About holy relics

Desecration of St. of relics, which took place in Russia, due to its atheistic and blasphemous cynicism, has no examples in the history of Christianity. The fury of the synagogue and the breath of Antichrist make themselves felt too clearly in this fanaticism. However, this must be the case and the heart of the believer should not tremble in the face of this already approaching abomination of desolation in the holy place. Until now, one can rather marvel at the lethargy and restraint of the actions of the Satanic synagogue in the Kremlin, which enjoys unlimited power and is not constrained by any means; obviously the time has not yet come to show in full force the hatred of Christianity, which constitutes the main, one might even say, the only religious engine of the entire movement, marching under the flag of democracy and socialism and which has so far received its most decisive expression in Russian Bolshevism. But such a terrible shock, such a satanic blow to the believing heart, as the study of St. relics, requires, of course, proper internal resistance. And for those who do not doubt that the Lord leads and protects His Church, it is clear that the blows are at the same time teachings, lessons and questions that require an answer. By his desecration of St. With the relics, which undoubtedly caused confusion in many hearts, the satanic synagogue intended to destroy faith in St. relics, and since in church life everything is connected and it is impossible to remove even a single stone without the whole building being shaken, its aspiration goes further - generally against faith in the church. There, where the believers in pious humility did not dare to raise their eyes, where sacred darkness reigned, electric lighting was brazenly brought in, and dirty paws began to disassemble the contents of the holy church. cancer This sight in itself should have shocked and horrified. However, for many there was still a surprise and disappointment - where they assumed an incorruptible body, there were only parts of the body or even bones with obvious signs of destruction over time. At the same time, the naively pious habit of giving St. In the remains of the remains, the appearance of a whole body, clothed and re-clothed, supported this confidence in many, and it was not easy to recognize that this imaginary human figure was filled with cotton wool, and was generally made by human hands. What, of course, was not a deception, but only a pious custom, let’s say, even erroneous, began to be interpreted as a deception, became a subject of mockery, and people of faith stood helpless, having to choose between denying the fact (of course, the sons of lies lied here as much as they lie always and everywhere, but one cannot consider everything a lie) or denying St. relics, which is what the servants of the Antichrist sought. They created in advance an atmosphere of mockery and unholiness, for only in this mood is it possible to undertake such research. Can anyone, without shuddering, think about digging up the grave of his father, mother, loved ones, disturbing the peace of the grave in order to investigate the contents? And how could a believing soul even dwell on such a thought regarding the shrine with St. relics. She simply couldn’t even ask herself about it, let alone carry out such research. That's why St. the relics always remained inviolable; reverent clergy only approached them at certain times to vest them or generally for some action. But then a triumphant boor approached and, standing in front of the shrine with his arms akimbo, in a pose of insolent challenge, he turned everything over, shook it up and declared that there was nothing there except dust and bones. We didn't want to look and didn't look, but now we are forced to look. Where sacred ignorance was shrouded, daylight now reigns, and we must ask ourselves and answer. The Provider has allowed - we cannot doubt this - this investigation. Here, as in other matters, it is no longer possible to be babies in mind; knowledge and understanding are inevitable. Therefore, leaving non-believers to triumph in their imaginary victory of arrogance and malice, we, believers, must again pose the question to ourselves: what are holy relics and what is the content and meaning of the dogma of the veneration of St. relics. It should be noted that this dogma does not have a doctrinal definition for itself at any of the Orthodox councils; it was not the subject of special discussion, but was adopted, like many of the most important church dogmas, through church practice. Just veneration of St. relics became universal from the very beginning of the existence of the church, it was so natural, responding to an immediate, heartfelt feeling. And the struggle for the preservation of St. begins very early. relics from desecration and destruction, because even then the pagans and the synagogue sought to destroy St. relics, and Christians preserved and honored them. The rule according to which the liturgy is celebrated on St. relics sewn up for this purpose in the antimension, and St. the throne also has St. relics, entered church practice early and was confirmed by the VII Ecumenical Council. Then St. the remains of saints, especially martyrs, were revered as relics, and, of course, there was no, and could not be any talk about their incorruptibility in the sense of complete preservation of the entire body, because parts of these remains had to be rescued from fire, from water, from the amphitheater. In addition, there was a custom to divide these remains and share their particles, and the particle was obviously considered as whole relics, as representing the whole of the saint. body, just as every particle of the Holy Gifts contains the Body and Blood of Christ. This custom, obviously, does not follow from the idea of ​​the incorruptibility of holy relics in the sense of their physical indestructibility. In general, the sign of incorruptibility, which came to the fore in modern times, was not put forward at all then, and at most one could only talk about the incorruptibility of some relics, due to the fact that this sign was clearly inapplicable to the most important and broad category of them, namely to the holy martyrs. Holiness, not incorruptibility of St. relics was at the center of their understanding. When and how the sign of physical incorruption came forward and took such, I will say, inappropriate place, we find it difficult to say now. In our case, this was the combined result of bad seminary theology and official hypocrisy, which deliberately obscured the real state of affairs and supported gullibility, which just as easily turns into unbelief. In the popular view, everything is holy. the relics were revered as an incorruptible body, and perhaps, meeting this veneration, St. the relics were deliberately given the appearance of a whole body even where it actually did not exist. Of course, there were and are such cases when St. the relics remain incorruptible by the will of God. However, if in physical incorruptibility there was a being of St. relics, then we would have to recognize as relics not only Egyptian mummies and bodies preserved in the ground due to special soil conditions (the so-called natural mummification), but also not recognize as relics the remains of great saints, whom the entire church unanimously honors. Such a tempting incident took place in our country during the glorification of the relics of St. Seraphim, in which at first the contents of his tomb were kept silent, and then, when the enemies of the church obtained information about this and put it into circulation, of course, in their coverage, the church authorities came out with an explanation where, referring to the authority of Prof. Golubinsky (instead of relying on the only indisputable authority here - church tradition and church consciousness), began to assert that incorruptibility does not constitute an essential feature of St. relics. As a matter of fact, the question that life imperatively poses to us now began already then, but then it became a victim of deanery and censorship, not to the benefit of the church, of course, because doubt, not realized and driven inside, continued to do its destructive work, which has now manifested itself. At the discovery of the relics of Saint Hermogenes, this question was also left in the shadows. There is no doubt that in wide circles of the people, as well as among the enemies of the church, at least sincere and not lying, there are no two opinions that St. the relics are incorruptible, and that incorruptibility, that is, the preservation of the entire body from decay, is a sign of the relics. Meanwhile, it was never possible to maintain this attribute in relation to all relics, because there were always saints from whom relics were either not preserved at all, or only particles, sometimes very small, were preserved, and yet this did not in the least detract from their veneration. Further, even the bodies of saints, preserved incorruptible, sometimes had partial damage due to corruption - and here, obviously, the quantitative difference does not matter; it is enough for corruption to appear in one finger to eliminate the sign of incorruptibility. Finally, remains were venerated as holy relics and, moreover, they were rediscovered, the incorruptibility of which was out of the question. Therefore, “incorruptibility,” understood in the sense of the absence of obvious signs of decomposition, may or may not have existed. We admit that it is most natural, characteristic of the bodies of saints, so that the opposite case represents an anomaly that requires a special explanation, nevertheless, it is obvious that the essence of the saint. relics and does not lie at all in their incorruptibility, which is only a derivative feature. In general, it is necessary to eliminate the indisputable physical signs of St. relics, because there are none. Usually, the act of glorifying saints (canonization) lists the grounds for glorification. Among them, incorruption comes first, followed by certified miracles, medically inexplicable healings, and similar physical miracles. Not to mention the fact that such physical miracles cannot be indisputable and, moreover, always have asylum ignorantiae for themselves, that is, an explanation from as yet unknown but natural laws, it is obvious that both miracles and incorruptibility are only reasons for glorification, and not the reason for it, which lies entirely in the holiness and spirituality of the glorified saint. When at the council I asked one of the prominent Russian hierarchs who participated in the glorification of the great Russian saint whether there were any rules for the glorification of saints in our church that corresponded to the “process” in Catholicism, he replied that there was nothing: the Holy Spirit guides the church in these cases. This answer may seem unintelligible, but it is the only possible and reasonable one. At the very least, there cannot be and should not be any other way. All “foundations” are only reasons for the crystallization of church consciousness, which, strictly speaking, does not even need them, and it is necessary in advance to separate the physical signs of the relics from their essence. Therefore, the fundamental question of the veneration of St. arises before us in all its breadth. relics. What is the meaning of the dogma of relics and what is St. power? Probably, in a certain part of our church society (perhaps even among the clergy) there is a skeptical and indifferent attitude towards this issue: it would be better to do less of this and be quieter about this issue, so that there are no unnecessary scandals - the veneration of relics is an unnecessary superstition, which can, and in essence, should be dispensed with. The whole weight of historical slander against the veneration of St. relics, together with modern blasphemy, puts pressure on a weak consciousness and tilts it towards a broad path - unloading from superfluous and unnecessary teachings and the practice corresponding to them. Of course, it is difficult to prejudge what kind of unloading they want; perhaps they are ready to unload the church from the sacraments and leave nothing but the Protestant ministry of the word. But who really does not want to go that far, but is only ready to part with the veneration of St. relics, must be clearly aware that in church teaching everything is organically connected, and not a single part can be separated or removed. And, in particular, the veneration of St. relics are most closely connected with the main dogma of Christianity - the Incarnation of God for the sake of our salvation. The deification of man, Christian man-theology - if I may put it this way - is the basis for the veneration of saints, as well as their bodily remains - St. relics. God became man so that man could become God; the humanization of God has a direct consequence of the deification of man and provides an ontological basis for him. Between heaven and earth, between God and man, an eternal staircase was erected, permeability was established, after Christ passed in both directions with His flesh, and with Him His Most Pure Mother. Grace continually flows into the world after the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the world becomes a recipient of divine powers. This outpouring of power takes place through the medium of the priesthood, which itself is the product of this outpouring, in worship, in the sacraments, nourishes, warms and preserves the world and man. All sacraments in the proper sense, but also all sacred rites that are not usually called sacraments, represent a continuous descent of this power into man. But this is spiritual power, they immediately talk from all sides, and only about birth in the Spirit, about service in the Spirit can and should be discussed. This word and the concept of the spiritual have been endlessly abused at all times (perhaps most readily by those who do not believe in any spiritual principle in man). And we must say simply, directly and briefly: although an eternal, immortal and divine spirit lives in a person, a person is not at all a spiritual (that is, only spiritual) being, he also has a body, he is a spiritual-physical being. Man is not an angel, but a man, he is a cosmic being, a cosmos, an anthropocosmos, and nothing cosmic is alien to him and - it must be emphasized - cannot be alienated and should not be alienated. How one should think about this inseparability of the spiritual and cosmic, this mystery of human creation, there may not be an answer to this: it is so. And the human spirit does not know anything other than human, i.e. cosmic life. In man and through man, all the forces of the universe always and continuously flow, of which he is the center; in him, for him, through him, the world was created, and all his actions are not only spiritual movements, but also cosmic actions. And a person does not know, and does not want to know - one must tell the truth regarding this emptiness of pseudo-spiritual anti-cosmic life. He is capable of turning to God from the world, but God, who created him, does not remove him from the world, and only fulfills him with his power. In this ontological being of man lies the basis why in worship, in the mysterious side of the church, what some with censure and others with challenge call religious materialism is manifested. Church life, which is centered in the sacraments, although it always deals with spiritual life, never separates the spirit in man from his human being, but deals with man. There is no sacrament of the spirit, although all sacraments are of a spiritual nature and are performed in the spirit, and this is for the simple reason that man is a man, and not a spirit. And most directly, most obviously and most significantly, this is expressed in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, where the Lord gives Himself in His Body and Blood; Spiritual bread and heavenly food are both bread and bodily food; the spiritual sacrament itself by no means becomes incorporeal, but is eminently corporeal, corporeal par excellence. How many disputes and misunderstandings were caused by Eucharistic disputes in which they did not want to fully accept and realize the ontological essence of man, his - not spirituality, but spiritual-physicality, anthropocosmic nature, why everything about man and, above all, divine food for him, St. sacraments must also have the same nature, be theo-anthropocosmic, without ever breaking the ontological bond by which man is united with the world, for to do this, to introduce a spiritual, anti-cosmic sacrament, would mean to destroy man, and with him the world. But, as the Lord says about Himself, He did not come to destroy and destroy, but to save the world. Therefore, in the grace-filled life of the church, everything spiritual is corporeal, everything divine has flesh, is human, for man is a man-god, everything spiritual is material, clothed in a body. Therefore, we perform all the sacraments, having a certain matter of the sacrament - bread and wine, oil, myrrh, water, in extreme cases, the word and touch. Therefore, we “bless” holy water, we consecrate icons, churches; that is why we generally have shrines, holy places and objects. And that is why we honor St. power. To suspect or reject the veneration of St. relics for reasons of false spiritualism, i.e. to separate the relics from their owner and bearer would mean to reject both the humanity of the saints and one’s own. If saints are holy, then their remains are holy, i.e. holy relics, and they must be reverently preserved and venerated, in them and through them we turn to the glorified saints; By kissing them, we show our love for these saints. Everything human is non-spiritual in the anti-cosmic sense, but cosmic, incarnate, has flesh, but this flesh is not dead matter, for it is permeated and sanctified by the spirit, and therefore all the sacraments, as far as they are human, have matter, a body for man, are cosmic, human. That which is not cosmic, abstract or negatively spiritual, empty, does not exist. And the opposite is also true: what is only material, not spiritualized, lifeless, is not there, is not human: in man everything material is alive, connected, united. The sacrament is the connection of the human-cosmic with the divine super-mundane. The power of God descends into the world and transforms it at certain moments and points, filling it with a different life. How something that is created, cosmic, can be united with that which is self-sufficient and supercosmic cannot be understood by man, but this is the power of the sacrament and the mystery of the sacrament. In the end, all the particular questions of the sacraments come down to one, universal and fundamental one - about the Incarnation of Christ the Savior: how is this last possible? For in Him, in Man, all the fullness of the Divinity was embodied bodily. And the sacraments are the ongoing and continually occurring Incarnation of God, the deification of creation, which was once accomplished in a universal form with the descent of the Holy Spirit. This authority is given to the church by Christ and is constantly maintained through the priesthood, which brings down divine power. The sacrament transubstantiates the cosmic and makes it transcendental to the world, to itself, its nature becomes an embodied antinomy, because, on the one hand, its “matter” is certainly cosmic, belongs to this world, otherwise the sacrament would not have happened, because it must have an object, it is performed in the world and above the world; at the same time, it makes it transcendental to itself. We are not talking about anything physical at all, i.e. within the cosmos and the states of matter, its transformation - any such transformation, no matter how grandiose and destructive it may be, would be insignificant in comparison with that internal catastrophe of being that occurs in the sacrament, where the cosmic ceases to be itself, becoming supercosmic, divine. Therefore, the occult or even physical properties accepted - or not accepted - by the matter of the sacrament are one of the derivative consequences of what has happened, and they may or may not be and are by no means commensurate with the change in the being itself that has occurred. Holy water, according to the instructions in liturgical books and numerous testimonies of experience, does not spoil; this is a fact, however, it can deteriorate and nevertheless does not cease to be itself, just as prosphora can deteriorate and become moldy, and how the same can happen - and happens - even with poorly dried spare Holy Gifts, the Body and Blood of Christ. Cosmic matter retains externally - but only externally - its nature and strength, when another force and another being are already invested in it. It is pierced, translucent through the entire depth of its being, becomes alien to itself, and yet its cosmic nature, while the world still stands, remains unaffected: matter is so transparent and permeable to the divine power that it does not seem to notice it, so that in one space of being there is contained another, completely incompatible being, and the first does not feel, does not notice the other, and for unbelief there is complete opportunity to deny everything, for what happens is visible only through the eyes of faith. In Teacher's The News contains an indication that if the Holy Gifts take on the visible image of the Body and Blood, then this should be postponed and the faithful should receive communion only under the guise of bread and wine with the hidden Holy Mysteries. The miracle of the sacrament is not at all in the transformation of matter, but in its complete abolition, while at the same time preserving its natural properties. The power of the sacrament in matter is indefinable by any, even the most subtle of conceivable definitions; the matter of the sacrament for the eyes of science and this world in general is world matter, in all its properties not fundamentally different from another, and in this inaccessibility of the sacrament to measurement is its property and its triumph. True, objects of the sacrament can have a tangible effect in the world, they can have properties perceived by sensitive natures, but this still refers to the periphery: whatever the transformation of the “Body” of a given body, the internally fundamental transformation remains outside the scope of research. In the sacrament, the transcendental enters into the immanent, heaven and earth are united in such a way that they cease to exist in their separateness and opposition. This is accomplished entirely and solely by Divine power, by the grace of God. And it is accomplished through the sacrament of the Name of God: invocation and consecration by the Name of God brings down the Power of God, transubstantiation occurs. All mysteries, all church services are only the sacrament of the Name; it is not a physical force that acts here, i.e. cosmic, of any order, but a supercosmic, divine force that acts in space, but on top of space, transubstantiates it, but leaves its forces indestructible. The physical body contains strength and spiritual energy. This idea can be expressed differently, in Kant’s terms: a supercosmic noumenon is infused into a cosmic phenomenon, a phenomenon in a sacrament ceases to correspond to the noumenon, and vice versa. The action of the sacrament is exclusively spiritual - and only through the medium of the spirit is cosmic, and on the contrary - the power of the cosmos, the “laws of nature”, retains its force in phenomenal existence. The “laws of nature” are not abolished when nature itself is abolished - this is what happens in the sacrament. And at the same time - and here is the other side of the antinomy of the sacrament - the divine power that abolishes nature is inextricably linked not only with nature in general, but with its specific point - the matter of this sacrament. The main sin of Kant’s entire philosophy, which affects his religious philosophy with the greatest force and makes it a barren fig tree, lies in this opposition, i.e. in essence separation. What is noumenal, says Kant, and after him all the Kantians without distinction of shades, cannot be phenomenal, it is opposite to it, and he finds the strongest objections to the concreteness of religion in this opposition. Meanwhile, from his own teaching would follow the opposite, positive teaching about phenomenality, as the mystery of the noumenal, in which there is depth, many depths, and through the phenomenal the depths of the transcendent shine through. He turned the antinomy of the phenomenal and the noumenal, their conjugation, into opposition and rupture, and thereby turned the world into a ghost and a guise, and the noumenal into an extra-cosmic, anti-cosmic force. In Kant, the spiritual disease of false spiritualism manifested itself, which so easily turns into its double - materialism, or rather, presupposes it, because in it an unnatural gap is made between matter and spirit, their impenetrability, alienation, polarity is affirmed; why materialism is both natural and inevitable. On the contrary, Christian - and not only Christian, but generally religious, practical implementation, which finds understanding in the cult, affirms the inseparability of the connection between the spiritual and the material or the empirical and the noumenal, which objectively justifies the existence of shrines, sacred places, objects, sacraments, that everything comes down to the recognition of spiritual flesh - holy and glorified, according to the teaching of the Apostle Paul that there is a mental body and a spiritual body. And the sanctification of the flesh is derived precisely from this continuity. How this basic and primary fact of religious consciousness can be developed philosophically can be debated, but one cannot, on the basis of the prejudices of bad philosophizing, dissolve - for the glory of senseless materialism - flesh and spirit and proclaim the world a dead machine. By the way, even for the most extreme materialism, as for equally extreme spiritualism and idealism, the problem of how consciousness is possible in a person, a spiritual-material being, remains valid, and under the problem of consciousness and consciousness both materialists and idealists are equally exhausted. If we throw away the prejudice of Kantianism and materialism and see in world matter a living body, flesh - potential and actualizing, then the idea of ​​consecrating matter in sacrament and ritual and its significance as connecting both worlds - transcendental and immanent - will be understandable, natural, logical and self-evident. Spiritual acts and states are connected and fixed in things and are taught by things and through things - this is what the practice of the Christian cult tells us, which has as its main and unifying principle the idea of holy flesh, the spiritual body, the unity and inseparability of flesh and spirit, from which religious materialism is natural, self-evident, for which it is usually customary to reproach church practice since the times of Protestantism: paganism, mystagogy, magic, witchcraft, fetishism... Fetishism! This is the ultima ratio, in the name of which in our days the idea of ​​religious cult is considered to be finally overthrown. In the face of such a deep error as materialism under the pretext of spiritualism, or vice versa, it is necessary, without fear of this century, to even come out in defense of fetishism, for it still contains a greater truth than the abstract one, i.e. materialistic spiritualism. More precisely, one must simply say that fetishism is a truth, only taken in one of the derivative, dialectical moments, outside the general fundamental connection, and it must be shown in order to remove the podium inherent in fetishism and reveal the very important truth contained in it, which was inherent in the natural, unclouded consciousness of the savage. Fetishism is false, perhaps not because it is the veneration of sacred objects - fetishes, but only because the religious idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthis veneration is meager, false, inaccurate, obscured. When a savage venerates a stone, associating with it the presence of some lower or evil spirit, and the stone becomes a fetish, then the falsity of this veneration lies not in the worship of the stone, but in this spirit itself, which is by no means deserving of worship, why can there be, instead of a good and - sit venia verbo - blessed fetishism, direct demonism or black magic. On the contrary, when Jacob, after the famous sleep in the desert, pours his oil on the altar and calls it Bethel (Beth-El, the house of God), he commits an act of right, pious fetishism. There God appeared to him, and he learned that this place was holy, full of the presence of God. But God is not connected with a place. However, this was also well understood by those who associated His stay with a certain place, so Solomon, during the consecration of the church, said quite clearly that the Almighty does not live in a church made with hands, and yet His special presence is in the Church. This is the power and mystery of concreteness, the connection between the phenomenal and the noumenal. For the omnipresence of God, or rather His non-locality, non-spatiality, freedom from any restrictions of place and time, expresses the being of God that is extra-mundane and super-empirical, but this does not at all mean the universality or ubiquity of the presence of the Divine, its spatial indifference. To the extent that the Absolute is God for the world and man, it takes upon itself the kenosis of empirical phenomenal existence, God realizes, but does not destroy, the foundations of creation, spatiality and temporality, called into being by Himself, and therefore He, by a voluntary act of love and condescension, in order to get closer to man, bound Himself to both spatiality and temporality: and for God, space and time exist. This does not mean that they set a limit to His omnipotence, i.e. His freedom, so that they enter into the absolute Being of God, but this means that, to the extent that God is in the world and in man (more precisely, simply in man, for the world is Man, anthropocosmos), He lives in space and time; and in this Being of God, places and times are not indifferent. In other words, God is not present everywhere - not by His omnipotence, but by His gracious power, and there are holy places, chosen by God, and there are places forsaken by God. The Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of His deity, could dwell simultaneously in all spheres (“in the carnal tomb,” etc.), but as the God-man He lived in the Holy Land and sanctified with His presence only certain places (everything said here about the place also applies to sacred times and periods, but we will not deviate to the side so as not to lose the thread of reasoning). That is why fetishism is fundamentally right and justified, i.e. religious veneration of certain places and objects, i.e. religious specificity. In general, this concreteness is the general basis of the cult, i.e. practical worship and worship. Outside of space and time, i.e. sacred places, actions and objects of cult do not exist, and outside of cult there is no religion (and maybe only religious philosophy). In Christianity, as the religion of the Incarnation, this “fetishism” can be especially justified. If in paganism its basis was the ineradicable consciousness living in man, although not yet clarified, that the world is the throne of God and contains the Divinity, then here this consciousness was overshadowed by insufficient separation in distinguishing the world from the Divine, the deification of the world, which is opposite to the idea of ​​its deification through the Incarnation. However, despite all its obscurity, this idea retains its share of truth in pagan fetishism; it receives only its clarification and confirmation in Christianity, but not at all elimination. And what else is the Old Testament cult, if not a gigantically expanded fetishism, which is what the enemies of religion call it, in the fascination with their spiritualistic materialism? And we have this same, but already completely purified, justified, enlightened “fetishism” in the Christian cult, and in particular in the veneration of holy places and holy relics. All considerations from spiritualism and materialism must be rejected in advance, and we readily accept accusations of fetishism, but not as accusations, but as a statement of some basic religious fact. For those who see fetishism in any specificity of God-worship, which characterizes a cult in general, it must be said frankly that this fetishism is an irreducible feature of religious phenomenology, without which there is no religion, and one should speak without hesitation about sacred places, objects, sacred rites and secret actions, even if rationalism brands all this with the name of fetishism. Of course, the Spirit of God lives in the church, and everything in it is sanctified by His power and presence, everything holy (and in the church everything is holy) is His action. However, in this consecration we distinguish different modes, and in particular for the question of holy relics that interests us here, we should distinguish between two main images of holiness, in order of descent or ascension. The Church has been given the power of holiness and sanctification, and she applies and exercises this power in all her sacred and sacramental actions. The image of this implementation is the invocation of the Holy Spirit - during the consecration of the Holy Gifts, during the consecration of water, during all consecration. The Church in the priesthood is given this mysterious power of transubstantiation by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is actually consecration. There have been many disputes about the words and the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200btransubstantiation regarding the Eucharist, but this question has a general significance for all sanctification, which is transubstantiation. That physical shell, which is preserved and remains with all its properties, no longer corresponds to what is really here, for here is the object of another world, a future century, a transformed earth; reality is only an appearance, an opaque veil, behind which lies the imperishable holy flesh. This sanctification, and at the same time transubstantiation, is an ontological catastrophe, complete discontinuity and irregularity, which therefore does not fit into Kant’s schemes and is rejected by them. Consecration cannot be understood from the nature of the creature and the particularity of a given object; they do not have any own data or grounds for it, although there is a mysterious correspondence, a purpose for this very purpose (thus, only bread and wine, although in themselves, of course, they do not have any basis for transubstantiation into the Body and Blood, yet they are precisely intended for this purpose, like water for consecration, etc.). Sanctification is accomplished not by the forces of the world, but by superphysical ones: it is an overthrowing force, descending into the world from the extramundane, supermundane, divine sphere. The mystery of sanctification, and at the same time its antinomy, into which every gnosis inevitably rests, no matter how far it goes in revealing the veils and shells of world existence, is this union or transubstantiation of the physical and the superphysical, yes and no, the world and the non-world, God and non-God. But at the same time, this is also the mystery of the creation of the world by God, which lies beyond the boundaries of created consciousness and leads to the super-created (therefore, it, hopelessly and forever going beyond the limits of Kantian reason, can graciously fit into the consciousness of one who, having developed this reason with its schemes, enters a grace-filled, super-created state, for the words of Christ are applicable here too: with men it is impossible, but with God it is possible). The existence of the world in its own extradivinity and its deification by the descent of God into the world are two sides of the same antinomic act of world creation - the world was created on antinomy. The Church has been given the power of sanctification; this is divine power, the power of the Name of God. All divine services, like the sacraments, are the power of the Name of God, entrusted to the clergy. The Name is a ladder between earth and heaven. Through it sanctification and mystery are accomplished, and all of it is just a common image of invoking the Name. Here we do not intend to dwell on this issue, limiting ourselves to indicating that all consecrations are the mysterious actions of the Name, the outline of the sacred Tetragram. But the actions of this force are diverse and specific, and therefore sacred objects are also different. In particular, all cult shrines, churches, icons - all these are the essence of the inscription of the Name. For the holiness of an icon, what matters is not the icon image itself - for it would be only a picture or diagram - but consecration by the Name, and the image itself is only a hieroglyph of the Name. The icon is the sacrament of the Name, and this property of it remained unidentified and undisclosed at the VII Ecumenical Council, where icon veneration was established. There is a different kind of holiness in ascending order, which includes human holiness, and therefore holy relics. Of course, human holiness is possible only on a path of grace; without grace, human powers would not be able to become other than themselves, to be transubstantiated. The highest human virtue or dignity, which is constantly confused with holiness, is not the essence of holiness, it is foreign to it. The holiness of man is of the same order as holiness in general; it is super-peaceful and to that extent superhuman in its ontogenesis, but it is human in its implementation. There are two different poles of theology of man: human self-deification, in relation to which the words blessed are applicable. Augustine, that man without God is a diabolical being, and the deification of man is grace-filled, helping him to become a saint. Holiness is man-God, actualized by feat on the basis of the grace of God. Outside of the Incarnation and the action of God’s grace, holiness in actu is impossible; it remains an unattainable task; on the contrary, for all Christians there is a calling to holiness and a will to holiness. And in the saints this will reaches actualization, i.e. divine energies so outweigh the lower, human, sinful energies that a certain transubstantiation occurs in the very essence of man: he becomes a real superman alien to himself, and precisely because of this, a true man. A saint is one in whom the beginning of human transubstantiation has already taken place, i.e. resurrection, earlier than the general resurrection, when it will be carried out by the will of God for everyone - for some in the resurrection of the belly, for others in the resurrection of judgment. Here this is the first resurrection. In holiness, a person ceases to be a man, giving place to God in himself, but thereby turns out to be truly a man. The path of holiness is the crucification of the natural man, drawing him off from himself, self-denial, and at the same time salvation, restoration, preservation of individuality. Only the saint has true individuality, collected through chastity, and therefore he is the focus through which the rays of grace flow. Holiness is the mystery of the unity of the Divine and the human, incomprehensible to the mind, which was accomplished once and forever in absolute form in the God-man, but therefore can also be accomplished in the man-God by the sanctifying power of grace, the deification of man. Every sacrament - especially holy communion - gives this deification of man, but in holiness this unity of the Divine and the human takes on a stable and long-lasting character, so that the nature of man already changes: “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” It is necessary to distinguish holiness, as a divine-human state or the deification of man, from human effort, energy, success: the human can become a throne for divine power - and then it is the human side of holiness - but it can turn out to be a throne for the human self, and then for Luciferic arrogance. Therefore, holiness exists only in the church and is, in essence, an actual churching, for the church is holy (we do not undertake here to draw the boundaries of the church from the outside and from the inside, because the external boundaries may not coincide with the internal ones, and there will be that disproportion about which the Gospel so persistently speaks, that the first will be last, and the last will be first, and many who prophesied and performed miracles in the Name of Christ will be rejected by Him as unknown to Him). The saint represents an act of God-manhood, the accomplished victory of the deification of creation. Therefore, the very state of holiness, i.e. God-bearing, Spirituality remains unknown to us sinners; we can only catch its individual rays, notice its manifestations. It is important to keep in mind that holiness is not only sinlessness, but has a positive meaning: there is a fundamental difference between an infant, whose sinlessness in church self-consciousness is most evident in the rite of infant burial, and holiness as the achievement of maturity, victory. The baby is called “blessed”, but not holy; his state in relation to holiness is passive, it is characterized only by the absence of the opposite, but not by the presence of the positive. This is sinful human nature, not defeated, but only not unfolded as a result of a break in life, which, of course, constitutes a providential secret. The “new creature” also has a new nature: special physics, physiology, psychology, which, however, only a spiritual person sees and understands. Holiness, like everything in religion, is absolutely concrete and individual, it is the realization of individuality, the finding of one’s identity. A saint is an abiding point in the world, which will not be touched by world transubstantiation, for it has already been transubstantiated, although the time of transfiguration has not yet come, i.e. appearance in glory: glory is still closed by the flesh, just as it was closed outside of the transfiguration during the days of the Savior’s earthly life, although this did not stop it from existing. This concreteness and individuality, as indicated above, necessarily extends to the body, more precisely to the entire human spiritual-corporeal nature (for the body, as a person, simply does not exist separately from the spirit, just as the disembodied human spirit does not exist). Saints are holy in body and soul, their body is holy in them, which in this sense, during their life, as after death, which in this respect does not change anything, is relics, i.e. place of the holy body. In the breviary (in the rite of burial), the body is generally called relics - b.m., indicating that it may turn out to be a container for holy relics. Death has no power over the shrine in the sense that the gap that it introduces between body and soul does not occur here. The saint retains power and connection with his body, which, as spirit-bearing, becomes so spiritual as not to be subject to death. “Resting in the relics” means maintaining connection with the body and, to that extent, overcoming death, entering the future age (John 6:24): “He has eternal life and does not come to judgment, but will pass from death to the life.” This is where a whole series of puzzling questions arise regarding the nature of St. relics, now aggravated as a result of their desecration, and first of all: if the saints demonstrate the overcoming of death, as the rupture of soul and body, then what in this case is their death? Fainting? No, this is death, physically in everything - or almost in everything - similar to general death, and the corruption of St. the relics are the best proof of this. We still cannot comprehend experimentally or understand rationally the mystery of death, what happens during the mysterious dissolution of the indissoluble, despite theosophical guides in the afterlife, but that with this violent disincarnation a most painful break occurs, for death is ontologically unnatural - all Christian anthropology leaves no doubt about this. And yet in this gap, in this passage through the gates of death, passing the “guardian of the threshold,” there may be significant differences. Death entered through sin and is overcome by perfect sinlessness. The Lord tasted death, remaining in the tomb for three days. Was His Most Pure Body given over to corruption? The teachings of the church give us the answer to this terrible and even terrible question. True, the Lord took on human flesh in everything and to the end. He was beaten, vulnerable, experienced pain and torment, previously experienced hunger, fatigue, sleep, and finally, He tasted death according to the law of human nature. And why should one think that only this one side of nature was given an exception? And did not, on the contrary, the humiliation of the Lord, His redemptive feat include the acceptance of everything, everything human for internal victory over it, in nature, and not in symptoms? In other words, the full path of the cross and death to the end, to death and corruption, must be traversed by the One who cried truthfully on the cross: Or! Or! lama sabachthani (it seems that it was precisely this thought that excited Dostoevsky’s sick imagination when he wrote about Holbein’s painting “The Descent from the Cross” in “The Idiot”). And yet, by the death of the Savior, death was defeated, despite all the triumph of symptoms, for disincarnation, the rupture of Spirit and Body did not happen and could not have happened in any way, and there was no corruption and could not have happened, for the Body, captured by the Divine Spirit, which became the entelechy monad of the Divinity and the center of the entire created world, could no longer be freed, separated from it. This death was only a symptom, a state of life, accepted for the sake of overcoming, just as the “body of sin” was accepted not with sin or for the sake of sin, but to overcome sin: “in the tomb carnally, in hell with the soul like God, in heaven with the thief, and on the Throne you were with the Father and the Spirit, fulfilling everything indescribable.” In this sense, the Most Pure Body of the Savior can be considered as absolute Powers, as the Powers of relics. And yet the Body of the Lord is not the essence of power, for It was resurrected and taken up from the earth by the ascended Lord. It became transcendental to our world, becoming immanent to it, however, in the sacrament of Body and Blood. But is it possible, is it correct to call St. Eucharist with the Relics of the Savior. No, because the relics of even saints are still in a state of separation, death, while the Lord himself is present in the Body and Blood of Christ. Sanctifying everything, the Lord also sanctified the state of St. relics in that His Most Pure Body remained in the tomb for three days and three nights in the state of holy relics, however, moving from this state to the state of complete resurrection and enlightenment. So, if you seek to venerate St. relics of the fulcrum in the life of the Savior, it corresponds to the Lord’s presence in the tomb; and what corresponds to the resurrection and final glorification of the Body of Christ has not yet come to the world. We have a perfect parallel in the Assumption of the Most Holy. Mother of God. The Mother of God wonderfully embodies the entire holy essence of our world, of which She is the center. And when the body of the Mother of God, after Her Dormition, was in the tomb, it was the Most Holy Relics of the Most Pure One, over whom death had no power as over “not falling asleep in prayers and not leaving the world in the Dormition.” But the Body of the Mother of God, like the Body of the Lord, was ascended to heaven, resurrected and glorified, therefore it is impossible to talk about the relics in application to the Holy Body of the Mother of God, although it also passed through the state of the Holy Mother. relics after three days in the tomb. So, this distinction already gives us a point of support for what exactly the nature of St. corresponds to. relics in the deification of the world. This is the state of death, in which, however, death has no power: powerless in the essence, it also triumphs on the surface of phenomena; this powerlessness of death or the life of a dead man is the state of the saint. relics. This definition needs further development. What is a body from our point of view? World matter, organized by the forces of the human soul, which are invested in it by a creative act, the primordial “let it be.” This organization presupposes its mastery, spiritualization, in which matter is transformed into the state of a body, a spiritually living entity. That this is so becomes clearest at death, as a result of which this connection is broken, and the laws of chemistry immediately come into force - the body decomposes. However, this mastery or penetration is by no means complete and insufficient. Between matter and body, and accordingly between body and soul, there is not only an inextricable connection, but also deep disharmony, even antagonism; the flesh lusts after the spirit, and the spirit is taken captive by the flesh. Flesh, as world matter, is disintegration, chaos, dispersion, centrifugal force. A preliminary and unstable balance was first established between flesh and spirit, which was to be consolidated by human achievement, human action. But instead, the Fall occurred, which shocked and upset the balance between body and spirit, breaking the very bond of human organization. Death entered through sin, i.e. a painful, unnatural rupture of this bond, as a result of which the spirit finds itself after death in an unnatural state of disembodiment, and the body again becomes matter, losing the stamp of individuality, spirituality, and organization. What then? Or did the work of creating man, a spiritual-physical being, thereby suffer a complete failure? Man could not withstand his ontological complexity, and the crack that passed through his being split him and abolished him? However, this cannot be the case in the affairs of God, regarding the crown of creation, which was created by the microcosm. What happened in man and with man happened with the whole world. Death, i.e. the insufficient power of life permeated the whole world, and man, instead of being the bearer of life, became the bearer of death. And it was necessary to save the world and man from death. But this was possible only by infusing into a person the power that was missing in him - to create a spiritual body and defeat death. And this was no longer accessible and impossible to a person in a state of sinfulness; for this, a new creation of man was needed, subject, however, to the preservation of the old. But this was accomplished by the Incarnation of Christ the Savior, the Savior from sin and from death, and therefore the Savior of the Body. As a true man, He shared the destinies of man to the end, i.e. he did not prevent with his divine power the separation of soul and body, paying tribute to the human condition to the end. But for man this phenomenology of death did not correspond to his ontology, for man was created for immortal life, with its tasks, and only did not have the power to realize them. Here, in the New Man, and together with the True Man, this power appeared, and, moreover, not in the embryonic state of naked potency, as in Adam, but in perfect and absolute dynamism. In the death of the Savior, there was a complete contradiction between essence and appearance: This man could no longer die by his nature, but He died only according to the law of sinful man, which was unusual for Him, but He accepted upon Himself in order to abolish it with Himself. Death appeared only false, because it had already been overcome, an outdated symptomatology, not death in the narrow sense, which it appeared in a sinful person with all its power, but only the end, an episode of earthly, human mortal life, in which, above which and after which another, immortal life began - the Resurrection. And this Resurrection is not of an individual episodic nature, but of a universal ontological nature. Christ rose in humanity and with humanity, all people without any exception, only due to the fact that they are people, one with Him, of the same nature, resurrected with Him, and death for them no longer has power, it is only the fulfillment of the old, dilapidated law, the end of earthly biography, which all together is only the birth of this new immortal life. Man carries this power of resurrection with him by the power of Christ’s resurrection. This means, in other words, that death is not at all a real, complete death, i.e. the final destruction of soul and body, the destruction of the ontological basis of man or disembodiment, it is only a fainting of life for the body and, accordingly, an incomplete, damaged, only potential state for the soul. But victory over death, which had already become impossible with weakened human forces and required the birth of a New Man, and at the same time the same thing, i.e. The Incarnation, on the human side, assumed that death did not and could not have ontological significance at all and completely destroy the connection between body and soul, disintegrate matter and give it the human body without a trace into decomposition. This did not and could not happen, because through sin it is given to man, like all creation, only to distort, spoil, but not destroy human nature. The force of life, which organizes matter into the body and was invested by the Creator, was paralyzed, but not eradicated by death. Both after death and in death, the basis of corporeality was preserved, the potency of the body, which is capable of being actualized when force is poured into it. The body must be considered dynamically, as a certain dynamic center, a point of application of organizing forces. One can think differently and even understand this dynamic center of the individual body occultly or physically, but it remains indestructible, remains in the treasury of the living forces of nature, like the countless seeds of life hidden in it. Here it’s time to remember the decisive text for this issue. Paul: 1 Cor. 15, 37–8. We are talking about this very question: if there must be a resurrection of the dead, where will these bodies come from, which have long been included in the general inventory and circulation of nature. Obviously, here we are not talking about the body, but about the material or matter of the body, which is both temporary and constantly, continuously changing, so that in essence it is possible, or rather, it should be said directly that the entire cosmos is matter for bodies or the general body of humanity. This commonality of the body, however, does not in the least interfere with the multiplicity of dynamic centers of its possession and organization, just as nothing prevents two people from admiring the same landscape or listening to the same sounds and sounds. Obviously, during the resurrection from the dead, i.e. when creating a new body for oneself, corporealization or incarnation, we can not talk about the matter of the body and its particles, eternally flowing in the ocean of space, but about dynamic centers, monads of the body, superphysical, supermaterial, although at the same time of cosmic order. This is exactly what the apostle is talking about. Pavel: “35. But someone will say: how the dead will be resurrected and in what body they will come. 36. Foolish one, what you sow is not the body of the future, but a bare grain that will happen, wheat or something else, but God gives it a body as He wants and to each seed its own body. 39. Not all flesh is the same flesh; but there is another flesh among men, another among beasts, another among fishes, and another among birds. 40. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies: but there is one glory of the heavenly, another of the earthly; 41. There is another glory to the sun, another glory to the moon, another to the star; and star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead: it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption, 43. it is sown in humiliation, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in strength; the spiritual body is sown, the spiritual body is raised. There is a spiritual body, and there is a spiritual body.” (1 Cor. 15). In these divinely inspired words a new complete and dazzlingly clear answer to the questions arising here is given. The mortal body is the seed of the future body. But what is a seed, or rather, what makes a seed a seed? Not its material composition, which should, on the contrary, disintegrate and decay, but the mysterious power of growth, life, individualization, the entelechy of the body (speaking according to Aristotle), invested in it as energy. This energy, which does not exist outside a given clump of matter, must nevertheless destroy it in order to manifest its power. The body is a seed, or rather, in the body there is a seed of the future body, and this seed is the dynamic center. The Lord, by His Resurrection, gives the power of seed growth, which will be revealed in the general resurrection, when there will be as many bodies as there are people or as many seeds, but at the same time, the whole world will be one common enlightened body of the resurrected person. However, this aspect of the matter, important for other issues related to the cosmism of our existence, does not matter here, where our attention is drawn to the individuality of the body, the connection that exists between a person and his body. This connection is inextricable and individual, and therefore, as the apostle persistently emphasizes. Paul, “all flesh is not the same flesh,” bodies have different glory. But perhaps this difference in glory also has some support in the difference in death, in the difference in dying itself. Here we have already come close to the problem of relics. In a certain sense, we can say that all earthly life is a birth, or, more precisely, the seeding of oneself for eternity, and, moreover, equally of both soul and body, due to their general fundamental inseparability. That seed of resurrection that the apostle speaks about. Paul, is not only the creation of God, by the power of God’s omnipotence, but also the creation of man through the participation of his freedom. A person creates himself, and in particular his body, imprinting it with the seal of his spirit. And this seal (σραγίς of St. Gregory of Nyssa) is an individual beginning, moreover, with varying intensity. Sometimes it is imprinted stronger, sometimes weaker. The spirit takes possession of the matter of its body with varying strength, depending on its own strength. But according to this, we have to conclude, the power of death is also different. Death, in relation to the body, has different powers. By dissolving the union of soul and body, it depersonalizes the body and disembodies the spirit, but there are objective boundaries for this destructive deed. A complete and final break never occurs anywhere, at least after Christ’s Resurrection, because all people will be resurrected in their own bodies, and at the resurrection the soul will recognize its seal on the body, which will rise from its own grain: not a new body, but the same one, only transformed. Therefore, the individuality of the body is generally indelible. The body, as a dynamic center, as a certain bodily entelechy, is preserved in every person, even with the complete decomposition of the composition given to him. There is no difficulty here in thinking of this dynamic body as a potentiality outside of material realization. But the greater the spiritual energy, the more distinct this imprinting of the body will be, or the stronger the connection between the dynamic body and the soul. And in the bodies of saints, in which a decisive victory of the spiritual principle has taken place, and goodness has prevailed, that break with the body that characterizes complete and final death does not occur at all. They retain the acquired power over their dynamic body, which has already become a spiritual body and acquired the properties of the resurrection body. In a certain sense, it can be said that saints do not die in the same sense as ordinary people; there is no break with the body in them, for they already possess, albeit in embryo, the body of resurrection before the general resurrection. Their temporary life ends when earthly times and seasons are fulfilled, but they do not know the full power of death over themselves, in the same way as the Lord Jesus Christ did not know it to any extent, although he tasted it in his humanity. The earthly life of the saints in our spatiality and temporality ceases, but their connection with the world does not break. Their bodies die, but this does not make them corpses, deprived of all life force. They remain in a special, enlightened state of the spiritual body, i.e. St. relics. The grain of the future resurrected body, which represents the body of every person, here does not freeze to the point of complete fainting of life, like everyone else, but preserves life, its warmth and strength, the movement of juices takes place in it, the mysterious presence of its bearer itself takes place. St. relics are not corpses, but bodies of resurrection, and saints do not die, or rather, they die differently, in a different sense, to a different degree than all people, and indeed everyone generally dies to varying degrees according to the possession of their bodies. This is what it really means to rest in the relics, as St. Seraphim, as about a special rank or a certain state. The bodies of saints, relics, not corpses, but already enlightened, glorified holy flesh, the altar of the earth, which is why naturally they are placed in the altar, as the most holy part of the Throne (in the antimension), as the Throne of Thrones: they serve as the direct footstool of the Body and Blood of Christ. The closeness of the saints to us is therefore not only spiritual, but also physical (understanding this last expression not in the materialistic sense, but in the sense of the φύσις nature of our world). One can say about the saints, correspondingly applying to them the words of the hymn about the Lord, that they simultaneously dwell in heaven, with the angels at the Throne of God (Rev. 7:9 et seq.) and on earth, in this world and in this, beyond the gates of death and on this side of them. In a word, they retain in this century a connection with their body, which death cannot destroy, and that is why, in this sense, they rest in the relics, and St. the relics are the subject of our prayerful veneration. Holy relics are not a corpse, but the bodies of saints, their living remains. Here we are again faced with the question of the remains of the saints and their incorruptibility, with which we began our discussion. And first of all, the remains are not actually the relics themselves, but, so to speak, the place of the relics, their outer shell, or not even a shell, but a covering. The remains are not the very essence of corporeality, not an integrated spiritual body, but its material form that it had at the moment of death, in other words, not corporeality in general, but the body of a given moment. Of course, we cannot destroy this connection, consider it accidental or insignificant: quite the contrary, according to the concreteness of everything that exists and the inseparability of noumenon and phenomenon, we must honor St. the remains are, so to speak, a phenomenon of St. relics, and the latter their noumenon. At the same time, we must not forget that not all powers have a phenomenal existence for us, but are limited to being in themselves, potentiality. For, according to what has been said, all saints have relics, they all rest in their relics, this is one of the natural consequences and manifestations of holiness, and however, not all saints have or have ever had relics in the proper sense, which constituted the object of reverent veneration. Therefore, the concept of St. relics and wider and deeper concept of St. remains or relics. At the same time, as history shows, the remains disappear and can be destroyed, but the relics, of course, are indestructible. Finally, St. the relics are incorruptible in the precise sense of the word, i.e. they have the power of an incorruptible body, inaccessible to death, but in relation to the remains they are physically incorruptible, i.e. delay and slowdown of natural decomposition processes may or may not occur at all or occur to varying degrees. As is known, the fate of St. the remains are different: the body of St. martyrs were destroyed by the pagans, burned or thrown into the river, and sometimes only particles fell into the hands of believers; then the bodies of the saints undergo partial or complete decay, depending on the length of time; finally, in some cases, miraculous things happen, i.e. incorruptibility inexplicable by the ordinary laws of earthly nature. And therefore, for accuracy, one should distinguish incorruptibility as an immanent quality of St. relics, their nature - from the incorruptibility of their remains, i.e. St. relics in the narrow sense of the word. Holy relics, as remains, may have physical incorruptibility (although, according to what has been said, also only relative), but they may not have it, while at the same time possessing the true power of incorruptibility. Why is this so? The fact is that this incorruption belongs to a different order, to a different connection than the causality of the physical world, with its matter. It permeates this world, leaving it untouched in its existence for the time being and only interrupting it at certain points, endowing it with new properties and powers. The relics are fragrant for pious admirers, but this does not mean that they are characterized by special perfumes, particles of which affect the nasal area; this fragrance is heard not from the outside, but from the inside, therefore it cannot be established by any external means. In the same way, and in general all the power and holiness of St. the relics should not be tangible mechanically, but accessible only to spiritual experience. In other words, the spiritual body, which represents St. power, and is perceptible only by the organs (even if only rudimentary) of the spiritual body, but not the physical or “spiritual”. The latter, forming part of the external world, is subject to its law, and as long as this world exists, it shares its fate, although this concerns only the cortex of phenomena, the phenomenal, and not the noumenal. Supporters of a simplified understanding of the issue - in the sense of direct physical incorruption of St. relics - it seems that incorruption must consist of the physical indecomposability of the body; in order to be consistent, they would even have to insist on his complete immutability and self-identity from the moment of death. In other words, all the power of St. They believe that relics are in their physical preservation, and all incorruptibility is in the immutability of the physical body. Such an understanding really suffers from materialism and religious color blindness; it does not distinguish between different plans and different intentions, and the incorruptibility of St. the relics are located on a completely different plane, belonging to a different dimension than the physical one. The uniqueness of their nature in this regard should be understood in the light of the situation that we have regarding the Holy Gifts. In them we have the holiest and most holy. relics of the Most Pure Body and Blood of Christ, under the guise of bread and wine, the substances of this world. For the sacrament of St. It is essential for the Eucharist that it be genuine bread and wine, which are, in the sense of the physical matter of the Holy Spirit. Eucharist. If it is permissible to make comparisons and analogies about such sacred objects, then we can say that the bread and wine in St. The Eucharist is an analogy of the remains of a saint's body in relation to his relics. Bread and wine are no longer bread and wine, they are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, but they retain the appearance and physical properties (color, taste, smell, weight, etc.) of bread and wine. And the miracle of St. Eucharist - love and Divine condescension are such that they retain the properties usually inherent in bread and wine. They can mold, dry out, special care must be taken to preserve the Holy Gifts intact, in a word, the holiest of the holiest sacraments and the transfiguration of the Holy. The spirit does not provide protection from the forces of natural destruction, and does not remove it from the laws of the physical world. If there really should be a type of bread and wine (for they are already only a type under which the Holy Gifts are taught), then this type should have all the power of its nature, and, therefore, be subject to the influence of the forces of nature (water, air, fire). Of course, the preservation of the physical properties of matter is not the limit for the power of the Holy Gifts, but the condition established by the Lord himself for their teaching. At the same time, the Holy Gifts have a power that surpasses all understanding, but as long as the existence of this world is allowed, all its laws must have force, and therefore there is no reason to be tempted by the fact that these laws can take a formula that is tempting for believers. And yet, outside of this Eucharistic matter, outside of bread and wine, the Holy Gifts cannot be given and do not exist; there is complete continuity between their noumenal nature and their phenomenal manifestation. If they can St. Gifts are subject to the influence of the elements, therefore, do not have the property of physical immutability (or incorruptibility), then why be surprised or tempted by the fact that St. the relics are subject to the laws of nature, and therefore to physical decay. It is necessary to take in full meaning both ends of this antinomy: both their spiritual, incorruptible, supernatural power and essence, and their presence in the world as its appearance, therefore, bound by its laws and subordinate to them. The physical incorruptibility of the relics can appear only as an exception, and not as a general rule, no matter how contradictory this may be to the usual way of thinking. Despite the fact that it exists, it is not supernatural, but natural, although in a broad way, i.e. In the only reasonable sense, a holy life could give the physical composition of the body greater strength and stability than a sinful life - that’s all. Holy relics, of course, have diverse properties that ordinary bodies do not have, and sensitive natures or those in a special state that is conducive to this perceive these properties. But they are not critical to their physical preservation. Rather, they are the way in which miracles and healings are performed, affecting the subtler bodies, with a particularly spectacular and reciprocal effect on the physical body. The decay of the remains, representing, as it were, the tabernacle of St. relics, follows from the general corruption of matter. Since the death of the saints is allowed, then the decay of their bodily remains is also allowed. And truly, this demand for their incorruptibility sometimes comes not from faith, but from a lack of faith that requires a sign, like the disciples who asked the Savior for the same thing and earned from Him the name of little faith. As if such purely physical incorruption in itself more certifies the dignity of the saint. relics, rather than the general church consciousness of holiness, and therefore resting in the relics of a given saint of God. Incorruptibility means precisely resting in St. relics, and this is the paralysis of death, its powerlessness. But this is the miracle that is seen with the eyes of faith, that this mortal body contains an incorruptible body, is already present in it, resting, inaccessible to our physical senses, but revealing itself as the special presence of the saint of God, who lives in this body here with us and near us. And it is much more difficult to understand not the perishability - relative to the holy remains, but their incorruptibility, which is manifested in many cases, and therefore elevated to one of the essential signs. This means that in this case, the consequences include the physical preservation of the body incorruptible. However, this body, although incorruptible and visible to us, is not the body of the resurrection, living in it and forming the actual relics. It is only a peel, like a cocoon that hides the butterfly. It, as far as it belongs to the physical world, has to melt and become transparent for the resurrection body. If in a certain sense it can be said that it is this body of resurrection, then this is ontologically indisputably so, but empirically the body retains its physical identity, living according to the laws of physical and not spiritual nature. So, the remains are only the covering of the saint. relics, cancer, receptacle, and therefore are subject to the laws of this world, and therefore to the laws of death. And, at the same time, it is true that the saint is present in St. relics, lives in his body, incorruptible and glorified before the resurrection, and therefore such grace-filled power and help is felt at the saint’s shrine; This is what drives the demonic servants and the demons themselves into a frenzy, who inspire the desecration of the Holy Spirit. relics. That is why such strength, such protection, such strength and wealth are given by holy places and the abundance of shrines where saints rest. power. For heavenly citizens live here with us, among us, on earth. If we were worthy or if it were the will of God to show them to us, we would see them, we would live in communion with them. This is, after all, predicted in the Apocalypse regarding the thousand-year kingdom of the saints, when their presence and proximity will be felt by those living on earth, and the wall between the worlds will thin out and become transparent. Holy relics create for us the physical proximity of saints, our unearthly patrons - such is the paradox contained in them. Holy relics are inseparable from the holy remains and their resting place. They are the same and not the same, cannot be identified with them, but cannot be separated either. We cannot make this difference in theological thought and reverent feeling, but in practice we absolutely cannot make it, because this connection is outside of our experience. Just as we absolutely cannot and should not separate in the Holy Gifts their sacredness of the Body and Blood of Christ and the mold that may appear on them according to the laws of the nature of the matter in which they are clothed, in the same way we cannot and should not practically separate or distinguish the Holy Gifts. relics from corruptible remains, these remains are the essence of St. relics, the incorruptible body of a saint present among us and living with us. The concreteness of religious feeling, that good and wise fetishism - let us use this odious expression again - does not allow any distinction here, just as there cannot be one in essence. After all, let us not be afraid of a new paradox - the corruption of St. relics, as well as mold and general damage to St. Gifts do not belong to them, but to us, in us, and not in them, it is accomplished; we see it and offer it, like those servants of the Antichrist who examined St. the relics, of course, could bring nothing there except the rotting of their souls. All this physical phenomenology of St. relics - this is the whole point - is connected not with theirs, but with our state, it belongs to us, we reflect ourselves, we curtain another world with ourselves, the veil of Isis is our own materiality, and if we could see and distinguish differently, we would see what actually exists, but now we see only our painted glasses. But there is no possibility here of either opposing or separating the phenomenon from the noumenon, and we are given, out of condescension for our weakness and blindness, to venerate St. power in a form accessible to us, given, therefore perishable, just like eating the Holy Body and Blood, accepting the Inconceivable only under the guise of bread and wine. However, they will tell us whether we ourselves are not making such a contrast, admitting the physical perishability of the remains and confessing the incorruptibility of St. relics. However, this is not a contradiction, but an antinomy in which both sides are equally right and justified, thesis, antithesis, both affirmation and denial. This antinomy, however, does not belong to the antinomies of reason, which (like dissonance in music, connecting and limiting tonality) ground it and constitute its nature, but to what, like Kant, can be called a cosmological antinomy, relating to the state of the world and connected with it. The world lies in evil and is guilty of death - this is one side of the antinomy, and everything in the world is guilty of the law of this world, but the world has already been saved and redeemed, in it there is the beginning of incorruption, victory over death has been accomplished. Therefore, there are already two worlds in the world, two principles, two forces; one exists in the other, negating it, but not limiting it in its own nature. This antinomy of the natural world is revealed in all religious and liturgical life and especially in the sacraments as in supernatural events, and this antinomy of being explains what is contemptuously and stupidly called fetishism. For, by honoring an object of the external world as a “phenomenon,” we honor in it its supernatural nature, but this nature is given to us only in the shell of this world, in its material shell. Here the law of identity or self-identity is violated: the object of the external world is unequal to itself and opposite to itself, foreign and alien. Those who are embarrassed by the incomprehensibility of this or want to understand with an earthly, “Euclidean” mind, that is, to remove the antinomy, while understanding here can only consist in its most precise statement, there is nothing to do in religion, for it all follows from this antinomy of the world, the incompatibility and inseparability of the two worlds. So, we get a series of antinomic positions: the remains are not the essence of incorruptible relics, but they are precisely the essence of incorruptible relics, reverently revered; the practical conclusion from here is the same: reverent worship, the kiss of St. relics, as having higher power. This leads to another conclusion, also of paramount practical importance: St. relics have the property of indivisibility, for the incorruptible body of glory that they contain is integral, whole, indivisible; it does not consist of parts, like a dynamic, energetic body, like a “spiritual” body. But from here the opposite follows with the same obviousness: holy relics are crushed, and each particle of them is completely holy. power, i.e. contains them, is the place of a dynamic, incorruptible, spiritual body, and the integrity of the remains is physical, in addition to the fact that it is unattainable, relative to at least many relics and does not matter, due to the fact that the concept of physical divisibility has no place here. This important practical truth is recognized by the Church when St. relics and their particles are embedded in the antimins, and the smallest particle of them, however, is relics, has all the power of relics. There is, undoubtedly, an analogy here with the teaching of the Church about the Holy Gifts, in which in every particle of the Holy. The Lord himself is truly present in the gift of gifts: “the Lamb of God is fragmented and divided, fragmented and undivided,” says the priest, dividing the holy. Lamb before communion. And this trait - fragmentation and inseparability - is undoubtedly inherent in St. relics (as well as holy water, holy chrism and other shrines). Every smallest particle of St. relics are relics, why can the incorruptible body of a saint be present in the particles of a saint. relics everywhere where these last exist, and there is nothing, in essence, even incomprehensible in this: why doesn’t the power of even this world (for example, electricity) manifest itself everywhere, in many centers? And the spiritual body, not bound by our laws of spatiality, can undoubtedly be present simultaneously in many places in our world. Physical concept of St. relics are even broader than the actual remains of the body, for they also include relics, such as clothes and other objects that belonged to the saint during his life on earth or, as it were, formed part of his body during burial - clothes, a coffin. If the clothes of St. When the apostles were laid on, they healed the sick, then, of course, on the general basis that they formed, as it were, a peripheral part of their body, i.e. belonged to their relics during their lifetime. For, of course, relics are created by life and during life, and after death they are only discovered, and the living venerable. Sergius had holy relics in his body, just like those now resting in the shrine. In this regard, the tempting and controversial question of the forgery of St. relics, allegedly practiced by spiritual speculators from the Greeks and in old Muscovite Rus'. Due to the fact that relics are a dynamic body, which only chooses the Holy Spirit as its container. relics, there is no absolute need for documented authenticity in the sense of belonging to St. the remains of this particle. Believers are not commissars, and we will not go into the tombs with research, we will not subject St. to physical examination. power. And in general, if there is faith and reverence, then there is no place or possibility for such research, which is still impossible anyway. And therefore, if pious belief connects the veneration of this particular saint with a given particle, even if someone had previously taken upon himself the grave sin of deception, then there is every reason to assume that the revered saint made this particle with his relics, as if his clothing, which is enough for us to fully honor the saint here. power. However, this assumption should in no way be interpreted in a distributive sense, i.e. what for St. relics do not matter their material shell. It is the exception here that confirms the general rule, and if we admit that a saint, out of love for humanity and condescension, transforms any bone into holy relics and attaches them to his body, then this does not mean that the relics can be considered separately and independently of the holy remains. In the world, in the cosmic order, St. powers exist and are indestructible, just as their material basis, which is their place in this world, is indestructible, no matter how one thinks of this basis in the closest way (i.e., as an atom-monad or an energy center). But for us St. relics exist only in the form, and at the same time under the guise of St. remains, and practically only they are relics for us. Therefore - here we have another paradox of the doctrine of relics - St. the relics are destructible and can be destroyed, just as many relics have already been destroyed. This does not in any way mean their destruction in the world, but it may well mean their destruction for us. We are deprived of the tangible proximity of the saint and the veneration of his relics; they become inaccessible to us and go into another world. The relics leave – not from the world, because this is precisely the essence of the saint. relics - in the presence of the saints in the world - but from our field of vision, from us. Until now, the servants of the Antichrist have not yet fulfilled the entire program that was instilled in them by their fanatical hatred of the church (and here heretics and sectarians - Tolstoyans, Stundists, etc. - hide behind them and merge with them). They outraged and profaned St. power, demonstrating the powerlessness of defense. And they really demonstrated it. And if we lose St. relics, then this is what they deserve. But the program, carried to completion, would consist of the complete destruction of the holy remains, which was what fanatics from pagans and Jews had previously committed. Why the program was not fully implemented, one can make various assumptions about this, but we were not deprived of St. relics and must, with reverent and zealous veneration, compensate for the desecration committed. So, our reasoning was based on the conviction that the question of veneration of St. relics are by no means external, peripheral, relating to the rules of liturgical services or the cult in general. No, it, like all liturgical issues, is inextricably linked with the very essence of the Christian faith. Who denies St. relics, he denies the power of the resurrection of Christ, and therefore is not a Christian. And it is not for nothing that anger and hatred, which have keen eyes, were directed precisely in this direction. With his godless and unscrupulous protocols and the very autopsy of St. the relics hit the hearts of all believers painfully, but the power of this blow, at first stunning, should also be instructive. That low level of dogmatic consciousness, thanks to which we so easily pass from hibernation and blindness to unbelief and fear, must be surpassed, clear and principled answers to perplexities and temptations must be given - first of all to ourselves, and then to the whole herd, and there is no need to resort to random apologetics; denial of facts or fabrication of facts. Since God wanted light to be brought into the mysterious twilight of the sanctuary, even if it was a prosaic kerosene or electric lamp, we must not close our eyes, but calmly and firmly look around us. We will never, of course, begin to explore St. on our own, on our own initiative. relics, we will never look immodestly, out of curiosity, into St. cancer, but if, against our will and contrary to it, we are forced to look, we must maintain self-control, consciousness and faith, seeing the invisible in the visible.