in spirit" and said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.” The disciples were deeply shocked by these words. Conscience spoke in everyone. Everyone remembered those moments when his faith weakened, when selfishness, pride, and mistrust awoke. - Isn’t it me, Lord? - they said in embarrassment. They were filled with remorse and severity towards themselves and were far from condemning. No one asked Jesus: “Isn’t this him, Lord?”, pointing to any of his companions. Peter, wanting to find out quickly in order to prevent betrayal, made a sign to John, who was reclining next to Jesus, and he quietly asked the Teacher: - The one to whom I dip a piece of bread and serve it. And, having dipped a piece, he gave it to Judas Simonov, Iscariot. Such an act did not arouse attention, since it was consistent with custom 54. Then Jesus spoke these words publicly: “The Son of Man comes, as it is written about Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is given over; it would have been better for that man not to have been born.” And these amazing words did not destroy Judas’ plan. He hypocritically and impudently asked Christ along with others: “Isn’t it me, Rabbi?” - and received a definite answer: “You said!”, that is, “Yes!” Judas could no longer be present, especially since Jesus added: -What are you doing, do it quickly! All he could do was leave. The decision has finally come. Judas left. It was already night. Christ took the bread, blessed it, broke it and, distributing it to the disciples, said: 55 - Take it, eat it; this is My Body. And taking the cup, and giving thanks, he gave it to them, and said: - Drink from it, all of you, for this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins 56 . Do this in My remembrance. But I tell you that from now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink new wine with you in the kingdom of My Father. This is how Christ established the main Christian sacrament of communion. Then He addressed the disciples with farewell words, which were preserved for us by the Evangelist John (see: John 13:31; 14:31; 15 and 16; Matthew 26:30–35; Mark 14:26–31; Luke 22:31–32). Jesus knew that Judas had gone away to carry out his treacherous design; he foresaw the approach of a suffering end and understood that the moment was coming when fulfilling the will of the Father would lead to torment and death; The Son of Man will not retreat and will glorify the Father with His redemptive feat. “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” If God was glorified in Him, then God will glorify Him in Himself, and will soon glorify Him. “Children,” he continued, looking lovingly at His disciples, “I won’t be with you for long.” You will seek Me, and just as I told the Jews that where I go you cannot come, so I tell you now. Like a father at the last separation from his children, He gives them his last testament. He reminds them of the main thing that He taught on earth, instills in them that all-conquering force that attracts hearts: – I give you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, let you also love one another. Therefore they will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another 57 . The disciples felt that the Teacher was saying goodbye to them, and they were embarrassed and saddened. Jesus understood this and therefore said: - Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God and believe in Me. Bepa must save and strengthen them in the coming trials. When He is with the Father in heaven, they will remain here on earth and, following His example, will do the will of the Father. “In My Father’s house,” he says, “there are many mansions.” The whole world, visible and invisible, is the “house of the Father,” where His will should reign “in heaven and on earth.” He leaves them on earth, and He Himself “goes to prepare a place for them.” The place has already been prepared from time immemorial, so “preparing the place” here has the meaning of indicating the path to the eternal abodes of the Father, a path lost by humanity. “When I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.” From the further words of this conversation, it is clear that Jesus is talking here about His spiritual coming to the disciples, about the sending down of the Holy Spirit on them, Who will lead them along the path of Truth in the abode of eternal life. “And where I am going, you know, and you know the way,” Jesus adds, speaking about all His teachings taught to the apostles. But Thomas wants a more precise and definite indication: - Lord, we don’t know where you’re going; and how can we know the way? – I am the way, the truth and the life! No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you knew Me, you would also know My Father. And from now on you know Him and have seen Him. In these words of Christ, the meaning of everything previous is immediately revealed, His words about “preparing the place”, about the “way”. Now he says quite clearly: “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” If there were no Son, then it would be impossible to know the true path, it would be impossible to achieve the abodes of eternal life. But now the path is indicated and the abodes are open: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” From now on the disciples “know the Father.” - God! Show us the Father, and that is enough for us. He asks for a sign, wants a brilliant epiphany, a miracle, so that he can immediately be forced to believe. In these words he expresses the eternal doubts of the human sensory mind, which seeks God in space, and, surveying heaven and earth, says: “Where is He?” Jesus replies reproachfully: – I’ve been with you for so long, and you don’t know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; How can you say: show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak from Myself; The Father abiding in Me, He does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me; but if not so, then believe Me by the very works. Christ reminds us here that God the Father is invisible, like a spirit; but the Son of God, the incarnation of God in man, sees and reveals His Divinity in those “verbs of eternal life” that he taught to his disciples and in the deeds that he did. These words and deeds come from the Father and show the way to Him. This is the only possible way for a person to contemplate God: “he who has seen Me has seen the Father.” “Truly, truly, I say to you,” Jesus continues, “he who believes in Me, the works that I do will he do also, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to My Father.” The believer will do such things not because of his superiority before Christ, but because Christ will accomplish the feat of redemption of the human race, unite with the Father and send down the Holy Spirit, by whose power he will do even greater things through His disciples. “If you ask the Father anything in My name, I will do it, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Here Christ gives His followers a comforting hope that their requests addressed to God will be fulfilled. Not everyone, of course: you cannot ask for something that is contrary to the spirit of Christ’s teaching. He talks about those requests that can be made “in the name of Christ,” which lead to the triumph of truth and goodness, to the fact that “the Father is glorified in the Son.” “If you love Me, keep My commandments,” He continues, “and I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him and does not know Him, but you know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you.” Christ promises the disciples that in return for His temporary, bodily presence with them, they will be filled with the Spirit of Truth, which gives them eternal consolation. If they believe in the Son, love Him and fulfill His commandments, then the Spirit of truth will be with them forever, Who will give them courage and strength. This Spirit dwells and operates within the faithful. The world, that is, the sinful human race, not yet filled with the Spirit of truth, cannot somehow immediately see Him and perceive Him from the outside; he, this race, must follow the same path as was indicated to the apostles in the words: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The Spirit of truth already dwells in the apostles, for they know the teachings of Christ and follow it, but the world remains alien to this Spirit and does not yet accept it. - I will not leave you orphans; I'll come to you. A little more and the World will no longer see Me; and you will see Me; for I live, and you will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, he loves Me; and whoever loves Me will be loved by My Father; and I will love him and appear to him Myself. This is not about the second coming of Christ as a Judge, nor about a temporary appearance to His disciples after the resurrection; This speaks of the eternal presence of Christ in His Church, in the community of believers. That is why it is said, “I will not leave you orphans.” For the world it will seem that He has died and disappeared, but for them, for His Church, He will live and give them eternal life. The Church will be filled with the Spirit of God, and then His words will become clear: “I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” One of Christ's disciples, Judas (not Iscariot), asks: - Lord, why do you want to reveal yourself to us and not to the world? He imagines Jesus as the Messiah, who must reveal Himself to the world by a brilliant miracle. Jesus answers and explains what kind of appearance He was talking about to His believers and under what conditions it is possible: “Whoever loves Me will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to Him, and make our abode with Him. This is the sense in which He said earlier, “I will appear to him (that is, to the believer) Himself.” “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; the word that you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.” I told you this while I was with you. The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I have told you. Saying goodbye to his disciples, Christ promises them peace of mind, the peace that He Himself found by fulfilling the will of the Father: – Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. With his last words, Jesus indicates that this peace, this clear tranquility of spirit is something completely different from the prosperity, from the tranquility with which the world is content. The latter consists of carefree enjoyment of earthly blessings, which only lulls the conscience, but does not save it from painful questions and discord. The peace that He gives is inner peace, the reconciliation of the soul with God, not disturbed by any external dangers. Anticipating the horror and confusion that would engulf the disciples when they saw His suffering and death, He warns them: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” You have heard that I said to you: I am leaving you and will come to you. If you loved Me, you would rejoice that I said: I go to the Father, for My Father is greater than Me. And now I told you about it before it happened, so that you might believe when it happens. Christ wants to support the faith of the disciples by predicting the events awaiting them. Mentioning that the Father is “greater than Him,” he speaks of Himself as the Son of Man, speaks of His human beginning, and in relation to the latter recognizes the primacy of the Father. - It is not long for me to speak with you, for the prince of this world comes and has nothing in Me 58 . But so that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded Me, so I do: get up, let’s go from here. Jesus predicts to them that the prince of the world, the prince of sin, is already approaching in the person of his human servants to take the Savior and put Him to death. But this force is only external for Him, it cannot influence His will, as it acts on the will of people through fear or temptation: “the prince of the world has nothing in Him.” He calls the disciples to go with Him towards danger, proving by this that He does not want to deviate from fulfilling the will of the Father. In the subsequent conversation, Christ gives the disciples a symbol, an image of extraordinary beauty and depth, which with a few features immediately clarifies the mystery of the relationship between God, the God-man and the Church. He clearly depicts the previously expressed thought: “I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” Every branch of Me that does not bear fruit He cuts off; and every one that bears fruit he cleanses, that it may bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed through the word that I preached to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it is in the vine, so neither can you unless you are in Me. I am the vine, and you are the branches; He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me he can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in Me will be cast out like a branch and wither; and such branches are collected and thrown into the fire, and they burn. In the most detailed interpretations it is difficult to more fully and accurately express the attitude of Christ towards those who believe in Him than is done here. This divinely simple image allows for limitless development and expansion of the thoughts contained in it. And at the same time, no reasoning will completely exhaust its content, just as no research by natural scientists will completely decompose the living being of a plant into its component parts. Christ gives life to believers, gives them the lush flowering of thoughts and the fruits of deeds, just as a vine gives life to its branches. Fruits are the good deeds of believers in Christ. “Without Me you can do nothing,” He says. Just as fruits bring abundance and joy and give life-giving wine, so the deeds of believers bring happiness and contentment to the World, giving spiritual and physical food to others. But not all branches of the vine live. There are also dead, dry ones; these are those into which the juice of life does not penetrate, nourishing the plant; they have lost contact with the living whole and must dry up. In the same way, in the society of believers, in the Church, there are members who are only externally connected with it, only by name - those who are not imbued with the living spirit of Christ. They will not bear good fruit, but will last a short time, dry up and burn. Jesus calls the Creator of the world a vinedresser. He will be glorified by the lush blossom of the vine and abundant fruits. “If you remain in Me,” He says, “and My words remain in you, then ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” By this will My Father be glorified, if you bear much fruit and become My disciples. Next, Jesus explains to them more precisely what His expression “abide in Me” means. Previously, he compared this abiding in Him to the abiding of branches on a vine. Now He says more clearly: “As the Father has loved Me, and I have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. I have spoken these things to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. Thus, “abiding in Christ,” which is necessary for a believer if he wants divine life, is abiding in Christian love. A person filled with love is joyful. The love that Christ taught and with which He loved His disciples is Divine love and gives “perfect joy,” which is not overshadowed by anything and is not taken away. Having approached the main beginning of His teaching, Christ dwells on it in more detail and says again: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have told you everything that I have heard from My Father. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; so that whatever you ask from the Father in My name, He will give it to you. I command you this, that you love one another. These heartfelt and tender words sink deeply into the human soul. The ideal of love is given here by Christ: “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It is the soul, and not the body, only to be given to the service of others; give all your spiritual gifts, all your powers of mind, feelings and will. This is what Christ Himself did in His earthly life. If His disciples want to be worthily called His friends, then they will do the same: they will lay down their lives for Him. This is what His apostles did. Calling them friends and not slaves, He, however, explains that this is not a relationship of equal to equal, as happens in ordinary friendship, He says: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you so that you should go and bear fruit.” He foresaw that His messengers would encounter hatred and persecution on their way, and warned them: “If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before you.” If you were of the world, then the world would love its own: but since you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you too; If they have kept my word, they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know him who sent Me. If the apostles were “of the world”, if they were worldly people, they would defend worldly interests and the world would consider them theirs; but since Christ took them “from the world”, removed them from the evil with which the world is full, now, having come into the world to preach, they will no longer defend worldly interests, but, on the contrary, will condemn and denounce, calling for repentance, and this will cause the hatred of unbelievers, just as Christ caused it. “A servant is not greater than his master,” and therefore they should not expect an easier path than the one the Lord walked. Next, Jesus speaks of the hatred that kindles in the hearts of unbelievers who see the works of Christ and hear His teaching: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.” He who hates Me also hates My Father. If I had not done among them works that no one else had done, they would not have had sin; but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father. But may the word written in their law be fulfilled: they hated Me without cause (see: glory. Ps. 68:5). Where does this hatred come from among those who see the height of Christ’s teaching and the purity of His deeds and, however, rebel against Him with all the power of malice? It stems from the fact that, recognizing in the depths of their souls the truth of His teaching, they, however, cannot accept it; They cannot because they must then renounce their entire former life, all the earthly blessings that they value. Therefore, wanting to calmly enjoy existing things, they fiercely pursue this teaching, which destroys their peace. It is about such that He says: “And they saw and hated both Me and My Father.” They “have no excuse for their sin.” They hated “and the Father,” for hatred of the Son is hatred of the Father: the earthly life of Jesus Christ represented the perfect fulfillment of the Divine will by man, therefore, whoever hated His activity hated the will of God, the will of the Father. But this hatred will also be exposed at its root and defeated by Christian love, which will conquer the world, by that Holy Spirit, the Comforter, whom Christ promised to His disciples; He will testify to the truth, He will animate the life and preaching of those who were human witnesses of the work of Jesus Christ. “When the Comforter comes,” He says, “Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” And you too will testify, because you were with Me from the beginning. Knowing that this preaching of His teaching will bring persecution upon the apostles, He once again warns them and predicts the future for them, saying: “I told you this so that you would not be tempted.” They will drive you out of the synagogues; the time even comes when everyone who kills you will think that he is serving God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or Me. But I told you this so that when that time comes, you will remember what I told you about it; I didn’t tell you this at first, because I was with you. When He was with the disciples Himself and began to initiate them into His teaching, the prediction of disasters could frighten them, who were not yet strengthened in faith. Now, leaving them, giving them the last instruction, He considers it necessary to find out what a difficult path lies ahead of them, so that they will not be “offended” by fearing disasters. “And now I go to him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me: where are you going?” But because I told you this, your heart was filled with sorrow. Based on these words, it can be assumed that the students, in deep anguish, silently listened to the Teacher’s words, trying to unravel their mysterious meaning. They understood only one thing: separation from Him was coming. Twice they decided to turn to Him with a question, and He answered in a way that was not entirely clear to them, as it seemed to them - “in parables.” Now they no longer dared to ask, expecting that He Himself would explain everything. Jesus saw their deep sorrow and again began to console them: “But I tell you the truth: it is better for you that I go; for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; and if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, having come, will convict the world about sin, and about righteousness, and about judgment. About sin - that they do not believe in Me; about the truth - that I am going to My Father and you will no longer see Me; about judgment - that the prince of this world is condemned 59. He says that the divine feat of redemption, His death on the cross, is necessary precisely for them and for the entire human race. Having returned to the bosom of the Father, He will send them the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who will give them the opportunity to reveal Christian truths to the world and defeat the evil of the world. And they themselves, filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, will penetrate deeper into the secrets of His teaching, which is now not yet completely clear to them. – I still have a lot to tell you; but now you cannot contain it. When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth: for He will not speak from Himself, but He will speak what He hears, and He will tell you the future. He will glorify Me, because He will take of Mine and proclaim it to you. All that the Father has is Mine: therefore I said that he will take of Mine and tell it to you. Truth is one; and the Father revealed this truth to the Son, and the Son to His disciples; therefore, the Spirit of truth will not proclaim to them any new teaching, but the same Truth of Christ, and thus will glorify Christ. “Soon you will not see Me,” He says, “and again soon you will see Me, for I am going to the Father.” These words aroused bewilderment among the disciples, and they asked each other what this meant. “Are you asking one another about what I told you: soon you will not see Me, and soon you will see Me again!” He further explains His words to them. Soon they will no longer see Him with their bodily eyes. He will no longer be with them as a man among men. He leaves the world and goes to the Father. But He will send them the Holy Spirit, and then with an enlightened spiritual eye they will see Christ again, and will no longer be separated from Him; He will dwell in His Church forever. In the following figurative and heartfelt words, Christ reveals these thoughts: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sad, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman gives birth, she suffers sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to a baby, she no longer remembers the sorrow for joy, because a man was born into the world. So now you also have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. Further, Christ speaks to them even more clearly about the time when they will be filled with the Holy Spirit and when Christ will spiritually abide with them and with all believers. They will possess the Truth of Christ, so that they will no longer need to ask Him, and the Heavenly Father will fulfill their prayers when they ask in the name of the Son. About this time He says: “And on that day you will not ask Me anything.” Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. Hitherto I have spoken to you in parables, but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in parables, but will tell you directly about the Father. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you: for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and came into the world; and again I leave the world and go to the Father. In the last words, Christ expresses with complete clarity His main idea about the upcoming return to the Father, which He had developed before. Now the students feel complete satisfaction: they understood the Teacher, they completely believe in Him: - Now you speak directly and do not speak any parables. Now we see that You know everything and have no need for anyone to question You. Therefore, we believe that You came from God. - Do you believe now? Behold, the hour is coming, and has already come, that you will scatter, each in his own direction, and leave Me alone; but I am not alone, for the Father is with Me. After this prediction, Christ ends the conversation and in a few words with extraordinary power and depth expresses the main idea of ​​His entire farewell speech, even more so of His entire teaching, His entire earthly sermon. These words led His apostles, all the fighters and martyrs of the Church to the exploits; they will forever remain in the hearts of believers and give them calm, invincible courage. These are the immortal words: “I have spoken these things to you, so that in Me you may have peace.” In the world you will have tribulation; but take heart: I have overcome the world. This is how Christ concludes His last testament on earth, given to his disciples and all believers. Then He turns to the Father in prayer. This prayer, called the “high priestly” prayer, was preserved for us by Saint John (see: John 17). In it, the Lord, as the first priest on earth, as the first shepherd, who laid down His soul for people, prays for His disciples and for His future Church. Along the way, the prayer breaks down into three parts. In the first, Christ speaks about Himself and His relationship to the Father; in the second He prays for the disciples; in the third he prays for all believers, for his entire Church. - Father! The hour has come, glorify Your Son, that Your Son will glorify You! Because You have given him authority over all flesh, that He may give eternal life to all that You have given Him. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the One true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. I glorified You on earth, I accomplished the work that You entrusted Me with. And now glorify Me, O Father, with You, with the glory that I had with You before the world was. In these words, Christ speaks of the mysteries of the incarnation and redemption, of the glorification of the Father through the Son. Before the existence of the world, the Son enjoyed Divine glory with the Father, in complete unity with Him: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” But when the world and man were created, when the sinful human race, seduced by the devil, retreated from the will of the Father and tasted death, then the Son became incarnate into man, rejected the temptations of the devil, fulfilled the will of the Father completely and defeated death. Jesus Christ glorified God the Father on earth, returned humanity to fulfilling the will of the One true God and, thus, gave eternal life to all flesh, showing it the path of salvation from death and sin. This is the work that the Father commissioned Him to do, a work worthy of the glory that He had from the beginning with the Father. Next, Christ prays for His disciples, who will build His Church. Addressing the Father, He says this about His apostles: “I have revealed Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world; They were Yours, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have understood that everything that You have given Me is from You. For the words that You gave Me I delivered to them, and they received and truly understood that I came from You, and they believed that You sent Me. “I pray for them, not for the whole world, but for those whom You have given Me, because they are Yours.” And all that is mine is yours and yours is mine; and I was glorified in them. As can be seen from what follows, this prayer first of all asks that the disciples be preserved on the path of truth and goodness, which they have already entered; but the world has not yet entered this path, therefore Christ does not speak about it here: “I do not pray for the whole world”; these words do not mean that the Savior does not want to pray for the rest of the world; He came for all people and in the same prayer further asks for all peace, saying: “Let the world believe that You sent Me.” But for the world itself, for its salvation, it is important that, first of all, the Father preserves on the true path the first disciples of Christ, who will carry His teaching to all the ends of the earth. “I am no longer in the world,” He continues, “but they are in the world, and I am going to You.” Holy Father! keep them in Your name, those whom You have given Me, so that they may be one, just as We are. When I was with them in Peace, I kept them in Your name; those whom You gave Me I have kept, and none of them perished except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. “Keep in the name of God” means maintaining on the true path of faith and good life. “Now I am coming to You and saying this in the world, so that they may have My complete joy within themselves.” In these words, Christ explains why He said the entire prayer out loud before the disciples: they will remember how He Himself turned to the Father with prayer for them, how He said before the face of God that He had conveyed to them everything that He had received from the Father, and their hearts will be filled with everlasting joy. So are the hearts of all the believers for whom He prayed next. “I gave them Your word,” Christ continues, “and the world hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” I do not pray that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from evil. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them with Your truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And for them I consecrate Myself, so that they too may be sanctified by the truth! He sends His disciples into the world to preach the truth of Christ, just as the Father sent Him into the world to proclaim the truth to people. For them, He sacrifices Himself, dedicates Himself to the divine feat, so that they, too, would lay down their souls for Him. Next, Christ prays not only for His first disciples, but also for all believers, for His entire Church. “I pray not only for them,” He says, “but also for those who believe in Me according to their word: that they may all be one: as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; so may they also be one in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. Christ asks the Father for the complete unity of all believers; such unity would show the world the divinity of that teaching that leads to harmony and peace among people. “And the glory that You gave Me, I have given them: that they may be one, just as We are one.” I am in them and You are in Me; that they may be perfect in one, and that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them as You loved Me. Christ asks the Father that His one Church may shine with divine glory, the same glory with which the God-Man Himself is illuminated by the will of the Father. Then the world will know that God loves those who believe in Him and glorifies them. - Father! Those whom You have given Me, I want them to be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory, which You have given Me, because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father! And the world did not know You; but I have known You, and these have known that You sent Me. And I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them. With these words Christ ended His prayer. He and His disciples left the room. The spring moon illuminated the streets of Jerusalem. It was quiet and deserted. They passed through the city gates and headed towards Gethsemane, which was almost three-quarters of a mile from the city walls. The last words of Jesus instilled in the hearts of the disciples a premonition of something significant and terrible: He had never spoken to them like this before. - You will all be offended because of Me this night; for it is written: I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. But the disciples swore allegiance to him. Peter assured especially ardently: “Even though I had to die with You, I will not renounce You!” In response to these words, Jesus said: “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you do not know Me!” So they reached Gethsemane. Christ was often here. It was a dense garden, overgrown with old spreading olive trees, from which it took its name 60 . The moon shone through the patterns of intertwined branches and illuminated small clearings. A mysterious shadow remained under the centuries-old trunks. Fatigue gripped the students. Jesus left them to rest and, taking with Him his favorite ones - Peter, James and John, he went with them into the depths of the garden. He wanted these, those closest to Him on earth, to stay awake with Him in this anxious, languid hour; stayed awake, understanding the eternal, hidden meaning of what was happening. He Himself wanted to turn in prayer to the Father (Prayer for the Cup in Matthew 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42; Luke 22:40–46; John 18:1–2). – My soul grieves to death; stay here and watch. And, having gone a little way, he fell to the ground and prayed that, if possible, It is possible, His hour has passed. And he said: - Abba, Father! All things are possible for You: carry this cup past Me; but not what I want, but what You want 61. When He returned to the disciples, He found them sleeping. And Peter slept, the same one who swore that he would die for Him. So weak is a person: only for minutes does the strength of the spirit awaken in him, and then he feels capable of exploits, but then the holy fire goes out and the person plunges into everyday sleep, when the spirit is silent and the flesh rests carefree. He does not know when, at what hour, he should most of all be awake, when spiritual feat is needed; Only later, when it is no longer possible to correct it, it is impossible to accomplish a feat, does he understand the depth of everything that happened and finds salvation in only one thing - in repentance. Jesus addressed Peter with reproachful words: “Couldn’t you just watch with Me for one hour?” Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation. The spirit is cheerful; the flesh is weak. Having gone away another time, he prayed, saying: “My Father, if this cup cannot pass from Me, lest I drink it, Thy will be done.” How to understand this prayer of Christ? His sorrow and longing, which the evangelists speak of? His words: May this cup pass from Me? Was it not the fear of death, the fear of suffering? Christ truly possessed a completely human nature; His suffering was not illusory. His human nature could feel an involuntary aversion to death. But, recognizing Christ as a man, we must remember that He is at the same time the God-man, the full embodiment of God in man, and therefore cannot have a human nature worse or weaker than that possessed by the best people, heroes or saints. If the apostles and holy Christian martyrs were not afraid of death and suffering and greeted them joyfully, then how could the God-Man Himself be afraid of this? But you don't even have to be a hero or a saint to not be afraid of death. Any strong passion can drown out the fear of death. It is clear, therefore, that there can be no talk of any fear here. However, Christ suffered and grieved mortally. Sorrow is the destiny of man, not of God. Undoubtedly, His humanity suffered, but not physically, but spiritually: His human soul grieved. This is what he said: – My soul grieves mortally. What was this grief if it was not the fear of death? The near future clearly appeared before His spiritual gaze: unjust reproach and humiliation. Nothing can be more unbearable for a person on earth than the innocent suffering of a righteous person. Job grumbled against God because he did not know why he was suffering. Christ knew that he would suffer precisely for what was great and holy in Him, for the children of darkness would want to extinguish the divine light. That city, that people to whom He brought the commandment of love, tomorrow will burn with hatred of Him and demand His death. Those whom He taught would commit the greatest crime and cover themselves with His blood. His own disciple will betray Him. “The sheep of the flock will be scattered,” for the shepherd will be slain. These few who are faithful to Him will be persecuted just as He was. Can the human soul, even if it were the soul of the God-man, not yearn and grieve, imagining these images of the near future? After all, Christ lived and felt like all people: He was not a ghost of a person. The human nature of Christ could not desire everything that was to come, desire humiliation and spitting for the truth; she could only submit, submit to His Divine nature, bow to the will of the Father. So it was: - My Father! - He said. “If this cup cannot pass from Me, lest I drink it, Thy will be done.” These words, repeated twice, expressed the complete victory of the Divine principle over the human, and the subordination of the latter to the former. Only the God-man could achieve such a complete victory. By his decision, He gave the disciples an eternal example: to do the will of the Father, even if they had to drink the cup of earthly suffering for it. When Jesus approached the disciples for the third time, full of spiritual strength and divinely calm, He found them sleeping again and said: – You are still sleeping and resting; Behold, the hour has come, and the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of sinners. Get up, let's go: behold, the one who betrayed Me has approached. Lantern lights flashed between the tree trunks; the clanking of weapons was heard. It was Judas who led a crowd of high priestly servants and soldiers to capture Jesus. Judas walked ahead. He separated from the crowd and approached Jesus and His disciples. He agreed to indicate through a kiss which of this small group of people was the Teacher Himself. As he approached, he kissed Jesus and said words of greeting: “Judas,” said Christ, “are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” A crowd armed with stakes and swords stood nearby. Obviously they feared that Christ would be defended by His followers, or disciples; and wonderful stories were spread about the very person of Christ, filling the hearts of those who came with mysterious fear and indecision. The disciples who were here with Jesus were confused and undecided. “Lord,” said Peter, “shouldn’t we strike with the sword?” But Jesus stepped forward, took a few steps and came close to the armed crowd. -Who are you looking for? - He asked. “Jesus of Nazareth,” they answered. Unshakable fortitude resounded in these words spoken by an unarmed man. He stood without lowering his gaze, illuminated by the light of the moon and the reflections of the lanterns. And they retreated back and fell to the ground in confusion. Jesus asked again: Who are you looking for? - quite calmly and meekly, as if encouraging those who came to take Him. The answer was the same: “I told you that it is I,” Jesus answered. “So, if you are looking for Me, leave them, let them go,” He said, pointing to the apostles. Little by little the panic of the crowd passed; Jesus was unarmed and surrendered himself into the hands of those who came to take Him. He was surrounded. Peter's ardent heart boiled with indignation, he forgot everything and, risking his life, rushed forward with a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant 62. But Christ stopped his impulse: “Put your sword in its sheath,” He said, “shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave Me?” Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will present to Me more than twelve legions of Angels? The soldiers and ministers tied Jesus up. He, unarmed, was surrounded by this dense crowd with swords and stakes. “It’s as if you came out against a robber with swords and stakes to take Me.” Every day I was with you in the church, and you did not raise your hands against Me: but now is your time and the power of darkness. Then the disciples, seeing that all resistance was useless and that Jesus was being taken away, all fled. Jesus was taken to the high priest's palace. The main leaders of this entire conspiracy lived there: the high priest Caiaphas, and his father-in-law, the former high priest Annas. He was a foreigner taken from Alexandria by Herod the Great. He was loved by the government and hated by the people. The Talmud calls Anna's family "a vile breed." This family was engaged in very successful trade under the porticoes of the church; various sacrificial items were sold there at very significant prices. The intervention of Jesus greatly undermined this commercial enterprise, which the people were already unable to sympathize with. The first interrogation of Jesus was carried out by this Anna (see: Matthew 26:57,59–68; Mark 14:53,55–65; Luke 22:54,63–65; John 18:13; 14:19–24). The death of Jesus was a foregone conclusion, and therefore all interrogations were clearly biased. Annas asked Jesus about His disciples and about His teaching, wanting to find some accusation of illegal and secret teaching. “I spoke openly to the world, I always taught in the synagogue and in the temple, where Jews always meet, but I said nothing secretly.” Why do you ask Me, ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said. Then one of the servants struck Jesus on the cheek, exclaiming in hypocritical indignation: - Is this how you answer the high priest? - If I said something bad, show me what is bad; What if it’s good that you beat Me? Annas, unable to find any definite accusations, sent Jesus to his son-in-law, Caiaphas, who lived in the same palace. Caiaphas was then high priest. He received this title with the permission of the Roman Emperor and was not loved by the people. He was supposed to have a trial of the Jewish priests over Jesus. Josephus says that during the reign of the Romans, the Jews did not have, in essence, a real legal Sanhedrin, or the Supreme Court, but only special incompetent assemblies. Such an assembly, which, as the evangelist says, consisted of priests, scribes and elders and called itself the Sanhedrin, was convened by Caiaphas to judge Jesus. Jesus was brought in. They listened to the accusers who testified against Him. But, obviously, their testimony was so contradictory and unclear that no definite accusation could be built on them. This trial, over which Caiaphas presided, certainly wanted to impose a death sentence. Finally, the accusers came forward and attributed these words to Jesus: “I will destroy this church made with hands and in three days I will erect another, not made with hands.” This accusation was closer to reality than all the others; it represented a distortion of the words actually spoken by Jesus 63 . Jesus stood before the judges and answered all accusations with silence. However, it was impossible to sentence him to death on the basis of the last false testimony. It did not represent any specific guilt: the words “I will destroy this church” seemed incomprehensible; it was impossible to interpret them literally. The judges didn't know what to do. Caiaphas lost his temper. He jumped up and shouted: - Why don’t you answer? Jesus remained silent. Then the high priest decided on a last resort. He approached Jesus and exclaimed in impatient excitement: - I conjure You by the living God, tell us, Are You the Christ, the Son of God? These words sounded surprisingly strange from the lips of the high priest in relation to the bound criminal. If Christ's answer was presented by those present with blasphemy, then how could they not recognize the question itself as more than inappropriate? Christ could no longer remain silent. All future centuries, all generations of mankind were to hear and preserve His words: “I am,” He said, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven (see: Ps. 109:1; Dan. 7:13–14). Caiaphas tore his clothes. - He blasphemes, what more witnesses do we need? Now you have heard His blasphemy: what do you think? - Guilty of death! - they answered. This is how the trial of Jesus ended (see: Matthew 27:1; Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66–71). He was led through the courtyard to a place of temporary detention, where He was placed in custody until daylight. Fires were lit in the courtyard, around which the servants of the high priest, soldiers and slaves warmed themselves. In the East it can be quite cold before dawn. While Jesus was being interrogated and tried, the following happened here. Two apostles, Peter and John, managed to penetrate into the courtyard of the high priest. Together with others, Peter stood and warmed himself by the fire. The doorkeeper, looking suspiciously at this unfamiliar man, asked: – And you were with Jesus the Galilean? Peter was confused among these strangers and hostile people and, embarrassed, answered in the negative. However, they recognized him by his Galilean dialect 64 and continued to pester him with questions. Having once refused, he no longer dared to admit that he was a disciple of Jesus and continued to insist that he did not know Him. At this very time Jesus was being led through the courtyard. He heard the familiar voice of Peter, denying his Teacher, and, turning around, looked at him. And Peter felt all the amazing pain and melancholy of that silent gaze. My heart was breaking with burning shame and remorse; Weeping bitterly, he left the high priest's palace and heard the rooster crow. His denial brought Peter many severe torments of conscience. The already aged apostle, loved and respected by Christians, could never forget this night. He cried often, and his eyes, as legend says, were always red from tears. Jesus was handed over into the hands of rude and embittered slaves and soldiers. They subjected Him to all sorts of abuse: they spat in His face and beat Him. When the day arrived, the chief priests and elders ordered Jesus to be sent to Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator 65 . The fact is that the Sanhedrin did not have the right to carry out death sentences. Therefore, the enemies of Jesus now faced a new task: to achieve his condemnation from the Roman procurator. Pontius Pilate was a true Roman ruler; he was cruel and arrogant. Like all Romans, he considered his people the chosen ones, destined to dominate the world, and despised other races. This is how he treated the Jews. He hated their fanaticism and felt their constant hostility towards the victors. Governance of a province was usually given as a favor or reward. They looked at it as a means to get rich, as a profitable place; Very rarely did rulers show the ability to skillfully govern. Through a series of cruel acts, Pilate antagonized the Jewish population and received a reprimand from the emperor. An uprising could always be expected from the Jews. Therefore, at the moment, Pilate could not act particularly sharply in defiance of the fanatical priests. Pilate occupied a luxurious white marble palace in Jerusalem. This building was built by Herod and was called “Herod’s Praetorium”. Jesus was brought here. The condemned man was followed by a crowd of priests and elders, all those who sought the death of Jesus; probably the high priest Caiaphas himself was also here (see: Matthew 27:2, 11–14; Mark 15:1–5; Luke 23:1–6; John 18:28–38). All of them did not want to enter the palace of the Roman, the dwelling of the pagan, so as not to defile themselves and make themselves unworthy to eat the Passover. This was required by their ritual law. When Pilate was informed about this, he was forced to yield to superstition, which he despised, and go out to them on the open portico of the palace. Looking with contempt at this crowd of gloomy fanatics, he asked, pointing to the bound Jesus: -What do you accuse this Man of? Such a question was unpleasant to the Jewish hierarchs. They were counting on a simple confirmation of their sentence and execution. Now it was necessary to conduct a new prosecution process. They tried to avoid it and said: – If He had not been a villain, we would not have betrayed Him to you! However, Pilate did not at all want to be a simple executor of someone else’s sentence, especially the sentence of fanatics, whom he despised and did not consider capable of making a fair decision. He answered proudly: - Take Him and judge Him according to your law. Pilate, as a Roman, had a sense of right and with these words said: “You cannot demand condemnation if you do not indicate guilt; I don’t know the circumstances of the case and I won’t judge him.” Then the crowd began to accuse Jesus in a confused and confused way. It would be useless to complain to a pagan Roman about the blasphemy committed by Jesus. They began to accuse Him of corrupting the people, of forbidding them to pay taxes, and, finally, of calling Himself “King of the Jews.” Only the latter drew attention to Pilate, but did not talk with this crowd of noisy fanatics, but entered the atrium and turned to Jesus Himself, who was led there. He asked Him: “Are you saying this on your own behalf, or have others told you about Me?” - Am I a Jew? - answered Pilate. “Your people and the high priests handed you over to me, what did you do?” Then Jesus answered his first question about the kingdom: - My kingdom is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight for Me, so that I would not be betrayed to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from here. “You say that I am a king,” Jesus answered, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I came into the world, to testify to the truth; everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice. – What is truth? - Pilate asked mockingly and, without waiting for an answer, he went to the Jews. He did not attach importance to the vague speculations of philosophers about truth and preferred to enjoy the blessings of life carefree. Now it was absolutely clear to him that this man was a sublime dreamer who did not pose any danger to the state and, apparently, had done nothing criminal. Going out to the crowd, Pilate said: “I don’t find any guilt in Him.” The accusers became increasingly angry. They began to shout that Jesus was disturbing the people by teaching throughout Judea, starting from Galilee to this place. Hearing about Galilee, Pilate asked: And I received an affirmative answer. Then an unexpected thought occurred to him: Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas 66; he, therefore, had to decide this matter. If he sends Jesus to Herod, then, on the one hand, he will get rid of an unjust and therefore undesirable sentence, and on the other, he will show respect to the Galilean tetrarch by recognizing his authority: their relations were strained and now there was an opportunity to correct them. And so it was done (see: Luke 23:7–12). Herod was in Jerusalem for the Passover holiday. He was very happy to see Jesus, about whom he had long heard. He expected Jesus to show him His ability to perform miracles. He asked Jesus many things, but received no answer. Meanwhile, a crowd of fanatics poured out their accusations. Then Herod, irritated by Jesus’ lack of attention to his royal words, abused Him, dressed Him in light clothes and sent Him back to Pilate. However, this cruel man did not dare to impose the death sentence. Thus, Jesus again appeared before Pilate (see: Matthew 27:15–26; Mark 15:6–19; Luke 23:13–25; John 18:39–40; 19:1–16). The latter came out to the assembled Jews and very decisively said to them: “You brought this Man to me as one who corrupts the people, and so I examined it in your presence and did not find this Man guilty of anything of which you accuse Him, and neither did Herod, for I sent Him to him, and nothing was found in Him worthy of death.” However, seeing the increasing indignation and rage of the accusers, Pilate realized that the matter was serious and that it was easy to cause an open rebellion among these fanatics. But he still wanted to save Jesus. Stubbornness, pride, disgust for the frantic crowd of accusers and some sense of justice and respect for the steadfastness and courage of the prisoner prompted him to do this. This was also joined by the request of his wife, Claudia Procula, who had a prophetic dream and asked to release this righteous man. The Romans were superstitious and believed in dreams 67. Pilate invited the Jews to release Jesus not as an innocent, but as a pardoned criminal, according to the custom of forgiving one of the actual villains in honor of the Easter holiday 68. But this didn’t help either. The people shouted: - Death to Him! And release Barabbas to us. “What do you want me to do with the one you call the king of the Jews?” - Crucify, crucify Him! – there were frantic screams. - What evil did He do to you? I did not find anything worthy of death in Him. So, having punished Him, I will release Him. This was the last attempt, the last concession. He wanted to satisfy the incomprehensible anger of the crowd by cruelly torturing Jesus, but he freed Him from death. He ordered the soldiers to beat Jesus. They took Him inside the courtyard and subjected Him to reproach and torture: they dressed Him in purple, put a crown of thorns on His head, beat Him and spat on Him 69 . In this form, exhausted and bloodied, Pilate brought Him out to the crowd, wanting to satisfy their cruelty with this spectacle. But human cruelty, especially the cruelty of a crowd, once it breaks out, increases at the sight of the suffering of others. Jesus was calm and majestic. His face reflected traces of torment, but his gaze burned with determination. The Romans valued perseverance and iron fortitude. Pilate looked at Jesus with involuntary amazement. If He begged for mercy and humiliated himself, natural cruelty would immediately appear in the ruler, caused by contempt. Now he felt almost respect for Him. – Ce – Man! - he exclaimed, looking with disgust at the frenzied crowd, of which not a single one would have shown such heights of spirit. - Crucify, crucify Him! - the Jews screamed. “Take Him and crucify Him,” Pilate said sharply, “for I find no guilt in Him.” There was only one thing left: to directly express the reason for the condemnation of Christ. - We have a law, and according to our law He must die, because he made himself the Son of God! This was something completely new. Previously, the Jews did not bring such an accusation. Pilate was worried. The Romans in those days were not religious, but they were very superstitious. Gods, according to their beliefs, could have children among mortals on earth. Such children of the gods, heroes or demigods possessed mysterious, miraculous power, and it was dangerous for a mere mortal to encroach on their lives. Pilate again ordered Jesus to be brought into the palace hall and, looking at Him carefully, asked: – Aren’t you answering me?! - Pilate exclaimed, - don’t you know that I have the power to crucify You and the power to release You? “You would not have any power over Me if it had not been given to you from above; therefore there is greater sin on him who delivered Me to you. Pilate thought... These words were deeply true and spoken with such greatness that they made his arrogant soul bend. He vaguely felt something mysterious and unusual here. He was sure of Jesus' innocence. Pilate came out to the crowd again and began to defend Jesus. The Jewish priests and elders realized that their plan was ruined. And they resorted to shameful hypocrisy: they declared their allegiance to Caesar, whom they hated, and showed unexpected care in protecting his power, which they constantly dreamed of overthrowing. “If you let Him go,” they shouted, “You are no friend of Caesar.” Anyone who makes himself a king is an opponent of Caesar! Pilate was hinted at the possibility of denunciation, at the possibility of exposing him as a traitor to Rome. His sincere determination to save Jesus was immediately shaken. He again became a cowardly temporary worker, trembling for his power. Despite the obvious danger, he still tried to resist. - Will I crucify your king? – he asked, but his voice had already lost its former imperious arrogance and became indecisive. “We have no king except Caesar!” - the Jews screamed in a wild frenzy, forgetting the people's pride and hatred of the Roman yoke. These words were a clear betrayal of the cherished hopes of the “chosen people.” Every honest Jew would be indignant at this exclamation. When the question was posed this way, Pilate could no longer resist: self-sacrifice was required here. By releasing Jesus, he would have left some “king other than Caesar” free in the Roman region. This would be treason against the emperor. He was forced to agree to be crucified. But his superstitious fear was strong. He decided to absolve himself of guilt through an external ritual. This was a purely pagan point of view. He washed his hands of the Jews and said 70: - I am innocent of the blood of this Righteous One, look! The crowd shouted back: – His blood be on us and on our children! 71 On the same day, an event took place, which the Evangelist Matthew narrates as follows (see: Matthew 27:3–10): “Then Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He was condemned and repented, and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying: “I sinned by betraying innocent blood. - What do we care about that? See for yourself. And throwing down the pieces of silver in the church, he went out; went and hanged himself.” How could such a terrible change take place in Judas? What happened in his soul? How did he come to the consciousness of his guilt and commit suicide? Some indication is given by his words: I sinned by betraying innocent blood, which means that before he did not think that this was innocent blood, and he considered Jesus guilty. When did his attitude change? The Gospel says: when he saw that Jesus was condemned. Consequently, the trial of Jesus and the verdict of this court produced in him that moral turning point that led him to suicide. Judas was probably present at this trial and could have seen Jesus and His accusers. First of all, he was struck by the extreme bias of the judges, their confused search for evidence, their hypocrisy; the testimony of the false witnesses was clearly absurd or dishonest: the verdict was pronounced hastily and unreasonably. The life and teachings of Jesus were not presented at the trial as they should have been. Finally, the direct law was not observed, according to which the execution was carried out only forty days after the sentence was pronounced; this gave the dissatisfied the opportunity to appeal the verdict by speaking in defense of the accused. Judas, of course, was struck by such disrespect for the law on the part of the lawyers and guardians of the people's faith and customs. They appeared to him in a new light; he doubted their honest devotion to the law, their holiness. On the other hand, Christ carried Himself with dignity and majesty. He did not make excuses and did not seek salvation. This could not fail to make a deep impression on the changed student. If He is not the Messiah, Judas thought, then, in any case, he is a man of high morality and enormous strength of spirit. He especially seemed majestic compared to his judges. But the trial before Pilate had a decisive effect on Judas’s conscience. Here he saw that a stranger, an uninterested man, a pagan, unconditionally recognized the righteousness of Jesus and felt a decisive disgust towards His accusers. These latter behaved completely inconsistent with the dignity of the highest hierarchs of the people. Judas was especially amazed at the accusation they brought before Pilate, as the main one through which they managed to achieve the condemnation of Jesus. They accused Him of making himself the king of the Jews, and anyone who makes himself a king is an opponent of Caesar and as such must be executed. First of all, Judas understood that this accusation was completely false: that’s why he left Jesus, that’s why he doubted Him, because He was slow to declare Himself king and even outright evaded this. He also saw that this accusation was clearly dishonest on the part of the accusers: they themselves knew well that Jesus never sought to become a leader of the people or the king of the earth. But the main thing is that all this accusation is completely unacceptable in the mouths of true Jews. Accusing a Jew of being “an opponent of Caesar” is absurd, for every true Jew must be such. If Christ had really declared himself the king of the Jews and the enemy of Caesar, then all true Jews should have stood up for Him, and not given Him into the hands of the Romans. Therefore, to make such an accusation means to be hypocritical and betray the fundamental beliefs of the people. These high priests, scribes and elders exposed their complete insignificance before Judas when they shouted: “We have no king except Caesar!” This was already an open betrayal of messianic hopes; complete trampling of everything that was dear to the heart of the Jew. Now Judas saw that these were not the spiritual leaders of Judaism, the guardians of the people's faith, but cowardly henchmen of the Roman government, trembling for their position. He thought: perhaps they would betray the true Messiah just as they are now betraying this meek righteous man. Judas could not believe in Christ now, since he could not imagine the desecration and death of the true Messiah, but he could no longer believe in the rightness of the Jewish priests; he felt a complete loss of faith: those whom he considered the guardians of the truth turned out to be traitors to the people, hypocritical liars. Then his conscience spoke to him; his act appeared to him in a different light: he committed an ordinary betrayal of the Teacher who was disposed towards him. Painful memories arose of the bright days of life together, of the meekness of the Teacher, of His holy deeds. And now at the trial He did not retreat, He was not afraid; He became even calmer and firmer. Judas realized that he had betrayed a completely innocent man to death. He went to the high priests and directly expressed to them his view of the matter. Perhaps he still hoped that they would justify themselves to him and calm his torn conscience, but they answered: “What do we care about that! See for yourself." It's hard to come up with a more callous answer. Judas realized who he was dealing with. Now he had no one to turn to on earth. There was no faith left in the soul, no hope. He was irretrievably lost. The execution of Jesus followed immediately after the pronouncement of the sentence. It was carried out by Roman soldiers. They tore off the scarlet robe from Jesus, dressed him in his former clothes and led him to the place of execution, placing a cross on his shoulders (see: Matthew 27:31–32; Mark 15:20–21; Luke 23:26–32; John 19:16–17). The two thieves were to be executed at the same time as Jesus. They were led along with him; a detachment of soldiers under the command of a centurion accompanied the condemned. The procession moved through the streets of Jerusalem. The city was very crowded, but the people, indifferent and fussy, were completely immersed in their petty worries; everyone was in a hurry to complete preparations for the upcoming Easter. Jesus, terribly tired, could hardly move with the heavy cross on his shoulders. The night and morning spent in continuous interrogation, the torture and insults to which He was subjected, completely undermined His strength. When leaving the city gates, when it became obvious that Jesus would not be able to carry the cross to the place of execution, the soldiers, who, of course, did not want to carry a shameful weapon behind Him, detained the first Jew they came across, returning from field work, and forced him to carry the cross behind Jesus. The Evangelist reports that it was a certain Simon the Cyrene 72. Many stopped, looking at the procession with curiosity; others joined and followed. Eventually a sizeable crowd formed, many of them women; they “wept and lamented for Jesus.” Undoubtedly, many of those who now accompanied Him to execution knew Him, listened to His teachings in the church and sympathized with Him; but there were also those who showered Him with ridicule and went in order to satiate their cruelty with the upcoming spectacle. Among the latter were the Jewish priests and elders who so passionately sought His condemnation. Seeing the women crying, Jesus said: – Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and your children; For the days are coming in which they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not given birth, and the breasts that have not nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains: fall on us, and to the hills: cover us. For if they do this to a green tree, what will happen to a dry tree? These words were prophetic. Many of those who now followed Jesus, and most of their children, lived to see the terrible picture of the complete destruction of the luxurious city. The streets were filled with blood, residents fled in terror, and the Romans crucified adult children by the thousands outside the city walls. Finally, the condemned were led to the place of execution, called Golgotha. It is now difficult to pinpoint this place, to find it under the ruins of a city ten times besieged and ten times devastated. It is only known that at that time it was located outside the city gates 73. The crosses were laid on the ground (see: Matthew 27:33–56; Mark 15:22–41; Luke 23:33–49; John 19:18–30). Those sentenced to execution are stripped and nailed to the crossbars. During these terrible tortures, Jesus spoke these words: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing!” 74 Then the crosses were raised and installed in pre-prepared pits 75. The cross of Jesus stood in the middle and towered above the other two. Above His head was nailed a board covered with white plaster; There was an inscription on it in black letters in three languages ​​- Latin, Greek and Hebrew: This was a mortal insult inflicted by Pilate on the Jewish hierarchs, a caustic and humiliating mockery of the pride of the conquered people. The priests were furious with anger. They sent to Pilate: “Do not write,” they asked, “the king of the Jews, but what He said: “I am the king of the Jews.” Now Pilate gave himself complete pleasure to act in defiance of the hated fanatics who forced him to an unwanted decision. He answered with contempt: – What I wrote, I wrote. And without saying a word more and without listening to their further requests, he turned his back to them and went to his palace. Now that he had crucified the “King of the Jews,” he was no longer afraid of any denunciations to Caesar. Jesus remained on the cross for approximately six hours. A guard of Roman soldiers protected the crucified from possible abduction from the crosses. A cruel crowd of spectators insulted Jesus, mocking His torment. The priests and elders said: – He saved others, but he cannot save himself. If He is the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and let us believe in Him 76. One of the thieves also cursed Him, saying: – If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us. The other, as the evangelist says, calmed his comrade and said: – Or are you not afraid of God, when you yourself are condemned to the same thing? And we are condemned justly, because we accepted what was worthy of our deeds, but He did nothing bad. - Remember me, Lord, when you come to Your Kingdom. “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise 77.” Here, near the cross, as Evangelist John reports, were: Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the sister of His Mother - Mary of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene. Jesus, seeing His Mother and the disciple standing there, whom He loved, says to His Mother: And from that time on, this disciple took Her to himself. This disciple was Saint John himself, who tells us about this. Darkness was gathering over the city 79. Jesus' suffering reached its final limit. About the ninth hour, as the Evangelist Matthew says, Jesus cried out in a loud voice: - Either, or! Lama Savakhthani? that is: My God, My God! Why did you leave Me? 80 Some of those standing there, hearing this, said: The end was fast approaching. A terrible thirst began to torment Jesus. - I'm thirsty! 82 - He exclaimed, and someone handed Him a sponge soaked in vinegar. The last minute has arrived. - It's finished! - said Jesus. Then, gathering the rest of his strength, he exclaimed: – Father, I commit My spirit into Your hands! 83 The Roman centurion who was present at Jesus' final moments said: – Truly this man was the Son of God! Evening has come (see: Matthew 27:57–61; Mark 15:42–47; Luke 23:50–56; John 19:31–42). The Jews were afraid of desecrating the Sabbath by leaving bodies on the cross and asked Pilate to take down the dead. He gave permission. Evangelist John conveys the following detail: “So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and the legs of the other who was crucified with Him; but when they came to Jesus, when they saw Him already dead, they did not break His legs; but one of the soldiers pierced His ribs with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out 84. From what follows it is clear why this circumstance attracted the attention of the evangelist: he saw in it the fulfillment of prophecy. He adds to what has been said: this happened, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled: let not His bone be broken (Ex. 12:46). Also in another place the Scripture says: they will look at Him whom they have pierced (Zechariah 12:10). Jesus was buried by rich and influential Jews who sympathized with His teachings - Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus 85. Pilate gave Joseph, at his request, the body of Jesus, and he buried Him in his garden, in a new stone tomb, probably intended for the owner himself. Nicodemus brought for the funeral, according to Eastern custom, a valuable fragrant composition of myrrh and aloe to anoint the body of the deceased 86 . He ascended on high, captivated captivity and gave gifts to people. And what does “ascended” mean, if not that He had previously descended into the depths of the earth? He who descended is also He who came up above all the heavens to fill everything. If Christ is not resurrected, then our faith is in vain. The “great and blessed Saturday” has come: the Only Begotten Son of God, who humbled Himself to death on the cross (see: Phil. 2:8) and gave His spirit into the hands of the Father (see: Luke 23:46) “having subsisted in the flesh, rested from all His works” 87. Recently they saw Him humiliated, but now His rest is an honor. But there was no peace in Jerusalem: some were deprived of it by anger, and others by heavy, oppressive sorrow. The enemies did not cease to pursue the crucified Truth even in the tomb, “where it was brought down by human iniquities and the just judgment of God”; the hands that killed the Savior sealed His tomb; fierce hatred and unbelief guarded its integrity (see: Matthew 27:62–66). And at this time, the disciples of the Lord with His Most Pure Mother indulged in great sorrow. All the apostles, except for the beloved disciple (see: John 19:26), left their Teacher, and now they learn from others about the last days of His life - how He endured reproaches, how he suffered, how he cried out to His Father amid the terrible torment of the cross: “My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me? (see: Matthew 27:46). These stories tore their souls with sad bewilderment: “Who was He? We saw His wondrous miracles that spoke of Divine omnipotence, we heard His word filled with unknown power and inexplicable love - and now His enemies defeated Him, and even God, Whom He called His Father, abandoned Him! He died a shameful death on the cross, and we hoped that He was the One who should deliver Israel (see: Luke 24:1). The Apostle Peter wept bitterly, denying Him whom he promised to love to death (see: Mark 14:27, 29–31; 66–72). But the Mother of the Lord shed incomparably more bitter tears: a sharp weapon pierced Her soul (see: Luke 2:35) and from her heart overflowing with sorrow inconsolable lamentations burst out: “Where, My Son and God, is the annunciation that Gabriel told Me? He called You King, Son and God highest, and now I see You, My sweet light, naked and ulcerated dead.” “Behold My light, hope, life and My God went out on the cross. From now on, joy will never touch Me - My joy and light have entered the grave; but I will not leave Him... - I will die here and be buried with Him!” Hearing the cries and lamentations of His Mother, the God-Man mysteriously spoke to Her heart from the grave: “Oh, how did the abyss of generosity hide from You?! for although I deigned to die to save My creation, yet, as the God of heaven and earth, I will rise again and glorify You” 88. So some looked with sadness, and others with gloating, at the silent, sealed and surrounded by guards tomb of the Redeemer. But it was hidden from the world what was happening at that time behind the doors of the life-giving tomb. Only the Most Pure Body of the Lord rested here; with His deified soul He descended into the abyss (see: Rom. 10:7); into the very stronghold of the primordial murderer (see: John 8:44), where for centuries the souls of earthly beings, deprived of heavenly bliss for the sin of their ancestors, languished. Christ, says the holy Apostle Peter, in order to lead us to God, once suffered for our sins, the righteous for the unjust, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, by which He went and preached to the spirits in prison (1 Pet. 3:18-19). “The deified soul of Christ descends into hell so that, just as the Sun of righteousness may shine for those living on earth, so that light may shine for those who sit under the earth in darkness and the shadow of death, so that both those on earth and those in hell may Christ preach peace, liberation to the captives, sight to the blind, and for those who believe he will be the author of eternal salvation, and for those who do not believe, an accuser of unbelief.” (St. John of Damascus). The day of Christ has come (see: John 8:56) for those who from afar, separated by millennia and centuries, only saw it in the shadow of prototypes and prophecies. And so, with the preaching of the Gospel (St. Clement of Alexandria) and the remission of sins (St. Irenaeus), the Lord descends into hell. The host of forefathers and prophets met the Lord Jesus with the delight of inexplicable joy. Here, behind the gloomy gates of “dull hell” (St. Gregory the Theologian), the Savior “sees Adam shedding tears; sees Abel covered with blood like purple; sees Noah adorned with righteousness; sees Shem and Japheth, adorned with respect for their father; sees Abraham crowned with all sorts of virtues; sees Lot laboring in hospitality; sees Isaac blooming with constancy; He sees Jacob sitting with patience; sees Job like a fighter prepared for battle; sees Phinehas armed with a spear; sees Moses dedicated by God's fingers. He comes to Navin, and he is surrounded by an army; approaches Samuel, and he shines with the anointing of kings; goes to David, and he is buried with the psalter; comes to Elisha, and he is clothed with mantle. Isaiah joyfully shows the head cut off from him by the saw. Jonah is famous for saving the Ninevites. Jeremiah is anointed with mud from the pit. The eyes of Ezekiel are luminous from terrible visions. The kisses of lions are still fresh on the Daniils’ feet. The bodies of those in the oven sparkle with fire. The Maccabean squad is surrounded by instruments of torment. The head of the Baptist shines with beheading. He also sees holy women who have not yielded to their husbands in anything: he sees Sarah, shining with the Abrahamic faith; sees Rebekah thriving with beneficial drink from the waterpot; sees Rachel, radiant with chastity in marriage; sees the mother of strongholds opposing the tormentor, walled by seven sons; He sees every righteous person, looks at every prophet - and preaches: “Behold Az!”” (St. Ephraim the Syrian). Hell “trembled at the meeting” 89 with the second Adam (see: 1 Cor. 15:45, 47–48), whose plagues demonstrated omnipotence, “and perished from the menacing gaze” 90. The “eternal faiths” of hell were crushed 91. The dominion of death and the devil ended (see: Heb. 2:14): The Holy and True One, who has the key of David (see: Rev. 3:7), opened for believers the doors of paradise, closed by the sins of their ancestors, and, accompanied by a host of the redeemed, entered heaven itself (see: Heb. 9:24). "All the righteous who were swallowed up by death were redeemed, and after that each of the righteous said: 'Death! Where is your sting? Hell! Where is your victory? (see: 1 Cor. 15:55). We were redeemed by the Victorious One" (St. Cyril of Jerusalem). Two days have passed since the death of the Lord Jesus on Calvary... A feeling of restless malice stirred more strongly in the souls of the deicides, who firmly remembered the Savior’s prediction about the resurrection on the third day (see: Matt. 27:63); in the souls of Christ’s disciples, its dawn lit a ray of vague hope for the manifestation of the power of Divine omnipotence over their dead and buried Teacher (see: Luke 24:24). But indifferently, alien to malice and hopes, the soldiers stood guard at the tomb, where the Hope of all creation was buried (see: Rom. 8:19). In the silence of the deep morning, amid the general peace of nature, Truth shone from the earth (see: Ps. 84:12), the God-man rose “from a sealed tomb” (St. Isidore Pelusiot), when “seals and a stone lay on him” (St. John Chrysostom). There were no witnesses to that greatest miracle, not yet seen by the world - they were not needed: the entire subsequent history of the Church of Christ is an indisputable and silent witness to the truth of the Resurrection. The soldiers guarding the tomb were eyewitnesses of the events that had already followed the Resurrection of the Lord, which He was pleased to clothe with sacred mystery. They stood calmly under the shade of olive trees, carefully peering into the pre-dawn darkness that surrounded them. Suddenly they felt that the earth shook and, like lightning, cutting through the air, an extraordinary light shone - then the Angel of God, descending from heaven, stepped towards the tomb, rolled away the stone from it, and sat on it (see: Matt. 28: 2-3). Thus, “the seal placed by unbelief on the cold tomb of the Lord melted from the fire of the Divinity hidden in it; the heavy stone of temptation that covered him fell and only struck the Jewish stiff-neckedness and Hellenic arrogance” (Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow). With the light of his appearance, the angel terrified the soldiers: out of fear they trembled and became as if dead (see: Matthew 28:4). The earthly guard at the tomb of the risen Lord ended, giving way to the heavenly guard - the luminous messengers of the all-joyful resurrection. Christ is risen! - and for the entire universe, true spring began, a bright, joyful morning of new life. The Resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the first real victory of life over death; if there were victories before, they were incomplete and temporary, after which death again asserted its real dominion over life. Nature fought against death, calling, according to the commandment of God (see: Gen. 1:22), new lives to take the place of extinct ones. But for what? So that they disappear again, be replaced by others, which, in turn, will be replaced by third ones, and so on. The life of nature, therefore, is nothing more than a motley, bright cover on a constantly decaying corpse, woven from many fleeting mortal lives. The heroes of human thought, the great sages of the East and West, also fought death, but they did not defeat it: their lot, like all other people, was death, after which they did not resurrect. People of great moral power, for example, the Old Testament righteous, were also powerless before death: along with the villains, death brought them to the dark Sheol, or the underworld. The final victory over death could not be won until its source in the world was destroyed - sin, which brought division into it. Sin bound the human spirit with passions and thereby violated the correct relationship between it and the body: the latter, from an obedient instrument for the activity of the godlike human spirit, turned, thanks to sin, into an insurmountable obstacle on the path to moral perfection. The fight against sin without Christ is impossible for a person; it only leads him to the consciousness of his powerlessness, tearing out from his soul a mournful cry: poor man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom.7:24). And so, in a world conquered by sin and death inextricably linked with it (see: 1 Cor. 15:56), when the fullness of time came (see: Gal. 4:4), the God-man Jesus Christ appeared for its salvation, fully fulfilling the will of God in His life. His entire earthly life was a free and arbitrary feat of self-abasement, undertaken to complete the work entrusted to Him by the Father (see: John 17:4). The hero of our salvation was tempted like us in everything except sin (see: Heb. 4:15). Therefore, death, like its prince, had nothing for themselves in Him (see: John 14:30); He defeated them. They were powerless before the boundless morally free spiritual power in Christ, and the Lord Jesus rose again as a spirit, forever incarnate, uniting with the fullness of the inner spiritual being and all the positive aspects of bodily existence without its external limitations. Death had no power not only over the spirit, but also over the body of Christ - his flesh did not see corruption (see: Ps. 15:10; Acts 2:31). “By the soul of God the power of death was destroyed, the resurrection from hell was accomplished and preached to souls, and by the body of Christ corruption was brought into inaction and incorruption was revealed from the grave” (St. Athanasius of Alexandria). As the Son of Man, obedient to His Father until death on the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected by the glory of the Father (see: Rom. 6:4), by the action of His omnipotence (see: Acts 2:24; 4:15; Rom. 8:11; 2 Cor. 13:4), And as the Son of God, the eternal Word, He Himself returned His deified soul into a glorified body (see: John 10:17–18). The Resurrection, crowning the life of the Lord Jesus as the God-man, also crowns His feat as the Messiah - the Savior of the world. It reborn the apostles, turning fearful fishermen into selfless preachers of Christ, who carried the word of the gospel, according to the commandment of the Teacher, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (see: Acts 1:8). When the Lord was taken in the Garden of Gethsemane by messengers from the high priests and elders of the people, the disciples fled; like sheep without a shepherd (see: Mark 14:27), they scattered in despair and horror, and even the stone of faith - the holy Apostle Peter (see: Matthew 16:18) wavered “from the meaningless word of a slave, like a leaf from the wind” (Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow). They expected the Messiah to apparently open His glorious kingdom of Israel on earth. But the cross destroyed these hopes, shattered their theocratic dreams. In the eyes of Christ's disciples, like all people of that time, the cross was the most terrible and shameful of all that a person could experience in his life; he was a sign of such a terrible curse that their Teacher himself grieved and grieved before him until he sweated blood. Golgotha ​​with its torment eclipsed in the souls of the apostles faith in Christ as the Messiah, leaving them faith in Him as a prophet, who was strong in deed and word before God and all the people (see: Luke 24:19). But Christ rose again, and the cross shone in their eyes with the light of unfading glory; the plagues revealed Divine omnipotence and the tomb became the cradle of the indestructible faith that death has been defeated, that there is eternal life. They go out into the world preaching about Christ crucified and risen, enduring persecution and deprivation. How truly thorny was the path of the evangelists of Christ in the world, the Apostle of the tongues describes: “I,” he says, “was in labor, immensely in wounds, even in prisons and many times at the point of death. Five times the Jews gave me forty stripes, minus one. Three times I was beaten with sticks, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, and spent a night and a day in the depths of the sea. Many times I traveled, in dangers on rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from fellow tribesmen, in dangers from pagans. In labor and in exhaustion, often in watching, in hunger and thirst, often in fasting, in cold and nakedness” (see: 2 Cor. 11:23-27). What supported them during such trials, turning the very sorrows into joy, reproach into honor (see: Acts 5:10–41)? They lived by faith that He who raised the Lord Jesus would raise them through Jesus (see: 1 Cor. 4:14). And by the power of this faith they conquered the world, brought to the foot of the cross those to whom the word about the cross (see: 1Kop.1:18) seemed temptation and madness (see: 1Kop.1:23). They realized that only in the risen Christ could they find satisfaction to the deepest needs of the human spirit. People are exhausted by sin and hunger for righteousness, but Christ was betrayed for our sins and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4:25). People languish under the joyless yoke of the law and long for grace-filled freedom - having killed by His death the offspring of the law - sin (see: Rom. 7:9) and having defeated Him by His resurrection (see: 1 Cor. 15:25), the Lord Jesus Christ opened the path to true freedom for His followers (see: John 8:36) and replaced the heavy, unbearable yoke of the harsh law with His good and light burden teachings (see: Matthew 11:30). People fear death, but Christ rose from the dead, the firstborn of those who died (1 Cor. 15:20). By His resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ opens the doors of much-desired immortality for man. For him now, death can no longer be terrible if he believes in Christ, assimilates by faith His righteousness, His eternal life, His spirit (see: Rom. 8:9-11; Gal. 6:8), if he lives in Christ, then he will live with Him (see: John 14:19), preserving not only the soul, but also the body. Christ in His resurrection acquired glorification for His humanity, and at the same time acquired the hope of glorification for our entire humanity. There, where from eternity He abided and abides as God, He entered as the God-man with soul and body. In the resurrection of the God-man we therefore have untrue evidence that we too will be resurrected, and certainly with a body. Let's not ask how this will happen. If the Lord Jesus resurrected, elevated, and enthroned His faith, which in His very person was cast down into the grave and brought down to hell, then we cannot doubt that through Him He will justify our faith in the resurrection. Otherwise, Christians would be the most miserable of people on earth (see: 1 Cor. 15:19). A Christian is a temporary guest, a wanderer and a stranger on earth, who is inevitably accompanied by anger and hatred from the majority of those around him. Suffering is as inevitable in his life as in the life of the Savior (see: 1 Peter 2:21). But Christ rose again and through this founded our hope deeper than the present world and raised it above the earth: if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Rom. 8:11) 92. More than one person is burdened with sin and longs for immortality: a vague and unclear desire for deliverance from evil and the desire for immortality is inherent in all of nature; she, brought from the present path of development by the fall of man, suffers and languishes (see: Rom. 8:20–22), awaiting that great day when the last enemy will be destroyed - death (1 Cor. 15:26), when the risen Son of Man Himself will submit to Him who put everything under Him, so that God may be in all (1 Cor. 15:28). Then the kingdom of glory will come, access to which Christ opened with glory to the whole world. See also: Book VIII – April Appearances of Our Lord Jesus Christ after His Resurrection Christ the Savior, after His resurrection, which crowned His redemptive feat, did not immediately leave the earth sanctified by His presence: before His glorious ascension with His most pure flesh into heaven to His Father, He appeared for forty days (see: Acts 1:3), some separately or all together, to a small society of His followers, who, in the terrible days of the sufferings on the cross, when their Shepherd was struck, scattered (see: Mark 14:27) in confusion and sorrow. In the history of the Christian Church, these days of the appearance of the Conqueror of Death were great days of the gradual assimilation by the apostles of the joyful and cornerstone truth of Christianity - the truth of the resurrection of Christ (see: 1 Cor. 15:14), the preachers of which they soon became for the whole world. It penetrated with difficulty into the soul of the apostles: even for the stone of faith (Matthew 16:18) of Saint Peter, the idea of the necessity of the suffering on the cross of the Son of the Living God was incomprehensible (Matthew 16:16; 22–23), and therefore for the disciples of Christ the words of the Savior about His resurrection were incomprehensible (see: Mark 9:32), which is inextricably linked with His humiliation (see: Phil.2:8-9). They did not believe the resurrection of the Savior even when those who were worthy to see the Lord in His glorified state as the myrrh-bearing wife told them about the appearance of the Risen One (see: Luke 24:11), and the most doubtful of them, Saint Thomas, believed only when, in accordance with a previously expressed desire, he put his finger into the nail wounds on the body of the Risen One. Therefore, the apostles needed the most immutable proofs of the truth of the resurrection, which the Lord gave them during His appearances: the apostles were convinced that the truly revealed Christ the Savior was not only because in the glorified Risen One they recognized the familiar and dear features of the humble Teacher, but also because they heard from His lips the same, only more in-depth, teaching about the mysteries of the Kingdom of God (see: Acts 1:3). The first news of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus was received by the irrigated women; They were the first to see the Risen One and the first to come with joyful news to the grieving disciples, thus appearing as if they were apostles for apostles. According to the thought of the holy father (Gregory the Theologian), this did not happen without the special supervision of God, because “Eve, who fell first, should have been the first to greet Christ” - the Redeemer of fallen humanity. After the Sorrowful Saturday (see: Mark 16:1), at the onset of the first day of the week, the myrrh-bearing women, Mary Magdalene, Mary of James, Joanna, Salome and others (see: Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10) went to the tomb of their beloved Teacher very early in the morning, carrying the prepared aromas (see: Luke 24:1). They did not leave the Lord at the cross when fear from the enemies of Christ forced almost all the apostles to hide, but they stood before the crucified Savior until His very death; they accompanied the bringing of His body to the tomb and were present at His burial; and now, despite the difficult trials of the previous days, they are in a hurry to pay the last tribute of love and respect to the deceased. Mary Magdalene, healed by the Lord from the serious illness of demonization (see: Mark 16:9) and flaming with “the most tender love for the Teacher” (St. John Chrysostom) is ahead of other wives on the path: “the power of love and gratitude to the Divine Savior, the power of holy compassion for the Saint, who suffered innocently” (Filaret, Metropolitan. Moscow) irresistibly draws her forward, and she, before everyone else, when it was still dark (John 20:1), reaches the tomb; Seeing through the darkness of the night that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, Mary Magdalene, without wasting a minute, immediately ran with the news of this to the closest disciples of the Lord, Peter and John. The morning was already dawning, and the golden rays of the sun, pouring purple over the peaks of the Gilead mountains, were preparing to disperse the predawn darkness hanging over the garden of the pious Arimathea. With a heavy heart, filled with sorrow, the rest of the pious wives followed Mary to the tomb, where the Sun of Truth hid; their Teacher died, but their love for Him did not die - it made them grieve that they would never see Him again, would not hear His blessed speeches. This sorrow increased even more when the holy women remembered that the tomb was blocked with a large stone, which they were unable to roll away (see: Mark 16:3). But here is Joseph's garden. They enter it and, approaching the tomb, notice with surprise that the stone has been rolled away (Mark 16:4). Upset and worried, the myrrh-bearing women entered the tomb and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus (Luke 24:3), which further increased their bewilderment. And suddenly, in horror, on the right side of the coffin they saw a young man dressed in white clothes, who said to them: - Don't be horrified. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, crucified; He has risen, He is not here. This is the place where He was laid. But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee; There you will see Him, as He told you (Mark 16:6–7). The shocked myrrh-bearing women ran in horror from the tomb and at first, out of fear, did not say anything to anyone (Mark 16:8). But then, when they calmed down, fear gave way to great joy, which, according to the command of the angel, they hastened to share with the apostles (see: Matthew 28:8). Meanwhile, the news brought by Mary Magdalene to the closest disciples of the Lord about the theft of the Teacher’s body forced both apostles to immediately (John 20:3) go to the tomb. Having reached the tomb earlier than Peter, John bent down and looked inside, and saw that there was no body, but only burial shrouds lay; The beloved disciple of Christ stood in thought, waiting for Peter, who soon came after him (John 20:6). The Apostle Peter entered the tomb and saw only the linens lying. And the cloth that was on His head, not lying with swaddling clothes, but especially rolled up in another place (John 20:7). Following Peter, John also entered the cave; the funeral shrouds and especially the sight of the head cloth, rolled up and lying in another place, aroused in him the belief that the Lord had risen: “Indeed,” says St. John Chrysostom, “if someone had transferred the body, he would have done so without exposing it, just as if someone had stolen it, he would not have bothered to remove the headdress, roll it up and put it in another place, but would have taken the body in the form in which it lay. Therefore, the evangelist previously said that at the burial of Christ a lot of myrrh was used, which glues the shrouds to the body no worse than lead.” The disciples did not leave the empty tomb of their Teacher with the same feeling; “Peter did not find the light of resurrection in him and took out only surprise from him - he went back, marveling at what had happened in himself (Luke 24:12), John entered the tomb and found, although invisible, but the real inner light of faith in the resurrection of Christ (see: John 24:8; Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow.). After the departure of the disciples, Mary Magdalene again returned to the tomb, where she was drawn by a love strong as death (Song. 8:6) for Christ the Savior. She stood at the tomb and cried (John 20:11): the suffering she experienced in the previous sorrowful days culminated in this irreparable loss, which took away her last consolation - to cry tears that eased her soul over the body of the Teacher. Like a person who had lost an invaluable treasure and did not want to believe it, Mary leaned into the tomb (John 20:11) to look at the place where the body of the Savior rested. And an extraordinary sight opened before Mary’s tear-filled eyes: she saw two Angels sitting in white robes, one at the head and the other at the feet (John 20:12) of Christ’s deathbed. - Wife! Why are you crying? (John 20:13), - the joyful messengers of Christ’s resurrection asked the grieving Mary. Magdalene, completely absorbed in grief, was not at all surprised by the unexpected appearance of the luminous Angels, although their very clothes “showed great joy,” and Mary “could rise from grief and be comforted” (St. John Chrysostom). But her grief was so great that she paid attention only to the question of the Angels and hastened to tell them her sadness: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him (John 20:13). At this time, the Lord “by a sudden appearance behind (Mary) astonished the Angels, and they, seeing the Lord, with their appearance, their gaze, and their movement, immediately discovered that they had seen the Lord” (St. John Chrysostom); Mary Magdalene noticed this and turned back (John 20:14). The Lord appeared in a humble form, so that the weeping Mary, far removed from the thought of the resurrection, mistook Him for a gardener, and in response to the Lord’s question: Why are you crying? Who are you looking for? (see: John 20:15) - she turned to Him for resolution of the doubt that was tearing her soul apart: - Master! If you have carried Him out, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him (John 20:15). Then Jesus says to her: Mary! (John 20:16). The familiar voice of the Savior, filled with grace-filled power (see: John 7:46), penetrated Mary’s soul; quickly turning around and looking more closely, she recognized the Lord and exclaimed in ecstatic joy: Teacher! (John 20:10), and immediately wanted to fall at the feet of the Risen One. But the Lord stopped her: – Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; But go to My brothers and say to them: I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God (John 20:17). By forbidding Mary Magdalene to touch Him, Christ, according to the interpretation of St. John Chrysostom, “exalts (her) thoughts,” because “for joy (she) did not imagine anything great,” “and through this teaches her to treat Him more reverently.” Blessed Augustine also expresses the same thing about the words of the Lord - “do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father”: “You (as if the Lord were addressing the joyful Mary in this way), seeing Me, consider Me only a man, and do not yet know My equality with the Father: do not touch Me as a simple man, do not accept Me with such faith, but understand in Me the Word equal to the Father. I will ascend to the Father, and then touch. I will ascend for you when you understand Me as equal to the Father. As long as you consider Me lesser, I have not yet ascended for you.” Having been worthy of the appearance of the Risen One, Mary had to convey to the disciples of the Lord, along with the news of the resurrection of the Teacher, no less joyful news (see: John 14:28) about His imminent departure to the Father, which, as He told them in a farewell conversation, should be followed by the descent of the holy Comforter of the Spirit (see: John 16:17). From now on, from the day of the resurrection, all who believe in Christ Jesus, as redeemed by His saving sufferings and death on the cross, have one Heavenly Father together with their Savior; but Christ is the Son of God by nature, and believers by grace. In the saying of the Lord, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God, according to the teaching of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, and it is precisely the last thought that is hidden: “Otherwise He is My Father by nature, otherwise to you by appropriation; otherwise God is to Me, as the sincere and Only Begotten Son, and otherwise to you as creatures.” Thus, Mary Magdalene’s love for Christ, which manifested itself with special strength “in the Lord’s mortal field,” was “rewarded by the righteously accelerated life-giving vision of the risen Lord” (Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow): it was to her, first of all, as the holy Evangelist Mark says (see: 16:9), that the Lord Jesus appeared after His resurrection 93 . This appearance to Mary Magdalene was followed by the appearance of the risen Savior and to all the myrrh-bearing women, when they went to the apostles with the news of the resurrection received from the Angels; The Lord met them on the way with the words: “Rejoice!” They approached, grabbed His feet and worshiped Him. Then, encouraging them, Christ said: – Do not be afraid, go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me (see: Matthew 28:9-10; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10). When the holy myrrh-bearing women with the news of the resurrection of Christ came to the disciples of the Lord, they did not believe their words as false (see: Luke 24: 11), and continued to bitterly mourn the death of their Teacher. But then Mary Magdalene comes, who also says that the Lord “lives” - she herself “saw Him”; however, the apostles, overcome by grief, did not have the strength to believe (see: Mark 16:10-11), except, however, the Apostle Peter: “the word of Mary (that she saw the Risen One), holy as much in its subject as in its decisive authenticity, dispersed the darkness of his soul and prepared him with the imperceptible light of faith and love to accept the light of the Divine appearance” (Filaret, Metropolitan. Moscow); and indeed, after this, on the same day, the Lord Jesus appeared to Simon (see: Luke 24:34; 1 Cor. 15:5). At the same time, the appearance of Christ to the Apostle Peter, the first among the other apostles, was like a reward for his confession of the Lord Jesus as the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16) and a consolation to the disciple, dejected by his denial: “Whoever first confessed Him as Christ was rightly the first to see His resurrection. And not only because Christ appeared first of all to Peter alone, but also because Peter denied Him; in order to completely console him and show that he was not rejected, Christ honored him with his appearance before others” (St. John Chrysostom). The news of the resurrection of Christ, spreading among the holy society of followers of the Lord Jesus, reached the members of the Sanhedrin, to whom it was brought by soldiers who, at their insistence, were placed on guard at the tomb of the Savior (see: Matt. 27:62–66). Trembling by the earthquake and the appearance of a lightning-shaped Angel (see: Matt. 28:3–4), the soldiers, out of fear, voluntarily left the guard and ran to Jerusalem; here some of them told the high priests about everything to which they had been unwitting witnesses (see: Matthew 28:11). But the embittered Jewish leaders, who opposed the Lord during His earthly life, rebelled against Him even after His resurrection, resorting to their favorite means - bribery; “having bought the blood of Christ when He was alive, after His crucifixion and resurrection (they) again tried with money to undermine the truth of the resurrection” (St. John Chrysostom). Having given the soldiers enough money with a promise, if necessary, to protect them before the governor, the members of the Sanhedrin asked the guards to spread the following false rumor among the Jews: say that His disciples, coming at night, stole Him while we were sleeping (Matthew 28:12-14). “Look,” says Saint John Chrysostom about this invention of the enemies of Christ, “how they are caught on all sides by their own actions! If they had not come to Pilate, if they had not asked for guards, they could still have slandered in this way; now, on the contrary, they all did it in such a way that it was as if they were trying to block their lips.” Indeed, in their own words, the members of the Sanhedrin condemned themselves: could the disciples dare to steal the body of the Savior, when recently all of them, at the sight of a crowd armed with stakes, fled, leaving their Teacher (see: Mark 14:50)? When did the most resolute of them waver from the maidservant’s question (see: Matthew 26:69–72)? Do not the very shrouds and cloths remaining on the tomb of the Savior speak against the members of the Sanhedrin? If, let’s assume the impossible, the disciples stole the body, would they really hesitate in the cave to remove the tightly adhered shrouds with the scarf and put them in order? And how, finally, could the sleeping guard testify to something that it had not seen?! So insignificant before the truth of God are lies and deception, so malice and unbelief in the hands of Divine omnipotence testify to the truth of what they rebel against. Half a day of the great resurrection has already passed, and of the followers of Christ, only the myrrh-bearing women and the Apostle Peter were honored to see the Risen One; the other apostles, with the exception of the beloved disciple of the Lord, wavered between doubts and faith, not knowing how to react to the news of the resurrection of the Savior. And the Lord, as if condescending to their weakness, gradually prepared the spiritual eyes of the apostles for His radiant appearance. The last messengers of the resurrection for the twelve apostles were two of the seventy: Cleopas (see: Luke 24:18), probably the brother of Joseph the Betrothed and the husband of Mary, called the sister of the Mother of God (see: John 19:25), and, as the ancient tradition of the Church says, the holy evangelist Luke. On the day of Christ's resurrection, already in the evening, they walked together to the village of Emmaus, which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem (see: Luke 24:13). On the way, naturally, they talked to each other about what most worried their souls: about the latest events in the life of their Teacher and about the wondrous news of today, which their Christ-loving heart would like to believe, but this was prevented by their still undisclosed understanding. During an intimate exchange of thoughts, sharing common grief and bewilderment, the students noticed that Someone had approached them; it was Jesus Himself (Luke 24:15), but the apostles did not recognize Him, because their eyes were held (Luke 24:16), especially since the Lord appeared in a different image (Mark 16:12), that is, not in the one in which His disciples were accustomed to seeing Him during His earthly life. The Teacher did not want His sudden appearance to sharply change the spiritual mood of the apostles, which provided a convenient basis for His subsequent instructions. – What are you talking about among yourself as you walk, and why are you sad (Luke 24:17)? – the Traveler who joined them asked the apostles. For the disciples of Christ, completely absorbed in the thought of the recent death of the Teacher on the cross, the question of the new Interlocutor was surprising: it seemed to them that the events that were tearing their souls apart should have worried everyone without exception - and that now there could be no talk of anything else. Therefore, mistaking the Stranger for a proselyte who went to Jerusalem for the Easter holiday and returned home, Cleopas answered the question with a heated half-reproach: - Are you really one of those who came to Jerusalem and do not know about what has happened in it these days (Luke 24:18)? - About what? – the Lord asked again, wanting the disciples to tell Him the reason for their sadness. The apostles were glad to have the opportunity to alleviate their grief and, without hiding anything, opened their souls: they are sad because the high priests and leaders condemned to death Jesus the Nazarene, not only innocent of anything, but, on the contrary, a prophet “mighty in deed and word before God and all the people”; This death of the innocent Righteous One is especially bitter for them, because with it their hope for the opening of the glorious earthly kingdom of the Messiah, which was the common belief of the Jews of that time, was finally shattered: - He was crucified, and we hoped that He was the One who should deliver Israel; but with all that, it is now the third day since this happened. In conclusion, the disciples conveyed to their Companion the amazing news brought to them today from the Teacher’s tomb by the wives: - Some of our women amazed us: they were early at the tomb and did not find His body, and when they came they said that they had seen the appearance of Angels, who said that He was alive; and some of our men went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see Him (Luke 24:19–24). The Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly spoke to the disciples about His death and resurrection, but these words of the Lord did not fit with the view of the time, established among the apostles, on the Messiah as a glorious earthly king, and this despite the fact that the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament contained fairly clear indications of how Christ had to suffer and enter into His glory (Luke 24:26): the law of Moses in figurative forms institutions represented the suffering Messiah; The prophets in revelations - in some of them with amazing clarity - predicted the suffering and the glorification of Christ that would follow it. Therefore, the apostles were not innocent in their doubts about the resurrection of the Teacher. The Lord began His speech by condemning this doubt before clarifying to them, on the basis of Holy Scripture, the whole necessity of the suffering of the Messiah and His resurrection. - O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe everything that the prophets have foretold! (Luke 24:25), Christ exclaimed. Further words of the Lord, explaining what was said about Christ throughout Scripture (Luke 24:27), fell on the sorrowful souls of the apostles like life-giving dew: warmed by the holy fire of grace-filled consolation, their hearts trembled with joyful delight (see: Luke 24:32). Unnoticed, the travelers approached Emmaus, and the wonderful Stranger showed them that he wanted to go further (Luke 24:28). But the grateful apostles did not want to part so quickly with the man who, while comforting, spoke with such animated and extraordinary persuasiveness about the subject of their sorrowful thoughts and feelings; they restrained Him, saying: Stay with us, because the day has already fallen to evening (Luke 24:29). Wanting to reward the disciples with final assurance of the truth of the resurrection, the Lord fulfilled their request: He entered and stayed with them (Luke 24:29). When they reclined at the meal, Christ the Savior, as the eldest among those reclining, took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it (Luke 24:30) to the disciples: something immeasurably dear arose before the opened eyes of the apostles; in joyful bewilderment, they looked closely at the Stranger and recognized him as the Teacher, but at that same moment the Lord became invisible to them (Luke 24:31). Then the apostles began to remember all the details of the meeting with the Risen One, and they understood the flame of delight with which their hearts burned during His speech. “Didn’t our heart burn within us,” they said to each other, “when He spoke to us on the road and when He explained the Scripture to us?” (Luke 24:32). The apostles immediately hurried to Jerusalem to share their joy with other disciples of Christ. Here they found the twelve apostles, except Thomas, all together with the believers, in the same upper room in which, after the Lord’s ascension into heaven, they usually stayed waiting for the Comforter (see: Acts 1:13–14). They were greeted with the joyful news that the Lord had truly risen and appeared to Simon (Luke 24:34). In turn, the Emmaus travelers increased the general joy by telling about what had happened on the way, and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:35). Finally, the apostles came to fulfill what the Lord promised them in their farewell conversation: I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice (John 16:22). During the story of the Emmaus travelers to the holy assembly about the appearance of the Teacher, when the doors were locked for fear of the Jews (John 20:19), Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them (Luke 24:36). With this appearance on the very day of the resurrection, the Lord, according to the thought of St. John Chrysostom, “laid the foundation of the holy day of the Lord in replacement of the Old Testament Sabbath, which came to an end.” The first words of the Risen One to the community of believers were a greeting to peace: Peace be with you! (see: Luke 24:36; John 20:19). Before suffering, Christ the Savior, bidding farewell to his disciples, taught them His peace (see: John 14:27), but the state of the apostles at the present moment needed confirmation of this gift: grief over the loss of the Teacher, the consciousness of loneliness and helplessness among the Jews excited by amazing rumors terribly burdened the soul of the disciples, and only love for the Crucified One, awakened before faith in His resurrection, could gather together the scattered sheep of the stricken Shepherd. The appearance of the Risen Teacher, who passed through locked doors, despite the gift of peace, at first aroused fear and confusion in the disciples - they thought that they were seeing a spirit (Luke 24:37). Therefore, the Lord gradually convinces them of the great truth of the resurrection. “Why are you embarrassed,” asked the Knower of Hearts, encouraging them, “and why do such thoughts enter your hearts?” Look at My hands and at My feet; this is Me Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see Me. And having said this, he showed them his hands and feet (Luke 24:38–40). The apostles rejoiced inexpressibly, and their joy was the stronger the deeper and darker their sadness was; the appearance of the Conqueror of death for them served as a guarantee of the Lord’s victory over everything that is hostile to Him and His followers; The disciples were even afraid to believe their joy, and such a state of theirs was quite natural: “The apostles,” explains St. John Chrysostom, “saw the Firstborn risen from the dead, and such greatest miracles usually amaze at first, until over time they are established in the souls of believers.” Wanting to completely dispel any shadow of doubt in the souls of the disciples, the Lord asked: – Do you have any food here? They served him some of the baked fish and honeycomb. And he took it and ate before them (Luke 24:41–43). “Neither ribs nor wounds convince you,” as He said, “let at least the meal convince you” (St. John Chrysostom); at the same time, the Lord, according to the thoughts of the same father, “ate food without Himself needing it, consuming (it) by Divine power for the purpose of correcting the weakness of the disciples.” Then the Lord, destroying any possibility of bewilderment on the part of His disciples, pointed out to them that His suffering, death on the cross and resurrection, which He had repeatedly predicted to them earlier, were events predetermined from the ages by the Divine economy; they are the final completion of the Old Testament, which speaks about Christ: This is what I spoke to you about while I was still with you, that everything must be fulfilled that was written about Me in the law of Moses, and in the prophets and psalms (Luke 24:44). And on the eve of the final action of the promised Comforter of the Spirit (see: John 14:26), the Lord opened the minds of the disciples to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). And it really became clear to the apostles that this is how it is written, and this is how Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, starting from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47); for their enlightened consciousness the meaning of the redemptive feat of Christ was revealed, everything that they witnessed when they accompanied their Teacher was revealed in the true light, when they saw and heard what to hear and see was the cherished desire of the Old Testament righteous (see: Matt. 13:17). This first appearance of the Lord to the disciples ended with a second greeting of peace, after which the Risen One, knowing His imminent departure to the Father, entrusted the work of His service to the salvation of people here on earth to His successors - the holy apostles. Jesus said to them a second time: - Peace be with you! As the Father sent Me, so I send you. Having said this, he blew and said to them: – Receive the Holy Spirit (see: John 20:21–22). This breath, which served as a visible sign of the gift of the Holy Spirit and dedicated the apostles to the ministry of gospel preaching, at the same time restored in man the image of God darkened by sin: “This is a secondary breath, because the original one was no longer effective due to arbitrary sins” (St. Cyril of Jerusalem). The real “initial” (St. Cyril of Jerusalem) acceptance of the Holy Spirit transferred to the apostles the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, previously promised to them in the person of the Apostle Peter (see: Matt. 16:19): the preachers of peace brought to earth by the Lord (see: Eph. 2: 14–18; Col. 1: 20–22) received the power to bind and decide the conscience of people in order to destroy the root of enmity - sin. “Whose sins,” the Lord said to the apostles, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, “forgive, will be forgiven; On whomever you leave it, it will remain on him (John 20:28). However, the great ministry entrusted by the Lord to the apostles must not begin now: the disciples must remain in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from above, when the Promised Comforter comes upon them (Luke 24:49). When the Lord appeared to the apostles on Sunday evening, the Apostle Thomas, otherwise called the Twin, was not present (see: John 20:24). There can be no doubt that the absence of the holy apostle was not accidental: the providence of God thereby granted “for all languages” of the Church of Christ a new, most compelling in terms of the power of evidence, confirmation of the truth of the resurrection. “Why,” asks Saint Cyril of Alexandria, explaining the Gospel narrative about the appearance of the Risen Lord to Thomas, “is the mind of the disciples led to faith by detailed signs? Was it not enough to know Christ - to see the age of His body and the features of His face? But,” the holy father answers his own question, “this would be still doubtful.” For they could have thought that a certain spirit had taken on the image of the Savior, and their very passage through the closed doors would have easily led them to this thought, because the earthly body by its nature requires an entrance commensurate with itself. So, it was necessary for our Lord Jesus Christ to expose His side and wounds and show the bloody signs of the flesh in order to confirm the disciples.” Among the holy society of the chosen apostles, Saint Thomas, with the swiftness of his feelings, ready for self-sacrifice (see: John 11:16), was distinguished by a particularly inquisitive mind (see: John 14:15), little inclined to trust the words of others until he saw confirmation of them from his own experience. The development of this, generally characteristic of the somewhat melancholy character of the apostle, incredulity regarding the truth of the resurrection of Christ, in addition to its miraculousness, was greatly facilitated by the presence of the dejected disciple outside the society of followers of the Lord Jesus: the apostle preferred solitude to him in order to mourn the death of the Teacher in freedom. In this solitude, the incredulity of Saint Thomas, which found no counterbalance, reached the dimensions that can be judged by the answer to his apostles, when they joyfully told him that they had seen the Lord: “Unless I see,” said the doubting disciple, “the marks of the nails in His hands, and put my finger into the marks of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe (John 20:25). But this unbelief is “good unbelief” (service week of Antipascha, Great Eternal sticherion on “Lord, cried out” 4); its source was not a fierce denial, but a desire for truth—underneath it was hidden an ardent love for the Risen One Himself. And they were not left without an answer: after eight days (that is, on Sunday), His disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came when the doors were locked, stood in the middle of them and said: The Lord appeared eight days later so that the Apostle “Thomas, listening during this time to the convictions of the disciples and hearing the same thing, was inflamed with a great desire and became stronger in the faith for the future” (St. John Chrysostom). Fulfilling the desire of the apostle who suffered from unbelief, the resurrected Teacher addressed him with the following words: “Put your finger here and look at My hands; give me your hand and place it in my side; and do not be an unbeliever, but a believer (John 20:27). Of course, “a body so thin and light that it entered through the closed doors was alien to any plumpness, but Christ shows it this way in order to assure it of the resurrection” (St. John Chrysostom), so that the apostle, “with his own, so to speak, hands, took the joy of resurrection from the life-giving wounds of the Resurrected body” (Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow). The apostle fulfills the command of the Lord and “with a curious right hand” (service week of Antipascha, small eternal sticheron, on “Lord, cried”) touches “the open mouths of the inner source of life” (Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow), which brings back to life the almost dead faith of the apostle. - My Lord and my God! (John 20:28), - a joyful cry burst out from the disciple’s soul, lightened from the heavy burden of unbelief. – You believed because you saw Me; Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (John 20:29), Christ said to the disciple who believed. With this answer, the Lord, in the person of the Apostle Thomas, expressed censure to all those who seek visual and obvious signs for their assurance and pointed out the superiority of the faith of those who do not need it, for “the more obvious the sign, the less the dignity of faith” (St. John Chrysostom). The Lord's rebuke to a certain extent also applied to the other apostles, who were convinced of the truth of the resurrection only after the appearance of the Risen One to them (see: Luke 24:36–48), excluding, however, the Apostle John, who from the empty tomb of Christ took with him the faith that the Lord lives (see: John 20:8). “It seems,” says Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, “you can see how the Lord looks at Thomas with a look of reproach and says: “You believed because you saw Me,” then he turns his gaze of approval to John and, although not openly to his name, nevertheless continues clearly to his heart, “blessed are those who have not seen and believed.” Hitherto the appearances of the Risen Lord took place in Jerusalem or near it; but even on the night before the suffering of the cross, Christ the Savior, comforting the apostles, predicted to them that after His resurrection He would see them in Galilee (see: Matt. 26:32); on the very day of resurrection, the Angel, through the myrrh-bearing women, reminds the disciples of this promise of the Teacher (see: Matthew 28:7); it is repeated again by the Lord Himself, who said when appearing to the myrrh-bearing women: go and tell my brothers, so that they go to Galilee, and there they will see me (Matthew 28:10). The appearance of the Lord in Galilee was a special joy for the apostles. The apostles had the most precious memories associated with this country, famous in the days of the Savior for its fertility, rich pastures, abundance of vegetation and the beauty of nature: here their Divine Teacher spent thirty years of His life until the day of His appearance to the world (see: Matt. 3:13); here they were called by Him from the nets of fishermen to be fishers of men (Matthew 4:19); here, among the green hills and bright springs, among the peaceful agricultural population, the happiest days of their life together with the Teacher passed, the joy of which in Galilee was least darkened by persecution from the scribes and Pharisees. Galilee was the favorite place of the Savior’s preaching and was all trodden by His sacred feet: its small towns and villages, buried in orchards of apple, pomegranate and walnut trees, mountains and plains occupied by cornfields, a lake that shone like an emerald among the wonderful trees of the valley of Gennesaret - all this told the disciples about the Teacher, about His miracles, conversations and parables. At the end of the holidays, the apostles returned to their homeland; the appearances of the Lord replaced their grief over the death of the Teacher with the joyful consciousness that He, although they do not walk with Him as before, is alive, and, therefore, all the promises of Him, the Conqueror of death, will come true. True, this faith of theirs was not yet completely free from false ideas associated at that time with the concept of the Messiah, but nevertheless it was incomparably deeper and purer. One evening, near Lake Gennesaret, memorable for the Lord’s repeated visits (see: Matt.4:13-17; 23-25; Matt.8:23-34; Matt.9:1-8; Matt.13:1), Simon - Peter, Thomas - the Twin, Nathanael from Cana of Galilee, the sons of Zebedee - James and John and two other disciples of the Lord gathered. Returning temporarily, before the sending of the Comforter Spirit promised by the Lord (see: Luke 24:49), to their former way of life, the apostles also returned to their former source of food - fishing. Peter said, turning to his companions: “You and I are going too,” they answered him. And immediately everyone went to the lake together and sailed away in a boat. The apostles worked all night, casting nets here and there, but they caught nothing (see: John 21:1-3). It was already morning. Suddenly the tired students noticed that Someone was standing on the shore. It was Christ, but the disciples did not recognize Him, perhaps because of the predawn darkness that covered the shores, or perhaps because the Lord appeared, like the Emmaus travelers, “in a different form.” The Lord Jesus “does not immediately reveal Himself, but first enters into a conversation in a completely human way, as if intending to buy something from them” (St. John Chrysostom): - Children, do you have any food? - asked Christ. “No (John 20:5–6),” the apostles answered with disappointment. Then the One Standing on the Shore suggested to them in the tone of a man who was quite confident in the success of the matter: - Throw the net on the right side of the boat and you will catch it. The disciples cast and could no longer pull out the nets from the multitude fish (see: John 21:6). This wonderful catch, of course, immediately reminded the apostles of another similar to it, also after a night, the labors of which were also fruitless, but then they cast the net at the command of the Teacher (see: Luke 5: 4-7), and this coincidence, no doubt, awakened in the disciples a vague guess that the One who spoke to them from the shore was perhaps the Lord Himself. However, if the other apostles only had a presentiment of the truth, then the Apostle John, listening to the voice of his heart, burning with love for the Lord Jesus, immediately recognized Him. “This is the Lord,” he said with confidence to Peter, who, hearing that it was the Lord, girded himself with clothing (for he was naked) and threw himself into the sea (John 21:7); the boat was not far from the shore, at a distance of two hundred cubits. In the actions of Peter and John at the present appearance of the Lord, the distinctive features in the character of both apostles were revealed with particular clarity: “That one (that is, the Apostle Peter) was more fiery, and this one was more exalted; this one is swifter, and this one is more insightful; John was the first to recognize Jesus, and Peter was the first to go to Him” (St. John Chrysostom). Meanwhile, other disciples arrived in a boat, dragging a net with fish (John 21:8). Coming ashore, they saw a fire built, and on it fish and bread. “Bring the fish that you have now caught (John 21:10),” the Lord said to the disciples. Simon Peter pulled a net to the ground, in which there were one hundred and fifty-three large fish; it was a new miracle, since with such a multitude the net did not break through (John 21:11). The disciples were finally convinced that the Lord was before them. And when He invited them to a meal, “Come, have dinner,” they silently sat around the lighted fire; none of them dared to ask Him: Who are you? knowing that it is the Lord (John 21:12). So, according to St. John Chrysostom, at this appearance of the Savior, the apostles “no longer had their usual courage, did not dare as before, and did not turn to Him with a speech, but sat in silence, with great fear and reverence, and looked at Him.” At the beginning of the meal, the Lord came up, took the bread, broke it and gave it to the disciples; then He divided the fish. While the apostles were having dinner, the Lord turned to the Apostle Peter with a question: - Simon Ionin! Do you love Me more than they? By calling the apostle by his former name Simon, although for his confession he was awarded by the Lord the name of a stone with the addition of a great promise (see: Matt. 16:16-18), Christ seems to be hinting to him that, having renounced the Teacher and thus revealing the weakness inherent in human nature, he lost the right to this high name. The last words of the question also indicate the source of this weakness - the apostle’s excessive arrogance in his own strength, when on the night before the Teacher’s languor in Gethsemane and shortly before his renunciation, he proudly assured the Lord: even if everyone is offended because of You, I will never be offended (Matthew 26:33). A bitter wave flooded the apostle’s soul with memories of that constantly lamented event when he, called by the Lord also after a miraculous catch of fish (see: Luke 5:10), during the terrible hours of the Savior’s desecration at the trial of the high priest, sitting just as now, by the fire, denied Him three times. But sincere and deep repentance for his sin had a beneficial effect on the fallen apostle, cultivating in him a spirit of humility in contrast to his previous self-confidence; this was expressed in the apostle’s answer, in which he not only does not put his love for Christ above the love of other disciples, but also does not compare it with it - he simply says: So, Lord! You know that I love You. At the same time, the apostle does not even dare to call his feeling perfect love (ἀγάπη): he designates it as friendly affection (φίλος), although now he was really ready to die for the Teacher. And humility did not go without reward. “Feed My lambs (see: John 21:15), - the Lord said to the apostle. Here, according to the explanation of St. Basil the Great, Christ “called the newborn in the faith lambs.” After a short silence, the Lord asked the Apostle Peter a second time: - Simon Ionin! Do you love me? The Lord’s question no longer contained a reproachful reference to the apostle’s once-expressed rash assurance of the superiority of his love for the Teacher over the love of other disciples. This, no doubt, was noticed by the apostle, and from his grateful soul came the same humble answer: - Yes, Lord! You know that I love You. “Feed My sheep (John 21:16),” Christ answered, entrusting to the Apostle the pastoral leadership of all members of the Church who had already reached perfect spiritual age, whom the Lord had repeatedly previously likened to sheep (see: Matthew 18:12–14; John 10:6–14). - Simon Ionin! Do you love me? – the Lord asked for the third time, unexpectedly for the apostle, reassured by the promises of Christ Jesus. This question of the Lord greatly saddened the Apostle Peter: he saw in it an expression of doubt about his double assurance of love. Therefore, pointing to the omniscience of the Lord, he, having renounced Christ for the third time with an oath, now with special force for the third time confesses his love for Him: - Lord! You know everything; You know that I love You. “Feed My sheep (John 21:17),” the Lord confirmed the promise already given, restoring His fallen disciple to the apostolic rank: “Threefold proof of love for Christ atoned for the threefold renunciation of Christ; it was a short penance for the repentant and resolved Peter” (Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow). Having restored the dignity he had lost to the apostle, the Lord then turned to him with an allegorical speech, with which he made it clear at what age he would glorify God and by what death (John 21:19): “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and went where you wanted; and when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and lead you where you do not want (John 21:18), that is, the apostle will die a violent, martyr’s death for Christ and - in those years when they do what they want with the old man, weakened under the burden of years. “Follow Me (John 21:19),” the Lord concluded His prediction, as if repeating that call (see: Matt. 4:19), from which the apostle evaded by his renunciation. The Apostle immediately stood up and followed the Lord, showing by this that he would not retreat from Him on his path after Him, even if he encountered a painful death, for he was no longer Simon, but Peter. Turning back, the Apostle Peter noticed that he was not following the Lord alone—he was being followed, drawn by love for the Teacher, by the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 21:20), that is, John the Theologian. When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus: - Lord! What is he? (John 21:21). Otherwise: what lies ahead for him in the future - “won’t he also follow the same path as us?” (St. John Chrysostom). The excessive inquisitiveness of the apostle, who wanted to penetrate into what was hidden by the Lord from human eyes, was useless for him and displeasing to the Savior. Therefore Christ, with a hint of reproach, said to him: “If I want him to stay until I come, what is that to you?” You follow Me (John 21:22). That is, “you have been entrusted with a task, take care of it, complete it, endure and strive” (St. John Chrysostom); leave John: “If I wanted that disciple to remain alive forever, even until My second coming, what is that to you? You follow Me along the path of suffering and death, but he may have another path” (from the interpretation of the Gospel of John by Archimandr Michael). These words, spoken conditionally by the Lord, were subsequently understood literally by believers, in the sense that the disciple would not die (John 21:23), which could be confirmed by the truly long life of the apostle. This conviction was so firmly rooted that the apostle in his declining years was forced to refute it, clarifying the real meaning of the words of Christ the Savior: Jesus did not tell him that he would not die, but: if I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? (John 21:23). The second appearance of the Lord in Galilee was to a large congregation of believers led by the apostles, whereas before that time only the myrrh-bearing women and His closest disciples had seen the Risen One. The place of this solemn appearance was the mountain chosen by the Lord Himself (see: Matt. 28:16); here, by the time He indicated, more than five hundred brethren had gathered (see: 1 Cor. 15:6), and there is no doubt that the majority of them consisted of Galileans who followed the Lord during His preaching in their homeland, listened to His teaching, witnessed His miracles and, there is nothing incredible, experienced the goodness of the merciful Healer. When the Lord appeared, some of those gathered on the mountain worshiped Him, while others doubted (Matthew 28:17); Of course, among the latter there were no apostles who had already been confirmed in faith by the previous appearances of the Lord: doubt could arise only in those followers of Christ who were privileged to see the Risen One for the first time. But this doubt was temporary and gave way to firm faith, so that subsequently the holy Apostle Paul, listing the witnesses to the appearances of the Risen Lord, also mentions “more than five hundred brethren,” many of whom were still alive. Approaching the apostles, Christ the Savior said to them: - All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:18–20). In these few words, filled with truly Divine greatness, the risen Savior gives the apostles authority for worldwide preaching, lays the mysterious foundation of the Church with the commandment of baptism (St. Athanasius of Alexandria), and believers in the Lord Jesus of all ages are strengthened by the joyful promise of the presence of the Conqueror of hell and death with them. Having received after His resurrection the same power in humanity that always belongs to Him in Divinity, the Lord, having made an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2), and does not limit the preaching of the Gospel to the narrow boundaries of Jewish nationality: He commands the apostles to go with it to all nations, sealing the believers with holy baptism, opening the doors of the Kingdom of God (see: John 3:5), and teaching them to keep His commandments as a testimony of love (see: John 14:21) and living faith in the Risen Lord (see: James 2:14). But preaching about Christ, which was a temptation for the Jews and madness for the Greeks (1 Cop. 1:23), had to expect hostility from both of them, which threatened the preachers themselves with dangers of all kinds, up to and including martyrdom. With my promise - I am with you all the days until the end of the age, the Lord instills courage in the souls of the preachers of the Gospel, who faced a difficult struggle with the world. But since the apostles “did not have life until the end of the age,” then the Lord’s promise “applies not to them alone, but to all His disciples in general, that is, to all who believe in Him and keep His commandments” (Blessed Theophylact). With the Lord's assistance (Mark 16:20), the apostles, leaving the fishermen's nets, caught the whole world in the net of the teachings of the Gospel, and in this an immutable evidence was given for believers of all times of the effectiveness of the great promise of the Lord about His presence in the Church forever. Only in this case does it become understandable that “unlearned and simple fishermen stopped the lips of philosophers and, as it were, flowed around the entire universe, sowing the word of piety in it, tearing away patience, destroying ancient customs and implanting the laws of Christ everywhere. Neither their small number and simplicity, nor the severity of their commands, nor the attachment of the entire human race to ancient customs could serve as an obstacle for them, but all this was eliminated by the grace of God that preceded them, so that they did everything easily, being aroused by the very obstacles to greater zeal” (St. John Chrysostom). The Holy Apostle Paul, as if adding to the Gospel story about the appearances of the Lord Jesus, also mentions the appearance of the Risen Savior to the Apostle James, according to St. John Chrysostom, the brother of the Lord, whom, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, He Himself ordained and made the first bishop in Jerusalem. Thus our Lord Jesus Christ: revealed Himself alive, through His suffering, with many true proofs, appearing to them (the apostles) for forty days and speaking about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3) 94. See also: Book IX – May In a farewell conversation with the disciples, in view of the approaching suffering on the cross and atoning death, the Lord said to His sorrowful interlocutors: I came from the Father and came into the world, and again I leave the world and go to the Father (John 16:28). And then, after His resurrection, having broken the bonds of hell and death, He again repeated to Mary Magdalene: I ascend to My Father and your Father and to My God and your God (John 20:17). Thus, after His resurrection, the Lord no longer belonged so much to the earth as to heaven. And this is quite understandable. The feat of the earthly ministry of the Son of God was over: He had already completed the work that His heavenly Father entrusted Him with fulfilling (see: John 17:4), and now He had to enter into His glory, which He had before the world was (see: John 17:5). This was required by the dignity of the very nature of the God-Man, since His glorified resurrection and deified body was no longer characteristic of remaining on earth, in the natural conditions of human existence. The good of redeemed humanity also required this. For just as the Old Testament high priest once a year entered the Holy of Holies with cleansing blood for the sins of the people, so Christ, being the bishop of future blessings (Heb. 9:11), had to, after offering the atoning sacrifice, also enter with His blood, but not into a sanctuary made with hands, but into heaven itself, in order to appear now for us before the face of God (Heb. 9:24). That is why the Lord, already in his first appearance after His resurrection, announced to Mary Magdalene, and through her to all his followers, about His imminent departure to heaven. However, love for the disciples - this small flock, which the Savior of the world loved to the end (John 13:1), still kept Him on earth. That is why, although “His most pure humanity, heavenly by the cross, was already striving high up, into the heavenly world - to the Father” (Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson, op. vol. I, p. 354), the Lord did not immediately ascend to heaven. He no longer stayed with His disciples constantly, did not share day and night, rest and meals with them, as it was before; but from time to time He appeared among them, either during a home conversation, when the doors of their house were locked (see: John 20:19), then on the way (see: Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13–32), then while fishing (see: John 21:1–14). These miraculous phenomena poured wonderful joy into the hearts of the disciples, weighed down with sadness. The inglorious death of the Lord Jesus in Jerusalem, during the Easter holiday, destroyed all their hopes for His Teacher as the Messiah - the Deliverer: “We hoped that He would deliver Israel,” of course, many repeated with the Emmaus companions, “but He died on the cross - This Prophet in deed and word, mighty before God and before the people” (see: Luke 24:20–21). And now the shaken faith of the disciples was revived again, love, plunged into sadness, triumphed again: the Lord rose again and by His appearances repeatedly testified to the disciples the truth of His resurrection; to assure them, He ate and drank with them (see: Luke 24:42), allowed His hands and feet to be touched (see: Luke 24:39), showed the wounds on His hands, feet and ribs so that they could touch them with their fingers (see: John 20:27). But it was not to assure only of the truth of His resurrection that the Lord appeared to His disciples after rising from the dead. During these appearances, He continued to instruct them in the truths of the Gospel, telling them about the kingdom of God (see: Acts 1:3) what could not be revealed to them before the cross and which, however, they needed to hear from their Teacher even before the descent of a new Mentor to them - the Holy Spirit. At this time, the Lord opened the minds of the disciples to understand the Scriptures (see: Luke 24:45); told them about His Divine power in heaven and on earth, about their Divine election to preach the Gospel to all nations, to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe everything that the Lord commanded them; at the same time, He promised to be with His Church all the days until the end of the age (see: Matthew 28:18–20). So gradually the Lord prepared His disciples for the great service to which they were called - to preach Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Forty days passed amid such preparations. At this time, the disciples of the Divine Teacher gradually got used to the thought of separation from Him. Seeing Him not constantly staying with them, but only appearing from time to time, they learned to recognize in Him a premium Being, belonging not to our world, but to a higher one. Thinking about Him, they already said: Lord, and not Teacher, as before, and their feeling of love for Man merged with reverent reverence for the Lord. Little by little, of course, they came to the idea that the Lord’s stay on earth was a temporary state, not characteristic of His nature, and that separation from Him was inevitable. Now they see Him from time to time with their bodily eyes: this is their holiday, but the holiday cannot last long. Thus, from the joy of the risen Lord, the apostles gradually moved to the thought of inevitable separation from Him. And now, on the fortieth day after the Resurrection of the Lord, the time of this separation came. The number forty throughout sacred history was excellent, as the time of the end of great feats. On the fortieth day after birth, the firstborn of Israel, according to the law of Moses, had to appear in the church before the face of Jehovah (see: Lev.16:19–20); on the fortieth day after the resurrection, as if by a new birth, the firstborn from the dead ( Col. 1:18 ) - our Lord Jesus Christ - was to enter the heavenly tabernacle. It does not appear that the Lord's disciples were previously notified that this day should put an end to their visible communication with the Divine Teacher. However, they, according to a clear command that could have been given in one of the previous phenomena, gathered for this day in Jerusalem. No matter how full the holy city was of the enemies of the Lord Jesus, there were still people with whom His disciples could have both refuge and a place for their meetings. And it is quite possible that such a place was the same upper room in which the Last Supper was celebrated, and after several days after the Ascension, the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles. Among the gathered disciples, the Lord also appeared - no doubt, as mysteriously and suddenly as He had appeared before after His resurrection. The conversation of the Lord with the disciples at this last appearance is not conveyed by the evangelists in all details. But the Evangelist Luke gives several instructions from which one can see what this conversation was about. First of all, the Lord once again reveals to the disciples the need for the Way of the Cross for the Messiah-Deliverer. So it is written, that is, it was determined and predicted by the prophets from the ages, and so it was necessary, He said, for Christ to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47). The Divine Teacher now calls His disciples to the feat of this sermon, entrusting to them the completion of His evangelistic work. “You are witnesses of everything that happened, you saw how the Redeemer died for the sins of the world, you saw Him risen; That’s why I am sending you to preach the Gospel to all nations,” as if the Lord were speaking. But before going out to preach worldwide, the apostles had to receive the grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit, who was about to appear to them. In the appearance of this Divine Mentor, they could find for themselves a replacement for their Teacher (see: John 14:26), consolation in separation from Him (see: John 16:7), sanctification for the great service of the Church (see: Eph. 4:11-13), final enlightenment with the revealed truth (see: John 15:26) and, finally, that power from above (see: Luke 24:49), which was necessary to overcome the difficulties and obstacles facing them in the work of preaching. Therefore, the Lord in further words gives the apostles the command “not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the fulfillment of the Father’s promise,” which they heard through Him (see: Acts 1:4) when He said goodbye to them before His suffering. And I,” the Savior continues, “will send the promise of My Father to you; But stay in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49). John once baptized you with water, and now, a few days after this, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Having taught these instructions, the Lord led His disciples out of Jerusalem and went with them towards Bethany. This was the path that He repeatedly walked with His disciples and which He completed with them for the last time just before His suffering. The road lay past the Garden of Gethsemane, where the Lord more than once retired at night to pray, where He, on the eve of His suffering, in the presence of His chosen disciples - who were witnesses of His glorious transfiguration (see: Matt. 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28; Matt. 26:37; Mark 14:33), struggled with the weakness of the flesh, with all His being indignant at the difficulty of the feat He took upon Himself (see: Matt. 26:38–45; Mark 14:34–36; Luke 22:42–44), and from where He was taken by the bishop’s guard for trial and death on the cross (see: Matt. 26:47–57; Mark 14:43–53; Luke 22:47–54). The thoughts of the disciples themselves turned to the painful past they had recently experienced and, involuntarily comparing it with the present joyful moment, they thought that the Divine Teacher was not in vain leading them through these places full of sad memories, that, perhaps, in the same place from where the path of His inglorious suffering on the cross began, His glory should be revealed to the whole world. The words they had recently heard that the time was approaching when they would be baptized in the Holy Spirit strengthened them in this thought. They heard how John the Baptist spoke about the Messiah that He would baptize not with water, but with the Holy Spirit (see: Mark 1:8): this means that if the time has come for such baptism, then, obviously, their Lord will soon reveal Himself to the world as a glorious King - the Messiah. And so, in joyful excitement, they approach the Teacher and turn to Him with the question: Lord, are You at this time restoring the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6). There would not have been such a question before Gethsemane, which clearly showed that the previous prejudice about the earthly reign of the Lord Jesus over Israel had not yet been destroyed in the minds of the disciples. But those who asked had not yet been “baptized with the Holy Spirit,” which had the power to forever raise them from earth to heaven, elevate their minds and cleanse it of everything coarse and earthly; That’s why they now reasoned humanly, they understood the Teacher, even resurrected, still in the flesh. The Divine Mentor meekly listened to this question and did not answer it with reproach or even outright denial. He only lovingly remarked: It is not your business to know the times or seasons that the Father has set in His power; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:7–8). That is, as the Savior of the world would say: “You should not think now about the kingdom and rewards, but about exploits and patience even to death; leave the future to Him in whose Hand it is, and focus all your attention on what lies ahead of you and what you must work on.” In the midst of such a conversation, they reached the top of Olivet, which was distant from Jerusalem at a distance of a Sabbath journey 95 (see: Acts 1:12). Here the Lord stopped, looked at His disciples, then raised His hands and blessed them with that blessing that extends its power forever and is passed on from one generation to another, resting on all believers. And blessing, He rose in the eyes of the disciples and began to move away from them and ascend to heaven “not with the help of someone leading Him,” but, according to the remark of St. John Chrysostom, “He himself walked this way” (Conversation on Psalms, St. Petersburg, 1860, vol. 1, p. 381). This ascent was carried out so slowly that the disciples could fully enjoy the majestic spectacle. When the Ascended One was already at such a height that it was difficult for vision to follow Him, a bright cloud appeared and hid Him from the face of the earth. Thus, before the eyes of the apostles, a phenomenon took place similar to that seen by Elisha during the departure of the prophet Elijah to heaven, but only in an incomparably more glorious form. “Elijah,” argues Saint Gregory the Dvoeslov on this matter, “ascended to heaven in a chariot, as proof that he, as a man, could not do without external aids. This aid was given to him by the Angels when he ascended to heaven, for he could not ascend there by himself, because natural weakness did not allow him to separate from the earth. Meanwhile, the Savior did not need a chariot, did not need Angels, for the Creator, by His Divine power, ascended to heaven; He returned to where he came from, he entered where he had been for centuries; for although He ascended in humanity, He possessed both heaven and earth in Divinity” (conversation on the Feast of the Ascension). With an inexplicable feeling, the apostles looked at His last miracle that took place before them, watching how the Divine Teacher hid further and further from them, and, of course, they could not take their eyes off the sweetest spectacle. The Lord had already completely disappeared from them, but their gaze still sought after Him, still sought Him... In the midst of such intense attention of the apostles to the last sacrament of the Gospel being performed, they are suddenly struck by a voice that brings them out of their stupor. This was said by two bright celestial beings who unexpectedly appeared before them in white robes. Having awakened the disciples from their inactive amazement, the heavenly messengers explained to them that the departure of the Lord was a visible hiding of Him until the time of His second coming: Men of Galilee, they said, why are you standing and looking at heaven? This Jesus, who ascended from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him ascending into heaven (Acts 1:11) - he will come just as “unexpectedly and unforeseen”, just as “openly and solemnly” (explained by Philareta, Metropolitan of Moscow, op. 1874, vol. 2, pp. 165, 167), also “on a cloud and with a body” (St. Ioanna Zlat. conversation on Acts. Apost., 1856, part 1, p. 42). After these words, the apostles had nothing to wait for on Olivet, and they, reverently bowing to the Ascended One, returned to Jerusalem; They returned not with sadness from separation, but, as the evangelist notes, with great joy (Luke 24:52). They rejoiced in the glory of their Teacher, whose ascension testified that He is the true God, the Lord of heaven and earth; they rejoiced at their own destiny, because they saw that they were called to the great and holy work of God; they rejoiced at the very appearance of the angels and the message received from them, which showed that the departed Teacher did not interrupt the communication of love with them, that in necessary cases they would receive instructions from above. Among the witnesses of the Ascension of the Lord, together with the apostles, was the Most Pure Mother of the Lord, whom church hymns also present as a witness to this wondrous event: as a Mother, She, during the suffering of Her Son, suffered more than anyone else in her heart, and now more than anyone else “it was fitting for Her, at the sight of the glory of His flesh, to enjoy the predominant joy” (service for the Ascension, vespers verse in lit., glory). Looking together with the apostles at Her Son and Her Lord ascending into heaven and comprehending the accomplishment of all the wonderful things that were kept in Her heart about Her Son (see: Luke 2:19, 51), She “exalted” Him not only with love, but also with faith in His Divinity (service for the Ascension, morning canon, hymn 9, glory of the eternal st. on the verse). This is how the Lord’s ascension into heaven took place. Like quiet rain on the fleece, He descended into the womb of the Ever-Virgin, like morning incense, He now ascended to the Father. But amid such silence and silence, only the departure of the God-Man from the earth took place - from the place of His exploits and final exhaustion. His entry into the heavenly world took place under a different, extremely solemn atmosphere. According to the image of the heavenly mysteries, the Conqueror of hell and death ascended to heaven not Alone, but accompanied by a host of heavenly Angels, who also served Him during his earthly wanderings (see: Matt. 4:11). When the One Ascending into Heaven approached the heavenly limits, the face of the angelic forces accompanying Him, warning the heavenly powers, exclaimed: “Lift up the tops (princes) of the gates of heaven, let them dissolve as widely as possible, for the King of glory is entering.” – Who is this King of glory? - asks the face of the Angels in heaven. – Who is this, rising from the earth with such glory and greatness? This extraordinary and unprecedented ascension astonished the heavenly world. He saw two ascensions into heaven - Enoch and Elijah, but those entries were not made by his own strength, not with such greatness and not to such a height: they were taken as if into heaven - and not into heaven itself. That is why the extraordinary procession of the Lord, ascending with flesh, in the form of a slave, causes such bewilderment among those who met Him. But the Angels accompanying the Lord explain that He who enters in the form of a man is none other than the Only Begotten Son of God. “The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory,” they exclaim (see: Ps. 23:10). However, even after that, the bewilderment of the heavenly powers does not stop: The Lord, just as after the resurrection appeared to the apostles with sores from wounds on the cross, so He ascended into heaven with the same signs of His suffering on the cross, with traces of His Most Pure Blood on the deified body. This sight of Him strikes the heavenly powers with new bewilderment and they ask: -Who is this one who came from Edom? Why are His garments scarlet (red)? “This is He who trampled the winepress of God’s wrath (see: Is. 63:1-3) and stained His vestments, This is He who shed His Blood for the human race—that is why His vestments are scarlet,” answers the face accompanying the Lord. When all the confusion regarding the Person ascending to heaven has ended, the heavenly powers are resolved by singing and exclamation. The psalmist points to this by exclaiming: God has risen up with shouting, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet (Ps. 46:6). At this time, according to the testimony of the celestial Paul, the world of Angels solemnly submitted to the ascended Lord and recognized in Him their head and ruler. Thus, the Divine Redeemer, having accomplished our redemption in a state of extreme self-abasement (see: Phil. 2:7,8), ascended into His eternal glory with glorified humanity (see: John 17:5; Luke 24:26), ascended above all the heavens (see: Eph. 4:10), above all principality, and power, and strength, and dominion (see: Eph. 1, 21). The Holy Evangelist Mark, as if penetrating with his gaze into the very depths of heaven, following the ascending Lord, says that after His Ascension He sat down at the right hand of God (Mark 16:19). This sitting at the right hand of God the Father, according to the agreed interpretation of the holy fathers, means “equality with the Father,” which “the Son of God, as God and consubstantial with the Father, had before the ages, and in which, having become incarnate in the last times, he will sit bodily, after the glorification of His flesh” (Interpretation of St. John of Damascus. Accurate exposition of the right faith. M. 1844, p. 223). Such is the glorious, unthinkable for the most heavenly powers (see: 1 Pet. 1:12), the completion of the saving life on earth of our Lord Jesus Christ. This event brought with it great benefits for redeemed humanity. The Lord ascended as the Conqueror of sin, death and hell, as the Firstborn of our glory and bliss, as the all-night intercessor for us at the throne of the Almighty. From the beginning of time, heaven and earth were separated by a great impassable chasm. In five hundred years, only two people ascended from the earth with flesh - Enoch and Elijah, but they did not ascend by their own strength, not knowing how and where, they ascended, as the Scripture says about Elijah, as if into heaven; therefore, they could not indicate to us their path to heaven, much less make it passable for us. But Christ ascended Himself, by His Divine power, and by His ascension opened the entrance into the heavenly sanctuary that was closed for all (see: Heb. 9:24–28). Indeed, the Godhead in Jesus Christ never left heaven. Even then he was on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, when he was “in the carnal grave, in hell with his soul, in heaven with the thief” (the hymn of the Easter hours). Consequently, in Christ our human nature ascends to heaven, that which suffered in Him, was buried and was resurrected - a glorified and deified nature. It is this that has sat down at the right hand of God the Father, as the Evangelist Mark puts it. Thus, the sitting of the Lord at the right hand of God the Father, in its final result, signifies the deification and glorification of human nature in Christ. “Deification,” says Metropolitan Macarius, “not in the sense that humanity in Christ turned into Divinity, lost its limitations and received Divine properties instead of human ones, but in the fact that, having been received by the Son of God into the unity of His hypostasis, it partook of His Divinity, became one with God the Word, and through this communion with His Divinity it rose in its perfections to the highest possible for humanity, degree, without ceasing to be humanity." (“Orthodox dogmatic theology”, 4th ed., vol. II, p. 95). Thus, “the firstfruits of our nature” was glorified in Christ, according to the expression of St. John Chrysostom, Fr. But if “the firstfruits of our nature” was glorified in Christ and deified, then through this we all acquired sanctification; where the head is, there must be members; The head is in heaven in glory; neither will its members remain on earth in humiliation. And when I am lifted up from the earth, says the Lord, I will draw everyone to me (John 12:32). But the Lord not only raised our nature to heaven; Together with him, he also sat down at the right hand of God the Father and “honored him,” according to the expression of church hymns, “by being next to” the Father (service for the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, Great Evening. Verse: I cried out to the Lord, glory, in lit. verse. 5). For “to what nature did God say, Sit at my right hand? The same one,” says Chrysostom, “who once heard: you will return to the land from which you were taken (see: Gen. 3:19). It was not enough for her to rise above the heavens, it was not enough for her to stand alongside the Angels - even this honor would not have been extraordinary - but she surpassed the Angels, exceeded the Archangels, left the Cherubim behind her, ascended above the Seraphim, passed the Principalities, and did not stop before reaching the throne of the Lord. Christ exalted our Nature above all that height” (John Chrysostom. conversation on the feast of the Ascension. ed. St. Petersburg. Spirit. Ak., vol. VII, p. 2). “Astonished,” according to the image of the Church, “the ranks of angels, seeing on the throne of the Father the fallen human nature planted, shut up in the depths of the earth” (Oct., ch. 8, week morning can. 2, p. 1, trop. 2). So, dominion over enemies (see: Ps.9:3), casting them to His footstool (see: Ps.109:1), priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek (see: Heb.3:10), judgment over the disobedient - all these are the properties of humanity sitting at the right hand of God. Christ, sitting at the right hand of God, intercedes for us and intercedes as befits a state of glorification. “What cannot be expected from this petition? - He took upon Himself our nature, lived on earth - all our needs are so known to Him: what will He not ask the Father for, what will He not send, what will He not do for us? He begged the Father to send us the Comforter and poured out the Holy Spirit on all flesh. Just as the head is the beginning of all movements in the body, so Christ, the head of His faithful, revives, animates these mysterious members, imparts to them feelings and spiritual movements; The Church - Her body - protects from the attacks of the opposing authorities, crushes her enemies like vessels of the poor. Like dust in the face of the wind, so the enemies of Jesus - the wicked, heretics, blasphemers, princes of heaven - undress and disappear” (Resurrection Reading, Chapter V, p. 41). These are the benefits that the event of the Ascension of the Lord brought with it for us. But in order for these benefits to really have power for us, we must constantly remember that since the ascension of Christ our residence has been in heaven, from where we expect the Savior, our Lord, Jesus Christ (see: Phil. 3:20). We must seek the highest, where Christ sits at the right hand of God (see: Col. 3:1). We must constantly raise our thoughts, hearts and gazes to Him who ascended into heaven, in the hope of later reaching heaven ourselves - this eternal dwelling prepared for true Christians. Pentecost (Descent of the Holy Spirit) Since the time of Moses, the Old Testament Church annually celebrated the day of Pentecost (that is, the 50th), which occurred after seven weeks (weeks) after the Jewish Passover and was therefore called the Feast of Weeks (see: Deut. 16:9-10; Exod. 34:22). This celebration, accompanied by significant rituals, was established in memory of the Sinai legislation given by God to the great leader of ancient Israel - Moses 96. This feast of the Old Testament Pentecost was a prototype of both the New Testament Pentecost and the Law of Zion. The prophet Isaiah also predicted that the law would come out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Is. 2:3) and the prophet Joel foretold: I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and in Mount Zion there will be one saved in Jerusalem (Jol. 2:28,32). Before His suffering and death, the Lord Himself promised the apostles, who grieved over His departure, to send in His place another Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who would guide them into all truth (see: John 16:13). After His resurrection, the Lord, foreshadowing the final outpouring of the Holy Spirit, blew on His disciples and said to them; receive the Holy Spirit (see: John 20:22). Before his ascension into heaven, the Savior again announced to the apostles that they would not be baptized in the Holy Spirit for many days (see: Acts 1:5). After the Ascension of the Lord, His disciples and apostles, returning from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem (see: Luke 24:52; Acts 1:4,12-13), entered, as legend says, into the very house in Zion where the Last Supper of Christ was celebrated. Staying there in unanimity and prayer, with some wives and the Mother of God (see: Acts 1:14), they awaited the descent on them, according to the promise of the Lord, of the Holy Spirit and prepared to receive His grace-filled gifts. On the tenth day after the Ascension of the Lord, which happened on the day of the Jewish Pentecost, at a time when people were rushing through the streets and streets of the city to the church with joy to celebrate their Old Testament holiday - at the third hour of the day 97, suddenly there was an extraordinary noise in the air, such as happens during a storm 98 from a strong gust of wind. The noise came from the sky - from the upper parts of the air, but soon penetrated and filled with the purest breeze the entire church in which the believers were 99. At the same instant, in the middle of the church, in the air, split tongues appeared, as if of fire,/and rested on the Mother of God and on each of the disciples 100 . “Stormy breathing was the immediate harbinger, and the appearance of fiery tongues was a visible sign of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Being the purest, incorporeal Spirit, He chose this sensual sign in order to manifest His presence all the more palpably.” “For,” argues Saint Gregory the Theologian, “just as the Son of God appeared visibly on earth, the Holy Spirit also had to appear visibly” (conversation 41). So before, when He descended on Jesus Christ in the Jordan, He chose the appearance of a dove 101 as a sign of His appearance.” The first miracle was followed by another, greater one. Having been able until that time to speak only one natural language - Hebrew, and, moreover, in its simplest dialect - Galilean, the apostles and other believers suddenly began to speak now in all the then known languages. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” 102 (see: Acts 2:4). The apostles spoke of the greatness of God, that is, the unparalleled perfections of God, the wonderful works of Providence, which were now revealed to them in all their fullness and power. The Jewish people and many strangers from other countries who had gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost 103, struck by an unusual noise from heaven, were thrown into confusion and rushed en masse to the House of Zion, where this noise was concentrated and where, apparently, it was heading. How surprised and horrified everyone was when they heard that the apostles began to speak to them in all languages. Those who came up asked each other: Are not these all who speak Galileans? How do we each hear our own dialect in which we were born? We - the Parthians and the Medes and the Elamites, and the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the Libyan countries adjacent to Cyrene, and the Jews and proselytes who came from Rome 104 from the Cretans and Arabians - do we hear them speaking in our languages ​​about the great deeds of God? (Acts 2:6–11). Everyone was amazed: firstly, that they heard the apostles praising God in foreign languages, while prayers were usually performed in the sacred language of Hebrew; secondly, that they had never before heard of such high and holy truths, but most of all they were amazed that every Roman, Greek, African, Indian heard his own natural language, while everyone knew that the speakers were all Galileans - people completely unfamiliar with foreign languages. From surprise they turned to horror: for everyone saw the extraordinary, heard the miraculous, but no one could explain what they saw and heard. And they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to each other: What does this mean? (Acts 2:12). But soon there were people who wanted to explain to others what they themselves did not understand. Mocking, these people said: They got drunk on sweet wine! (Acts 2:13). Hearing the blasphemy of the Jews, the Apostle Peter, standing together with the other apostles, raised his voice and began to say to them like this: “Men of the Jews and all who live in Jerusalem!” Let this be known to you and listen to my words: they are not drunk, as you think, for now is the third hour of the day [, but this is what was foretold by the prophet Joel: and it will come to pass in the last days, says the Lord, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy; and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams; and on My servants and on My handmaids in those days I will pour out My Spirit, and they will prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and smoking smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:14-21; cf. Iol. 2:27-32). Thus, the Apostle Peter, having first rejected the false view of some regarding the phenomenon of the gift of tongues (they got drunk on sweet wine), then answers the question: what does this mean? He expresses his answer to this question in the words of the above Old Testament prophecy and thus simultaneously gives his own testimony and confirms it with the word of God. In his prophecy, Joel, with his divinely inspired gaze, contemplates the time when not only individual people will temporarily, for the special purposes of God’s saving people, be rewarded with the influx of the Spirit of God, as was the case in the Old Testament, but when the grace of the Holy Spirit, like abundant rain on the earth, will be poured out on all flesh, that is, on all saved people, without distinction of gender, age and condition, so that in relation to salvation everyone will be equal, husbands and wives, adults and children, free and slaves - all will be worthy of the grace of God. The Apostle Peter, from many Old Testament prophecies about the outpouring of the Spirit of God on believers with the coming of the Messiah (see: Is. 32:15; 14:3; Ezek. 36:25–26; 39:29) dwells on this prophecy because in it, in addition to the general idea of ​​communicating the grace of the Holy Spirit to people, various manifestations of the revelations of the Spirit of God are indicated, which were in the Old The covenant and the calculation of which also gives an indication of other manifestations in which it will be pleasing to communicate the revelation to the Spirit of God. But the apostle does not stop there in citing the prophecy of Joel, but also points out his further words, which foretell the great punitive judgments of God that must precede that great and glorious day of the Lord (see: Acts 2:19-20), which will end the present world. These judgments of God will be revealed in great and terrible signs in heaven and on earth: abundant shedding of blood, eruption of fire and smoke will be revealed on earth, eclipses of the sun and moon and other terrible phenomena will be revealed in the sky 105. The Apostle Peter here calls the last day of the world a great and glorious day, when the second glorious coming of Jesus Christ to earth will follow for decisive judgment on the world. As for the purpose with which the Apostle Peter cites these words of Joel’s prophecy, it is clearly revealed from what follows, where he, in the words of the same prophecy, expresses the promise of God’s grace for the pious, that they will be saved by the mercy of God during this great and terrible judgment of God (see: Acts 2:21). By this the apostle wants to awaken his listeners to repentance and humility. Having again called the men of Israel to the attention, the Apostle Peter then begins his sermon about Christ. Having called Him a man known to all, attested by God by the powers and wonders and signs performed among the people, the apostle recalls that, according to the definite advice and foreknowledge of God, they killed Him, nailing Him with lawless hands; and testifies to His resurrection, ascension into heaven and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit from the Father, who brought about what is now seen and heard. The apostle draws special attention to the event of the resurrection. Therefore, preaching about His resurrection, the apostle not only gives his own testimony about this, but also proves it with the word of God (see: Acts 2:24-32; cf.: Ps. 15:8-11), showing that the resurrection of Jesus Christ had to happen, that although he died by God’s determination, it was impossible for death to keep Him in its bonds. The event of the resurrection showed in the risen Jesus of Nazareth not a mere mortal man, but the Lord and Christ, the long-promised Messiah. In order to confirm faith in the extraordinary mission of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Peter compares with Him before the Jews the prophet David, revered by them, and says at the same time that David died and was buried, and his tomb is with us today, but did not ascend into heaven, but, being a prophet, he knew that, according to the promise of God, “from his loins” Christ would be raised up according to the flesh, whose soul will not remain in hell and whose flesh will not see incorruption, and who will sit at the right hand of God (see: Acts 2:29–36; cf.: Ps.131:11; 15:10). The first sermon of the Gospel gospel had a strong effect on his listeners. The divinely inspired word of the Apostle Peter, personally confirmed by the miraculous event of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples of Christ and based on the testimony of Holy Scripture, decisively convinced the listeners of the Divine dignity of the Lord, and they asked the apostles: What should we do, men and brethren? (Acts 2:37). Then the Apostle Peter, addressing his listeners with a word of exhortation, calls them all to repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and to accept the gift of the Holy Spirit. Repent, says the apostle, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), that is, you will be made worthy of the same Holy Spirit, whose miraculous actions have just been manifested in the apostles. At the end of his speech, wishing to further win over the tender hearts of the Israelis towards faith in Christ, the Apostle Peter reminds them of the special promises of God given to them, that they and their children represent God’s chosen people (see: Acts 2:39), who must warn others on the paths of the Kingdom of God 106. “So those who gladly accepted his word,” adds the writer, “were baptized, and about three thousand souls were added that day (Acts 2:41). Thus ended the event of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles - the complete triumph of the Holy Spirit over the unbelievers! And here for the first time the words of the Lord were fulfilled that His disciples, as a result and by virtue of His departure to the Father, would do greater works than He Himself did in the days of His humiliation 107 (see: John 14:12). The descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles is the final establishment of a new eternal covenant with people, which was predicted by the prophet Jeremiah: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah... This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel... I will put My law within them and write it on their hearts (Jer. 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:8–12 ). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 16:13), the Spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph.1:17), who descended on the apostles, inscribed instead of Sinai, the new Zionist law, which was predicted by the prophet Isaiah (see: Isaiah 2:3), not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of the heart of flesh (2 Cor.3:3). The place of the voice of Sinai was taken by the grace of the Holy Spirit, who lays down the law, 108 giving strength to fulfill the law and pronouncing justification on the believers not by works, but by grace (see: Rom. 5:16). “We accepted the Holy Pentecost from the Jewish books,” says the Synaxarion on this holiday, “just as the Jews celebrate Pentecost, honoring the seventh day and having received the law for fifty days after Passover, so we also celebrate fifty days after Passover, accepting the All-Holy Spirit, who lays down the law and guides us to all truth, and pleasing to God. commanding" 109 . “The same law of old,” the Church sings, “having written out the law for Moses, clearly sets out the greatness and law of grace of the New Testament, having written it in the apostolic hearts” 110. Blessed Jerome writes: “The law of Sinai and Zion took place on the fiftieth day of Easter. In Sinai, a mountain shook from an earthquake; in Zion, the house of the apostles shook. There, in the midst of flames and sparkling lightning, thunder and a stormy voice were heard: here, with the fiery appearance of tongues, there came a noise from heaven, like a storm carried by the breath. There the sound of the trumpet sounded the words of the law: here the trumpet of the Gospel proclaimed through the mouth of the apostles" 111 . Thus, the day of Pentecost, which in ancient times was the annual remembrance of the giving of the law of God on Mount Sinai, has also become for Christians an annual holiday of the inauguration of the power given to the holy apostles to teach, officiate and rule. On the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Christ the Lord, the apostles received the Divine power of the Holy Spirit, and for the entire universe they became preachers and witnesses of Jesus Christ (see: Acts 1:8). Having received the Holy Spirit, the apostles began to celebrate the day of Pentecost every year and commanded all Christians to sanctify it for the sake of the descent of the Holy Spirit. In apostolic history we actually find indications of the celebration of the day of Pentecost, which is strictly Christian. The Apostle Paul, intending to visit the Church of Corinth, wrote in a letter to her about this intention; but he added that he would still remain in Ephesus until Pentecost (see: 1 Cor. 16:8), and above, speaking about the correction of some disorders in this Church, he made a clear hint about the celebration of Easter, but not Jewish, but Christian (see: 1 Cor. 5: 6-8). If Easter here is of course Christian, and this Easter is a holiday: then, of course, the same is the day of Pentecost. For why did the apostle, who was so zealous for the freedom of Christians from the Jewish law, wait in Ephesus for the Jewish holiday? Soon after this we see the same apostle hastening to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost (see: Acts 20:16). According to the interpretation of Saint Epiphanius and Blessed Augustine, one cannot think that the apostle meant to fulfill only the requirement of the Law of Moses, which commanded every Israeli to appear on this day at the place of public worship, but one must assume that in both cases, of course, the day of Pentecost, which the apostle, both in Ephesus and Jerusalem, wanted to celebrate as a Christian holiday. In the Apostolic Constitutions there is a direct commandment to celebrate Pentecost: “Ten days after the Ascension, it is the fiftieth day from the first day of the Lord (Easter); Let this day be a great holiday. For at the third hour of this day the Lord Jesus sent the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Apostle Constitution 5:20). Elsewhere in the apostolic decrees, among the days on which slaves should be free from work after Easter and Ascension, Pentecost is also mentioned: “On Pentecost, slaves should be free from work for the sake of the coming of the Holy Spirit, given to those who believe in Christ” (Apostolic Constitution 8:38). Tertullian 112, using the word “Pentecost” and in the meaning of the entire fifty-day time, in another place expresses himself as follows: “On the Lord’s Day we consider it indecent to fast or kneel: we enjoy the same freedom from Easter to Pentecost.” Here, under the name Pentecost, obviously, we mean one specific day, namely, the day of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the conclusion of the entire fifty-day period beginning with Easter. In the 4th century, Eusebius of Caesarea, Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius and Chrysostom, as well as Blessed Augustine and others often mention the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit under the name of Pentecost. Saint John Chrysostom spoke about the time of the celebration of Pentecost in his conversation: “Ten days had not yet passed since Christ ascended, and he had already sent down to us spiritual gifts, gifts of reconciliation” (in the 1st conversation on Pentecost, chapter 2). Like the ancient Israelites, so in the Church of Christ the feast of Pentecost is the great twelfth, universal. In the apostolic decrees he is called great. Saint Gregory the Theologian on the Sunday of Pentecost said: “We celebrate Pentecost - the coming of the Spirit, the final fulfillment of the promise, the fulfillment of hope, the great and venerable sacrament” 113. Saint Ambrose of Milan 114 in his word on the day of Pentecost said: “Let us rejoice on this holy day, as we rejoiced on Easter. On Easter the catechumens are baptized, on Pentecost the apostles are baptized, according to the word of the Lord, who, ascending into heaven, said to His disciples: John baptized with water, but a few days after this you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5).” Saint John Chrysostom 115, speaking on the day of Pentecost, called this day a celebration of many children. “Again it’s a holiday,” the saint talked, “again a celebration, and again the many-children and child-loving Church is adorned with a multitude of children. Great and above every word of man are the gifts sent down to us today from the man-loving God. Therefore, we will all rejoice together and glorify our Lord with delight. This is truly a great day and celebration for us. Just as in the succession of days and seasons one change follows another, so in the Church, too, holiday follows holiday, and one refers us to another. Recently we celebrated the cross, suffering, resurrection, then the ascension of the Lord into heaven - and today, finally, we have reached the very edge of blessings, entered the very metropolis of the feasts, reached the very fruit of the Lord’s promise. Many blessings descended from heaven to earth for the human race, but such as are now, never before. God rained manna on the earth and gave the bread of heaven to people: for man ate the bread of the angel (see: Ps. 77:25). This is truly great and worthy of God’s love for mankind. After this, fire was sent down, which exposed the erring people of the Jews and consumed the sacrifice from the altar (see: 1 Kings 18:38). Rain was sent when everyone was exhausted from hunger, and produced great fruitfulness. This is great and wonderful, but the present is much more. It is not manna, not fire, not rain that has been sent down today, but the gifts of the Spirit are being poured out. The clouds came from above not to bring fruit to the earth, but to awaken human nature, to reproduce the fruit of virtue to the Divine Worker. And immediately, those who received even a drop from this rain changed their nature, and the whole earth was suddenly filled with Angels - not heavenly Angels, but demonstrating in the human body the virtue of ethereal forces” (in the 1st conversation on Pentecost). The greatness of the holiday of Pentecost is also evident from the custom of ancient Christians to receive holy baptism on this holiday, as well as on other great holidays. Saint Gregory the Theologian 116, mentioning various excuses for which baptism was postponed in his time, notes that one of the catechumens said: “I am waiting for the day of lights; another: I respect Easter more; third: I am waiting for Pentecost. The first said: it is better to be enlightened with Christ; another: to rise with Christ on the day of resurrection; third: to honor the manifestation of the Spirit.” Saints John Chrysostom and Proclus, in their conversations on the day of Pentecost, also mention the newly baptized. The pious custom of being baptized on the day of Pentecost, in all likelihood, began under the apostles (see: Acts 2:38). In remembrance of this, and hitherto at the liturgy before the reading of the Apostle, instead of the usual chant: “Holy God, Mighty Holy, Immortal Holy,” the words of the Apostle are sung: “Those who were baptized into Christ, put on Christ, alleluia.” In the Orthodox Church there is a pious custom of decorating the churches of God and homes with green tree branches, herbs and flowers on the Feast of Pentecost. This custom probably originated from the examples of the Old Testament Church. The custom of decorating houses and churches with green plants on the day of the Holy Trinity was influenced by the thought of the appearance of God in the form of three strangers to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, where the tabernacle of this patriarch stood (see: Gen. 18: 1–15). The celebration of the Holy Trinity, which Abraham once worshiped in the Mamvrian oak grove, prompted the ancient Christians to bring tree branches and flowers into the churches on the day of the Holy Trinity, so that in this way the decorated church of God would more clearly represent that Mamvri oak grove and Abraham’s tabernacle, where the Triune God once deigned to appear. On the feast of Pentecost, the Jews decorated synagogues and houses with tree branches, grass and flowers - in memory of the fact that the law was given at a time when everything was green and blooming near the mountain, and, moreover, during their wanderings in the desert, when they themselves had to live in booths made of tree branches. The Zion upper room, where the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles on the day of Pentecost, according to Old Testament custom, was also decorated on this day with tree branches and flowers. In addition, in the Old Testament Church there was also a sacred custom of offering on the feast of Pentecost the first fruits of the harvest, which in Palestine was ending by that time (see: Lev.23:16–20; Num.28:26). And on the feast of Christian Pentecost, branches and flowers are offered as firstfruits to God - from spring, renewed by the power of the Creator Spirit (see: Ps. 103:30), and indicate the spiritual fruitfulness of the Church of Christ. “The Jews, decorating their booths with leaves and fruits,” says Saint Gregory of Nyssa, “thus depicted the New Testament Church, which grew up after the law” 117. The Holy Church, glorifying the mercy of God, which sent down the Holy Spirit on the apostles and enlightened the whole universe with the power of this Spirit, gratefully sings 118: “We glorify You, Christ, and honor Your All-Holy Spirit, who from the Father sent all Your Divine disciples?” 119 Memories of the First and Second Ecumenical Councils The Lord Jesus left the militant Church, as Its Head and Founder, a great promise that instills courage in the hearts of His faithful followers: I will build, He said, My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). But in this joyful promise there is a prophetic indication of the sad phenomenon that the life of the Church of Christ here on earth must take place in a struggle with the dark forces of hell, which tirelessly, in one way or another, try to destroy the unshakable stronghold erected by the Lord among the raging waves of world evil. The first three centuries in the life of the Church were accompanied by persecution, first from the Jews, and then from the pagans in particular; the best sons of the Church suffered torment and even death for confessing the name of Christ; from time to time, in some places of the Greco-Roman Empire, streams of Christian blood flowed, but the power of external weapons could not defeat the inner strength of the spirit - and the pagan sword was finally forced to bow before the humble sign of the Cross of Christ, when at the beginning of the 4th century a Christian emperor, the holy and equal-to-the-apostles Constantine the Great, first reigned over the Greco-Roman world 120. With his accession the very possibility of persecution ceased, but the activity of the enemy of the Church, the devil, did not cease. Without defeating the Church from the outside, he tried to defeat It from the inside, stirring up the Arian heresy, which humiliated the Person of the Founder of the Church of Christ Jesus. The main provisions of the Arian heresy are as follows. “There was a time when there was only God the Father, the unborn, the first cause of existence. Desiring to create the world and knowing that the world, infinitely distant from God, cannot bear the direct action of His creative power, God the Father creates from the carrier a mediating Being between Him and the world - the Son of God, in order to create the world through Him. Since he was created from something non-existent, the Son is also changeable by nature, like all creations.” In a word, heresy recognized Christ, the Son of God, not as God, consubstantial with the Father, but as a created Being, although the most perfect of all created beings. From its founder this heresy is known in the history of the Christian Church under the name Arian. Arius was born in 256 in Libya 121. A student of Lucian, presbyter of Antioch, Arius was a man of strict, impeccable life, combining a pleasant manner with a stern, impressive appearance; modest in appearance, he was in fact very ambitious. Ordained a deacon by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, Arius was excommunicated by the same bishop for his active sympathy with one local church party, imbued with schismatic aspirations. Bishop Peter's successor, Achilles, having accepted the excommunicated Arius into communion with the Church, ordained him a presbyter and entrusted to his care one parish in Alexandria. After the death of Achilles, Arius - as some church writers testify - expected to be his deputy, but in reality Alexander was elected to the episcopal throne of Alexandria. At one of the meetings of the Alexandrian presbyters (in 318), when Bishop Alexander was discussing the unity of the Holy Trinity, Arius accused him of Sabellianism, expressing his heretical beliefs on the issue of the Person of the Son of God 122. The bishop tried to reason with the erring presbyter at first with friendly admonitions, but the latter remained adamant; Meanwhile, some zealots of the right faith condemned the condescending attitude towards Arius on the part of the bishop so strongly that the Church of Alexandria was threatened with a schism because of this. Then Bishop Alexander, recognizing the thoughts of Arius as unorthodox, excommunicated him from church communion. After this, some bishops took the side of Arius, the most famous of whom are Theona of Marmaric and Secundus of Ptolemais. About twenty elders also joined him, as many deacons and many virgins. Seeing that evil was growing, Alexander convened (in 320 or 321) a council of bishops under his jurisdiction, which also excommunicated Arius from the Church. The impossibility of staying any longer in Alexandria forced Arius to seek refuge first in Palestine; from here he tried to expand the circle of his supporters, while Bishop Alexander distributed messages warning against being carried away by heretical teaching, refusing decisively to reconcile with Arius, for whom some interceded with him, led by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea. Removed from Palestine at the insistence of the Alexandrian bishop, Arius moved to Nicomedia, where Eusebius was the bishop, like Arius, a student and admirer of Lucian. One local council of Bithynia, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia, recognized Arius as Orthodox, and Eusebius accepted him into church communion. During his stay in Nicomedia, Arius compiled the book “Thalia” 123, intended for distribution among the common people, whose favor he knew how to gain: here, in a publicly accessible, semi-poetic form, Arius set out his heretical teaching about the Son of God; For the same purpose (to spread his teaching), Arius composed songs for millers, sailors and travelers. The church turmoil raised by heresy spread more and more, so that Emperor Constantine himself finally turned his attention to it. To settle the disputes that were tearing apart the Church, he, on the advice of some bishops, mainly Eusebius of Caesarea, who had a special influence on him, wrote a letter addressed jointly to Bishop Alexander and Arius, where he exhorted both to peace and unity 124. With this letter from the emperor, Hosea of ​​Corduba, one of the oldest and most respected bishops, was sent to Alexandria 125. In Alexandria, at the site of the disputes, Hosea became convinced of the need for decisive measures to destroy evil, since the discord in the Church intensified to such an extent that they were ridiculed in pagan theaters, and in some places, during the unrest caused by them, even insults were made to the statues of the emperor. When Hosea, having returned, explained to Emperor Constantine the real situation and the true essence of the matter, the latter looked with due seriousness at the discord that arose, thanks to Arius, in the Church. It was decided to convene an Ecumenical Council to restore the broken peace, church and social, and also to resolve the recently renewed dispute about the time of celebrating Easter 126. For the first time, with the unification of East and West, under the rule of one Christian emperor, the possibility of convening an Ecumenical Council arose. The council was definitely to be convened in Nicaea 127, and the emperor issued special orders that facilitated the journey of the convened bishops to the meeting place; He ordered their maintenance for the duration of the council meetings to be attributable to the state. Most of the bishops came from the eastern empire; there was one bishop from Scythia and one from Persia; from the western half, where the discord caused by Arianism had not yet penetrated, only Hosea of ​​Corduba, Caecilian of Carthage and the deputies of the elderly Roman Bishop Sylvester, presbyters Viton and Vicentius, were present at the council. All the bishops were three hundred and eighteen 128, and the presbyters and deacons who arrived with them were more than two thousand people. Even some pagan philosophers appeared at the council and held conversations on controversial issues with the bishops 129. Three parties spoke at the council, which had already formed in the time preceding it: two of them held opposing views on the Person of the Son of God, and the third occupied a middle reconciling position between the two extreme parties. The Orthodox party consisted primarily of confessors who suffered torment for the name of Christ during persecution. The members of this party “were alienated,” in the words of Sozomen, “from innovations in the faith that had been held since ancient times,” especially in relation to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; they considered it necessary to subordinate the mind to holy faith, for “the mystery of the Holy Trinity exceeds all mind and the word is completely incomprehensible and is assimilated only by faith.” Therefore, the Orthodox looked at the question about the essence of the Son of God, which was subject to resolution by the council, as a mystery beyond the strength of the human mind, expressing at the same time a strictly defined dogmatic teaching that the Son of God is just as perfect God as the Father: “Christ said: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). With these words, the Lord expresses not that two natures constitute one hypostasis 130, but that the Son of the Father precisely and completely holds and preserves one nature with the Father, has in Himself His likeness imprinted by His very nature and is in no way different from Him in His image.” The most important representatives of the Orthodox party at the council were: Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria; Hosea, Bishop of Corduba; Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch; Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem; James, Bishop of Nizibia; Spyridon, bishop from the island of Cyprus; Paphnutius, bishop of the upper Thebaid, and Nicholas, bishop of Myra in Lycia. The first of them, Alexander of Alexandria 131 and Hosea of ​​Corduba 132, were leaders of the Orthodox party. Completely opposite to the Orthodox party at the council was the strictly Arian party, which was made up of people “skilled in questioning and averse to the simplicity of faith,” who subjected questions of faith, like any other, to rational research and wanted to subordinate faith to knowledge. At the head of this party, which with its heretical teaching shook the very foundations of Christianity, stood: the support of Arianism and the “primary bishop of the time” Eusebius of Nicomedia, as well as the bishops: Minophanes of Ephesus, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, Theognis of Nicaea, Theona of Marmaric and Secundus of Ptolemais. The number of party members in the strict Arian sense was not large, no more than seventeen people. The middle party, quite significant in the number of members, fluctuating between Orthodox and Arians, included persons who later received the name Semi-Arians; Although they revered the Son of God as God, they recognized His Divinity as unequal to the Divinity of the Father, who was in a subordinate relationship to Him. The head of this party was the famous historian of the Church Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea. The council began in June 325; Its first meetings, as one can probably think, took place in the church. About two weeks after the opening of the cathedral, Emperor Constantine himself arrived in Nicaea, and the meetings of the cathedral were transferred to the vast chamber of the royal palace, where the emperor also appeared, acting not as a leader, but as an observer. During his first appearance at the council, after listening to the welcoming speeches of Eustathius of Antioch and Eusebius of Caesarea 133, Constantine the Great addressed the fathers of the council with a response speech, begging them to stop “internecine warfare in the Church of Christ.” The Council, first of all, focused its intense attention on the issue that caused these internecine strife, that is, on the teaching of Arius: having exposed the latter as a heretic, the fathers of the Council approved the Orthodox teaching about the Person of the Son of God, or more precisely, about His essence. Preliminary discussions on this main issue were conducted at the council with complete tolerance: Arian and semi-Arian bishops spoke on the same terms as Orthodox bishops. In a word, as the Greek church historian of the 5th century Socrates notes, “the determination regarding faith was not made simply and as it happened, but was announced after a long study and trial - and not in such a way that one thing is shown and the other is silent, but everything related to the statement of dogma is taken into account, and that faith is not simply defined, but carefully considered in advance, so that any opinion that represents a reason for reciprocity, or for a split in thoughts, is eliminated. The Spirit of God established the agreement of the bishops." The strictly Arian party was the first to be heard at the council, since it was their teaching, which violated church peace, that was the main reason for convening the council. Eusebius of Nicomedia, the main representative of this party, introduced on its behalf a symbol for the consideration of the fathers of the council, which contained the following expressions, exhausting the essence of the teaching of the strict Arians about the Person of the Son of God: “The Son of God is a work and a creature”; “there was a time when the Son was not”; “Son, we are essentially changing.” Immediately after reading this symbol, the fathers of the council unanimously 134 and decisively rejected it, recognizing it as full of lies and ugly; Moreover, even the scroll itself, which contained the symbol, was torn, as it deserved, into shreds. The main reason for condemning the symbol of Eusebius of Nicomedia for the fathers of the council was the important circumstance that the heretical symbol did not contain a single expression about the Son of God that is found about Him in the Holy Scriptures. At the same time, the fathers of the council “meekly,” according to the testimony of ancient church historians, demanded from Eusebius of Nicomedia and from Arius that they present arguments confirming the validity of their speculations; Having heard these arguments, the council also rejected them as completely false and unconvincing. In the midst of these debates with heretical teachers, the following from among the Orthodox stood out as zealous defenders of the true faith and skillful denouncers of heresy: the deacon of Alexandria, who served his bishop, Athanasius and Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra. Obviously, the following legend about a participant in the council, the holy Bishop Nicholas of Myra, preserved by the monk of the Studite Monastery John, should be dated to the same time of the council meetings. When Arius expounded his heretical teaching before the fathers of the council, many stopped their ears so as not to hear him; Saint Nicholas, who was present, inspired by zeal for God, similar to the zeal of the prophet Elijah, could not bear the blasphemy of the heresy teacher and hit him on the cheek. The fathers of the council, indignant at such an act of the saint, decided to deprive him of his bishop's rank. But they had to cancel this decision after one miraculous vision that some of them had: they saw that on one side of St. Nicholas stood the Lord Jesus Christ with the Gospel, and on the other, the Most Holy Theotokos with an omophorion 135 and handed him the signs of the episcopal rank, of which he was deprived. The fathers of the council, admonished from above, stopped reproaching St. Nicholas and gave him honor as a great saint of God 136. After condemning the symbol of the strict Arians, which contained a heretical teaching about the Face of the Son of God, the fathers of the council had to express the true, Orthodox teaching about Him. In contrast to the heretics, who shunned the sayings of Holy Scripture when presenting their false teaching, the fathers of the council, on the contrary, turned to Holy Scripture in order to include its expressions about the Son of God in the definition of faith that the council was to issue on a controversial issue. But the attempt made in this direction by the zealots of the right faith suffered complete failure due to the fact that literally every expression regarding the Divinity of Christ the Savior, cited by the fathers of the council from the Holy Scriptures, was interpreted by the Arians and Semi-Arians in the sense of their non-Orthodox views. Thus, when the Orthodox bishops, based on the testimony of the Gospel of John (see: 1,1,14,18), wanted to include in the conciliar definition of faith the words Son of God, the Arianists had nothing against this expression, interpreting it in the sense that, according to the teaching of the Apostle Paul, everything is from God (see: 2 Cor. 5:18), there is one God, from whom are all 137 (see: 1 Cor. 8, 6). Then the fathers proposed to call the Son true God, as He is called in the 5th chapter (v. 20) of the 1st letter of the Evangelist John; Arianists also accepted this expression, asserting that “if the Son became God, then, of course, He is the true God” 138. The same thing happened with the following expression of the Orthodox bishops: “in Him (that is, the Father) the Son abides”; according to the thoughts of the fathers, this expression, based on the first words of the Gospel of John 139, quite clearly expressed the teaching that the Son always dwells inseparably with the Father and in the Father; but the Arianists here, too, found it possible to point out that the latter kind of property is fully applicable to people, since Scripture says: by him (that is, by God) we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). After this, the fathers of the council put forward a new expression, applying to the Son of God the name of power taken from the Apostle Paul: The Word 140 is the power of God (1 Cop. 1:24); however, the Arianists found a way out here too, proving that in the Holy Scriptures not only people, but even caterpillars and locusts are called power and, moreover, great power (see: Exodus 12:41; John 2:25). Finally, the fathers, in order to reflect Arianism, decided to introduce into the definition of faith a saying from the Epistle to the Hebrews: the Son is the radiance of glory and the image of His Person (Heb. 1:3) (that is, the Father), then the Arianists pointed out that the Holy Scripture says the same about every person, calling him the image and glory of God (see: 1 Cor. 11:7). Thus, the desire of the council fathers to express the Orthodox teaching about the Son of God by introducing the corresponding biblical sayings into the definition of faith did not have any success. A difficulty arose, which the representative of the semi-Arian party, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, tried to eliminate. He submitted a ready-made symbol to the discussion of the council, proposing that it be approved by the general consent of the members of the council, and the symbol was composed in such a way that it seemed that it could be accepted by both Orthodox and strict Arians: with the former in mind, Eusebius of Caesarea sets out the definition of faith proposed to the council in the words of Holy Scripture; in order to please the latter, that is, the extreme Arians, he introduced into his symbol too general expressions, which, therefore, the heretics could interpret in the sense they needed. In addition, in the same way to incite the members of the council to approve the symbol and in order to eliminate all kinds of suspicions, Eusebius at the beginning of it made the following statement: “We maintain and confess the faith as we received it from our previous bishops, as we learned it from the Divine Scripture, as we observed and confessed in the presbytery, and then in the bishopric.” To the main question in the debate about the Son of God - what exactly was the degree of closeness of the Son to the Father - the symbol of Eusebius of Caesarea gave the following answer, which, due to its uncertainty, could be accepted by strict Arians and which, for the same reason, could not satisfy the defenders of the right faith at the council. “We believe,” says the symbol of Eusebius, using the sayings of the Holy Scriptures, “in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, the only begotten Son, the firstborn of all creation, born before the age of the Father.” After reading the symbol, there was silence, interpreted by Eusebius of Caesarea in the sense of approval. Emperor Constantine was the first to break this silence, and with his words he also destroyed Eusebius’ premature hopes of victory. Constantine the Great approved the symbol, saying that he himself also thinks as the symbol teaches, and wants others to adhere to the same religion; then he proposed to introduce into the symbol the word consubstantial 141 to determine the relationship of the Son of God to God the Father. This word, with the strength and certainty desired by the Orthodox members of the council, not allowing for misinterpretation, expressed the necessary thought about the equality of the Divinity of the Son of God with the Divinity of the Father. By introducing it into the symbol, the hopes of Eusebius of Caesarea were shattered, because with an obviousness that could not have been more desired, it exposed the heretical speculations of the semi-Arians and extreme Arians, while ensuring at the same time the triumph of Orthodoxy for all subsequent centuries. Restrained by the authority of the emperor, the Arianists could only oppose the introduction of consubstantiality into the symbol by pointing out the fact that this concept introduced ideas of a too material nature into the doctrine of the essence of the Divine: “Consubstantial,” they said, “is called something that is made from something else, such as, for example, two or three gold vessels from one ingot.” In any case, the debate over the word consubstantial was peaceful: the Arianists were forced, following the emperor, to agree to accept the word that destroyed their heresy. Representatives of the Orthodox party, taking into account the forced compliance of the heretical members of the council, made other amendments and changes to the symbol, thanks to which the symbol took on the following form, alien to any ambiguity: “We believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Creator of everything visible and invisible; - and into one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, begotten of the Father, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom (the Son) everything came into being both in heaven and on earth; - for the sake of us humans and for the sake of our salvation, who descended and became incarnate, became human, suffered and rose on the third day, entered heaven, and will come to judge the living and the dead; - and in the Holy Spirit." In order to eliminate any possibility of any reinterpretation of the symbol, the fathers of the council added to it the following anathematization of the Arian heresy: “But those who say that there was (a time) when there was no (Son), that He did not exist before His birth and came from something that does not exist, or who assert that the Son of God has existence from another being or essence, or that He is created, or is changeable, or changeable, is anathematized Catholic Church." With the exception of two Egyptian bishops, Secundus and Theona, all the rest signed the Nicene symbol, thereby expressing their agreement with its contents; however, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicea refused to give their signatures to the anathematism attached to the symbol. Thus the universal definition of faith was apparently accepted unanimously by almost everyone. But the subsequent history of the Arian movements showed that many, many bishops “signed to the symbol only with their hand, and not with their soul.” In order to avoid excommunication and not lose their pulpits, strict Arians signed the symbol, remaining at heart the same heretics as before. For reasons far from sincerity, representatives of the semi-Aryan party also signed the symbol. Their leader, Eusebius of Caesarea, in a letter written to the flock after the end of the council, explains that he and his adherents “did not reject the word ‘consubstantial,’ meaning to preserve the peace that we desire with all our souls,” that is, from external considerations, and not from a conviction of the truth of the meaning contained in it; As for the anathematization attached to the symbol, Eusebius explains it not as a curse on the very meaning of the Arian teaching, but only as a condemnation of the external expressions of the latter for the fact that they are not found in the Holy Scriptures. The Council, upon resolving the main dogmatic issue, established twenty canons on issues of church government and discipline; The Easter issue was also settled: the council decided that Easter should be celebrated by Christians without fail separately from the Jews and without fail on the first Sunday, falling on the day of the vernal equinox or immediately after it. The council ended with the celebration of the Vicenalia of Emperor Constantine, during which he arranged a magnificent feast in honor of the bishops. The emperor parted with the fathers of the council very mercifully, exhorting them to maintain peace among themselves and asking them to pray for him. The remembrance of the Holy Great Ecumenical Council that took place in Nicaea is celebrated by the Church on May 29. The emperor, immediately after the end of the council, sent Arius 142 and his two open followers, Secundus and Theon, into exile in Illyria 143, proclaiming severe punishments for the followers of the heresy teacher, and even the mere possession of his writings was charged as a criminal offense. The Nicene symbol, which revealed the Orthodox teaching about the Divinity of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity - the Lord Jesus Christ, and condemned the blasphemous Arian speculations as heresy, did not put an end to the church unrest: the Arian bishops, who sealed the conciliar definition of faith with their signatures solely out of fear of state power, soon managed to win the latter to their side and, supported by it, entered into a fierce struggle with defenders of the right faith; in the middle of the 4th century they won an almost complete external victory over their opponents, who united under the sacred banner of the Nicene symbol. This banner was firmly and selflessly held at first by Saint Athanasius the Great 144, and then, with the death of the elderly bishop of Alexandria, it passed into the no less courageous and selfless hands of the Great Bishop of Caesarea, Saint Basil 145; Around these two outstanding hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of the described time, other bishops who remained faithful to Her united. The struggle between the Orthodox and the Arians, which resumed after the end of the First Ecumenical Council and initially focused on the question of the Divinity of Christ the Savior resolved by its fathers, over time gave rise to the emergence of new heresies, the most notable of which are the heresies associated with the names of Apollinaria and Macedonius. Bishop Apollinaris of Laodicea left the ranks of the Orthodox party. Not limiting himself to denying Arian positions in the doctrine of the Son of God, Apollinaris sought to establish positions opposite to them; This desire led him to heresy. Thus, in contrast to the special emphasis of the Arians, which they, depending on their teaching about the Son of God as a created being, placed on the recognition of a completely human nature in Christ, Apollinaris destroyed the human personality in the Lord Jesus. From a psychological point of view, it seemed incredible to him that the teaching of the Nicene Symbol that in Christ perfect Divinity and perfect humanity were united: he reasoned that two essences, while retaining all their properties, could never unite into one. The idea of ​​God-manhood seemed unthinkable to him from the dogmatic side: sin is associated with full humanity; if we think of sin in the nature of Christ, even as a possibility, then the work of redemption for Him already becomes impossible. Therefore, Apollinaris believed that, having assumed the human body and soul during the incarnation, Christ did not perceive the distinctive part of the human being - the human spirit, since the latter necessarily presupposes free will, and with it an inclination to sin 146; the human spirit, according to Apollinaris, was replaced in Christ by the Divine Logos, which ruled over the evil inclinations of the animal soul 147. Soon after the First Ecumenical Council (from 341), the Arians introduced into their symbols and teaching the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and a noticeable desire, in full accordance with the development of the Arian teaching about the Son of God, “to describe the Holy Spirit as a separate, alienated, disjointed Hypostasis from the Father and the Son.” Over time, on the issue of the Person of the Holy Spirit, a special party of Macedonians emerged from among the Semi-Arians, which received its name from the Bishop of Constantinople (from 355 to 359) Macedonia: this party, honoring the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity only out of honor, distinguished Him in essence from the First Two Persons, recognizing Him as a creation, and not God 148. In general, in the teaching about the Holy Spirit, there existed in the 4th century, both among the Orthodox and Arians, an extreme disunity of opinions, which Saint Gregory the Theologian portrays as follows: “As for the sages of our century, some consider Him (that is, the Holy Spirit) to be an action, others a creature, others God, and others did not dare to say either one or the other about Him, out of respect, as they say, for Scripture, which is supposedly nothing.” expressed this clearly why they do not honor and deprive the Spirit of honor, remaining towards Him in some kind of average, or rather, very pitiful disposition. Even among those who recognize him as God, some are pious only in their hearts, while others dare to express their piety with their lips. But I have heard about other even wiser measurers of the Divinity, who, although they confess the Trinity in agreement with us, yet divide Her Persons so much among themselves that One is considered unlimited in essence and in power (that is, the Father), the Other is unlimited in power, but not in essence (that is, the Son), and the Third is limited in both” (that is, the Spirit). Thus, before the convening of the Universal Church, the question of the Divinity of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity was again raised and, in addition, the heresy of Apollinaris and the heresy of Macedonius aroused new questions of a dogmatic nature: the first about the God-manhood of Christ the Savior, and the second about the Holy Spirit, the Third Hypostasis of the Most Holy Trinity. The activities of the Second Ecumenical Council were the answer to these questions. This council was convened by Emperor Theodosius the Great 149 in 381 in Constantinople with the goal of “establishing throughout the entire empire the Nicene teaching against all heresies.” Only eastern bishops were present at this council; there were one hundred and fifty-one hundred and fifty-one hundred and fifty-one hundred and fifty of them. Among the fathers of the council were the great saints of the time: Meletius of Antioch, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem and Gregory the Theologian. The first meetings of the council took place under the chairmanship of Meletius of Antioch. At this time, at the request of the emperor and the people, Saint Gregory the Theologian was elected by the council to the idle See of Constantinople. Soon Meletius died and the newly elected bishop of the capital, that is, Gregory the Theologian, naturally became the chairman of the cathedral. The first task of the new chairman was to submit a proposal to the council to resolve the schism that had long troubled the Antiochian Church 151. He proposed to the fathers of the council not to choose a successor to the deceased Meletius: this choice, in his opinion, should have been postponed until the death of the second bishop of Antioch, Paulinus, when both warring parties of the Antiochian Church could, with mutual consent, choose a bishop for themselves. But the council rejected the proposal of the chairman, due to which a cooling arose between him and the fathers of the council, which ended with Saint Gregory voluntarily renouncing the See of Constantinople; especially since the bishops of Egypt and Macedonia, who were late for the council and therefore did not give consent to the election of Gregory the Theologian as bishop of the capital, raised the question of the correctness of this election in view of the existence of the fifteenth rule of the First Ecumenical Council, which prohibited bishops from moving from one see to another 152 . In June 381, after a farewell speech to the fathers of the council, Saint Gregory retired to Nazianza. His place, upon the election of the council, was taken by Senator Nektarios, who was still only a catechumen; Nektarios was immediately baptized and then within a few days was ordained to all sacred degrees, including episcopal, so that he even wore the priestly robes over the white clothes of the newly baptized. The dogmatic activity of the Second Ecumenical Council found its expression in the creation of a symbol known in the history of the Church under the name of Nikeotsaregrad. This symbol is accepted without change by the entire Orthodox Church and is maintained by every Orthodox Christian who is faithful to the teachings of his Mother - the Church. Up to the eighth term, that is, the presentation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the symbol of the Second Ecumenical Council is the Nicene symbol, modified and supplemented by the fathers in view of those heresies that necessitated the convening of the Second Ecumenical Council. In the doctrine of God the Father of the Nicene symbol, the fathers of the council after the word “Creator” added the words “heaven and earth” 153. In the doctrine of the Son of God, they replaced the expression (“born of the Father”) with “from the essence of the Father, God from God" 154 with the words: "before all ages" 155, crossing out the saying "in heaven and on earth" following the words: "through whom all things came into being." In the subsequent teaching about the Son of God, contained in the Nicene Symbol, the fathers of the council inserted some words aimed at more clearly expressing the Orthodox teaching about the carnal nature of the God-man in view of certain heresies; these words are indicated here in italics: “for our sake man and for our salvation, who came down from heaven and became incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man, was crucified for us under Pontius Pshata, and suffered, and was buried, and rose again on the third day according to the scriptures, and entered into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and is to come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom will have no end" 156. The Nicene symbol ended with the words (I believe) “and in the Holy Spirit.” The Second Ecumenical Council supplemented it by adding to it the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the Church, baptism, the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century; the presentation of the teaching about these truths of faith constitutes the content of the VIII, IX, X, XI and XII members of the Nikeotsaregrad symbol. The Second Ecumenical Council compiled four 157 canonical rules, of which two decrees are of particular importance: 1) prohibiting the bishops of some local Churches from interfering in the affairs of other Churches and 2) giving the bishops of Constantinople, as New Rome, first place in terms of honor after the Roman bishops. The commemoration of the Second Ecumenical Council by the Orthodox Church takes place on May 22. See also: Book XI – July Life of the Holy Martyr Athanasius of Brest 158 Saint Athanasius labored in the Western Russian Church shortly after the declaration of the union and suffered martyrdom from the Latins, defending Orthodox truth and the Church. The situation of Orthodoxy in Poland and Lithuania was then very difficult. At the Council in Brest 159 in 1596, the unity (union) of the Orthodox Southwestern Russian Church with the Roman Catholic, or Latin, Church was declared. Apparently, this event not only fully corresponded to love and peace, the main pillars of Christianity, but also carried out the greatest of the Savior’s covenants, contained in His prayer to God the Father: Holy Father, these which you have given to Me, that they may be one, even as We are (John 17:11). But in fact, the union was prepared by unworthy people, caused by base calculations and tended to trample the Orthodox faith and the Russian people in Southwestern Rus', which in the 16th century was part of the Polish-Lithuanian state. The very conclusion of the union did not promise anything good: it was accompanied by circumstances that were contrary not only to the spirit of the Gospel, church customs and canons, but also to the simple demands of reason. The union was declared valid, although those who accepted it did not even want to listen to the Orthodox; In response to the threefold call of the Orthodox, none of the Uniates appeared for a conference on faith, and in the end, representatives of the Eastern confession, who did not want forced unity, were anathematized with all their like-minded people by the district conciliar charter of the Latin party. The Orthodox Council responded to this curse by condemning the metropolitan and the rulers who accepted the union, and with the following two resolutions: 1. “We take a vow of faith, conscience and honor for ourselves and for our descendants not to listen to these metropolitans and bishops condemned by the conciliar verdict, not to obey them, not to allow their power over us; on the contrary, how much is it possible to resist their definitions, actions and orders, to stand firmly in our holy faith and under the true shepherds of our Holy Church, especially under our patriarchs 160, not abandoning the old calendar 161, carefully maintaining the general peace protected by laws and resisting all oppression, violence and innovations that would interfere with the integrity and freedom of our worship performed according to ancient custom. We announce this solemnly, first of all before the Lord God, then to the whole world, and especially to all the inhabitants of the crown of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the regions belonging to the crown.” 2. “We, the senators, dignitaries, officers and knighthood, as well as the clergy of the Greek faith, the sons of the Eastern Church, who have gathered here in Brest, for the Council, have now reliably learned from the most noble lords sent to the Council by his royal grace that they, with the metropolitans and several rulers, apostates from the Greek Church, compiled and promulgated, without our knowledge and against our freedom and all justice, some kind of union between the Eastern and Western Churches. We protest against all these persons and their unjust deeds and promise not only not to obey, but, with God’s help, to resist them with all our might, and our decree made against them will be supported and confirmed by all possible means and especially by our requests before his royal mercy.” These covenants, which on behalf of the Church were entrusted to her faithful children by representatives of Eastern Orthodoxy at the Brest Cathedral, became the recognition of Saint Athanasius, and his entire life was devoted to their implementation: the fight against the actions and orders of the Uniates was for him a vow of conscience and honor, and in firmly standing for the holy faith, in defending general peace, protected by laws, in opposing all oppression, violence and innovations The Latins consisted of his exploits, labors and sufferings. The saint solemnly announced his protest against the Latin party’s abuse of power and force, on the exact basis of the Brest decrees, before the inhabitants of the crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and persistently addressed requests for the protection of Orthodoxy and for royal mercy. Saint Athanasius was born sometime around the time of the conclusion of the church union and, perhaps, in Brest, in the very city 162 where it was proclaimed, where the insults inflicted on the Orthodox Church were especially painfully felt, and where love for the native faith and aversion to Latinism were more alive. It is not known from what class Saint Athanasius came, but judging by his fiery zeal for the holy faith, one can think that he inherited it from simple people, 163 who at that time were distinguished by their especially strong devotion to the Eastern Church and even formed fraternal alliances to protect it from the violence of the Latins. “I, unworthy Afanasy Filippovich,” the monk testifies about himself 164, “by the grace of God and the prayers of the Most Pure Mother of God in the Orthodox faith and the True Eastern Church, as follows, was confirmed from childhood and the emergence of reason in me.” He received his initial knowledge “of the Church-Russian sciences,” one must think, in one of the fraternal schools, perhaps in the school in his native city of Berestye 165. There is no information about where Saint Athanasius received further development. But undoubtedly he was one of the most educated people of his time: he knew the works of the holy fathers, the lives of saints, as well as the works of Western European historians; He wrote fluently in Polish and Latin and was well acquainted with the Greek language. In his youth, Saint Athanasius “served in various places,” that is, probably, as a person outstanding in his development, he taught in the rich houses of the Polish-Russian nobility. When the Lithuanian Chancellor Lev Sapieha, with the knowledge of the Polish King Sigismund III 166, was appointed guardian of Jan Favstin Luba, to whom the Poles had instilled from childhood the idea that he was the legitimate heir to the Moscow throne (the son of Marina Mniszek, wife of the first False Dmitry), Afanasy Filippovich, as a person known by his education, was invited to join him as an inspector 167 and in this position served for seven years at the court of Sapieha 168. Probably, the vain, careless and excessively riotous life that Saint Athanasius had to observe at the court of a wealthy Polish nobleman produced a moral revolution in him, and he began to often think “over the sinfulness of this age.” Reflections led him to the fact that he decided to break ties with the world, moved away from Sapieha and in 1627 took monastic vows at the Vilna Holy Spirit Monastery. From here the saint was sent for obedience, first to the Kuteinsky monastery near Orsha (Mogilev province), and then to Mezhigorsky near Kiev, where “for a considerable time he studied the will of God and life according to the Law” 169. From Mezhyhirya Saint Athanasius was again called to Vilna. When parting, the Mezhigorsk abbot said to the monk: “Brother Afanasy, keep at least three things in the depths of your heart: be obedient to your elders, be zealous about church rule and beware of conversations with women; when, with the help of God, you preserve this, you will be saved and will be needed for the service of the Church of Christ. Go in peace!” On the way to Vilna, the monk met a very sick man, “took him upon himself and carried him quite a bit”; this man revealed to the ascetic many of the mysteries of God, “put the sweetest name of Jesus in his heart and taught him how to preserve it: 1) to have reasonable moderation in dealing with people; 2) maintain obedience, purity and remain in poverty; 3) constantly remember about double death (spiritual and physical); 4) resolutely rely on the will of God in everything and 5) if, due to the weakness of the body, something happened that was contrary to the will of God, cleanse yourself by confession and complete repentance.” In Vilna, the monk received ordination to the rank of hieromonk and, by the will of God and his elders, he was appointed vicar to the Duboi Monastery near Pinsk 170, where for three years he “struggled strongly, first with his own evil thoughts, then with the enemies of Orthodoxy, the Jesuits” 171. The Chancellor of Lithuania, Prince Stanislav Radzivil, in 1636 selected the Duboy Monastery for the Jesuits who settled in Pinsk. The pious soul of Saint Athanasius was deeply shocked by this untruth, and he saw in reality unusually terrible signs in heaven and on earth: in the sky there were threatening clouds with troops lined up for battle and ready for vengeance; on earth - seven hellish fires, assigned to the seven deadly sins; in one of them (in the fire of fiery anger) he clearly noticed three people: the papal nuncio in the papal crown, King Sigismund and Hetman Sapieha, sitting in terrible sadness for the persecution of the Eastern Church. In ardent zeal for the holy Orthodox faith, the monk wrote a letter of complaint about the oppression of the Orthodox by the Latin Uniates and, securing it with the signatures of many respectable people, handed it to the Most Pure Mother of God of Kupyatitsk, that is, he placed it near Her icon, begging Her to intercede and protect the Orthodox from offense. After the Duboi monastery was taken away from the Orthodox, Afanasy Filippovich was left for obedience in the Kupyatitsky monastery 172 and remained here in labor and patience. At this time (1636), letters from Peter Mogila, Metropolitan of Kyiv 173, came to the Kupyatitsky Monastery with a request to collect alms for the renovation of the Metropolitan Church of the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral. The request was fulfilled, and in May 1637 the collected money was sent to the metropolitan. Having learned from the messenger that the church in Kupyatitsy was very old, Peter Mogila gave a “universal sheet” 174 for collecting alms for the renovation of this church, and Abbot Hilarion (Denisovich), after consulting with the brethren, entrusted this obedience to Saint Athanasius and the novice Onesimus of Volkovitsky. The monk approached his work for the benefit of the church, in which the Kupyatitsky miraculous icon of the Mother of God was located, with extraordinary zeal and zeal. After the meeting, which took place at the monastery meal, says Saint Athanasius, “suddenly a very great fear attacked me, and I sat at the table as if stiff; Having gone to my cell, I shut myself up and stood before Almighty God to pray for my obedience. A little later, when I was standing in prayer, such fear attacked me that I tried to run away from the cell, but, held back by some unknown force, I stayed and cried bitterly for a long time and, although there was no one in the cell, I heard a sweet voice: “The King of Moscow will build a church for Me; go to him.” At the same time, it was as if I was doused with varnish, and I again began to cry bitterly, thinking: “Will something happen?” In November 1637, when the time of departure for the gathering was approaching, walking out of the church from matins, the monk announced to the abbot about his vision, to which he replied: “Dear brother, where Almighty God and the Most Pure Mother of God will lead you, go there, and here I will pray with the brethren that you will return to us in health; But what are you talking about, I don’t know how it will come true when you don’t even have a letter issued by the king, our lord.” Having said goodbye to the brethren, the Monk Athanasius entered the church vestibule and, entrusting himself in everything to the care of God, began to pray on his knees; then through the window he looked at the miraculous image of the Most Pure Mother of God, and he heard a very terrible noise coming from the church. Overwhelmed, he wanted to run, but then, gathering his courage, he looked through the window again, saying: - O Most Pure Mother of God, be with me. And at that moment a clear voice was heard from the miraculous image of the Most Pure Mother of God: And Deacon Nehemiah, standing on the left choir like an icon (this deacon, several years before this, reposed in his youth after pious monastic deeds) and, as if stuttering, said: - I’m going, I’m going with my Lady. When Saint Athanasius and Onisim of Volkovitsky arrived in Slutsk (a district town in the Minsk province), Archimandrite Shitsik took the sheets from them and kept them in great anxiety all Christmastide, being offended by the Kupyatsky abbot for sending collectors to Belarus without reporting to him, the metropolitan's vicar; but, frightened by a vision in a dream, he returned the sheets to the travelers and said: – I do this for the Most Pure Mother of God, and not for your abbot; go with God wherever you want. From there, the collectors arrived at the Kuteinsky monastery near the city of Orsha. The monastery was surprised at their bold plan to go to Moscow to collect alms. But they warned. - Mr. Father Athanasius! - said the abbot of the monastery. - It is difficult for you to go through Smolensk and Dorogobuzh abroad to Moscow without the passport of the king, our ruler: the Vilna monks had a passport for alms, but they suffered a lot. Saint Athanasius was frightened by these words, but did not abandon his plan; Having obtained letters of recommendation from the Kutein abbot to various archpriests and Orthodox brotherhoods, the monk visited Kopys 175, Shklov 176, Mogilev, Golovchin 177. But he did not receive alms anywhere, because other collectors passed before him. Returning to the Kuteinsky monastery and having already decided to go back to Kupyatitsy, the monk heard the following advice from the governor: - Father Athanasius, dear brother! I feel sorry for you that, having done so little for your obedience, you are leaving for home. I advise you: go through Trubetskoy to Bryansk; although it will not be without difficulty there, however, by the will of God, you will get to the capital of Moscow. These words sunk into the heart of Saint Athanasius; He passed them on to the abbot of the Kuteinsk monastery, who blessed him on his way and gave him a letter of recommendation to Prince Peter Trubetskoy. With various sorrows and troubles, travelers through Propoisk 178 and Starodub 179 reached Trubetskoy 180. But the local governor, Prince Peter, despite the letter from the Kutein abbot, was extremely suspicious of the collectors, since at that time there was a Cossack uprising under the command of Pavlyuk 181 and the border was guarded especially strictly. Trubetskoy, under the threat of great punishment, ordered the travelers to return back, and they already wanted to go home. But we decided to visit the Chelny Monastery 182. “When I,” says Saint Athanasius, “walked on foot in the distance in front of my horse and prayed to the Lord God and the Most Pure Mother of God, great fear fell upon me, so that I exclaimed in a loud voice: - O my God and Most Pure Mother of God, have mercy on me! What is this being done? At this time it seemed to me as if the novice was saying: – Why do you require human help? Go to Moscow, I'm with you! Approaching the novice, I asked him what he said, and he answered: “I didn’t tell you anything, I’m just angry with you that we’re wandering around for nothing.” Arriving at the Chelny monastery, the monk told the brethren that with God’s help he intended to get to Moscow; to this one of the elders replied: “You won’t get there, sir, because it’s an alarming time due to the Cossack pogrom, but if, as you say, God’s help is with you, then you can get there.” Head to Novgorod-Seversky to the governor Pyotr Pesechinsky; It’s your luck if he orders you to let him through, but there’s great security everywhere. Saint Athanasius listened to this advice. On the way to Novgorod-Seversk 183 while spending the night in an inn, in the dead of midnight, great fear fell on the monk, and it seemed to him as if someone was traveling with a considerable retinue, a voice was heard: “Yes, yes, he is here,” and when everything calmed down, Afanasy woke up the owner and, without telling him anything, asked him to take him to the Novgorod road right away. On the way, sometimes at night, not knowing where to go, the monk, in order to dispel anxiety, began to proclaim an akathist to the Mother of God: “To the chosen Voivode, victorious” - with the refrains: “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia,” and then in the morning he took a nap. “Shaking the sleep from my eyes,” writes Saint Athanasius, “I saw a young man in a robe, sitting on our horse, looking back at us and showing the way. The young man said: - I am Nehemiah, deacon, your fellow merchant. Then he disappeared, and when the sun rose, with it I saw a cross in the sky, and in it - the image of the Most Pure Mother of God with the Child, like Kupyatitsky 184, pierced and surrounded by the rays of the sun. And after I looked at it a lot in thought, I wanted to point out this miracle to the novice Onesimus, and he, awakened from sleep, began to beat the horse, and at that moment the image became invisible in the sky, and I no longer mentioned the vision to him. Approaching the border village before noon, we miraculously passed the guards of the Novgorod governor: one villager from that village stood near the road, taking off his hat, and when I greeted him, he said to me: “Who is this Lady, father, and where is she going with such a large retinue?” I didn’t know what to answer him, I just said: “But, but,” and walked away to the sleigh 185.” A large crowd of people escorted the monks from the village, and near the church in the name of St. Athanasius, standing behind the village in the field, the travelers “by the will of God” crossed the border and arrived in the first village of Moscow Rus', Shepelevo. Here they were received kindly. Everyone was amazed at how they managed to get past the guards; they saw in this God’s obvious help to the monastic travelers, and one woman said directly: “Truly the Mother of God goes with them if they have passed the guards.” On February 10, 1638, Saint Athanasius and Onesimus arrived in Sevsk 186, where the head and other official people inquired for what purpose the travelers had come; Having learned that they did not have a pass to the king, they said that it was impossible for them to get to the capital. The monk responded to this: “I am walking according to the will of God and the icon that I give you as an imprint on paper.” Then they believed him and walked away without making any decision. When the monk was in a forest at sunset, not far from Sevsk, he clearly heard the following voice: - Afanasy! Go to Tsar Michael and tell him: defeat our enemies, for the hour has already come; have the image of the Most Pure Mother of God of Kupyatitsk on your military banners for help and in battles bravely defend every person who is called Orthodox. Late at night, having lost their way, the wanderers ended up in the village of Krivtsovo, five miles from Sevsk, and begged for an overnight stay from a Christian whose son was very ill. Having sat down near the sufferer, Saint Athanasius turned to the Almighty with a prayer for his healing. The next day the owner came to the monk and said: “Great Elder, if you are a priest, pray to God for your son, so that he will be healthy.” Saint Athanasius, having sent a prayer service with the novice, marked the patient with a paper image of the Most Pure Mother of God of Kupyatitsk. O wondrous works of God! As if awakened from sleep, the patient stood up and cried out: - Where did this hope come from, my Mother of God to heal me? And he immediately stood up, thanked God and ministered to the travelers for table, and the people who were present were greatly amazed in joy and fear. The father of the healed man escorted his dear guests to the Bryansk road and advised them to definitely go to Moscow. Upon leaving Krivtsov, the novice Onesimus caused a lot of trouble to Saint Athanasius and even tried to run away from him, saying: – Let’s return to Lithuania, because we will die here. Why do we endure such misfortune and voluntarily expose ourselves to even greater dangers? You persistently strive to be in the capital of Moscow, you won’t, you won’t! The monk, turning to himself with prayer to the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God, quietly said to his companion: - Dear brother, fear God! You yourself have heard and seen many of God’s miracles over us; Why don’t you act judiciously? - and having more thoroughly revealed to him the Divine care for both of them, he finally said. “The Most Holy Theotokos, according to Her promise, and our Guardian Angel, whom I clearly saw in the person of Nehemiah, Deacon Kupyatitsky, are traveling with us. Having heard this, Onesimus asked the saint for forgiveness, and from that time on the companions traveled in complete agreement. When the companions arrived at the Karachevsky Resurrection Monastery 187, its abbot received them with love and advised them to take a pass to the king from the local governor. After listening to the travelers’ story, the governor said: “Wonderful are God’s destinies! I don’t want to find out about them, but I believe in every act of God with a simple heart.” And he gave them a leaf and a guide all the way to the capital. “Miraculously,” says the monk, “having reached the Moscow capital, being beyond the Moscow River, on Ordynskaya Street, in a hotel, and having written in all truth the history of what happened along the way at the direction of God (as I believe in the simplicity of my heart), he submitted it to the Tsar of Moscow to strengthen, protect and spread the Orthodox faith.” Probably, the story of the miraculous wandering of Saint Athanasius, given to Mikhail Feodorovich, was quite to the liking of the pious king, and its compiler, Saint Athanasius, was sent home with rich alms to build a church in the name of the Most Holy Theotokos of Kupyatitskaya. From Moscow the monk and his companion left on Palm Sunday (1638) through Mozhaisk 188 and Vyazma 189 to Dorogobuzh 190, and from here the Dnieper by shuttle through Smolensk and Orsha 191 to Mogilev, from Mogilev on June 16 by “cart” through Minsk to Vilna and arrived in Kupyatitsy on July 16 1638. Soon after, in 1640, the monastics of the Brest Simeon Monastery 192 asked the abbot of Kupyatitsky to send them one of two persons to be abbess: Afanasy Filippovich or Macarius Tokarevsky 193 . Hilarion Denisovich, not wanting to let any of his dear workers leave, sent a third person, but the Brest monks did not accept him. Then it was decided to cast lots as to who should go to Brest, Makaria or Athanasius, and by the will of God the lot fell on Saint Athanasius. Parting with him, Hilarion Denisovich wrote to the Brest monks that “with great sorrow” he was releasing “half of himself” to them, and at the same time added: “Have mercy on him in everything, so that he may reign with Christ.” Upon his arrival in Brest to become abbess, the monk first of all set about searching for ancient charters, episcopal and royal, which affirmed various rights and advantages for the entrusted monastery. Having seen from these letters that “the union with old Rome, accepted contrary to the laws of the Eastern Church, is cursed forever, I,” says Athanasius, “openly announced this in the church and in various places.” The open statement had such a strong effect that, according to the monk, “in that place of Beresteysky and in the entire district of that voivodeship, the Uniates began to experience the greatest anxiety.” The next year (1641), in September, Saint Athanasius went to the Sejm, that is, to a meeting of government officials, in Warsaw and obtained from King Vladislav IV 194 a charter (privileges) with his own signature, which confirmed all the old advantages of the Orthodox brotherhood in Brest and ensured for eternity complete freedom of worship and rituals according to the charter of the Eastern Church. But according to the laws of the Kingdom of Poland, the royal privilege could not be valid without its approval by the seal of the crown chancellor or sub-chancellor. Saint Athanasius prayed about this and even offered money, but in vain. “You will all be Uniates,” said the keepers of the seals to the petitioner, “so we will seal it for nothing; know that we are forbidden by the Holy Father, the Pope, under oath, to increase the Greek faith here. Then the monk turned for advice and help to the Orthodox, first to influential clergy who arrived at the Sejm. But even here he did not find support, since each of them was exclusively occupied with his own private affairs and benefits. “The rest of the fathers and monks,” notes the monk, “all came with their own personal motives and say one thing: I have enough churches, whoever wants to do what he wants, let him bother, it’s not my business. There is not even a mention of the complete and general reassurance of the Orthodox faith.” Imbued with the thought of “complete and general peace,” Saint Athanasius listened sensitively to complaints about the humiliation of the Orthodox Church, which were heard from everywhere and were brought to Warsaw by townspeople who came to the Diet on various matters. In touching terms, from the words of Orthodox laity, the saint describes the disasters of the Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian state: “Even for money, one cannot have freedom in paternal piety and act as the conscience of Orthodox people demands. Oh woe! Children live without baptism, adults - without weddings, and the dead are buried stealthily, at night, in fields, vegetable gardens, cellars. Here, in a Christian state, Orthodox people endure more oppression than in Turkish captivity. The poor residents of Orsha 195 just because they had built a new church in their brotherhood, had to give two hundred ducats for the seal.” Struck by sadness at the thought of these oppressions of the Orthodox, Saint Athanasius once said to himself: - Oh my God! The scales of iniquity have fallen to the very edge; Even our elder fathers no longer care about the Orthodox faith, about the establishment of the glory of God; everyone seems to be ashamed of it, and what’s worst of all is that some, seduced by Latin and arrogance, because of the honors and freedom of this world, recklessly turn from the true faith to another faith and, as if limping, proclaim: “Oh, both this and this faith are good,” and this cannot be that there are many good faiths, for it is written: One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5 ). In one of the visions, the oppressed Orthodox Church presented itself to the Monk Athanasius in the form of a virgin, robbed, crying and complaining about her enemies. Then, at the inn, when Saint Athanasius performed an akathist to the Most Pure Theotokos and said the words: “Free us from all troubles,” he heard a clear voice from the image of the Mother of God: - Afanasy! Complain now at the Sejm with the help of My Kupyatitskaya icon, depicted in a cross, before the King of Poland and the state, threatening with righteous anger and the terrible judgment of God, which is about to truly come if they do not come to their senses; Let them, first of all, forever condemn the damned union - this is the most urgent need, and they may still feel good. Fulfilling this command, the monk in 1643, like the holy prophet Elijah, zealous for the true faith, went to the General Diet in Warsaw. He took with him seven copies of images of the Kupyatitsky Mother of God, written on canvas, the story of his journey to Moscow and an “inscription” containing warnings about the wrath and terrible judgment of God for the persecution of Orthodoxy and patronage of the union. Instead of a petition from the Eastern Church, the monk distributed icons of the Mother of God with an appendix to the noblest members of the Sejm from the noble families and, in the presence of all members of the Sejm, addressed the king with the following speech: - Most eminent King of Poland, my gracious lord! We tolerate intolerable lies; they don’t want us, Orthodox people, to seal privileges in matters of church piety, they don’t want to protect us on the basis of rights sealed by the oath of your royal grace, and for about fifty years now the Orthodox faith and the Greek Eastern Church under you, the Christian lords, in the Kingdom of Poland, for the sake of the damned union, have been suffering excessive oppression, and this with the assistance and assistance of the hated Roman churchmen, especially Jesuits, extremely cunning. These Jesuits, with the help of precise speeches, crafty sciences and high titles, taking possession of the souls of young people, staging comedies in schools, preaching in churches and publishing false books, invented at the suggestion of Satan, godlessly seduce ordinary people, their patrons, and Orthodox Christians, being themselves non-Orthodox, are put to shame and persecuted. The zealot for Orthodoxy gave the king a photograph from the Kupyatitsky Icon of the Mother of God and attached a special scripture to it. With this writing, the monk asked the king to calm the right-wing Greek faith and destroy the union. He wrote to Vladislav: “If you eradicate the cursed union and calm the Eastern True Church, then you will live your years in happiness, and if you do not pacify the true Greek faith and do not wipe out the cursed union from the face of the earth, then you will truly know the wrath of God. Let the image of the Most Holy Theotokos be a trumpet and a sign to you, anticipating the terrible judgment of God, which is about to come when the blessed will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, and the damned will be cast into hell to eternal torment.” The menacing speeches and writings of Athanasius, of course, should have struck the heart of the king and senators, and, probably, the government on this occasion expressed its displeasure to the representatives of the Orthodox party at the Diet, and “their elder fathers” took Athanasius, declared him insane and put him in custody. “I,” writes the monk, “remained scolded, ridiculed and spat upon for the fact that (God forgive them!) I did not report to them, defending their prayers (as if it were necessary to report such mysteries of God and did this of my own volition, and not by the will of God). Oh woe! What the wise have come to, following the Latin example. They no longer care at all about faith and do not listen to the will of God, but, relying entirely on themselves and their own reason, they do their own will and oppress their own.” Consumed by grief that not only the king and the Polish gentry, but also his own spiritual brethren did not want to support the great cause of calming the Orthodox faith, Athanasius, imitating the holy fools for Christ's sake, pretended to be insane. He left the dungeon naked, wearing only a hood and a paramand 196 to show his rank, smeared himself in the swamp and, hitting himself with a staff, ran through the streets of Warsaw and exclaimed in a loud voice: “Woe to the damned and the unbelievers!” The monk had the intention of running into the churches and proclaiming the same words, but the servants of the rulers who had gathered for the Diet caught up with him, and, pushing him into a swamp, deep above his knees, they held him until the cart arrived from the inn. This happened in the month of March: the sufferer suffered a great cold. Barely alive, he was taken on a cart to the lord’s hotel and again thrown into custody. Upon the complaint of a certain Danilovich, the bishop's clerk, "the senior fathers judge" the reverend and, "without any right to do so, 197 make a decision: they deprive him of his abbess and presbytery," then they transport him, as if infected with the plague, from one spiritual person to another, and at the end of the Sejm they send him for trial to the Metropolitan of Kyiv, who was then the famous Peter Mohyla . The metropolitan consistory acquitted Athanasius, and the Warsaw ruling was destroyed. “When I was at the trial,” notes Athanasius, “I remembered how I was taken from hotel to hotel in Warsaw, Father Gisel 198 said: “Like from Anna to Caiaphas,” that is, he compared the Warsaw trial of Athanasius with the trial of the Jewish high priests over Jesus Christ. Restored to the priesthood, the monk repeatedly celebrated holy liturgies in Kyiv, both in caves and in the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God, and when the Orthodox Brest Brotherhood came to the metropolitan with a request to again send St. Athanasius to abbesses, Peter Mohyla fulfilled this petition of his brothers. In a letter to the brotherhood regarding the return of the abbot, the metropolitan stated that the monk was being sent to the abbot “after proper spiritual admonition for an act that caused sorrow and difficulties to the entire Russian Church,” and that the Brest abbot in the future “will act more carefully in church affairs, especially before the king, his grace, our merciful lord and his entire blessed senate.” Returning to Brest, Saint Athanasius devoted himself with all his soul to monastic exploits with the brethren of the Simeon Monastery entrusted to him. But circumstances in Western Rus' at that time were such that the quiet and secluded life of the monks was constantly interrupted. The Orthodox - both the clergy and monks, and the laity - suffered much oppression for their faith: more than once they experienced curses, shameful ridicule and beatings, attacks and all kinds of disasters from self-willed Jesuit schoolchildren and Uniate priests. One Uniate archimandrite, having forcibly captured the monks sent to Saint Athanasius from the Kupyatitsky Monastery on the high road, cut off the beard of the holy monk, stripped the deacon naked and drove them both away, and plundered two monastery horses with all their belongings. It got to the point that no one from the monastery could appear on the street without being cursed. “In every place,” says Saint Athanasius, “in courtyards and courts, they curse at us and shout at us: “Gu-gu, Rusin, wolf, schismatic 199, Turkish-Greek, renegade.” Since Chancellor Sapega was considered the patron (patron) of the Brest Monastery (the monastery had land given to them), the monk in 1644 went to Sapega in Krakow and asked his former master to obtain from the king a safe-conduct for the Orthodox residents of Brest, who do not find protection in the courts from oppression by the Uniates. But the proud nobleman gave the following answer to the monk: - Priest got into a fight with priest, but what do I care? Become Uniates and you will live in peace. The insults and oppression that rained down on the Orthodox from everywhere, of course, could not help but worry the saint. In great excitement, he begins to pray in front of the Kupyatitsky Icon of the Mother of God and again clearly hears a voice coming from the holy icon: - Afanasy! Ask again with the help of My image at the future Sejm before the King of Poland and the Polish state for the complete destruction of the damned union. It will be good if they listen and destroy it: they will live happily in future years. Frightened by the vision, Saint Athanasius was extremely weak for five days, did not drink, did not eat, and kept thinking about what to do. He knew that bold speeches at the Diet would again cause trial and condemnation of him, and at the same time he was afraid of violating the will of God. He was embarrassed by the greatness of the task that the Lord entrusted to him, a humble man, and calmed himself with the fact that even Balaam’s donkey once spoke according to the will of God. Like other monks, the monk would have liked to sit in the monastery, praying to his Creator for himself and for all the authorities, spiritual and secular, and especially for his benefactors, but, forced by the will of God, he began to prepare for the General Seim of 1645. The Monk Athanasius had the intention, as in the previous Seimas, to present to the bark and dignitaries in several notebooks a photograph of the Kupyatitsky Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, along with a description of the miracles from it during the trip to Moscow, and then make a proposal to abolish the union and calm the Orthodox faith. But the saint was not destined to realize his intentions: in November 1644 he was arrested in Brest, taken to Warsaw and thrown into chains, in which he was kept for more than a year. And in prison, as in freedom, the monk most of all gave himself over to grief over the difficult situation of the Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian state and the thought of the “complete and general tranquility” of the true faith. The best expression of his mood at that time is the poem that he composed while sitting in prison, and, putting it to his voice, sang to quench his mental pain: “Send peace to Your Church, O Christ God! I don't know if any of us can bear it any longer! Give us help in sorrow, so that we may surrender ourselves entirely to the holy, immaculate faith.” When supervision over the reverend was weakened, he, while in prison, diligently began to compile a memorial note, which was submitted on his behalf to King Vladislav on June 29, 1645 during a meeting of the General Sejm. In his note, the venerable one proves: Rus', from the very adoption of Christianity, stood in ecclesiastical dependence on the Patriarch of Constantinople, 201 and Uniates who “ran away from their lawful shepherd” and surrendered to another, not the real one (the pope), are subject to anathema as apostates from the faith; the union itself was adopted by spiritual people for selfish reasons: for example, Bishop Ignatius Potsey, one of its defenders, sought a senatorial seat; Metropolitan Ragosa and Bishop Kirill Terletsky were inclined towards union, attracted by the liberties that were promised to them on behalf of the pope. “From that hour,” says Saint Athanasius, “like Cain to Abel and Ishmael to Isaac, so the damned Uniate beat and persecuted his Orthodox brother, and to this time, with the help of servants and enemies of the saint’s truth, with God’s permission, he acts as he wishes: poor people of every class, both in church brotherhoods and in all councils, judicial and crafts, he slanderes godlessly, robs and takes away from everything that Orthodox Christians have - from the holy faith, from a clear conscience, from good glory, from property, he abuses and beats them in every possible way; in addition - and this is the worst thing - it prints, takes away, plunges into beggary and destroys churches, interferes with the freedom of a pious conscience. In many and different places in the Christian kingdom, for the sake of that damned union, unnecessary bloodshed is still being committed. In the end, there was an internal useless war with the Cossacks because of the same union; because of her, mercy disappeared from almost everyone; because of it, caresses, sycophancy, envy, betrayal, villainy and - worst of all - the damned enmity multiplies; because of her, the spiritual and secular order perished.” Saint Athanasius turns to the king with a prayer to cancel the union introduced by the royal authority: the spiritual fathers (bishops) can no longer improve the situation, since they themselves need correction. Upon ascending the throne, the king sealed his promise to pacify the Orthodox Church with an oath, and yet this has not been done to this day. There is no need for violence against anyone’s conscience: let the Uniates remain, if they want, with their errors, but let the Orthodox be free in their faith. It is not known how this ardent plea of ​​the prisoner was accepted by the king. Thinking that the paper did not reach him, the monk writes a second petition from prison, in which he addresses the king with a touching appeal: “Have mercy, most eminent king of Poland, my benevolent lord, on the persecuted Eastern Church, which is in your kingdom.” This petition, framed in green satin, was thrown into his carriage by someone during the king’s passage through Warsaw and read by Władysław IV, but no order was made regarding it. Another paper assigned to the king was not accepted by him. “No need, nothing more is needed,” he said, “I already ordered his release.” Indeed, on October 19, 1645, by order of Vladislav, it was written to the Kyiv Metropolitan to send to take Athanasius, who “deserved punishment, but his royal mercy ignores him”; at the same time, the metropolitan was required to send the hegumen, who was troublesome for the Polish authorities, to a place where he could no longer “cause any alarm.” Meanwhile, the monk's shackles were removed and supervision was relaxed, so that he could freely receive letters from people close to him. One of the letters sent to prison, consoling the prisoner, calls him a confessor. The monk is compared here with the holy Apostle Paul, and it is further said that “in the midst of desolation he flourished like a fragrant flower, shining not only for the Russian people, but for the entire conciliar universal piety.” Although Saint Athanasius could have easily escaped from prison, he was not tempted by freedom and demanded that he be tried or, at least, received by the king. He sent letters and petitions to influential people at court so that they would ask the king for a reception, and the king agreed to listen to the abbot, but the Catholic clergy dissuaded Vladislav, and on November 3, 1645, the monk was sent with two dragoons to Kyiv. Appearing before Metropolitan Peter Mohyla, Saint Athanasius presented him with a detailed account of his actions in Warsaw, enclosing copies of documents that he had given to the king. Probably, the monk hoped that the metropolitan would acquit him this time, as he had acquitted him before, and would send him back to Brest as abbess, but the royal command had its force: the ascetic was left in the Pechersk monastery as if under authority. The imprisonment of the monk in Kyiv greatly worried his many admirers, and one of them, named Mikhail, wrote on this occasion to the governor and brethren of the Brest Monastery in the following expressions: “Your piety informs me that the venerable Father Athanasius has been released from the prison of non-believers and has been sent to Kyiv for imprisonment among fellow believers. This is amazing to me, for Christ our Lord did not suffer from the infidels, but was delivered into the hands of sinners by his faithful ones. Mr. Father Athanasius prophesies that the union will perish. I would believe this if I saw our merits, but I do not see them and do not dare to believe in the end (of union). Why? Ask. Because our Rus' does not want this, especially the elders. Whoever does not want to fight against union strives for it; therefore, our elders want union, if not in word, then in deed, which is even worse.” Probably under the influence of this clearly revealed disposition of the Orthodox towards the saint and the subsequent death of Peter Mogila on January 1, 1647, the monk received his freedom and again assumed his abbess. But Saint Athanasius did not enjoy peace for long in the quiet monastery of Brest. In the spring of 1648, a Cossack uprising broke out in Little Russia under the leadership of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, and an unhappy war for the Poles began. The Orthodox population of Lithuania and Poland suffered even more during the war; they were constantly suspected of treason against the Polish king, in complicity with the rebel Cossacks. And Saint Athanasius then accepted a martyr’s death, unjustly accused of treason. A special story is told in detail about the trial of the monk and his execution, compiled under the strong impression of sorrowful events by the novices of the Brest monastery of St. Simeon, admirers of St. Athanasius 202. “What we saw with our own eyes, what we could learn from other people about the torment and departure from this world of the late Father Athanasius, our abbot, we write and testify about. Someone unkind at that time started a war with the Cossacks: and great persecution and unfounded suspicion arose from non-believers against poor Rus' throughout the Polish crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The late Father Abbot no longer said anything contrary to the Uniates; he sat quietly in the monastery during that troubled time. Suddenly, the lords from the Captur courts 203 of the Brest voivodeship, at the libel of Pan Shumsky, at that time the captain of the royal guard, sent several nobles to our monastery to take the abbot to the castle. And then it was Saturday, precisely July 1, and the deceased himself served the liturgy in the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his other monastery 204. When, while at the throne, he noticed in the church, just during the singing of “Izhe Cherubim”, the nobility who had come for him, he became very alarmed, as if he fell into oblivion and stood for a long time, doing nothing, so that he could sing the Cherubic Song another time. Then he recovered, began to serve again and finished the entire liturgy with decorum. And at the end of the mass, he heard from the gentry that she had come for him, and immediately, without going anywhere from the church, taking another brother with him, he went to the castle. There, standing before the gentlemen judges, he first began to speak loudly to them and with honor brought to the judges that the holy Apostle Paul was before King Agrippa and considered himself lucky, since he knew how to defend himself (see: Acts 26: 1-2). But the gentlemen of the judge treated the speech of the late abbot with contempt and, without listening any longer, ordered the informer, named Pan Shumsky, to begin reporting the case against him about sending some sheets and gunpowder to the Cossacks. And Father Abbot answers this: - Dear gentlemen! This is slander and false fiction, as if I sent sheets or gunpowder to the Cossacks. After all, you have a lot of patrolmen, send for them, and let them show if I have ever sent gunpowder anywhere. As for the sheets, let the snitch provide some proof that I sent them, as he slandered. Then they immediately sent the informer Shumsky and others with him to dig up our monastery and find gunpowder and sheets. And when they found nothing there and were already leaving, the informer belched out his anger and said to the haiduks 205: - Why didn’t you throw some bag of gunpowder and report what you found here with the monks? Then the gentlemen of the judge themselves saw that there was no evidence of the abbot’s guilt, but only empty rumor, or rather slander, and they calmed down. But they began to interrogate about another subject and said: - But you dishonored and cursed the holy union? Having laid upon himself the sign of the Cross of the Lord, the late father of the abbot In response to this, I said: “Is it really, dear gentlemen, that you ordered me to come to you because I dishonored and cursed your union?” What I said at the Diet in Warsaw before His Grace King Ladislaus IV, my clearest lord, and before his most illustrious Senate, which I proclaimed everywhere according to the will of God, I affirm now before you: your present union is cursed, and know the truth that if you do not destroy it in your state and do not pacify the Orthodox Eastern Church, you will incur the wrath of God. And he said this in a loud voice, so that those who were at a distance could hear well. Now some people shouted at these words: - Execute, quarter, impale such a schismatic! And they had already begun to push him from one to the other and tear him in all directions. But the gentlemen of the judge ordered everyone to leave the hut for a while and, after talking among themselves, they said to Father Abbot: - You deserve to be put to a shameful death right now (and it will not blow you away). And now we order you to be taken to prison until we receive any instructions from Warsaw. Then they released the brother who was with him, and he was sent to prison at the arsenal in the Brest Castle from the Nativity of Christ in the year 1648, July 1. A few days later they ordered to put shackles on his legs, and so he sat in prison until September 5 of the same year. At this time, the deceased (that is, Saint Athanasius) several times sent a certain brother from prison to the judges, asking that they do one of two things for him: either they ordered him to remove the shackles, or he was released from the arsenal, and he promised to walk in chains as long as they wanted. He intended this, as he himself explained to us, in order to testify before them and admonish them whether they would deviate from their long-standing and stubborn attachment to the union. “For,” he said, “if they treat me so gently that they free me either from shackles or from prison, then they will also take away my speeches.” against union; if they do not want to allow this smallest thing, they will obviously not allow more and will firmly stand for the union. And then,” he explained, “we can no longer hope for peace, which, as we know, was taken away from us in this state in the name of union and with the aim of depriving the Eastern Church, our mother, of its rights. Therefore, when he saw that they did not want to allow him either one or the other, he boldly began to exclaim: - Sword and war will not leave this state until their unions are crushed; piety, God willing, will soon bloom again, for her, for her, it will bloom, but union will quickly perish. And it often happened that when he noticed from the arsenal of the nobles, he spoke such speeches to them through the window. One day the brother who went with him to the lords for trial came to the father abbot and said to him: “The lords didn’t want to free you from shackles or prison, but the war with the Cossacks is calming down.” The gentry came after that brother to hear what Father Superior would answer to his words, and he immediately said in front of everyone: – The war will not subside, because they do not want to expel the union from the state. The gentry, hearing this, shouted: Once, in the presence of the prince and the bishop, whom we will not name here, the gentlemen of the judge ordered the deceased in chains to be brought to them, and the bishop asked him if he really cursed the union. The deceased confessed to him, saying: - Indeed, she is damned. And he, not wanting to listen to him anymore, answered: - Soon you will see your tongue in front of you in the hands of the executioner. And he ordered him to be taken away again and put in prison. When the fourth day of September 1648 had passed and the night of the fifth had come, they took the late father abbot from prison and, having unshackled him, escorted him to the convoy 206. They say that before he was sent to the wagon train, the Jesuits, who knew that he was condemned to death, came to him in prison at night and, as they were accustomed to do, first tried with words and promises to turn him away from the Orthodox faith, and then frightened him with fiery torment. But, by the grace of God, having accomplished nothing, they themselves went back, and sent one of their disciples to him, urging him to change his mind and not ruin himself. But he ordered the answer to this: “Let the Jesuits know that just as it is pleasant for them to dwell in the delights of this world, so it is pleasant for me to now go to death.” What they did to him in the wagon train later, many people talk about this. When they took him to the convoy at night and wanted to give him to the governor Beresteysky who was there, the master governor did not want to take him and said: - Why did you bring him to me? It is already in your hands; do with him what you want. When, therefore, the chief handed him over, he was taken in by those who had long thirsted for his blood 207 and taken to a forest that was not far from the convoy, and from the place 208 a quarter of a mile, on the left side towards the village of Gershenovich. There they first burned him with fire, and one haiduk then stood at a distance and heard the voice of the late father abbot, as he answered them something menacingly during the torment. Then they suddenly shouted at that haiduk and ordered him to load his gun with two bullets and at the same time ordered him to prepare a hole in front of him. At first they demanded that the deceased renounce his words about union, but he replied: “What I said,” I said, and with that I’ll die. Then they ordered the haiduk to shoot him in the forehead with a gun. Gaiduk, seeing that he was spiritual and familiar to him, was in no hurry, but first asked for his forgiveness and blessing, and then shot him in the forehead and killed him 209 . The deceased, already shot through the forehead with two bullets, still stood for some time, leaning on the pine tree as if by his own strength, so they ordered him to be thrown into the prepared hole. But even there he himself turned his face to the sky, crossed his hands on his chest and stretched out his legs; then they found him lying like that in the named place. That night, when they tortured the deceased, great trepidation fell upon us and all the townsfolk because of these deeds, and, although the night was clear and no cloud even the size of an arshin could be seen, the lightning was terrible and spread across the entire sky. And so the deceased lay, unknown to us, without burial from September 5 to May 1, for eight months. We knew that he was no longer in the world, but we did not know where his body was until one boy, about seven or eight years old, showed us the place where it was buried. We first wanted to be sure whether it was truly him or someone else, because he could have been secretly transported from there to another place (the land on which his body lay belonged to the Jesuits). Therefore, after waiting until nightfall, they dug him up and, having learned that it was truly him, immediately moved him to another place. Nothing was found on his body except one shirt - and that was torn - and one boot. The next day, with the permission of the Colonel of Brest, they transported the abbot to the Monastery of the Nativity of the Most Pure Mother of God, and a few days later (May 8), having performed a funeral service according to the church rite, they buried him in the crypt on the right choir in the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite. His body is still there without decay 210. The signs of torment and death on his body are as follows: under the groins on both sides the bones are bare, however, there is not much of the body left in places, but even that was very blackened by the fire; at the head there are three holes: two near the ear on the left side, the size of a rifle bullet, and the third on the right side behind the ear, much larger than the first two, his face was all blackened from gunpowder and blood, his tongue came out of his mouth somewhat and shriveled between his teeth: we think that he was buried while still alive and this happened to him from the great burden of death. May God, by His grace, strengthen us in piety and grant us patience for the sake of His holy name.” The Monk Athanasius was locally recognized as a saint very soon after his death: in 1658, on January 5, Innocent Gisel, Archimandrite of the Kiev Pechersk, with Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky (since 1664 Metropolitan of Kiev) in a letter to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich they say that the body of Athanasius “openly existed, and hitherto, God is marvelous in His saints; He remains incorruptible in Brest.” In 1666, in Brest, a life was compiled in Polish, in which Athanasius is called “saint and martyr” 211. His relics initially rested in a copper shrine, but in 1816, on November 8, they burned down along with the wooden church of St. Simeon the Stylite; only burnt particles remained, which, in the presence of worshipers, were placed on a tin plate and placed in the Annunciation Church of the monastery. In 1823, a shrine was arranged for the particles of the relics and they were placed openly for national honor. In 1824, the monastery was abolished, its church was converted into a parish church and the holy relics were placed in the fortress St. Nicholas Cathedral; After the construction of the Simeonovsky stone cathedral in the city in 1865, the remains of the saint were transferred here and remain here to this day. The memory of Saint Athanasius, as a martyr for the faith, in the South-West of Rus' was so tenacious and strong that it did not need any external assurances or testimonies. Therefore, no records of his miracles have survived until the middle of the 19th century. On November 14, 1856, local records record the following sign of God from the relics of St. Athanasius. The landowner of the Vladimir province Nikolai Aleksandrovich Polivanov, returning from abroad, had to stay in Brest due to the serious illness of his ten-year-old son Alexander. The disease developed quickly, and there was no hope for the boy’s recovery. Having invited a local priest to partake of his son with the Holy Mysteries, the father began to bitterly mourn that there was no shrine here, like in the center of Russia, so that he could resort to it with an ardent prayer for the healing of the child. The priest told him that there was a shrine in Brest - the relics of St. Athanasius, and Polivanov began to ask to bring the ark with the relics, send a prayer service to the sick person and attach it to them. The father’s pious wish was fulfilled, and as soon as the ark with particles of relics touched Alexander, the sick man’s suffering immediately stopped, and he, contrary to the doctors’ expectations, soon completely recovered. On August 15, 1857, the grateful father sent to Brest a silver and gilded shrine weighing thirteen and a half pounds, into which the relics of St. Athanasius were solemnly transferred. On May 14, 1860, the following miracle was recorded from the holy remains of the monk. The local archpriest Vasily Solovyevich suffered from a hernia, so that his insides began to come out; the doctors advised the patient to undergo a rather difficult operation, but he did not agree and began to prepare for death; Having confessed, he wished, before communion of the Holy Mysteries, to serve a prayer service to Saint Athanasius, whom he greatly revered; during the prayer service his insides entered their place; the patient, to the complete surprise of the doctors, completely recovered and did not experience any more attacks of pain. Thus the Lord glorified His saint, the venerable martyr Athanasius of Brest. The memory of the Venerable Martyr Athanasius is celebrated by the Church on July 20 and September 5. See also: Book XII – August Memories of the Third Ecumenical Council (performed by the Orthodox Church on September 9) Arian unrest 212 led the Church to Nestorian unrest - to disputes about the person of the God-man, resolved by the Church at the Third Ecumenical Council. The Arians, in support of their heretical views, referred to those sayings of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament that indicate the humiliating state of our Lord Jesus Christ during the days of His saving messianic service to the human race: in these sayings the Arians saw evidence of the validity of their blasphemous assertion that the Son of God is lower than the Father, subordinate to Him. Defenders of Orthodox teaching pointed out to the heretics that the sayings of Holy Scripture about the degrading state of the Lord Jesus should be attributed not to the Divine, but exclusively to the human nature of Christ the Savior. However, this essentially fair answer did not exclude the possibility of such a puzzling question: “If Christ said and did one thing as God, and another as a man, then shouldn’t it be concluded from here that the natures in Christ were separated - that in His one Person two essences and two separate wills acted?” The explanation that the Divine and human natures in Christ the Savior are not separated, but are united, caused new bewilderment: if Christ is the God-man, that is, full God and full man, then how can we understand those passages of the Holy Gospel in which the Lord Himself spoke derogatorily about Himself? Blessed Theodoret, citing the saying of the Savior that He does not know about the day and hour of His second coming: About that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but only my Father alone (Matthew 24:36), accompanies this saying with the following question, showing the need for a complete clarification of the doctrine of the relationship of two natures in Christ, which would eliminate all objections and bewilderments: “Why does the Word bear the name wisdom, how soon is it subject to the weakness of ignorance? - asks the blessed father. Thus, Arianism led to new perplexities about the face of Jesus Christ, which gave rise to Nestorian disputes. True, to solve them, much was contained in the writings of the holy fathers of the Church of the 4th century, and one could be completely satisfied with them. But the arrogant mind did not want to humble itself before the great mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God: it is not without reason that they assert that new unrest would hardly have arisen in the Church if Nestorius had not appeared in the field of church-historical life. Nestorius's homeland is the Syrian city of Caesarea Germanicia on the Euphrates River; His year of birth and parents are unknown. Saint Cyril of Alexandria testifies only that Nestorius “came from the mud, and his origin was shameful.” He spent several years of his youth in a monastery near Antioch and then, after accepting the priesthood, he emerged as a good preacher. Historians of the Church, Socrates and Marcellus, contemporaries of Nestorius, note the eloquence of the latter, and the former speaks of him as a talented man, but poorly educated. Nestorius led a strictly monastic life and at the same time, as Socrates testifies, he was “vain, quick-tempered and frivolous.” Without a doubt, Nestorius was a proud and proud man, who did not want to bow to anything or anyone; This pride and desire for fame, according to some, forced Nestorius to resort to ostentatious holiness in life and pompous language in his preaching. In 428, as a man with outstanding oratorical talent, Nestorius was elected by Emperor Theodosius II (408–450) to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Nestorius, upon entering the department, showed extreme intolerance, saying in a nationwide appeal to the emperor: “Give me, O king, the universe, cleansed of heresies, and I will give you the heavenly Kingdom; fight for me against heretics, and I will fight for you against the Persians” 213. In the initial years of Nestorius's patriarchate, thanks to him, a brutal persecution was raised against various sectarians who had hitherto enjoyed some tolerance in Constantinople: they were imprisoned, subjected to expulsion, confiscation of property, their houses of worship were closed and destroyed. From Constantinople, this persecution of all kinds of heresies and schisms spread to other parts of the empire, leading, in some places, to bloody clashes. But the zealous persecutor of heresies, unexpectedly for his flock, turned out to be a heretic himself. However, one should not think that Nestorius was in the full sense of the word the founder of the heretical teaching associated with his name. The seeds of heresy are found several decades before the time of Nestorius - in the writings of his teacher Theodore of Mopsuestia and the teacher of Theodore himself, Diodorus of Tarsus. Nestorius, therefore, belongs only to the further development of the teaching and, thanks to the height of his position, courage and determination in the dissemination and defense of heretical wisdom. The historian Socrates describes the first speech of Nestorius as a preacher and defender of the Nestorian heresy as follows: “With Nestorius there was a presbyter Anastasius, who came with him from Antioch; Nestorius respected him greatly and used his advice in business. Once, while teaching in church, this Anastasius said: no one should call Mary the Mother of God, for Mary was a man, and it is impossible for God to be born from a man. There was commotion in the church. Nestorius began to defend Anastasius: he did not want a man whom he respected to be convicted of wicked teaching; partly for the defense of Anastasius, partly (and undoubtedly, mainly) for the dissemination of his thoughts, Nestorius began to preach often in church on the same subject,” openly declaring that “the Most Holy Virgin Mary should not be called the Mother of God, since She gave birth not to God, but only to man, with whom, besides Her, the Word of God, eternally begotten of the Father, was united; the man Jesus, born of Mary, was only the abode of the Divinity and the instrument of our salvation; this man, through the influx of the Holy Spirit, became Christ, that is, the anointed one, and the Word of God remained with him in a special moral or relative union” - more precisely, “in contact” only, and not in a union by nature, as the Orthodox Church teaches. Turning to an explanation of the suffering and death of the God-man - how Christ the Savior suffered and how He died - Nestorius explained: “We can say that the Son of God died in an improper sense, for only the man Jesus died and rose again; the sufferings of the God-man were possible only because in Christ the Divinity was separated from humanity.” As for the evangelical and apostolic sayings, where Christ is spoken of “sometimes in a derogatory sense, sometimes in the sense of ineffable superiority,” Nestorius, affirming the separateness of natures in Christ, taught that some of these sayings should be attributed to Christ as exclusively to man, others as exclusively to God. The patriarch's statement that the Most Holy Virgin should be called not the Mother of God, but the Mother of Man, caused general indignation in Constantinople, because the use of the word Mother of God was sanctified by liturgical and paternal tradition, 214 and, in addition, the Mother of God was recognized as the special patroness of the city. Seeing this, Nestorius proposed a new name for the Virgin Mary - Christ Mother, and then agreed to accept the church name with reservations in the sense of his heretical error. But it was already understood that in this case it was not about words, but about something immeasurably more important: about the main dogma of Christianity - the dogma of the incarnation of the Son of God. Proclus, the presbyter of Constantinople, later the bishop of Cyzicus, and then the patriarch of Constantinople, and the lawyer Eusebius, later the bishop of Dorylaeum, spoke out against the heretical patriarch with open denunciations. Nestorius appointed Proclus to preach on the day of the Annunciation. Proclus, taking advantage of this, began to preach, meaning, of course, Nestorius, although without calling him by name, that the Most Holy Virgin should be called the Mother of God. The very title of the sermon spoke about this, as can be seen from the following: “About the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the Holy Virgin Mary is the Mother of God, that He who was born of Her is Immanuel, who is together God and man, unfused and immutable.” Eusebius once interrupted the sermon of the heretical Nestorius in the cathedral with such a loud exclamation: “Lies and blasphemy! Truly one and the same Word of God was both begotten by the Father in eternity and incarnate in time from the Virgin for our salvation.” Then, on the gates of Constantinople, a scroll was seen nailed to them - it is assumed that its author was the same Eusebius - where Nestorius was accused of renewing the heresy of Paul of Samosata, already condemned in the 3rd century; the scroll concluded the accusation with the words: “Anathema to him who separates the Son of God from the Son of Mary!” Taking advantage of the patronage of the emperor, Nestorius began to brutally persecute those opponents of his heretical teaching, which he found among the Constantinople clergy and monasteries. But the case of Nestorius, which attracted so much attention and aroused so much hot speculation in the capital, naturally received publicity beyond the walls of Constantinople. “From whatever city,” writes Saint Cyril of Alexandria, “from whatever village someone comes, everyone asks: what kind of universal talk is this, what kind of new teaching is spreading through the churches?” Some monks from Egyptian monasteries came to the Patriarch of Alexandria Saint Cyril (412–444) with a similar question: “Is it true,” they asked the saint, “that there are teachers somewhere who preach that the Most Holy Virgin cannot be called the Mother of God?” Having thus learned from the monks that the heretical sermons of Nestorius were being preached in the monasteries of his diocese, Saint Cyril came out in defense of Orthodox teaching. As an outstanding theologian of his time, as a decisive and firm man and, finally, as a bishop of one of the most important sees of the Eastern Church, Saint Cyril occupied a leading position in the struggle of the Orthodox against Nestorianism. Saint Cyril opened his struggle with Nestorius with a letter “To the hermits,” that is, to the Egyptian monks. In this letter, without naming Nestorius by name, Saint Cyril condemns the latter’s teaching, proving through theological speculation based on the teaching of Holy Scripture, apostolic and patristic tradition and the teaching of the Nicene Symbol, that Jesus Christ was true God and true man: “Of the two natures, Divinity and humanity, there is one Immanuel, one Lord Jesus Christ, one true Son God and together man, not a deified man, like those who by grace are made partakers of the Divine nature, but the true God, who for the sake of our salvation appeared in human form.” If the Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man, then the Most Holy Virgin Mary, as having given birth to the God-Man, is truly the Mother of God. At the same time, Saint Cyril addressed a special discussion about the Orthodox faith to the Emperor Theodosius and a similar, but more extensive, discussion to the Empress Eudoxia and the sister of the Emperor Pulcheria. Having learned about the actions of Saint Cyril and being aware that the message “To the Hermits” had received significant distribution outside the Egyptian monasteries and even reached Constantinople, Nestorius became worried and began to be indignant at Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Then the supporters of Nestorius wrote two epistles: one against the epistle “To the Hermits”, and the other under the title “Against those who, in the doctrine of the union of natures in Christ, either disparage the Divinity of the Only Begotten, or deify humanity.” Saint Cyril became aware of this through “venerable” and trustworthy men. In order to clarify the matter and not be based on misunderstandings alone, Saint Cyril decided to send a message to Nestorius. Here he indicates the reasons for the appearance of his message “To the Hermits”. It was a matter of necessity: confusion in faith from the teachings of Nestorius, dissatisfaction with them, expressed by those who came to Cyril from all the Eastern Churches and, finally, a request from Pope Celestine with bishops from Rome, where rumors about the new teaching had penetrated - all this forced Cyril to break the silence. “Instead of blaspheming me,” Saint Cyril advises Nestorius in conclusion, “it would be better for you to correct your words in order to stop temptation in the Universal Church. Believe that the best remedy in this case will be to say a word to those who have been tempted, to call the Holy Virgin the Mother of God, so that we and all others can perform public worship in peace and unity.” In response to this message from Saint Cyril, Nestorius elects presbyter Lampon to explain between him and the Patriarch of Alexandria; he sent the latter with a letter on his own behalf; the final lines of the letter read: “Experience will show what fruit will be for us from the perseverance of the most reverent presbyter Lampon.” Such a “fruit” was the second letter 215 of St. Cyril to Nestorius, which is a sublime theology about the dogma of the incarnation of the Word of God. The conclusion of the letter is touching: “I am writing these words to you,” says St. Cyril to Nestorius, “impelled by love in Christ, and as a brother I advise you and beg Him before God and the holy Angels to think and teach alike with us, so that church peace may be preserved and so that the union of like-mindedness and love may remain inseparable between the priests of God. Greet the brethren who are with you; the brethren who are with me greet you.” Nestorius also responded to the second letter of Saint Cyril with a special message in which, instead of recognizing his errors and being ready to correct them, on the contrary, he defends his false teaching and even in words full of pride and mockery, reproaches and calls for correction of Saint Cyril himself. Seeing the futility of relations with Nestorius, Saint Cyril decides to turn to Rome for help from Pope Celestine (422–432); although he had previously been at odds with the Bishop of Rome 216, but now, in view of the impending church-wide disaster, he is reconciled. In his letter to Pope Celestine, Saint Cyril outlines the true state of affairs in the Eastern Church, created by Nestorius, and from here explains both his appeal to the pope and his actions in relation to Nestorius. “I confess,” writes Saint Cyril, “I wanted to bring to his (Nestorius’s) attention through a conciliar letter that we cannot enter into communication with someone who speaks and thinks like this; but before deciding on such a severance of relations, I decided to make contact with your piety in advance: deign to express in writing my opinion about whether we should still have communication with him.” To confirm his words about the heresy of Nestorius, Saint Cyril sends to the pope the conversations spoken by Nestorius in church, having first translated them. Pope Celestine condemned Nestorius at the Local Council of Rome in 430, and his response to Saint Cyril was extremely favorable to the latter. The Pope was upset by the “unclean” teaching of Nestorius and finds consolation for himself in the piety of Cyril. Standing on the basis of Christian patience, the pope considers this solution to be the best in relation to Nestorius: first, Nestorius must give a voice of warning, and only after that, if he persists, “the diseased member must be cut off, from which not only he suffers, but the whole body of the Church is eaten up.” The Pope authorizes Saint Cyril to declare to Nestorius on his own behalf and on behalf of him, the Pope, so that Nestorius, under pain of deposition and excommunication, within ten days renounce his error and turn to the faith held by Rome, Alexandria and the entire Ecumenical Church. Meanwhile, Nestorius, taking advantage of one puzzling incident of a canonical nature, also addressed Pope Celestine with a message. Having explained the reason that forced him to turn to the Bishop of Rome, Nestorius proceeds to explain the dogmatic unrest that arose in the Eastern Church; here he dishonestly expounds the teaching of Saint Cyril on the incarnation of the Word of God, attributing to the Bishop of Alexandria thoughts alien to him; refuting Cyril, Nestorius sets out his teaching. Not receiving an answer from the pope, Nestorius turns to him with a second message, similar to the first. Finally, an answer came from the pope, in which the latter, calling on Nestorius to correct his wickedness, announced to him that the proof of such correction should be the reunification with the Church of all those excommunicated by Nestorius for disagreeing with him. To express repentance to Nestorius, as earlier in the letter to St. Cyril, the pope assigns a ten-day period. At the same time, Celestine addressed an extensive message to the clergy and people of Constantinople and with less extensive messages to Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, Flavian of Philippi, Rufus of Thessaloniki and John of Antioch, who was brought up with Nestorius in the same monastery near Antioch; in these messages, the pope denounced the error of Nestorius, reporting the condemnation that would await the latter if he persisted. And Saint Cyril also wrote to some eastern bishops, setting out the essence of the dispute between him and Nestorius. He received answers from the elderly Acacius of Beria, John of Antioch and others: they did not approve of the teaching developed by Nestorius, but at the same time there was a request not to bring the matter to an open rupture. After the agreement with Rome, Saint Cyril forwarded the message received from the pope to Nestorius with a message on behalf of the Council of Alexandria, in which Nestorius was required to renounce his error in writing with an oath. This letter ended with twelve anathematisms, famous in the history of Nestorianism, outlining controversial points between Saint Cyril and Nestorius on the issue of the incarnation of the Son of God 217. Patriarch John of Antioch, a friend of Nestorius, advised the latter to submit and accept the word of the Mother of God. Nestorius solemnly declared that he was ready to accept the name Theotokos, since the man Jesus, born of the Virgin, was united with God the Word. But he rebelled against the anathematisms of St. Cyril with all determination; in a special work, Nestorius presented his refutations of the anathematisms point by point, also including twelve; here, due to a lack of theological knowledge, Nestorius expressed clearly heretical opinions, which alienated him and some of his supporters. During this exchange of messages between St. Cyril of Alexandria, Nestorius and Pope Celestine among themselves, Nestorian unrest deeply agitated the believers, who were divided into two sides: one adhered to the teachings later recognized as Orthodox at the Third Ecumenical Council, the other stood for the Nestorian heresy. The first belonged to those local Churches whose members in the 4th century were champions of the Nicene symbol. During the days of fierce Arian unrest, the main opponent of this heresy was the Church of Alexandria, led by its archbishop Saint Athanasius. And now, during the Nestorian disputes, the main defender of Orthodoxy, as we see, was Saint Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria. The Fathers of the Egyptian Church declared at the Third Ecumenical Council: “It is unnecessary to demand an account of the Orthodox faith from the bishops of Egypt. For it is obvious to everyone that we follow the faith of St. Cyril.” There were fifty such fathers who sided with Saint Cyril at the Third Ecumenical Council. The Roman Church now, as earlier during the Arian unrest, joins the Church of Alexandria. The same must be said about Thessalonica, Macedonia, Illyricum and Jerusalem. Finally, in the days of Arianism, monks were zealous defenders of Orthodoxy, and during the Nestorian movements, monks, starting from Constantinople, everywhere, adhering to Orthodoxy, treat Nestorianism as a hateful and blasphemous teaching. Regarding the supporters of Nestorius, a similar phenomenon is noticed: the same countries and churches that fought for Arianism fought for him. Antioch of Syria, the nest of Arianism, was the same in relation to Nestorianism. All the leaders of the Nestorian movement left here. John, Archbishop of Antioch, declaring himself a friend of Nestorius and naming the most prominent bishops of his district, notes about them that they also treat Nestorius “with love” and consider his cause “their own business.” Previously, from Constantinople, “nets were spread to catch adherents of (Arian) impiety.” Nestorius from Constantinople also successfully acquired supporters for himself, and here he enjoyed such love from some that even after his expulsion, which followed the conciliar condemnation, the people, upon the death of his successor in the see of Constantinople, Maximian, exclaimed: “Let Nestorius again be a bishop in the capital!” The bishops of Irakli, many Syrian, Asian and Pontic are on the side of Nestorius; in general, we can say that Asia has leaned toward the Nestorian heresy, just as it had previously leaned toward the Arian heresy. The noted difference between Orthodox and Nestorians in their views on the dogma of the incarnation or, more precisely, on the union of natures in Christ Jesus was rooted in their different solution to the basic question of the relationship of faith to knowledge. Defenders of Orthodox teaching against the Nestorians here adhere to the views of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory the Theologian - in the study of questions of faith, a limit must be placed on reason, for faith is higher than reason. “Why,” asks Saint Cyril, “should I carefully study the Scriptures, and not philosophize in the simplicity of my heart in accordance with it?” Touching upon the holiest and greatest mystery of our salvation - the mystery of the incarnation of the Word of God - the same holy father remarks: “Accept the favor of the Father, who has given us his own Son. Please do not investigate this matter. It does not lend itself to the reason of pagan wisdom and ordinary understanding - it is alien to both.” “What is the need to propose to everyone these questions (about the incarnation), so subtle and intimate? Wouldn’t we bring more benefit to people by explaining moral teaching, when we are still unable to penetrate dogmatic teaching with due fidelity?” Pope Celestine had similar thoughts. In his research on faith, the pope calls for extreme caution: “We must be more afraid and not become arrogant when delving into research; one should not, as has been said, examine objects higher than oneself.” Regarding the truth of the incarnation of the Word of God, the Pope prohibits any kind of research of the mind: “Let,” he says, “let the question of the birth (of Christ) be eliminated, which every true believer must decide in the simplicity of his heart, for who will dare to test God?” Another prominent defender of Orthodoxy and an adherent of St. Cyril, Theodotus, Bishop of Ancyra, calls the mind to silence at the sight of the truth of the incarnation of Christ: “Do not ask me,” he teaches, “about the image of God’s miracles, for I will tell you: miracles only show what happened, and I leave it to God to know the image of what happened.” Do not ask the question: “How does God remain God and become man? Believe in the miracle and don’t test what happened with your mind.” The Nestorians held not such views, but completely the opposite: they tried to comprehend the greatness of God through human research. Seeing himself condemned by Rome and Alexandria, Nestorius considered the only way out of his predicament to be the convening of an Ecumenical Council to consider the controversial issue. Some of the defenders of Orthodoxy wanted the same thing. Therefore, in November 430, Emperor Theodosius II, on himself and on behalf of the Western emperor, issued a decree to convene a council in Ephesus, as the city where the Mother of God had her residence in the last years of Her life. The opening time of the cathedral was set at the nearest Pentecost. Each of the metropolitans was to take with him to the upcoming council as many bishops as he found necessary, in accordance with the needs of the metropolitanate, so that the required number of bishops remained in place to perform archpastoral duties. The imperial decree entrusted the court dignitary Candidian with monitoring the “decency” or the progress of affairs at the council, without the right to interfere with the council members’ research on dogmas. Heretical bishops and Orthodox bishops gathered in Ephesus with completely opposite views and intentions. Nestorius and his like-minded people understood the convening of the council as permission to carry out a “new revision of church teaching”; Saint Cyril and his supporters, on the contrary, understood that the question of the incarnation of the Son of God is a matter of faith, not reason. Nestorius arrived in Ephesus shortly after Easter (April 19) with sixteen bishops and his friend the nobleman Irenaeus. Saint Cyril of Alexandria appeared at the council with fifty bishops, many laymen and monks, having, at the same time, authority from Pope Celestine. Memnon, Metropolitan of Ephesus, had about forty bishops. There was not a single representative from the African Church due to the invasion of the Vandals; only Capriol, Bishop of Carthage, wrote a letter asking the fathers of the council not to introduce any innovation. Pope Celestine, as representatives of both himself and the “entire Western Council,” sent two bishops and one presbyter to the council in Ephesus with the order that they be guided by the judgment of Cyril of Alexandria. The pope's representatives, however, did not arrive in time for the start of the council. Nevertheless, about two hundred bishops gathered. Candidian, following the instructions given to him by the emperor, ordered that all monks and visiting laymen leave Ephesus and that not a single bishop leave the city under any circumstances until the meetings of the council were over. Meanwhile, Nestorius's friend John of Antioch still did not appear with the bishops of his district, due to the difficulty of convening the bishops, who could not leave before the end of Easter week, partly due to the confusion in his city caused by the lack of provisions and, mainly, due to the poor condition of the roads due to rains. Thus sixteen days passed after the period appointed by imperial decree for the opening of the council. Saint Cyril, who assumed the presidency of the council, decided to open the latter without waiting for John of Antioch. Saint Cyril acted this way out of zeal for the glory of the Mother of God, in fulfillment of the exact requirement of the imperial decree to consider the matter without any delay and after notifying the two Syrian bishops sent ahead by John: “Mr. Bishop John,” they reported, “ordered to say to your piety: do your job.” Nestorius and bishops like-minded with him were invited to the council three times through a special deputation consisting of bishops: the first time just before the opening of the council, and the second and third time after the opening. The first delegation received an ambiguous answer from Nestorius: “I’ll take a look and, if I need to come, I will come”; the second and third delegations were not even allowed to reach Nestorius. On June 22, 431, under the chairmanship of the Alexandrian Patriarch Cyril, a council of no less than one hundred and sixty bishops, mainly from Alexandria, Egypt, Jerusalem, Palestine and Illyricum, opened in the main church of Ephesus; sixty-eight bishops, supporters of Nestorius, protested against the opening of the council before the arrival of John of Antioch; This protest was also supported by the emperor's official Candidian. But when he appeared at the council, the fathers asked him, after reading the royal decree on the rights and duties of the council, to leave. When resolving the issues raised by Nestorianism, the fathers of the council took as a guiding principle the teaching of the Nicene symbol, which was read more than once at the council, and the fathers of the council deliberately decided to keep the Nicene symbol in perfect integrity: “The Holy Council determined,” we read in the acts of the Third Ecumenical Council, “not to allow anyone to pronounce, write or formulate a faith other than that defined by the saints.” fathers who met at Nicaea." The first meeting of the fathers of the Third Ecumenical Council opened with the reading of the Nicene Symbol; it was followed by the reading of the second letter of St. Cyril to Nestorius, greeted by the fathers of the council with high marks of approval for his agreement with the Nicene symbol. A letter from Nestorius in response to Saint Cyril was read, and the fathers pronounced anathema both to the author of the letter and to his teaching. Among other documents read at the first meeting of the council, the third letter of St. Cyril to Nestorius was read out, containing the so-called “anathematisms”; it was also accepted with approval by the council. Then, at the suggestion of Saint Cyril, it was decided to question some bishops about the oral conversations of Nestorius; The messages of the bishops who had a conversation with Nestorius in Ephesus left no doubt that Nestorius thought blasphemously about the Divine dignity of the Redeemer. For a more thorough clarification of the Orthodox teaching about the union of natures in Christ the Savior, a special set of sayings was read from the writings of the fathers revered by the entire Church: St. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Great, Julius, Pope of Rome, St. Felix, Pope of Rome, Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Atticus, Bishop of Constantinople, Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium. Then the fathers of the council found it necessary to compare extracts from the writings of Nestorius with these extracts from the writings of the fathers; the latter caused general disapproval. Having resolved the controversial issue of the union of natures in Christ in the sense that “two natures - Divine and human - are united in Christ inseparably and unmerged,” the fathers of the Third Ecumenical Council in the same first meeting also resolved the issue of the deposition of Nestorius. The fathers of the council drew up the following verdict: “Since the most wicked Nestorius, among other things, did not want to obey our invitation and did not accept the holiest and most pious bishops sent from us, we were forced to investigate his wicked teaching. Having discovered partly from his letters, partly from other writings, partly from conversations that he recently had in this metropolis (that is, Ephesus) and which were confirmed by witnesses that he both thinks and preaches wickedly, we were forced, on the basis of the canons and the message of our Holy Father and fellow servant Celestine, Bishop of Rome, to pronounce against him, although not without bitter tears, the following definition: Our Lord Jesus Christ, on whom he spews blasphemy, through the mouth of this most holy council determines: to deprive him of his episcopal rank and excommunicate him from church communion.” The council verdict the next day was announced to Nestorius in the following form: “The Holy Council, assembled by the grace of God, at the command of our most pious and Christ-loving emperors, in the metropolis of Ephesus, to Nestorius, the new Judas. Know that you, for your wicked sermons and opposition to the canons, on the 22nd day of the current month of June, on the basis of church rules, were deposed by the holy council and deprived of your church degree.” This sentence was signed by more than two hundred bishops 218. Upon the condemnation of Nestorius, the council notified Constantinople about this with a special message addressed to the Constantinople clergy and economists of the Church of Constantinople; a report was drawn up and sent on behalf of the council to the emperor, where, outlining the course of the council's proceedings, there was a request that the emperor command the destruction of all the teachings of Nestorius in the church, his books - where they were found - to be burned, and to threaten everyone who dared to follow the teachings of Nestorius with the wrath of imperial greatness. Following this message, the emperor received a report from Nestorius, which contained accusations against the Council of St. Cyril and where Nestorius justified his attitude towards the council he condemned. Meanwhile, on June 27, John of Antioch arrived in Ephesus with fourteen eastern bishops. A special deputation was sent from the Orthodox bishops to John to persuade him to side with the decision of the council that had already taken place, but John did not accept the deputation. The next day after his arrival, John convened his council, at which no more than forty-three bishops were present. This council, known under the sad name of “Apostate,” deposed Cyril of Alexandria and Memnon, Bishop of Ephesus, as “infected with an incurable disease”; he excommunicated the other bishops who were of the same mind with Cyril only from communion until they, as a sign of repentance, pronounced condemnation of the “heretical” anathematisms of Cyril of Alexandria. John and his fellow members sent reports to the emperor, empresses, clergy, people and the Senate of Constantinople about the determination of their council. In all these messages, John proves the correctness of his actions and accuses Cyril. Having learned about the actions of John, Cyril and Memnon again invite the bishops' congregation to the council to accuse John of illegal actions, since John did not invite the bishops accused by the latter to his council. The legates of the Pope, who had slowed down on their way, arrived at the cathedral on July 10. Having become acquainted with the activities of the cathedral under the chairmanship of St. Cyril, they sided with the Orthodox. The council invited John of Antioch to its meetings three times so that he could prove the validity of his accusations against Cyril, but John refused, which is why the Ecumenical Council decided to cut off John and his supporters from church communion and let the emperors know about it. Thus, two hostile sides of bishops were formed in Ephesus, threatening each other and excommunicating each other. In order to clarify the true state of the matter before the emperor, to whom it was presented in an unfavorable light for the Orthodox by Candidian, who sided with the heretics, the Orthodox bishops sent a request to the emperor: to recall Candidian and allow five of them to personally appear at court. Attached to this letter were the acts of the council reviewed by Saint Cyril. But Candidian closed all routes to Constantinople so that the message would not reach its destination. Then the fathers of the cathedral handed the beggar a message to the bishops and monks of Constantinople depicting the course of the council's affairs and the oppression endured by the Orthodox in Ephesus. A beggar carried a letter to Constantinople in a stick. Upon receipt of the message, great excitement began in the capital, mainly in the monasteries: the inhabitants of the latter, singing antiphons, went to the emperor's palace. Among the monks, the most outstanding was the Monk Dalmat. For forty-eight years he remained hopelessly in seclusion, not leaving it even when the emperor himself asked him to participate in solemn religious processions on the occasion of the earthquake. A divine voice from above now commanded the monk to leave the seclusion. The Monk Dalmatus and others were admitted to the emperor. The great ascetic showed him a message from Ephesus, outlined the complaints of the Orthodox and asked: is it better to join one wicked person than among the many bishops scattered throughout the universe and represented by their brothers in Ephesus? “The accomplices of Nestorius,” said the monk, “come (to Constantinople) in large numbers and leave without restraint, but the Orthodox bishops are in straits.” Touched, Theodosius promised to summon the council's trustees to Constantinople. The emperor indeed soon kept his promise, and the bishops sent from the Orthodox side clarified to the emperor and in Constantinople in general the situation created in Ephesus, so that the matter was approaching a final decision in favor of Orthodoxy and St. Cyril. But at this time, the nobleman Irenaeus, a supporter and friend of Nestorius and John, arrived in Constantinople with strong connections at court. He got the case reconsidered. And as a result, Saint Cyril and his fellow bishops were accused of doing everything “autocratic and illegal, and therefore (they) are subject to excommunication and other punishments.” A paper had already been prepared for the emperor to sign, and only the arrival of Cyril’s home secretary John, who managed to restore the desecrated truth, destroyed Irenaeus’ machinations so much that the opinions of the dignitaries reviewing the matter were divided. The emperor, obviously lost among these mutual accusations and reports, decided to depose Nestorius, Saint Cyril and Memnon to pacify the disputants. With such a decree, he sends the committee John, appointed to replace Candidian, to Ephesus, with instructions, in addition, to do what he recognizes as useful regarding the faith. John could do nothing in Ephesus because of the greatest confusion reigning there; the mutual bitterness of the parties was so strong that John did not achieve reconciliation. He took Saint Cyril, Memnon and Nestorius into custody and reported to the emperor about the futility of his mission. Finally, the emperor, inclined to general requests, organized a meeting in Chalcedon of sixteen bishops who arrived here from Ephesus (eight each from the rival parties). At this meeting, held in the presence of the emperor, the opportunity was opened for the fathers of the Orthodox council to prove the truth of the latter’s decrees and their rightness. Thanks to this, even before the dissolution of the meeting, an order was received in Ephesus to release Saint Cyril and Memnon with the restoration of their former rights; Nestorius “retired to the place of his former residence, that is, to Antioch, from where he arrived to the throne of Constantinople.” After some time, the bishops sitting in Chalcedon were transferred to Constantinople; the Orthodox bishops were then ordered to elect a successor to Nestorius; Maximian, a monk of a hermitic and unambitious character, was elected and ordained. Regarding Nestorius, the following decree was issued to Isidore Praetorian, prefect and consul: “Although it is known that we are engaged in public affairs, however, no less care on our part includes the affirmation of the Catholic faith; By preserving the faith we hope to serve the public good. Therefore, when Nestorius, the former shepherd of the Catholic Church, and now a traitor to the faith, indulged in such terrible wickedness, it is necessary that he undergo the judgment of our lordship and receive a punishment worthy of his behavior, because by rejecting the laws of the venerable Church he became the author of a terrible heresy; and since he damaged the faith of those whom he persuaded to participate in treason, he must accept the guilt of someone else’s treason. Therefore, by your authority and with the right inherent in you, may you command the aforementioned Nestorius, for the wickedness he committed, to be subjected to permanent exile in Petra 219, and all his property to be transferred to the Church of Constantinople to increase the treasures of that most sacred place, the sacraments of which he violated. For in this way the grace for the most holy faith will be preserved in the souls of people and, with the establishment of piety, the prosperity of our empire will flourish.” The other bishops were ordered to return to their countries and cities. Saint Cyril returned to Alexandria on October 30 and was received by the flock with the greatest delight and honor. After some time, Nestorius was moved from Petra to the remote Egyptian oasis of Ibis; here he was captured by nomads; released by them, he soon died in complete obscurity from old age and exhaustion. A severe persecution was instituted against the followers of Nestorius; those who survived from him fled to Persia, where for a long time they enjoyed special protection from the state. Thus, the stormy debate raised by Nestorius and agitating the entire Christian world was resolved towards the triumph of Orthodoxy. But, unfortunately, this triumph was not an internal reconciliation of the warring parties. The bishops, with John of Antioch at their head, having departed from Ephesus, formed a council on the way, in Tarsus, and then in Antioch, at which it was decided to protest against the deposition of Nestorius; Moreover, the decree that took place in Ephesus regarding the deposition of Saint Cyril was confirmed. Only the indispensable will of the emperor that “disputes be stopped and the peace of the Lord established” stopped the discord; the end of the enmity was subsequently put by the activity of the same Saint Cyril 220, this great fighter for the right faith and a wise zealot for the church world. Memories of the IV Ecumenical Council (performed by the Orthodox Church on July 16) The Ecumenical Council of Ephesus did not put an end to the disputes about the Face of the God-Man, nor did it reconcile the Nestorians and the Orthodox. But soon, however, in the thirties of the 5th century, this reconciliation was achieved through union, that is, unity, which almost stopped the division of the church. Emperor Theodosius the Younger, seeing that the Council of Ephesus did not achieve church peace, immediately after the council turned to John of Antioch with a demand to enter into communion with Saint Cyril of Alexandria. At first, John and his followers wanted to restore this world at an unfair price - the price of demanding that Saint Cyril renounce all his writings, where the doctrine of the Face of the God-Man was revealed to them: such a refusal would be tantamount to a denial of the dogmatic activity of the just ended Ephesian Ecumenical Council. Saint Cyril, of course, did not agree to this and, on the contrary, turned to the Antiochian bishops with a meek and fair proposal to abandon heretical (Nestorian) thoughts, join the decision of the Ephesian Ecumenical Council on the deposition of Nestorius and recognize as the legitimate shepherd Archbishop Maximian of Constantinople, elected to the place of the deposed Nestorius by the Ephesian Council from persons who were of the same mind as Saint Cyril. In response to this, Saint Cyril, in his own words, “was handed a letter from John, containing something that was not what it should have been, written not as it should have been - in a tone of ridicule, not agreement. For,” says Saint Cyril, “instead of reassuring me of the sadness caused by previous events and their (that is, the Antiochian bishops) own actions in Ephesus, they considered it timely to pour out their anger on me, generated, as it were, by their zeal for the holy dogmas.” But striving for church peace, Saint Cyril did not cease making efforts to achieve it. And the Lord blessed the works of the great archpastor; their fruit was that John of Antioch, from all the bishops of the Antioch district, sent to Saint Cyril a confession of faith, the essence of which was as follows: “We,” wrote the Antioch bishops, “confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is perfect God and perfect man, consisting of a rational soul and body, that He was born before the ages from the Father according to the Divinity, and in recent times for our sake and for the sake of our salvation from the Virgin Mary to humanity that He is consubstantial with the Father in Divinity and consubstantial with us in humanity, for in Him is the perfect union of two natures. That is why we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. On the basis of such an unmerged union, we confess the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, because God the Word became incarnate and became man, and at the very conception united with Himself the church received from Her. It is known that theologians recognize some of the Gospel and Apostolic sayings about the Lord as general, as belonging to one person, while others, due to the difference in the two natures, accept them separately, and those of them that are befitting of God are attributed to the Divinity of Christ, while those that are derogatory to His humanity” 221 . At the end of the message there was an anathematization of Nestorius and his teachings with a statement about the acceptance of Maximian into communion. Saint Cyril of Alexandria accepted this confession of John and the bishops of like minds as a gift from heaven and recognized it as completely Orthodox. Church peace began to establish itself, and strife began to subside, as can be seen from the following expressions of the letter of John of Antioch in 437: “All the bishops of the East (that is, the Antiochian district), like the bishops of the rest of the world, condemned Nestorius and agreed to his deposition. We have done and announced what was necessary for four years now. All the coastal bishops agreed and signed. Bishops of the second Phenicia, the Cilicians did this last year; the Arabs through their bishop Antiochus; the countries of Mesopotamia, Ozraene, Euphrates and the second Syria approved everything that we did. We have long ago received a (favorable) response from the Isaurians; all the bishops of the first Syria signed with us.” However, given the extreme tension in church life regarding the issues raised by Nestorianism, the union could not help but meet with condemnation from some dissatisfied with it, both in Alexandria and Antioch. Particularly dangerous for the church world were those opponents of the church agreement between Alexandria and Antioch, who came from the ranks of admirers of St. Cyril. These were the forerunners of the soon-to-emerge Monophysite heresy. They considered the communion of Saint Cyril with John of Antioch to be a betrayal of Orthodoxy and saw heresy in the teaching of Saint Cyril about the two natures in Christ. Saint Cyril did everything on his part to “silence the enemies from among his former friends.” He, applying himself to their views, never tired of explaining that the doctrine of two natures in Christ does not exclude the doctrine of their union. But stubborn in their error, the former friends of Saint Cyril did not listen to his explanations and admonitions, and the great hierarch went to his grave, not having the confidence that the union that had taken place, to his great joy, would be durable. The further time passed, the more the number of supporters and defenders of the union increased, which further embittered its enemies, who came from the ranks of the former admirers of St. Cyril. Despite their large numbers, they behaved with restraint while Saint Cyril, who was highly respected in the Church, was alive. But with his death the situation changed. The enemies of the union among the Alexandrians began to openly and vigorously act against it in the name of Orthodoxy, and in reality in the name of their heretical teaching, known in the history of the Church under the name of Monophysitism 222. The main representative of the Monophysite heresy was Eutyches, the archimandrite of a monastery in Constantinople. During the days of the Third Ecumenical Council, Eutyches showed himself to be a zealous supporter of St. Cyril of Alexandria in his fight against the heresy of Nestorius: “When Nestorius opposed the truth, Eutyches stood for the truth.” Such activities of Eutyches earned him the respect of St. Cyril: after the Third Ecumenical Council, St. Cyril sent Eutyches a copy of the description of the activities of the council that had just ended. But Eutyches, like all the Alexandrians who opposed the union, revered Saint Cyril only as a fighter for Orthodoxy against Nestorius; He considered the activities of the holy father during and after the union a mistake, if not a betrayal of Orthodoxy. Eutyches, therefore, did not recognize the works written by the famous Archbishop of Alexandria in order to prepare the union and to defend it. In these writings, the idea of ​​two natures in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ was developed and strongly affirmed, which completely contradicted the heretical Monophysite views of Eutyches, who taught: “After the incarnation of God the Word, I worship one nature - the nature of God incarnate and made man”; “I confess that our Lord consists of two natures before the union, and after the union I confess one nature.” It should be noted that these sayings are found in St. Cyril of Alexandria, who himself borrowed them from the writings of St. Athanasius of Alexandria; Thus, they are not the invention of Eutyches, but were taken by him from the writings of St. Cyril without connection with his other views and therefore have a heretical character, which they do not have in their place. However, the fact that the above sayings were found in the writings of St. Cyril gave an appearance of truth to the heretical teaching of the Monophysites and attracted many followers from among short-sighted Christians to it. The case of Eutyches was raised by Eusebius, Bishop of Dorylaeum, known for his struggle with Nestorius 223. At one of the councils of bishops, so frequent in ancient times, and this time gathered in Constantinople in 448, Eusebius made a statement that Eutyches, the archimandrite of the most famous monastery in Constantinople, thought heretically, in disagreement with the apostolic tradition and the teaching of the Nicene symbol, about the Redeemer and the sacrament of atonement. In a special note submitted with this statement to Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, and the Council of Bishops, Eusebius wrote among other things: “I asked Eutyches, presbyter and archimandrite, that he should not indulge in such defeat of the senses, intoxication of thinking and frenzy of the mind that he even forgets the fear of God, and dares to call heretics those fathers who are considered among the saints; but he, having an intemperate mouth and an unbridled tongue, does not cease to deny the pious dogmas of Orthodoxy. I beg and ask your holiness: do not ignore my request, but order Eutyches, the presbyter and the archimandrite to appear at your Holy Council and defend yourself in what I accuse him of. I am ready to expose him that he falsely bears the name of Orthodox and is completely alien to the Orthodox faith.” Not wanting to give publicity to the matter and at the same time not considering it possible to ignore Eusebius’ statement, Flavian, the chairman of the council, invited Eusebius to speak with Eutyches privately. But it turns out that Eusebius went to Eutyches more than once or twice for admonition and to no avail; now, Eusebius resolutely declared, “it is impossible that after I often went and could not convince him, I would again go to him and hear blasphemous words.” Seeing the inflexibility of Eusebius, the council found itself forced to send a deputation of Prester John and Deacon Andrew to Eutyches; the delegation was obliged to present Eutychius with a note from Eusebius of Dorylaeum and invite the archimandrite to the council for an explanation. Returning from Eutyches, the deputation stated the following to the council: “We went to his monastery, read him the incriminating note, and handed him a copy of it. They announced an accuser to him and announced that he was being called to justify himself before your holiness. He completely refused to go and justify himself, saying that it was determined for him and, as it were, laid down by law from the beginning, never to leave his brotherhood anywhere, but to live in a monastery, in some way like in a tomb. He asked us to inform your holiness that the most God-loving Bishop Eusebius, who had long been his enemy, out of hatred and hostility brought this accusation against him. He claimed that he was ready to agree with the presentation of the holy fathers who composed the council in Nicaea and Ephesus, and promised to sign their interpretations. After the incarnation of God the Word, that is, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, he worships one nature, the nature of God incarnate and made man. That our Lord Jesus Christ consists of two natures united hypostatically, he did not encounter this in the expositions of the holy fathers, and if he happens to read something similar from someone, he will not accept it, because the Divine Scripture is superior to the teaching of the fathers. He confessed that He who was born of the Virgin Mary is perfect God and perfect man, having no flesh of the same essence as us.” “The testimony we heard,” said Eusebius after the deputation’s report, “is sufficient to understand what wicked opinion Evtyches has, contrary to the statements of the holy fathers. I ask that Eutyches be summoned here again.” It was decided to send a second deputation to Eutyches, which included two presbyters - Mamma and Theophilus; The deputies were given a letter of summons calling on Eutyches to appear at the council “without any delay.” From the report to the council of this second delegation it is clear that Eutychius twice refused to receive the deputies under the pretext of illness, and only thanks to his persistence the deputation achieved the required meeting. “When we entered (to Eutyches), the deputies said, we handed him a written document; he ordered it to be read in front of us and after it was read, he said: “I have made it a rule not to leave the monastery, except in mortal need; the holy cathedral and the most God-loving bishop see that I am old and frail; let the archbishop and the cathedral do with me what they want; I ask only one thing - not to disturb anyone here next time, because I have a decree not to leave the monastery.” After hearing this statement, the council determined: “It is necessary to convince Eutyches for the third time to come to this holy council; if he does not fulfill this, he will blame himself.” The third delegation consisted of the presbyters and keepers of the vessels, Memnon and Epiphanius, and the deacon Herman. With these persons, a letter of summons was again sent to Eutyches, which said: “You know what is determined by the holy canons against those who are disobedient and do not want to appear for justification, when the third summons comes to them. Hasten to come the next day in the morning, that is, on the fourth day of the week, on the seventeenth day of the month of November.” On the eve of this day, a deputation from Eutyches in the person of Archimandrite Abraham and three deacons appeared to the fathers of the cathedral. The archimandrite reported to the cathedral about Eutyches' ill health and volunteered to give some explanations for the sick man. Archbishop Flavian promised to wait for Eutyches' recovery, but rejected the archimandrite's offer. On November 17, the third delegation, returning from Eutyches, conveyed the following request to the fathers of the council: “I ask you to beg the lord archbishop and the holy council to give me a reprieve for this week, and next week, if God pleases, I will come and justify myself before the lord and the holy council.” The request was taken into account - Archbishop Flavian, on behalf of the council, decided: “We will grant (Eutychius) the reprieve he requested. If, contrary to his own promise, Eutychius does not appear on the second day of the next week (November 22), then he will finally be deprived of both the priesthood and the leadership of the monastery.” November 22 arrived. The members of the council gathered in the judicial chamber of the bishopric. Eutyches appeared at the council with many soldiers, monks and servants of the praetorian prefect; In addition, Eutyches was accompanied by Silentiary 224 Magnus, sent by the emperor to present the following definition to the council: “We care about the peace of the holy Churches and the Orthodox faith and wish to protect the faith, truly and by the inspiration of God, set forth by our holy fathers, numbering three hundred and eighteen at Nicaea and who were in Ephesus at the condemnation of Nestorius. We desire this so that temptation does not invade the aforementioned Orthodoxy. And since we know the most noble patrician Florence to be faithful and experienced in Orthodoxy, we want him to be present at the meeting of the council, since we are talking about faith.” “Mr. Florence,” said Archbishop Flavian after reading the imperial decree, “we all know to be faithful and experienced in Orthodoxy and we wish that he be present.” Upon Florence's arrival at the council, the trial of Eutyches' case began. In the meeting dedicated to Eutyches, the Council of Constantinople in 448 based its decision on the issue of the union of two natures in Christ Jesus, mainly on the letter of St. Cyril of Alexandria “to the eastern”, which sets out the progress of the union, affirms the confession of faith of John of Antioch and - which was especially important for the council - decisively refutes the false thinking of the Monophysites: “Let the lips be stopped,” says the message. to those who preach either the identity or fusion or mixture of the Son of God with the flesh.” From other writings of Saint Cyril, the council was guided by another of his letters to Nestorius, in which the doctrine of two natures in Christ was fully confessed. Turning to the trial of Eutyches, the council tried mainly to find out whether Eutyches agreed with the above-mentioned letter of St. Cyril and with the words of the confession of John of Antioch contained in it. The deacon, who read the message of St. Cyril “to the Easterners” at the council, unhinderedly reached the following words: “We confess that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is a perfect God and a perfect man, consisting of a rational soul and body; that He was born before the ages from the Father according to Divinity, and in recent times for our sake and for the sake of our salvation from the Virgin Mary according to humanity; that He is consubstantial with the Father in Divinity and consubstantial with us in humanity; for in Him the unity of two natures was accomplished. That is why we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord; On the basis of such an unfused union, we confess the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, because God the Word became incarnate and became man, and at the very conception united with Himself the church received from Her.” At this point, the reading of the message was interrupted by the exclamation of Eusebius of Dorylaeus: “Eutyches does not profess this and never agreed with this, but contrary to this he philosophized and taught.” This exclamation provoked first Prefect Florence, and then Archbishop Flavian and Eusebius of Dorylaeus into a discussion with Eutyches. Reasoning ultimately led to the following statement by Eutyches: “I confess that our Lord consisted of two natures before the union, and after the union I confess one nature.” There was no doubt left about Eutyches' heresy. In order to prevent the grave consequences of Eutyches’ heresy for the Church, the fathers of the council suggested that he anathematize everything contrary to the dogmas read at the council. But Eutyches rejected this proposal with a tone of bitterness. Then the fathers of the council stood up and shouted: “Anathema to Eutyches.” Then, after the meeting, the following statement was made regarding Eutyches, signed by Archbishop Flavian, thirty-one bishops and twenty-three archimandrites: “From everything - both from past deeds, and from the present consciousness of Eutyches - it is revealed that he suffers from the delusion of Valentinus and Apollinaris 225. Not ashamed of our conviction, he did not want to agree with the true dogmas; therefore, sighing and mourning his complete death, we, in the Lord Jesus Christ, Whom he slanderes, decided to alienate him from all priestly service, communication with us and leadership over the monastery. Let all those who after this talk or come together with him know that they themselves will be guilty of penance and excommunication, as they did not shy away from conversations with him.” The Council of Constantinople in 448 did not, however, put an end to the discord: it was not recognized by the Church of Alexandria, or Egypt, which was the focus of the enemies of the union, and the Church of Jerusalem, which had long since the days of the First Ecumenical Council walked hand in hand with the Church of Alexandria in resolving controversial issues of dogma; The Church of Rome, in the person of Pope Leo the Great, initially did not react entirely favorably to the Council of Constantinople due to little awareness of the details of the debates taking place in the distant East. The Council of Constantinople was accepted by the Church of Constantinople and those churches of Asia Minor and Syria that had previously been sympathetic to the union. It is not surprising, therefore, that when the Council of Constantinople did not meet the necessary sympathy in the highest secular authorities, difficult times came for the Orthodox Church: friends of the union, defenders of the right faith, are considered enemies of Orthodoxy, and the Monophysites are strengthened as much as the Arians in the sad days of Emperor Constantius. In this state of affairs, naturally, the decisions of the Council of Constantinople did not break the fierce stubbornness of Eutyches - he decided, relying on the sympathetic attitude of the court towards him, to enter into a fight with the council and his archbishop: he submitted a petition to Emperor Theodosius, in which he asked for a review of his case at a new council. At the same time, Eutyches sent a complaint to Rome to the holy Pope Leo the Great (440–461) that in the East, that is, in Constantinople, “through the efforts of some people the Nestorian heresy is being resurrected again”; By this, Eutyches wanted to tell the pope that at the Council of Constantinople, he, Eutyches, was condemned, supposedly, as a defender and admirer of St. Cyril, who, as they saw, devoted himself to the fight against Nestorianism. In his reply to Eutyches, Pope Leo approves of his pious zeal, citing his lack of knowledge of the matter: “As soon as we find out more fully,” writes the holy pope, “about those whose wickedness this has become, we will consider it necessary, with the help of God, to take care of how to root out the wicked infection, which has long been condemned.” With a request to clarify the matter, Saint Leo turned to Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople: “Let your brotherhood,” the Pope suggests in a letter to Flavian, “notify us with a detailed report about what novelty has arisen in you against the ancient faith.” Flavian did not hesitate to answer. He clarified to the pope the essence of the false teaching of Eutyches, reported on the latter’s machinations after his condemnation by the Council of Constantinople, and asked the pope to strengthen the faith of the “most pious emperor.” Soon Flavian sent the pope a second letter with a more detailed presentation of the heretical teachings of Eutyches. The answer to it was the famous in the history of the Church “District, or conciliar letter of Holy Leo, Archbishop of the city of Rome, written to Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople (against the heresy of Eutyches)”: “To my beloved brother Flavian, Leo Bishop. Having read the message of your love, which was so late to our surprise, and having examined the order of the episcopal acts, we finally learned what kind of temptation and rebellion you had against the purity of faith, and what previously seemed a secret now became clear to us. Thus, Eutychius, who was awarded the name of archimandrite and the rank of presbyterate, turned out to be very reckless and such a great ignoramus that the words of the prophet can also be applied to him: he does not want to come to his senses in order to do good; on his bed he plots iniquity (Ps. 35:4-5). And what is more wicked than to wickedly speculate about faith and not follow the wisest and most experienced? But this is the madness suffered by those who, having encountered some obscure difficulty in knowing the truth, resort not to prophetic sayings, not to the apostolic writings and not to the evangelical authority, but to themselves, and thus, not wanting to be students of the truth, become teachers of error. For what success could he acquire in the knowledge of the Holy Books of the Old and New Testaments who did not understand the first words of the trunk itself and what is confessed throughout the entire universe by the lips of all the regenerated, this old man does not yet understand in his heart. Therefore, not knowing what to think about the incarnation of God the Word and not wanting to labor in the broad field of the Holy Scriptures in order to be worthy of the light of knowledge, he should have accepted with attentive hearing at least that universal and unanimous confession that all believers confess: “We believe in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord, born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” These three sayings overthrow the tricks of all almost heretics. For when we believe that God is both the Almighty and the eternal Father, then this already proves that the Son is co-eternal with Him and is in no way different from the Father, because God is born of God, from the Almighty the Almighty, from the Eternal Coeval, and not later in time, not inferior in power, not different in glory, not separate in essence. He is the eternal Father, the eternal Only Begotten, born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. This temporary birth did not subtract anything from that divine and eternal birth and did not add anything to it, but completely devoted itself to the salvation of a lost person, in order to defeat death and with its power to crush the devil, who has the power of death (see: Heb. 2:14). For we could not defeat the author of sin and death if our nature had not been accepted and adopted by Him, Whom neither sin could hurt nor death could keep in its power. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mother, who, just as she conceived Him, being a Virgin, gave birth to Him, preserving her virginity. But if he could not draw an exact concept from this purest source of the Christian faith (that is, from a symbol), because he, through his own blindness, darkened for himself the brilliance of obvious truth, then he would turn to the teaching of the Gospel, where Matthew says: the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abram (Matthew 1:1); I would also look for instruction in the apostolic preaching and, reading in the letter to the Romans: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, chosen for the gospel of God, which God first promised through His ηροροκοοοηροροκοο in the writings of the saints concerning His Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. 1:1-3), with With pious curiosity I would approach the books of the prophets and would find the promise of God given to Abraham: and in your seed all nations will be blessed (Gen. 22:17). And in order not to be perplexed about the property of this seed, let him follow the apostle who said: but the promises were given to Abraham and to his seed. It is not said: “and to your descendants,” as if speaking about many, but as about one: “and to your seed,” which is Christ (Gal. 3:16). Let him also listen with his inner ear to the prophecy of Isaiah, who said: behold, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel, which means: God is with us (Is. 7:14; Matt. 1:23); I would read with faith these words of the same prophet: A child is born to us - a Son is given to us; dominion on His shoulder, and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isa.9:6). Then I would not speak idle talk, as if the Word became flesh in such a way that Christ, born from a virgin’s womb, had the image of a man, but did not have the true body (the same as the body) of the Mother. Is it perhaps because he recognizes our Lord Jesus Christ as not having our nature, because the angel sent to the blessed Mary said: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; Therefore, the Holy One who is born (from You) will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35), that is, since the conception of the Virgin was a Divine action, then the flesh of the Conception was not from the nature of the One who conceived? But this birth, which is exceptionally amazing and amazingly exceptional, should not be understood in such a way that the property of the genus is destroyed by the unusualness of the birth. The Virgin's fruitfulness was granted by the Holy Spirit, and her true body was borrowed from Her body. And when, in this way, Wisdom built a house for Herself, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), that is, in that flesh that It borrowed from man and which it animated with the spirit of rational life. Thus, while preserving the properties of both natures and combining them into one person, humiliation is perceived by greatness, weakness by power, and mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our nature, the impassive nature was united with the passionate nature, so that one and the same mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5) could die according to one (nature), and could not die according to the other, as required by the nature of our healing. Therefore, the true God was born in the true and perfect nature of a true man: wholly in His, wholly in ours. We call ours what the Creator placed in us in the beginning and what He wanted to return to us. For in the Savior there was not a trace of what the tempter brought into man and what the deceived man allowed (into himself). And although He became a participant in human infirmities, it does not follow from this that He became a participant in our sins. He took on the image of a slave without the stain of sin, magnifying the human and not diminishing the Divine, because that exhaustion by which the invisible became visible and by which the Creator and Ruler of all creatures wanted to be one of men was the condescension of His mercy, and not a lack of power. Therefore, He who, being in the form of God, created man, He Himself became man, taking on the form of a servant. Both natures retain their properties without any damage. Just as the image of God does not destroy the image of a slave, so the image of a slave does not diminish the image of God. And since the devil boasted that man, seduced by his deceit, was deprived of Divine gifts and, naked from the blessing of immortality, fell under the strict sentence of death, and he (the devil) in his distress found some consolation in the fact that he had a participant in his treason, as if God, at the request of His justice, changed His definition of man, whom He created for such honor, then the need for the economy of the secret council so that the unchangeable God, whose will cannot be deprived of the goodness inherent in it, fulfills, through the most secret sacrament, the first definition of His love for us, and man, who fell into sin through the cunning of the devil’s malice, does not perish contrary to the Divine intention. So, the Son of God, descending from the heavenly throne, comes to these low (countries) of the world and, without being separated from the glory of the Father, is born in a new way, by a new birth. In a new way, because the Invisible in his own (nature) became visible in ours, the Incomprehensible deigned to become comprehensible, the Eternal began to be in time, the Lord of the universe took on the form of a slave, hiding the immensity of His greatness, the impassive God did not disdain to become a man who could suffer, and the immortal - to be subject to the law of death. He was born of a new birth, because immaculate virginity did not know lust, and yet provided the substance of the flesh. So, the Lord accepted nature from the Mother, but not sin. And from the fact that this birth is miraculous, it does not follow that the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, born from the womb of the Virgin, is different (from ours). For He who is true God is also true man. And if the humiliation of man and the greatness of the Divine are mutually united, then in this unity there is no transformation. For just as God does not change through mercy, so man is not destroyed through glorification. Each of the two natures, in conjunction with the other, acts in the way that is proper to it: the Word does what is proper to the Word, and the flesh does what is proper to the flesh. One of them shines with miracles, the other is subject to suffering. And just as the Word did not fall from equality in glory with the Father, so the flesh did not lose the nature of our race. For one and the same (this often needs to be said) is truly the Son of God and truly the Son of Man: he is God, because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1); there is a man, because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14); God, because through Him all things began to be, and without Him nothing began to be (John 1:3); man, because he was born of a woman, was under the law (see: Gal.4:4). The birth of the flesh is the revelation of human nature; and that the Virgin gives birth is a sign of Divine power. The infancy of the Childhood is evidenced by poor shrouds; the greatness of the Most High is proclaimed by the singing of angels. The one whom the wicked Herod wants to kill is like a newborn human (son); but the Lord of the universe is the One to whom the Magi slavishly and joyfully come to worship. When He came to receive baptism from His Forerunner John, then, so that it would not be hidden that the Divinity was hidden under the cover of flesh, the voice of the Father thundered from heaven: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17). Further, He, as a man, is tempted by the devil’s deceit, and He, as God, is served by the ranks of angels. To hunger, to thirst, to be weary and to sleep is obviously characteristic of man, but to satisfy five thousand people with five loaves, but to give living water to a Samaritan woman, from which the drinker will no longer thirst, but to walk on the surface of the sea with wet feet and to calm the disturbance of the waves with the consolation of a storm, is, without a doubt, a Divine work. Just as it is not the same thing of nature to cry out of compassion for a dead friend, and, after removing the stone from the four-day grave, to resurrect him to life with the power of one word; or hang on a tree and at the same time turn day into night and shake all the elements; or to be nailed (to the cross) and at the same time open the doors of heaven to the faith of the thief (we are silent about many things); so it is not characteristic of the same nature to say: I and the Father are one (John 10:30) and My Father is greater than Me (John 14:28). For although in the Lord Jesus there is one face of God and man, yet there is another from where the common humiliation of both comes, and another from whence comes their common glorification. From our nature (in Him) He has a humanity less than the Father, and from the Father He has a Divinity equal to the Father. Because of this unity of person, which must be understood in relation to both natures, we read about the Son of Man that He came down from heaven, while the Son of God took flesh from the Virgin, from whom He was born; and back about the Son of God it is said that He was crucified and buried, whereas He suffered this not by Divinity, according to which the Only Begotten is co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father, but by weak human nature. Hence, in the Creed we all confess the Only Begotten Son of God crucified and buried, in accordance with these words of the Apostle: for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8). And when our Lord and Savior Himself, teaching His disciples faith through questions, asked: Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am? and when they answered that different people think differently about this, He said: Who do you say that I am? Me, that is, the Son of Man, Whom you see in the form of a servant and in the true body, who do you think I am? - Then blessed Peter, by inspiration from above and for the benefit of his confession, answered all nations: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:13-16). And he was worthily called blessed by the Lord and from this original Stone he acquired firmness and strength and his name, who, by the revelation of the Father, confessed one and the same as the Son of God and Christ; because one of these (names), taken separately from the other, did not serve for salvation; on the contrary, it was equally dangerous to confess the Lord Jesus Christ only as God, and not together as a man, or to recognize Him as a simple man, and not together as God! After the resurrection of the Lord, which, of course, is the resurrection of the true body, since no one else was resurrected, but the same One who was crucified and died, what else happened during His forty-day stay (on earth), if not so that the purity of our faith would be free from all darkness? So, He either talked with His disciples, communicated and ate with them, and those of them who were troubled by doubt, He allowed Himself to be touched with a careful and deliberate touch, then He entered to His disciples, while the doors were locked, gave them the Holy Spirit with His breath and, giving them the light of understanding, revealed the secrets of the Holy Scriptures, then again showed the wound in His side, wounds from the nails, and all the signs of recent suffering, saying: look at My hands and at My feet, it is I myself: touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have (Luke 24:39). And all this in order to convince that in Him the properties of the divine and human nature abide inseparably, and so that, thus, we would know that (in Him) the Word is not the same as the flesh, and confess the one Son of God both by the Word and the flesh (together). This sacrament of faith should be considered completely alien to this Eutyches, who in the Only Begotten Son of God does not recognize our nature either in the humiliation of death or in the glory of the resurrection. And he was not horrified by the judgment of the blessed Apostle and Evangelist John, who said: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ, who has come in the flesh, is from God, and every spirit that divides Jesus is not from God, but it is the spirit of the Antichrist (cf.: 1 John 4: 2-3). And what does it mean to divide Jesus, if not to separate human nature from Him and to abolish with shameless inventions the sacrament of faith, by which alone we are saved? Being blind in relation to the nature of the body of Christ, he will necessarily, with the same blindness, be mad about it in the state of His suffering. For if he does not consider the cross of the Lord to be a ghost and does not doubt that the suffering perceived for the salvation of the world was true (suffering), then he must recognize the flesh of Him whose death he believes. Let him not say that it was not our body that was the man whom he himself recognizes as suffering, for the denial of the true flesh is the denial and suffering of the flesh. So, if he accepts the Christian faith and does not turn his ears away from the preaching of the Gospel, then let him judge what kind of nature, pierced with nails, hung on the tree of the cross; let him think about when the warrior opened the side of the Crucified One with a spear, from where blood and water then flowed out for washing the Church of God with the bath and drinking the cup. Let him also listen to blessed Peter, who preaches that sanctification by the Spirit occurs through sprinkling with the blood of Christ (see: 1 Pet. 1:2). Let him not casually read the words of the same apostle: Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, silver or gold, from the futile life handed down to you from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Pet. 1:18-19). Let him not resist the testimony of the blessed Apostle John, who says: and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7), and in another place: this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who overcomes the world if not the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is Jesus Christ, who came by water and blood... not only by water, but by water and blood. And the Spirit testifies of Him (Christ)... And three testify... spirit, water and blood; and these three are together (1 John 5:4–6,8), that is, the spirit of sanctification, the blood of atonement and the water of baptism. These three are one and remain inseparable; not one of them is separated from its unity, since the Catholic Church lives and thrives precisely by faith, so that in Christ Jesus she confesses neither humanity without true Divinity, nor Divinity without true humanity. Eutyches, answering the points of your interrogation, said: “I confess that our Lord before the union was of two natures, but after the union I confess one nature.” I am surprised that such a reckless and so impious confession of his was not condemned by any reproach from those who judged (him), and that these too crazy and too blasphemous words were left without attention, as if nothing offensive had been heard! Whereas it is just as impious to say that the Only Begotten Son of God had two natures before the Incarnation, as it is absurd to say that He had one nature after the Word became flesh. So that Eutyches does not consider his opinion either true or tolerable on the grounds that it has not been refuted by a single voice of yours, we urge the diligence of your love, beloved brother, to cleanse the ignorant man from this stain on his consciousness, if, by the action of God’s mercy, his case takes a good turn, for he began well to retreat from his conviction (as can be seen from the course of the council’s acts), when, at your request, he promised to recognize what did not recognize it before, and rest on the faith to which I was previously alien. But when he did not want to express his consent to anathematize (his) wicked dogma, your brotherhood concluded from this that he remained in his wickedness and deserved a sentence of condemnation. However, if he sincerely and unhypocritically repents and realizes, even belatedly, how rightly the episcopal power moved against him, or if, for complete justification, he condemns all his bad thoughts both verbally and with his own signature, then mercy towards the reformed, no matter how great it may be, will not be reprehensible. For our Lord, the true and good Shepherd, who laid down His soul for His sheep and came to save human souls and not to destroy, wants us to be imitators of His love for mankind, that is, so that those who sin will be curbed by truth, and those who are converted will not be repulsed by mercy. Then, in fact, the true faith is defended with complete success, when the false opinion is condemned by its very followers. We hope for the assistance of God’s help, that the lost one, having condemned the wrongness of his way of thinking, will be saved. May God keep you in good health, beloved brother!” The message ended with the pope’s statement: “For a faithful and impartial study of the whole matter, we sent (to the upcoming council) in our place our brethren - Bishop Julian and Presbyter Renat and also my son, Deacon Ilarius. We added to them our notary Dulcitius, whose faith we have tested many times.” From this statement of the pope it is clear that Eutyches' petition to the imperial authorities to convene a new council was respected. Indeed, taking advantage of the patronage of the enemy of Archbishop Flavian, the all-powerful minister Chrysaphius, who guided the will of the weak and spineless Emperor Theodosius, Eutyches achieved that four months after his condemnation, the emperor announced the convening of a new church council to study the unequal dogmatic views on the Face of the God-Man and the image of the union of two natures in Him and to revise definitions of the Council of Constantinople on the case of Eutyches. It was assumed that the newly convened council would be Ecumenical, like the council of 431 - representative hierarchs from all the main churches of the time were convened for it. But this was not the judgment of God’s providence: in history this council acquired the name not of the IV Ecumenical Council, but of the “robber” council 226 for its activities aimed at the triumph not of Orthodoxy, but of heretical wisdom. The very fact that the council was convened at the request of Eutyches and his adherents did not bode well for Orthodoxy and its defenders. That is why prominent champions of Orthodox truth, such as Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, and Pope Leo, were unsympathetic to the convening of a new council, foreseeing what kind of unrest and disorder it would bring to the Church. The basis for such fears was in the orders of the highest secular authorities that preceded the opening of the cathedral. Thus, by decree of the emperor, the shrewd enemy of Monophysitism, Blessed Theodoret, who had bitter misunderstandings and quarrels with Saint Cyril, was removed from the presence at the upcoming council - and was removed, of course, not as an opponent of St. Cyril, but as a possible and strong opponent of Eutyches 227; on the contrary, Archimandrite Barsuma from Syria was called to the council by a deliberate decree with the right to vote, although according to the canons only bishops could be members of the council. Such an exception was made for Barsuma because, as the decree said, he was “fighting against some eastern bishops infected with the wickedness of Nestorius,” that is, more precisely, against the Orthodox bishops, whom the Monophysites called Nestorians because, contrary to Eutyches, they taught about two natures in Christ and after the incarnation. By decree of the emperor, the chairmanship of the council was entrusted to Dioscorus, the archbishop of Alexandria, who joined the supporters of Eutyches and was in relations with Chrysaphius 228. Elpidius, a member of the imperial council, and Eulogius, a tribune and notary of the praetorium, were specially ordered by the emperor to watch “what would be done by the holy council in Ephesus, and not allow any disorder in any case. If you see that someone starts indignation or disorder (at the council) as an insult to the holy faith, put him in custody... Those who previously judged Archimandrite Eutyches should be present and silent at the council, not having the title of judges, but wait for the general opinion of all the other fathers, because now what was previously determined by them themselves is being condemned.” That is, Archbishop Flavian and his supporters were even deprived of the right to speak in their own defense under penalty of being taken into custody for violating the imperial will. The instructions ended with an indication that Elpidia and Eulogius were given military force at their disposal, and through them it entered the service of the Monophysitists who prevailed at the council. These pre-conciliar orders of the emperor were concluded with his message to the council itself. The message explained the reasons for convening the council and indicated the general purpose of its activities: “Since the God-loving Bishop Flavian wanted to raise some question about the holy faith against the most venerable Archimandrite Eutyches and, having convened a council, began to do something, then we, referring several times to this most God-loving bishop, wanted to prevent the aroused disorder, being sufficiently convinced of the Orthodox faith handed down to us by the saints the fathers who were in Nicaea, and confirmed by the holy council that was in Ephesus. But although we repeatedly convinced this most pious bishop to abandon such research, so that it would not become the cause of unrest in the entire universe, he did not calm down. Having judged that it is unsafe to carry out such a study of faith without your holy council and without the primates of the holy churches, we considered it necessary for your holiness to gather together so that you pluck out all the devilish root from the holy churches and cast out those who are zealous about the blasphemy of the wicked Nestorius or those who favor him, and make the inviolability of the Orthodox faith strong and unshakable, because all our hope and the strength of our empire depend on Orthodox faith in God and from your holy prayers." Under such unfavorable conditions for the defenders of Orthodox truth, the council opened in Ephesus on August 8, 449; its meetings took place in the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as did the meetings of the Third Ecumenical Council. The number of council fathers varies between one hundred twenty-two and one hundred thirty. From the actions of the council that preceded the appearance of Eutyches at it, it is impossible not to note that at the council the reading of the message of Leo the Great was not allowed, obviously as unfavorable for Eutyches and Dioscorus - as directed against their heretical teaching. When, at the suggestion of Elpidias, Eutyches was called to the council, he was asked to present before the council “justifications useful to him.” Eutyches began his explanation with words that showed that in the fathers of the council he saw his like-minded people: “I have entrusted myself,” said Eutyches, “to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and I have you as witnesses of my faith, for which I fought with you.” He then submitted to the council fathers two written articles containing his confession of faith. Here Eutyches, first of all, complained about the “slanders” against him by the Council of Constantinople because he “did not agree to philosophize against the faith that was set forth by the holy fathers in Nicaea.” Further, without directly expressing his teaching about the union of two natures in Christ, Eutyches cites the entire Nicene symbol and adds that he firmly adheres to the decrees of the Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus and curses all heretics, starting with Simon the Magus. Such a confession was followed by a series of complaints from Eutyches against Archbishop Flavian and the Council of Constantinople: that (as if) Eusebius of Dorylaeum, accusing him of heresy at the council, did not directly and definitely indicate the latter; that the council, which knew about Eutyches’ promise not to leave the monastery and nevertheless summoned him for trial, only wanted to condemn him as a person disobedient to the Church, in the hope that he would not come to the council; that at the council itself, when he appeared, contrary to expectation, he was not given the opportunity to speak in his own defense, but “suddenly,” Eutyches slandered, “a condemnation against me, drawn up in advance, was read”; that the very acts of the Council of Constantinople (as if) were subsequently altered to the detriment of him, Eutyches. “So, I ask now,” Eutyches concludes his confession, or rather, the slanderous accusations of the Council of Constantinople and its chairman, “to discuss the slander and untruth brought against me and the anxiety that has arisen from this cause in all the Churches and the temptation that arose from this for many, to bring the perpetrators of all this to church punishment and to tear out every root of blasphemy and impiety.” Archbishop Flavian, accused by Eutyches, demanded that Eusebius of Dorylaeus be summoned to the council to present indictments against Eutyches. But Elpidius, an official of the emperor, did not allow this, declaring the emperor’s command that the judges Eutyches (at the Council of Constantinople) should stand among the defendants and not have the right to vote. Instead of fulfilling Flavian's request, he ordered that the acts of the Council of Constantinople of 448 be read and discussed. When reading these acts, the heresy (monophysitism) of the chairman of the assembly, Dioscorus, and most of the bishops who composed it, was clearly revealed. When the reading led to the question asked by Eusebius to Eutyches at the Council of Constantinople: “Do you confess two natures after the incarnation?”, many of the members of the assembly shouted: “Take, light Eusebius (Dorylean), let him burn alive, let him be converted into two; just as he divided Christ, let him divide himself.” Seeing a favorable turn of affairs for himself, Dioscorus turned to the bishops with the question: “Is this expression tolerable for you, which speaks of two natures after the incarnation?” “Anathema to the one who says this!” - exclaimed the cathedral. Thus, the Monophysite heresy was proclaimed as the truth at an illegal assembly, and Orthodoxy was trampled under foot. Of course, Eutyches, as the main champion of the Monophysite heresy, was then declared Orthodox and restored to the dignity of archimandrite and the rank of presbyter. Now it was the turn of the trial of Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople. According to a pre-drawn plan, just at this time several monks from the monastery of Eutyches appeared at the council with a petition containing the most unfair complaints against the archbishop. “Flavian,” said the petition, read by order of Dioscorus at the council, “showered our shepherd Eutyches with slander and blasphemy and, under the guise of piety, found an unfair pretext for his condemnation, but he ordered us to avoid our shepherd and not speak with him, and ordered the monastery property, under the pretext of helping the poor, to be preserved for himself, for he traded in it; The holy altar, which Eutyches erected six months before the deliberate attack on it, stands without a divine sacrifice... We ourselves were bound by his unjust condemnation. Therefore,” the petition ended, “we beg your Holy Council to take pity on us, who have suffered such an unjust punishment, to return to us the church communion that was unjustly taken away, and to give retribution to him who committed this (that is, Flavian) for the fact that he judged unjustly.” Of the three hundred monks of the Eutychius Monastery, only thirty-five signed the petition, so the matter here, without a doubt, is not entirely pure. The monks were accepted into church communion by the council, and their petition created convenient ground for Dioscorus for further intrigues against the innocent Archbishop of Constantinople. Dioscorus ordered the definitions of the Third Ecumenical Council to be read and then asked: “I think everyone likes the Nicene definition of faith, which the Council of Ephesus approved and determined to contain it alone? We know that the fathers of this council decreed: if anyone, contrary to this, speaks or philosophizes, or introduces something new, he will be condemned. What do you think about this? Can we explore or innovate despite this? If anyone examined beyond what was said, defined and approved, would he not, in all fairness, be subject to the condemnation of the fathers? Let everyone say whether he is of the same opinion?” 229 The Council gave an affirmative answer by a majority vote. Then Dioscorus, rising from his seat, in the following words made a proposal for the application of the Ephesian rule to Flavian and Eusebius of Doryleia: “Flavian, the former bishop of the Church of Constantinople, and Eusebius of Dorileon, as the Holy and Ecumenical Council clearly sees, turn out to be almost everything, turning away and rebuilding, and have given rise to temptation and confusion for the holy churches and all Orthodox peoples. It is clear that they subjected themselves to the punishments once collectively determined by our holy fathers; Therefore, we, based on the definitions of the fathers, condemn the mentioned Flavian and Eusebius to deprivation of all priestly and episcopal dignity.” The opinion of Dioscorus was unanimously accepted by the Monophysites and signed by all members of the council. Flavian and Eusebius were deprived of church dignity. Subsequently, Flavian was expelled and ended his life in exile. Eusebius of Dorylaeus suffered so many troubles after the council that he later called Dioscorus his murderer. Deacon Hilary, the pope's legate, “barely escaped” from the council and only reached Rome by a roundabout route. Blessed Theodoret, who was not present at the council, was defrocked and imprisoned in a monastery. Iva, Metropolitan of Edessa, was anathematized. Thus, the Monophysite heresy triumphed over the truth of Orthodoxy and triumphed, as was later revealed at the true Ecumenical Council - the Fourth, through untruth and violence. A dark cloud of heresy hung over almost the entire East. But the Lord was not slow to come to the aid of His Church through His worthy servant, Saint Leo the Great. Having received news from Deacon Hilary and Archbishop Flavian about the actions of the “robber” council, Leo the Great addressed a message to Emperor Theodosius and his sister Pulcheria, where, noting the illegal actions of the just ended council, he pointed out the need to convene a new Ecumenical Council, “which would resolve or tame all the injustices that have arisen so that they no longer there remained any doubt in faith or division in love.” Saint Leo also addressed two messages, one after the other, to the clergy and people of Constantinople. “Whoever thinks in a Monophysite way,” the zealous warrior of Orthodoxy inspired in his epistles, “is drawn into community with him by Arius, whose corruption is greatly facilitated by this wickedness, which denies human nature in God the Word... Whoever does not recognize the human nature assumed by the Only Begotten Son of God in the womb of the Daughter of David, excommunicates himself from all sacraments Christian faith and, not knowing the Bridegroom (Christ), not understanding the Bride (Church), cannot be a participant in the fraternal feast (salvation). The flesh of Christ is the covering of the Word, with which everyone who confesses this Word is clothed. And whoever is ashamed of Him and rejects what is, as it were, unworthy (His flesh), cannot receive any adornment from Him, and even if he proceeded to the royal celebration and brazenly joined the sacred supper, however, as a dishonest interlocutor, (he) cannot hide from the King’s pickiness, but, as the Lord Himself testified, he will be taken and, bound hand and foot, will be sent into utter darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (see: Matthew 22:13). That's why; “Whoever does not confess the human body in Christ has recognized himself as unworthy of the sacrament of incarnation and cannot have participation in this sacrament.” “Do not think, beloved,” the Holy Pope addressed with words of encouragement to the Eastern Churches, “as if Divine Providence is either now lacking or will not be in the future over the Holy Church. The purity of faith shines when the admixture of errors is separated from it. Providence always provides its necessary help,” and the almighty Head of the Church was not slow to justify such faith in His providential activity: the patron of the Monophysites, Emperor Theodosius, soon died; His place was taken in August 450, after the election of the army and the Senate, by the commander Marcian, deeply devoted to Orthodoxy 230, who then soon entered into marriage with Theodosius’s sister Pulcheria 231, who was well-known for her zeal for Orthodoxy. Church affairs took a new turn favorable for the Orthodox. Leo the Great's idea of ​​convening a new Ecumenical Council came to fruition. The council was appointed in Nicaea 232, and then, for the convenience of monitoring the progress of its affairs for the emperor, it was moved to Chalcedon, separated from Constantinople only by the Bosporus Strait. Here the cathedral opened on October 8 in the magnificent and extensive church of the holy martyr Euphemia. The number of fathers of the council was very large - from six hundred to six hundred and thirty; so many had never happened at any of the councils that had preceded it. Its most prominent members were: Anatolius, Archbishop of Constantinople, Maximus, Archbishop of Antioch, Juvenalius, Archbishop of Jerusalem, Fallasius, Bishop of Cappadocia, and the legates of the pope - Bishops Paschazin and Lucentius and Prester Boniface; There were also many military and civilian dignitaries present, who, however, did not take part in the actions of the council when considering purely church matters, for example, in the case of the trial of a bishop. The activities of the IV Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon consisted of 1) the trial of the “robber” council of 449 and the head of this council, Dioscorus of Alexandria, and 2) the revelation of the true doctrine of the union of two natures in the person of the God-man. 1. At the very first meeting of the council, which took place on October 8, at the insistence of the papal legates, Dioscorus of Alexandria, who occupied a seat along with the other fathers, had to leave the row of bishops and sit in the middle, like a defendant who had lost the right to vote. Then Eusebius of Dorylaeus, who suffered a lot at the “robber” council, came forward as a plaintiff. “I am offended by Dioscorus,” said Eusebius, “my faith is offended, he killed Bishop Flavian and unjustly condemned him along with me; command that you accept my request.” In this petition, Dioscorus was accused mainly of having “gathered a violent crowd of people and acquired power for himself with money, insulted the faith of the Orthodox as much as he could, and confirmed the wickedness of the monk Eutyches.” “Since,” wrote Eusebius, “his (that is, Dioscorus) encroachment on faith and on us (that is, Eusebius and Flavian himself) is great, we ask that Dioscorus be commanded to defend himself against what we accuse him of.” A revision of the acts of the Council of Constantinople of 448 and the Ephesian “Robber” Council began. The reading of the acts of the last council was interrupted when the already known imperial decree was announced, which allowed Theodoret of Cyrus to be present at the council conditionally, if the council itself so desired. At this mention of Theodoret of Cyrus, they demanded that this zealous defender of Orthodoxy against Monophysitism be admitted to council meetings. The appearance of Theodorit caused a whole storm among the fathers: some, supporters of Dioscorus, shouted to remove Theodorit; others, defenders of Orthodoxy, demanded the removal of Dioscorus. The exclamations exchanged between both sides caused considerable noise and confusion, which were only managed to be calmed by dignitaries and senators who made the following request to the perpetrators of the troubles: “For God’s sake! It’s better not to interfere with listening, let me read everything in order.” When they came to the decree of the emperor appointing Dioscorus as chairman of the council, and when the latter tried to abdicate part of the responsibility for illegal actions on bishops Juvenalius, Fallasius, the entire council and the emperor, the bishops of the Antioch district declared: “None of the Orthodox bishops agreed to the condemnation of Bishop Flavian and Bishop Eusebius at the Council of Ephesus: violence was done - with beatings we signed the necessary paper, on which the condemnation of the mentioned bishops is then written. We were threatened with condemnation, we were threatened with exile; the warriors stood with sticks and swords, and we were put in fear by them: where are the sticks and swords, what kind of cathedral is there. The soldiers overthrew Flavian and Eusebius more than we did, and what we did, we did out of fear.” This general statement about the violence and intimidation carried out by Dioscorus was confirmed with the clarification of more specific and truly flagrant violations of justice details: Stephen, Bishop of Ephesus, Theodore, Bishop of Claudiopolis, Basil, Bishop of Seleucia of Isauria. According to many statements, it was also discovered that the famous letter of Pope Leo “was deliberately withheld (from reading) by Dioscorus,” although he “swore seven times before everyone that he would order it to be read.” By the end of the reading of the acts of the Council of Ephesus, which revealed more and more new abuses of Dioscorus, which illuminated the entire criminality of his actions, the bishops who took part in the Council of Ephesus and were to one degree or another guilty of its illegal acts, deeply repented of their sin and exclaimed many times in front of the council: “We all ask for forgiveness.” Only Dioscorus, with several Egyptian bishops, continued to persist in heresy and even openly, in the face of the council, declared his heretical Monophysite views. Convinced of the abuses of the “robber” council, the fathers of the IV Ecumenical Council pronounced their sentence on him, but in such a way that the majority of those who composed it, due to their sincere repentance, were not deprived of their episcopal rank. The verdict was greeted by the fathers of the cathedral with enthusiastic shouts. The issue of Dioscorus, due to the latter’s fierce stay in heresy, was considered especially at the meeting on October 13. At this meeting, Eusebius of Dorylaeus entered the cathedral with a request to subject Dioscorus to punishment for his attitude that violated justice towards him, Eusebius, towards Archbishop Flavian and “to piety and sacred canons”, so that for the rest of his life (Dioscorus) “he would serve as an example to admonish those who would think of doing like him.” At the same time, many complaints were filed against Dioscorus by clergy and one layman of the Alexandria Church - complaints accusing its primate Dioscorus of persecuting the relatives and friends of St. Cyril and of appropriating church property. All these petitions were accepted by the council, which decided to invite Dioscorus for personal explanations. But, despite the threefold invitation, Dioscorus, under various pretexts, refused to come to the council; the latter, therefore, pronounced his verdict on him in absentia. “The council learned,” Paschasius, the legate of Pope Paschasius, addressed the fathers of the council, “that Bishop Dioscorus, summoned three times to answer by his accuser, recognizing himself guilty, disdained the order of the council to come here. Let the holy fathers declare with their own lips what is worthy of one who thus despises the will of the council!” The council responded: “The condemnation laid down by the canons against the disobedient.” Dioscorus was deposed, and the verdict of the council was confirmed by the emperor; then Dioscorus was exiled to live in the city of Gangra 233. 2. The discussion by the fathers of the council on the question of the union of two natures in Christ Jesus opened with the statement to the council of a proposal to draw up a new definition of faith, eliminating the false teaching of the Monophysites and reconciling everyone: “We must investigate, reason and try,” the proposal said, “to establish the true faith, for the sake of which the council was primarily drawn up; It would be desirable for the teaching on the objects of faith to be correct and for all doubt to be eliminated by the agreed presentation and teaching of all the holy fathers (the council); strive, without fear, without servility or enmity, to present the faith in purity, so that those who think differently from everyone else will be brought back to unanimity by the knowledge of the truth.” During an exchange of opinions on this proposal, after some rather lengthy disagreements, the council came to a unanimous decision to read some of the works of the councils and fathers of the Church, where the truth of Orthodoxy was expressed with particular clarity. First of all, the symbol of Nicea was read, completed with the cries of the fathers of the council: “This is the faith of the Orthodox! We all believe in it, we were baptized in it, we baptize in it. We all believe so much!” According to his reading, the symbol of Constantinople of 381, whose ecclesiastical authority had not yet been firmly established, also found unanimous recognition. All the bishops of the cathedral, having heard the symbol of Constantinople, exclaimed: “This is the faith of all! This is the faith of the Orthodox!” Following the reading of the symbols, the council began to read the patristic writings, in which there was a clear and definite teaching about the wholeness and completeness of two natures in Christ Jesus, and the indication of their unity was not noted with such force as the indication of difference. First, the works of St. Cyril of Alexandria, read earlier at the Council of Constantinople in 448, were read: the letter of St. Cyril to Nestorius and the famous letter of the Holy Father, written after the union. The reading of these works of St. Cyril was covered with joyful cries: “So we believe! Like Kirill, we believe!” Following these writings of St. Cyril of Alexandria, the district epistle of St. Leo the Great was read; the reading of the last letter was accompanied by controversy, since some bishops, who had previously been on the side of Dioscorus, found the letter in places doubtful regarding Orthodoxy; therefore, the council was forced to clarify the true meaning of the suspicious passages of the epistle by comparing them with the authoritative writings of St. Cyril for doubters. Those who doubted, however, were not satisfied with this and demanded that the fathers, accepting the message of Saint Leo the Great, anathematize those who separate two natures in Christ in the Nestorian sense, and only after that they accepted the message. Then followed excerpts from the works of the fathers, in which, as in the message of Leo the Great, the doctrine of the fullness of two natures in Christ was noted with particular expressiveness. Thus, they read: from the writings of Hilary of Poitiers († 366): “You see that Christ is confessed by God and man in such a way that death is attributed to man, and to God the resurrection of the flesh. Know the nature of God in the power of resurrection, understand the economy of man in death. However, remember that one Christ Jesus is both”; from the writings of Saint Gregory the Theologian: “God came from the Virgin with the perception (of human nature), one of two opposites - flesh and Spirit, of which one was elevated to Divine dignity, and the other gave the grace of deification”; “It is true that He was sent, but as a man, for in Him there was a special nature: why He was weary and hungry and thirsty and struggled and wept according to the law of the human body.” Among the passages from the writings of Saint Ambrose of Milan, among other things, it was read: “Let us maintain the difference between the Divinity and the flesh. The Son of God speaks in both, because He has both natures. Although he speaks the same thing, he does not always say it in the same way. Notice in Him either the glory of God or the suffering of man. As God, He speaks of the Divine because He is the Word (of God); as a man, he speaks about human things, because he speaks in this (human) nature.” From the writings of St. John Chrysostom, the following passage was chosen for reading: “So, He brought the firstfruits of our nature to the Father: The Father was so generous with the gift, both because of the great dignity of the One who brought it and because of the purity of what was brought, that He accepted it (the gift) with His own hands, made it a participant in His throne, and even more than that, He placed it at His right hand.” In conclusion, the council read excerpts from the works of St. Cyril “On the Incarnation” and between them the following sayings of the holy father: “He (that is, Christ) appeared on earth, not leaving what he was, but taking on our humanity, perfect in its sense”; “The dwelling is usually understood as another in another, that is, the Divine nature in humanity, which has not suffered any confusion or merging and transformation into something that was not before. For that which is spoken of as dwelling in another has not become the same in which it dwells; on the contrary, it is considered to be another in another.” Finally, the council began to draw up a definition of faith to proclaim the Orthodox teaching about the God-Man. At the same time, “there were a lot of disputes, debates, a lot of discontent and mistrust were expressed; but all this did not prevent the council from having its most desired end: to proclaim the purest teaching about the God-Man. Disputes and discord were like a crucible in which the dignity of truth was tested. After this test, the truth was supposed to shine in all its splendor, to become the indisputable truth at all times. The short-term discord put an end to the hundred-year-old dispute that had taken place in the Church up to that time, and prevented disputes in the Church for the future.” As soon as the fifth meeting opened, the definition of faith was read into the ears of the fathers of the council, obviously not drawn up in the presence of the entire council and not at its official meetings. The reading of this definition of faith caused heated and lengthy debates between the fathers of the council; John, Bishop of Germanicia, was the first to raise his voice of protest, saying after reading the definition of faith: “The definition of faith is not well drawn up and must be corrected.” Then Patriarch Anatoly proposed a question to the fathers of the council: “Do you like the definition?” Most of the bishops exclaimed: “Everyone likes the definition. This is the faith of the fathers. Anyone who is contrary to this is a heretic. If anyone thinks otherwise, let him be anathema. Nestorian is out." But the Roman and some eastern bishops were not satisfied with the definition of faith, since it did not set forth the doctrine of the fullness of two natures in Christ Jesus with the tangible clarity that they desired. Seeing the disagreement and wanting to destroy it, Patriarch Anatoly noted that the day before “everyone liked the definition of faith.” The bishops who accepted the definition again exclaimed: “Everyone likes the definition, otherwise we don’t believe. Anathema to the believer otherwise. Let faith not tolerate deception. Let the Holy Virgin be written as the Mother of God; So add it to the Symbol.” By this demand for the addition of the word Mother of God, the bishops obviously wanted to point out the indivisible unity of natures in Christ. The legates, for their part, again declared: “If you do not agree with the message of Pope Leo, then order them to give us letters of return, and this will end the council.” Obviously, the legates found little correspondence between the drafted definition of faith and the message of Pope Leo, which strongly and definitely expressed the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe two perfect natures in Christ. Seeing that the debate between the bishops was dragging on and no favorable outcome was noticed, the imperial dignitaries who were present at the meetings entered into them. Taking the side of the protesters, the dignitaries proposed to revise the definition of religion through bishops specially authorized by the council in six and three from the most important districts, chaired by Anatoly, in the presence of legates and in a special designated place. But this proposal was loudly rejected by those bishops who accepted the definition of religion. Then the imperial officials appealed to the bishops who did not want a revision; urging the fathers of the council to remove from the definition of faith the expression “of two natures,” as used by the convicted heretic Dioscorus, and instead to introduce the saying “two natures,” for which the husband of Orthodoxy Flavian suffered and which, for its accuracy, was used by both Leo and the Council of Chalcedon. “After all,” they said, “you all accepted the message of Leo?” and after an affirmative answer to this question, they noted: “So, what is contained in it should be included in the definition.” But the convictions of the dignitaries could not force the fathers, who wanted to leave the religious definition unchanged, to abandon this desire. This was reported to Emperor Marcian. The latter addressed the council with the following personal decree: let the definition of religion be revised either in the way indicated by the dignitaries, or through the leading metropolitans at the council itself. In case of disagreement with this proposal, the cathedral was declared closed. But the emperor’s strict decision remained without influence on the bishops, who did not want a revision; they said: “Either let the definition take effect, or we will leave.” Thus the matter became even more complicated. But what seemed barely achievable for human strength was, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, realized in the simplest way. The imperial officials again repeated their words, which had already been said to the council, “and the most complete, longed-for, most sacred unanimity was established at the council.” “Dioscorus,” said the dignitaries, “said: I accept “from two” natures (that is, Christ is composed), but I do not accept “two” natures (that is, unmerged ones). And Saint Leo says that in Christ two natures are united inseparably, unchangeably and inseparably in one Only Begotten Son, our Savior. So: who do you follow, Leo or Dioscorus? “Like Leo we believe! Contradictory Eutychianists! Lev stated it in an Orthodox way!” - the fathers of the cathedral unanimously exclaimed. Taking advantage of this unanimity, the dignitaries proposed to introduce into the definition of faith the thought of Leo the Great, that in Christ the two natures are united inseparably, unchangeably and inseparably. This proposal was accepted without objection. Immediately, at the request of everyone, a commission was elected from bishops - primates of the most important districts, who were removed from the council for a short time to make changes in the definition of religion. Upon the return of the commission members, the creed of the Council of Chalcedon was read, covered with unanimous shouts of delight. This document, remarkable in the history of Christianity, consists of an extensive introduction and a brief definition of faith. The introduction indicates those dogmatic works of the Christian Church that must be recognized by every believer who wishes in truth, and not just in name, to bear the name of Orthodox. Here the symbol of Nicea was noted, and after it the symbol of Constantinople of the Second Ecumenical Council, and the last symbol of religion speaks with special praise and respect. Thus, “the symbol of Constantinople, after a long stormy voyage amid disputes and disagreements about it, finally, thanks to the Council of Chalcedon, enters a quiet haven.” The decisions of the Third Ecumenical Council, about which there were still disputes about whether it was ecumenical or not, were approved by the definition of religion. The definition of faith is distinguished by the following patristic writings, which were important for resolving the question of the person of the God-man: the letter of St. Cyril of Alexandria to Nestorius, read at the Council of Constantinople in 448, and his letter “to the eastern,” written after the union. Thus, the holy men who stood for the union, “it was not without reason that they suffered from the council of the “robbers” - their blood cried out to heaven, and the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon, blessed their cause and crowned their labors.” After the writings of St. Cyril, the definition of faith with the highest praise refers to the district epistle of St. Leo the Great. This introduction is followed by the following definition of the faith of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon: “Following the holy fathers, we all teach in agreement to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in Divinity, perfect in humanity, truly God, truly man, the same of rational soul and body, consubstantial with the Father according to Divinity and the same consubstantial with us according to humanity, like us in everything except sin, born before the ages from the Father according to Divinity, and in the last days for our sake and for the sake of our salvation from the Virgin Mary Theotokos according to humanity, one and the same Christ, the Son, the only begotten Lord in two natures, unfused, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably cognized, so that by the union the difference of two natures is in no way violated, much less the property of each nature is preserved and united into one person, into one hypostasis - not into two persons cut or divided, but one and the same Son, the Only Begotten, God the Word, The Lord Jesus Christ, as in ancient times the prophets (taught) about Him and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught us and how He gave us the symbol of the fathers.” The fathers of the cathedral expressed their unanimous agreement with the symbol by shouting: “This is the faith of the fathers! Let the archbishops sign immediately; what is well defined should not be delayed. We all agree with this belief. We’re all so clever!” The fathers of the council brought the matter to the attention of the emperor with a special report that looked like this: “Message of the Council of Chalcedon to the emperors Valentinian and Marcian. To the most pious, most pious and most Christian emperors, victors and triumphants, Valentinian and Marcian, a holy and great council, by the grace of God and by the command of your piety, gathered in the city of Chalcedon (for severe diseases, both strong medicine and a wise doctor are needed). That is why the Lord of all has assigned your piety to the sufferings of the universe, as the best doctor, so that you can heal them with decent medicines. And you, most Christians, having accepted the Divine decree, before all others, took decent care of the Church, prescribing to the high priests the medicine of consent. For, having gathered us from everywhere, you used all means to destroy the disagreement that had occurred and strengthen the teaching of the fatherly faith. And we, reflecting and searching for the cause of the storm that arose in the universe, found that the culprit of this matter was Dioscorus, the former bishop of Alexandria. Firstly, because he forbade the most venerable bishops assembled in Ephesus from reading the epistle of the most holy archbishop of ancient Rome Leo, sent to the holy memory of Flavian, the former bishop of the city of Constantinople, and this after his promises and many oaths, as we learned while being present (there). Secondly, because he returned to Eutyches, who suffered from the wickedness of Manichaeus and was legally overthrown, both the priesthood and the leadership of the monks illegally, before the conciliar decision, and, moreover, then, as the most holy and blessed Archbishop of the great Rome Leo in the same letter determined what was due (to him) and condemned the criminal wickedness of Eutyches, who said: “I confess our Lord Jesus Christ before the union of two natures, and after the union one nature.” Further, because he insulted the most God-loving Bishop Eusebius. Also because he, by his own authority, accepted into communion some condemned by various councils, while the holy rules prescribe that those deprived of communion by some should not be accepted into communion by others, and meanwhile he could have received forgiveness for such and so many offenses if, through proper repentance, he had sought healing from this Ecumenical Council. But since, in addition to his other indecencies, he fought against the Apostolic See itself and tried to draw up a letter of excommunication against the most holy and blessed Pope Leo, he arrogantly persisted in his previous offenses and turned out to be impudent against the present holy Ecumenical Council, because he did not want to answer the accusations made against him, completely despising them, and also, being summoned for the first, second and third time according to the holy rules, he despised it and did not appear, he was rightly deprived of the priesthood by the Ecumenical Council and sentenced to alienation from episcopal dignity, in order for others who attempt to do the same, to set an example of order and severity, for the divine laws also command, saying: cast out the corrupt one from among you (1 Cor. 5:13). What could be worse than someone who sins in such matters, trampling on the Divine canons, filling the entire universe with excitement and storm, scattering the members of the Church and arming them against each other? Indeed, anyone who sees that a member of the body has suffered from an incurable disease and can infect the whole body will find a doctor who will use iron and cut off the diseased part in order to keep other parts of the body healthy. What we truly report to your pious authorities, so that you consider both his criminality and the purity of the just sentence pronounced over him as if in the face of God. We are confident that you, most pious and Christian emperors, will agree with us; We know what fear your venerable authority inspires in the evil ones and what care you show for the church world, having been taught by experience. And so that your most Christian authorities know more clearly what has been determined correctly and in accordance with the holy rules and will of God, we have added to this report the most completed documents of deeds signed by all of us.” The creed was established and read at the council on Sunday, October 22, 451. At the next, sixth meeting, October 25, a solemn confirmation of the creed took place, performed in the presence of Emperor Marcian, Empress Pulcheria and a large assembly of court officials. The emperor opened this joyful meeting with a speech to the fathers of the council, in which, among other things, he said: “In recent times, some have been revealed, some out of greed for money, and others out of evil passions, who have been philosophizing in different ways and expounding before the crowd teachings full of harmful delusions. Desiring to heal evil, we gathered your holy council in the confidence that from your labors along the journey there will be the greatest success in establishing the worship of God, so that the darkness lying on the minds of erring people will be taken away. So let the truth contained in your statements be revealed. We, in order to give firmness to the actions of the council, and not to show strength, decided to attend the council, taking Constantine of blessed memory as a model.” The emperor’s speech, covered with joyful cries of the fathers of the cathedral, was followed by the reading of the definition of faith, after which the sovereign asked the fathers: “Let the holy council say whether the definition now read was proclaimed with the consent of all the bishops?” “We all believe so much,” came the answer, “we all think so much.” Many years to come to Marcian, the new Constantine, the new Paul, the new David; you are the world of the universe; you are the luminaries of Orthodoxy; Lord, save the luminaries of the universe; Pulcheria is the new Helen, you showed Helen’s jealousy; Nestorius, Eutyches and Dioscorus are anathema, the Trinity has cast out three!” After such a solemn confirmation of the creed of the IV Ecumenical Council, Emperor Marcian issues a number of decrees aimed at suppressing heresy and strengthening Orthodox teaching 234. But such decrees were powerless to stop the unrest in the Church, which continued in various places even after the Council of Chalcedon. The task of the final pacification of the Church, agitated by disputes about the two natures in Christ, is taken upon itself by the next V Ecumenical Council. Memories of the V Ecumenical Council (performed by the Orthodox Church on July 25) The triumph of Orthodoxy over the Monophysite heresy at the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon was not final: Monophysite heretics continued to exist in the Eastern Church. In some places her denunciations of the Council of Chalcedon were met with riots and open indignation; the main core of those who were indignant were simpleton monks who believed the sincerely absurd suggestions of the supporters of the heresy, that the Council of Chalcedon had betrayed the ancient faith and introduced some new one. The disturbances raised by such suggestions reached the point of overthrowing and even killing Orthodox bishops and priests by heretics, and the intervention of armed force was sometimes required to suppress such uprisings. Such places were Palestine, Egypt in particular, Syria with the capital city of Antioch at its head, and even Constantinople. In order to pacify the Church, some emperors, Marcian's successors, issued decrees, which, however, achieved the opposite results, further inciting discontent. Emperor Basilisk (476–477) issued a district charter (encyclion), which anathematized the IV Ecumenical Council and its acts: “What,” we read here, “has violated the unity of the holy Churches of God and the peace of the whole world, such as the work of Leo (the pope) and everything decreed in Chalcedon to define the faith, in every church where it is found, is commanded everywhere the bishops who are present are to be anathematized and burned.” Emperor Zeno (477–491) issues a charter of unity (enoticon), where he speaks ambiguously about the Council of Chalcedon; Emperor Anastasius (491–518) wanted to introduce in Constantinople the Monophysite addition to the Trisagion “crucified for us” 235. Such decrees from the emperors contributed to the increasing spread of Monophysitism in the East. These Monophysite unrest, which tore the Church apart even after the Council of Chalcedon, were further complicated and strengthened by the following circumstance. In the history of the emergence and development of the Nestorian heresy, significant participation belonged to three persons who died in the 5th century: Theodore, Bishop of Mopsueste, Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, and Iva, Bishop of Edessa. Theodore of Mopsuestia was one of Nestorius' teachers; Theodoret wrote harsh anathematisms against the teachings of Saint Cyril of Alexandria; under the name of Iva, a message was sent to a certain Marius the Persian, which contained disrespectful reviews of the Third Ecumenical Council, which allegedly unjustly condemned Nestorius, and contained expressions offensive to Saint Cyril. Despite the participation of the mentioned persons in the struggle against Orthodoxy for the heresy of Nestorius, they were not condemned either at the III Ecumenical Council, which condemned Nestorius, or at the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, although the latter council had the opportunity to touch upon the activities of Theodoret and Iva, to whom the episcopal sees were returned at this council, and about Theodore of Mopsuestia the council even had reason to express to some extent its judgment by touching on him essays. Such an attitude on the part of the Orthodox towards Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus and Iva of Edessa opened up the opportunity for the Monophysites to reproach the Church for a hidden commitment to Nestorianism. According to one contemporary, “the heretics (Monophysites) reviled the priests of the Church as followers of Nestorius.” On the other hand, the Nestorians, of whom there were still quite a few in the East, benefited from the fact that the aforementioned supporters of Nestorianism were not condemned by the Orthodox Church. The fact is that the works of Nestorius were removed from public circulation by imperial decrees; then, in order to spread their heresy, the Nestorians resorted to disseminating those works of Theodore, Theodoret and Iva, in which Nestorian views were carried out. At the eighth meeting of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, it was directly attested: “The followers of Nestorius tried to impose their wickedness on the Church of God through the wicked Theodore, who was the bishop of Mopsuestus, through his wicked writings, and besides this, through what the wicked Theodoret wrote, and through the malicious epistle that they say was written by Iva Maria Persa.” For the Church, therefore, it was necessary to condemn Theodore, Theodoret and Iva, since they were writers and figures hostile to Orthodoxy and friendly to Nestorius. Through this, the Monophysites were deprived of a reason to attack the Orthodox Church, and the Nestorians were deprived of the opportunity for widespread heretical (Nestorian) views. Emperor Justinian, who took the closest part in the affairs of the Church and was burning with the desire to reconcile the numerous Monophysites of the empire with the Orthodox and thereby achieve state unity through religious unity, took upon himself the responsibility of eliminating church division. On the advice of Theodore Askida, Archbishop of Caesarea of Cappadocia, who had influence on him, the emperor around 544 issued a decree in which Theodore of Mopsuestia with all his writings and teachings, Theodoret of Cyrus for writings directed against St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Third Ecumenical Council, and Ivan of Edessa for his letter to Marius the Persian, in which he was seen attraction to Nestorianism. The emperor's decree did not reach us; Only excerpts from it have been preserved by writers contemporary with its publication. The emperor hoped that the decree would be accepted by all representatives of the church authorities and, thus, would receive church-wide significance. But the opposite happened. The decree caused new great turmoil in the Church, known as the “dispute about three chapters” 236. The disputing parties, one and the other, had a basis, since in the life and activities of Theodore, Theodoret and Iva in relation to the Church there were grounds for both their defense and their condemnation. Naturally, with the first requirement to sign the decree, the emperor turned to Mina, the Patriarch of Constantinople. Mina came to hesitation, as if by signing a decree calling for the condemnation of what the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon did not condemn, he would not reproach the latter. However, after some hesitation, the Patriarch of Constantinople signed the decree, but with the caveat that if the Pope refuses to do this, then his signature should be considered invalid. The remaining eastern patriarchs: Zoilus of Alexandria, Ephraim of Antioch and Peter of Jerusalem - also signed the decree not without hesitation, forced to do so partly by a sense of decency and partly by fear of punishment for resistance. Other eastern bishops also signed for the patriarchs. The decree met with a completely different attitude in the West, whose bishops were less afraid of the emperor and therefore were more independent in their judgments and actions. Western bishops rose up to openly fight against the emperor's decree. First of all, the emperor had to come across this resistance from the Western Church in Constantinople itself. The pope's attorney (apocrisiary) in Constantinople, Stefan, having learned about the signing of the decree by Patriarch Mina, broke off communication with him and called on others to do the same. Decius, Bishop of Milan, who was in Constantinople when the decree was promulgated, also declared an open protest. With particular determination and as one person, the African bishops rebelled, expressing their disapproval of the decree even with a special message to the emperor, composed on their behalf by Bishop Pontian. “All those writings about which the speech began,” African bishops wrote to Justinian through Pontian, “are little known to us. When they reach us and when, after reading them, we see that they are contrary to the right faith, then we will condemn them, but not the authors themselves, who are already dead. If they had been alive until now and did not want to condemn their mistakes, then only in this case could they themselves be subject to fair condemnation. What good will our condemnation serve if they cannot correct their errors? We are afraid that their condemnation will serve in favor of the Monophysites. Why should we bother the dead? They are now before the face of the true Judge, above Whom there is no other judge.” When the decree reached Rome, Pope Vigilius, through his two deacons, Pelagius and Anatolius, wanted first of all to inquire about how African bishops judged the decree. The learned Carthaginian deacon Fulgentius Ferrand responded to the request of the Roman Church with a special message to Rome, which served as a guide for Rome in its attitude to Justinian's decree. In his letter, Fulgentius Ferrand develops the following main points: 1) agreement with Justinian’s decree is tantamount to disregard for the significance of the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon 237; 2) the dead should not be condemned 238; 3) by his decree, the emperor rapes the conscience of the members of the Church 239. The Pope refused to sign the decree. The decree was met with hostility in other places in the West, as well as in Hellas and Illyricum. Seeing the opposition of the West, the emperor decided to win over the Pope as the patriarch of the West. In order to more successfully influence the then Pope Vigilius, the emperor summoned him to Constantinople in 547; Vigilius had a reason to go to Byzantium on political matters - due to the Gothic invasion of Rome. But even upon arriving in Constantinople, the pope at first did not change his attitude towards the decree; he even excommunicated Patriarch Mina from church communion for four months for his consent to the condemnation of the “three heads.” Mina responded in kind to Vigilius. However, then, partly as a result of a firm rebuff on the part of the Patriarch of Constantinople, partly as a result of greater familiarity with the matter at the place of its origin, partly due to weakness of character, yielding to the influence of the court and bearing in mind the consent of all the Eastern bishops to the condemnation of the “three heads,” Pope Vigilius changed his mind: he agreed with the condemnation of the “three heads” and promulgated in this sense a special document known as Iudicatum, where he expressed his agreement with the decision of the emperor and the Eastern Church, condemning Theodore for his teaching and writings, Theodoret for some writings written against Orthodoxy, and Iva for his letter to Marius the Persian. But the consent of Pope Vigilius, as further showed, did not at all mean consent to the condemnation of the “three heads” of the Western clergy. It entered into a struggle with its patriarch as an apostate from the faith. This fight with the pope was started by two deacons from his own retinue in Constantinople: the pope’s own nephew Rustik and Sebastian. Condemning Saint Cyril of Alexandria, probably for his desire to anathematize the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Rusticus and Sebastian, on the contrary, ardently defended the latter, declaring, at the same time, that the pope had become an opponent of the Council of Chalcedon; they sent out letters in which they proved the wrongness of the condemnation of the “three heads”; these letters in other places caused such strong disagreements that the disputants reached the point of bloodshed. Rusticus and Sebastian even petitioned the emperor himself, where they argued that Pope Leo, a contemporary of the Council of Chalcedon, was a defender of the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia. For their activities, Rustik and Sebastian, together with other participants in their “conspiracy and osprey,” were deprived of the church dignity that belonged to them. But this did not stop the resistance to the pope. Along with the spread of rumors in the West about Vigilius' behavior, church unrest grew more and more. The Illyrian bishops convened a council in 549, which addressed a message to Justinian, proving the injustice of the condemnation of the “three heads”; the same council condemned Bishop Benenat, who condemned the “three heads.” The African bishops at the council of 550 excommunicated Pope Vigilius from church communion until he repented for his agreement to condemn the “three heads”; The council addressed the emperor with a message in defense of the latter. Not to mention other places in the West, even in distant Gaul there began to be a rebellion against Vigilius. Among the numerous fighters against the emperor's decree, the undisputedly prominent place belongs to Bishop Facundus of Hermian (in Africa). He published an extensive work entitled “In Defense of Three Chapters”, where, on the basis of historical data, citing condemned passages from the works that speak for their Orthodoxy, on the basis of establishing the concept of a heretic and evidence of the impossibility of applying court to the dead, he builds his apology. In defense of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Fakund wrote: “Theodore died in peace with the Church; he was praised by respected men; a whole council of bishops of Antioch wrote in his defense. The Council of Chalcedon did not condemn him when the message of Willow was read at that council, where Theodore is decorated with praise. Seeking grounds for censure of Theodore, they refer to Cyril, who condemned Theodore; but if we are guided by such examples, then we will encounter many examples where some of the fathers speak disrespectfully of others; but most importantly, how will we follow Cyril in condemning Theodore, when this will be an attack on the Council of Chalcedon, at which Theodore was not condemned? In vain they want to condemn Theodore as a heretic, taking into account his errors: a heretic is not one who is mistaken, but one who, having been convicted of non-Orthodoxy, remains stubborn; how to condemn Theodore as a heretic when he died! Who will come forward as an accuser against Theodore? Can the accuser prove that everything attributed to Theodore really belongs to him? In a human court, anyone can deny that he did not do what he is accused of, or somehow explain the matter to his own advantage, or, finally, renounce the errors of which he is accused; but Theodore cannot take advantage of all these benefits for the defendant who is alive. Christ the Savior commanded: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven (Matthew 18:18); This makes it clear that just as one should not release those who were bound to the earth after death, so it is not necessary to bind after death those who were not bound to the earth. Finally, Theodore has many correct thoughts in his writings, common with the famous Fathers of the Church, therefore to condemn Theodore means to condemn the holy fathers who wrote in the same spirit as Theodore.” In defense of Iva, Fakund wrote: “To condemn Iva’s letter means to attack the Council of Chalcedon; the authority of this council is defended by the Emperor Justinian himself; but how can Iva’s letter be condemned as impious and Nestorian when this council did not do so? Willow's letter is not all profane and godless; it contains a confession of two natures in Jesus Christ, and this cannot be called either ungodliness or godlessness. Willow speaks poorly of Saint Cyril, wrote against Cyril’s anathematisms? But if we begin to pay attention to such aspects of the matter, we will come to the need to condemn some other venerable men, who also spoke disapprovingly of Saint Cyril.” In defense of Theodoret, Fakund says very little: he bases his justification on the acts of the Council of Chalcedon and on the attitude of the fathers of this council towards Theodoret. In contrast to the aspirations of the Western Church, which was finding more and more new grounds for justifying the “three heads,” Emperor Justinian looked for facts to prove the complete legality of the condemnation of the “three heads.” In Mopsuest, where Theodore's see was located, in May 550 the emperor convened a Local Council to study and resolve the question: was Theodore's name included in church diptychs here? 240 The council, presided over by John, metropolitan from the city of Anazar, consisted of eight bishops with the participation of presbyters, deacons, subdeacons, readers of the Mopsuestian Church and representatives of secular authorities. Many witnesses, from older people, secular and spiritual, were called to answer the question: do they remember that the name of Theodore was read in church diptychs, and do they know when it was excluded from there? The testimony of the witnesses, some of whom were between seventy and eighty years old, boiled down to the following: “We do not know and have not heard that Theodore, who was once the bishop of this city, was proclaimed in church diptychs. But they heard that Saint Cyril, the former bishop of the great city of Alexandria, was placed instead of Theodore in the diptychs, and even to this day he is proclaimed with other bishops. We do not know and have not heard that there was a bishop named Kirill in our city; and that Bishop Theodore, who was read in the diptychs, died three years ago.” The most ancient diptychs, written on parchment and no longer used during divine services, were brought to the cathedral; It turned out that in them, in the place where, according to the order of succession in time, the name of Theodore should be, the name of Cyril is placed. The result of the council's research was stated by its chairman in the following words: “It is clearly shown that the former Theodore, who was a bishop in this city, in ancient times was not proclaimed at the Divine Sacrament and was excluded from the sacred diptychs and instead of his name, Cyril of holy memory was inscribed,” which was reported to the emperor and the pope. For the same purpose - to reveal the groundlessness of the defense of the “three heads” - the emperor, probably in 551, issued a decree in which the objections that were made against the condemnation of the “three heads” were refuted with great care. This decree is divided into three parts. The first contains theology about the Holy Trinity and the union of two natures in Christ Jesus, refuting the evidence that the heretics themselves brought in defense of Monophysitism. The second part contains anathemas on various errors and heretics of the Church, ancient and modern: it pronounces an anathema on Theodore of Mopsuestia, on some of Theodoret’s writings and on Iva’s letter to Marius the Persian. The third part refutes the objections raised by the defenders of the three chapters against their condemnation by the emperor's decree. Thus, in defense of Theodore of Mopsuet, opponents of the decree said: a) if there are errors in Theodore’s work, then the only correct conclusion is that they should be anathematized, and not the person of the author. Justinian, in response to this objection, cites the text of Holy Scripture that both the wicked and his wickedness are equally hated by God (Wis. 14:9); b) To eliminate the objection that it is impossible to anathematize Theodore, as he was already dead, Justinian points out that such anathematization was carried out in the Church both in antiquity and in more recent times. This is evident from the acts of the holy councils, for example the Nicene Council, which anonymously anathematized all the followers of Arius; can be seen from the words of Blessed Augustine, who says about himself that he, if necessary, would “subject” one bishop (Caecilian), if his heresy was proven, “to anathema even after his death.” Then, if it is impossible to condemn heretics after death, then, on the other hand, it is impossible to justify after death those who were innocently condemned, whereas the church after death justified John Chrysostom and Flavian, the archbishops of Constantinople. c) As for the indication that Theodore should not be anathematized as having died in communion with the Church, then according to the idea of the decree, only persons are in communion with the Church until the end of their lives those who observe the teachings of piety contained therein; Theodore constantly remained in wickedness, and therefore he died out of communion with the Church. At the same time, as evidence, the already known decision of the Local Council in Mopsuests is cited. d) The pointing of Theodore’s defenders to the good reviews of him by persons revered by the Church, for example St. Cyril of Alexandria, John of Antioch with the council, as proof of the impossibility of condemning the Bishop of Mopsuestia, was also not left without consideration by Justinian. While agreeing that Saint Cyril said something for Theodore, Justinian notes that a much more holy father said something against Theodore. The praise of John of Antioch and the council of Antiochian bishops was pronounced by them in the days of enmity with Cyril, when they were supporters of Nestorius. Moreover, the Church knows examples that even the praise of the holy fathers to some heretics did not free the latter from condemnation and anathema after their wickedness was discovered. Turning to the consideration of evidence of the illegality of the condemnation of the message of Iva, the emperor dwells first of all on the indication, 1) that the message of Iva was accepted by the holy Council of Chalcedon. But this instruction is rejected on the following basis: after reading the message, the council directly and decisively demanded from Iva the anathematization of Nestorius and his teaching, the defense of which the message was aimed at, that is, the council’s acceptance of the message and the condemnation of Nestorius - two things that mutually exclude each other. 2) The presence of Orthodox expressions in it does not save the message from condemnation: in Christ there are two natures, one force (authority), one person. But, the emperor points out, Nestorius also taught about two natures and at the same time was condemned: it is necessary not only to confess two natures in Christ, but also to recognize their hypostatic union, which Iva does not do in his epistle, full of Nestorian thoughts. Finally, the defenders of the “three chapters” said that it was impossible to condemn Iva’s message also because it was included in the cathedral records. But, the emperor notes, from the writings of Nestorius and Eutyches much is given in the conciliar acts; This means that they too must be justified. Who does not know that much of the heretical false teaching is given in the cathedral records, but, of course, not in order to show the correctness of the teachings of the heretics, but precisely for the opposite purpose - to expose their philosophies, which are contrary to Orthodoxy. However, despite all the efforts of the emperor, the Western Church did not cease to resist the condemnation of the “three heads.” This steadfastness was reflected in Pope Vigilius, who began to waver in his decision to anathematize the “three chapters.” Seeing this state of affairs, the emperor convenes the V Ecumenical Council to finally resolve the issue. The V Ecumenical Council opened in Constantinople and had eight meetings. It began on May 5, 553. At the first meetings of the council there were one hundred and fifty bishops, and at its close their number reached one hundred and sixty-four. The council was presided over by Eutyches, Patriarch of Constantinople. Among the members of the council, the more prominent were Apollinaris, Patriarch of Alexandria, Domnus, Patriarch of Antioch; Three Palestinian bishops represented the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Among the Council Fathers there were very few Western bishops (six to eight) and all of them were from Africa. Pope Vigilius still lived in Constantinople, and the emperor wanted to see him at the council. The council sent an embassy to the pope with an invitation to appear at the council. Three patriarchs (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch) and seventeen bishops went to invite the pope. Returning from the pope, the deputation told the members of the cathedral who had gathered in the bishopric: “Having arrived at the most holy pope, we began to ask that, according to the correspondence that was between us and him, his beatitude would come to the council and, together with us, judge about the “three chapters,” while declaring to his beatitude that our most pious emperor sent us a letter and asks for an answer regarding the “three chapters.” chapters." Although he said that due to physical weakness he could not fulfill this demand, he nevertheless promised to announce the next day what his opinion was about such a council.” The meeting of bishops went home. A secondary embassy to the pope of several bishops and secular officials, as deputies on behalf of the emperor, was also refused, but this time the pope did not justify his reluctance to go to the council by illness, but directly stated that there were very few Western bishops at the council compared to the number of Eastern ones. The pope promised, however, to speak out in writing on the issue of condemning the “three heads.” The third embassy, ​​according to custom, sent to the pope, also achieved nothing: the pope refused to attend the council, and the messengers announced to him that the cathedral would be forced to open without him. Some of the Western bishops who arrived in Constantinople, citing the refusal of the pope, also refused to go to the council. The real reason for such refusals was that the pope again returned to the idea that the “three heads” should not be condemned; Knowing that the eastern bishops held the opposite view, the pope considered it best not to appear at the council at all. The emperor addressed the fathers of the cathedral with a decree, read at the opening of the cathedral meetings. This decree outlined the procedure for considering the controversial issue of the “three chapters”: “We ask you,” the emperor wrote, “to consider what is written both in other works (of Theodore of Mopsuestia) and in his symbol; We also ask you to consider what the holy fathers wrote about him and his blasphemies and our predecessors made public, as well as what the writers of church history wrote about him. We ask you to consider the opinion of those who claim that heretics should not be anathematized after death, and we ask you to adhere in this case to the teachings of the holy fathers, who even after death anathematized those who died in their wickedness. We ask you to pay attention to what Theodoret wrote wickedly against the right faith and against the Council of Ephesus, against the memory of Cyril and against its twelve chapters, and that the same Theodoret wrote in defense of Theodore and Nestorius and their blasphemies against the memory of Cyril. Please also do research on the wicked letter that Iva wrote to Marius the Persian. And since some dare to assert that this epistle, containing wickedness, was also accepted by the holy Council of Chalcedon, we ask you to compare what is said by this holy council in its definitions set out in defense of the faith, and what is contained in the wicked epistle, in order to comprehensively prove what is just and condemn what is wicked.” Having taken the emperor's decree as a guide for their activities, the fathers of the cathedral first of all took up the issue of Theodore of Mopsuestia. A lot of passages were extracted and read from the latter’s writings at the council, and it was discovered that Theodore essentially repeated the teachings of Nestorius, condemned by the Third Ecumenical Council. Theodore's non-Orthodox opinions, discovered and exposed by the council and called by him “treasures of wickedness,” focused mainly on the doctrine of two natures in Christ and the image of their union and consisted of the following: 1) from the Blessed Virgin Mary, not God was born, but man 242; 2) God the Word was not born of the Virgin Mary, but was only present in the man Jesus at His birth and during the rest of His life 243; 3) from such a view, Theodore naturally came to the doctrine of the division of natures in the God-Man, which constituted the essence of Nestorianism: according to his statement, in Christ Jesus there existed, as it were, two persons - Divine and human, without uniting one with the other 244; 4) at the same time, Theodore, contrary to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, did not believe there was any difference between the man-Christ and any other person; he considered it characteristic of the man Jesus to struggle with passions and lusts, so that, according to Theodore, “only through his resurrection did Christ, as a man, become unchangeable, that is, inflexible to evil. Why, before the resurrection of the dead, did he reproach Peter for tempting Him with his words (see: Matt. 16:23). Through the resurrection, Christ became completely blameless.” If Christ, as a man, did not possess moral perfection, then, Theodore taught, 5) he needed the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the assistance of God the Word in achieving integrity 245. Recognizing that from the Most Holy Virgin Mary it was not the God-Man, but the man Christ, who was born, Theodore considered it possible only in a relative, and not a literal sense, to call the Virgin Mary the Mother of God: “When they ask,” Theodore reasoned, “the mother of man or the mother of God Mary, we must answer: both, the first by nature, the second relatively. She is the mother of man, because man was in Her womb; but She is the mother of God, because God was in the begotten man, but He was in him by good pleasure.” In addition, the council discovered in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, although not so important, but still significant errors, some of which bordered on heresy, namely: his blasphemous reviews of the book of Job and the book of Song of Songs included in the sacred canon, his denial of messianic significance behind many Old Testament prophecies relating to the Messiah, and, finally, his opinion that the name “Christians” is the same as the name of other people who follow, in his words, some sect. The council at times interrupted this reading of excerpts from the works of Theodore with such or similar exclamations: “We have already condemned this, we have already anathematized this, anathema to Theodore of Mopsuestia and his writings; they are alien to the Church, they are alien to the Orthodox, they are alien to the fathers, they are full of wickedness, they rebel against the Sacred Scripture, anathema to Theodore: he disgraced the Gospel, he mocked the economy of our salvation.” Then at the council they read, for the same purpose, judgments about Theodore’s guilt in heretical errors, the epistles and writings of St. Cyril of Alexandria against Theodore, the writings of Proclus of Constantinople, Rabula of Edessa and others, which served as an expression of the voice of the Church about Theodore. When, on the basis of these documentary data, Theodore’s heretical way of thinking became clear, the council was still in no hurry to condemn him: the fathers of the council, before pronouncing their final verdict, consider themselves obliged to examine the objections that were made in Theodore’s defense by opponents of the condemnation of the “three chapters.” Thus, Theodore’s defenders denied the possibility of his condemnation on the grounds that in one of his letters, Saint Cyril of Alexandria calls Theodore “good Theodore.” But the reading of the epistle showed the fathers of the council that Saint Cyril, calling Theodore “good” for his struggle against Arianism and his work on the interpretation of Holy Scripture, in the same epistle condemned the same Theodore for incorrect thoughts about the union of two natures in Christ. Moreover, the fathers of the council explained that a good review of a person respected by the Church about another who turned out to be a heretic does not relieve the latter from condemnation: St. Basil the Great’s approving review of Apollinaris did not save Apollinaris from condemnation for heresy. Pope Leo, who approved of Eutyches in his letter, subsequently anathematized him as a heretic. In addition, a condescending review of an erring person is sometimes done in order to achieve church peace. Saint Cyril spoke meekly of Theodore only in those ways so as not to increase the hostility of the Nestorians to the Church. Further, Theodore's defenders said that he could not be condemned, since he had already died. The Council proves the groundlessness of such a judgment, citing examples in support of its view that showed that it is not untimely to condemn a heretic even after his death. Here the council dwells mainly on the testimonies of St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. Augustine. Saint Cyril wrote: “And so we must condemn those who are guilty of evil deeds, whether they are alive or not.” “If this were ever proven to us,” says Blessed Augustine about Bishop Caecilian of Carthage, who was presented before him as a violator of church peace, “we ourselves would anathematize him after death.” The third objection of Theodore's defenders, who pointed out that the latter died in peace with the Church and therefore cannot be condemned, was eliminated by the fathers of the council, considering only Christians who had observed the dogmas of faith until the end of their lives to have died in peace with the Church. At the same time, the acts of the Mopsuest Local Council were reread at the council, which discovered that in Mopsuest the name of Theodore had been crossed out from church diptychs for a long time. Having completed the judgment on Theodore of Mopsuestia and postponing his condemnation until the time of consideration of the case of all “three chapters,” the council, in accordance with the wishes of the imperial decree, began to consider the works of Theodoret of Cyrus, written to promote Nestorianism in the fight against Orthodoxy. The Council recognized the following writings of Theodoret as worthy of special censure: 1) analysis of the twelve anathematisms of Cyril, in which the Nestorian views of Theodoret found open expression, as can be seen, for example, from the following passage: “God the Word was not born of the Virgin by nature, being conceived and formed and from that time receiving the beginning of existence, but who formed a church for himself in a virgin’s womb was together with the formed and born. Therefore, we call the Holy Virgin the Mother of God, not because She gave birth to God by nature, but because She gave birth to man united with God, Who formed him”; 2) some letters where Theodoret vilified the defender of the right faith, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, with undeserved reproaches. Among them, the message of Theodoret, which he wrote after the death of Saint Cyril, was read at the council: this message is full of ridicule and mockery of the deceased great saint 246; 3) Theodoret's letter to Andrew, Bishop of Samosata, full of terrible blasphemy against the Third Ecumenical Council - the Orthodox bishops of the council are presented as villains, while those who held the Nestorian heresy are seen as innocent sufferers for the faith 247; 4) The Epistle of Theodorit to Nestorius after the Third Ecumenical Council, from which it is clear that Theodorit remained a friend and devoted disciple of Nestorius even after his anathematization by the Ecumenical Church, as is revealed from the very title of the letter: “To my lord, most venerable and pious and most holy father, Bishop Nestorius.” The council also heard the writings of Theodoret in defense of Theodore of Mopsuestia. The fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council briefly expressed their judgment about Theodoret, as the author of non-Orthodox works, and about the attitude of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon towards him: “Keeping in mind what Theodoret wickedly wrote, one should be surprised at the insight of the holy Council of Chalcedon, for, knowing his blasphemies, he had previously quite often used many appeals against him, and after that otherwise he would not have accepted him if If only he had not previously anathematized Nestorius and his blasphemies, in defense of which he had previously written.” After considering the writings of Theodoret, which disagreed with the teachings of the right faith, the council began to consider the case of the “third chapter” - Willow of Edessa with his letter to Marius the Persian. Here the fathers of the council, in fact, had to resolve the question: can the assertion of some that the message of Iva was accepted by the IV Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon be considered fair? To answer this question, the fathers first of all find out what was done with Willow himself at the Council of Chalcedon? At the same time, some bishops in their speeches developed the idea that Iva’s justification at the Council of Chalcedon did not extend to his message: at the council, Iva declared that he was innocent of what he was accused of, and thereby renounced his message - he himself did not recognize his thoughts as the truth. True, some of the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon - as opponents of the condemnation of the “three chapters” put it - said that Iva was innocent and his message was Orthodox. The fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council objected to this in the sense that a minority of the fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council viewed this, while the majority saw in Iva a repentant person, and at the council they should be guided not by the opinion of individuals, but by everyone, or at least the majority. To make sure that the message of Iva was not accepted by the Council of Chalcedon, the fathers compared the message to Marius the Persian with his creed; from this comparison it was revealed with indisputable clarity that the opinions of the epistle were rejected by the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon. Then Iva's message was unanimously declared heretical: “We all,” exclaimed the fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, “condemn the message; we all anathematize it; the message is alien to the council, the message is contrary to the definitions, the entire message is heretical, everything is blasphemous. Whoever does not anathematize him is a heretic. Whoever accepts the message rejects the holy Chalcedonian fathers. We condemn and anathematize, together with all other heretics, Theodore, who was the bishop of Mopsuest, and his wicked writings, and what Theodoret wickedly wrote against the right faith, against the twelve chapters of St. Cyril and against the Council of Ephesus, and what he wrote in defense of Nestorius. In addition, we anathematize the wicked letter that Iva wrote to Mary, denying that God the Word, having become incarnate from the holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, became Man, and condemning the holy memory of Cyril, who taught Orthodoxy, as a heretic and as writing like Apollinaris, and accusing the Council of Ephesus of deposing Nestorius without trial and consequences, and defending Theodore and Nestorius and their wicked teachings and writings. So, we anathematize the above-mentioned “three chapters,” that is, the wicked Theodore with his obscene writings, and what Theodoret wickedly wrote, and the wicked Epistle, which is attributed to Iva, and their defenders, and those who wrote or are writing in their defense, or dare to call them Orthodox, or in general, defending them, try to defend their wickedness in the name of the holy fathers and the holy Council of Chalcedon.” Thus, the council condemned the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, but did not condemn Theodoret and Iva, but anathematized only some of the works of the former and the epistle of the latter. Then, “kindling the light of knowledge from the Divine Scripture and the teachings of the holy fathers,” the fathers of the council, in addition to the aforementioned definition of faith, considered it necessary to briefly outline point by point the preaching of the truth and the condemnation of heretics with their teaching. There are fourteen such points. The first 11 outline the essence of the doctrine directed against heresies condemned at previous Ecumenical Councils; the remaining points (- 12, 13 and 14 as follows set out more detailed regulations regarding Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret and Willow: 12) “If anyone defends the wicked Theodore of Mopsuestia, who said that there is another God the Word and another Christ, Who was overwhelmed by spiritual passions and carnal lusts and moved away from the more evil little by little and thus, succeeding in business, improved and through life became blameless, who was baptized as a simple man, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and through baptism received the grace of the Holy Spirit and was worthy of adoption and, in the likeness of the royal image, accepts worship in the face of God the Word and after the resurrection became unchangeable in thoughts and completely sinless, and also said that the union of God the Word with Christ accomplished the same thing that the Apostle speaks of regarding husband and wife: and the two shall become one flesh (Eph. 5:31), and in addition to other countless blasphemies, he dared to say that when the Lord, after the resurrection, breathed on the disciples and said: receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), he did not give them the Holy Spirit, but only breathed figuratively; who also said that Thomas confessed by touching the hands and ribs of the Lord after the resurrection: My Lord and my God! (John 20:28), Thomas said not about Christ, but that, struck by the extraordinary nature of the resurrection, Thomas glorified God, who aroused Christ, and what is even worse - in his supposed interpretation of the “Acts of the Apostles,” comparing Christ with Plato, Manichaeus, Epicurus and Marcion and saying that how each of them, having invented his own teaching, gave his disciples the names Platonists, Manichaeans, Epicureans and Marcionites, in the same way, when Christ invented the doctrine, Christians began to be called from Him - therefore, if anyone defends the above-mentioned wicked Theodore and his wicked writings, in which he poured out both the above and other innumerable blasphemies against the great God and Savior Jesus Christ, and does not anathematize him and his wicked writings, and all, “Whoever supports or defends him and says that he expounded Orthodoxy, and who wrote in his defense and philosophizes, or who ever philosophized like him and remained in such wickedness until death, let him be anathema.” 13) “If anyone defends the wicked writings of Theodoret, which he wrote against the true faith and against the first holy council of Ephesus and St. Cyril and his twelve chapters, and everything that he wrote in defense of the wicked Theodore and Nestorius and in defense of others who thought the same with the above-mentioned Theodore and Nestorius, defending them and their wickedness, and for this reason calling the teachers of the church who profess wicked the hypostatic union of God the Word (with the flesh), and do not anathematize the mentioned wicked writings and those who philosophized and philosophize like them, and all who wrote against the right faith and Saint Cyril and his twelve chapters and died in such wickedness, let him be anathema.” 14) “If anyone defends the letter that they say was written by Iva to the heretic Marius the Persian, which denies that God the Word, having become incarnate from the Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, became man, and says that from Her was born a man whom we call the church, so that there is another God the Word and another man, and slanders Saint Cyril, who preached the right Christian faith, as if he was a heretic and wrote like the wicked Apollinaris, and who accuses the first Holy Council of Ephesus, as if it condemned Nestorius without trial, and who calls the twelve chapters of St. Cyril (as also an ungodly letter) wicked and contrary to the right faith, and who defends Theodore and Nestorius and their wicked teachings and writings, so, if anyone defends the mentioned wicked letter, and does not anathematize it and its defenders and those who speak, that it is right or a part of it, and those who have written or are writing in defense of it or the wickedness contained in it, and dare to defend it or the wickedness contained in it in the name of the holy fathers or the holy Council of Chalcedon and remain in this until death, let him be anathema.” Along with the matter of the “three chapters,” the fathers of the council considered the issue of the errors of Origen, a church teacher famous for his talents in the 3rd century. This was done in fulfillment of the wishes of the emperor, expressed by him in an extensive message to Mina, Patriarch of Constantinople. This letter, among other things, contains the following list of heretical errors of Origen, which, in the opinion of the emperor, required condemnation: 1) Whoever says or thinks that human souls pre-existed, that they were formerly minds and holy powers, enjoyed the fullness of Divine contemplation, and then turned to the worse and through this cooled in love for God, which is why they are called souls and are sent into bodies as punishment, let him be anathema. 2) Whoever says or thinks that the soul of the Lord previously existed and was united with God the Word before His incarnation and His birth from the Virgin, let him be anathema. 3) Whoever says or thinks that first the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was formed in the womb of the Holy Virgin and then God the Word and the soul of the one who existed before were united with him, let him be anathema. 4) Whoever says or thinks that the Word of God was likened to all the heavenly ranks, was a cherub for the cherubim, a seraphim for the seraphim, and was likened to all higher powers in general, let him be anathema. 5) Whoever says or thinks that human bodies will rise in the resurrection spherical, and does not confess that we will rise in the correct form, let him be anathema. 6) Whoever says that the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the waters that are higher than the heavens, are animate beings and some rationally material forces, let him be anathema. 7) Whoever says or thinks that the Lord Christ will be crucified in the next century for demons, as well as for people, let him be anathema. 8) Whoever says or thinks that God's power is limited or that He created as much as He could embrace, let him be anathema. 9) Whoever says or thinks that the punishment of demons and wicked people is temporary and that after some time it will have an end, or that there will be a restoration of demons and wicked people afterward, let him be anathema. 10) Anathema to Origen, called the Adamantine, who set forth this, together with his impious, obscene and criminal teaching, and to everyone who holds these thoughts, or defends them, or in any way ever dares to repeat them. The message is concluded with the following requirement: “Desiring to remove every temptation from the most holy Church, so that no vice remains in it, and following the Divine Scripture and the writings of the holy fathers, who rejected both Origen himself and his harmful and impious teaching and righteously anathematized him and his teaching, we send this message of ours to your blessedness, by which we earnestly ask you to gather all those who are in this reigning city of the most holy bishops and most God-loving abbots of the local honest monasteries and arrange so that everyone decisively anathematizes the above-mentioned wicked and God-fighting Origen, nicknamed Adamantine, who was a presbyter of the most holy Church of Alexandria, and his harmful and wicked teaching and all the chapters given below, and we also ask you for copies of what will be done by you blessed on this occasion, to send to all the holy bishops and abbots of honest monasteries so that they, with their own signature, anathematize Origen and his harmful teaching with all the heretics who are discovered.” It is not known how the analysis and trial of Origen’s false teachings took place at the council. We know only from the 1st rule of the VI Ecumenical Council that the fathers of the V Ecumenical Council “Theodore of Mopsuestia and Origen, and Didymus, and Evagrius, who renewed the Hellenic fables, were conciliarly cursed and rejected.” In the Eastern Church, which even before the council was inclined to condemn the “three heads,” the V Ecumenical Council did not encounter opposition. We see something different in the Western Church, which both before and during the V Ecumenical Council resisted the condemnation of the “three chapters.” Only half a century later, with the active support of the Popes themselves, the Council of 553 in Constantinople was recognized in the West on a par with the four Ecumenical Councils that preceded it. Memories of the VI Ecumenical Council (performed by the Orthodox Church on January 23) Monophysitism, condemned by the Church at the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451, however, continued to exist, with numerous followers, in the 6th and 7th centuries. In the last century, the Monophysite heresy gave rise to the related Monothelite heresy, which consisted in the assertion that in Christ there is one will and one action - Divine; Human will and human action were denied by the Monothelites in the God-man. Such a statement on the part of the Monophysites was a completely natural thing: the teaching of the Monophysites about one nature, Divine, in Christ and the denial of human nature in Him necessarily led to the recognition in Christ of only the Divine will with the denial of the existence of the human will in Him. A contemporary of the VI Ecumenical Council, Pope Agathon, directly testifies: “Those who merge the sacrament of the holy incarnation, by the very fact that they profess a single nature (monophysitism) in Christ, made up of the Divine and the human, strive to recognize in Him, as one, a single will and a single personal action.” In addition to the Monophysites, those of the Orthodox who, based on the teaching of the Church about the unity of the Person of the God-Man and forgetting the teaching of the Church about the duality of natures in Christ, also came to the following conclusion: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, even after the Incarnation, abides in two perfect natures, unfused and indivisible in one Person and one hypostasis; the characteristics of both natures flocked into one person, into one hypostasis; Therefore, we confess Christ in a new image without bodily desires and human thoughts, we confess in Him one hypostatic desire and action.” But such a statement was a Monothelite heresy, and not an Orthodox teaching, which recognizes two natures in Christ - Divine and human, as full and complete natures, therefore, with the wills of Divine and human. Monothelitism owes its wide spread to Emperor Heraclius. Seeing that millions of his subjects professed Monophysitism and were therefore at enmity with the Orthodox, the emperor, who wanted to strengthen the unity of the empire through religious unity, wanted to reconcile the Orthodox and Monophysites. He thought to achieve this through the Monothelite teaching, which, undoubtedly, should have been acceptable, as it seemed to him, both for the Monophysites, who taught about one nature of the Divine in Christ, and for the Orthodox; for the latter, precisely because the truth dear to Orthodoxy about the duality of natures in Christ, apparently, was not eliminated by the Monothelite teaching. While on military business since 622 in Armenia and Colchis, the nest of Monophysitism, the emperor had conversations with prominent representatives of this heretical teaching about whether the Monophysites would join the Orthodox Church under the condition of the latter proclaiming a doctrine akin to Monophysitism about one will and one action in Christ. Representatives of Monophysitism, of whom the emperor became especially close friends with Metropolitan Cyrus of Colchis, apparently encouraged Heraclius and approved his plan. The emperor addressed a request to the Patriarch of Constantinople Sergius, who, no doubt, had been previously initiated by the emperor into his intentions. Sergius answered Heraclius in the sense that the doctrine of one will and one action in Christ is more consistent with the tradition of the Church than the doctrine of two wills and two actions. It was decided to begin the union, or unification, of Monophysites with Orthodox Christians on the basis of recognition by both of them of the Monothelite teachings from Egypt, where at that time there were five to six million Monophysites for three hundred thousand Orthodox Christians. The main figure here, in implementing the emperor's goals, was Cyrus, now elevated, of course, through the efforts of Heraclius and Sergius, from metropolitan of Colchis to patriarch of Alexandria. Under the supervision of Heraclius and Sergius 248, Cyrus, as a dexterous man, conducted the matter very skillfully. In Alexandria, thousands of Monophysites joined the union: clergy, dignitaries and military leaders of the city, together with the people, as a sign of their joining the Church, received the sacrament from the hands of Patriarch Cyrus. Beyond Alexandria, almost all of Egypt, Thebaid and Libya “gave a hand of reconciliation to the Orthodox.” “Thus,” Cyrus wrote to Sergius, “a holiday was formed, as it is written, a holiday in the frequenting roads of the altars (see: glory Ps. 118:27), and to put it more truthfully, then not to the roads of the altars, but to the very clouds and beyond the clouds to the heavenly ranks, rejoicing in the peace of the churches and turning to it.” But this “joy” of the reunification of the Monophysites with the Orthodox Church was achieved at a terrible price - the price of betrayal of Orthodoxy. In the confession of faith, published by Cyrus in Egypt to attract Monophysites to Orthodoxy, the Monothelitian teaching was directly proclaimed, which continued the Monophysite heresy: “One and the same Christ and Son,” we read here, “brought about what is fitting for God and man, by one divine act.” The Orthodox understood this and called the union “water”, as a fragile undertaking of the Monothelites. The desire to instill in the consciousness of Orthodox Christians the doctrine of one will and one action in Christ caused, in the words of Patriarch Sergius, strong “debate” and “dispute” in the Church. To stop these disputes, dangerous for the union, Patriarch Sergius wrote to Cyrus of Alexandria that “no one should be allowed to preach about one or two actions in Christ God.” Sergius gave similar advice to Emperor Heraclius. In order to strengthen the Monothelites, Sergius entered into relations with Pope Honorius: Sergius presented to the pope the actions of Cyrus in Egypt as a matter of necessity, complained about those raising disputes on the issue of wills in Christ and directly stated that the doctrine of one will and one action in Christ is preferable to the doctrine of two wills and two actions in Him. Honorius, who was not a skilled theologian, became entangled in the heretical nets laid out for him by Sergius. In his reply to Sergius, the pope agrees that one should not philosophize about a question that has not yet been clarified by the councils, and recognizes monothelitism as a true teaching: “We confess,” he says, “one will in the Lord Jesus.” However, despite the fact that monothelitism became more and more intensified, the unrest generated by it not only did not fade away, but flared up even more, threatening to destroy the union that had been established with such difficulty and art. To calm the unrest, Emperor Heraclius in 638 issued the following decree (ektesis), known as “exposition”: “We absolutely do not allow anyone to affirm and teach about one and two actions of the Lord incarnate. For although the expression one action is used by some fathers, it is, however, alien to the ears of some people and disturbs them: it seems to such that it is used in order to undermine the doctrine of two natures in Christ, which are united in Him hypostatically. As for the expression: two actions, it seduces many, it is not found among any of the fathers; it leads to the assumption of the doctrine of two wills opposing each other in Christ, as if the Word of God, having in mind our salvation, wanted to suffer for us, and His humanity opposed this intention of His; but this is impious and alien to Christian teaching; The wicked Nestorius himself, although he introduced the doctrine of two sons into the teaching about Christ, but he did not dare to affirm two wills in Him. We must acknowledge one will of our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God; at no time did His flesh oppose the Word of God, hypostatically united with it.” But this decree of Heraclius, instead of reconciliation, gave rise to new discord: calling for an end to disputes about one and two wills in Christ, the decree at the same time recognized the doctrine of one will as true. Therefore, the entire reign of Heraclius was filled with strife between the Monothelites and the Orthodox, who did not want to carry out the illegal will of the emperor. The successor of Heraclius, Constance II, also thought to calm the church storm by issuing a decree, known under the name “Model” (typos): “Since we are accustomed,” the decree read, “to use every effort in what serves the well-being of our Christian state, and especially in what concerns the immutable Christian teaching, then we, having learned that our people have come into a great movement, that alone in the God incarnate we recognize one will, the other two wills, we declare: let no one from now on allow himself to enter into disputes with others about one will and one action and two wills and two actions; no one should rebuke or blame those who recognize one will and one action, nor those who recognize two wills and two actions. Whoever transgresses these commandments will first of all be subject to the judgment of the terrible God; but he also will not escape the punishments prescribed for despisers of imperial laws. If a clergyman or bishop is a contemptuous person, he will be removed from office; if a monk, he is excommunicated and expelled from the monastery; if a civil official and an officer, they will be deprived of their dignity; if a private person is from a privileged class, he will be punished by confiscation of property; if from the lower classes, then, with corporal punishment, he will be sent into eternal exile.” The decree caused many disasters to the Orthodox members of the Church, thanks to which they even paid with their lives for professing the right faith. Under such circumstances, so favorable to the development of monothelitism, the latter took deep roots in the East. In the Church of Constantinople, the leader of all other churches of the East, we see, starting with Sergius, a whole series of other monothelites patriarchs: Pyrrhus, Paul, Peter. Thus, according to a contemporary, “the hierarchs became heresiarchs and, instead of peace, proclaimed strife to the people, sowing tares in the church field instead of wheat; wine (truth) was mixed with water (Monothelite heresy), and they gave the neighbor a muddy mixture to drink; the wolf was taken for a lamb, the lamb for a wolf, a lie was considered truth and truth - a lie; wickedness devoured piety. All the affairs of the Church are mixed up.” In this difficult time for the Orthodox Church, the Lord raised up holy men in it, burning with zeal for the truth and loudly, despite reproaches and torments, crying out in defense of the desecrated truth; these were Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint Pope Martin. Saint Sophronius was the first to come out in defense of Orthodoxy in the fight against monothelitism. He started it while still a simple Palestinian monk. Saint Sophronius was in Egypt at the very time when Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria, promulgated the above-mentioned document of unity, which openly proclaimed the Monothelite false teaching. In Saint Sophronius, Cyrus met a zealous opponent of his endeavors. Saint Sophronius appeared to Cyrus and fell on his knees before him, begging him not to proclaim in the church the doctrine of one action in Christ. In vain Cyrus convinced Saint Sophronius to take the side of the Monothelites, proving to him, mainly, that when it comes to the salvation of thousands of believers, there should be no arguing over expressions. Saint Sophronius remained adamant and, seeing at the same time that Cyrus stood firmly on his decision, he went to Constantinople, hoping to find an ally in Patriarch Sergius in the fight against Cyrus, and, of course, he was mistaken in his calculations. For his zeal for the right faith, Saint Sophronius was elected to the patriarchal see of Jerusalem (c. 634). The district message, which, according to custom, Saint Sophronius sent to other patriarchs with the notification of his accession to the see, he began by pointing out the danger threatening the Church from monothelitism: “Fathers! Most blessed fathers! I see a rising wave and the next danger behind the wave.” This extensive epistle, directed against the Monothelites, is written in a spirit of meekness, denouncing without naming individuals, and sets forth with remarkable power and clarity the Orthodox doctrine of two wills and two actions in Christ: “By calling Christ composed of Divinity and humanity, we preach that He - both God and Man - consists of two natures and is dual in relation to natures, and naturally does what characteristic of both beings, due to the essential quality and natural peculiarity inherent in both. As God he accomplished the Divine, as Man he accomplished the human.” The capture of Jerusalem by the Mohammedans disrupted the connection of the Jerusalem Church with the East and deprived Saint Sophronius of the opportunity to act in defense of Orthodox truth. In such cramped circumstances, Saint Sophronius decided to call on Rome to fight monothelitism. He instructed the Dorian Bishop Stephen to fulfill this. Sending Stephen with such an important assignment for the Church to Rome, Saint Sophronius brought him to Calvary and here, at the site of the suffering of Christ the Savior on the cross, he commanded Stephen the following: “Remember that you will give an answer to the Crucified One in this very place, when He comes in glory to judge the living and the dead, if you neglect and neglect the danger in which His holy faith is located. Do what I cannot do myself due to the invasion of the Saracens, if necessary, go around the entire universe, try to overcome all obstacles in order to reach Rome; reveal there to the pious men in the true truth everything that is happening in our countries, and do not cease to beg until they rise up to defeat the enemies of the faith and completely reject the newly introduced teaching.” Stephen went to Rome, where he called on the Roman Council to defend the truth trampled by Monothelitism. Saint Sophronius died around 640. The great feat of service to Orthodoxy focused in the East, with the death of Saint Sophronius, in the hands of Saint Maximus the Confessor, who suffered torment for confessing two wills in Christ Jesus. Saint Maximus held the highly honorable position of Secretary of State at the court of Heraclius; The emperor greatly appreciated the talents and knowledge of Saint Maximus. Having subsequently taken monastic vows, Saint Maximus became abbot of one of the Constantinople monasteries; with the advent of monothelitism, Saint Maximus left Constantinople, where the king and patriarch patronized false teaching; he lived partly in Africa, partly in Rome, devoting himself entirely to the fight against monothelitism. The activity of Saint Maximus in defense of Orthodoxy in Africa is especially remarkable; here, according to his biography, “he confirmed (the bishops themselves) in the faith, instructed and admonished, because, although they exceeded him in rank, they were much lower in wisdom than him.” Here in Africa, in 645, the famous public debate between Saint Maximus and Pyrrhus, the former Patriarch of Constantinople, defender of monothelitism, took place; Saint Maximus won a decisive and brilliant victory over monothelitism in the person of Pyrrhus, which greatly contributed to the establishment of Orthodoxy in Africa. Saint Maximus did not struggle for the truth alone—at the same time, and partly even together with him, Saint Pope Martin acted. Having previously been the papal attorney in Constantinople, Saint Martin, at the birthplace of Monothelitism, became familiar in detail with the essence of the heresy and the actions of the Monothelites. It is not surprising that, having become pope, he became an active fighter against heresy. In 648, Saint Martin in the Lateran, in Rome, convened a numerous council, which issued twenty rules against the Monothelites, approved the doctrine of two wills and two actions in Christ, condemned the Patriarchs of Constantinople - the Monothelites, starting with Sergius, and two imperial decrees - “exposition” and “example”. At this time, Olympius, the new exarch of Ravenna, who ruled Italy on behalf of the eastern emperor, arrived in Rome. Olympius had the order of the emperor to encourage everyone to accept the “model”, but the pope, in case of resistance, was ordered to be arrested. But Olympius, who himself raised indignation against the emperor in Italy, of course, did not fulfill the latter’s instructions. In 653, a new exarch, Theodore Calliope, entered Rome with a large army. Saint Martin was ill and, anticipating an evil end, took refuge in the Constantine Church of the Savior. Having learned from the clergy who met the exarch upon entering the city by order of the pope that the latter was ill, Calliope announced his desire to greet the pope the next Sunday morning. Many Christians gathered for Sunday services in the church where the sick dad was; Calliope, who was counting on capturing the pope by force, was afraid of the people and therefore postponed his visit under the pretext of being tired from the road. On Monday, Calliope with a large army entered the church, having previously searched it and made sure that there were no weapons and stones collected by the pope, as was reported to the exarch. “The thunder of weapons rang out at the place of prayer.” Calliope announced to the pope the order of the emperor, according to which Saint Martin was to be arrested and sent to Constantinople, and his see became idle. They transferred St. Martin from the church to the palace under guard. This translation of the pope was concluded with loud, fearless cries from the clergy: “Anathema to him who thinks that the pope has betrayed or intends to betray the faith; anathema to the one who does not remain in the right faith, even if it would mean accepting death.” The confusion was so strong that Calliope, in order to pacify it, was forced to declare that the East contained the same faith as Rome. Many of the clergy, attached by love to Saint Martin, exclaimed: “With him we will go, with him we will die,” thereby expressing the desire to accompany the pope everywhere. Calliope first promised that everyone would be allowed to go with the pope. And then he secretly took Saint Martin out of Rome and put him on a ship, on which the sick pope was forced to endure great need; There were only a few attendants with him. In addition, the journey to Constantinople was extremely long and associated with great embarrassment for the pope. He lived for a whole year in one hotel on the island of Naxos, and during all this time, and even then as a special favor, he was allowed to perform ablution only three times. The Roman clergy, who came here to the pope and brought what was necessary for the sufferer, were driven away with shame and dishonor by the guards, who took for themselves what was brought to Saint Martin. In September 654, the pope was brought to Constantinople. With ridicule and insults, he was transported to the city prison, where he was imprisoned under the most difficult conditions for ninety-three days: his illness required frequent ablutions to cure, and during the first forty-seven days of his imprisonment he was not even given cold water, let alone warm water. On the ninety-third day of his imprisonment, Saint Martin was demanded for trial, where he was brought, due to extreme bodily weakness, on a stretcher; however, the judges demanded that he testify while standing, and opened the interrogation with the question: “Pitiful man, what evil did the emperor do to you?” Dad was silent. Then false witnesses were brought in, unjustly accusing the innocent pope of participating in the conspiracy of Exarch Olympius against the emperor. When Saint Martin, not wanting to destroy the souls of false witnesses who were about to be sworn in, began his explanation with the words: “While the “Model” was compiled and sent from the emperor to Rome,” the judges interrupted him: “Don’t say anything about faith, we ourselves are Christians and Orthodox.” To this the pope said: “Do with me what you want, and the sooner the better; God knows that you cannot benefit me any more than if you cut off my head with a sword.” What happened at the trial was reported to the emperor, who ordered that Saint Martin be stripped of his high priestly robes and put to death. The Pope was publicly stripped of the paraphernalia of his high priestly dignity, and at the same time even his underwear was torn, so that he found himself half-naked; then they put iron shackles around his neck and in this form, preceded by a warrior with a drawn sword, he was led through the streets of Constantinople to prison. Here Saint Martin almost died from severe cold. The Lord did not destined him to die from a sword beating. During the days of the trial of Saint Martin, Patriarch Pyrrhus of Constantinople lay on his deathbed; Emperor Constant came to visit him and told him that it had been decided to execute the pope. The dying Pyrrhus asked to give life to Saint Martin, although for the latter, death, in his own consciousness, was incomparably more desirable. After an eighty-five-day stay in the second prison, the pope was sent into exile in Chersonesus in the Crimea, where he arrived in the month of May. Here, among the barbarians, Saint Martin suffered terrible poverty, not even having bread. These physical sufferings were supplemented by mental ones, due to abandonment by friends and relatives from Rome, who obviously feared relations with the exiled pope out of slavish fear of the emperor. “I was and am surprised,” the pope writes in one letter to his friends in Constantinople, “at the indifference of my friends and relatives: they completely forgot about my misfortune; It seems they don’t even want to know whether I still exist in the world or not. Although the Roman Church does not have money, it is rich, by the goodness of God, in bread, wine and everything necessary for life.” “I hope,” the pope also wrote in one letter, “by the mercy of God, that my life’s path will soon reach the goal ordained by God.” Saint Martin's hope was fulfilled: in September 655 he rested in the Lord. Saint Maximus the Confessor was taken to Rome with Pope Martin and, like Saint Martin, suffered for his faith. As soon as the ship on which Saint Maximus was located (in September 654) entered the pier of Constantinople, a detachment of soldiers with weapons immediately appeared; With rude mockery, the soldiers dragged Saint Maximus, barefoot and half-dressed, into a gloomy dungeon. From here he was summoned to trial more than once, but the judges, despite all their intricate tricks, could not persuade Saint Maximus to monothelitism: “Do with me what you want,” he declared, “whoever, like me, reveres God, is not afraid of insults and untruths from people.” Then it was decided to reach at least only an external visible agreement between the Monothelites and Saint Maximus. He was asked to sign the following confession of faith, which, together with the Monothelite teaching, also contained the Orthodox teaching: “We confess in Christ two wills and two actions because of the difference of natures, and one will and one action because of their union.” Saint Maximus rejected this confession, for which he was exiled deep into Thrace. From here, after some time, he was again brought to Constantinople and placed in a monastery. The next day, two patricians, Epiphanius and Troilus, and Bishop Theodosius appear to him. Troilus declared to Saint Maximus that they had come to him to convey the will of the emperor: “Tell us first, will you fulfill the will of the emperor or not?” - Troil asked. Saint Maximus promised under oath to fulfill everything that “the sovereign commands regarding the affairs of this world.” Then patrician Epiphanius said: “This is what the sovereign ordered to announce to you: since the whole West and in the East those who are carried away into temptation, looking at you, create unrest and confusion and do not want to have communion with us in matters of faith, then may the Lord admonish you to accept the “Model” we have published and enter into communion with us. Then we will personally go to meet you, we will greet you openly in front of everyone, we will give you our hand, with honor and glory we will introduce you into the great church (Sophia), we will place you in our imperial place, together we will listen to the liturgy and partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, then we will proclaim you our father, and there will be joy not only in this city, but throughout the entire Christian world. For we are firmly confident that when you enter into fellowship with us, all those who for your sake and under your leadership have fallen out of fellowship will join us.” Saint Maximus answered: “Truly, all the powers of heaven will not convince me to do what you propose, for what answer will I give, I do not tell God, but my conscience, if out of empty glory and human opinion I reject saving faith?” After this answer from Saint Maximus, the patricians attacked him in rage: they threw the courageous confessor to the floor, tormented him with their hands, trampled him with their feet and spat on him all over. Stopped in their inhumanity by Bishop Theodosius, the patricians turned to cursing and slandering Saint Maximus, while boasting of their Orthodoxy. So their negotiations with Saint Maximus, who was again sent into exile, ended in nothing. The confessor languished here in prison for a long time. But this was not enough for the insatiable malice of the tormentors: Saint Maximus was again brought to Constantinople and taken to the praetorium; here they beat him with ox sinews, cut off his tongue to the root, cut off his right hand and, thus mutilated, they led him through all the quarters of Constantinople. After this, Saint Maximus was exiled to Colchis, where he ended his suffering life. For almost half a century, the struggle between monothelitism and Orthodoxy took place in the Church, but church unity was not achieved; only, according to a contemporary, “all the affairs of the Church were mixed up.” It remained to pacify the Church, leaving the unusual path of violence and torment from secular power, to turn to the Church itself, which was done by Constance’s successor, Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, who decided to call on “the eyes of the Church - the priests to consider the truth.” The idea of ​​the need to convene an Ecumenical Council to resolve the issue of monothelitism matured among Emperor Constantine Pogonatus mainly under the influence of suggestions from the Patriarch Theodore of Constantinople. Through the efforts of the emperor, the cathedral opened in 680. Among the fathers of the council, the most prominent in terms of their position in the Church or representation at the council were George, Patriarch of Constantinople, Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, Prester Peter, representative of the Patriarch of Alexandria, and Prester Theodore, representative of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. The emperor, according to custom, also turned to Pope Domnus with a demand to send representatives of the papal throne to the upcoming council: “We ask,” the emperor wrote, “to send useful and capable men who have knowledge of all inspired scriptures and have an impeccable knowledge of dogmas, men who would bring with them the necessary books.” The emperor’s message did not find Domna alive: it was received by the latter’s successor, Pope Agathon. Sending his representatives to the council, the pope wrote to Constantinople that he could not send, as the emperor wished, scientific people, since, due to the circumstances of the time, science could not flourish in Rome 249; In his representatives, who were the presbyters Theodore and George and the deacon John, the pope notes mainly deep faith. All the bishops and their deputies present at the council, by the end of it, numbered up to one hundred and fifty-three 250; At the first meetings and ten subsequent ones, the emperor himself was present with thirteen dignitaries - patricians and consuls. The council lasted almost a year 251. The activities of the council focused, in essence, on two main issues: 1) on a thorough study of the false teachings of the Monothelites and 2) on the presentation of Orthodox teaching directed against the Monothelite heresy. The meetings of the council opened with a statement from the legates of the pope: “About forty-six years ago, who at various times were the primates of this reigning city, Sergius, Paul, Pyrrhus and Peter, also Cyrus, who was once the primate of Alexandria, and Theodore, who was the bishop of the city of Paranos, and some others who followed them, introduced some new expressions that were contrary to the Orthodox faith, and caused troubles in the Universal Church, professing and teaching that in the economy of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, one from the Holy Trinity, there is one will, one action, and many times our faithful apostolic throne has rejected this teaching, then begged and has not yet managed to turn them away from such an evil opinion; Therefore, we ask your divinely crowned power: let the representatives of the most holy Church of Constantinople tell us where this innovation came from?” The emperor entrusted the answer to the legates of the pope to Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, who speaks at the council as an ardent supporter of monothelitism; Patriarch George of Constantinople undoubtedly sympathizes with Macarius, at least at the beginning of the council. Fulfilling the order of the emperor, Macarius answered the legates of the pope not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of the Church of Antioch and Constantinople: “We did not make any innovations in teaching, but as we received from the Ecumenical Councils and holy respected fathers, also from the primates of this holy city Sergius, Paul, Pyrrhus and Peter, also from Honorius, the former pope of ancient Rome, and Cyrus, the former Pope of Alexandria, that is, about will and action, so we believed, we believe and preach and are ready to defend it.” The emperor demanded from Macarius proof of the truth of the Monothelite teaching shared by Macarius “from the holy Ecumenical Councils and holy respected fathers.” Therefore, the council began reading the acts of the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils, which resolved the issue of two natures in the person of the God-man. When Presbyter Stephen, a disciple of Patriarch Macarius, began to read from the acts of the Council of Ephesus the admonishing word of St. Cyril of Alexandria to Emperor Theodosius and came to the words: “The unshakable establishment of our kingdom is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself; through Him kings reign and the mighty do justice, for His will is omnipotent,” then Macarius, emphasizing the last expression, exclaimed: “Behold, sir, I have proven that in Christ there is one will.” The Council, through the papal legates and some bishops, rejected this misinterpretation of the expression of St. Cyril: “Macarius exaggeratedly and unfoundedly believes, on the basis of the text just read, that in the two natures of Jesus Christ, in Divinity and humanity, there is one will. Saint Cyril, writing these words, meant only the Divine nature of Christ, which he has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and therefore omnipotent. Speaking about the Divine nature of Jesus Christ, Cyril also called the will belonging to this nature omnipotent. There is no question here of whether there is one or two wills in Christ.” Then the acts of the Council of Ephesus were read through without hindrance, and this ended the first meeting. At the second meeting, which, like the first, took place in the presence of the emperor, the acts of the IV Ecumenical Council were read, and debates again arose between the fathers of the council and Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch. When, among the acts of the Council of Chalcedon, the message of Pope Leo the Great was read, the legates of the pope drew the attention of the fathers to the following words of the message: “Both natures are mutually common and reveal actions inherent in their nature. The Word acts as is characteristic of the Word, the flesh as is characteristic of the flesh; one of them shines with miracles, the other is subjected to humiliation.” “The Holy Fourth Council,” the legates noted regarding the quoted words of the epistle, “introduced this epistle as a confirmation of Orthodoxy and condemnation of all heresy. What do the most venerable Macarius and the God-loving men of like minds say to this?” “I,” answered Macarius, without hiding his heresy, “do not profess two actions, and I do not think that Saint Leo spoke of two actions in these words.” “Do you believe,” the emperor asked, “that he professed one action?” “I’m not talking about the number,” objected Macarius, “following Saint Dionysius, I call His (that is, Christ’s) actions divine.” “How do you understand the godly action?” - the emperor asked. “I don’t consider it necessary to answer,” Macarius avoided explaining. At the next meeting, the acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council were read. Here the fathers of the council established the forgery of documents, which, as documents of paramount importance, the Monothelites used as proof of the correctness of their teaching. Such documents, which contained Monothelite thoughts, were: a letter from Patriarch Mina of Constantinople to Pope Vigilius under the title: “The word of Mina to Vigilius that there is one will in Christ” and two articles by Pope Vigilius addressed to Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora. These articles, among other things, said: “We also anathematize Theodore, the former bishop of Mopsuestia, as always alien to the Church, because he does not confess that God the Word incarnate, that is, Christ, has one nature, one person and one action.” The falsity of the message of Patriarch Mina was revealed by the fathers of the council on the following grounds: 1) Patriarch Mina died six years before the V Ecumenical Council, during which Eutyches was Patriarch of Constantinople; 2) Mina’s message was placed on the first three sheets of the acts of the council, and these sheets were not similar in handwriting to the rest of the sheets of the manuscript, and moreover, they lacked the numbering, which begins with the fourth sheet, which was the beginning of the true acts of the V Ecumenical Council; hence it is quite fair to conclude that the first three sheets, unnumbered and different in handwriting, were included in the acts later, and not simultaneously with the rewriting of the original acts; 3) in the library of the Patriarch of Constantinople there was a register of Mina’s messages, which did not include Mina’s message to Vigilius. The same thing was noticed by the fathers of the council in relation to the letters of Pope Vigilius to Justinian and Theodora. The articles of Vigilius were in the 7th Act of the V Ecumenical Council, which was a special volume with a special number of pages. The fifteenth page of this volume was torn out, as the inspection revealed, and replaced by a new one with an article by Vigilius; This sheet did not have proper numbering. How did the forgery occur? The fathers of the council, through careful research, discovered the sad truth that the false insertion into the genuine acts of the V Ecumenical Council owes its origin to Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch. A member of the council, the Bishop of Seleucia, stated that he had previously received from one military leader Philip a copy of the acts of the V Ecumenical Council, which contained forged articles by Pope Vigilius. From an explanation on this matter with the military commander Philip, the bishop learned that the copy of the deeds he received from Philip was in the hands of Presbyter Stephen, a disciple of Macarius. In the handwriting in which the forgeries were made, the bishop recognized the well-known handwriting of the monk George, also a student of Macarius. In support of his statement, the bishop presented to the council the very copy of the acts with forgeries. Monk George, indicated by the Bishop of Seleucia, was called to the council; here, at the request of the fathers, he discovered that the false insertions into the acts of the V Ecumenical Council owe their origin, as far as he, George, knows, to Macarius and Stephen: when a dispute arose between the Patriarch of Constantinople Theodore and Macarius about the wills in Christ, Macarius began rewriting the articles of Vigilius, allegedly found by him in the patriarchal library; Macarius and Stephen later inserted these articles into all the lists of the V Ecumenical Council, if only a copy fell into their hands. From their hands, by the way, a copy of the deeds also came out, which passed through the military commander Philip to the aforementioned Bishop of Seleucia. At the same time, George admitted that he himself, on the orders of Patriarch Macarius, was engaged in forging articles of Vigilius. One cleric also testified that the aforementioned forgeries were also made in one Latin copy of the acts of the V Ecumenical Council. After this testimony, which destroyed any doubt about the guilt of Patriarch Macarius and his disciples, the council declared anathema: 1) against the forgers of the deeds and 2) against the forgeries themselves. The completed reading of the Acts of the III and IV Ecumenical Councils revealed that in these acts, as one would expect, there is no teaching about one will and one action in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. When this was pointed out to Patriarch Macarius and his like-minded people who defended the Monothelite heresy, the latter asked the emperor and the council for a delay to present evidence from the writings of the holy fathers, allegedly developing the Monothelite teaching. The Emperor granted a reprieve until the next meeting. At the same time, Patriarch George of Constantinople and members of the Synod subordinate to him asked the emperor to acquaint the council with the messages that were addressed to the council, “both from the pope himself and from his council.” The emperor promised to fulfill this request at the next, fourth meeting. This meeting, indeed, was entirely devoted to the reading of the message of Pope Agathon and another message sent simultaneously with the first from the Roman Council, consisting of one hundred and twenty-five bishops subordinate to the pope. The Epistle of Pope Agathon is a most remarkable theological work of the 7th century. He develops with particular strength and clarity the Orthodox teaching about two wills and two actions in Christ; therefore, it had a primary influence on the fathers of the VI Ecumenical Council when they compiled the Orthodox Confession of Faith regarding the controversial issue of two wills and two actions in Christ Jesus. The “acts” of the council directly state that the fathers accepted his message from Pope Agathon “with open arms” as “explaining the mystery of theology.” The message was written in Latin; therefore, for the benefit of the council fathers who were not familiar with this language, it was translated into Greek by the secretary and adviser to the emperor, Diogenes. The main thoughts of this creation, outstanding in its significance, were as follows. After an introduction about the reasons that prompted the pope to compose the Epistle, and about the reasons that caused the delay in the arrival of delegates to the council, the pope, after a brief presentation of the doctrine of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, moves on to the subject that constituted the main content of the Epistle - to the doctrine of God the Word. “Following the Gospel tradition,” the pope writes, “we affirm in one and the same Lord our Savior Jesus Christ everything that is twofold, that is, we confess in Him two natures - Divine and human; We also confess that each of His natures has natural properties: the Divine has all Divine properties, the human has all human properties, except sin. Confessing two natures, two natural desires and two natural actions in our one Lord Jesus Christ, we do not teach that they are contrary and hostile to each other, we do not teach that they are divided, as it were, into two persons or hypostases, but we say that one and the same Lord Jesus Christ has in Himself both two natures and two natural desires and actions, that is, Divine and human, that Divine will and He has action from eternity in common with the Father who is consubstantial with Him, but the human is received from us along with our nature in time.” “So that the meaning of this true confession,” the pope continues, citing the grounds on which it is based, “may be revealed to the minds of your piety from the inspired teaching of the Old and New Testaments, the Lord Himself in His holy Gospels reveals in Himself either human or Divine properties, sometimes both together, and thereby teaches His faithful to believe that He is true God and true man.” Having then cited the words of the Savior: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by from Me, the pope accompanies them with the following interpretation from the letter of Saint Ambrose to Gratian: “The will that He called His is mine, because He perceived my sorrow as a man and spoke as a man, and therefore said: not as I will, but as You will. The sorrow that He accepted through my nature capable of suffering is my sorrow.” Further, the pope cites evidence from the works of St. Athanasius the Great, Blessed Augustine, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Gregory the Theologian; From these testimonies it is clear that, according to the teaching of the mentioned fathers, each of the natures in Christ has its own, characteristic will, that is, either Divine or human. And due to the hypostatic union of natures, both desires must be recognized as belonging to one and the same Lord Jesus Christ. To further confirm this truth, the pope literally cites the definition of the Council of Chalcedon, followed by evidence from the Fifth Ecumenical Council. The testimonies of these Ecumenical Councils, strictly speaking, affirmed, in fact, only the truth that in the union of natures in Christ Jesus their difference was not destroyed. But, based on this truth, the pope reasons in this way: “If the difference in the natures of our Lord Jesus Christ has in no way been destroyed, then it is necessary that we preserve this difference in all properties. For he who taught not to destroy difference in any way, thereby showed that this difference must be preserved in all respects. But if heretics and their followers recognize one will and one action, then what difference can be recognized in them? When it is asserted that there is one will in Him, then those who affirm this must recognize it either as Divine or human, or as composed of both, mixed and fused, or admit that Christ has one will and one action, as emanating from one composite nature. In any case, here the natural distinction is destroyed, which, after the miraculous union, the holy councils approved and commanded us to preserve.” This is followed by new evidence from the writings of saints Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Hilary, Athanasius the Great, Dionysius the Areopagite, Ambrose, Pope Leo the Great. Turning to the search for the source from which the false teaching of the Monothelites originates, the pope finds such a source in the writings of heretics: Apollinaris 252, Severus 253, Nestorius 254, Theodosius of Alexandria 255. Moving on to the immediate future, the pope writes: “Let us see by what models the content of the new teaching was compiled and on whose authority it rests. Cyrus of Alexandria, in the seventh chapter of his definitions, says: “One and the same Christ and one Son performs, according to the testimony of Saint Dionysius, both Divine and human actions by one godly action.” Theodore, the former bishop of Faran, in a letter to Sergius, bishop of Arsinoe, says: “Since the Savior is one and the same, then His action as a whole is one.” Sergius of Constantinople, in his letter to Cyrus of Alexandria, says: “You said that the same Christ performs Divine and human actions in one action, and you stated this piously.” In his Exposition and in other writings, he also asserts that our Lord Jesus Christ has one will and every Divine and at the same time human action. Pyrrhus in the dogmatic book and in the signature of the “exposition” confesses one desire in Christ. Paul, successor of Pyrrhus, in a letter to Pope Theodore (predecessor of Agathon) confesses that Christ has one desire; his successor Peter, in a letter to Pope Vitalian, confesses that he recognizes both one and two desires, and one and two actions in the economy of the incarnation.” “Who,” exclaims the pope regarding this heresy of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, “will not be plunged into sadness and will not look with trepidation at such networks that threaten human life and with an internal cry will not turn to the source of mercy - God - with a prayer for deliverance from the fetters of the enemy, everywhere prepared to seduce the human mind, at the sight of how people who consider themselves worthy of glory for their great knowledge, have fallen into the net of heretical error and, moreover, are fickle and wavering in the error itself (the wavering of course is that some of the false teachers expressed themselves in one way or another, sometimes they profess one will, sometimes two, sometimes one action, sometimes two). So, let your God-ordained Majesty carefully consider with the eye of internal reasoning which of these teachers the Christian people should follow, which of them should accept the teaching, when they mutually condemn everyone and each other.” The pope concludes the message with these words: “We are confident that there is nothing dark or ambiguous left that could hinder the admonition of those who followed the inventors of the new teaching. For the sweetness of spiritual understanding, which breathes the sayings of the fathers, is brought before the eyes, and the disgusting stench of heretics is exposed, deserving the contempt of all the faithful. Since the inventors of the new teaching turned out to be followers of heretics, and not of the holy fathers, this too is brought to light. Since, by the inspiration of God, the truth shone before the eyes of your piety and a lie was revealed, it remains that by the pious mercies of your blessed mercy the truth should not be deprived of its light, having received a victorious crown, and the new error, its inventors and followers should be subjected to punishment worthy of their pride. So, if the primate of the Church of Constantinople agrees with us to maintain and preach this intact apostolic rule of faith, then there will be great peace for those who love the name of God; if (from which God forbid) he better wants to protect the novelty recently introduced by others, then let him think what a satisfactory answer he will give for such neglect at the Divine Judgment of Christ. I beg, most pious and merciful Augustus, and together with my smallness every Christian soul begs, that you grant impunity of speech and free right to everyone who wishes to speak and defend their faith, so that everyone unanimously throughout their lives glorifies your imperial majesty for such an ineffable good and unanimously pours out unceasing prayers to Christ the Lord for the integrity and exaltation of your most courageous authorities. May the supreme grace preserve the power of the most pious sovereigns and may the gods of all nations bow before it.” Following this message from Pope Agathon, the attached message of the Council of Bishops in Rome was read, which essentially repeated the message of the Roman Pontiff. Following this reading of messages from Rome, the emperor reminded Macarius of Antioch that the latter, according to his promise, would present to the council the testimony of the holy fathers about the one will in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Macarius and his like-minded people presented two scrolls to the next meeting of the council under the title: “Testimonies of the Holy Fathers, teaching about one will of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is also the will of the Father and the Holy Spirit.” Two sessions were devoted to listening to these two scrolls. The third, next, meeting consisted of familiarizing the fathers of the council, by reading, with the third scroll, still presented by Macarius and bearing the following title: “Further Testimonies of the Will.” When the reading of this third scroll was completed, Macarius of Antioch was asked to say something else in addition. But Macarius replied: “We consider, sir, that the testimonies of the holy and respected fathers we have already presented are sufficient and do not wish to present anything else.” Then the pope's legates came out with a refutation of the evidence of Macarius of Antioch and his supporters. The legates began with the following statement: “The God-loving Macarius and his supporters: Stephen, the disciple of Macarius, Peter, Bishop of Nicomedia, and Solomon, Bishop of Clanaea, did not at all prove one will and one action in the economy of our Lord Jesus Christ. But they distorted these very testimonies presented to your piety and the holy council. They presented as evidence of one will in the economy of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ those that relate to the doctrine of the one will of the Trinity, and they distorted in meaning and expression those testimonies that go to the point and actually relate to the economy of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we ask your most pious courage to have the original texts of the paternal testimonies presented by them brought from the venerable patriarchy of this reigning city and collated with the scrolls that they presented, and we will show what distortion they made in these texts. Having with him a scroll containing numerous testimonies of holy and respected fathers, clearly showing that in the economy of our Lord Jesus Christ there are two natural desires and two natural actions, unconfused and inseparable, (having) also heretical testimonies speaking of one desire and one action and favorable to the teaching of Macarius, the God-loving Archbishop of Antioch, and those with him, about one desire and in one act, we ask that all this be read before your piety.” At the next meeting, the legates presented evidence (from the writings of the Fathers of the Church), “which shows more clearly than light two natural desires and two natural actions in the economy of salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” After these testimonies were announced at the council, the pope’s legates said: “We would have found and could have presented many other testimonies; but in order not to tire your God-instructed hearing, we consider the evidence presented sufficient to prove the truth.” “We ask,” the legates then turned to the emperor, “in your God-confirmed power, to ask George, Archbishop of Constantinople, and the council subordinate to him, as well as Macarius, Archbishop of Antioch, and the bishops subordinate to him, whether they agree with the content of the two messages they read, that is, with the content of the message of Most Holy Agathon, pope of the apostolic see of ancient Rome, and with the content of the message of the council subordinate to him? In response to this, George and Macarius and like-minded people asked for copies of the messages in order to compare “the testimonies of the holy and respected fathers contained in them with the books of the Patriarchate (of Constantinople), promising at the same time to give an answer “at the next meeting.” In this next meeting, George, Patriarch of Constantinople, to the question of the fathers of the council about his attitude to the message of Pope Agathon and the council of his bishops, answered in this way: “Seeing all the power of the messages sent both from the most holy Agathon and from his council, and having consulted the books of the holy and respected fathers located in my venerable patriarchy, I found all the evidence located in the mentioned epistles, which agree and do not differ in any way from the books of the holy and respected fathers, therefore I agree with these epistles, this is how I confess and believe.” A similar statement was made by the bishops subordinate to Patriarch George. But when Patriarch Macarius was asked about his confession regarding desires and actions in Christ, Macarius, without missing a beat, declared: “I say that there are not two desires or two actions in the economy of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, but one desire and a godly action.” The Council demanded that Macarius confirm his heretical teaching with evidence. Macarius referred to his scroll, sent earlier to the emperor. The Council ordered the reading of this rather extensive scroll, which contained the “confession” of the heretical patriarch. The essence of this confession is visible from the content of the signature under it: “Macarius, by the grace of God, Bishop of Theopolis 256, who dictated the entire above-mentioned basis of Orthodoxy according to the exposition of the five holy and Ecumenical Councils and the saints and respected fathers mentioned by name, who explained to the best of their ability that in our Lord Jesus Christ our God there is one will and that He showed us His Godly action, convinced inwardly and confessing that he says wickedly that there are two desires in one and the same Christ our God.” When the “confession” was read, the emperor and the council proposed: “Let the most God-loving Macarius explain whether he confesses two natural desires and two natural actions in the economy of the incarnation of Christ our God.” “I will not say,” answered Macarius, “that there are two natural desires or two natural actions in the economy of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, even if I were cut into small pieces and thrown into the sea.” The council began a thorough examination of the evidence contained in the writings presented by Macarius to the council, and it was discovered that Macarius, in order to defend his heresy even in bad faith, presented evidence from the writings of the fathers either in incomplete or distorted form. In order to maintain complete impartiality in judging the heresy of Patriarch Macarius, the council examined his other works, which also turned out to be full of false teaching. Therefore the writings were condemned. During the entire discussion of the writings of Patriarch Macarius and the heretical opinions contained in them, the fathers of the council repeatedly turned to him with exhortations to confess two natural desires and actions in Christ Jesus, but Patriarch Macarius, in the words of the “acts” of the council, “stretched his neck like an iron nerve, made his face copper, blocked his ears from listening, made his heart stubborn in disobedience to the law.” Seeing such stubbornness of the heretical patriarch, the council first deprived him of his omophorion, and then pronounced the following condemnation: “The divine rule does not at all allow Macarius to sit on the teaching throne, who grew old in the dogmas of wickedness and not only filled the entire Christ-loving people with underground perversion and forged the testimonies of the saints and glorious fathers, but also, through his letters and sent people, outraged everyone from the east of the sun to the west and was rightly and legally deprived of the hierarchal vestments.” The deposed patriarch was anathematized, and the fathers of the council decided to ask the emperor to expel him from Constantinople. In place of Macarius, Theophan was elected to the patriarchal throne of Antioch, who then, as Patriarch of Antioch, took part in the further actions of the council. In the person of Patriarch Macarius, the fathers of the council condemned the main defender and support of the Monothelite heresy. But by the end of the council’s activities, the fathers had to deal with less prominent supporters of heresy, who voluntarily came to the council to defend their false teaching. Of these debates between the fathers of the council and individual Monothelites, the debate with the monk Polychronius deserves mention. At the end of one of the last meetings of the council, Bishop Dometius of Prusias reported to the council that a certain monk-presbyter Polychronius, who shared the heretical views of Patriarch Macarius, was successfully sowing the seeds of a destructive heresy among simple people, little knowledgeable in matters of faith. “Wouldn’t it please your holiness,” the bishop suggested, “for Polychronius to come to you and give testimony regarding his faith?” The Council decided to postpone consideration of the case of Polychronius until the next meeting. When at this next meeting Polychronius, admitted into the meeting hall of the cathedral, was asked how he confessed the sacrament of the incarnation of the Son of God, they received the following strange answer: “I will give a confession of my faith on the tomb of a dead man with the invocation of the Son of God so that He will resurrect him; If the dead man does not rise, then here is the council and the emperor - let them do whatever they please with me.” The Council expressed a desire to know which confession of faith Polychronius intended to put on the dead man in order to resurrect the latter. Polychronius replied: “I will put my confession on top of the dead man, and then you will read it.” But the council demanded that the charter containing Polychronius’ confession of faith be printed and read, and then placed on the dead man. The charter contained the following: “I, Polychronius, greet and worship the meekest and most divinely crowned Emperor Constantine as if I were in his presence. And I saw many men in white robes and in the middle a man, about whose valor I cannot tell, who said to me: hurry up, tell Emperor Constantine not to invent a new faith and not to accept it. And when I walked from Iraklia to Chrysopolis and stopped under the scorching sun, I saw a terrible and very brilliant man. He stood against me, saying: whoever does not profess one will and godly action is not a Christian. I said: this was also determined by the wise Emperor Constantine - one will and godly action; he said: “very good and pleasing to God.” When the charter was read, the fathers of the council asked Polychronius two questions: was this charter written by him and is it precisely what Polychronius wants to place on a dead man in order to resurrect him? Polychronius answered both questions in the affirmative. The Council then allowed Polychronius to fulfill his intention. And so, in a large square of the city, not far from the palace, in the presence of the cathedral, dignitaries and many people, Polychronius placed his charter on one dead man, who was being carried to the grave. The charter lay on the dead man for several hours, but the latter showed no signs of life, so in the end Polychronius was forced to admit: “I cannot raise a dead man.” The people raised a cry: “Anathema to the new Simon, anathema to Polychronius, the seducer of the people.” When the excitement subsided, the cathedral fathers and dignitaries again gathered in the meeting hall. Everyone assumed that the failure that befell Polychronius would make him repentant. In the hope of the latter, Polychrony again repeated the question: does he confess two natural wills and two natural actions in the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God? To the surprise of everyone, the same answer was heard from the stubborn heretic: “As it says in the charter that I submitted and placed on the dead man, so I believe in one will and godly action and say nothing else.” “Who wrote the charter you filed?” – the cathedral asked again. “I did it with my own hand,” Polychronius again confirmed. Seeing the stubbornness of the unrepentant heretic, the council decided the following about him: “After the presbyter and monk Polychronius lived in his evil thoughts to old age, and now, despite our admonitions regarding how he philosophizes about the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, he dared to tempt the Holy Spirit and drew up a blasphemous charter, he was not ashamed to say that, putting this charter on a dead man, he would resurrect from dead, we have already betrayed him in our souls with anathema, which the holy Apostle Paul speaks of. But to certify the Christ-loving peoples, of whom very many were cursed in the past by him and his like-minded people, we allowed his unrealizable idea and crazy and daring assumption to be carried out publicly. And so, after the dead man he had found was brought to the middle, in the presence of our most glorious dignitaries, and a multitude of Christ-loving people, he laid his wicked composition on the dead man, as he had intended, and for a very long time, as long as he wanted, he stood by this dead man and whispered to himself what he thought, until he said that he could not do anything, we decree that he, as a seducer and deceiver of the people and an obvious a heretic, was deprived of all sacred rank and priestly service: the heretic Polychronius and those who philosophize along with him - anathema; Macarius, Stephen and Polychronius - anathema; The Trinity deposed these three." In personal conversations with Monothelite heretics and analysis of their writings, the council refuted all the arguments with which the Monothelites wanted to defend their false teaching. Now, after denouncing the Monothelite heresy, the fathers of the council proclaim the truth of Orthodoxy on the question that has troubled the Church for so long about the union in Christ Jesus of two natures, Divine and Human. Having indicated the reason that caused it, the definition of faith of the VI Ecumenical Council then asserts the authority of the preceding Ecumenical Councils and cites the Creeds of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople. “Of course,” says the definition of faith of the VI Ecumenical Council, “for perfect knowledge and affirmation of the Orthodox faith, this pious and Orthodox symbol of divine grace is sufficient. But just as from time immemorial the inventor of evil was not idle, finding himself an assistant in the serpent and through him introducing deadly poison into human nature, so now, having found organs suitable for his own desires, namely: Theodore, the former bishop of Parano, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, the former primates of this reigning city, and also Honorius, the former pope of the ancient world, Cyrus, who was bishop of Alexandria, Macarius, who was recently the primate of Antioch, and Stephen, a disciple of this latter, he was not slow in arousing through them the temptation of error, in new words sowing in the Orthodox people the heresy of one will and one action in two natures of one from the Holy Trinity of Christ, our true God, (heresy) trying through some insidious invention to destroy the fullness of the incarnation of the same one Lord Jesus Christ God. ours, ingloriously introducing into it flesh without will and activity, animated spiritually.” Based, further, mainly on the message of Pope Agathon, also on the creed of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the district message of Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the message of Pope Leo the Great, the VI Ecumenical Council expresses the Orthodox teaching about the wills and actions in Christ: “We preach, according to the teaching of the holy fathers, that in Him (Christ) two natural desires or wills are inseparable, immutable, inseparable, unfused, and the two natural wills are not opposite, as the wicked heretics said, let it not be, but His human will yields, does not contradict or oppose, but is subordinate to His Divine and Almighty will. We affirm that in one and the same Lord, Jesus Christ, our true God, two natural actions are inseparable, unchangeable, inseparable, unfused. We recognize two natural wills and actions (in Christ), which were combined in harmony with each other for the salvation of the human race.” The proclamation and approval of this conciliar definition of faith took place on September 16, 681 at a solemn meeting of the cathedral. Emperor Constantine was also present at this meeting. When the emperor proposed to the fathers of the council: “Let the Holy and Ecumenical Council say whether the definition of faith was proclaimed by the consent of all the bishops,” the unanimous exclamations of the fathers were heard in response: “We all believe so, we all think so, we all signed with consent and sympathy, we all believe Orthodoxy! To those who preach, preach and have to preach one will and one action in Christ God incarnate, anathema!” The Emperor addressed the fathers of the cathedral with a welcoming speech, expressing, among other things, his confidence that the creed of the cathedral corresponds to the truth: “We will not escape,” said the emperor, “with you the judgment at the terrible judgment seat of God, when He will judge the living and the dead, if you know that there is any omission in the presentation of religion or if something is left unsaid in it.” The council responded to the emperor with a speech that expressed joy at the overthrow of heresy and the establishment of Orthodox truth. “The Elder of Rome,” the speech said, “promulgated to you (the emperor) the God-ordained confession, the charter turned evening into day in relation to dogmas, the ink emitted light, through (Pope) Agathon Peter (the apostle) spoke and, together with the reigning Almighty, you, the autocrat, decreed - you, the divinely appointed one. Simons (heretics), noticeable by the feather of retreat, fell from a height of flight, and the deposition serves as a monument to this, and faith rises, and the harmony of peoples is restored to its own beauty. The sun and the moon rose a hundred in their order (Hab. 3:11). The sun rising to the light means: your mind has risen to the sun of truth, purely seen the purest and brought us peace from there. And the moon of a hundred in its rank means: the Church and the bride of Christ are dressed in their splendor and adorned with piety and, having completely restored the purity of Orthodoxy, they shine to the world with lasting tranquility.” Copies of the acts of the council, according to his definition, were delivered to the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. In addition, a special message was forwarded to the Pope from the council, in which the East joyfully informed the Western Church of the triumph of faith. “Where are those who caused the temptation of the crushed heresy?” - the message asks, by the way, and answers: “The veils have been removed from faces, the forgeries of the seducers have been exposed. The wolf (Makariy) has taken off his skin and solemnly acts as a naked wolf. Truth triumphs, lies are overthrown. The sower of tares has been excommunicated. The wheat, the Christ-loving people, are gathered into one granary of the Church of Christ. The light of Orthodoxy has risen, darkness has disappeared from the eyes. The time of mourning is over, sadness has turned into joy, sorrow, into joy. Therefore, we, rejoicing with the churches of God who have accepted the grace of the world, cry out in the apostolic manner: rejoice, rejoice, and again, rejoice (see: glorious Phil. 4:4). Emperor Constantine made every effort to ensure that the creed of the VI Ecumenical Council spread and established itself in the empire. His decree has been preserved, which was nailed in the vestibule of the St. Sophia Church in Constantinople for publication. This decree contains the history of the council and its resolutions and ends with the following definition: “Whoever loves God and desires future salvation, let him adhere to this Orthodox faith. If anyone does not show zealous love for God and despises our present pious announcement, he, if he is a bishop or cleric or dressed in monastic robes, is subject to eruption; if he is in the rank of officials, he will be punished by confiscation of property and deprivation of the belt (a sign of military dignity); if he is in the state of a private person, he will be condemned to expulsion from the capital and from every city in general, and on top of all this he will not escape punishment from a terrible and righteous court.” The deep, reverent respect in which the “Acts” of the VI Ecumenical Council enjoyed in the East can be judged by the following event from the reign of Constantine Pogonatus’ successor, Justinian II. An authentic copy of the acts of the VI Ecumenical Council somehow fell into the hands of some senators. The emperor found out about this. Finding that such a great treasure as the authentic acts of the council should be kept in the royal hands, the emperor convened a council of the patriarchs, the apocrisiary 257 of the Pope, metropolitans and bishops, and in general all the highest clergy who were in Constantinople; The following were also invited to the council: the Senate, representatives of the people, the honorary imperial guard and military leaders of various regions. In this solemn meeting, the “Acts” of the council were taken from the senators and read at the council, and after that they were sealed and handed over to the emperor to avoid damage or substitution. At the same time, the emperor said: “We will always keep these papers inviolable and unchanged; as long as God has appointed our spirit to remain in us.” The activities of the Fifth Ecumenical Council are closely related to the activities of the Fifth and Sixth, or Trullo, Council. Its definitions are revered by the Eastern Church on a par with the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils. This council is called the Fifth and Sixth because it drew up rules regarding the position of the Church and Christian life, which rules were not drawn up at the V and VI Ecumenical Councils, and therefore they are an addition to their dogmatic activities. The Council was convened in 691 or 692 during the reign of Emperor Justinian II. Its meetings took place in the imperial palace in Constantinople - in a hall that bore the name of Trulla - hence the second name of the cathedral of Trulla. Patriarch Paul of Constantinople presided over the council; besides him, the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were present at the council; The representative of the Pope was Metropolitan Basil of Gortyn (from the island of Crete), who had authority from the entire Roman Church. All the fathers who signed the acts of the council were two hundred and thirty. In their “welcome speech” to the emperor, the fathers of the council clarified the reasons for its convening as follows: “The people, torn and exhausted by the suffering resulting from outrage, have little by little been torn away from the divine flock, wandering in ignorance and oblivion of successes in virtue, speaking in the apostolic language: the Son of God is trampled upon, the blood of the Testament and the Spirit is not considered sacred. grace is insulted (Heb. 10:29); mixed in with the ripe wheat of truth are some remnants of pagan and Jewish immaturity.” Therefore, the council had to “discuss all means for converting the people to the path of salvation” in order to “in the likeness of the shepherd Christ, find the lost sheep in the mountains, return them to His house and convince them to keep the commandments and divine commandments.” In order to “turn the people away from bad and vicious behavior and turn them to a better life,” the council drew up a whole series of rules (one hundred and two in number) regulating 1) the conduct of worship, 2) the life of the clergy, 3) monks and 4) the laity. The rules of the Trullo Council are not recognized by the Western Church, because some of the definitions of this council are directed against the customs and teachings of the Roman Church. For example: the council accepts eighty-five apostolic canons for the leadership of the Church, while the Western Church accepted only fifty (pr. 2); the thirteenth canon denounces the Roman teaching on the compulsory celibacy of priests; the fifty-fifth rule condemns the fasts on Saturday introduced by the Roman Church; The eighty-second rule prohibits the use in churches of the image of Christ in the form of a lamb, which was common in the West. The name of the month March is of Roman origin. For the Romans, March was the first month of the Julian year (that is, introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC) and was named after the god of war Mars, who was considered the father of Romulus, the founder of Rome and its first king. The Babylonian captivity is the name given to that period in the history of the Jewish people when the Jews, having lost their political independence, were taken into captivity by the Babylonians. The Jews' stay in captivity lasted seventy years (from 605 to 536 BC). This month also bore the name Abib - that is, the month of ears of grain (Ex. 13:4; - see the Russian translation of the Bible). Moses is the famous leader and legislator of the Jewish people and at the same time a sacred writer who lived at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 15th century before the birth of Christ. He wrote the first five books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament: “Genesis”, “Exodus”, “Leviticus”, “Numbers” and “Deuteronomy” (“Pentateuch of Moses”), see his Life on September 4. Aaron is the brother and companion of the prophet Moses, who was the first high priest of the people of God. His memory is celebrated by the Holy Church on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (between December 11 and 17). Egypt is a country that occupied the northeastern part of Africa. The modern name of this country is of Greek origin (Αίγυπτος) and was probably borrowed by the Greeks on behalf of one of the characters in Greek mythology, Egypt (Αίγυπτος) - the son of Bel and brother of Danaus, who, according to the legends of Greek mythology, took possession of this country. – The Jews moved to Egypt under Joseph, son of Jacob, and stayed here for four hundred and thirty years, multiplying during this time to two million. The Black or Red Sea is a large bay of the Indian Ocean separating Arabia from Egypt and Abyssinia. The Jews miraculously crossed this sea when leaving Egypt (Ex. 14). The solar circle, or circle of the sun, is a period of twenty-eight years, after which the days of the week constantly fall on the same dates. So, for example, if in 1906 March 1st falls on Wednesday, March 2nd falls on Thursday, and so on, then the same will happen in 1934, 1962, 1990, and so on. This is explained from the following: a simple year contains fifty-two weeks and one day, and a leap year (see below, note 12) – fifty-two weeks and two days; As a result, the days of the week in relation to the numbers of months change every year. If all years were simple, then each weekday would constantly fall on the same day of the month every seven years. But since a leap year has one extra day compared to a simple year, then in addition to seven simple years, seven more leap years must pass in order for this excess day to make up a week or, what is the same, bypass all the days of the week. So, for all the days of the week to return to the old numbers of months, seven simple years and seven leap years must pass; Leap years occur every three years on the fourth; therefore, in order for all the days of the week to return to the old numbers, seven simple years must pass, repeated three times, and seven leap years, which is twenty-eight years. From what has been said it should be clear that the “circle of the sun” has nothing to do with the movement of the sun. The circle of the moon is a period of nineteen years, after which the phases of the moon constantly fall on the same dates. For example, in 1893 the new moon fell on March 10; therefore, it will be again on March 10 in 1912, 1931, 1950, and so on. This is explained by the fact that every nineteen years the difference between the Julian year we accept and the lunar year is eliminated (the Julian year is ten days, twenty-one hours, eleven minutes and twenty-four seconds longer than the lunar year). Vrutseletom in Easter is the letter that corresponds to Sundays in a given year. There are seven “vrutseletnye” letters and they are borrowed from the Slavic alphabet; these letters are: d, v, g, d, є, ѕ, з; and all of them successively designate seven whole numbers and correspond to one or another day of the week, and the letter a must correspond to the first Sunday of the first year of creation. When the letters are arranged around the years, the month of March is taken as the first month of creation and the days are counted from Friday, as the day of the creation of Adam; The first Sunday of the first year must therefore be the third day or third day of March, which is designated by the letter a. This will be the whole of the first year. Leap is a corruption of the Latin bissextilis - twice the sixth. The year 46 BC was originally named this way because Julius Caesar, making a reform of the contemporary calendar, added a second 6th day this year after March 6th. A leap year, or leap year, is a year that contains not three hundred sixty-five, but three hundred sixty-six days. Leap years repeat every three simple years. An equinox is the moment in the movement of the sun when it crosses the equator, as a result of which at this time day is equal to night. There are two equinoxes a year: the spring equinox (March 8), when the sun moves from the southern hemisphere to the northern, and the autumn equinox (September 10), when it moves from the northern hemisphere to the southern. In Russia, the month of March was initially considered the first month of the civil year, but in 1343 we decided to consider the month of September as the beginning month of the year, following the example of the Alexandrian Church. At the end of 1699, Peter the Great ordered that the new year, together with other European nations, begin in January. The name of the month of September, as well as March, was borrowed by us from the Romans. The Romans gave it this name because it was the seventh month (September - from septem - seven) from the first, that is, March. The Romans called an indict a fifteen-year period of collecting taxes, divided into three periods of five years each. Indiction should be distinguished from indiction - the great Easter circle of five hundred and thirty-two years. After every five hundred and thirty-two years, all church times, months, days and numbers of holidays, as well as the phases of the moon, follow in the same order as in the previous period. Octavian Augustus - Roman Emperor, reigned from 43 BC to 14 AD. Olympics (ὀλυμπιάς) - the Greeks called the actual unit of time, equal to four years and making up the interval between the celebration of the Olympic Games (these games got their name from Mount Olympia, the place where they took place). The ancient Greeks kept their chronology based on these Olympiads, and the basis, or beginning, of the chronology was the first Olympiad, which fell in 776 BC. The founding year of Rome was considered to be 753 BC. The Roman Emperor Saint Constantine the Great reigned from 306 to 337 (but as autocrat - from 324 to 337). For his life see May 21. Maxentius ruled the Roman Empire jointly with Constantine from 307 to 312. The First Ecumenical Council took place in 325 in the city of Nicaea and was convened to expose the false teaching of the Alexandrian presbyter Arius, who wickedly taught that the Son of God is not equal to God the Father and is His creation. The book of Leviticus is one of the five books written by the prophet Moses (see note above). This contains decrees of a ritual and liturgical nature. This prophecy is found in the book of the prophet Isaiah, ch. 61, art. 1–2. Messiah (Heb. Masiah) – anointed one. This name was originally assigned to all persons chosen by God to serve Himself. In this sense, kings, prophets and high priests were called anointed. But in its proper sense, this name belongs to Jesus Christ, who combined in His Person the threefold ministry of king, prophet and high priest. To him belongs in the highest degree both the holiness of the high priest, who is not involved in evil and has an everlasting priesthood (Heb. 7-10), and the knowledge of the prophet, who enlightened the world with the lofty gospel teaching; and the power and might of the king, possessing all the powers of heaven and earth and directing everything towards the high goals of saving people (Matthew 28:18). In the Old Testament prophetic predictions, the spiritual reign of the Messiah is sometimes presented under the image of the reign of an earthly king. The prophets used figurative language in order to be more understandable to the Jews. Bethany is a small village located three or four miles from Jerusalem. Currently, on the site of ancient Bethany there is a small Muslim village of El Azariyeh. Pious pilgrims are usually shown here the site of the tomb of Lazarus and the ruins of the house where Lazarus lived with his sisters. Bethphage is a small village on the southwestern side of the Mount of Olives, adjacent to Bethany on the west. In ancient times, the surrounding area of ​​Bethphage was famous for its abundance of fig trees, which is how the village got its name (Biffage - the place of figs, or figs). Currently, there are no traces left of the Gospel Bethphage. The Mount of Olives (Mount of Olives, Olive) is one of the most beautiful Palestinian mountains, lying east of Jerusalem and separated from it by the Kidron Valley. This mountain got its name from the olive, or oilseed, trees that grew in abundance along its slopes. Currently, this mountain is called Donebell El Tour. In the 90s of the last century, an Orthodox church was built in honor of St. Mary Magdalene on one of the slopes of the Mount of Olives. In ancient times, the donkey in the East was used primarily for agricultural work (Gen. 49:11; 1 Sam. 25:18) and was considered a domestic animal. On the contrary, a mule or horse was usually used in ancient times for military purposes (Jer. 17:25). The Lord intentionally used a donkey rather than a mule when entering Jerusalem, because He entered Jerusalem as the meek King of the world. Hosanna is a Syrian word meaning “save” or “grant salvation.” Mark Antony - triumvir, Roman consul, who reigned from 44 to 31 BC. David is the king of Israel and at the same time a prophet and Psalmist, who lived in the 11th century BC. He wrote the sacred book “Psalms”, containing one hundred and fifty psalms, or sacred songs, of a nature of praise, petition and gratitude. For his life, see December 26. Solomon, the king of Israel and a divinely inspired writer, lived at the beginning of the 11th - end of the 10th century before the birth of Christ. He wrote four sacred books: Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Song of Songs and the book of Wisdom. Nazareth is a small city in Galilee, in the tribe of Zebulun, lying southwest of Capernaum and west of the Sea of ​​Tiberias. Nazareth acquired worldwide fame as the place where the righteous Joseph, the betrothed of the Blessed Virgin Mary, lived, as the place of the Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin of the birth of the Son of God from Her, and especially as the place where the entire childhood, adolescence and subsequent life of the Lord passed until His appearance in the open ministry of preaching the Gospel. On the site of ancient Nazareth there is now a place named Nozrani. Pilgrims are usually shown here the place of the Annunciation, occupied by a Latin monastery. Other attractions of Nazareth include the site of Joseph the Betrothed's carpenter's workshop, the ruins of the synagogue in which the Lord read Isaiah's prophecy about Himself, and other places. The date palm is one of the most beautiful Palestinian evergreens. The trunk of the palm tree rises very high into the air, but only its top is crowned with branches. Palm branches were used by Jews on many occasions as a sign of triumph or victory. So, for example, on the Feast of Tabernacles, Jews used to hold palm branches in their hands (Lev.23:40). Zechariah is an Israeli prophet, one of the twelve, the so-called “minor prophets,” who lived in the 6th century BC. He owns a book of prophecies that bears his name and was written by him around 520 BC. For his life see February 8th. Scribe (γραμματεύς) – a folk teacher (or teacher of the law). Pharisees (from Hebrew peruschim - “separated”) are one of the Jewish sects that appeared in the 2nd or 3rd century BC. The Pharisees were zealots of the Law of Moses, and the main attention in the Law was paid not to its spirit, not to its general content, but to its appearance. In addition to the ritual requirements of the Law, they also carried out a lot of petty instructions they themselves invented, often reaching the point of scrupulousness. Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus is a teacher of the Church who lived in the 3rd century. Of his works, the most remarkable are: “Ankorat” (Ἀγκυρωτός from ἄγκυρα - anchor), in which the Orthodox teaching about the Holy Trinity and other dogmas of Christianity is revealed, and “Panarius” (πανάριον - box of medicines), in which twenty pre-Christian and eighty Christian heresies. For his life see May 12. Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon are two mountain ranges in northern Palestine, famous in ancient times for their rich cedar forests. The Feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem (falling on the Sunday before Easter) is also called Vaiy, or Flower-Bearing Week, from the custom of standing in churches on this holiday with Vaiyi in hands. It ends the sixth - and last - week of the Holy Pentecost, and next Monday begins Holy Week, or the week of the Lord's passion. The remembrance, celebration and worship of the Passion of the Lord begins on Thursday of Holy Week, but with the services of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the Holy Church only prepares us for a worthy celebration of the Passion of the Lord. Thus, on Monday, the Gospel story about the barren fig tree clearly depicts to us all the uselessness of hypocrisy, hypocrisy and, in general, fulfilling only the ritual side of the Law, and the story about the Last Judgment indicates the retribution that the righteous and sinners will receive for their deeds. Tuesday's service with the parable of the ten virgins and the talents guides believers to spiritual vigilance, which is so appropriate especially during the days of the Lord's suffering. Wednesday's service, telling about the wife who anointed the Lord with chrism and thus prepared Him for burial, already clearly foretells the end of the Lord's earthly activity and the approach of the hour of His saving suffering for us. The Herodians were a political sect (party) from the time of Jesus Christ. Its members included individuals who set the task of their activities to fight against Rome. For this purpose, the Herodians entered into a secret alliance with Herod Antipas, who wanted to take Judea and Samaria from the Roman procurator and subjugate them to himself. The Sadducees were a religious sect from the time of Jesus Christ that denied tradition and the resurrection of the dead. Its founder was Rabbi Saddok, after whom the sect was called. Moses is the famous leader and legislator of the Jewish people, who lived in the 16th century before the birth of Christ. He wrote the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). See his Life on September 4. Here, of course, is the Lord’s formidable accusatory speech against the scribes and Pharisees, in which the main errors of the Pharisees were exposed, both regarding their teaching and regarding their life. This speech is set forth by the Evangelist Matthew (Matthew 23:1–39) and briefly by Mark (Mark 20:45–47). On the tradition of the Lord by Judas, see: Matthew 26:47–56; Mark 14:43–52; Luke 22:47–53; John 18:3–12. The city of Kerioth (or Kerioth) - present-day Kuriut - was located on the northern border of the tribe of Judah. Evangelist Matthew points to the pieces of silver as the main reason for Judas' treacherous betrayal (Matthew 26:14–16). In accordance with this, the Holy Church teaches that Judas fell, “sick with the love of money.” Evangelists Mark (Mark 14:10–11) and Luke (Luke 22:3–6) do not say that Judas himself demanded a monetary reward in advance; the direct and immediate purpose of his secret appearance before the priests was to betray Jesus; the money was offered to Judas after an agreement about the tradition of the Lord, and Iscariot only agreed to take it. In the same way, neither Mark nor Luke indicate how many pieces of silver Judas received, but they generally talk about a monetary reward. As for the motives for Judas' betrayal, Saint Luke (like John John 13:2) directly and expressively points to Satan, who entered Judas. The sum of thirty pieces of silver in the Old Testament was assigned for a slave killed by an ox (Ex. 20, 32); in the prophet Zechariah, thirty pieces of silver are mentioned as a despicable and insignificant amount with which the ungrateful people of Israel evaluate Jehovah’s care for them (Zech. 11:12–13); in the prophet Hosea, this amount determines the price of a dissolute woman (Hosea 14:2); among the rabbis it is the price of every slave, without distinction of sex or age. In general, a valuation of thirty pieces of silver in the eyes of a Jew from the time of Christ served as a symbol of insignificance and expressed contempt for the one who was valued by it: this is a penny price, a slave price. The Sanhedrin probably wanted, by assigning this amount, to express disdain for Christ as a man who is worth no more than any slave. Easter is the main and solemn holiday of the Jews. It was installed in memory of the miraculous deliverance of the Jews from Egyptian slavery; it received its name from the passage (passah - passed) past the houses of the Jewish Angel, who killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians on the last night of the Jews' stay in Egypt (Ex. 12). In conjunction with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which began on the second day of Passover, it was celebrated for eight days, from the evening of the 14th to the 21st of the month of Nissan (the end of our March and the beginning of April). On the tenth day of this month, the fathers of the families were to choose a lamb of the first year, without blemish, which was to be slain on the fourteenth day, in the courtyard of the sanctuary, after proper preparation, and then baked. They ate the whole cooked lamb, leaving no bones, veins, etc., with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Eating Passover began on the evening of the 14th of Nissan, after sunset. The custom, however, made it possible to eat Easter, especially for those who came from Galilee, even earlier. The Lord took advantage of this custom, and His supper was on Thursday, the 13th of Nisan, a day before the appointed time. This is because He, as the true Passover lamb, was to be sacrificed on the cross on the lawful day of the Passover supper. Easter had to be celebrated in Jerusalem, and since neither the apostles nor Christ had their own home, the apostles asked Jesus in which house and with whom exactly to prepare the supper. The mysterious order made the disciples understand that an unusually solemn and significant supper was ahead. On the Last Supper, see: Matthew 26:17–20; Mark 14:12–17; Luke 22:7–18. The common footwear of the ancient eastern peoples were sandals - a type of sole made of thick (usually goat) leather or palm leaves. Sandals were tied with straps and protected the feet from the heat of the sun, which made the sand so hot that traveling with bare feet was impossible. Therefore, washing feet in the East is a necessity, a refreshing remedy; it was and is considered the first duty of hospitality. This custom dates back to ancient times. Abraham, seeing three travelers near his tent, invited them to him and suggested first of all: “let water be brought and your feet washed” (Gen. 18:4. See also: Gen. 19:2; 24:32; 43:24). Failure to observe this custom was considered a sign of inattention and ignorance. Washing feet was the responsibility of servants. During the Easter supper, the head of the family sometimes distributed pieces of bread to those reclining, dipping them in a dish with liquid food, which symbolically signified the blessings of the Promised Land, flowing with honey and milk. This custom sometimes meant the special favor of the head of the house towards the one to whom such a piece was served. The Lord used this custom to indicate the traitor. In relation to Judas, this was the last call of the Lord’s love for the traitor at this supper, his last call to repentance. On the establishment of the Eucharist, see: Matthew 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:19–20; 1 Corinthians 2:23–25. God the Father accepted the suffering and death of His Only Begotten Son as a sacrifice of propitiation for the sins of the entire human race, which are therefore forgiven to all who believe in Christ, and by this faith to those who partake of His most pure Body and Blood (see: John 1:29; Eph. 5:2; Heb. 7:27; 1 John 2:2; 4:10; Rom. 8:32; 2 Cor. 5:15). The commandment of love given by Christ was as new as the motives for love, the measure of the required love and its example were new. In the Old Testament it was commanded to love your neighbor as yourself; Consequently, there the measure and norm of love for one’s neighbor was love for oneself. This commandment was enclosed within certain boundaries, applied only to fellow tribesmen and allowed for the existence of the right of retribution. The Savior defines His own love by the standard of love; and His love for people was of such a kind that it consisted not only in fulfilling the duty of justice, but in self-sacrifice, in readiness to make all sacrifices for others, therefore, love more for his neighbors than for himself; His love was universal, embracing all people, even enemies. The devil is the prince of this world due to the sinfulness in which the world is immersed; Christ is sinless, and therefore the prince of this world has nothing in Him that he can dominate in Him. This saying of Christ serves, among other things, as proof of His sinlessness and the complete freedom with which He gives His life for the life of the world (John 10:18). The three subjects of exposure - sin, truth and judgment - embrace the entire essence of Christ's truth and various deviations from it. The Holy Spirit will convict the world with the preaching of the apostles about the grave sin of unbelief in the Savior Lord Jesus Christ and in the work of redemption completed by Him, as a result of which some will repent and turn to Christ (Acts 2:41), while others will become even more hardened (5:33). He will also denounce the truth, testifying through the mouth of the preachers of the Gospel that the righteousness of God was revealed in Christ (Rom. 3:22) and believers receive justification by virtue of the redemptive merits of Him, whom God offered cleansing through faith in His blood, at the revelation of His righteousness (Rom. 3:24-25). Then the world will feel the injustice shown to the Most Holy Righteous (1 Pet. 3:18), rejected and killed by him, but through suffering and death entered into eternal glory (John 17:5). The Holy Spirit will convict the world about judgment, declaring through the apostles that the power of the spirit of darkness, destroyed by the cross of Christ, no longer extends to the redeemed ( Col. 2:14–15 ) and that the prince of this world, that is, the devil, by the action of God’s judgment, as the Lord Himself predicted, is expelled ( John 12:31 ), and, as the Seer of Mysteries saw, cast into the abyss and imprisoned ( Rev.20:3). Gethsemane means an oil press, a press for squeezing oil; This is probably why the name was given because the garden was an olive garden and olives and olive oil were prepared here. The image of a cup filled with wine is often used in the Holy Scriptures to designate disasters and sufferings that bring the unfortunate person to extreme exhaustion (Ps. 74:9; Is. 51:17,22). The Lord Himself, even earlier - in a conversation with the sons of Zebedee - under the same image pointed to the suffering that lay ahead for Him and the disciples (Matthew 20:22,23; Mark 10:38-39). The cup of Gethsemane is the cup of all the iniquities we have committed, and all the executions prepared for us, which would have drowned the whole world if He had not accepted, held, and dried it up; all streams of human iniquities merged for Jesus into a single cup of sorrow and suffering. The Lord's disciples did not carry swords with them, such as the travelers in Palestine carried for protection from attacking robbers and beasts. The Lord, sending them to preach in Palestine, did not allow them to take swords, thereby assuring them of their safety (Matthew 10:10). But after the supper, when He announced to them that now they would even need to sell their clothes and buy a sword, they actually had two swords or knives, which they apparently took with them, and with one of them the ardent Peter decided to defend his Teacher. Witnesses point to the words of Jesus Christ spoken by Him in Jerusalem. But these words are changed, they have a different meaning (John 2:19). He did not say “destroy,” but “destroy,” and, moreover, he spoke not about the church, but about his own body; He did not say: I will create, but I will erect. The Galileans, to whom the Apostle Peter belonged by origin, differed from the Jews, especially those in Jerusalem, by the not entirely pure pronunciation of some words (Judges 12:6). Pontius, nicknamed Pilate, was the sixth ruler (procurator or hegemon) of Judea, received power from Emperor Tiberius in the year 26 after the Nativity of Christ. He was a proud, arrogant and cruel man, but at the same time cowardly and cowardly, he hated the Jews and was hated by them. After ten years of rule, he was summoned to trial in Rome (in 36) and then imprisoned in Vienna, in southern Gaul, where he committed suicide. Procurators usually lived in Caesarea (Acts 23:23; 24:27; 25:1), but on the Feast of Passover, when many Jews gathered in Jerusalem, they moved here to closely monitor order and prevent popular unrest. Here they were housed in a magnificent palace, erected by Herod not far from the church and known among the people as Herod's Praetorium (Acts 23:35). The Galilean ruler Herod Antipas, who quite unexpectedly took part in the work of Jesus, combining the cunning of a fox (Luke 13:32) with frivolity and sensuality (Matthew 14:3, 6, 7), was always ready to sacrifice his convictions to the desires of a corrupt heart (Mark 6:20,27). During his long reign of Galilee and the Trans-Jordanian region of Perea, he did a lot of bad things (Luke 3:19), stained himself with the murder of the Baptist of the Lord John (Matthew 14:10; Mark 6:27) and, subsequently deprived of power, died in distant exile. According to legend, Claudia Procula was disposed to the Jewish faith and was pious. Then she became a Christian. She could hear a lot about Christ as a great Teacher, Wonderworker and Messiah, and the dream in which she even suffered for Him was the closest reason to intercede for Him before her husband, in fear that Pontius would be subjected to God’s punishment for condemning the innocent Righteous One. The beginning of the custom of releasing one of the prisoners on Easter, at the request of the people (Matthew 27:15), is unknown, and it is not mentioned anywhere in the Gospel except this place. It was probably introduced by the Romans to gain popularity among the Jews; Such mercies somewhat flattered the people's pride and could partly reconcile the people with the yoke of foreigners. Barabbas, also called Jesus, was a murderer and robber. Bagryanitsa is an ordinary red military cloak. It was a wide, sleeveless outerwear that was thrown over the shoulder and fastened so that the right arm remained free. Such cloaks were worn by kings and emperors and high military officials. Kings wore a scepter as a symbol of power. The Lord, in mockery of Him as a king, was given a simple stick (cane - Matt. 27:29), and instead of a rich crown, they put on a crown of thorns. The Jews had a law to wash their hands as proof that the person washing is innocent of shedding the blood of a person found murdered (Deut. 21:6; cf. Ps. 25:6). The blood of the Righteous One, which the Jews called upon themselves, fell on them, on their children, on all their descendants, and on all participants in the terrible event. Caiaphas was deprived of the high priesthood the following year. Anna's son died at the hands of the rebels. The blood of the Jews flowed like a river during the war and the destruction of Jerusalem. They shouted to Pilate: “Crucify, crucify!” The Romans themselves crucified them in thousands around the city. They gave the traitor thirty pieces of silver and were themselves sold into slavery by the victors for an even lower price. They chose Barabbas for themselves - and there was no Messiah for them; Having lost their fatherland and their independence, they eke out their existence among foreign peoples. Cyrene, or Cyrene, is a city in African Libya, west of Egypt, inhabited at that time in large numbers by Jews. Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus, later known in the Christian Church (Mk.15:21; Rom.16:13). Golgotha ​​- place of execution - a small hill outside the city walls to the northwest; it was called so either because it had the appearance of a skull, or because it contained many skulls and bones of those executed there. According to church tradition, Adam was buried in this very place. This is the first of the seven words of the Lord from the cross. He asks His Father for forgiveness to all His enemies, to all humanity, for whose atonement He is crucified. The Roman soldiers, pagans led by Pilate, really did not know that the one they were crucifying was the Savior of the world - the Son of God. The Jews, especially their leaders, had every means to know that Jesus was the Messiah, but they did not believe in Him and were blinded to such an extent that they did not think that they were crucifying the Messiah. That is why the Apostle Peter, in his speech to the Jews, told them directly that they and their leaders crucified the Lord out of ignorance (Acts 3:17), and the Apostle Paul says that if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8). Ignorance, however, does not justify their crimes, for they had the means to know. The Sacrifice of Calvary was performed on the cross, according to the interpretation of St. fathers, in order to show the world the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Christ (Eph. 3:18). Everything that happened on the tree of the cross was “a healing of our weakness, returning the old Adam to where he fell, and leading us to the tree of life, from which the fruit of the tree of knowledge, untimely and unwisely eaten, removed us. For this, tree for tree, hands for hand, hands courageously outstretched for the intemperately outstretched hand, hands nailed for the willful hand, hands joining together the ends of the world for the hand that cast out Adam. For this purpose, ascension to the cross for a fall, gall for eating, a crown of thorns for evil dominion, death for death, darkness for light, burial for a return to the earth” (Gregory the Theologian). Thus, “just as sin entered the world through the fruit of the tree, so salvation came through the tree of the cross” (Athanasius the Great). By the height of the cross the apostle means the heavenly, by the depth - the underworld, and by the longitude and breadth - the limits of what is among them. Saint Basil the Great sees in the four-part composition of the cross an indication of the four countries of the world and says that death on the cross is preferred so that all parts of the world are brought to salvation by parts of the cross. The Divine Redeemer knew that He must drink the cup of suffering to the bottom (Matthew 20:22), the cup that the Father gave Him and He Himself voluntarily accepted (Matthew 26:42; John 10:17–18). He repeatedly predicted His suffering and death on the cross (Matthew 16:21; 17:12, 22, 23; 20:18–19; 26:2; Mark 8:31; 9:12, 31; 10, 33; Luke 9:22, 44; 13:33; 17:25; 21:15–16; 24:7), indicated the most particular circumstances of His impending death: the betrayal of Judas (Matthew 26:21–25; Mark 14:18–21; Luke 22:21; John 6:70; 13:18, 21:26); Peter's denial (Matthew 26:34; Mark 14:30; Luke 22:34; John 13:38), flight of the disciples (Matthew 26:31; John 16:32), death on the cross (John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32, 33), burial (Matthew 26:12; Mark 14:8; John 12:7), said that He would come according to what was spoken (Luke 22:22), as it is written about Him (Matthew 26:24; Mark 14:21), and He who knew all that was to come (John 18:4) the day before foretold to the disciples about His imminent departure (14:19; 16:5; 16:28; 17:13). Could the Son of Man, who actually came to this hour (John 12:27) come down from the cross to give His soul as a deliverance for many (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45). Second word from the cross. The Lord promises the repentant thief, who confessed Him as King on the cross, bliss along with Himself in the kingdom of the righteous, God’s chosen ones. Christ predicts that the thief will die on this very day, and will not suffer on the cross, as happened to those crucified, which actually happened, since his death was hastened (John 19:32). The word "paradise" means the garden itself, filled with shady and beautiful trees and flowers. In the hot countries of the East, during the heat of the sun, the garden was a place of true pleasure and tranquility, and therefore paradise became an image of the place of bliss of the righteous in the afterlife (2 Cor. 12:4). This is the third word from the Cross. The Most Holy Virgin was not visible either at the glorious transfiguration of Her Son on Tabor, or at the solemn entry into Jerusalem, or during other wonderful events of His earthly life, when they marveled at His teaching (John 7:46) and His deeds (6:14), but now she became, as it were, on guard at His Cross. In all its amazing power, She now felt in Her soul the weapon predicted by the righteous elder Simeon (Luke 2:35), and suffered as no one had ever suffered on earth except the Crucified Himself. The abyss of Her suffering did not overcome or drown Her. The Most Holy Virgin - the Mother of God was the Woman Who was announced back in paradise (Gen. 3:15), now that Her Seed, through an atoning sacrifice, destroyed the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), where should She be if not at the Cross of Her Son? He gives Her the last consolation and gives a testament so that the Mother and His beloved disciple will not be separated. In the person of John, the Lord adopted His graciously merciful Mother as sons of all those who believe in Him, born of God (John 1:13) by water and the Spirit (John 3:5), those to whom He gave the power to become children of God (John 1:12) and whom He was not ashamed to call His brothers (Heb. 2:11). The darkness was from the sixth hour to the ninth (according to our reckoning, from twelve to three o'clock in the afternoon). It was a wonderful eclipse, during which even the stars were visible. The Roman astronomer Phlegon testifies to it. This is the fourth word from the Cross. We were abandoned by God as children of wrath (Eph.2:8), having sinned in our first parent (Rom.5:12) and for us our Intercessor was abandoned by His Father, “so that we would not be abandoned by God, left to redeem us from sins and eternal death, left to demonstrate the greatest love for the human race, left to demonstrate the justice and mercy of God” (St. Cyprian Carthaginian). This was a new taunt. Before the coming of the Messiah, the Jews expected the coming of the prophet Elijah and now mocked that he, abandoned by God, crucified, but still considering Himself the Messiah, was calling Elijah to help Him now (Matthew 27:49). This is the fifth word from the Cross. Covered in wounds and ulcers, exhausted, bloodied, ridiculed, desecrated and, according to the prophetic word, imputed to nothing (Is. 53:2-3), the God-man reached the extreme degree of exhaustion: His strength, as David predicted, wasted away, like a frailty, and the tongue was clinging to the larynx (glorified Ps. 21:16); a burning pain spread through all the limbs and a languid thirst appeared, as a harbinger of imminent death. Preparing to lay down His life for fallen man (John 10:15), He for the first and last time, from His cross, asks this man for a small reward - a sip of drink. People hastened to fulfill what was foretold long ago by David: they gave me gall for my food and gave me something to drink for my thirst (glorified Ps. 68:22). Vinegar (Slav. otset), mixed with bile, is a stupefying and dulling drink that was given to crucified people to drink in order to somewhat reduce the torment of suffering. The Romans called it soporific. Christ wanted to drink the cup of God’s wrath completely, without reducing the power of suffering, and therefore, having tasted the drink, he did not drink it (Matthew 27:32). His thirst was not a simple bodily need: the God-man thirsted for our salvation, thirsted to fulfill the will of the Heavenly Father and complete His work (John 4:34); longed to drink to the bottom the cup of sorrows and suffering for sinful people, with which His humanity was afraid in the Garden of Gethsemane; longed to redeem us from sin and damnation, to destroy the power of death and hell; He longed that not a single line of what was foretold about Him in the Holy Scriptures should remain unfulfilled (John 19:28). This is the sixth and seventh word from the Cross. The sacrifice of the cross is over. The eternal determination of the Trinitarian Deity about the salvation of the human race has been fulfilled. God's truth is satisfied. Anger and judgment are canceled. The prophecies came true, the transformations were carried out, the vows given to the patriarchs were fulfilled, blood was shed to the last drop, the synagogue was abolished, the church was founded. The Savior said: It is accomplished! and, raising his tone, exclaimed: Father, in Thy hand I commend My spirit! These were the last words on the cross of the One who, having humbled himself, was obedient even to death, the death of the cross (Phil. 3:7-8). “So the body died and its resolution took place, but God the Word was immutable in the body, and in the soul, and in Himself, the Son in the bosom of the Father, as a demonstration of His immutability” (Athanasius the Great). The death of the Lord was accompanied by miraculous signs: 1) In the church, the curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom. This curtain separated part of the church, called the Holy Place, from another, called the Holy of Holies (Ex. 26:31–33). The Holy of Holies was an image of heaven, and the tearing of the veil that hid it was a symbol of the fact that by the death of Christ the entrance into it was open to everyone, where the High Priest Jesus entered as the Forerunner (Heb. 6:19; 9:6; 10:19). 2) An earthquake is a sign of God’s wrath against those who put His beloved Son to death. From this earthquake, 3) the stones (mountain rocks) scattered and 4) the coffins, which were made in the stone rocks in the form of caves, opened. 5) Many bodies of those who had fallen asleep after the resurrection of the Lord arose and appeared to many in the city (Matthew 27:51–53). The wound inflicted on the Savior was deep, so that, after the resurrection, the Lord, to assure Thomas, invited him to put his hand into His ribs (John 20:27). “It was not without meaning and not by chance that blood and water flowed, for the Church was made up of them; Those initiated into the sacraments know this: they are reborn with water, and feed on blood and flesh” (John Chrysostom). This miraculous event cannot be explained in any natural way and must be attributed to the power and operation of God's omnipotence. St. who tells about this. evang. John, a self-witness of what happened on Golgotha, strenuously certifies that his testimony is true (John 19:35). Arimathea is the birthplace of the prophet Samuel, and it is also likely that Rama is a small town in the tribe of Benjamin (Matthew 2:18). Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin (Mark 15:13) - a pious man, a secret disciple of Jesus (John 14:38). Joseph, according to the testimony of Saint Luke, did not participate in the lawless trial of the Sanhedrin over the Lord (Luke 23:51). Nicodemus belonged to the sect of the Pharisees, was also a member of the Sanhedrin (John 3:1), had a long night conversation with Christ about the path to salvation (John 3:1-2) and then fearlessly spoke the word of truth in His defense (John 7:51). The described events that preceded the procession of the Savior to the free passion, and the very suffering of Christ are remembered at the services of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The apostolic reading for Thursday (1 Cor. 2:23–32) depicts both the establishment of the sacrament of the Eucharist, its purpose and worthy preparation. The Gospel (Matthew 26:1-20; John 13:3-17; Matthew 26:21-39; Luke 22:43-45; Matthew 26:40-75; 27:1-2) tells about the circumstances that preceded, accompanied and followed the Last Supper. In her hymns, the Church deeply grieves and sympathizes with the Savior and reverently bows before His long-suffering. At the liturgy, the solemn Cherubic hymn is replaced by the touching song “Thy secret Supper,” denouncing Judas and imitating the confession of the prudent thief. In cathedrals, according to a special rite, the bishop washes the feet of 12 selected clergy. The entire Good Friday service is dedicated to the reverent remembrance of the suffering of the Savior. Matins of this day is a continuation of the holy and saving passions of our Lord Jesus Christ. The twelve Gospels are read on it, which believers listen to with lighted candles, as a sign of fiery love for the Suffering Lord and like the Gospel virgins who went to meet the Bridegroom. Since the celebration of the liturgy is an image of the Calvary sacrifice, then on the very day of remembrance of this world event, the liturgy is not performed. An exception is allowed only for the Feast of the Annunciation, if it happens on Good Friday. Instead of the liturgy, the royal hours are celebrated: 1, 3, 6, and 9 - together, they not only reproduce the history of the gospel events that took place on this day, but by comparing Old Testament prophecies (psalms and proverbs) and New Testament sacred readings (Apostle and Gospel), the Christian dogma about our redemption by the Savior's death on the cross is revealed in detail. At the end of Vespers, in remembrance of the removal of the most pure body of the Lord from the cross, the clergy carry the shroud from the altar (an image of the position of Jesus Christ in the tomb). Vespers is followed by Little Compline, at which the touching canon “about the crucifixion of the Lord and the lament of the Most Holy Theotokos” is read. Among other things, it depicts the grief of the Mother of God this way: “Behold My sweet light, My good hope and life, My God extinguished on the cross. I think, Master, that I will not hear Your sweet voice, nor see the kindness of Your face, as I did before Your servant, for You, My Son, have gone away from My sight. Now My aspiration, joy and gladness, My Son and Lord, would be deprived, alas for Me, I am sick at heart. You are dead in vain, O Lover of Mankind, who revived the dead and contains everything, I am wounded by the fierceness of the womb, I would like to die with You, I cannot bear to see You dead without breathing. Deliver me from illness, now take Me with You, My Son and God, do not leave Me alone, for I can no longer endure living without seeing You, My sweet light.” The God-man, dead and buried with his body, but filling everything with Divinity, listened to the cries and lamentations of His Most Pure Mother and mysteriously spoke to Her heart: “Do not weep for Me, Mother, seeing in the tomb, Whom in your womb without seed you conceived a Son, for I will arise and be glorified, and will exalt you with glory unceasingly, like God, with faith and love You are magnifying." The service was conducted. Saturday morning can., item 4, trop. 1, stichera on praise, 2 glory. The service is great. heel, proverb., canon., item 7, trop. 1; paragraph 3, and now; paragraph 5, trop. 1; can. item 9, glory. The service was conducted. Saturday, morning, channel, item 4, trop. 3. Service of St. Easter morning kan., p. 6, irmos. The Church commemorates the presence of Christ in the body in the tomb, the descent of the soul into hell, and the presence on the throne with the Father and the Spirit on Holy Saturday. Shedding tears of love and gratitude to Him who laid down His life for His friends and enemies, His body resting in the tomb, the Church calls everyone and everything to the holiest and most precious tomb - the hope of all languages, calls heaven and earth, angels and men to it, surrounds it with a holy cloud of ancient witnesses who have seen it for thousands of years, and a council of New Testament heralds, here, before Crucified, as if giving an account in their worldwide preaching about His redemptive cross, death and resurrection. The entire service of Holy Saturday represents a wonderful combination of the most opposite feelings - sorrow and joy, grief and joy, tears and bright jubilation. At Matins, funeral chanting is performed over the Divine Dead. It consists of the 17th kathisma (one hundred and eighteenth psalm), prophetically pre-depicting the suffering life of the Savior on earth, called “blameless” and divided into three articles (or stations). To each verse of the kathisma there are added short chants, or “praises,” to the deceased and buried Lord. As a harbinger of the Never-Evening Light that is about to rise from the grave, believers stand with lit candles. After the great doxology, there is a procession with the shroud around the church, vividly and clearly transferring our thoughts and feelings to the time when Joseph and Nicodemus, having forgotten all fear of the Jewish host, with caring love, with unshakable devotion, gave the last honor to the Crucified One, His Most Pure Body “wrapped in a clean shroud” and “laid in a new tomb.” The Liturgy (of St. Basil the Great) is the conclusion of the passionate services and the immediate pre-celebration, or prelude, of Easter. After the small entrance, 15 proverbs are read, which contain almost all the main prophecies and prototypes relating to the person of Jesus Christ, who crowned the great work of redemption with His glorious resurrection. After reading the Apostle, while singing “Arise, O God,” the dark clothes of the throne and clergy are changed to light ones, and the deacon, like a bright Angel, the first witness and messenger of the resurrection of Christ, proclaims this all-joyful Gospel gospel. The holy myrrh-bearing women heard the first news of the resurrection from the Angel. Like them, who met the risen Lord outside Jerusalem, we also perform a procession of the cross before Easter Matins around the church. At the beginning of the canon and each of its songs, a priest with a cross and candles performs incense for the entire church, in commemoration of the repeated appearances of the Lord after the resurrection. The joyful Easter greeting reminds us of the state of the apostles (Luke 24:14, 34), in which, when the news of the resurrection of Christ suddenly broke, they asked one another with joyful delight: “Christ is risen!” and they answered one another: “Truly he is risen.” Mutual kissing is an expression of love and reconciliation with each other, in memory of our universal forgiveness and reconciliation with God, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The red egg serves as a symbol of the resurrection of Christ and our rebirth into the future life. Just as from an egg, from under a dead shell, life is born, which was completely hidden, so Christ, who lay in the tomb like a dead man, rose from this abode of death and corruption. Just as a living being is born from an egg and begins to live a full life when it is freed from the shell that contains its embryo, so at the second coming of Christ to earth, we, having thrown away everything corruptible here, where we already have the embryo and the beginning of eternal existence, by the power of the resurrection of Christ, will be reborn and resurrected for another life. An egg painted with red paint reminds us that our new life was acquired by the most pure Blood of Jesus Christ. The custom of mutual exchange of eggs owes its origin to St. Mary Magdalene, who, presenting herself to Emperor Tiberius, presented him with a red egg with the greeting “Christ is Risen.” All Easter services and church rituals are especially solemn, imbued with a single feeling of joy and show the believer everything that is mysterious, lofty and saving for the soul in Christianity, bright, joyful and comforting for the heart. So, from the story of the holy evangelists about the risen Lord, we see that the myrrh-bearing women were the first to receive the news of the resurrection of Christ from the Angels - that one of them, Mary Magdalene, was the first appearance of the Risen One; At the same time, the Gospel is completely silent about the Mother of God. Such silence raises an involuntary question: could the Lord Jesus Christ, who during his death throes on the cross entrusted His Mother to the care of his beloved disciple (John 19:26–27) and thereby fulfilled the duty of filial love and respect for Her, could have forgotten about Her on the day of His glory? The Holy Church resolves this question of pious bewilderment, containing in its tradition the belief that the Mother of God, before the myrrh-bearing women, was informed by an Angel about the resurrection of the Lord and that, having risen from the tomb, Christ appeared to her before all. The Church finds expression of this belief in Easter liturgical hymns. The belief of the Church is clearly expressed in the Paschal Canon of the Theotokos; For example, let's give 2 tr. (“and now”) of the 1st canto: having seen your Son and God risen, rejoice as apostles, pure God-gracious one, and rejoice first, for you have received all the joys of wine, O Mother of God, all-immaculate. In the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, not far from the Holy Sepulcher, they indicate the place of the appearance of the Savior to His Mother; Currently, there is a Catholic chapel of the appearance of Christ to the Mother of God here. – How can we explain that the evangelists say nothing about the appearance of Her Son? Saint John the Theologian, preaching about the appearances of the Lord after the resurrection, introduces two remarks into his narrative, which show that the holy evangelists did not convey everything from the earthly life of Jesus Christ, due to the impossibility of conveying everything (John 21:25), but only that which most served to strengthen faith in Him as the Son of God (John 20:30–31). On the other hand, in the Gospels, after describing the circumstances relating to the Nativity of Christ, very rarely and very little is said about the Mother of God in general (Luke 2:43–51; John 2:2–5; Matthew 12:47; John 19:25–27), and of course this is not because there was nothing to report about Her, but because, imbued with a highly spirit of humility (Luke 1:48), She lived a concentrated life, hidden from the eyes of men (Luke 2:19), and her violation of it could not be pleasant. That is why the holy evangelists, observing the wishes of the Mother of God, did not speak in detail about Her, for She loved silence most of all. The Gospel narratives about the resurrection of the Lord and His appearances are offered by the Church to the pious attention of believers during the morning service of every Sunday, excluding, however, the twelve feasts of the Lord and the Mother of God, as well as church feasts, which occur on the resurrection: on the first, the festive Gospels are always read, and on the second, either the Sunday Gospels or to the church. The number of the morning Gospels is 11, and they all make up the so-called “pillar of the morning Gospels”: 1) Matthew 28:16–20; 2) Mark 16:1–8; 3) Mark 16:9–20; 4) Luke 24:1–12; 5) Luke 24:12–35; 6) Luke 24:36–53; 7) John 20:1–10; 8) John 20:11–18; 9) John 20:19–31; 10) John 21:1–14; 11) John 21:12–25. The reading now of the indicated Gospels in the well-known order determined by the church charter has been going on, repeating, since the Sunday of All Saints; This order is somewhat modified for the seven weeks of Pentecost and from the 32nd week of Easter to the 5th week of Lent. The reading of the Sunday morning Gospels is performed in the altar, from where, thus, as if from the Holy Sepulcher, the joyful news of the resurrection is heard; then follows the singing of the solemn prayer “Having seen the Resurrection of Christ,” in which believers are called to worship “the Holy Lord Jesus.” – The appearance of the Lord on the eighth day after the Resurrection to the Apostles and the touching of the wounds on His most pure body by the Apostle Thomas are remembered by the Holy Church on the Sunday of Thomas, the 2nd after Easter. This appearance of the Risen Savior is the subject of deliberate celebration in view of its especially important significance for assuring the truth of the resurrection of Christ: the Lord Jesus, in the words of the church song, “stretching out the ribs of the unbelieving Thomas,” thereby assures the whole world of His “three-day uprising” (canon, paragraph 4). Indeed, the image of the assurance of the Apostle Thomas by Christ the Savior most convincingly shows that He was resurrected with the very flesh that He received from the womb of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, with which He was nailed to the Cross and which retained traces of nail wounds and a spear blow. The week of Thomas, at the end of Bright Easter Week, for the first time repeating in memory the joyful event of the resurrection of Christ, is also called “anti-Easter” - that is, instead of Easter, or “week of renewal”, because on this Sunday the great holiday of the Resurrection is, as it were, renewed, especially since the Lord Himself renewed for His disciples the joy of the resurrection with a new appearance on this “eighth day”. “Ancient and with a good purpose,” teaches Saint Gregory the Theologian in his word for this week, “the law was established to honor the day of renewal, or better to say, to honor new blessings on the day of renewal. But wasn’t it a day of renewal and the first Sunday that followed the sacred and luminous night? Why are you giving this name to this day? That was the day of salvation, and this is the day of remembrance of salvation. That day demarcates burial and resurrection, but this day is purely the day of new birth. He is the first among those who follow him and the eighth among those who precede him.” In the ancient Church, the week of anti-Easter also bore the name still preserved among Roman Catholics, “week in white,” that is, the newly baptized: after receiving the sacrament of baptism and confirmation on the eve of Holy Pascha, the newly baptized walked throughout Bright Week in white robes as a sign of their renewal in Christ; on the week of Thomas, they washed myrrh on their bodies and took off their solemn white clothes in the church. The Sabbath path is the space that Jews were allowed to walk on the Sabbath outside their homes. Based on the book. Exodus, ch. 16, art. 29, where it says: “Everyone shall remain in his own house... on the seventh day”; The rabbis, who extended the strictness of the Sabbath rest to the smallest detail, demanded that on the Sabbath no one should take more than two thousand steps or about a mile. This distance was called the Sabbath path. The author of the Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus, defines the distance of the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem as six stages, that is, a little less than a mile; and Ephraim the Syrian has a Sabbath journey and counts exactly six stages. On Mount Sinai on the 50th day after the exodus of the Jews from Egypt (Ex. 3, 7–9; 5, 6–23; 20 et seq.). That is, at 9 o’clock in the morning (3 hours before noon). Wed: Luke 24:53; Acts 2:46. As if from a rushing strong wind (Acts 2:2). It was not the wind, but only the sound of the wind in its stormy rush; it was not fire, but something like fluctuating tongues of flame that glowed but did not burn - a symbol of the Holy Spirit blowing like the wind where it pleases, although it is unknown where it comes from and where it goes (John 3:8). And suddenly there was a noise from heaven, as if from a strong wind (Acts 2:2). The noise was supposed to arouse the attention of the Lord's disciples to the upcoming event and expressed the very presence and greatness of the descending God - the Holy Spirit. The noise descends from heaven as a reminder that the Holy Spirit descends at the intercession of the Lord who ascended into heaven. As if from a strong wind - in commemoration of the greatness of the gift sent down. This noise fills the whole house and embraces everyone in it, so that by shaking their external senses, their spiritual senses can be more open to receive the gift. At these moments, the sacrament of their spiritual rebirth was performed over the apostles according to the promise of the Lord: in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Conversation of Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson, on Pentecost (Works, vol. I. Ed. 1872, p. 386). That is, they pronounced what the Holy Spirit put into their souls and lips. According to the law of Moses, during the holidays of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, the Jews were obliged, to celebrate them, to gather in Jerusalem, to the church of the Lord (Ex. 34:23; Deut. 16:16). For the Jews of Palestine this was easy, but for the Jews of the diaspora, living in different countries of the world, as well as for strangers (proselytes) from different countries far from Jerusalem, fulfilling this requirement was a matter of great difficulty; It is only out of love for Jerusalem and the church and out of legal zeal that they despise all the difficulties of a long journey and are now going to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost. Therefore, they are rightly called reverent people - devout (Acts 2:5). Aliens or proselytes, that is, converts from the pagans. That is, the ninth hour of the morning according to our reckoning is the first hour of prayer and the time of the morning sacrifice, before which, especially on a holiday, the Israeli did not allow himself to take any food. Remembering the commandment of Jesus Christ - to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, even to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8), the apostle, however, adds here that the salvation of God in Christ does not extend only to the Jews, but to all “whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39). What the writer Prince preserved for us. Acts from the gospel of the Apostle Peter are only a small part of his instructions. Likewise, the Writer does not convey to us anything from the Gospel speeches of the other apostles, although from the fact that, convinced by the word of the Apostle Peter, the listeners turned not only to Peter, but also to the other apostles for advice on the means of salvation (Acts 2:37), it can be seen that the other apostles, together with Peter, participated in teaching and convincing the people gathered around them. However, this should be clear to us even without special instructions, when we read there that those who sought the Apostolic teaching - who were later baptized - were about three thousand (Acts 2:41). Synaxarion on the week of Pentecost. Synaxarion for the Feast of Pentecost. Canon of the Holy Spirit, canto 5. Blessed Jerome, the famous father of the Western Church of the late 4th and first quarter of the 5th century, known for his learned works on the interpretation of Holy Scripture. Died in 420. Tertullian is a famous writer of the Church of the 3rd century. In the 41st word on Pentecost. Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, became famous as a zealous champion and defender of Orthodoxy against Arianism in the western half of the Universal Church. He left many writings, in which he partly explains the word of God, partly expounds the doctrine of faith, and partly teaches Christian virtues. Died in 397. His memory is celebrated on December 7. Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, famous Father of the Church of the late 4th and early 5th centuries, especially famous for his numerous preaching works. For his extraordinary eloquence he received the name Chrysostom. At first he was a presbyter in Antioch, and at the very end of the 4th century he took the see of the Archbishop of Constantinople. He ended his life in exile in Armenia (in 407). His memory is celebrated on November 13 and January 30. He owns the liturgy celebrated in the Orthodox Church most of the year. Saint Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzen) was briefly the Patriarch of Constantinople and is known for his lofty creations, for which he received the nickname Theologian. He was a close friend of another famous Father of the Church (IV century) - St. Basil the Great, whom he met in the days of his youth in the Athenian philosophical schools. The memory of Saint Gregory is celebrated on January 25. (In the word at the entrance to the Holy Pentecost.) Saint Gregory of Nyssa - brother of Saint Basil the Great, bishop of the city of Nyssa in Cappadocia; one of the most famous Church Fathers of the 4th century, known for his zealous struggle against Arianism, as well as for many works - theological, philosophical and preaching; He also has many conversations on the Holy Scriptures and sermons. Saint Gregory died in 394. His memory is celebrated by the Church on January 10. The peculiarity of the Church service on the day of the Holy Trinity is that the liturgy celebrated on this day ends with vespers, during which the Church kneels and reads three special prayers compiled for this day by Saint Basil the Great. The first of them is to appeal to God the Father: to forgive all the sins of our youth and ignorance, not to reject us during our old age, and, having visited our hearts with grace and confirmation in His holy laws, to gather us in the Kingdom of Heaven. The second prays to the Lord the Son: to give us the Spirit of wisdom, reason and fear of God, for worthy prayers to Him and useful instruction in life. And the third asks the Son of God to calm all the dead in the hope of resurrection and to weaken the measure of their condemnation; bless us living ones. Libya is a region of North Africa. According to other reports, Arius's homeland was Alexandria. Savemius, a heretic of the 3rd century, argued, distorting the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that God is One Person: as the Father He is in heaven, as the Son on earth and as the Holy Spirit in creation. Phalia - Greek. "happiness"; in the plural - feast. The book got its name because it contained poems that could be sung during lunch. From the contents of this letter it is clear that the emperor had little idea of ​​how important the subject of church contention was in essence. The outstanding defender of Orthodoxy, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, speaks of Hosea of ​​Corduba: “He is far more famous than all the others. What council did he not preside over? On which one, reasoning sensibly, did not incline everyone to the same conviction? What church does not have the most excellent evidence of his intercession? Easter - the main holiday of the Christian Church, established in the days of the holy apostles, was originally dedicated to the remembrance of the death of the Lord Jesus and therefore was celebrated throughout the East on the 14th of Nisan, on the day of the preparation of the Passover lamb by the Jews, when, according to the instructions of the Gospel of John and according to the ancient fathers of the Church (Irenaeus, Tertullin, Origen), the death of Christ the Savior on the cross followed; Therefore, the very name of Easter is derived by the most ancient fathers of the Church (Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian) not from “pass by”, but from the Greek - “to suffer.” According to the instructions of the holy evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke, the death of the Lord Jesus took place not on the 14th, but on the 15th of Nisan; but the Christians who followed their instructions nevertheless celebrated Easter on the 14th of Nisan in remembrance, however, of the Last Supper of the Lord with the disciples. However, the Church Fathers closest in time to the Apostles do not speak of the Easter holiday as an annual holiday, that is, celebrated on a deliberately chosen day or period. In “The Shepherd,” a work by the apostolic Hermas, we find mention of Friday as a day of weekly fasting and sorrow, in remembrance of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ; Tertullian points to Sunday as a day of joy, when fasting and kneeling were abolished in memory of the resurrection of Christ. Already in the 2nd century, the commemoration of the suffering and death of Christ and His Resurrection was highlighted in special holidays called Easter: 1) pascha crucifieatonis - Easter of the Cross, that is, in honor of the death of the Savior; This Easter was spent in strict fasting, lasting from Friday until Sunday morning and ending with the Sunday Eucharist. With this Eucharist began; 2) pascha resurrectionis - Resurrection Easter. Some evidence indicates that Easter Sunday lasted fifty days, thus being, in addition, the holiday of the Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Spirit; why these days were sometimes called Pentecost. The more, over time, the Christian Church freed itself from Judaism, the more and more incongruous the custom, especially stubbornly held in the churches of Asia Minor, of celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nisan, simultaneously with the Jews, became. In the churches formed from pagans celebrating Easter on this day, they were called Judaizers, moreover, in the West, the celebration of Easter was never associated with the Jewish Passover, here it was celebrated not on Friday, but on the first Sunday after the full moon. Thanks to this, between the East and the West, more precisely between the Asian bishops and Rome, an “Easter dispute” arose, which lasted from the end of the 2nd century throughout the 3rd century and almost led to a break in communication between the disputing churches. Nicaea, now the poor village of Isnik, at the time described was the main seaside city of the Bithynia region, rich and extensive; here was the vast palace of the emperor and other buildings in which the participants of the cathedral could comfortably accommodate themselves; it was only 20 miles from Nicomedia, the then seat of the emperor, and was equally easily accessible from both sea and land. Historians indicate an unequal number of council members. Eusebius speaks of two hundred and fifty, Athanasius the Great and Socrates number more than three hundred. According to Sozomen, there were only three hundred and twenty of them. The number three hundred and eighteen, given by Saint Athanasius in one letter to the African Church, as well as by Epiphanius and Theodoret, was accepted, according to legend, according to a mysterious relationship with the number of Abraham’s servants (Gen. 14:14) and also because the Greek design of its TIN resembles the Cross of Jesus Christ. The church historian (5th century) Sozomen has a story about how one little-book bishop converted a philosopher by just reading him his Creed; He also reports about the Byzantine Bishop Alexander that the latter deprived the philosopher who argued with him of the ability to speak, telling him: “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you not to speak!” In the history of the development of the doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, the term “hypostasis” was used either in the sense of essence or in the sense of person; Since the 4th century, according to the usage adopted after Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian, as well as the Ecumenical Council, the word “hypostasis” has been used by the entire Church to mean a person. The Council of Nicaea, or the First Ecumenical Council, calls him in its letter to the Church of Alexandria “the main figure and participant in everything that happened at the council.” The Arians themselves subsequently spoke about Hosea of ​​Corduba: “Hosea presides at councils, his writings are listened to everywhere, and he expounded the faith in Nicaea (that is, at the First Ecumenical Council). Some historians suggest that Eustathius of Antioch was the chairman of the council; others consider him Eusebius of Caesarea. There is, in addition, the opinion that the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria (Alexander) presided at the council in turn; the majority, however, are more inclined to recognize the chairman of the council as Hosea, Bishop of Corduba, who was the first to sign the council’s definitions. Without a doubt, the Semi-Arians also condemned the symbol of Eusebius of Nicomedia, because they never used the expression “Son of creation” and the like about the Son of God. Omophorion - from Greek amice, one of the seven bishop's vestments, which is a long narrow vestment with four crosses; The omophorion is placed on the bishop's shoulders so that its ends descend in front and behind. The omophorion signifies the lost sheep, that is, humanity taken by Christ on His shoulders. It is noteworthy that - as A. N. Muravyov testifies - in Nicaea a legend about this has still been preserved, even among the Turks: in one of the loopholes of this city they show the dungeon of St. Nicholas, where, according to legend, he was imprisoned after being convicted for his act with Arius. Referring to the indicated sayings of the apostle. Paul, the Arianists wanted to say that they recognize the origin of the Son from God in the sense of creation, just as everything that exists in the world in the same sense comes from God. According to Orthodox teaching, the Son did not become God, but remains God from eternity. In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). This is the name of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God. This name is taken from the Gospel of John (John 1:1-14). – Why is the Son of God called the Word? 1) Comparing His birth with the origin of our human word; just as our word is dispassionately, spiritually born from our mind or thought, so the Son of God is dispassionately and spiritually born from the Father. 2) Just as our thought is revealed or expressed in our word, so the Son of God, in His essence and perfections, is the most accurate reflection of God and therefore is called the radiance of His glory and the image (imprint) of His Hypostasis (Heb. 1:3). 3) Just as we communicate our thoughts to others through the word, so God, who repeatedly spoke to people through the prophets, finally spoke through the Son (Heb. 1:2), Who became incarnate for this purpose and so fully revealed the will of His Father that he who saw the Son saw the Father (John 14:3). 4) Just as our word is the cause of certain actions, so God the Father created everything through the Word of His Son (John 1:3). The word “consubstantial” indicates not only the unity of the essence of the Father and the Son, but also the sameness, so that in one word there is an indication of both the unity of God and the difference in the persons of the Son of God and God the Father, for only two persons can be of the same essence: consubstantial and that means precisely: not merged in essence, but also not divided. According to the testimony of other ancient historians of the Christian Church, the word “consubstantial”, sanctified by church tradition, was proclaimed by the bishops of the cathedral and does not mean emperor, as Eusebius of Caesarea says. The apparent contradiction of these two testimonies can be reconciled with the very probable consideration that Emperor Constantine in this case acted at the suggestion of the Orthodox bishops, who found it more convenient to proclaim the right word through his lips, since the authority of the emperor destroyed the possibility of lengthy disputes, which would certainly have arisen if the term consubstantial had been proposed to the council by a person who was not so decisive for all parties. The party of Eusebius, enjoying more and more increasing influence at court after the council, achieved, through the emperor’s sister Constance, that Arius was summoned from exile to the court soon after his condemnation. In 336, the council in Constantinople decided, as one might think, to accept Arius into church communion; On the eve of the (Sunday) day appointed for the implementation of this decision of the council, the emperor, deceived by Arius, who hypocritically signed the Orthodox symbol, deliberately summoned the elderly Byzantine bishop Alexander, instructing him not to interfere with the admission of Arius into the Church. Leaving the emperor, Alexander went to the Church of Peace (Irini) and prayed to God that he himself or the heresiarch would be taken from the world, since the bishop did not want to witness such sacrilege as accepting a heretic into communion with the Church. And God’s providence showed His just judgment over Arius, sending him an unexpected death on the day of triumph. “Coming out of the imperial palace,” the historian Socrates says about the death of Arius, “accompanied by a crowd of Eusebian adherents as bodyguards, Arius proudly walked through the middle of the city, attracting the attention of all the people. As he approached the place called Constantine Square, where a porphyry column was erected, horror, arising from the consciousness of his wickedness, seized him and was accompanied by severe pain in his stomach. Therefore, he asked if there was a convenient place nearby, and when he was shown the back part of Constantine Square, he hurried there. Soon after, he fainted, and his insides came out along with the stool, accompanied by profuse hemorrhoidal discharge and prolapse of the small intestines. Then, along with the outpouring of blood, parts of his liver and spleen came out, so that he died almost immediately.” Illyria is the common name in ancient times for the entire eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea with the areas lying behind it (present-day Dalmatia, Bosnia and Albania). Saint Athanasius the Great, Archbishop of Alexandria, who acquired the name "Father of Orthodoxy" for the latter's zealous defense during the Arian Troubles, was born in Alexandria in 293; in 319, Bishop Alexander of Alexandria ordained him a deacon. Around this time, Saint Athanasius wrote his first two works: 1) “The Word against the Greeks,” where it is revealed that faith in Christ the Savior has reasonable foundations and is a real knowledge of the truth, 2) about “The Incarnation of God the Word,” where it is revealed that the incarnation of the Son of God was necessary and worthy of God. These writings drew attention to Saint Athanasius, who then - as has already been noted - at the First Ecumenical Council, while still a young deacon, emerged as an intrepid and skillful denouncer of the Arian heresy. It is not surprising, therefore, that after the death of Bishop Alexander, Saint Athanasius, who was only 33 years old, was elected (June 8, 326) to the See of Alexandria. During the years of his episcopate, Saint Athanasius endured much sorrow from the Arians who persecuted him: suffice it to say that out of the forty years of his episcopal service, thanks to the Arians, he spent seventeen years: six months and ten days in exile. He died in May 373, occupying the department upon his return from exile. After Saint Athanasius, numerous works remained, divided in content into 1) apologetic, 2) dogmatic-polemical, 3) dogmatic-historical, 4) works on the interpretation of Holy Scripture, 5) moralizing, 6) and Easter messages, where, according to ancient custom, Saint Athanasius notified the rest of the churches about the time of Easter celebration, adding to these notifications instructions regarding faith and Christian life. About these writings, the Monk Cosmas notes that if you find any of the sayings of Saint Athanasius and do not have paper to write it down, then you should “write it down at least on your clothes.” The Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Athanasius twice: on May 2 and January 18, where his life story is written. Basil the Great was born in 329 in Caesarea in Cappadocia. His father and mother belonged to the noble families of Cappadocia and Pontus and had the opportunity to give their numerous children the best education for that time. In his eighteenth year, Vasily listened to the famous sophist Livanius in Constantinople, then spent several years in Athens, which was the center of higher philosophical education. Here at this time he developed close friendships with Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian); here he also met the future emperor Julian the Apostate. Returning to his homeland, Vasily was baptized and then ordained as a reader. Wanting to become more familiar with the monastic life to which his soul aspired, Vasily went through Syria and Palestine to Egypt, where monasticism especially flourished. Returning from here to Caesarea, Vasily began here to organize monastic life, whose representatives in Egypt amazed him with their exploits. Basil the Great founded several monasteries in the Pontic region, writing rules for them. In 364, Saint Basil was ordained a presbyter. As a presbyter, he successfully fought against the Arians, who, taking advantage of the patronage of Emperor Valens, wanted to take possession of the Caesarea Church. The protector of the oppressed and disadvantaged, Vasily, in addition, founded many shelters for the poor; all this, combined with an impeccable personal life, gained him popular love. In 370, Vasily was elected archbishop of his native city and, being a saint, entered the field of general church activities; through ambassadors he entered into active relations with Saint Athanasius the Great, which he also maintained through written communication; He also began a relationship with Pope Damasus, intending to unite the Orthodox to defeat the Arians and pacify the Church. In 372, Emperor Valens, trying to establish Arianism in the Church of Caesarea, wanted to shake the stability of St. Basil in Orthodoxy through threats. To do this, he first sent the prefect Ebippius to Caesarea with another of his courtiers, and then he himself appeared. Saint Basil excommunicated the heretical nobles from the Church, and allowed the emperor himself into the church only to bring gifts. The emperor did not dare to carry out his threats against the courageous bishop. Saint Basil the Great died in 378 at the age of forty-nine. The Orthodox Church celebrates his memory on January 1 and 30. – After him, the following works remained, representing a rich contribution to patristic literature: nine conversations for six days; sixteen discourses on various psalms; five books in defense of the Orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity against Eunomius; twenty-four conversations on various subjects; short and lengthy monastic rules; ascetic charter; two books on baptism; book about the Holy Spirit; several sermons and three hundred and sixty-six letters to various persons. Apollinaris followed the Greek philosopher Plato in his division of human nature into the body, the animal or vital soul, and the spiritual or rational Soul. Apollinaris died in 390. The heresy of Apollinaris was condemned by the Council of Alexandria in 362, although without mentioning the name of the heresy teacher himself. In 375, when Apollinaris, having separated from the Church, began to form his own sect, he was condemned by a council in Rome; the latter condemnation was repeated by the Second Ecumenical Council. It should be noted that subsequently, and precisely by the time of the Second Ecumenical Council, this party renounced its heretical teaching about the Holy Spirit, remaining, however, faithful to the assertion of the Semi-Arians, condemned by the First Ecumenical Council, that the Son is co-existent and not consubstantial with the Father. Therefore, the usual expression that the Second Ecumenical Council was convened “for Macedonia the Dukhobor” is not in strict accordance with historical reality. At this time, Theodosius the Great was only the Emperor of the East; having become the sole ruler in 392, the owner of both the East and the West, he dealt the final blow to paganism by issuing a law according to which serving the gods was recognized as the same crime as lese majeste. Therefore, only later (and in the West only in the 6th century), when the dogmatic definitions of the council, due to their special importance and dignity, were accepted by all Local Churches, the meaning of the ecumenical significance of the council was recognized by the entire Church. This schism arose in Antioch in the early 60s of the 4th century, when two bishops appeared in it at the same time - Meletius and Paulinus; both of them shared control over the Orthodox flock of the Antiochian Church and each had their own supporters, who were in irreconcilable hostility with supporters of the other side. Saint Gregory the Theologian was before the enthronement of the Church of Constantinople, being the bishop of the town of Sasim. Thus, the fathers of the council in the doctrine of God the Father, set out in the Nicene Symbol, “did not make any significant explanations” due to the lack of controversy in the Church about the First Person of the Holy Trinity; “Is it necessary to talk about the Father,” notes Saint Gregory the Theologian, “Who is not touched by common agreement (that is, in the absence of disagreements) by all those who are guided by natural sense” (that is, heretics). While the words “true God from true God” existed in the symbol, the expression “God from God” was a kind of repetition, which the fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council tried to avoid when they omitted the last saying. The words “before all ages,” which replaced the saying of the Nicene symbol “from the essence of the Father,” indicate with exhaustive certainty the pre-eternal birth of the Son of God, while the expression of the Nicene symbol: “begotten of the Father, that is, from the essence of the Father” and “consubstantial with the Father” “could lead to the idea that first followed the birth of the Son from the Father, and then His existence with certain properties.” Thus, the activity of the fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council, as can be seen, was not the abolition or change in essence of the Nicene Creed, but only a more complete and definite disclosure of the teaching contained in it, and the fathers themselves decreed as a rule: “let not the creed of the three hundred and eighty fathers who were at the council in Nicaea in Bithynia be abolished, but let it remain immutable.” Although in Greek, Slavic and Russian editions 7 rules are attributed to the Second Ecumenical Council, in reality only the first four belong to it, which are also mentioned by church historians of the 5th century. Rules 5 and 6 were compiled at the Council of Constantinople in 382, ​​the 7th is an abbreviation of the message made by the Council of Trullo (692) on behalf of the Church of Constantinople to the Bishop of Antioch Martyrius. Information about the life of Saint Athanasius is gleaned from his notes, called "Diariush", about his death - from a special story compiled by the saint's disciples, novices of the Brest Monastery, as well as from a short life compiled in Polish in 1666. His memory is also celebrated on September 5. Brest-Litovsky is now a district town in the Grodno province. Here we mean the Eastern Patriarchs, with whom the Southwestern Church of that time was in close union. Representatives of two patriarchs - Constantinople and Alexandria - were present at the Brest Council. Along with the union in the South-West of Rus', a new, Gregorian calendar was introduced, which received its name from Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in the West with a special charter in 1582; The Eastern Church uses the old Julian calendar, which now differs (lags behind) the Gregorian calendar by thirteen days. In the funeral poem to Saint Athanasius, who died in Brest, it is said that he was “slaughtered in his homeland”; this testimony (from the mid-17th century) can be understood in the sense of indicating the birth of the monk in Brest or its environs (see next note). Filippovichi (surname of Saint Athanasius) are burghers, mentioned in the acts of the city of Berestia (Brest) in 1637 and could be relatives of the saint. In the note that has survived to us, or “Diariush”; in the inscriptions are excerpts from the notes of St. Athanasius. Berestey school - was established by the blessed charter of Bishop Meletius (Khreptovich) of Vladimir and Brest on July 6, 1590. Taken away by the Uniates in 1597. Sigismund III reigned in Poland from 1587 to 1632. Inspector - the Latin word (inspector) - overseer. According to another piece of information, Luba lived for seven years in a monastery with St. Athanasius and there he studied reading and writing with him. Vilna Holy Spirit Brotherhood Monastery was founded in 1609. He was of great importance in the struggle of Orthodoxy against the union. – Kuteinsky-Bogoyavlensky was founded in 1623. – Mezhigorsky-Spaso-Preobrazhensky arose in the 13th century, is located twenty miles north of Kyiv, on the right bank of the Dnieper, in a valley between the hills. All three monasteries exist today. Duboi Monastery near the city of Pinsk, Minsk province. When it was founded is unknown. In 1636, the monastery was captured by the Uniates. Does not currently exist. The Jesuit Order was founded by the Spaniard Ignatius of Loyola and approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. His task is to fight Protestants and other enemies of the Catholic Church. Kupyatitsky Monastery, now defunct, was located in the Pinsk district of the Minsk province. The monastery was founded on the place where on November 15, 1182 the icon of the Mother of God appeared, named after the nearest village, called Kupyatitskaya. (See below about this icon of the Mother of God.) Peter Mohyla ruled the Kiev Metropolis from 1633 to 1647. A general sheet, according to which it was possible to collect alms throughout the south-west of Russia, and not in one specific area or povet. A provincial town in the Mogilev province. A place in the same province and district. A town in Mogilev province, Starobykhov district. District city of Chernigov province. The district town of the Oryol province, according to modern pronunciation Trubchevsk. Pavlyuk Karp Pavlovich Gudzan - Cossack leader, baptized Turk. His uprising began in 1637. On December 6 of this year he was defeated by the Poles, and in February 1638 he was executed. Chelsk Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya monastery eight miles southwest of Trubchevsk; in the 17th century it was assigned to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Kupyatitskaya, now located in the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral, is actually placed on the clamp of an isosceles cast copper cross with rounded ends. This icon is closely connected with the fate of Saint Athanasius, and he is constantly depicted praying in front of it. She is admitted to have appeared in 1182; after the defeat of southwestern Rus' by the Tatars in 1240 and the burning of the church in Kupyatitsy, it lay in ashes for about two hundred and fifty years; After her appearance to the pious wanderer Joachim, at the end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th, she was found and placed in the Kupyatitsky church built on the fire. Moved from Kupyatitsy to Kiev in 1655 on the occasion of the capture of the Kupyatitsy monastery by the Uniates. As is clear from the story of Saint Athanasius, a villager (named Theodore Dragomir) saw the saint’s heavenly Companion - the Most Holy Theotokos. District town of Oryol province. The monastery was founded unknown when, no later than the 16th century. In 1680 he was assigned to the Resurrection, New Jerusalem, monastery. Abolished in 1764. Currently, in its place is a church in honor of the Renewal of the Holy Church of the Lord in the city of Karachev, Oryol province. District city of the Moscow province. District town of Smolensk province. District city of Mogilev province. The Brest Simeon Monastery existed since the 13th century. In 1828, the monastery buildings were destroyed, and the site of the monastery was used to strengthen the Brest-Litovsk Fortress. This is Macarius of Kanevsky (by place of abbot) or Ovruchsky (by place of birth and tonsure), canonized by the Church; he was tortured to death by the Tatars in 1678 (his memory is September 7). King Vladislav IV, son of Sigismund III, reigned from 1632 to 1648. Residents of the city of Orsha, Mogilev province. Paramand, or analav, is a quadrangular board with an image of a cross; it is worn by monks on the chest under their clothes with the help of laces that are attached to the upper corners and thrown over the ramen. In ancient times, the analav consisted of two belts worn crosswise. According to church canons, a presbyter can only be judged by his bishop, and the latter was not at the Seimas. Innocent Gisel († 1684) is a famous southern Russian preacher and writer, author of the first textbook on Russian history. That is, a schismatic, or a heretic. The arrest of Athanasius was caused not so much by his fight against the union, but by political reasons. Around this time, the Russian government became aware of the existence in Poland of an impostor named above Luba; In 1644, the Moscow ambassador spoke to the monk about Luba, wanting to find out whether his former pupil called himself a prince. In Luba's letter, transmitted by Afanasy to the ambassador, there were indications that he called himself a prince, and the Moscow government demanded the extradition of the impostor. The king and senators defended him, but were finally forced to send him to Moscow for interrogation. Fearing that the Moscow government would not give up on its demands for the extradition of Luba, the Polish authorities arrested Saint Athanasius in the hope that the fate of the abbot would not touch the tsar and the boyars and whether they would therefore treat the fate of Luba more leniently. The arrest could also have been influenced by the fact that the Polish government suspected that Afanasy had pointed out to the Moscow ambassador the impostor who had been forgotten at that time. The development and evidence of this idea was caused by the fact that the Jesuits claimed that Russia received Holy Baptism from Latin preachers and in ancient times was dependent on the Pope. This story, for its brevity, warmth and strength, is placed here almost in its entirety, translated into the Great Russian dialect. In May 1648, Vladislav IV died and kinglessness was declared, during which time captur courts, or temporary courts, were usually established in the voivodeships, in charge of criminal cases relating to the gentry (nobility) class. The Nativity of Brest Monastery existed already at the end of the 15th century. At the end of the 16th century, during the unrest after the introduction of the union, the Uniates took possession of it. By decree of King Vladislav IV, the monastery was again returned to the Orthodox. Now it doesn't exist. Gaiduk is a lightly armed warrior, infantryman. A convoy is a mobile fortified camp. Of course, the Jesuits and their Uniate assistants. That is, from the city of Brest. According to the legend of an ancient short life, Saint Athanasius was beheaded with a sword, and when he was led to execution, he turned to the Orthodox with an exhortation to stand for the true faith and predicted the triumph of Orthodoxy in the Western region. This is how the “story” tells about the death of the saint. Where the honest relics of Saint Athanasius are now found is stated below. This life was translated into Russian in 1805 by students of the Kiev Theological Academy and sent to Brest, where it was included in the local chronicle. See “Lives of the Saints” in Russian, set out according to the guide of the Chetyih-Menya of St. Demetrius of Rostov, book 9, month of May. Memory I and At that time, Byzantium was at war with the Persians. Evidence of the use of the name Theotokos from early times is found in the Church of Alexandria (in Origen, Bishop Alexander and St. Athanasius the Great), in Caesarea Cappadocia (in St. Basil the Great), in Caesarea Palestine (in Eusebius of Caesarea) and in Constantinople itself (in St. Gregory the Theologian). The so-called “volume” of St. Cyril. Because of his uncle and predecessor in the department, Theophilus, excommunicated by Pope Innocent I - unfairly, in the opinion of St. Cyril - from the Church. These anathemas are as follows: 1) “Whoever does not confess Emmanuel as the true God and therefore the Holy Virgin Theotokos, since in the flesh She gave birth to the Word who is from God and became flesh, let him be anathema. 2) Whoever does not confess that the Word, who is from God the Father, was united with the flesh hypostatically, and that therefore Christ is one with His flesh, that is, one and the same is God and at the same time man, is anathema. 3) Whoever in the one Christ, after the union of natures, separates persons, uniting them only by a union of dignity, that is, in will or strength, and not by a union consisting in the unity of natures, is anathema. 4) Whoever applies the sayings of the Gospel and Apostolic books, used by the saints about Christ or about Himself, separately to two persons (hypostases) and applies some of them to man, whom he represents as different from the Word of God, and others, as God-worthy, to the Word of God the Father alone, is anathema. 5) Whoever dares to call Christ a God-bearing man, and not true God, as the Son one with the Father by nature, since the Word became flesh and came close to us, taking on our flesh and blood (Heb. 2:14), is anathema. 6) Whoever dares to say that the Word of God the Father is God or the Lord of Christ, and does not confess Him Himself as God and together as man, since, according to the scriptures (John 1:14), the Word became flesh, is anathema. 7) Whoever says that Jesus, as a man, was an instrument of the actions of God the Word and is surrounded by the glory of the Only Begotten, as existing separately from Him, is anathema. 8) Whoever dares to say that man received by God should be worshiped with God the Word, should glorify Him together with Him and together call Him God, as one in another, and does not honor Immanuel with one worship and does not send Him one glorification, since the Word became flesh, anathema. 9) Whoever says that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Spirit in the sense that through Him he used, as it were, an alien power and from Him received the power to overcome unclean spirits and perform divine signs in people, and does not honor Him with His own Spirit, through Whom He performed miracles, is anathema. 10) Whoever says that our high priest and intercessor was not God the Word Himself, when He became flesh and a man like us, but someone else, different from Him, a man descended from a woman, or whoever says that He offered Himself as an offering and for Himself, and not for us alone, since, not knowing sin, He had no need for an offering for Himself, let us be anathema. 11) Whoever does not confess that the Lord’s flesh is life-giving and actually belongs to the Word of God the Father Himself, but belongs, as it were, to someone else, different from Him and united with Him in dignity, that is, having acquired only the Divine dwelling within itself, and does not confess His flesh to be life-giving, since It has become the own of the Word, which can give life to everything, is anathema. 12) Whoever does not confess that God the Word suffered in the flesh, was crucified in the flesh, suffered death in the flesh, and finally became the firstborn from the dead, since He is life and life-giving, like God, is anathema.” Although the number of bishops of the council extended only to 160, the fact is that many of those present at the council had the authority to sign for others who were absent. About this activity of Saint Cyril, see the following essay, dedicated to the memory of the IV Ecumenical Council. Explaining the last words of the letter of the Antiochian bishops, Saint Cyril notes: with this they “affirm not that some names are befitting the Word of God the Father, as the Son taken separately by Himself, and others - Him begotten of a wife, as another Son again distinct, but that some are befitting His Divinity, others to humanity.” Monophysite heretics, or, translated from Greek, co-naturalists, were so called because they taught about one Divine nature in Christ Jesus - about the complete merging in Him of the Divine and human nature with the absorption of the latter by the former. Valentine taught that the body of Christ was created by the Creator from the ethereal matter of the sky. Apollinaris taught that the Lord Jesus Christ was not a complete, complete man, since He did not possess a rational soul, which in Him was replaced by the Divine. This is how the cathedral was named for the first time by contemporary Pope Leo the Great, who became a true stronghold of Orthodoxy in this difficult and difficult time for the Eastern Church. Pope Leo died on November 10, 461. His memory is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on February 18/March 3. In the highest message addressed to Dioscorus, Archbishop of Alexandria, we read: “We command Theodoret of Cyrus not first to come to the council, as soon as it pleases the whole council, so that he too will be present at it. If any disagreement arises regarding him, then we command the council to meet without him and decide what is commanded.” Apparently, this removal of Theodoret from the council was conditional, but, in essence, due to the predominance of Eutyches’ supporters at the council, it was final. History knows nothing about the upbringing and education of Dioscorus: it knows only his activities as a person imbued with hostility to the truth, jealousy of error and hatred of the name of St. Cyril for his activities in the creation and defense of the union. According to his dogmatic views, Dioscorus was a pure Monophysite and even before the Council of Constantinople was in relations with the Monophysites of all countries, who acted under his leadership, headed by Eutyches. When the cause of Eutyches arose after the Council of Constantinople, Dioscorus naturally took his side. The struggle for hierarchical primacy also prompted him to do this. The bishops of Constantinople, due to their closeness to the emperor, acquired primacy of honor among all the bishops of the East and exclusive influence on church affairs. The Alexandrian Church, being more ancient and, moreover, of apostolic origin, could consider itself to have more rights to this primacy. The case of Eutyches opened up an opportunity for Dioscorus to appear as a judge of the Patriarch of Constantinople and, therefore, to take precedence over him. It should be noted that Dioscorus, in order to apply it to Flavian, incorrectly interprets the Rule of the Third Ecumenical Council, which prohibits changing the symbol, as a prohibition of all theology. Marcian expressed his Orthodoxy mainly by convening the IV Ecumenical Council; He declared it immediately after his accession to the throne, when he ordered that the remains of Archbishop Flavian, who died in exile, be transferred and solemnly laid in the Constantinople Church of the Holy Apostles, where the bishops of Tsaryrad were buried. Then Marcian ordered the return from exile to their sees of the bishops expelled as a result of condemnation at the “robber” council. The Fathers of the IV Ecumenical Council testify about Pulcheria that she “spent her whole life in prayer” and that she “conversed in the psalms.” The memory of the Holy Blessed Queen Pulcheria is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on September 10/23. A decree on this was issued on September 1, 451 and read: “Divine affairs should be preferred to all activities. And since some perplexities have been raised regarding our Orthodox faith, it is good for us that a holy council be held in Nicaea, so that with the general consent of all, after an accurate investigation of the truth and after the elimination of all bias, which some have already abused and outraged Orthodox piety, the true faith will be revealed more clearly and there can no longer be any doubt or disagreement. If military campaigns do not interfere, we ourselves will personally attend the venerable council.” In Paphlagonia. Dioscorus died here in 454. The question of the heretic Eutyches was not considered by the fathers of the council; it is known, however, that Eutyches was exiled at the end of the council. The first such decree was issued by the emperor on February 7, 452. “He is wicked,” the decree says, “who, after the truth has been established, through disputes and reasoning, finds a new truth. For the future, let no cleric or person of any other rank dare to publicly gather crowds of people and talk about the faith. Such an act is an insult to the council: to discuss again what has already been determined by the council means not to trust it. Those who despise this law will not escape punishment: if a cleric dares to publicly argue about faith, let him be excluded from the list of clerics; if he is a military man, let him lose his dignity, and let people of the common class be expelled from the capital.” In subsequent decrees, the emperor repealed all legalizations of Theodosius the Younger, directed against Orthodoxy and its defenders: Flavian of Constantinople, Eusebius of Dorylaeum and Theodoret of Cyrus. Remarkable is the decree of June 28, 452, by which the Eutychians, or Monophysites, were prohibited from: 1) having special clergy; 2) make separate church meetings and build monasteries; 3) the Eutychians make spiritual wills and receive according to them; 4) be in military service. This addition was introduced in Antioch by the Monophysite Peter Fullo, who arbitrarily proclaimed himself Archbishop of Antioch: he taught that the Son of God suffered for us in Divinity, and not in humanity, and therefore, due to the consubstantiality of the persons of the Holy Trinity, God the Father and the Holy Spirit suffered with the Son. This is precisely what the noted addition to the Trisagion meant in the form of the words: “crucified for us.” At first, the chapters meant those chapters or paragraphs into which Justinian’s decree was divided: according to the number of anathematized persons and chapters, there were three in it. But soon the original meaning of the expression “three chapters” was lost and the very faces of Theodore, Theodoret and Iva began to be called chapters. “We should not dismiss the court, apply the judgments of the ancient fathers who gathered at Chalcedon. A council about which there has been no doubt for so many years should not suddenly lose its respect; its definitions cannot remain firm if they touch even one part of it and consider it worthy of blame. Everything that was approved at this council must always have firmness. If anyone wants to shake one thing in the cathedral, he will shake all its definitions. If, in the definitions of faith of this council, it was as if some kind of sweet water flowed from the lips of the former bishops, then how is it possible that from the same lips in the case of Bishop Willow, not sweet water flowed, but the bitterest bile? It would be in vain to tell us: the fathers of Chalcedon were good in faith, but they did something bad in accepting the message of Iva. If one part of the council's activities is not approved by someone, there is a danger that the entire council will not be approved. The Apostle said: little leaven leaves the whole mixture (1 Cor. 5:6). Therefore, if in the whole mass of patristic definitions even a small proportion of an acidic mixture is revealed, the whole mass will have to be recognized as harmful.” “What is the use of fighting with the dead or causing trouble in the Church because of them. If a person, while still alive, is accused and condemned and, before he had time to earn permission, is taken from this world, then permission cannot be made regarding such a person by anyone. If someone was accused of something and then received permission and went to God in peace with the Church, the human court can no longer condemn such a person.” “No one can impose his opinion on others who think differently. Of course, everyone can express in writing what he thinks in the form of a statement of faith, but, however, not in order to force others to accept what he has written. How much the holy and illustrious teachers worked in preaching the word, whom the Lord Himself, through the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, called to teach the believers and to fight heretics - but they never required a signature on their books. The Apostle said: let two or three prophets speak, and let the rest reason (1 Cor. 14:29). But he doesn’t say anywhere: let them sign or let them force them to sign. He commands to diligently test what is said, so as not to fall into error through gullibility. No one is forced to accept what anyone says on an equal basis with the sayings of Holy Scripture, but it is left to everyone’s judgment as to what he will accept and what he will reject. For this reason alone, there is no need to subscribe to what anyone has said, because this takes away the opportunity to subsequently think differently, even if later the truth has been revealed throughout the world. A pious researcher seeks the truth, but is in no hurry for what he finds to be immediately accepted by others, and he himself is ready to agree with those who think better on this issue.” Diptychs are memorials, or remembrances. Their name is borrowed from pre-Christian antiquity and generally refers to those objects that are folded in half; actually, diptychs were two tablets connected together, covered on the inside with wax, on which notes were made with a pointed rod - style; on the outside of the boards they were covered with various kinds of drawings. The Church, having accepted diptychs into worship, replaced external decorations of a secular nature with sacred images. It is believed that diptychs appeared during divine services in the Church already in the time of the apostles; in the 4th century they were already in general use. Diptychs had several types: 1) baptismal ones, into which those worthy of holy baptism were entered; 2) diptychs of the living, in which the names of those belonging to a famous church were recorded; 3) diptychs of saints and 4) diptychs of the dead. In the last kind of diptychs, first of all, local bishops and bishops of other dioceses, distinguished by the holiness of life, were recorded; then priests and laity were brought in. Commemoration of diptychs during the celebration of the Eucharist was considered a special honor; therefore, the names of those persons in relation to whom sins or errors were discovered that were hitherto unknown were always excluded from the diptych. During the days of the council, the pope addressed the emperor with a special essay, Constitutum, where he expresses his opposition to the condemnation of the “three chapters.” “We should not think,” said Theodore, “that God was born from the Virgin. God the Word was not born of the Virgin Mary, but he who was of the seed of David was born of Mary” (that is, man). “Immediately at the very conception, God the Word began to be in the Man Jesus, for He was present in him not only during his ascension into heaven, but also during his resurrection from the dead, precisely as the One who raised Him. And not only at the resurrection, but also at nailing to the cross and at baptism and after baptism, as well as before baptism, when he fulfilled the decrees of the law and when he was wrapped in swaddling clothes at the time of birth; God the Word was also in him when he (the man Jesus) was in the womb of his Mother from the first moment of his conception.” “We must make a distinction between the church (Man-Christ) and the one who moved into the church (God the Word); between the one who is released from the bonds of death and the one who freed; between the one who became perfect through suffering and the one who made perfect; between the one who is less than an angel and the one who has diminished; between the one who is crowned with glory and honor, and the one who crowned; between the one to whom the works of God’s hands have been subjected and the one who has subdued” (Ps. 8:5-8). “The expression,” says Theodore, “elevated by the Spirit (Matthew 4:1) means that Christ, as a Man, was guided by the Spirit, He was directed to what was due; They were taught what they should do.” “God the Word loved him (the Man Jesus) much; abiding in him, God the Word, having given him immortal life and making him unharmed, immortal and unchangeable, elevated him to heaven.” “Finally, too late and violently, an evil man died,” the message said. “For good and beneficent people move there before their time, but evil ones live long.” And he, the unfortunate (Cyril), the Ruler of our souls did not leave, like others, to enjoy what seems to be entertainment any longer, but knowing the malice of this man, which was growing daily and harming the body of the Church, he cut off, as it were, some kind of ulcer and took away the reproach from the sons of Israel. His departure delighted the survivors, but perhaps saddened the dead. We must take care to order the society of bearers of the dead to place some very large and heavy stone on the tomb, so that it does not come here again and again begin to prove unsteady opinions. I rejoice and delight in seeing church society freed from this kind of infection. God sees and does not despise: He put a bridle on his mouth and a bit on his lips and returned him to the ground from which he was taken.” “Again,” writes, by the way, Theodoret from Ephesus, where the Third Ecumenical Council was meeting at that time, “Egypt (that is, Saint Cyril) is mad against God, is at war with Moses and Aaron and his servants (that is, with Nestorius and his supporters), and a very large part of Israel agrees with the opponents. There are extremely few sensible people (that is, those who share the heresy of Nestorius) who voluntarily take up labor for piety. Venerable piety has been violated." Sergius sent a message to Cyrus with the following reasoning, which developed the Monothelite teaching: “To follow the doctrine of two wills would mean to assume in Christ two wills that are opposed to each other: the will of God the Word, who wants to commit saving suffering, and the will of human nature, which opposes the Divine will. And thus, to introduce two people who want the opposite of one another, which is wicked. It is impossible for two wills that are opposite to each other to be present in one person. The teaching of the Holy Fathers clearly suggests that the animate flesh of the Lord never made its natural movement on its own and according to its own desire, contrary to the beck of God the Word united with it, but made movement when, what and how much God the Word Himself wanted. To speak more clearly: just as our body is governed by the rational soul, so in Christ His human nature was always and in all things governed by the Divinity of the Word, and was moved by God.” “Is it possible,” asks the pope, “who live among the (poor) people and through the labors of their hands with great effort to earn their daily bread, seek a complete knowledge of the Scriptures? We preserve the lawfully compiled definitions of the saints of our predecessors and holy councils - we preserve them in simplicity of heart and without any ambiguity. As for secular eloquence, we do not think that in our time it is possible to find anyone who can boast of high knowledge, because in our countries the uprising of various peoples is constantly raging, who either fight among themselves, or flee apart and plunder. Unlearned people have no worldly eloquence.” It should be noted here that when determining the number of members of the council, it is customary to count, in addition to those who were personally in Constantinople, another one hundred and twenty-five names of bishops who signed the conciliar letter to Constantinople of Pope Agathon and occupied sees near the Roman Church. Meetings of the council in 680 took place: November 7, 10, 13,15; December 7; in 681: February 12–13; March 7, 8, 18, 20, 22, 28; April 5 and 26; August 9; September 11 and 16. The Pope quotes the following words of Apollinaris: “The one Christ was aroused in activity only by the Divine will, as a result of which we recognize one action in him, arising both in miracles and in suffering from His one composite nature. For He is and is confessed to be God incarnate.” North, by the way, said: “Since there is one Acting One, then His action is one and one active movement.” In the work of Nestorius “Excellent Instruction” there was the following passage: “We keep natures unfused, united only by will, and not by nature, and indeed, we see that by equality of dignity they revealed one will, action and domination.” Theodosius of Alexandria, in his book to Theodora Augusta, writes: “It remains to recognize that the action of both natures is the same - deified; Our Lord Jesus Christ has one and the same wisdom, omniscience and knowledge inherent in God both in Divinity and in humanity, because we recognize one action worthy of God.” Theopolis was a synonymous word for Antioch.