Heaven on earth

The article “Heaven on Earth” was written by Fr. Sergius Bulgakov for the collection “Ostkirche”, published as a special notebook of the magazine “Una Sancta” by prof. F Heiler (Sonderheft der “Una Sancta”. Münrchen. 1927. p. p.. 42–63). She appeared in this German collection translated (by N. Ugryumov) into French. Thus it is clear that this article was intended for foreigners. O. Sergius tried to give in it a brief answer to the question of what Orthodoxy is. But this article is not of a catechetical nature; in it one can hear much more the voice of a man to whom a vision of heavenly beauty has been revealed and who, having been caught up into the heavenly beauty, never ceases to be amazed at what he sees and glorifies what is revealed to him. “Heaven on earth” - these words must be understood not only literally, but also realistically. For many people talk about heaven on earth, but how many are able to really see the heavenly in the earthly, the holy in the familiar, and the divine in the ordinary? Father Sergius had this gift to the highest degree and he knew how to infect others with this admiration. Therefore, his understanding of Orthodoxy as a vision of intelligent beauty, as a transformation of earthly reality, as an ongoing Pentecost, is the pathos and inspiration that should underlie all our searches and aspirations. In this sense, his article is important not only for foreigners. We all often ask ourselves: “What is our Orthodoxy? Why is it dearer to us than all the blessings?” And seeing our difficulties and disorder, sometimes we are tempted by it. Then we need new inspiration, a new vision, which not only takes us into the distance - to the unstoppable light, but takes us to Yura Tabor and shows us the world, our entire earthly reality, clothed and transformed by the light of Christ, shining not only in heaven, but also on earth. This is what the Russian text of the article about. Sergius is like the voice of a shepherd, edifying and comforting us even after his departure from earthly life. According to a pious legend, the enlightener of Rus', St. Before her baptism, Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir sent his ambassadors to different countries to torture the faith. The ambassadors, getting acquainted with different faiths, also attended services in the church of St. Sofia in Byzantium. And they expressed their impression of him, saying that they did not know where they were - in heaven or on earth. It was with this clever vision of the ambassadors in Sofia that their choice was decided, and the spiritual destinies of Russia were predetermined. Childish naivety in this story is combined with the highest insight: the ambassadors saw the most important and genuine thing that is in Orthodoxy and what Orthodoxy is: heaven on earth. And this applies not only to the beauty of the divine service, not to the wondrous splendor of St. Sophia, but above all to that mysterious and wonderful thing that makes up the life of Orthodoxy, which makes it comprehend and experience as a constantly occurring miracle of a new creation. “Behold I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5), “behold the tabernacle of God with men” (21:3). Orthodoxy is this tabernacle. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5-7) - Orthodoxy is the life of a new creation. The ambassadors saw this through the pomp and splendor of the Byzantine rite and, to a certain extent, despite it, but even to this day Orthodoxy remains as an intelligent heaven, which must be seen with spiritual eyes and, once seen, one cannot help but love and surrender to this intelligent vision, as chosen souls surrendered and are devoted to it in our days (for example, the learned and intelligent philologist Konstantin von Zederholm, who became a monk Clement near the Optina Elder Ambrose). The soul can be spiritually blind to intelligent beauty, remain deaf to heavenly sounds, and then Orthodoxy appears to it only as frozen ritualism, a petrified mummy, exoticism, aesthetics, folklore or simply archeology. Therefore, one cannot learn from the outside, although one must learn, Orthodoxy: one must once spiritually see it, and only having seen it, know it, and having known it, love it and surrender to it without end and limit. Whether the Western Christian world will finally see Orthodoxy or remain in its former blindness, the fate of this world itself and the whole world in general depends on it. This mysterious accomplishment, inherent in the ways of Christian Europe, is now approaching - “God does not give the Spirit by measure” (John 3:4). The Western Christian world must finally free itself from the thoughtless and superficial arrogance with which it treats Orthodoxy; it must commit μετανοια, reconsider itself, see itself through Orthodoxy and in the light of Orthodoxy. Oh, this does not mean, cannot mean, should not mean that he will thereby lose the talent and deliberate calling entrusted to him by God: Catholicism will not renounce its feat of Christian will, just as Protestantism will not renounce its feat of torturing thought. But they must also see all the limitations of this gift of theirs, which they made the highest and only. They must, while preserving their good humanity, subordinate and devote it to the divine. Let man bow before God, who creates heaven on earth. Every religion has a creed, an organization, a worship service, and vital primacy in practical implementation may belong to each of these aspects. Thus, Catholicism is first and foremost an organization, a papal plena potelstas, in which both doctrine and worship, the church as power and kingdom are established - civitas divina in terrenis; Protestantism is a “ministry of the word”, a teaching, a study, a problem, and on the basis of the study both the doctrine and the organization are determined. Orthodoxy recognizes itself primarily in worship, which is a kind of living of God; doctrine, power, and organization are emitted from it and poured into it and preserved in it. The first in Catholicism is the power of the clergy, in Protestantism - the professor's office and audience, in Orthodoxy - liturgical life of God and the performance of God. Orthodox services seem long and tedious. In reality, they are short for their purpose, for in the extreme they could cover all of human time, turn all of life into liturgical living. Orthodoxy seeks not strong power, not an elaborate teaching, but an integral life. It is this life, the grace-filled life in Christ, like a new creation. Therefore, one cannot learn living Orthodoxy from books (although one can become acquainted with it from books), and the “essence” of Orthodoxy cannot be written. Compared with other faiths - Catholicism and Protestantism - which are more bookish and learned, seeking to clothe themselves in bookishness, Orthodoxy seems to be a poor and primitive ritual belief, which has not matured into a book due to ignorance, due to fatal lack of culture (and the flourishing times of Byzantium are forgotten). Of course, cultural and scientific age actually varies, but Orthodoxy cannot become bookish due to its foreign nature. After all, it is wrong to expect bookishness from an artist whose business is skill and creativity. And Orthodoxy in its essence can only be comprehended by living in it, for Orthodoxy is an integral life, about which the most important thing (the experience of integrity) cannot be described in a book. It can be seen or not seen, cognized or not cognized, however, it is amenable not to abstract cognition, but to experience. This is the difficulty, or at least a special feature of Orthodox missionary work. Orthodoxy even now conquers and attracts those who know it irresistibly, like the ancient ambassadors of Prince Vladimir, but it is impossible to abstractly prove it to those who do not want to see it. This is generally the nature of the Orthodox mission, which cannot be active among the heterodox. In the fight against heterodoxy, Orthodoxy is involuntarily replaced, does not appear as itself, is forced to use the tools of the enemy, that is, abstract theology. In this respect, it comes close to early Christianity, which conquered itself not with the scientificity of theology, but with its authenticity. Therefore, generally speaking, Orthodoxy is difficult, more difficult than all other confessions, just as the narrow path of truth is difficult compared to the broad path of half-truths and adaptations. It exists either as a traditional, national religion or as the property of selected natures, whose heart is accessible to the sounds of heaven. It calls to itself even now from all countries and from all peoples. And I want to believe that Orthodoxy, which has Spasov’s beloved disciple John as its spiritual head, will become the faith of all peoples throughout the universe. Orthodoxy contains the entire fullness of church tradition, however, not in such a way that it is stored in human minds or in books, but it lives in it as some immediate fact. Let's explain with a comparison. We know - little or much - about our own nature, about our body and soul with scientific, abstract knowledge, but we, first of all, live ourselves and are given to ourselves in our lives. What we study, we know internally, because we are. This is also Orthodoxy in relation to its complex and difficult dogma, over which our scientific thought struggles intensely, sometimes exhaustingly. Here dogmatics is not a teaching (although it is a teaching), but an always developing experience, a fact of immediate life. Orthodoxy is the religion of St. Trinity, for life in Orthodoxy gives the experience of life in St. Trinity. Orthodoxy is Christianity, faith in Christ incarnate, for He lives in His Church, and all church life is constant communion with Him. What is essential in Orthodoxy is not the teaching about this or that dogmatic question, but being in dogmatic experience and constantly passing through it. In a word, Orthodoxy is not a doctrine, but the living of God. Teaching is an adaptation to the needs of the human mind and era of certain aspects of holistic experience, while Orthodoxy has within itself the possibility of living God itself. It can even do without any human teaching and mental adaptations; the luminaries of Orthodoxy, the saints, usually live outside of mental culture and outside of human theology. But this does not mean that they remain outside of tradition and dogma; on the contrary, they live precisely in them, they are their true guardians. How? By internal knowledge, through communion with the internal power of Orthodoxy. “Where does he get such wisdom and strength?” (Matthew 13:54) they asked about Him. “How can He know books without studying?” But also in the Church Those who know it are not those who teach from the mind, but those who teach with their lives. Knowledge of the mysteries of God is a gift of God, a grace-filled fruit of a grace-filled life. So, all teaching in Orthodoxy is part of his life experience and therefore is given in worship, as the life of God. The typikon, the church charter, which prescribes the performance of church services for the whole year, is like a score of the divine mystery, an indicator of the movement of the starry spiritual sky. Orthodoxy can only be understood through worship, although it, of course, is not exhausted by it. It is impossible to embrace all the endless content that is given by worship. But the most basic and general property here is the feeling of standing before God and the presence of God - meeting with Him, invoking His Name. Solomon built the church “of the Name of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:16), and in Orthodox churches the Name of God and the Name of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity live and are sanctified. One cannot help but be simply amazed by the quantity of how continuously the Name of God and the Name of the Holy Trinity are proclaimed in Orthodoxy, how incessantly It is invoked and worship is offered to Him. We continually signify ourselves with a Name, a word or a symbolic gesture, the sign of the cross; this Name is never absent or forgotten. Blessings are continually performed by this Name. This is a prayerful breath, a heartbeat. From the outside it seems like a monotonous and incomprehensible repetition, some kind of mechanical prayer exercise, but from the inside it is a constantly occurring meeting, a vision of the Lord, a prayerful gaze turned to Him, the Power of God, God himself. It is impossible to come out from under the cover of this Name, to be naked from It. On the contrary, it is necessary, if possible, to constantly be overshadowed by Him, to stand before Him. The Most Holy Trinity inhabits the consciousness of a Christian along with Its Name. The invocation of the Name is a heavenly cover spreading over the Orthodox world. It is necessary to understand all the realism of this Impersonal Invocation, to feel its effective power, in order to get closer to the comprehension of Orthodoxy. It is the gate through which only one can enter Orthodoxy, for one is baptized in the Name of St. Trinity; Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The Name of the Holy Trinity and the Name of Jesus, the Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit individually and the entire Holy Spirit. The Trinity in its entirety is living quantities, living Personalities with whom the believing soul communicates and conducts its own dialogue with Them. Orthodoxy is Old Testament in the veneration of the Name, in the knowledge of His power, and New Testament in the revelation of the Name, for the ancient Jehovah is the Holy Trinity in Orthodoxy. The dogma of the Holy Trinity determines and fills the entire life of Orthodoxy, which proclaims it, testifies to it, calls to it, reveals it. Not only doubt, but even distortion in relation to this dogma is incompatible with this symphonic revelation of the trinity. The Holy Trinity is addressed to the world by the Human Face of the Son of God, therefore Orthodoxy is faith in Christ and life in Christ. But from this it in no way becomes Jesuanism, that is, the preaching and religion of Jesus, the prophet who showed God to people as the Father, proclaimed the Father, paved the way for an example: Orthodoxy does not know and cannot know such a Jesus, the rabbi of Nazareth, cannot see religionsgeschichtlichen Jesus, for he knows the Son of God, “the One who exists from the Holy Trinity.” But the Son of God reveals the Father and does His will, and the hearts of the sons of God, adopted in Christ, continually turn to the Father. The praying heart unceasingly knows the Father through the Son with love and turns to Him in the most solemn and reverent prayers: in the Lord’s Prayer, in the consecration of the Holy Gifts, in the solemn prayers of Pentecost. Our holy and terrible, kind and merciful Father in heaven dwells in our hearts with sweet love. Christ does not obscure the Father, but reveals Him, teaches Him to love Him in love for Himself, teaches the mystery of divine love “I and the Father alone am.” Fatherland and sonship are especially inherent in Orthodoxy, and it knows the sacred tradition itself as a living fatherland, a paternal tradition, the keeping of which is not an order, not a law, but a loving sonship. The pathos of tradition is rooted in this feeling of the fatherland; it is born on the basis of a living knowledge of the First and Second Hypostases, the joy of filial obedience and knowledge of the fatherland. And any self-indulgence - rationalistic or mystical - is, first of all, a sin against love, dislike. Fidelity to tradition is not immobility, traditionalism, inertia, it is not even conservatism, but it is love for the fathers, with the fathers, in the fathers, in the image of the love of the Sons: “I have come, not to do my will, but the will of the Father who sent me.” The Holy Trinity, addressed to the world by the Human Face of the Son, is vitally revealed in the Holy Spirit. The Third Hypostasis is so intimately, deeply and vitally known to Orthodoxy that it, being faith in the Holy Trinity, being Christianity, as a religion of redemption, in all its inspirations, in all its insights and achievements, is the religion of the Holy Spirit. The acquisition of the Holy Spirit is the highest and only goal of Christian life. The sending down of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments and rituals is such an important and fundamental fact of Orthodox life that all of it is determined by it. All ascetic sighs, all prayers, all accomplishments are about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Church and lives in the Church, and everything of the Church - great and small (if there is this distinction) - is surrounded by Him. The faithful know the Holy Spirit even more directly and directly than Christ, Whom they recognize in Him. Orthodoxy is Pentecost, always taking place, the unceasing meeting of tongues and the distribution of gifts. Every word fails about the Holy Spirit, but about Him are all the aspirations and hopes of the revelations of the Age to Come. Co St. We appeal to the Spirit in our prayers no less (if there is less or more) than to Christ. The Church and churchliness, everything that happens in the Church, is the constant self-testimony of the Holy Spirit. The Comforter comes and amuses us with complete joy, and Orthodoxy recognizes this joy in the faces of saints, spirit-bearing men, in the living manifestations of the Holy Spirit. He shines with a light that is difficult to bear in the face of St. Seraphim, who greeted every person with the words: “My joy!” and these were not only kind words, but the guidance of the Spirit. Orthodoxy is completely filled with the knowledge of the Holy Spirit; it thirsts for Him, accepts Him, and seeks Him. Orthodoxy is the Holy Spirit himself, living in the Church. Therefore, the Holy Trinity is a vital and dogmatic fact of Orthodoxy, outside of which it does not exist, and therefore the mystery of the Holy Trinity is always co-present in it and illuminates the heart with the light of its knowledge. This imprinting of the Holy Trinity of Orthodoxy must be seen, for it is most clearly evidenced intimately and silently. Why Rev. Sergius, alien to any school theology, as the crown of his feat, builds a church in the Name of St. Life-Giving Trinity? Doesn’t this silently speak of the experimental knowledge of Her mysteries, about which the promise is given: “We will come and make our abode with him”? Orthodoxy is not a doctrine, but a life; therefore, it knows different stages of growth, but at every stage the knowledge of the Holy Trinity is revealed, dimly or more clearly. From this experience, with its special character, theology arises. In general, it must be said that Orthodoxy does not have and does not want to have a doctrine, that is, a generally binding and, so to speak, normal teaching about dogmas (like Catholic Thomism), although it does, of course, have symbolic confessions of faith. Theology is a system of human and, most importantly, abstract, although based in experience, thoughts about God. Holiness does not theologize, but views God; it is on the other side of knowledge, as the Apostle says: “Knowledge will be abolished and only love (i.e., the holistic life experience) will not cease” (1 Cor. 13:8). In general, for Western man there is nothing higher and more indisputable than thought and knowledge, that is, human knowledge; for Orthodoxy, higher than knowledge is life in God, which is not always possible to tell in human words (just as the Apostle Paul could not tell about what he saw in the third heaven - 2 Cor. 12:4). Orthodoxy is the ongoing and completed incarnation of God, the earthly life of Christ the Savior, His death and resurrection and His royal presence. Here all Christian dogma, all Christology, with its difficulties and twists in rational presentation, is present as a fact. What once happened in the earthly life of Christ retains its power forever, and is now repeated with grace in the Church. With the eyes of faith and the experience of the heart, we are present at this accomplishment. Our church year, the movement of the firmament, is determined by the Incarnation; it is confirmed by a number of holidays or other memorable days in the life of the Savior. And these holidays are not only memories (this would be a weakness and degeneration of religious life if they were only memories), but to a certain extent they are the essence of the events themselves. Believers empathize and are present to what has once happened. The Incarnation in its main moments - from Christmas to Ascension and Pentecost - occurs in the Church continuously, these are holidays and sacred times. This is the strength and “essence” of Orthodoxy, for what other essence could the Christian faith have other than Christ’s coming to earth! Therefore, our solemn services with their rich, sometimes sophisticatedly embellished ritual are not only “memories”, but also mysterious accomplishments, Christophanies. On the day of the Nativity of Christ, Christ is truly born, just as he suffers during Holy Week, and on the day of Holy Easter he is resurrected. This knowledge of the ongoing passion and resurrection is so alive and active in Orthodoxy that only from it can one understand the real meaning of these days. This is not a memory, but the event itself, this is the incarnation of Christ revealed in time, forever already accomplished. And in this sense, the church year in Orthodoxy repeats - within the framework of time and possible human experience - life with Christ and in Christ; The earthly life of the Savior, which ended with His Ascension as a separate private fact of world life, is reproduced in the Church as a general, universal, basic, exhaustive fact. Indeed, in essence, apart from this fact, nothing significant in the world, that is, having an eternal, abiding meaning, has happened. In this particular fact, determined in the conditions of the world by time and space, the whole life of the world was concentrated, and this life of the world, that is, the life of Christ, is accomplished in the Church, which is the Body of Christ. From here, by the way, follows the special use that the word of God, in particular the Gospel, received in Orthodoxy. For all readers, both believers and non-believers, St. The Gospel is a book, which for some is simply a monument of writing belonging to a certain era, and for others the word of God, as a subject of study and a source of edification. It retains this meaning, of course, for the Orthodox as well, to the extent that they strive to understand it through their own private, human efforts. However, the reading of a selected passage in church during worship has a completely different special, theurgic meaning. Here this is not only edification, but first of all some accomplishment. Here the word mysteriously contains the event itself, which is happening and being experienced today. Here the Lord is born, baptized, transfigured, suffers, enters Jerusalem, and resurrects. Here the word is also an event, albeit a mysterious one, just as the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ by the word is mysterious. Here the word is the instrument of the incarnation of God, the actual incarnation of God. Here the Holy Gospel is not a book about the earthly life of the Savior, but this life itself with its events. And to this book of life, in this meaning, of course, all approaches of scientific criticism and study are powerless and inappropriate, no matter how justified they may be in private use. Here is the mystery of the word, which is transubstantiated and transubstantiates. Here is a miraculous image of the Savior who lives and acts. The Gospel is the Lord himself among his faithful. “The Word became flesh and dwelt in us” (John 1:4) - this is the basic and abiding fact, this is life in the church. To the extent that human weakness is capable of giving itself over to life in the Church, it is the spiritual knowledge of the incarnation, being with Christ, a constantly renewed contact with this great and terrible sacrament. The Church is the Body of Christ; this is not only a dogmatic thought, but an experiential reality, for believers, in so far as they believe, live with Christ and in Christ. 'And therefore it is natural and self-evident that the divine Eucharist, the sacrament of the always renewed incarnation and divine sacrifice, constitutes the focus of all church life. Everything reaches out to her, is connected and filled with her. The Divine Eucharist is not only a remembrance, although it is also a remembrance, it is not only communion, although it is also communion, it is the actual incarnation of God. Orthodoxy does not know the “adoration” of St. gifts introduced by Catholicism; This is opposed by a strict and sober feeling, which does not allow turning the Body and Blood of Christ into relics for worship and thereby, forgetting about the Ascension, holding the Lord, but the entire liturgy, starting from the proskomedia, is the worship of Christ incarnate and abiding among us. The Holy Gifts after the Transubstantiation on the throne are visible only to the liturgical priest, who looks with fear and trembling at the Lord of Glory himself, again humbling himself and giving Himself into human hands. But the whole church, together with the priest, prays and bows to this shrine. The presence of Christ in the Divine Eucharist is a miraculous event experienced daily in the Orthodox liturgy. If in Protestantism communion has become some kind of speculative fact - a remembrance and reverent rite, which conventionally contains - or does not contain - the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, if in Catholicism the Mass, although it necessarily includes the transubstantiation of St. Gifts, religiously and practically focuses primarily on communion (which is why it turns out that, in addition to liturgical worship, there is also a special adoration of the Holy Gifts), then in Orthodoxy the divine liturgy is the sacrament of the incarnation, from the Nativity of Christ (to which the proskomedia corresponds) to the Ascension of Christ (to which the transfer of the Holy Gifts to the altar at the end of the liturgy corresponds). It is known that the symbolism of the Divine Liturgy in Orthodoxy contains much more than just the celebration of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. This is, as it were, a new, recurring coming of Christ to earth, a meeting with Christ, His presence among us on earth, the abiding mystery of the incarnation. Therefore, the Divine Eucharist is the power of the Church, her breath, her life, the sacrament of sacraments. And without any unnecessary words and reasoning, it places its performers - the priesthood - in a special, exceptional position - ministers of the sacraments. The Divine Eucharist is such a terrible and great sacrament that one cannot even imagine approaching it for a person who is not protected and not armed with grace-filled initiation. The priesthood in Orthodoxy, its necessity is axiomatically evident from the fact of the celebration of the Divine Eucharist, for such a sacrament cannot be performed by a person, and cannot even come close to it. And here the human election of the community for the “ministry of the word” is pitiful and powerless. The Protestant idea of ​​an elected priesthood is a religious absurdity or folly in the face of the Divine. Eucharist. Here everything human has no meaning, for only the laying on of apostolic hands - through episcopal succession - brings down the Holy Spirit and makes divine works possible through man. Ordination to the priesthood in Orthodoxy is not an election to the ministry of the word (although this is part of its tasks), but first of all an admission to approach the Holy One. to the throne, to perform the mystery. Initiation is the entry into the region of divine fire that covers St. throne, and the first passage through the royal doors at initiation (open only to the clergy) is the entry into this curtain of fire. The priest remains in this fire, but is not burned. The latter, however, approaching the throne and the sacred mystery, as if stripped of his human nature, putting on sacred clothes, he puts on and thereby separates, temporarily leaves this world for the shrine of Sinai. It must therefore be said that only Orthodoxy is a fully liturgical Church. Of course, the liturgy is essential for Catholicism, it is also valued in Protestantism, although due to the absence of an ordained priesthood here they can no longer have a true liturgy, but only in Orthodoxy does it have a dominant and decisive significance. About Orthodoxy it can be said that all of it is liturgy, church and extra-church, as a constantly experienced incarnation. Orthodoxy is not only the liturgy, the constant experience of the experienced incarnation, but it is also Pentecost, the Upper Room of Zion, into which the Holy Spirit descends. The bringing down of the Holy Spirit, the sanctification of all human life from cradle to grave, the sanctification of even the elements and things of this world is essential in Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy, like Catholicism, knows only seven sacraments in the proper sense. However, besides this, it has, one might say, an almost indefinite number of mysteries, which, although dogmatically different from the sacraments, nevertheless, almost indefinitely approach them. What can be said, for example, about the rite of Orthodox burial, which represents the solemn burial of a human body before the resurrection, or about the rite of monastic tonsure, during which, like at baptism, a new name is given? What can we say about the consecration of waters (on Epiphany, as well as on other days - the so-called small blessing of water), where the waters are consecrated “by the power and action and influx of the Holy Spirit,” or about the consecration of the Easter artos? What can be said about the consecration of St. church and St. throne, Holy antimension, sacred vessels, bells and other church accessories? But then there are other, private consecrations - potions, fruits and vegetables, fruits and grapes, new houses and every thing, etc. Those living in the Church experience this continuously flowing stream of sanctifying grace and, in turn, strive for holiness and sanctification. From here stems a deep and ineradicable feature of Orthodox piety, the fact that it is drawn to every shrine, loves holiness, wherever and in whatever way it is manifested. From the outside, to an unbeliever and a cold eye, this may seem like superstition or simply a relic. We must understand this from the inside, from the nature of church experience, from the special knowledge of holiness and the search for holiness. In a religious sense, we can say that a person really does not need anything outside of holiness and he does not want or love anything except holiness. Holy is the Lord our God, and love for God is love for holiness. Our people love to wander to holy places to worship shrines; they filled the holy land in large numbers, striving to worship the traces of the earthly life of the Savior. It is enough for a shrine or a miraculous icon to appear somewhere, or, as in our days, an icon miraculously renewed, for crowds to flock there. And I firmly believe and know about present-day, Soviet Russia: I firmly believe and know that if in the world somewhere and sometime and somehow the sign of a woman clothed in the sun sparkles, the brilliance of holiness appears, our people, deceived, intoxicated by Bolshevism, will move even into the desert towards the shrine. This cannot be said about any of the peoples - with a better attitude towards them, they will remain - prudently - in their cities, although they will listen with excitement to what is happening, but the Russian people will forget everything and - flow. And this is Orthodoxy. So in ancient times, during the time of our church schism, dark, but religiously gifted and strong people burned themselves, not wanting to change their holiness, while others walked around the world, looking for a righteous kingdom with a righteous life and righteous faith! And this is also Orthodoxy. And from here it becomes clear the place that belongs here to everyday piety, the discipline of religious life, which constitutes the strength and truth of the Old Believers. This is all the same desire to sanctify all life, to make it an extra-church liturgy and Pentecostalism, the Kingdom of God on earth. Orthodoxy is a ladder between heaven and earth, this ladder is intended for ascent; at its different levels it has saints, saints of God. God is marvelous in His saints, the Church sings, and this surrounding of God with saints, the plenum of Holiness, is the living fulfillment of the Church. Orthodoxy knows that this ladder is established for all times, and that now, as before, ascent along it is taking place. And now the saints live among us, their golden belt will not be interrupted until the end of time. The glorification of new saints is a necessary movement of juices, a growing power of life, a new evidence of salvation. The Church cannot recognize the power of life outside of this constant communion with the saints, just as it is in prayerful communion with all those who have fallen asleep in the faith through their commemoration at the liturgy and in funeral services (requiems). At the top of the ladder there is She who is this ladder itself, for in Her human nature she contained the Holy Spirit, “the most honorable cherub and the most glorious without comparison seraphim,” the Mother of God. It is impossible to find words strong enough to properly express how the Mother of God is honored in Orthodoxy. Hostile observers say about it that it is not a religion of Christ, but of the Mother of God. This opposition itself is blind and stupid. Due to the fact that it is faith in Christ, it is also veneration of the Mother of God, inseparable, just as Christ and the Mother of God are inseparable in the Incarnation, as they are inseparable in the image on the Mother of God icons. Orthodoxy honors the Mother of God both in Her heavenly image, as the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, exalted and glorified above every creature, and as the Mother of the human race, the holy Intercessor in sorrows, needs and circumstances. Orthodoxy knows this closeness of the Mother of God to the human race; It is, in its own way, the same unshakable and abiding fact of experience as the Incarnation and Pentecost. The Mother of God lives in the Church, revealing Herself in Her miraculous icons, listening to the prayers offered to Her. In church prayers - one can say without exaggeration - the name of the Mother of God is invoked almost as often as the name of Christ and the Holy Trinity. These apparitions of the Mother of God, both in miraculous icons and in miraculous visits of great saints, are of particular importance for Orthodox piety. Of our Russian saints, the Venerables were honored with this visit. Sergius and – repeatedly – ​​Rev. Seraphim. This is why these phenomena are so dear and joyful to the Orthodox heart, for it believes and knows that always, even in our days, She appears to people worthy of it, even if we do not know these men, for Her love for people is unchangeable. In this regard, there is undoubtedly a complete contrast between Orthodoxy and Protestantism, which in its religious-mystical essence entirely grew out of the mysterious and incomprehensible insensibility of the Mother of God (and then, naturally, of all the saints). Hence his rationalistic dryness and fatal disintegration: motherless, he also turns out to be unsonful, scattered into separate isolated individuals. Mystically, the Mother of God is the Church, about which it was said from the cross to the beloved disciple: Behold your Mother. The veneration of the Mother of God must be resurrected among Protestant peoples; without this there is no way to the Church. Orthodoxy is much less different in this respect from Catholicism, where the Virgin Mary is also revered. There are only dogmatic-psychological differences here, which is not the place to dwell on here. “You have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem and ten thousand angels, to the triumphant council and church of the firstborn who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant” (Heb. 12:22-3). These words of the Apostle, which he said about the Church in general, express that most intimate, and at the same time the most important thing that is in Orthodoxy, that is Orthodoxy. There is no distance between the earthly and the heavenly, there is no mediastinum between this world and the otherworldly, there is no division between the departed and the living - everything is together, everything is one, heaven on earth and consecrated earth. The Church is stopped time, revealing eternity within itself, a living tradition in which church history is effectively realized. Just as in the integral of life, in every moment of it, the entire fullness of past life experience is hidden and preserved, so the Church of the present day preserves within itself the entire fullness of church tradition, it lives in it as a single, integral act. The Church is a miracle of life in progress, just as all life is miraculous - in its living unity, in its ability to accumulate and in the power of this accumulation. The Church is completeness, and whoever has tasted of the fullness no longer wants the inferiority that all other Christian confessions represent for the Orthodox. Therefore, by the way, such ugliness, distortion, impoverishment are those Russian sects that fall into Protestantism of various styles (Stundism, Baptism, etc.), why in themselves this falling away is invariably punished by bitterness: hatred of the Church, fear of the Church constitutes the incurable ailment of Russian sectarianism, suffering from Pharisaic self-exaltation, so that their virtues, according to the word bliss Augustine about the pagans turn out to be only brilliant vices. Time has only one dimension in depth - eternity, but eternity does not know time-spatial dimensions. Orthodoxy is the experience of eternity in time. It is essentially outside of history, because it is outside of time. That is why those who judge him from without consider him petrified. For itself, it does not know and does not want to know the power of history, although it is connected with it in its external destinies. Therefore, it is archaic from the outside and religiously massive like primitives; it does not want to be applied and change. For someone who wants to be moderne at all costs, who surrenders himself entirely to the power of time, Orthodoxy appears to be a historical mummy. It is necessary to a certain extent to free ourselves from the oppression of time, so that this independence from time in Orthodoxy ceases to confuse and, on the contrary, begins to please. Orthodoxy recognizes itself as a universal or catholic Church. But the principle of locality is also combined with catholicity, for in fact it is realized in a number of local churches, autocephalies. This is not provincialism (although, of course, due to human weakness, individual church communities suffer from provincialism, just as the papal church in its Italian Romanism was never free from it). This is a combination of two different dimensions. Each Orthodox community within itself has a living experience of its universality, that is, of opening eternity, and in it it unites with everyone who lives in this same experience. But this does not give rise to the need for a geographical-hierarchical identification of this universality, which is what papism is for Catholics. In the eyes of a Catholic, the universality of the Church means being under the jurisdiction and authority of the pope. Organization here takes on decisive significance. On the contrary, for Orthodoxy, universality is only a special quality of church experience, it is churchliness viewed from the inside, and for this feeling the external unity of organization is not required and is not of decisive importance. As a hierarchical church, Orthodoxy is by no means indifferent to external organization: the structure of power naturally follows from the hierarchical powers of the episcopate. However, it is precisely the universal nature of Orthodoxy, while asserting the power of church authority, that opposes papal autocracy and the universal subordination and passivity that flows from it. Ecumenicality is also conciliarity, understood not in the sense of external state constitutionalism or popular rule, but as unity in the church experience of universality, that is, unity in love. Despite all the hierarchism, Orthodoxy is freedom, and therefore responsibility. The Orthodox Church is not an army constrained by discipline and obedience to one leader, but the people of God, living in their own tents and having their legal fathers-shepherds and shepherd leaders. Thus, on the spiritual path of Orthodoxy the pope does not appear as an absolute church monarch. In this way, intimacy and universality, locality and universality, national churches and their national unity are united in Orthodoxy, as was foreordained by the Lord, who sent His disciples: teach all languages, baptizing them... Each people is preserved in its own being, but is raised to a higher conciliar unity. Likewise, the miracle of Pentecost did not abolish multilingualism (in favor of Latin), “everyone heard his own dialect” (Acts 2:8), in which a single apostolic sermon was proclaimed to him. It is possible to comprehend Orthodoxy, the “essence of Orthodoxy,” only from itself, by recognizing its central aspiration, its worldview. What is this basic and ultimate intuition of Orthodoxy? As always, it is much easier to answer this question negatively than positively (otmnis definitio estt negatio), pointing out what Orthodoxy is not, rather than what it is. It clearly differs from scientific-speculative religion, mystical and rational gnosis, which was Hellenic philosophy and mysticism in ancient times, and most of all German Protestantism in our days. And yet Orthodoxy includes the possibility of the most sublime theologies, which were revealed in the golden age of the development of Orthodoxy in Byzantium, as well as scientific research in the field of theology. Orthodoxy has them, does not oppose them, loves them and gives them - this alone is their proper place. However, the pathos of Orthodoxy, its destiny, its nerve, does not lie in gnosis. It clearly differs further from the rational-volitional structure of Roman Catholicism, which is characterized by an intense will to action and Wille ziur Macht in this world ad majorem Dei gloriain, and together with ad majorem ramani pontificis gloriam. And Orthodoxy may be characterized by a strong-willed impulse, the desire to define oneself, to righteous life, to win God from Caesar and erect a cross on the state banner, to strengthen the economic man, to create and strengthen the Orthodox kingdom. It is also inherent in him to seek ways for the possible triumph of the Kingdom of God within the boundaries of this world, sanctifying life and creativity; and it is inherent in it to bring to life and nourish religious culture, to create the historical feat of the “Middle Ages”. However, this is not his life: Orthodoxy lived before the Christian state, as it lives now, after it. It lived in the cultural poverty and primitiveness of early Christianity, and now, in persecution, it is actually in a break with the godless and hostile Soviet government and finds itself outside of culture (if Soviet squalor can be called that name). And yet it remains, perhaps stronger, without substitutions or attractions. It is impossible to diminish the importance for the Kingdom of God of either religious thought, or religious will, or scientist, or strong-willed Christianity. On the contrary, God gives everyone his own talent and calls him to his work, and the peoples of the West, and before the church schism, while still remaining in Orthodoxy, discovered their own special type and bias, their own special calling. Orthodoxy defines Christian life as a spiritual art and considers monasticism to be the art of the arts, the art of its own soul, and this is where the very nature of Orthodoxy is expressed. It is love for intelligent beauty, its incomprehensible vision. The love of beauty requires that all life be enlightened by beauty - this task determines the very essence of Orthodoxy, its εἷδος. To place intelligent beauty at the center of life and subordinate all other tasks to it as derivatives means such maximalism, in front of which both strong-willed and rational Christianity seem to be simplified concessions, adaptations to this world. Orthodoxy in this sense is unusually difficult, and therefore aristocratic. The energy of piety is always asceticism. But asceticism can be different: one thing is the severity of the disciples of Ignatius of Loyola, and another is the severity of Optina Pustyn; In general, in asceticism it is important not only how, but also what. Orthodox asceticism comes from the motive (not always conscious) to manifest the Kingdom of God in and through oneself. Asceticism as such can easily degenerate into world denial, world fear and hatred of the world. The ascetic is always in danger of Manichaeism and Bogomilism, which takes the world away from God and transfers it to the kingdom of darkness. Orthodox asceticism comes from the highest love for the world and it enlightenedly accepts and embraces it. A characteristic expression of Orthodox asceticism is that in the cell of Elder Ambrose of Optina, among his favorite icons was the icon of the Mother of God in the fields, overshadowing the collected sheaves. But Orthodox asceticism is also the highest maximalism, full of incredible difficulties in implementation and dangers in case of failure. For before the Orthodox man the vision of intelligent beauty has paled; he finds himself unarmed before the world. This is how the Russian man turns out today outside of Orthodoxy, for he lacks the independent muscles of will and discipline, he was healthy and strong only through Orthodoxy. Such are the dangers of the path, however, to abandon it is godless and ungodly, for one can only love God in heaven and God in creation, that is, his intelligent beauty, and to refuse this love, to betray it for lentil stew, means to lay down arms before Satan. Here, of course, an alarming and painful question involuntarily arises about beauty, about the relationship between our earthly beauty, as we know it, and intelligent beauty, as we strive to recognize it. This contradiction burned and tormented Dostoevsky’s soul, and it burns our soul even more, because we are now at an older age than Dostoevsky. Here our spirit is torn by antinomy, for it is worth loving - and loving selflessly - only beauty, and yet it is impossible to love earthly beauty in this way, for it can be ambiguous and demonic, in it beauty is replaced by beauty and the heavenly world is obscured by the earthly. In order to see intelligent beauty, you need to become blind to the world, and this is the method of ascetic doing. The metaphysical-dogmatic answer here will be that true beauty is the tangible action of the Holy Spirit, and the path to spiritual beauty is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, which is the goal of Christian life, as St. Seraphim and with him all Orthodox asceticism. Earthly beauty relates to intelligence in the same way that a world stricken by sin relates to God’s plan for the world. A brush dipped into the colors of this world carries with it its sensuality and lust, and therefore, as a person grows spiritually, external beauty fades for him; Therefore, there is no more false and treacherous attitude towards beauty than aestheticism, which replaces the admiration of beauty with the desire to break out of the shackles of earthly reality. But this intelligent beauty is holiness. God created the world on the basis of holiness and for the sake of holiness. In holiness is the prototype of man, which is sought in the vision of intelligent beauty. Orthodoxy directly educates only this one thing - the search for holiness, and here it is one with early Christianity, which also did not know anything else and did not want to know. Virtue and the order of life flow from here only as some consequences. The stronger the influence of Orthodoxy on souls, the better, more orderly, and moral life is, although the orderliness of life and human morality are never an end in itself for Orthodoxy, which they are, to a certain extent, considered to be in Protestantism. This also has its difficult consequences, when insufficient resolution of a higher task entails the failure to resolve lower tasks. It is clear why the Eastern, Orthodox Christians always found themselves behind Western peoples in the matter of civilization (although by no means culture, for this is not the same thing). And the current Russian crisis, which is a crisis of faith, a shock to the spiritual life of the Orthodox people, is accompanied by such destruction in the area of ​​all human relations. That “Americanism” that the Soviet government is trying to instill in the Orthodox people would be a real murder of the soul of the Orthodox people if it were able to take root and lead to certain positive results. But in the fatal failure of all godless socialist undertakings lies the spiritual salvation and self-defense of the Russian people. The Orthodox people are higher, and at the same time lower, than Central European civilization and socialist-bourgeois philistinism. In this position he is like a fish that is forced to breathe atmospheric air. A people who have accepted the Orthodox element can find a worthy existence only in Orthodoxy. Outside of it, he is doomed to drag out a miserable existence in enslavement to the socialist and plutocratic international. You can turn to Orthodoxy only by seeing it, and to see it means to love it. Until now, the eyes of Western peoples are blind to Orthodoxy, and their souls are deaf to it. Now a favorable summer is approaching. The soil is loosened, movements arise in the depths of Western Christianity, which, in addition to knowledge and intention, are already leading them to Orthodoxy. Such is the revival of spiritual, prayerful, liturgical life in Catholicism, which by the force of things is transforming legalistic stubborn papism, and such is the movement in search of churchliness in the Protestant world: it is already fully realized in Anglicanism, and is still taking the first, but promising steps in Protestantism (hochkirchliche ökumenische Bewegung).