Personality, society and church

Contents I. L.A. Тихомиров. Introduction Chapter 1. Social life and its meaning. Глава 2. Церковь, её свойства и значение II. K.P. Победоносцев I. Л.А. Тихомиров 1 . Introduction Currently, many complaints are heard about various shortcomings of religious life, both one’s own and that of others; many people are looking for religious life and claim that they cannot find it due to certain conditions of modern life. What are these conditions that impede religious existence? They talk about this differently, blaming absolutely everyone and everything. What needs to be done to find the unrealized religious life we ​​are looking for—they also talk about this differently. But in general, less attention is paid to the most important thing - to the correct relationship between the individual and the Church in religious life. Meanwhile, our religious ills almost certainly depend most of all on the development of religious individualism, in connection with the weakening of collective religious life. Since childhood, all of us have memorized the dogmatic provisions about the one-saving Church, but the significance of common church life for religious existence now appears to us only in the form of some kind of bookish formula, the real meaning of which we no longer grasp well. We all know the close social connection of the first Christians, but we are inclined to explain this by special virtue, while on the contrary, the spirit of faith and virtue was generated in them as a result of their close and friendly church life. Ancient Christians understood why they personally needed the Church, society, and why they themselves were needed for this society, and what this mutual need obliged them to do. That is why religious life had such an all-consuming significance for them. Now the situation has changed. Religious life does not use up all a person’s strength, because its content in his understanding has become very narrow. What is religious life? They usually answer: “communication with God.” But what is this communication? What is its content? What are its consequences in the content of our lives? The ancient Christian understood all this perfectly well, but in most cases today’s Christians hardly understand. One of the consequences of the narrowing of our ideas about the church idea is the fact that one of the most powerful “worldly” concerns is now bursting into our worldview, and then into the practice of life, to an ever more abnormally expanded degree, namely about the social order. For all its importance and even height, the social idea is, in fact, lower than the church idea in its content and global significance. In fact, the social idea begins to obscure the church idea in the minds, and there are even tendencies to place the religious idea in the social environment, to absorb the Church into society. Human society, as a global phenomenon, captivates minds with its strength, harmony, and beneficence. An almost religious reverence is transferred to the social environment. “Live for society,” “live in public interests” are not empty words for many of the best people of our time, but an expression of their greatest moral content, for which they are ready to give their lives, because without it their life would be empty and meaningless. The church idea has dimmed in their minds. What it means to live for society seems clear to everyone. The question of how to invest one’s strength in this service also seems clear. But what does it mean to live for the Church? Does this mean becoming at least a psalm-reader? Go as an official of the spiritual department? Church life begins to seem like only some special corner of human life, an environment for “satisfying religious needs,” just as there are institutions for satisfying aesthetic needs, etc. This erasure of the church idea by the social idea constitutes an extremely harmful and dangerous phenomenon for the individual and humanity. This is a deception that seeks to distract us from the highest life and plunge us into a relatively low one. This is a deception that seeks to strangle the higher life, subordinating it to the lower, and to drown out in us humans the source of our true strength. To avoid this danger, modern man must understand as best as possible the real relationship between the Church and social life and the true place of his personality in both manifestations of society. Chapter 1. Social life and its meaning. Four lives in Considering the general world life, we see in it, as it were, several floors rising one above the other - special categories of phenomena or processes: inorganic life, organic life, animal life, and spiritual life. Man is embedded in all these categories of phenomena, descending to the lowest and ascending to the highest. All these categories of phenomena are subject to the general law of unity, the existence of a collective, collective. Each category of phenomena implements this law in its own way, and each of them constitutes only some substratum for the higher strata. Buries of inorganic nature form the subsoil for organic life, and this latter, in turn, for animal life. In the animal sphere, society arises, and organic life provides the subsoil for social life. In turn, the social life of those beings who possess a spiritual element provides the basis for church life. At the same time, the trenches of the lower layer each time clarify something for us in the laws of the higher one, since they do not completely disappear in them, but only obey a new higher organizational principle. In the early days of the development of social science, sociologists and biologists were equally amazed by the similarity of biological and social phenomena. The combination of cells and organs, harmoniously subordinate to each other, involuntarily resembled the structure of society and the state, and the reverse structure of society reminded the sociologist of the structure of the body. Hence the organic idea appeared in sociology, our public was placed in the category of biological phenomena, of a higher type. A socio-philosophical idea was born of man as some immortal collective being, in which individuals are nothing more than changing cells of one organism. This imaginary collective being - Humanity - was even elevated by Auguste Comte to the rank of deity, whose religion has not yet completely disappeared. However, the similarity between the organism and society, which so amazed sociologists, depends solely on the fact that the laws of indefinitely lasting cooperation find application in both the organism and society. But this is where the similarity ends, because the individuals included in cooperation in the body (in biology) and in society (in sociology) are completely different, and therefore the very nature of their cooperation represents the deepest differences. In society, therefore, we have a special layer of phenomena, which can be called the superorganic world. From a purely natural science point of view, it is possible, in a general schematic formula, to say that in the body simple protoplasmic cells enter into cooperation, and in the public there are only nerve centers. This huge difference means that in biology there is cooperation of living matter, and in sociology there is cooperation of individuals. The substance, embraced by that mysterious process that we call the living state, merges into cells, which in turn, at the slightest joint approach, merge with each other into more complex aggregates, and form an organism. It is not enough to say about cells that they have the ability to merge into the body: they are simply unable to resist merging. So, if several pieces of Circinaliunm concrescens, being in close proximity, grow to the point of contact, they merge into one, so-called “colonial animal.” Manobiae confluentes, starting to jointly suck out some grain, connect with their rays and also merge into a colony, although they can sometimes disintegrate again. Ordinary sponges live independently in their youth, but then, attaching to one place, they immediately begin to merge, and a separate sponge, depending on where the accumulation accidentally ends up, becomes either a feeding organ, or a digestive organ, or an ejection channel. In general, the law of simple living matter consists in fusion, the result of which is an organism. But with the cooperation of organisms, this fusion no longer exists. Here is a personality that, through cooperation, is not destroyed, but remains itself. And so social phenomena, social connections, occur only in the animal world, where there is an individual, a personality, and the entire connection is based not on the basis of the general properties of animal matter, but on an exclusively psychological basis, on the basis of feelings, ideas and will. These personalities are only in communication, but do not merge, and are even incapable of merging, for their very essence lies in individuality. If the individuals merged, they would be destroyed. Organisms, unlike simple living matter, are able to maintain their lives only while they are separate and themselves manage the functions of their organs. If we decided to turn an entire organism into only a heart, only into lungs or a brain, in general only into a special organ, this organism would immediately die. The public is of the greatest importance for the individual, for the person. Sociality is a law of existence, but a law that is not externally imposed on a person (like the laws of inorganic nature or even the laws of our physiology), but is created by the properties of our own feelings, ideas and will. Divine creativity contains in the personality traits everything necessary to draw us towards social life. The habit, originated in childhood, is then supported by the need to exchange impressions, which constitutes the basic psychological property of every animal. This property irresistibly attracts people to each other, even apart from everyone! utilitarian calculations, but simply because this exchange gives each individual, as it were, an enhanced sense of his life. So, the very feeling of life directs towards the public. In the same way, reason also attracts us to the same thing. Society is the most favorable environment for human development. In this regard, the importance of society is so great that, of course, without it a person could not be a person. It infinitely increases and refines the powers of the individual, putting at the service of each the powers of all others and their means. Society is a repository of the experience, knowledge and material resources of previous generations, thanks to which the newly born powerless individual immediately enters into the free possession of means that he could not even dream of under other conditions. Society, finally, is a great school for developing the independence of the individual, in a whole system of subordination and command. By increasing a person's strength a thousand times, society consequently develops in him a consciousness of his strength and dignity. In a social environment, a person feels like the master of the world, a supreme being. In the most slavish societies there are proud aristocratic strata, whose ideals of personality sooner or later become a model for the rest of the people. But despite all the benefits of the social environment for human development, it does not represent a complete and ideal environment for him. The reason for this is that the human personality is not only animal, psychological, but also spiritual. Direct control over society is given to man himself, and society everywhere is what people want it to be. A person, in everything for which he has enough God-given strength, arranges his social life as he wants, according to his psychology, according to his feeling, will and reasoning. This gives, in society, enormous practice of human independence. But the very thing that develops each member of society does not make it possible to create an ideally high environment, as high as the potential of the nature of the human personality. In a social environment, it is not just one person who acts, but an entire set of people of approximately equal strength, and the general course of life develops as the resultant of this multitude of component forces. This makes the social environment inevitably very low, on average, compared with the aspirations of its best people. And this circumstance is completely inevitable, forever inevitable. Moreover, in society there is no single personality that would merge within itself, as separate parts, the psychological forces of all individuals, giving them an ideal order of relationships. Therefore, a person is not satisfied with the social structure, cannot place all of himself in it without a trace, and constantly feels that this structure is not complete, does not provide everything that a person and his creative power need for the fullness of life. Such a complete, complete transformation of the human personality, which his spirit craves, is possible only in a new social order, where the highest organizing element is God, that is, in the Church. Chapter 2. The Church, its properties and meaning True religion - Christian - distinguishes religious collectivity into a special system - the Church, which does not merge with the social system and is a supra-social public. The difference between the socio-political environment and the church environment is very significant. The organizational principle in society is the human personality, a mental element. The organizational element of the Church is God, the Divine Person, the spiritual element. Hence the difference in defining the purposes of the building. In the first case, goals are determined by a person. in the second case, by God. In society, a person works for his own household, in the Church he is God’s steward. From here further comes the difference and the Social element in the Church. since a person still enters church life, with all his mental properties that require a social system, then in church life the social laws of cooperation, mutual assistance, and joint action are also repeated. These laws, noticeable even in the organic world, highly developing in the social world, become even more subtle and deeper in the church system. Not only an observation, but a positive explanation of St. Scripture tells us that The spiritual gifts in us are different, and yet the goal of holiness is completeness of perfection. It thus turns out to be unattainable except by one’s own spiritual life. A person in the Church needs its other members in exactly the same way as a citizen of society cannot do without his other fellow citizens. The Apostle Paul explains this well in his letter to the Corinthians (Ie. xii. 7-12). “To each,” he says, “the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit: to one is given the word of wisdom by the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit; to others gifts of healings by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another divers tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All this is done by one and the same Spirit, dividing it out to each one individually, as He pleases. For just as the body is one, but has many members, and all the members of one body, although they are many, form one body: so is Christ.” At the same time, “the eye cannot say to the hand: I don’t need you; or also head to feet: I don’t need you” (21). Everyone, therefore, needs each other. The interests of the members of the body of Christ are in solidarity. “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it (26). Therefore: it is not necessary for there to be division, but rather for all members to equally care for each other. This need for solidarity and mutual assistance constitutes a positive Divine law, not for any material interests, but for spiritual life, for its fullness. “You are the body of Christ, and individually you are members (27), repeats the Apostle. The Epistle to the Ephesians (IV, 15-16) requires that we “return all things into him who is Christ, from whom is the whole body, which is composed and held together by every mutually binding bond, each member working to its own measure. Everyone acts, but achieves only together. In the letter to the Corinthians quoted, the Apostle says that “God made some apostles, others prophets, others teachers; to others he gave miraculous powers, also gifts of healing, help, government, etc. These gifts were not given all to one person at once, but to different ones, and not the same. “Are they all Apostles? is everything prophets? are all teachers? Are everyone miracle workers? Does everyone have gifts of healing? do everyone speak in tongues? are all interpreters?” It is quite clear that every person does not have comprehensive holiness, at least most of the time during which he sought holiness. But with mutual help, everyone can to use the fruits of a gift that another Church has, which is why it is easier to sanctify oneself. “Serve,” says the Apostle Peter, “one another with the gift which you have received, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (I Peter IV, 10). This mutual assistance in spiritual life establishes a close and necessary connection between members of the Church. On the basis of the same mutual assistance of differently gifted members of the Church, the hierarchy of sacred rites is also structured. Human society can only be metaphorically called an “organism,” and if it constitutes a legal personality, it always remains an association of individuals. In the Church, on the contrary, individuals represent parts of the one body of Christ. In their collectivity lives One Person - Christ, which does not and essentially cannot exist in a social environment. The likening of the Church to a “body” is no longer a metaphor, but a definition of a fact, made equally by all the Apostles and Fathers. The Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians that God “has set Him (the Savior) above all things, the head of the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (I, 22,23). Comparing the marriage relationship with the relationship between Christ and the Church, he says: “Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her”... The Lord cares for the Church: “For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but he nourishes and warms it, just as the Lord does the Church, because we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones... This mystery is great. I speak in relation to Christ and the Church." (Eph. V, 29, 30, 32). This indwelling of Christ into the Church—a great mystery—gives church society something that is not found in the social environment—as it were, the character of a collective individual. Removing a Christian from the Church dismembers Christ. “Command and convincingly instill in the people,” say the Apostolic Constitutions (pp. 94, 95), “to diligently go to Church... and not at all abandon the meeting... so that no one by his removal from it will cripple the Church, and will not make the body of Christ without a member... Do not neglect yourselves, do not take His members from the Savior, do not separate the members of His body, do not waste His members.” Religious isolation is thus a grave sin against the body of Christ. 2 The social environment, as created, remains with its laws and qualities—it remains “this world,” and not the Kingdom of God. The Church, as a special, new order of life, is needed because the laws of social life are incapable of giving what the Church gives. In the general economy of world life, a social system is necessary because simple organic life is incapable of producing a developed personality. The development of a mentally, spiritually developed personality is the task of social life. But the development of a personality - with the character of a spiritual being - requires a new system, namely a church one, a system where the organizing personality is the Divine. It is impossible to give spiritual functions to the social environment, because a person lives in it precisely insofar as he has not yet given his spiritual element dominance over the spiritual. When this happened, there was no need for a social environment. The social environment is needed by the House of God as the lowest order of personality development. But there is an uncrossable line between the social and church environments—in their organizational element. Ideal order exists where individual parts are interconnected by natural relationships arising from their very nature, and therefore indisputable, unchangeable and giving complete satisfaction to everyone. But such an order of relationships is possible only where the units are added up around their natural center. God is the only force and authority around which people could group naturally, indisputably, each receiving his own place. But in the social environment, in society, only conditional, contractual power can arise. No matter how you arrange it, people are equal by nature. Although there is inequality of abilities between them, this inequality is mobile and changeable. Some were more capable than others, and then became weak and lost their advantage. One is more capable than others in some respects, but inferior to almost everyone else in other respects. Some, based on the abilities of their ancestors, took first place, and then suddenly much more powerful geniuses appear among the “smerds”... Therefore, there is no natural power, one that would contain strength in itself, in society. Her combinations change constantly. Social power has to be built artificially, and then social harmony has to be established on this artificial power and on the system rights. But law is a contractual system, and what we ourselves have established, we ourselves can cancel. Therefore, the only way to support the centers we create, and our law, is an element of coercion, violence, because law will not support itself. However, coercion cannot be made unshakably strong, because the desires and strengths of people change. People who were stronger yesterday and established a certain system of coercion to maintain social harmony, today find themselves weakened and unable to maintain order. They are being replaced by others who want to establish a different law, a different system of coercion. To find out who is stronger, who should give in and submit, very often it is impossible other than by measuring strength. Therefore, struggle is the eternal destiny of this juridical, legal system of order that characterizes the social system. In the Church, on the contrary, there is an unshakable spiritual center: God. Grouping around Him, people naturally group with each other, in those natural relationships that depend on their spiritual state. The Divine Center provides for our spiritual element the same harmonious path of grouping as, for example, chemical affinity provides for the grouping of inorganic elements. Here the right is not only unnecessary, but also impossible, because everything is determined by the natural balance of forces. Here, legally, there are no rights or obligations, here is the Spirit of the Lord, and therefore freedom. But here we also sing about the possibilities of personal arbitrariness, for the individual in the Church lives by spiritual nature, in which the will of the individual itself coincides with the will of God, which arranges everything in the Church. Accordingly, the entire church system is formed, its forms, its power, its subordination, since these terms of the social civil system can be used in relation to the Church. The entire church system is arranged so that the members of the Church are living members of the body of Christ, their relationship should be adapted to the greatest possible mutual sanctification, the greatest possible service of all to each other with their spiritual gifts, and so that in the entire totality of the members it is the will of Christ that lives and continuously directs all the actions of this body. All members of the Church are bound together by gifts and powers that come solely from Christ and belong solely to Him. Strictly speaking, in a legal sense, there is no authority or authority in the Church, and everyone is subordinate to each other within the limits specified by the gift of Christ. This does not reduce church discipline, but gives it a moral character, and retains for the believer a certain obligation to reason about whether in the actions of the authorities there is undoubtedly observance of the service for which it must be obeyed. St. Ignatius the God-Bearer writes to the Ephesians (chapter 5): “We must accept anyone whom a householder sends to rule his house in the same way as the one who sent him. Therefore, it is clear that the bishop should be looked upon as the Lord Himself.” “Try to do everything in the same mind of God,” he writes to the Magnesians, “since the bishop presides in the place of God, the elders take the place of the council of the Apostles, and the deacons ... are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ.” He repeats this to the Trallians and Smiryans. Such testimonies are the same among the Fathers. “The bishop is a guardian for the people,” we read in the Apostolic Constitutions.” The bishop, being the head, should not listen to the tail, that is, the layman. The bishop is to “rule over his subordinates” (p. 39). “A layman should honor, love, and fear a good shepherd as a lord, as a ruler, as a high priest of God, as a teacher of piety.” “Consider them your rulers and kings” (63). So, the power seems to be enormous. But in the Church, the criterion of everything is Christ, and not people, no matter how high their visible service is. This gives the individual enormous independence, which is a responsibility. The same “Resolutions” read: “Listen, bishops, listen also to you, laymen, as the Lord says: I will judge between a sheep and a sheep and between a ram and a ram... For both sheep and rams are intelligent, and not dumb, so that a layman should ever say: I am a sheep, and not a shepherd, I did not pay any attention to myself, therefore the shepherd will see, he alone will bear punishment for me... For as A sheep that does not follow a good shepherd is left to the wolves to be destroyed, and one that follows a bad shepherd will certainly die. Therefore it is necessary to flee from the shepherds of the destroyers. And further: “A bishop, overcome by ignorance or malice, is no longer a bishop, but falsely bears this name: chosen not by God, but by people (pp. 251–252). So, a member of the Church constantly tests everything with Christ. He remains intelligent and not a dumb sheep. Moreover, no matter how small he is, he is still the bearer of some gift, some power of Christ, and for some reason he is needed for others, even stronger ones. We saw above the explanation of this gift of all by the Apostle Paul, who even said that the weakest members of the body receive special care. And here is the characteristic passage of the Apostolic Constitutions: “Let none of you be proud of your brother, even if he were a prophet or a miracle worker... For to be pious depends on the prudence of each one, and to perform miracles depends on the power of Him by whom they are performed. “Likewise, let the bishop not exalt himself before the deacons or elders, nor the elders before the people, because the assembly is made up of both. (pp. 250–251). “The assembly is made up of both”: here is a characteristic reminder that Christ is in collectivity, in common life, that Christ from Whom alone are all gifts, all power, all government in the Church. The consciousness that the fullness of Christ abides only in the whole Church was expressed in the fact that all life, the activity of the Church, was accomplished in the closest togetherness of all members. Since power belongs only to Christ, and Christ acts in the integral Church, the conciliar principle permeates the church system. At the same time, we must remember that the idea of ​​conciliarity does not consist in the predominance of the majority, but in the complete unanimity of all members of the Church. There is not the slightest doubt about this. It should only be noted that Christianity is not in form at all, but in spirit. A meeting of even a small number of people can express the feeling, thought and desire of everyone, if only to express the will of Christ, who is in the Church, and the entire body of members!”, without physically being at the council, recognizes the decision as if it were his own and sincerely repeats after those who were at the council: “It has pleased the Holy Spirit and us”... The point is not in the material form, but in the spirit itself, which requires the complete togetherness of all members of the Church. The apostles, who received power from Christ Himself, however, did everything together; Listening not to themselves and not to people, but to the Holy Spirit, they sometimes completely personally decided on very unusual deeds, but these deeds immediately became the property of the entire Church. So Ap. Peter independently baptized Cornelius and other pagans, and this even created some temptation for a moment, but after listening to the Apostle, the Christians “calmed down and glorified God. So, the essence of conciliarity is not in the external form of assembly, but in the internal unity of common thought and will. But the need for unity naturally led to general meetings and decisions. It was expressed in the election of persons of holy orders. In “Acts” it is unclear who made the election of the Apostle Matthew to the place of Judas Iscariot. And the Apostle Peter spoke at the same time to a whole assembly of 120 people. As for the new establishment of deacons, it was carried out in a purely conciliar manner (Acts VI, 1–6). The First Apostolic Council decided on behalf of all the brethren (Acts XV, 22–29). The election of bishops by the people was a general rule in ancient times. According to Zonara, the word itself—consecration—received its origin from these elections, at which the people raised their hands in agreement. But the meaning of these elections is not to represent the “public will,” but to preserve the complete togetherness, the spiritual unity of believers. By remaining intelligent and not dumb sheep, the laity submit to Christ and not to men. Likewise, the bishop submits to Christ and not to the public will. This spirit is manifested both in the fact of the election of bishops and in their almost limitless power over the people and clergy, who, however, are obliged to protect the will of Christ, who lives in the entire body of believers, and not in one priesthood. With all the changes in the administrative system in the Church, we Orthodox Christians still remember this. The Message of the Eastern Patriarchs, even in modern times, points out to Roman Catholics that “neither our Patriarchs nor our Councils could ever introduce anything new, because our guardian of piety is the very body of the Church, that is, the people themselves” (Par. 17). The enormous, one might say, all-determining significance that the collective life of the church has for personal religious life makes the question of the church system extremely important. The church system has as its task to ensure that every person can, to some extent, truly remain a member of the body of Christ. We now care very little about the correctness of this condition of religious life, and yet, in our time, even for the purposes of personal religious life, it has much more significance than in those eras when the direct disciples of the Apostles lived among those seeking salvation. Preserving the correctness of the church system for a member of the Church is incomparably more important than preserving the correct political and social system for a citizen of a secular state. Citizens, out of prudence and understanding of their interests, should not allow some of the general foundations clearly required by the laws of human psychology to be undermined. But in all secondary constructions of publicity and statehood, citizens are completely free to choose. They build for themselves and for themselves, therefore, they have the power to act according to their own taste and consideration. No one can deny their right to build their society in the way that seems more convenient to them, even if mistakenly. This is not the position of a member of the Church in relation to his church system, which is determined by the will of God in order for the collectiveness of people to become the living body and abode of the Savior. This abode must be such as it pleases the Savior to have it. We can leave the Church, we can refuse to serve the Savior as His abode. Everyone is free to be with God or without God. But if we want to be a living church of God, then we must have exactly the kind of relationship with each other, the kind of collective system that the Lord requires. Here our will must certainly be in harmony with the Divine will, and if this were not the case, then our church, by the very fact of divergence from God, would cease to be the Church. This ecumenical, Apostolic-Conciliar inviolability of the church system is a necessary condition for personal religious life. The distortion of this system creates a practice of life that is contrary to the true faith, and gradually paves the way for the distortion of dogma. And the saving significance of dogma depends entirely!” depends on whether we live and act according to the content of his formula. It is impossible to imagine that a person will truly remain in connection with God if he has become careless about the Church or arrogantly believes that the Church is not needed for him. Exactly the same arrogance would be manifested in our choice of certain aspects of churchliness and rejection of others. To say to myself: I need to live in the Church, because it introduces me to the sacraments, but I don’t need its management—this would mean that the person who argues this way has completely lost the concept of the Church as the living body of Christ. In the same way, you cannot say to yourself; Church governance is necessary and must be reasonable, but we ourselves can come up with its forms no worse than the ancient Church came up with. This, in any case, would constitute a break with the ancient Church, with the Councils, the Apostles, that is, a departure from the Universal Church. Moreover, we cannot think of anything better. To establish the forms of such a subtle organization, to adapt the general laws of social life to the tasks of spiritual life—people could not have created this on their own. This construction, imbued with an element of the mysterious, could only be done by God. Every Christian finds in the eternal foundations of the church-created system, at every stage of his spiritual development, the best conditions for success, the most help for his spiritual life. On the other hand, no matter how spiritually poor he is, he still contributes something to the Church. In the Church he is not a slave to anyone other than Christ. The church organization was precisely created to maintain such a unity of people that is required by spiritual life, where man, while never leaving Divine discipline, always, however, remains an independent and conscious being. People on their own could not have created anything like this, because only through the presence of Christ in this collectivity does it become not a dream, but a reality. If we tried to create something similar, but without the real presence of Christ, we would get a system either anarchic or despotic, not even comparable with our social system. But this indispensable presence of the Divine element limits changes in the ecclesiastical order to only minor adaptations to historical or national peculiarities. But in essence, this system is adapted by an omniscient will to psychological and social laws, which are eternal, so that the adaptation to them established from the beginning of the Church will forever remain the same. It is impossible for us humans to dare to rebuild the work of the Holy Spirit. For a member of the Church to preserve this structure is not some kind of external legal obligation, similar to observing the “constitution”, once it has been established. No, this is the preservation of the necessary norms of collective religious life, leaving which means leaving life itself. We have been talking so far about the system that gives each individual one or another place in the church body. But this church organism lives not only in the form of internal communication and interaction of these small “cells” - people. The Church has world tasks, participation in which is inevitable for everyone who does not leave this great body, does not break away from it in its historical march of the Church among the peoples and states of the human race. The religious life of an individual has as its goal participation in the Kingdom of God. But the world goals of the Church consist precisely in preparing a place for the Kingdom of God, which is opening for some now, and by the end of the centuries should open for all who are called to salvation, and a new earth and new heavens will replace the present world. This goal is realized by everyone partly in the process of their personal development. But the Church also carries it out in the historical process, embracing all peoples and eras with the net of the Kingdom of God in order to select all the “good fish that were, are and are yet to appear in humanity. Anything that is salvageable must not be left out; The Gospel of the Kingdom must be preached to all peoples: the means of salvation that the Church has at its disposal must be delivered to everyone; Obstacles to hearing preaching and enjoying spiritual life must be removed from everyone. This enormous historical work of creating the universal body of Christ from people of all tribes and times is carried out in a continuous struggle with the opposition of evil forces, with “the mystery of lawlessness, designed to destroy the work of God’s Providence, which, as Revelation positively warns!, will have enormous successes in history, and will be defeated only by the second coming of the Savior, at the moment of the seeming complete triumph of evil and the terrible defeat of truth. All Christians are called to this continuous struggle against evil, which seeks to maintain power over the world, as “God's stewards, as good soldiers of Christ. Each person, to the best of his ability, must take part in this mission of the Church. It's hard to figure out how huge strength, tension of mind, feelings, love for Christ and for people, and hatred for the Principle of Evil - requires Christians to participate in the historical mission of the Church. It is enough to point out the worldwide preaching and the inclusion of all peoples in the Church. But beyond that, in order to fight for the cause of God, it is necessary to carefully monitor the course of world history in order to notice in it the actions of the “mystery of lawlessness” and interfere with its successes. Here a huge work opens up for Christian thought, science and practical action. And all this is service to the Church, the fulfillment of our duties as members of the body of Christ. A certain improvement in social life is undoubtedly the responsibility of the Church and its members, creating also a very extensive area of ​​\u200b\u200bcare. Christianity in this regard has done a lot in history, and, in essence, it was they, its lessons, its spirit, that suggested many improvements made by unbelievers not because of any special grace given to them, but simply because they all received the original lessons from Christianity. But in the same area of ​​cultural improvement, it is precisely unbelievers who are stirring up enormous anti-Christian forces. Remembering the lessons of Christianity about works of mercy, but devoid of grace, forgetting about God and the spiritual side of man, unbelieving progressives create cultural ideals leading to the complete decline of the human personality, they set material well-being as the main goal of culture, and in its implementation they dream of replacing personality with institutions, reaching in socialism the transformation of man into an impersonal wheel, a purely mechanical economic system. In all these ideals, the Church is ugly copied, with the all-life-giving God replaced by some kind of mechanical or even material force. Here one can feel the action of the “mystery of lawlessness,” which seeks to take Christianity away from humanity by imitation of the appearance of its spirit. This entire huge area of ​​not only “false teachings”, but “false actions” requires resistance from Christianity, which must stand guard so that, under the banner of culture and improvement of forms of life, the enslavement of people is not being prepared to the spirit of evil, the “prince of the world”, who discourages people from God, certainly not in order to give them in return at least purely material, animal happiness. Thus, a huge work faces the Church, which must lead the Kingdom of God through millennia of world struggle, and how can a member of the body of Christ not participate in this work if he is only alive and not dead? Active solidarity with the tasks of the Church in the world process of the struggle between good and evil, Christ and Antichrist, is also part of our life in Christ, if we do not belong to those about whom it is said: “You have a name as if you are alive, but you are dead,” “I know your deeds: you are neither cold nor hot... I will vomit you out of my mouth,” and “You say that I am rich, I have become rich and have need of nothing, but you do not know that you are unhappy, and pitiful, and poor, and blind, and naked." Much more could be said about the work of individuals in the Church. But I think that what has been said is enough to show why our religious life is poor, dry and unsatisfactory for us. She became individualistic, more individualistic than is allowed by true religious feeling for its vitality. Churchliness, the greatest manifestation of human collective life, has become so narrowed that in the eyes of many it has become poorer than statehood. What it means to live in a state and for the state is clear. And what it means to live in the Church and for the Church is hidden before our eyes... But is it really possible to live the Christian religion like this? Let us imagine, although in general terms complex in content, great in tasks, deep in capturing our spirit, full of labor in varied work, our life as it should be in the Church, with Christ: if we compare our actual, so-called religious life with this, then fear takes over. Are we with God, live the way we live? And if it is impossible to be like this with God, then how much is our religious “quest” worth, in which we say “Lord, Lord,” but stubbornly do not do what the Lord indicates? How could there not be a languor of spirit and wandering here? We take so little help from the Church and contribute so little into the life of the body of Christ that we ourselves create in ourselves a complete impoverishment of the gifts of God and deprive ourselves of life in Christ. We, they say, “are looking for God”... But God can only be found where He is, that is, in the Church and in life by His life. One word “religion”, “church” will not help. Only by entering with all the fibers of our being - whoever has what - into this spiritualized “suprasocial” environment, which is the body of Christ, does a person find his true home, feels himself “at home”, in his real environment. But to be in it means to live the whole life of this body of Christ, to receive from it an influx of spiritual juices, to transfer to it an increased talent, to participate, according to the nature of the gift received, in life-giving activity, encompassing the destinies of the least of men, and the destinies of nations, and the destinies of the whole world. And if we do not take or give anything of this, then we do not live a religious life! What is essential in each religion can hardly be expressed, clarified on paper or in a certain formula. The most essential, the most persistent and precious in church belief is elusive, inaccessible to definition, like the variety of light and shadows, like a feeling formed from an endless series of successive sensations, ideas and impressions. The most essential thing is connected and intertwined by many such muddy roots with the mental nature of each tribe and with the general principles of moral worldview that have developed in it that it is impossible to separate one from the other. People of different tribes and different churches can, in many respects, when meeting, in mutual communication, feel like brothers and shake hands with each other; but in order for them to feel like brothers in one church, to unite in religious communion of spirit, for this they need to live together for a long time, understand each other in the whole situation of life and intertwine with each other in the innermost roots of the depths of their soul. Thus, sometimes a German who has lived in Russia for a long time unconsciously gets used to believing in the Russian way, and feels at home in the Russian church. Then he comes to us, becomes one of ours, and his communication with us is complete, spiritual. But so that this or that society of Protestants, standing far from us, but judging us by ear, could, but by bookish or abstract agreement on dogmas and rituals, unite Art. us into one church in an organic union and become one with us in spirit - this is unimaginable. Until now, not a single church union based on an agreement has succeeded: sooner or later the false beginning of such a union was revealed, and its fruit was everywhere an increase not of love, but of mutual alienation or even hatred. God forbid that we reproach each other for our faith! But one cannot help but feel, when you approach another faith, unrelated, unsympathetic, that here is not like ours: here it is unpleasant and cold: I would not want to live here. Let the mind believe with abstract reasoning: after all, they pray to the same God. Feeling cannot always agree with this reasoning; Sometimes it seems to the feeling that in a strange church it is as if they are praying to the wrong God. Many will laugh at this feeling; Perhaps they will call it superstition, fanaticism. In vain. Feeling is not always deceptive: it sometimes reveals the truth more directly and accurately than in reasoning. In a Protestant church, in a Protestant belief, it is cold and unpleasant for a Russian person. Moreover, if faith is as dear to him as life, he feels that calling this church his own is the same to him as dying. This is the immediate feeling. But there are many reasonable reasons for this feeling. Here is one of them, which is especially striking in its obviousness. In theological polemics, in disputes between religions, in the conscience of every person and every tribe, one of the main questions is the question of deeds. What is most important – works or faith? It is known that Latin theology and Protestant theology still argue on this issue. The late Khomyakov in his theological writings perfectly explained the extent to which the scholastic - absolute formulation of this question is deceptive. The unification of faith with deed, as well as the identification of word with thought, deed with word, is an ideal unattainable for human nature, just as everything unconditional is unattainable... an ideal that eternally excites and eternally convicts the believing soul. Faith without works is dead; faith, contrary to deeds, torments a person with the consciousness of inner lies, but in the vast world of appearance that embraces a person and in the face of endless eternity - what do deeds and all kinds of deeds mean without faith? “Show me your faith Show me your faith by your works” - a terrible question! What should a confident person answer when asked by an examiner who seeks to know the truth through action? Let us assume that a Protestant asks an Orthodox person such a question. What will the Orthodox answer to him? - He will have to lower his head. One feels that there is nothing to show, that everything has not been tidied up, everything has not been started, everything is covered in rubble. But after a minute you can raise your head and say: we are sinful people, and we have nothing to show, and, after all, you are not righteous. But come to us yourself, live with us, and you will see our faith, and feel our feeling, and maybe you will fall in love with us. And you will see for yourself what our deeds are. After such an answer, ninety-nine out of a hundred will leave us with a contemptuous grin. In essence, the whole point is that we don’t know how to show our deeds against faith, and we don’t dare. And they show. And they know how to show, and, to tell the truth, they have something to show, in perfect order - things and institutions created, preserved and strengthened over centuries. Look, says the Catholic Church, what I meant and what I mean in the life of the society that listens to me and serves me, what I created and what is held by me. Here are the works of love, here are the works of faith, here are the works of the apostleship, here are the feats of martyrdom, here are the faithful regiments, like one man, which I scatter to the ends of the universe. Is it not clear that grace abides with me and in us from the beginning to this day? Look, says the Protestant Church, I do not tolerate lies, deception and superstition. I bring deeds into conformity and reason into agreement with faith. By faith I have sanctified work, everyday relationships, family life, by faith I eradicate idleness and superstition, I establish honesty, justice and public order. I teach every day, and my teaching, close to life, educates entire generations in the habit of honest work and good morals. Humanity is called to be renewed by my teaching - in virtue and in truth. I am called to eradicate, by the sword of words and deeds, depravity and hypocrisy everywhere. Is it not obvious that the power of God is with me, because the true view of religion is in me? Protestants still argue with Catholics about dogmatic meaning in relation to faith. But, despite the complete opposite of theological views on this subject, both of them put the matter at the head of their religion. Only the Latins have the task of serving for justification, for redemption, for testimony of grace. Lutherans, on the other hand, look at business and, in connection with business, religion itself, from a practical point of view. It is as if the matter turns into the purpose for which religion exists, becomes a touchstone on which religious and ecclesiastical truth is tested, and this is the point at which, more than any other, our religious thought diverges from the religious thought of Protestantism. Without a doubt, the view now expressed does not constitute a dogmatic position in the Lutheran Church, but it permeates all of its teaching. Undoubtedly, there is a very important practical side to it, for life here, for this world; and that is why many, even among us, are sometimes ready to put the Protestant Church as a model and ideal for our Church. But the Russian person, in the depths of his believing soul, will never accept such a view. Piety is useful for everything - and according to the apostolic word; but this is only one of the natural accessories of piety. A Russian person knows no less than anyone else that he must live by faith, and he feels how little his life resembles faith: but he places the essence and goal of his faith not in practical life, but in spiritual salvation, and seeks to embrace everyone with the love of the church union - from the righteous man living by faith to that thief who, despite his deeds, was forgiven in one minute. This practical basis of Protestantism is nowhere more clearly expressed than in the Anglican Church and in the spirit of the religious outlook of the English nation. It is consistent with the character of the nation, developed in its history - to direct thought and activity everywhere towards practical goals, to persistently and steadily achieve success and in everything to choose those paths and methods that lead closer and more surely to success. This natural desire had to seek a moral basis for itself, to develop a moral theory for itself: and it is no wonder that moral principles found sanction for themselves in a religious view corresponding to a certain character. Religion undoubtedly sanctifies the moral principle of activity, teaches how to live and act on earth, and requires hard work, honesty, and truth. One cannot but agree with this position. But from this position the practical view of religion passes directly to the question; What kind of religion does one have who lives in idleness, is dishonest and deceitful, is depraved, disorderly, and does not know how to support himself? Such a person is a pagan, and not a Christian: only that Christian who lives according to the law and demonstrates in himself the power of the Christian law. The reasoning appears to be logically correct. But who does not have a question in their soul: what about publicans and harlots in the world and in the church, those who, according to the word of Christ, often precede the righteous of the church in the Kingdom of God? Of course, it would be strange to assume that such a view of religion constitutes a positive formula for church belief in England. Such a formula would be a clear denial of the Gospel teaching. But such is precisely the spirit of religious outlook among the most conscientious and zealous representatives of the so-called “national ecclesiastical institution”, who defend and praise the Anglican Church as the first stronghold of the state - and as the main expression of the national spirit. In English literature, both spiritual and secular, this view is sometimes expressed in very sharp forms, in words before which the thought of the Russian reader stops with bewilderment, similar to horror. There is an essay remarkable in depth and thoroughness of thought, written by a man obviously believers, deeply and zealously devoted to their church. Here is what is said here, by the way, about religion: “Some religions are obviously not conducive to a sense of public duty. Others have nothing to do with him, and of those religions that favor him (those are, to a greater or lesser extent, outside the form of the Christian faith, some act on him with special, others with less force. It can be said that those religions that act most powerfully in this sense are those in which the image of an infinitely wise and powerful Lawgiver dominates over everything. His personal existence is intraceable to the human mind; but He created the world such as the world is, He created it for a kind of prudent people, firm and courageous in spirit and stable; for those who are not crazy and not cowardly, and do not really favor the insane and cowards, they know firmly what they need, and with determination they use all legal means to achieve it! They represent an anvil on which many hammers have already been beaten, and even more will be beaten, regardless of any enthusiasts and humanitarian dreamers” (Stephen, Liberty, equality, fraternity). This is the concept of religion that a confident Protestant Anglican can reach. The written words, in essence, contain a direct perversion of the Gospel word: they seem to say: blessed are the mighty and strong in action: the kingdom belongs to them. Yes, we say: - the kingdom of earth, but not the kingdom of heaven. The author does not make this reservation; he does not distinguish between the earthly and the heavenly. What a terrible, what a desperate doctrine!.. “Woe to the weak and falling! Woe to the vanquished!” Of course, in this life this is an immutable truth, and the rule of worldly wisdom is to tell everyone: fight, gain strength and keep the strength within yourself if you want to live; there is no place in the world for the weak. But to give this rule an unconditional, as if dogmatic, force in a religious sense is what our soul does not accept, just as it does not accept the terrible Calvinian teaching, akin to Protestantism, that some are called from eternity to virtue, to glory, to salvation and bliss, while others are condemned from eternity, and, no matter what they do in life, everything drags them into the abyss of despair and eternal torment. It is scary to read other English writers in whom this string of Anglican Protestantism resonates with particular force. In Carlyle, for example, worship of the strength and talent of the winner and contempt for the vanquished reaches the point of enthusiastic pathos. Contemplating his heroes, strong people, he honors the embodiment of the divine in them, and with subtle contemptuous humor speaks of those weak and unfortunate, clumsy and fallen, who were crushed by the victorious chariot. The hardest thing to read is Froude, the famous historian of the English Reformation, and the a prominent, among historians, representative of English national principles in the church and in politics. Mentioning the terrible executions to which both the innocent and the guilty were subjected at that time, this judge of human affairs speaks of his people like this: “The English are a strict and harsh people - they do not know compassion there; where there is no legitimate reason to admit compassion; on the contrary, they are filled with sacred and solemn horror of crime - a feeling that, as it develops in the soul, necessarily hardens it and forms!, an iron character. A person of strict disposition is inclined to tenderness only when there is still a place for good in the midst of evil, and good is still fighting against evil; but in view of the complete corruption and evil, no compassion is conceivable: it is possible only when in our hearts we mix crime with misfortune. What contempt the author must feel for a Russian person who truly has such confusion in his soul, and who from time immemorial calls the criminal unfortunate! Just as personal character, like the character of a tribe, so the character of each church, in connection with the tribe that has adopted it, has both its advantages and its disadvantages. The merits of Protestantism have become sufficiently clear in the history of the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon tribes. The Puritan spirit created present-day Britain. The Protestant beginning led Germany to strength, to discipline and unity. But on the other side of it there are such shortcomings, such aspirations of religious self-consciousness that we cannot sympathize with. Protestantism, like any spiritual force, is prone to fall precisely in that in which it places its fundamental spiritual foundations. Striving for absolute truth, for the purification of belief, for the implementation of belief in life, it is too prone to believe in its own truth and get carried away to the point of proud worship of its own truth and to the point of contempt for other people’s beliefs, which it identifies with untruth. Hence, on the one hand, there is a danger of falling into hypocrisy and Pharisaic pride. And truly, many voices are heard from the Protestant world who are bitterly aware that hypocrisy is the plague of strict Lutheranism. On the other hand, having begun with a sermon about tolerance, about freedom of thought and belief, Protestantism in its further development showed a tendency towards fanaticism of a special kind - towards the fanaticism of a proud mind and self-confident righteousness in front of all other types of belief. Strict Protestantism treats with contempt any belief that seems to it unclean, unspiritual, full of superstitions and external rituals, everything that it itself has discarded as slave bonds, as children's clothing, as an accessory of ignorance. Having created for himself a code of beliefs and rituals, he considers his confession to be the confession of the elect, enlightened and reasonable, and he is inclined to consider everyone who adheres to the old Church as people of a lower kind, unable to rise to true understanding. This contemptuous attitude towards other beliefs is perhaps unconsciously expressed in Protestantism, but it is too palpable for those of other faiths. No religion is free from a greater or lesser tendency to fanaticism; but it’s funny to hear when Lutherans come to us with accusations of fanaticism. In our country, with tolerance for any belief inherent in our national character, there are, of course, isolated cases of exclusivity and narrowness of church views, but there has never been and cannot be anything like the contempt with which a strict Lutheran looks at the incomprehensible to him, but for us, filled with deep spiritual significance, belonging to our church and the properties of our faith. In nothing more clearly than in the church is the difference between the public spirit and the mindset of the Anglo-Saxon and, for example, the Russian tribe. In the English church, stronger than anywhere else, the Russian person has this thought: there is a lot of good here, but still, how glad I am that I was born and live in Russia. In our church you can forget about all class and social differences, renounce your worldly position, and completely merge with the people's assembly, in the face of God. Our church, for the most part, was created with public money, so it is impossible to distinguish a ruble from a penny; in any case, our church is a national cause and a national property. That is why it is twice as dear to all of us, because when entering it, the last beggar feels exactly the same as the first nobleman, that this is his church. Church is the only place (what a blessing that we have such a place!) where no one can ask the last poor man in rags: why did you come here and who are you? - where the rich cannot say to the poor: your place is not near me, but behind. Here, go into the church, look at the church meeting. It is reverent, it may be solemn, but it is a meeting of ladies and gentlemen, of whom each person has his own place, especially assigned to him; and rich people and nobles in their neighborhood have separate and decorated places, like boxes. Is it possible, looking from the outside, to resist the thought that the church meeting here is only a modification of the public meeting, and that there is a place in it only for the so-called “decent people” in society? Everyone prays according to their own books, but just as everyone has their own book in their hands, it is clear that everyone wants to be before God - on their own, without losing their individuality. They say that in the last 20–30 years a noticeable change has taken place in this regard: places in churches are mostly open, i.e. not tightly fenced off, and access to them has become freer than before; and in the past, especially in the provinces, places in churches were arranged in closed or separate stands so that the owner of each place could pray calmly, alone, without being embarrassed by any proximity. How clearly reflected in this church arrangement is the history of the local feudal society, and the very history of the local church reform! Nobility and gentry make up everything, and everyone leads, because they have everything, and they attract everyone to themselves. Everything must be bought or taken by battle, even the right to have a place in the church. The priesthood itself is a right of a certain kind, which is included in the price. Pastoral places, with the right to a certain income or salary, constitute in England the property of patrimonial right, patronage, and the choice of place is the property of either private landowners or the crown, by virtue of not so much state as feudal ownership rights. That is why the pastor, among the people, appointed independently of the people and independent of the people for his maintenance, appears among the people also in the form of a prince appointed from above. An ecclesiastical office appears first of all to be a privilege and an asset; and it’s a shame to say: this property is an object of bargaining. The places of chief priests can be rented out for a certain price, made up of the capitalization of income, just as the places of solicitors, notaries, brokers, etc. are rented out. In any English newspaper, in a special section of advertisements for the so-called progenitors, you will find a number of offers to buy a priest's position with a description of the income items: the place is praised, with its amenities for life, the house is described, the location, the income is indicated, and the price is offered with the warning that the current incumbent is old, such and such years, and will probably not enjoy his position for long. For negotiations, it is indicated to contact somewhere. In London, even a special magazine is published (“The church preferment registrar”) with a detailed description of all articles, land and income of each place, for information and calculation of those wishing to receive it for a certain amount. The religious and prayerful need of the masses of the people, not finding a place and satisfaction in the so-called “established” state church, began to seek an outcome in free self-statutory church meetings and in various sects. The division of church rites here is exorbitant between the inhabitants of the most insignificant town. The most “established” church is divided into three parties, and the supporters of each of them (the so-called High, Low and Broad Church) usually have their own church and do not go to someone else’s. In a small village, where there are no more than 500 permanent residents, there are often three Anglican churches and, in addition, three Methodist churches of three different denominations, which, differing in very subtle and capricious details, abandon communication with each other. A separate church is for the original or Wesleyan Methodists, then for the Congregationalists, then for the so-called Bible Christians: the latter are the same Methodists, but separated a few years ago only because they believed, in disagreement with others, that it was impossible to have married church evangelists. That's how many churches - and capital, beautiful and extensive churches in one village! All these sects and assemblies are distinguished by the peculiarities of their beliefs, sometimes very subtle and capricious, or completely wild; but, apart from dogmatic differences, they all express the same desire for a free universal church, and many of them are imbued with a fierce hatred of the “established church and its ministers. In addition to individual sects, in the midst of the established church itself, a large party has long been formed in the name of free church communication. Private people and individual societies use their means to provide the common people with the opportunity to participate in worship: for this they have to build separate churches or rent separate premises, theaters, barns, halls, etc. This whole movement has already produced a tangible reaction in the customs of the established church itself, prompting it to open its doors wider. But isn’t it strange that here we have to take by battle what is free for us from the beginning, like the air we breathe? How often does it happen here in Russia to hear strange speeches about our Church from people who have been abroad, who have read foreign books, who like to judge red-handedly from someone else’s voice, or simply from naive people who are carried away by an ideal idea past reality! These people find no measure of praise for the Anglican or German Church and the Anglican clergy, and find no measure of condemnation of our Church and our clergy. If you believe them, everything there is living activity, but here we have carrion, rudeness and sleep. There are things going on there, but we have bare ritualism and inaction. No wonder many people say this. There is a saying among people that they meet a person by their dress. They say: you go by the mind, but in order to recognize the mind and feel the spirit, you need to take a closer look and work with your thoughts, but it’s not difficult to judge by the dress. You make a ready-made impression for yourself, and then you’ll stay with it. Moreover, there are many people for whom the first thing, the first and final decider of impression, is external improvement, manners, dexterity, cleanliness, respectability. In this regard, of course, there is something to admire, at least in the English church, and there is something to sometimes grieve about in ours. Who has not happened to meet a secular, and sometimes, unfortunately, a clergy person who has been abroad, ardently praising the local simplicity of the church and condemning our dear “for immaturity.” It is sad to listen to such speeches, just as it is sad to see a son when, having lived in a fashionable circle, in the midst of all the intricacies of metropolitan life, he returns to the village where he once spent his childhood, and looks with contempt at the unpretentious surroundings and at the simple, perhaps rude, customs of his own family. We are surprisingly inclined, by nature, to be carried away, first of all, by the beautiful form, organization, and external design of any matter. Hence our passion for imitation, for transferring to our own soil those institutions and forms that amaze us abroad with their external harmony. But we forget or remember too late that every form formed historically grew in history from historical conditions, and is a logical conclusion from the past, caused by necessity. No one can change or bypass their history, and history itself, with all its phenomena, figures, and established forms of social life, is a work of the people’s spirit, just as the history of an individual person is essentially a work of the spirit living in him. The same should be said about the forms of church structure. Every form has its own spiritual lining on which it grew; We are often seduced by the form without seeing this lining, but if we saw it, then sometimes we would not think of rejecting the finished form, with all its harmony, and would happily remain with our old and rough form, or formlessness, until our own spiritual life brings out its own form for us. The spirit is what is essential in any institution, this is what should be protected most dearly from crookedness and confusion 4 . From time immemorial, our Church has had and still retains the significance of the national church and the spirit of love and indifferent communication. By faith our people have held on to this day in the midst of all adversity and disasters, and if anything can support, strengthen and renew them in further history, it is faith, and church faith alone. We are told that our people are ignorant in their faith, full of superstitions, suffering from bad and vicious habits, that our clergy is rude, ignorant, ineffective, humiliated, and has little influence on the people. All this is true in many respects, but all these phenomena are not significant, but random and temporary. They depend on many conditions, and above all on economic and political conditions, with changes in which these phenomena will sooner or later change. What is essential? What belongs to the spirit? - The love of the people for the Church, the free consciousness of full communion in the Church, the concept of the Church as a common property and a common meeting, the complete elimination of class differences in the Church and the communion of the people with the servants of the Church who came from the people and are not separated from them either in everyday life, or in virtues, or in their shortcomings. with the people and stand and fall. This is a field in which many good fruits can be grown if you work deeply, caring not so much about improving life, but about improving the spirit, not so much about ensuring that the number of churches does not exceed the need, but rather about ensuring that the need for the church does not remain unsatisfied. Should we covet with envy, from afar and by ear, even a Protestant church without shepherds? God forbid that we wait until the time when our shepherds establish themselves in the position of officials placed over the people, and become princes among their people, in the environment of a secular person, in the complexity of needs and desires in the midst of people's poverty and simplicity. Who is a Russian person - in soul and custom, he understands what the church of God means, what the church means for a Russian person. It is not enough to be pious yourself, to feel and respect the need of religious feeling; It’s not enough to understand the meaning of the church for the Russian people and to love this church as if it were our own. We must live the life of the people, we must pray together with the people, in the same church meeting, feel the same heartbeat with the people, imbued with the same triumph, the same word and singing. That is why many, who know the church only from home churches, where a select and decorated public gathers, do not have a true understanding of their church and the real taste of the church, and sometimes look indifferently or incorrectly in church custom and service at what is especially dear to the people and what in their concept constitutes church beauty. The Orthodox Church is red with its people. As you enter it, you will feel that everything in it is one, everything is comprehended by the people and is held together by the people. Enter a Catholic church, how empty, cold, and artificial everything seems to the Orthodox congregation! The priest serves and reads on his own, as if above the people and excommunicated from the people. He prays on his own from his book; the people pray for their own, come and go, having completed their prayers and waited for this or that church action. A sacred rite is performed on the altar; the people are present only with him, but do not seem to assist him with common prayer. The ritual does not speak to our feelings, and we feel that the beauty that may be in it is not our beauty, but someone else’s. All the movements of the ritual, mechanically arranged, seem strange, cold, and inexpressive to us; outlines, images of clothing - unseemly; the sounds of church recitative are discordant and soulless; singing in a foreign language,” in which you cannot recognize the words—not a hymn of a national assembly, not a cry pouring from the soul—but a concert, artificially arranged!” which covers the divine service, but does not merge with it. Our soul yearns here for its church, just as we yearn among strangers for our homeland. Is it the case with us: here is beauty indescribable, beauty understandable to Russian people, beauty For whom he is ready to lay down his soul - that’s how he loves her. Russian church singing, like a folk song, flows in a wide, free stream from the people’s chest, and the freer it is, the more fully it speaks to the heart. Our tunes are the same as those of the Greeks, but the Russian people sing them differently, because they put their Russian soul into them. Whoever wants to listen to how this soul expresses itself must not go to the place where famous choirs and chapels wield their voices, where the music of new composers is performed and new official transcriptions are performed in everyday life. He needs to listen to singing in a well-appointed monastery or in one of those parish churches where choral singing has developed in good order: there he will hear what a wide, free stream of festive irmos pours out of the Russian breast, what a solemn poem a dogmatist is sung, the stichera is composed with the canonarch, what animation of joy permeates the canon of Easter or the Nativity of Christ. Here we will look back and see how every word of the song resonates in the people’s assembly, how it shines in raised eyes, floats over bowed heads, is reflected in choruses rushing from everywhere, because every church person is familiar with words and chants from childhood, and everyone’s soul sings when he hears them. The divine service is harmonious, sincere - truly a holiday for the Russian people, and outside the church the soul retains a deep feeling that is reflected in it, even when remembering this or that moment: the Russian soul, accustomed to the church and at any moment ready to perk up when the song of the Easter or Christmas canon is heard within it, with the thought of the bright matins, or the favorite tune of the festive irmos, or “Worldwide Glory” with her stunning “Dare”... Truly, these are the sounds about which the poet said that And for the one who has been accustomed to these words and sounds since childhood, how many memories and images arise from them every time from that great poem of the past, which everyone has lived and everyone carries within themselves... Happy is the one who has become accustomed from childhood to these words, sounds and images, who has found beauty in them and strives for it and cannot live without it, to whom everything in them is clear, everything is dear, everything elevates the soul from the dust and dirt of everyday life, who finds in them and collects the lost your life in the corners, your happiness scattered along the roads. Happy is he who, from childhood, was taught by kind and pious parents to the church of God and placed in it among the people to pray the national prayer, to celebrate the national holiday. They collected a treasure for him for a lifetime, they truly introduced him into the mind of the spirit of the people and into the love of the heart of the people, making the church for him a home and a place of complete, pure and true union with the people. What can we say about the many churches of ours, lost in the depths of the forests and in the vastness of the fields, where people stand stupidly in the church, not understanding anything, under the goat-talk of the sexton or the muttering of the cleric? Alas! It is not the church that is to blame for this stupidity, and it is not the poor people who are to blame: it is the lazy minister who does not understand the church that is to blame: it is the church power that is to blame, inattentively and indifferently distributing the ministers of the church: the fault, in places, is the poverty and helplessness of the people. Good for the person in whom at that time a spark of love and zeal for spiritual life is ignited and who manages to bring the abandoned church into the light of splendor and singing. Truly, he will illuminate the country and the shadow of death with light, he will resurrect the dead and defeated, save the soul from death and cover a multitude of sins... That is why Russian people sacrifice so willingly and so much for church buildings, for the creation and decoration of churches. How crookedly those who condemn him for this zeal judge, and many such voices are heard. This generous zeal is attributed either to rudeness and ignorance, or to bigotry and hypocrisy. They say: wouldn’t it be better to use this money for “public education”, for schools, for charitable institutions? One sacrifices for both in its own way, but that sacrifice is completely different, and a pious Russian person, with common Russian sense, will think twice before he opens his purse for a generous dacha for formally educational and charitable institutions. Isn't it the Church of God? It speaks for itself; it is a living, national institution. It alone brings joy to both the living and the dead. In it alone, everything is easy, free, in it every soul, from small to large, has fun and rejoices, and celebrates from heavy suffering: in it there is one place for both the white and the gray man, the rich and the poor. It is decorated more than the royal chamber - the house of God, and each of the small and poor stands in it as in his own home; everyone can call the church their own, because the church was built with people’s rubles and, moreover, with people’s pennies and is maintained by the people. There is shelter and prayer with consolation for everyone, and that teaching that is dearest to the Russian people. This is what unconsciously and consciously immediately affects the Russian soul about the church and forces the Russian person to donate to the church without looking back and without reasoning. The Russian person feels that he is not mistaken in this matter and gives faithfully and sacredly to a faithful and holy cause. Protestants reproach us for the formality and ritualism of our worship; but when you look at their ritual, you involuntarily give preference to our ritual; you feel how simple and majestic our ritual is in its deep, mysterious meaning. The priestly position in our ritual is so simple that all that is required of him is reverent attention to the words spoken and the actions performed; in his mouth and through him, sacred words and rituals speak for themselves - and how deeply and mysteriously they speak to everyone’s soul and unite them!” the whole meeting into one thought and one feeling! That is why the simplest and most inexperienced person can, without adjusting himself or using artificial efforts, perform a prayerful action and enter into prayerful communion with the entire church. The Protestant prayer ritual, with all its outward simplicity, requires the clergy to act in prayer in a certain tone. That is why in this ritual only deeply spiritual or very talented people can be simple; the rest, i.e. Когда видишь проповедника, как он, стоя посреди храма, лицом к размещенному чинно на скамьях собранию, произносить молитвы, воздевая глаза к небу, сложив руки в известный всеми употребляемый вид, и придает своей речи неестественную интонацию, становится неловко за него; I think how awkward it must be for him! Еще ощутительнее становится неловкость, когда, окончив обряд, он всходит на кафедру, и начинает свою длинную проповедь , оборачиваясь от времени до времени назад, чтобы выпить из стакана воды и собраться с духом. И в этой проповеди редко случается слышать действительно живое слово,– когда проповедник действительно духовный человек или талант. Говорят большею частию работники церковного дела, чрезвычайно натянутым голосом, с крайнею аффектацией, с сильными жестами, поворачиваясь из стороны в сторону, повторяй на разные лады общие, всеми употребляемые фразы. Даже, когда читают по книге, что нередко случается, они прибегают к известным телодвижениям; intonations and placements. It often happens that the preacher, pronouncing some words and phrases, shouts and hits the pulpit with his fist in order to give expressiveness to his speech... Here you feel how correctly our Church has applied itself to human nature - without placing the sermon as part of the liturgical rite. Our entire ritual, in itself, constitutes the best sermon, all the more valid because everyone accepts it not as human, but as God’s word. And the church ideal of our preaching, as a living word, is the teaching of faith and love, from the Divine Scriptures, and not the arousal of feelings, as a necessary action of every clergyman on those gathered in church for prayer. They say that the ritual is an unimportant and secondary matter. But there are rituals and customs that to refuse would mean to deny oneself, because they reflect the spiritual life of a person or an entire people, they reflect the whole soul. The difference in ritual expresses most clearly the fundamental and deep difference in spiritual representation, hidden in the unconscious spheres of spiritual life - the same difference that prevents the fusion or fullness of mutual sympathy between peoples of different tribes and constitutes the main reason for the difference in churches and religions. To deny, from an abstract, cosmopolitan point of view, the action of this attractive or repulsive force, equating it with prejudice, would mean the same as denying the force of affinity operating in personal relationships between people. Как знаменательна, например, у разных народов разница в погребальном обряде и в обращении с телом покойника! Южный человек, итальянец, бежит от своего мертвеца, спешит как Можно скорее очистить от него дом свой и предоставляет постороннему заботу о его погребении. Напротив того, у пас, в России, характерная народная черта–религиозное отношение к мертвому телу, исполненное любви, нежности и благоговения. Из глубины веков отзывается до нашего времени, исполненный поэтических образов и движений, плач над покойником, превращаясь, с принятием новых религиозных обрядов, в торжественную церковную молитву. Нигде в мире, кроме нашей страны, погребальный обычай и обряд не выработался до такой глубокой, можно сказать, виртуозности, до которой он достигает у нас; и нет, сомнения, что в этом его складе отразился наш народный характер, с особенным, присущим нашей натуре, мировоззрением. The features of death are terrible and disgusting everywhere, but we dress them with splendor cover, we surround them with the solemn silence of prayerful contemplation, we поем над ними песнь, в которой ужас пораженной природы сливается во – едино с любовию, надеждою и благоговейною верою. Мы не бежим от своего покойника, мы украшаема» его в гробе, и нас тянет к этому гробу–вглядеться в черты духа, оставившего свое жилище; мы поклоняемся телу и не отказываемся давать ему the last kiss, and we stand over it for three days and three nights, reading, singing, and church prayer. Погребальные молитвы наши исполнены красоты и величия; they are long lasting and are in no hurry to give the earth a body touched by decay - and when you hear them, it seems that not only the last blessing is pronounced over the coffin, but a great church celebration takes place around it at the most solemn moment of human existence! Как понятна и как любезна эта торжественность для русской души! Но иностранец редко понимает ее, потому что она– совсем ему чужая. У нас чувство любви, пораженное смертью , расширяется в погребальном обряде; у него–оно болезненно сжимается от того же обряда и поражается одним ужасом. A German Lutheran living in Berlin lost his beloved Orthodox sister in Russia. When he came to us, on the eve of the burial, and saw his beloved sister lying in the coffin, horror struck him, his heart sank, and it was clear that the feeling of love and reverence gave way in him to the disgust with which he was present at the farewell to the dead body and had to take part in it himself... In this, as in many other things, the German cannot understand us until he lives with us and enters the depths of our spiritual life. Voices grow, cries intensify, in the name of peace, in the name of enlightenment, in the name of the good, the public. From what distant world, from what everyday life do these sounds reach us - and how alien this world is to us, how unpleasant and cold! No, God forbid you die in that land, in a foreign land, far from the mother of the damp Russian land! Borrowed, with some abbreviations that do not change the meaning, from the discussion about “Personality, Society and the Church.” Tables of contents belong to the editors. Vladimir Solovyov perfectly formulates the spirit of Christianity in this regard, saying: “As long as a person remains and establishes himself in his limitations and isolation, there is no God in him. And in order to get out of this limitation, he must turn to what is greater and higher than himself. A person finds this greater and higher than himself in the Church** (“Spiritual Foundations of Life, about the Church”). “In the combination of the human personality with the Church, a person is healed, receives a truly healthy life, and the Church is fertilized and becomes active (ibid.). But no matter how strong the Christian community is, it is completely wrong to think that the social environment can be merged with the Church. Borrowed with minor abbreviations from the Moscow Collection. Moscow, 1896, pp. 199–227. Article “Church” – Table of contents belongs to the Editorial Board. This wise advice should be taken as a rule when discussing the question of the relationship of Orthodoxy to heterodoxy, and even more so when the former comes into contact with the latter. – Editorial.