Forgotten book: “The search for the schismatic Bryn faith”

Contents What is faith? Blames of schismatics against holy things See also: “The search for the schismatic Bryn faith” On October 28, 1709, Metropolitan of Rostov Dimitri (Tuptalo) reposed in the Lord and, according to his will, was buried in the Rostov Yakovlevsky Monastery. The Lord was pleased to glorify His ascetic, zealot and teacher of Orthodoxy with above-earthly glory. Forty-three years later, under Metropolitan of Rostov Arseny (Matseevich), on September 21, 1752, during the remodeling of the church floor at the burial site of the Saint, his honorable relics were found incorrupt. After examining and accurately verifying both the incorruptibility of the relics and the miracles that occurred from them, the Russian Orthodox Church on April 22, 1757, canonized Metropolitan Demetrius and celebrates the memory of this miracle worker twice a year: October 28 (November 10), on the day of his death, and September 21 (October 4), on the day of the discovery of his relics. Now the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery has been restored, and pilgrims can again venerate the holy relics of the saint of God, metropolitan and wonderworker of Rostov. Of the works of Saint Demetrius, the most remarkable are, firstly, the Cheti-Minea, on the compilation of which he worked for more than twenty years. The second major work is “Cell Chronicle, or Synopsis,” which sets out the events of biblical history with a moral and instructive purpose. Saint Demetrius is also known as a fighter against the Old Believer schism. In those days, the Old Believers had already split into many factions. Many of their monasteries were located in the Volga region, along the Kerzhenets River and in the Bryn forests, from where Old Believer agitators dispersed almost unhindered throughout the Russian land and seduced simple and gullible people into schism, spread their false teaching, tearing people away from the bosom of the Orthodox Church in the same way as modern sectarians do. When he was metropolitan in Rostov (from 1702 to 1709), Saint Demetrius often traveled around his diocese, met with schismatics here and saw the terrible consequences of their activities for his flock. Warning his flock against schismatics, Saint Demetrius said in one of his sermons in 1706: “The demonic birds - the schismatics, who flew away from their nest in Bryn, taught many to run away from the Holy Church... lying and deceiving simple men and women and saying: now the church is no longer the church, the priests are not priests.” Believing that “it is not proper for a shepherd to be obsessed with sleep when wolves are plundering the flock,” he, as a good shepherd and zealot of Orthodoxy, in order to strengthen those who waver and return the lost to the true path, began writing his third thorough work entitled “Search for the schismatic Bryn faith” (“search” means inquiry, clarification of circumstances; “Bryn” - after the name of the place from which schismatics came, Bryn forests). Immediately after writing the book, the Saint himself sent it out in a district message to all spiritual authorities and to his flock. Having revealed himself in this great work as a deep and comprehensive researcher of errors, the Saint revealed the very spirit of schism, alien to Gospel truth and love. The sometimes harsh tone of denunciations was caused by the harshness of schismatic writings. But even in this work one can hear all the depth and vitality of love for the salvation of the lost. At the conclusion of “The Search,” the Saint prays to the Lord for the conversion of those who have fallen away from the Church to the path of truth. In 1745, “The Search” was first published and then reprinted many times. The latest editions of this book were published in the 19th century in Moscow (1855) and Kyiv (1877). In our time, most of the works of St. Demetrius (Lives of the Saints, “Cell Chronicle, or Synopsis”) have already been republished. As for “The Search for the schismatic Bryn Faith,” not only has it not been republished, but, apparently, it was decided to consign this book to complete oblivion so as not to offend our touchy Old Believers. But other church and parachurch publishing houses with enviable consistency publish books whose authors, in the words of the schismatics, “undermined the scientific foundations of Nikonianism,” and therefore are quoted by them with great pleasure. Among them, the most revered professor and member of the State Duma from the Progressive Party N.F. Kapterev. Pseudo-historical works by modern apologists of the Old Believer schism M. Danilushkin and B. Kutuzov are published, throwing mud at the Russian Orthodox Church. The schismatics themselves at the publishing house "Church" took care to republish the essay by emigrant S. Zenkovsky on the schism, which was first published in Germany. They also do not forget about “The Search”: in their periodicals this work of St. Demetrius is constantly reviled, quotes taken out of context are given from it in order to prove the most common schismatic lie - that the saint spoke disrespectfully about the old rituals. The hatred of the schismatics towards Saint Demetrius is caused both by the invincibility of his arguments, and especially by the fact that he exposes the heretical views of Habakkuk. The hatred reaches the point that they demand to “decanonize” Saint Demetrius, who denounced schismatics and defended the Orthodox faith. Thus, in the dictionary “Old Believers” (it was published in 1996 by the same publishing house “Church”, which belongs to one of the priest’s concords), the following is written about this book by St. Demetrius: ““Search” is full of abuse, slander and rather naive forgeries.” We will understand what the authors of the dictionary mean by “abuse, slander and forgery” a little later, and we will begin our review from the first chapter of “The Search.” Saint Demetrius begins his “Search” by posing the following questions: “Is schismatic faith a right faith and is it an old faith?” He answers both of these questions in the negative. Saint Demetrius considered the schism to be the fruit of the same ignorance that was characteristic of his flock, but ignorance combined among the schismatics with stubbornness and unprecedented blasphemies against the Church. Throughout the entire book, the Saint never tires of repeating that Orthodox people hope to receive salvation and grace not in visible and tangible things, not in antiquity or news of them, but only in immaculate faith in what is invisible with our carnal eyes. Since the schismatics justified their disagreement with the Church by their zealous adherence to visible and tangible things - ancient icons, eight-pointed crosses, seven prosphoras, old books, two fingers - the saint gave his own explanation on each subject. About icons: “We do not distinguish between old and new icons, but we equally venerate the new ones as well as the old ones. And when we bow to the holy icon, we bow... there is no dilapidation, no news... but we look at the shrine, we honor the shrine and we worship the image of what is inscribed.” About the cross: “We honor the cross not for the number of its ends, but for the sake of remembering the suffering of the Lord. It is not the cross, but Christ, crucified on the cross, who saved us, and we are not called Christians by the cross, but by Christ himself; and God is not the cross for us, but Christ is our God. The holy cross, whether it is four-pointed, or eight-pointed, or has many ends, is equally revered.” About prosphora: “And about prosphora we say that the Sacrament is performed neither in five prosphora nor in seven prosphora, but in one, from which the Lamb will fly. It’s amazing that there is a dispute among schismatics about the number of prosphoras. And in the primacy of the Church, in the days of the Apostles, the Liturgy was celebrated at a single prosphora, as if Christ the Lord Himself was given over at the Last Supper. Subsequently, others join in with the one, for the sake of remembering the names, and a bloodless sacrifice is made for them.” About books: “We know about old books and about new books that they are one in essence, just as old and new icons are one in essence. A change in certain speeches in books is a change in faith: new books teach us to believe in the same God, in whom the old ones do; The new books contain the same dogmas of faith as the old ones; and there is no contrary teaching in the new books, as well as in the old ones. And if they changed a certain saying, they did not distort it, but corrected it. And when the schismatics say that the holy fathers were saved by the old books, then they are lying out of their foolishness, for the holy fathers were not saved by the dialects and speeches of the books, but by their virtuous lives... Who is saved neither by the old sayings of the books, nor by the new ones, but by their good deeds and immaculate faith.” It is clear that what the Saint said also applies to the very commonly used strange expression “about the saving and gracious old rites.” Avvakumism - heretical doctrine of the Holy Trinity Now let’s talk about what the authors of the Old Believers dictionary mean when they accuse St. Demetrius of “rather naive forgeries.” Since in their dictionary the epistles of Avvakum to Ignatius (the deacon of the Solovetsky Monastery) are called forgeries (without any justification), and it was in these epistles that Avvakum set forth his heretical teaching about the Holy Trinity, about the Incarnation of the Lord and about the Descent of the Lord into Hell, then, one must think, the analysis of this particular document in the first part of “Search” is what they call a “naive forgery.” These messages of Avvakum gave rise to a special schismatic interpretation of “Avvakumism”, or “Onufrievism” (named after the founder of the sect, a certain Onuphrius from the Beglopopovites). At the end of the 17th - in the 18th century, in the Kerzhen monasteries not far from the Bryn forests, fierce disputes took place between those schismatics who saw heresy in these messages and the faithful disciples of Avvakum. Ignatius, who died in 1687, did not declare the falsity of these messages, just like Avvakum’s fellow prisoner, former deacon Fyodor, to whom letters were written on the same topics. Disputes also took place in Moscow in 1706. But the debate was not about the forgery of the messages, but about the teaching set forth in them. That is why they were called controversial, and at the arbitrariness of the current authors of the Old Believers dictionary, they were called fraudulent. Now, in order to refute the accusation of heresy against Habakkuk, who was declared a “saint,” modern schismatics say that these messages are “forged,” and they accuse St. Demetrius of “naive forgeries,” who received the schismatic lists from their own hands. About the Holy Trinity. In his epistles to Ignatius, Habakkuk wrote: “Believe the triessential Trinity... Smite the unseen in equality, do not be afraid, one being into three beings of the same nature... To each a special seat, the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the three Kings of heaven sit without hiding. Christ sits on a special throne, co-reigning with the Holy Trinity.” About the Incarnation of Christ. To explain the “special sitting” of the Son of God and Christ, Habakkuk also invented a new teaching about the incarnation of Christ: “Az Habakkuk, so I confess and believe, the property is immovable, but God poured out the Word into the womb of the Virgin, the natural power of the being, that is, perfect grace, the power is harnessed to God’s will, having willed and poured out to himself ineffably, and the most the creature is by no means unrelenting. I confess in the womb of the Virgin the power of the Divine, and not the Divine Being itself came from the most exalted, but an unspeakable providence. Having descended from heaven by the power of His grace to us all into the Most Pure Virgin. Affirm: “All goodness, and all being, grief with the Father is inseparable.” Saint Demetrius, denouncing the new heresy, writes: “Behold, among the schismatics there has already become not a Trinity, but a quaternity: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the fourth person is Christ. Habakkuk says, for God poured out the Word into the Virgin’s womb, not Himself, but the power of His natural being... Behold, that wicked teacher, by confessing his harmful faith, teaches in the likeness of Nestorius, as if it was not the Son of God Himself who was incarnate in the Virgin’s womb, but only pouring out His power and grace into Her... and as if the Son of God Himself did not come from heaven to earth. And so, according to his thinking, there became two Sons: one with the Father in heaven, and the other incarnate in the virgin’s womb, sent from that Son who is with the Father in heaven. Where is such faith heard? When did such a faith exist in Russia? Is this the old belief? Is this a destructive heresy, contrary to the old holy faith, disgusting to God, but joyful to the devil? These heretical views of Avvakum were rejected by most of the Old Believer rumors and agreements, and, according to the dictionary, they were ultimately rejected by Onuphry himself and his disciple Erofei Andreev. It is generally accepted that Avvakumism in the form of a special sense has not reached our days. However, traces of it, apparently, have been preserved in some non-priestly movements. So, for example, a writer and schismatic of an unknown persuasion, V. Lichutin, at a round table in the editorial office of the newspaper Zavtra (1998, No. 12), spoke in defense of the heresy of Avvakum and said, as if quoting that controversial message: “Rus believed from the heart. And the Trinity was understood as three sitting - Jesus Christ, God (as in the text) and the Holy Spirit - they sit at the battle table and eat dishes... All three are alive” (as in the text). “The Nikonian Church,” according to Lichutin, “refused to explain to the people the tricky issue with the Trinity” and declared that “one must simply understand the Trinity as living, consubstantial and inseparable” and thus “took away from the people the very core of joyful faith.” So Avvakumov’s wisdom has not been forgotten, and therefore it is not useful for us to familiarize ourselves with them using the documents cited in “Rozysk,” especially since all their lists have probably been destroyed long ago. Blames of schismatics against holy things What do the authors of the dictionary mean by “slander” in the “Search” of St. Demetrius? Most likely, part three, where he talks about “schismatic affairs”: about self-immolations of many thousands, about starvation, about communion with raisins and other perversions that even the priests recognize as “the darkness of errors.” But there is no place to talk about them here, so let’s talk about why St. Demetrius “scold” the people from the Bryn forests. Those who have read the work of the Saint themselves understand that schismatics call the denunciations of the shepherd “abuse” - denunciations similar to those with which our Lord Jesus Christ betrayed the scribes and Pharisees when he called them hypocrites, brood of vipers and sons of the devil. Saint Demetrius calls the schismatics false teachers, false rumors, madmen, bullshit talkers and whore talkers (that is, idle talkers, see G. Dyachenko’s Dictionary of the Church Slavonic Language). Did St. Demetrius have any reason to use such harsh words in relation to (as they say to themselves and as journalists write about them in newspapers) “pious and innocent Old Believers”? There were plenty of reasons, which Saint Demetrius makes a detailed investigation of in the second part of his book. He asks: “Is there blasphemy against holy things in their teaching?” And then he cites these blasphemies, referring to genuine schismatic writings. Here are some examples. About the blasphemy of the honorable four-pointed cross, Saint Demetrius writes this way: “They blaspheme the honorable four-pointed cross, calling it the roof of Rome, an empty cross, which in the Old Testament was the osmoko-pointed cross, the abomination of desolation, the Antichrist idol and the seal of the Antichrist. What are their blasphemies and their letters will be remembered here. Avvakum Rospopa writes: “How the devil so deceived the poor Russian people: they are clearly going to destruction; they loved the Roman whore - a four-pointed cross, more than the true cross, from three trees created, from cypress, and chevron, and cedar, and on it, on the four-pointed one, they write the crucifixion of Christ. And so it became the Polish roof, the bastards of the Roman church...” A certain ancient schismatic scroll has come into my hands, full of lies, heresy and blasphemy against the Church of God; in that scroll is written a blasphemy against the four-pointed cross of Christ, calling it an idol or an idol of the Antichrist, and an abomination of desolation standing in a holy place, and a cursed tree. This is also worthy of ridicule: they blaspheme the four-pointed cross of Christ, labeling it with the seal of the Antichrist, and mark it with the four-pointed cross; for they are marked with the seal of the Antichrist (according to their whoredom), and they are not Christians, but anti-Christians. Befits you, O schismatics! those who abhor the four-pointed cross, but those who love the osmoko-pointed cross, be marked not by the four-pointed cross, but by the osmoko-pointed cross, depicting first the title on the forehead, and create an extension to the navel, also on the shoulders the breadth of the cross, then draw the foot slantwise on the belly: and thus, according to your faith, you will be true Christians.” (p. 465). About the heretical blasphemy of the fold of the cross: “The fold of the cross to the sign of the cross [they] call the seal of the Antichrist. Sitsa in their heretical blasphemous scroll is written: “Whoever marks his face with a pinch, that is, three fingers, he has rejected Christ and surrendered to Satan; for this there is the seal of the Antichrist.” There's a scroll here. So they now have two seals of the Antichrist: one seal of the Antichrist is a four-pointed cross, the other seal of the Antichrist is a cross fold” (p. 485). “I saw in the lists from the letters of Avvakum that it is written that the false teacher taught the double-fingered constitution, but swept away the three-fingered, whorely speaking to the woman: “Then the Nikonian race will weep for not confessing the pure Only Begotten, the two natures of deity and humanity flocked together for our salvation, but signifying three fingers into three unclean spirits, the essence of demons, like frogs, goes out to the whole universe: blessed is he who watches and guards his garments, so that he, my fathers and brethren, will not find himself naked. Until here is Avvakum’s whore talk” (p. 486). “A false interpretation, a common and great blasphemer appeared to be Habakkuk, incorrectly interpreting the words, even in the Apocalypse, in chapter 16, written to the mother: “I saw from the mouth of serpents, and from the mouth of animals, and from the mouth of a lying prophet, three unclean spirits, like frogs coming out,” and so on. He, with his crooked sense of words, points to our trusty constitution, so that we, with three fingers, are marked into three unclean spirits, and into three frogs, going out into the universe. By directing this, he blasphemes the Most Holy Trinity, in Her name we signify with three fingers, saying: in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And he calls the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the God we call upon, three unclean spirits and three frogs. O grave blasphemy! O godless blasphemers! O godless wickedness! Who has ever heard such blasphemy against the Most Holy Trinity? no heresy, nothing less than wickedness, blasphemed the Most Holy Trinity, just as Habakkuk the blasphemer blasphemed. This is the kind of teacher the schismatics have for themselves, this is what they follow, this is their orthodoxy. Packs, schismatic scroll, folding blasphemy to the sign of the cross, drawing a hand, three fingers folded by the possessor; on one finger there is written sa, on the other that, on the third on, si is Satan; and the signature, as if that name is the vile fighter against God, the Antichrist, he will give on the right hand of those who believe in him. And he blasphemes us, the faithful, because we believe in the Antichrist, and not in Christ, and we wear the name of the Antichrist on three fingers, and we are marked by the name of the Antichrist. It is more fitting for them schismatics to write a demonic name on their Armenian double-fingered constitution: on one finger de, on the other mon, and so on their two fingers a demon will sit, which they have long carried in their hearts, and they listen to him, and teach him in the spirit, they philosophize blasphemous and false things against the Church of Christ. But the God of vengeance, the Lord, the God of vengeance, will reward them according to their deeds, and will destroy them according to their wickedness.” In the same schismatic Scroll, Saint Demetrius read that it was written in the large printed Trebnik on page 659: “If anyone does not cross himself with two fingers, as Christ did, let him be cursed.” When he took the Trebnik to check the link, he discovered “a schismatic lie; in the press it is written: if anyone does not baptize; They add this, “-sya,” unless someone is baptized. This is how they deceive ordinary people with their lies, adding to what is written what is not written, just as they added “-sya”: otherwise there is someone to baptize, and another to baptize yourself. Consider this with sound reasoning: was Christ the Lord baptized with the sign of the cross while living on earth as a man? Did He form His fingers like the sign of the cross on Himself? Was the sign of the cross performed in the saints who followed Christ, the Apostles, or in the former prophets and forefathers, before the suffering of Christ?” About blasphemy against the name of the Lord “Jesus”. Saint Demetrius addresses the schismatics who “blaspheme and defame the Holy Church because we allegedly changed the name of the Savior, instead of Jesus writing Jesus, and they abhor that most holy name Jesus.” Explains that in Greek the name of the Savior is written with two vowels, pronounced differently in different languages: in Latin - Iesus; in Greek - Iesus. “It is from them, the Greeks and we Russians, that we write and speak the most holy name, together with the Greek Orthodox faith.” Due to the unusual nature of double-vocality in the Russian language, Russians began to pronounce this name briefly: Isus (cf. Iakov - Yakov; Ioakim - Yakim, etc.). It was not adherence to “old rituals and books,” but such unprecedented blasphemies of schismatics against the Church and holy things that were the reason for their excommunication from the Church at the Great Moscow Council in 1667. They were the reason for the harsh words of Saint Demetrius, who ended the search for blasphemy with these words: “And who does not ache in his heart about the annoying blasphemies against the Church of God, from their rotten mind and lips, like from the abyss of hell, emanating? Moreover, who would not be pained by their very error and destruction, those who deceive and those who are deceived? The church is like a high stone, standing in the middle of the sea, and being beaten by the waves of the sea day and night, it is not damaged: blasphemers, like waves breaking on a stone, are missing” (p. 531). A shepherd like Saint Demetrius could not help but ache in his heart for those who deceive and those who are seduced, and therefore he patiently explained the meaning of all the errors that he found in the then-writings of the schismatics. It is unlikely that modern “Bryanians” will want to read the explanations of St. Demetrius in his “Search.” But they could at least read the arguments of the Old Believer I.G. Kabanova-Xenos (1819–1882). This man learned Greek and tried to find out what the Old Believers were right and wrong about. After many years of research, in the “District Message” he compiled (1862), Xenos exposed many “ignorant rumors and unorthodox wisdom of the Bespopovites, which originated among the Bespopovtsy and spread among the priests.” This is what is written in the Old Believers dictionary, and one might think that they copied this phrase from St. Demetrius. It so happened that in the middle of the 19th century, the Old Believer Xenos denounced the same wisdom of the schismatics, over whose denunciation Saint Demetrius struggled at the beginning of the 18th century, namely: 1) as if one can be saved without the priesthood; 2) as if the “dominant”, that is, the Orthodox Church, “contains the spirit of Antichrist”; 3) that “the New Believer spelling Jesus is the name of the new god (read – Antichrist), in whom the Nikonians believe”; 4) against blasphemy against the four-pointed cross, as if it were the seal of the Antichrist; 5) against the assertions that the Antichrist came, if not sensually, then spiritually, and reigned. So what? Did the schismatics believe Xenos? Not at all. Because of this “District Message,” the priests split into “okrugniks” and “non-okrugniks,” and then, for the sake of achieving unity, it was decided to completely consider this message “as if it had never happened.” Xenos spent the last 12 years of his life in complete solitude. Despite the obvious correctness of what was said in the “District Epistle” for many Old Believers, most of them continue to proudly say that they consider Orthodox people to be heretics, that newly printed books are “damaged” (on purpose, at the instigation of the Latins), many are not averse to talking about the “spiritual Antichrist”, and others about the “sensual”. Three hundred years have passed, but some schismatic schools still blaspheme and defame the Church for the name “Jesus”, for the fact that it “contains the spirit of Antichrist”, and that it venerates the four-pointed cross. So, for example, the modern zealous propagandist of the Old Believer schism and fighter against “Nikonianism” B. Kutuzov in his extremely illiterate writings explains that visiting occultists advised Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to change the five-letter name “Isus” to the six-letter “Jesus”. “The possibility cannot be excluded, and much confirms this,” writes B. Kutuzov, “that it was precisely for the sake of the symbolism of the occult that it was necessary to change the spelling of the name of the Messiah, adding one letter to achieve the desired six,” and it is not far from it to the number of the Antichrist. I wonder who advised the godless Bolsheviks to correct the tsar’s mistake, abolish “ъ” and thereby return (at least in Russian texts) the “saving five-letter system,” and at the same time condemn the Old Believers to the “four-letter system”? In conclusion of this essay, I would like to say once again that the “Search” of St. Demetrius of Rostov is remarkable not only as a polemical work against the schism, but, most importantly, as a source of positive teaching about the Orthodox faith, about the honorable Cross, about the last times - a teaching presented with the simplicity, clarity and edification characteristic of the Saint. Anyone who had the opportunity to get acquainted with this book understands that it has not yet lost its relevance both due to the expanding propaganda of schismatics in our time, and due to the lack of anti-schismatic works written not by secular historians, but by such an intelligent and kind shepherd as the ever-memorable miracle worker of Rostov remains for all of us.