The concept of heresy and schism

Contents 1. The concept of heresy 2. Heresy is a sin of the mind. The essence of this sin is blasphemy 3. Heresy is a covert rejection of Christianity 4. About schism 1. Heresy - a Greek word (αίρεσις) - generally means any separate teaching. Thus, Christian teaching, when it appeared, was sometimes called “heresy” (Acts 28:22). But subsequently the name heresy was adopted by the only arbitrary and false teaching about Christianity, which was separated and different from the teaching of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. Christianity is God's teaching, it is God's Revelation. It, as knowledge given to people by God, must be accepted and maintained with the greatest reverence and submission befitting this greatest shrine. It can be accepted and maintained by humble faith alone, as completely beyond human reason. This is that Spiritual, Mysterious Book (Rev. 22:18, 19), the Book of God’s Knowledge, inscribed and published by God, to which it is impossible to add anything, from which it is impossible to exclude anything. From this it is clear what a grave sin is heresy. It is the indignation and rebellion of the creature against the Creator, the rebellion and indignation of the most insignificant, most limited being - man against the all-perfect God. It is, it’s scary to say, the judgment of man over God and man’s condemnation of God. She is a sin of the mind, a sin of the spirit. It is blasphemy against God, enmity against God. She is the fruit of pride, the cause of the fall of the fallen angels. And the consequences of its fall are very similar to the consequences of the fall of rejected spirits: it darkens the mind, hardens the heart, spills its poison onto the body itself, and introduces eternal death into the soul. “She is incapable of humility” 1. It makes man completely alien to God. She is a mortal sin. Like the fruit of pride, heresy holds its captive in iron chains, and it is rare that the captive is torn from its chains. Persistence in heresy is the characteristic of a heretic. The first heretics were Jewish Christians who, outwardly believing in Christ, wanted at the same time to adhere to the ritual and civil law of Moses in its literal sense. The representative law was fulfilled by the redemption of humanity and the establishment of the spiritual law of freedom, of which it served as a pre-image, a shadow. By such fulfillment it is destroyed: what can prototypes serve when what is prototyped has been received? what need is there for the earnests of the promise, when the promised is given? He who wishes to remain with the prototypes thereby renounces the prototype. The Holy Apostle Paul said to Christians who were thinking of combining Christianity with Judaism: “If the law were right, then Christ died without death” (Gal. 2:21). “If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you for nothing. You have been made void of Christ (you have been alienated from Christ), and you will be justified by the law (of Moses): you have fallen away from grace” (Gal. 5:2, 4). To the Jews who accepted Christianity and then turned to Judaism, the Apostle uttered the following menacing words: “It is impossible for those who have been enlightened by one and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have been partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the power of the age to come, and have fallen away, and again be renewed into repentance, secondly crucifying the Son of God to themselves and reproaching (that is, those who curse Him). For the earth, which drinks the rain that descends upon it in abundance, and gives birth to good things, in the same way it is made, receives a blessing from God: but the earth that bears thorns and thistles is indecent, and oaths are near, and they will end in burning” (Heb. 6:4-8). Church History has testified to the truth of this saying: humanity has been seduced into heresy by entire nations, and the conversion from heresy to Orthodoxy is seen in very few private individuals, and then rarely, very rarely. Terrible poison - heresy! unattainable poison - heresy! Pagan philosophy and human learning in general became another source of heresies. The 2nd century writer, Tertullian, explained with detail and precision that all errors that disturbed the peace of the Church certainly had their source in some philosophical school 2. This is very natural: a scribe, or an earthly scientist, must, according to the will of the Savior, learn the Kingdom of God in order to be able to remove from his treasury the old and the new, that is, to offer the teaching of God in the forms of human learning (Matthew 13:52). To learn the Kingdom of God means: to acquire the Kingdom of God within oneself. Without this, an earthly scientist can offer only old things, even if he talked about God from his spiritual, school knowledge. It is impossible for him to avoid error, despite all his learning: because old age, in the spiritual sense, is a state of error and self-delusion. Saint Simeon, a fool for Christ's sake, pointed out the reason for the error of the most learned and gifted Origen in the fact that Origen did not take the trouble to move from a mental to a spiritual state and, having sailed far into the mental sea, drowned in it 3 . It is necessary, absolutely necessary, for every Christian scientist, especially a Christian teacher, not to dwell on his earthly learning, no matter how rich he may be in it, but to move from a carnal and mental state to a spiritual one, and receive a living, grace-filled knowledge of God. “Have My commandments” planted in your heart, so that they constitute the property and treasure of a person, - said the Lord, - “he is he who loves Me: and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father: and I will love him, and I will manifest myself to him” by the action of the Holy Spirit (John 14:21). He who has the Word of God implanted and abiding within himself, who has been granted the vision of God because of the purity of his mind, who has shaken off spiritual deafness and hears God’s voice (John 5:36–37), will speak with boldness and power about his Lord, not like the scribes (Mark 1:22), for “God is known in Judah: His name is great in Israel” (Ps. 75:2). Under the name of Judea is meant the true Church, and under the name of Israel are those members of the Church who have been rewarded with spiritual vision and the knowledge flowing from it. Saints Gregory of Neocaesarea, Athanasius the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great and many other church lamps, having acquired modern human learning, took care, through the Gospel, to move from the state of the flesh and soul to the spiritual, put off the old Adam, put on the new; In this way they became able to teach their brethren, men, a new teaching, in an old form, so pleasant to fallen man, so natural to fallen humanity. People, carried away by the earthly eloquence of holy teachers, imperceptibly accepted the word of salvation, clothed in earthly orbit. On the contrary, the learned Arius, despite the fact that he was a presbyter, the eloquent Nestorius, despite the fact that he was a patriarch, and many others like them, being in high ranks of the church, became heresiarchs and heretics for the same reason that the crown of learning of his age, Origen, was mired in the depths of the mental sea. Saint Gregory of Sinaite says: “Whoever, besides the Spirit, writes and speaks, and wants to build the Church, is the “essence” (of the body) of the “spirit,” as the Divine Apostle says nowhere, “has not the Spirit” (Jude 1:19). Such are the essence of the oath, which says: “Woe, who are wise in themselves, and understand before themselves!” (Isa.5:21). They speak from themselves, and not the Spirit of God is in them, speak according to the word of the Lord. Because of their own thoughts, those who spoke before purity were deceived by the spirit of opinion. About this, the Proverb says: “When you have seen a man, you will not be wise, but you will have foolish hope than him” (Prov. 26:12). And the hedgehog: “Do not be wise about yourself” (Rom. 12:16), Wisdom commands us. But the Divine Apostle himself, filled with the Spirit, confesses, saying: “For we are not satisfied with ourselves, but our contentment is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5). And the hedgehog: “As from God, in the sight of God, we speak about Christ” (2 Cor. 12:19). Such words are unsweetened and unenlightened, they do not speak acceptably from the living source of the Spirit, but as from a certain lake of the time, from the heart that seeks and feeds the drinkers, and the serpent, and the toads of lusts and arrogance, and intemperance, and the water of their mind is stinking, muddy and lukewarm, from those who drink for illness and vileness and vomiting is changed." 4. The Holy Scripture, studied to the letter by carnal and spiritual people, served for them to invent heresies, to their destruction of themselves and others. The Holy Apostle Peter said about the epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul that some “unlearned and unconfirmed corrupt them, 5 just as they also corrupt the other Scriptures to their destruction” (2 Pet. 3:16). Here the words “corrupt” and “transform” are used very correctly: because the carnal and spiritual man, not understanding the spiritual meaning in Scripture, gives it meaning in accordance with his dispensation. It cannot be otherwise: after all, it is necessary for a spiritual person to obtain some kind of concept by reading or studying the Divine Scripture, but he is not able to understand the Scriptures as he should; therefore, of necessity, he gives himself the concept that he pleases. The origin of Holy Scripture, the way of understanding and explaining it are depicted with complete clarity by the holy apostles Peter and Paul. Saint Peter says: “Every prophecy is not written according to its own telling” 6 . “It was not by the will of man that prophecy came, but the holy men of God were enlightened by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20, 21). This means: just as the Word of God, or Holy Scripture, is spoken through the mediation of the Holy Spirit, so only through the mediation of the Holy Spirit can it be explained, and therefore understood. The Holy Apostle Paul says: “No one knows the message of God, but the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, and we know what has been given to us from God: even as we say, not in the words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Holy Spirit: the spiritual is spiritual, discerning." 7 (1 Cor. 2:11–13). From this it is clear that in the presentation and explanation of Scripture, human learning did not participate in the least, the school study of Scripture did not participate in the least, the study of its letters, which distinguished and boasted the Jewish scribes and Pharisees, which the Apostle Paul had, which he counted as loss for himself for the sake of the most excellent knowledge of Christ Jesus, given by the Holy Spirit (Acts 22:3; cf. Phil.3:5-8). After the above, the Apostle continues: “A spiritual person does not accept even the Spirit of God: for he has foolishness, and cannot understand, he is spiritually involved” 8 . (1 Cor. 2:14). The Apostle said this from his own experience. He, being in the state of a carnal, spiritual man, was taught the Scriptures about faith in God according to the modern custom that then prevailed among the Jews, which destroyed among them the spiritual understanding of the law (Matthew 25), making the Jewish theologians incapable of knowing and accepting God, who appeared to them in the form of a man with undeniable and clear evidence of His Divinity. When converting from Judaism to Christianity, Saint Paul very quickly passed from a mental state to a spiritual one for the reason that preceded the conversion of a strictly moral life (Phil. 3:6). Abundantly taught by the Holy Spirit, he learned for himself that his previous knowledge, also abundant in its relation, not only did not explain God to him, but also closed God from him, darkened him, made him an enemy of God (Rom. 8:7), deprived him of the opportunity to submit to the teaching of Christ (Rom. 8:7), presented to him the teaching of Christ as strange, wild, absurd, blasphemous ( 1 Cor. 2:14). It seemed strange to the Jewish teacher Nicodemus (John 3:4); It seemed cruel and unbearable to many who were already disciples of the God-man and followed Him on His journey (John 6:60). To these disciples who were tempted and abandoned the Divine Teacher, He said: “There is a Spirit who gives life, but the flesh (that is, the carnal understanding of the Word of God) benefits nothing: the words that I spoke to you, the Spirit is the Spirit and the Life is the Life” (John 6:63). The carnal understanding of the Word of God leads to unbelief, to temptation by the most holy Word of God, to false and perverse conclusions and opinions, to abandonment of God, to destruction. And Nicodemus, who believed in the God-Man for the sake of the signs performed by the God-Man, was tempted by His Word, giving the Word of God a carnal meaning. To the words of the Lord: “Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God,” Nicodemus objects: How can a person be born, old? food can take a second breath into its mother’s womb and be born” (John 3:3-4). With humility, a spiritual person can cast down his thoughts, “laid on the mind of God, and take every mind captive into the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5); but with pride, with a high opinion of his knowledge, with trust in his own reason and knowledge, a spiritual person must necessarily consider the Word of God to be foolishness, that is, absurdity or madness, as the holy Apostle Paul said, as the Jewish learned bishops and priests actually proved this by rejecting the Lord, as countless hosts of heretics have proven and are proving, rejecting and rejecting the Divine Truth. - All who had the learning of this world and then began to purify themselves through spiritual achievement sincerely admit that they had to endure a difficult struggle with the thoughts of human wisdom, which rebelled with cruel force against the Gospel teaching and challenged with extraordinary tenacity the Gospel’s dominion over the mind of the ascetic. The mental and physical state is a consequence of our fall: it is a state of indignation against God and enmity against God. – Due to the inability of a spiritual person to correctly understand the spiritual, the Holy Church forbids her children to arbitrarily explain the Holy Scriptures, and commands them to strictly adhere to the interpretation made to the Scriptures by the Holy Fathers 9; She commands everyone who wants to know Christianity with detail and accuracy, especially pastors and teachers, after acquiring knowledge from people and from books, to acquire an active and living knowledge of Christianity by living according to the Gospel commandments, crucifixion of the flesh “with passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24), and communion of the Divine Grace of the Holy Spirit. Very rightly, St. Mark called theoretical knowledge about Christianity introductory. This God-wise Father with particular clarity sets out the need for experienced and grace-filled knowledge, showing the terrible spiritual distress into which he who has acquired the first knowledge and neglects to acquire the second falls. “Scholars who do not care about spiritual life,” said Saint Mark in response to a scientist who argued that scientists are beyond the fall, supported by their learning, “having fallen at once into a terrible and severe fall, that is, into a fall through presumption and negligence, they can rise below without prayer, and they have a fall from where to fall. For what other reason (concern) could there be for the devil to fight against those who always lie down and will never rise up? There are some, sometimes victorious, sometimes conquered, those who fall and rise, those who insult and those who are insulted, those who fight and those who are fought; and others, having been in their first fall, due to extreme ignorance, know less about themselves that they have fallen. The Prophet addresses them with condolences: “The food that falls does not rise, and the one who turns away will not return” (Jer. 8:4). And again: “Arise, sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14). To those who do not want to accept (this) work of rising and remaining in prayer and undergo hardships because of piety, for the sake of the future Kingdom, he says: “In your destruction, Israel, who will help you?” ( Hos. 13:9 ). “There is no scab, no sore, no burning wound” (Is. 1:6), not any evil that happens without the consent of the will: for this wound is voluntary, and is a sin unto death, not healed by the prayers of others. “As a physician,” says the Prophet, “Babylon was not healed” (Jer. 51:9): for this ailment is self-inflicted, and “there is no band-aid to apply, lower than oil, lower than duty” (Is. 1:6), that is, help from others... So the Old Testament stops those who trust in themselves and exalt themselves in their wisdom: “Be trusting in the Lord, he says, with all your heart: do not be proud of your wisdom” (Prov. 3:5). These are not just words, as it seemed to some, who acquired books for this reason, recognized what was written in them, and did not carry out anything written in practice, but only pompous with their naked understandings. Such exalt themselves with praise for their words and research; among people who do not know the matter, they bear the loud name of the wise; but, without touching hard work, having secretly learned the work, they receive from God and from hardworking and pious men a great reproach (condemnation, reproach): for they abused the introductory understanding of the Scriptures, using it to show themselves (before men), and not to work, and they lost the active grace of the Holy Spirit. They are “those who boast to their faces, but not to their hearts” (2 Cor. 5:12). Therefore, those who do not know the matter should touch it (take up it): for what is said in Scripture is said not only so that they know it, but also so that they do it. Let us begin the work: thus gradually succeeding, we will find that not only hope in God, but also informed faith, and unfeigned love, and unforgettable malice, and brotherly love, and self-control, and patience, and the deepest understanding of the hidden, and deliverance from temptations, and the bestowal of gifts (spiritual), and heartfelt confession, and diligent tears are obtained by the faithful through prayer; and not only this, but also patience in the advent of sorrows, and pure love for others, and knowledge of the spiritual law, and the acquisition of the truth of God, and the influx of the Holy Spirit, and the giving of spiritual treasures, and everything that God promised to give to faithful people both here and in the next century. It is by no means impossible for the soul to restore the image of God in itself otherwise than through the grace of Christ and the faith of man, when a person remains in much humility with unwavering prayer in the mind. How is it that those who have been deprived of such and such blessings, because of their ignorance and about the prayer of negligence, say: “we have not fallen,” and attribute to themselves wisdom below the knowledge of their fall, unhappy because of the fall, even more unhappy because of their ignorance? They gain only that which affirms us to believe more in the Scripture, which says that “the wisdom of this world is violence with God” (1 Cor. 3:19), and that which comes down from God, “from on high is from the Father of lights” (James 1:17), and its sign is humility. But those who want to please people, instead of Divine Wisdom, have adopted human wisdom; puffed up by it and exalted by it internally, they deceived many ignorant, inclining them to become philosophical not in the works of piety and prayer, but in “the most beautiful words of human wisdom” (1 Cor. 2:4), which the Apostle often condemns and calls the abolition of the Cross of Christ. He says in the Epistle to the Corinthians: “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not in wisdom of speech, lest the Cross of Christ be made void” (1 Cor. 1:17). And again: “God has chosen the world to put to shame the wise; And God has chosen both the base of the world and the lowly, and the things that are not, so that He may bring to nothing the things that are: lest all flesh should boast before God” (1 Cor. 1:27-29). If God favors not the words of Hellenic wisdom, but the works of prayer and humility, as shown, then for sure: those who, leaving the first form of piety as inconvenient to fulfill, do not want to be saved in a second or third way, but remain outside the sacred fence, are foolish.” 10 2. Heresy is a sin of the mind. The essence of this sin is blasphemy Being actually a sin of the mind, heresy not only darkens the mind, but also imparts special bitterness to the heart, killing it with eternal death. By this sin a person most closely resembles fallen spirits, whose main sin is resistance to God and blasphemy against God. The distinctive quality of fallen spirits is pride; A distinctive feature of heretics is pride, the most obvious manifestation of which is contempt and condemnation of everyone who does not belong to their sect, disgust with them, fierce hatred of them. But a significant manifestation of pride in heretics and schismatics is that they have rejected the knowledge of God and the service of God, revealed and taught by God Himself, and strive to replace them with the knowledge of God and the services of God that are unauthorized, blasphemous and ungodly. The devil does not bother to tempt the one infected with heresy and schism with other passions and obvious sins. And why should the devil tempt him and fight with him who, through mortal sin - heresy - was killed by eternal death, and alive is already the property of the devil? On the contrary, the devil supports the heretic and schismatic in abstinence and other outward deeds and types of virtue, in order to thereby support him in complacency and error, and to attract the faithful to heresy, or at least lead to a justification and some approval of it, as well as to doubt in orthodoxy and to coldness towards it. He who has treasure is attacked by robbers, but he who has nothing is not bothered by robbers. He who has the treasure of orthodoxy is cruelly slandered by the enemy! The enemy vigorously attacks the true believer, trying to present him before human society in a state of defeat, for the same purpose with which he tries to present the heretic as virtuous and worthy of respect. With such incomprehensible cunning the evil spirit acts in favor of heresy and to the detriment of true Christianity. Unfortunately, he is very successful in this intrigue! With it he traps thousands of people into destruction. Many led the strictest ascetic life while living in heresy or schism; When they accepted Orthodoxy, they were subjected to various weaknesses. What conclusion should this lead to? - To such an extent that in the first state the enemy did not fight against them, recognizing them as his own, but in the second he rebelled against them with a fierce war, as against those who clearly declared and confessed themselves to be his opponents. Holy Scripture calls the evil spirit not only an enemy, but also an avenger (Ps. 8:3). He not only enmities against man, but, being infected with fierce envy of man, cannot indifferently see that man performs virtues and pleases God, and takes revenge on man for his godly deeds, bringing upon him countless temptations both from the outside - from evil people - and inside, raising various passions in man. Schism and heresy have a strange influence on the human body itself! The hardness of the spirit is communicated to the body. This is not noticeable to everyone during a person’s lifetime, but after death the body of a heretic and schismatic instantly turns to stone and instantly begins to emit an unapproachable stench. And this is done especially to those of them who led the most strictly ascetic life and were famous teachers of their sect and earned the universal respect of the blind world; It is they who emit the most terrible stench after their death; Streams of stinking pus open from their withered bodies; it is difficult to perform their burial and be present at it. Demons are present at their graves and appear with them in different forms, either to intimidate or to seduce. Repentance and knowledge of the Truth are inaccessible to a heretic. Repentance and true knowledge of God are more accessible to adulterers and criminals than to a heretic and schismatic, especially if he is a scientist and ascetic. Both were proven by obvious sinners and learned sectarians contemporary with Christ, mentioned in the Gospel: sinners accepted both the Lord and His Forerunner, while the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees rejected both Jesus and John. The feeling of repentance is not akin to someone who is completely satisfied with himself, but around him sees only temptation and shortcomings of all kinds. He who recognizes himself as rational, more than anyone else, is not akin to the hunger and thirst for the boundless Divine Truth, which completely satisfies his pet and with such saturation arouses even greater hunger and thirst for the grace-filled truth. It is not like one who recognizes this blasphemy as the holy Truth to reject his blasphemy; it is not natural for him to see the Holy Truth, because the very organ of vision, the spiritual eye, his mind is blinded by lies. The conversion of a heretic and schismatic to Orthodoxy - a special mercy of God - is arranged by the special Providence of God for the chosen ones, known to the one God. Human means of converting schismatics and heretics are powerless. Although at the First Council of Nicaea the lamps of the Church stood against Arius and his like-minded people: Athanasius the Great, Nicholas the Wonderworker, James of Nisibius 11, Spyridon of Trimythus, although they acted not only by the power of words, but also by the power of signs, they did not soften the fierce host of the heretical and heresiarch Arius, who remained stubborn and faithful to his error, as Church History tells. Debate is the weakest weapon against heretics, a weapon more harmful than useful. It is done this way in accordance with the properties of mental illness - heresy. Proud heresy does not tolerate denunciation and does not tolerate defeat. She becomes hardened by reproof; from defeats he becomes furious. This has been proven by countless experiments. Heresy is overcome by gentle exhortation; even more convenient - silent greeting, humility, love, patience and long-suffering, diligent prayer, filled with condolences for one's neighbor and mercy towards him. Heresy cannot be defeated by man, because it is an invention, a demonic undertaking. Its winner can only be God, who is called to fight it and defeat it through man’s humility before God and this man’s love for his neighbor. Anyone who wants to successfully fight against heresy must be completely alien to vanity and enmity towards his neighbor, so as not to express them with some mockery, some caustic or harsh word, some brilliant word that can resonate in the proud soul of the heretic and disturb its passion in it. Anoint the scab and ulcer of your neighbor, as if with whole oil, with the only words of love and humility, may the merciful Lord look upon your love and your humility, may they be announced to the heart of your neighbor, and may God’s great gift be given to you - the salvation of your neighbor. The pride, insolence, stubbornness, and enthusiasm of the heretic have only the appearance of energy: in essence they are weakness, in need of prudent condolences. This weakness only multiplies and becomes more ferocious when people act against it with reckless zeal, expressed through harsh reproof. 3. Heresy is a covert rejection of Christianity When people began to abandon idolatry, due to its obvious absurdity, and come to the knowledge and confession of the Redeemer, when all the efforts of the devil to support idolatry among people remained in vain, then he invented “heresies”, and through heresy, preserving for the people who held it the name and some appearance of Christians, he not only took away Christianity from them, but also replaced it with blasphemy. What does Arianism mean? – This is a renunciation of Christ and Christianity, a renunciation of God. If the Son is a creature, as Arius asserted, then there is no true God in the Three Persons. If the Son is not God, then where is the incarnation of God? where is the communion of human nature with the nature of God (2 Pet. 1:4), acquired for men by the incarnation of God? where is the salvation? where is Christianity? “You shall not believe in the Son or the Father” (1 John 2:23), says the Word of God. Arianism is both godlessness and blasphemy. What is Nestorianism? – rejection of the incarnation of God the Word. If a simple man was born from a Virgin, then where is the conception from the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18) - where is the event of the words of Scripture: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14)? Where is the birth of the Son of God (Luke 1:31)? where is Christianity? – Nestorius repeats the Ariev heresy, but under a different guise: the essence of these heresies is the same - the rejection of Christ, and through the rejection of Christ - rejection from God. Eutyches and the Monothelites do the same: merging two natures and two wills into one in the God-Man and asserting that in Christ humanity disappeared in the Divinity, like a drop of wine in a vast sea, they arrive at the same goal, although from the other side, to which Arius and Nestorius came: because, rejecting the presence of human nature in the incarnate Son of God, they certainly reject everything that the Lord endured as a man, therefore, They also reject the redemption of humanity through the suffering and death of the Lord—they reject all of Christianity. Iconoclasts also strive for the same thing. By rejecting the possibility of depicting Christ in painting, they indirectly reject the coming of the Son of God in human flesh. – If the Son of God was clothed with flesh, then there is every possibility of depicting Him, indescribable by Divine nature, as a man. If it is possible to depict Him, then His images should be especially revered. We honor the images of our parents, kings, leaders, benefactors, we place them in places of honor: all the more should the icon of our Savior, and after it the icons of the Mother of God and all the saints, be respected. Papism is intensifying to accomplish the same thing; this is the name of the heresy that declared the West, from which various Protestant teachings sprang, like from a tree of branches. Papism assigns the properties of Christ to the pope, and thereby rejects Christ. Some Western writers have made this renunciation almost explicit, saying that it is much less of a sin to renounce Christ than to renounce the Pope. The Pope is the idol of the papists; he is their deity. Because of this terrible error, the grace of God departed from the papists; they are devoted to themselves and to Satan, the inventor and father of all heresies, including papism. In this state of darkness, they distorted some dogmas and sacraments, and deprived the Divine Liturgy of its essential meaning, eliminating from it the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of the offered bread and wine, in which they are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. This essential part of the Liturgy was in all the Liturgies delivered by the Apostles of Christ throughout the universe - it was also in the original Roman Liturgy 12. – No heresy so openly and brazenly expresses its exorbitant pride, harsh contempt for people and hatred of them. Papism invented the most terrible tortures, the most terrible executions for humanity. Countless thousands of people died in stuffy dungeons, burned at the stake, and tortured in various ways. And this terrible, murderous, bloodthirsty fanaticism is called the one true Christianity, and with frenzied jealousy seeks to captivate the entire universe into its heresy. “By their fruit you will know them,” the Savior said about teachers and their teaching (Matthew 7:16). In its fruits, papism comes very close to Mohammedanism: both of these heresies recognize as an act of faith and the highest virtue all the atrocities and all the murders they commit in any society of people of a different religion. The Protestants rebelled against the errors of the papists, - more correctly, they rebelled against the ugly power and divinity of the popes; but since they acted on the impulse of passions, drowning in depravity, and not with the direct goal of striving for the Holy Truth, and not in the way Cornelius the Centurion sought it, they did not turn out to be worthy to see it. “Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light” (John 3:20). Of all the errors of the papists, the Protestants rejected only their wicked opinion about the pope; They followed other errors of the papists, strengthened many errors, and added many new ones to the previous errors and errors. So, for example, they rejected all the sacraments, the priesthood itself; they rejected the Liturgy altogether; rejected all church traditions and left each of their followers to explain the Holy Scripture at will, while it, being spoken by the Holy Spirit, can only be explained by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21). Heresies should also include that teaching which, without touching either dogmas or sacraments, rejects living according to the commandments of Christ, and allows Christians to live a pagan life. This teaching, which outwardly seems not hostile to Christianity, is in essence completely hostile to it: it is a renunciation of Christ. The Lord Himself said: “Let us confess to them, who confess with the lips of the Lord, but by deeds contrary to His will, that I knew you better, depart from Me, you workers of iniquity” (Matthew 7:21, 23). Faith can only be alive through works of faith; without them she is dead (James 2:26). However, even the most correct concept of Christian dogmas is lost in non-Christian life. Even at a time when idolatry was very strong, heretics lived a pagan life. Saint Athanasius the Great makes this remark about the Arians, who indulged in the amusements of idolaters and were similar to them in morality. In modern times, pagan life appeared initially in the depths of papism; The pagan feeling and taste of the papists are shown with particular brightness in the application of art to objects of religion, in painted and sculptured images of saints, in their church singing and music, in their religious poetry. All their schools bear the imprint of sinful passions, especially voluptuousness; there is no sense of chastity and decency, no sense of simplicity, no sense of purity and spirituality. Such is their church music and singing. Their poet, describing the liberation of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher, does not stop to invoke the muse; he sings of Zion together with Helikon, from the Muse he passes to the Archangel Gabriel. The infallible popes, these new idols of Rome, are examples of debauchery, tyranny, godlessness, blasphemy against all that is holy. Pagan life with its comedy and tragedy, with its dancing, with its rejection of shame and decency, with its fornication and adultery and other customs of idolaters, firstly, was resurrected in Rome under the shadow of its gods - the popes, and from there it spread throughout Europe. Through heresies and, finally, through pagan life, all pagans who once accepted Christianity have left and are leaving Christianity, returning to their former complete ignorance of God and to serving demons, although no longer in the form of idolatry. What is the reason for this heresy? The reason is that this terrible sin, which includes blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, completely alienates a person from God and, having alienated him from God, delivers him into the power of Satan. In this state, a person is not capable of any thought, feeling, or spiritual act, and therefore, is not capable of a spiritual state; on the contrary, spiritual and carnal states develop strongly in him. It abundantly exudes earthly, spiritual, demonic wisdom, filled with envy, zeal, and pride (James 3:11, 15). – There is no meekness, love, or edifying humility in this wisdom: it is verbose and lofty, abundant in human and demonic knowledge, full of self-deception, and deceives those who listen to it. It cannot be different, because the thoughts of the heretic, alien to the grace of God, are under constant violence and the guidance of fallen spirits. This is incomprehensible and incredible to many; let such hear the definition of the spirit-bearing man, who said: “No good thing can be believed or acted upon, except in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit” 13 . Thought, word, deed, in order to be worthy of the Lord, must be anointed with the grace of the Holy Spirit; the same thoughts, words and deeds that do not have this anointing belong to the old man and are abominable to God, no matter how outwardly they appear, before the court of the world, to be wise and good. The state of alienation from God, the state of self-delusion, clouding of the mind, the movement of the strongest passions has always been the state of heretics, especially heresiarchs. Usually they were devoted to various passions. Eutychius was extremely selfish, and, contrary to the monastic vow of non-covetousness, accumulated significant money. Apollinaris even in his old age had a concubine. Arius wrote “Thalia” - a work in verse that has not reached us, filled with shameless debauchery. This work began to be read at the First Council of Nicea, but the Fathers of the Council refused to listen to it, it was so shameful, and they burned the copy presented to them. Such are the works of the newest heretics. They are filled with hellish blasphemy, daring, false speculations, terrible shamelessness and depravity. The concept that is given about them here is still very weak compared to the concept that is obtained about them from reading their writings. What the heresiarchs said and wrote cannot come to the mind of an ordinary person. However, all the writings of heretics were compiled under the influence of spirits and contain moral poison that kills the soul with eternal death. Their dogmatic books certainly contain false dogmas and blasphemy against the dogmas taught to the Holy Church by the Holy Spirit; their books on asceticism, although outwardly they seem to teach the doctrine of the highest Christian virtues and states, are in essence the fruits and expression of self-delusion and demonic delusion, incomprehensible to the crowd; their moral writers teach the morality characteristic of the old Adam, since they only have a concept of it, and not at all Christian morality, which is completely inaccessible to their minds and hearts. Novels, comedies and other works, obviously sinful, filled with voluptuousness, are also the fruits of heresy; Some of these works were written by clergy, such as “Telemacus” written by Fenelon. Reading all these books is extremely harmful, although to the untrained eye the poison is noticeable in some of them, while in others it is very hidden. The inconspicuousness of the poison does not reduce its power: on the contrary, subtle poisons act with particular destructiveness. Reading a dogmatic, especially ascetic, heretical book often arouses lustful thoughts, and reading novels arouses thoughts of unbelief, various perplexities and doubts about faith. – Unclean spirits and sins have an affinity with each other: one who voluntarily submits to one sin involuntarily and necessarily submits to the influence of another, due to the affinity of evil spirits and passions. Experience proves that people moved to heresy and atheism most from a depraved life, and vice versa, heresy always entails a disorder of morality due to the similarity of sins with each other. The initial effect of all heretical books is to arouse thoughts of doubt about faith: “Be careful,” said Saint Isaac of Syria, “not to read heretical dogmas: this is an armament, as it increases the spirit of blasphemy against you” 14. Do blasphemous thoughts operate in anyone? Has anyone wavered in their trust in the Orthodox Church, which alone is the true Church of Christ? Has anyone become a universal Christian, belonging - according to his heartfelt conviction, or more correctly, due to his complete ignorance of Christianity - equally to all confessions, and therefore not belonging to any? – Know that he was brought to this state by reading heretical books or by conversations with those infected by this reading. People devoted to voluptuousness especially eagerly read heretical books about Christian asceticism and perfection, and are alienated and disgusted by the moral books of the Orthodox Church. What is the reason for this? - similarity in mood. These people find pleasure in reading a book written out of dreaminess and self-reflection, seasoned with refined voluptuousness, vanity, arrogance, which seem to be grace to minds and hearts not purified by the true teaching of Christ. Orthodox books call for repentance and abandonment of a sinful life, for self-sacrifice, for self-condemnation and humility, which is exactly what the son of the world does not want. Idolatry and all kinds of open rejection of God can be likened to open poison; Anyone can conveniently avoid it. Heresy can be likened to food that has a beautiful appearance in appearance, but is poisoned with poison: such food is the same poison, from which it is already difficult to guard both because the poison is disguised and because the beautiful appearance and fragrance of food arouses in a person his natural desire to be satiated and enjoy food. Heresy is always accompanied by hypocrisy and pretense; she is verbose, eloquent, abounding in human learning: and therefore conveniently attracts people to herself and traps them in destruction; incomparably more people are caught into eternal death through heresy than through the direct rejection of Christ. A schism is a violation of complete unity with the Holy Church, with the exact preservation, however, of the true teaching about dogmas and sacraments. Violation of unity in dogmas and sacraments is already heresy. Actually, only churches of the same faith and churches under the authority of the chief priests (former chief priests) can be called schismatic churches in Russia. The first differ in some rituals, which has no influence on the essence of Christianity, and the second do not have a bishop over them, contrary to church rules. The formation of the former was partly due to ignorance, which attributes to some rites and customs more importance than how much these rites have; and the formation of the latter was facilitated by the Protestant direction of some private individuals. In the first churches there is noticeable an excess of piety, reaching the point of superstition and hypocrisy, and in the second, an excess of freedom, reaching the extreme of negligence and coldness. When a Christian turns all his attention to external rituals, he will certainly ignore an essential part of Christianity: the cleansing of internal vessels, therefore, is deprived of all spiritual prosperity and the true knowledge of Christ flowing from this prosperity, that is, it becomes alien to true Christianity. When, on the contrary, a Christian is cold to faith and performs its outer rites with negligence, then he alienates God from himself, Who wants His servants to serve Him with fear and trembling, and becomes an atheist and a heretic. Other schismatics in Russia must also be recognized as heretics: they rejected the sacraments of the Church, replacing them with their own monstrous inventions; they deviated in many ways from essential Christian doctrine and moral teaching; they completely renounced the Church. However, we should not blame schismatics for everything. Western enlightenment surged into Russia so strongly that it invaded the Church and violated its Eastern Orthodox character, although it violated it in subjects that had nothing to do with the essence of Christianity. These violations of the Eastern Orthodox nature tempt schismatics and upset the sons of the Church who have thoroughly studied Christianity. These violations are so minor that they can be eliminated very quickly. Russia no longer obeys or blindly imitates Europe; it subjects Western education to prudent criticism; she wants to appear in the society of European states in her own character, and not in a character borrowed for a time, for rent. To achieve this, she is already making attempts, which we will now point out. All Russians understood that Italian paintings cannot be holy icons. Meanwhile, Italian painting has entered almost all Orthodox Russian churches since the transformation of Russia into the European style. This painting seduces the schismatic and upsets the truly Orthodox; she is a Western scab on an Orthodox church. From whom did Italian painters paint images of the holy women? from their mistresses. Raphael's famous Madonnas express the most refined voluptuousness. It is known that Raphael was a very depraved person, he wanted to express the ideal that would affect him most strongly, and often threw his brush in order to rush into the arms of the model in front of him. – Other painters, whose talent was cruder than Raphael’s, expressed voluptuousness in their imaginary icons much more clearly; others expressed not only voluptuousness, but also shamelessness and indecency. The icons of some holy men are copied from women, such as the famous image of John the Evangelist, painted by Dominica. Italian lusty painters painted icons of some martyrs from their comrades of debauchery, after a night or nights spent by them disorderly, when this behavior was imprinted on their exhausted faces. All movements, all poses, all physiognomies in Italian paintings, or in general in paintings painted by Western heretics and depicting sacred objects, are sensual, passionate, feigned, theatrical; there is nothing sacred or spiritual in them; so it is clear that the painters were completely carnal people, who did not have the slightest idea about the spiritual state, no sympathy for it, and therefore did not have any opportunity to depict a spiritual person with painting. Having no idea what position the facial features of a holy man, deep in his prayer, take, what position his eyes, his lips, his hands, his whole body take, they compose in their ignorant imagination an arbitrary, ignorant dream, in accordance with this dream they install a sitter or model - and an excellent brush depicts on the canvas a complete absurdity, just as the most eloquent speaker would, of necessity, have to utter the most stupid speech, if they forced him to talk about a subject completely unknown to him. The students of the Russian Academy of Arts were educated according to Western models and filled the churches with icons that were not at all worthy of the name of icons. If these icons, before which chaste gazes drop, did not stand in the church, then no one would have thought that the dignity of icons was attributed to them. A secular person, who has seen enough of everything and has extensive experience, cannot imagine the effect that such images have on virgin nature. A certain elder, who led an exalted monastic life in the desert, had to come to St. Petersburg due to some circumstances. Here he was invited one evening by a pious old lady for a spiritual conversation. At this time, the old woman’s daughters were getting dressed to go to the ball. Having dressed, or, more correctly, naked according to the demands of modern fashion, they came to their mother to kiss her hand and get into the carriage. The elder, seeing something he had never seen in his life - girls shamelessly naked according to the rules of the West, according to the rules of heresy and paganism - was horrified. He assured that after the temptation he had seen, there was no longer any need to appear to the devil himself to be tempted. What is it like for such a virgin eye to see such an image on an icon, an image that arouses not prayer, but the most impure passions. The inadequacy of Italian painting for icons is already obvious and recognized. But, unfortunately, modern fashion has rushed to the other extreme: to imitate ancient Russian icon painting with all its irregularities and with the addition of various incongruities of the latest invention. - Here is a new reason for temptation. A schismatic who cannot distinguish a correct drawing from an incorrect one is not tempted before such an icon; a frivolous child of the latest progress is tempted before it. Seeing the ugliness of the images on the icon, this child is tempted, laughs, and blasphemes. His superficial education and enlightenment do not give him the opportunity to separate the holy and divine institutions in the Church from the various rubbish that at various times was brought into the Church by weakness, limitation, and human sinfulness, in accordance with the spirit of the age. This child of the latest progress, alien to common sense, seeing the shortcomings introduced into the Church by human weakness, immediately wavers in trust in the Church itself, begins to condemn it, becomes alien to it. Just as it is harmful to seduce schismatics, it is also harmful to seduce the modern generation; As much as it is necessary to forbear the infirmities of schismatics, so much it is necessary to forbear the infirmities of the disciples of the latest progress. “Be without offense,” said the holy Apostle Paul to the Jews and Greeks (1 Cor. 10:32). In our time, the art of painting has reached a high degree of improvement. A painter who wants to paint icons worthy of God's church and edifying for Christians has greater means for this than ever before; but he must certainly lead the most pious life in order to acquire an experienced knowledge of spiritual states, he must be familiar especially with pious monks, in order to see on their faces that deep calm, that imprint of heavenly quiet joy, that infantile simplicity that appears on these faces from careful prayer and from other pious activities. Let him look at the naturalness of their movements, at the absence of everything made up, everything invented. The correctness of the drawing is necessary for the icon; Moreover, it is necessary to depict the saints holyly, as they were, simple, calm, joyful, humble, in the clothes that they wore, in the most modest positions and movements, filled with reverence, solidity, and the fear of God. The image of a saint should be devoid of an elegant pose, a movement depicting enthusiasm, a romantic, sentimental facial position, with an open mouth, with his head thrown up or with his eyes strongly directed upward. The last position, which is usually resorted to to depict the state of prayer, is precisely what the Holy Fathers forbid to have during prayer. Also, holy wives and virgins should not be depicted with their eyes downcast: the virgin then begins to lower her eyes downwards when a feeling of sin appears in her; in her innocence she looks straight. Many are also beginning to understand that Italian singing is not suitable for Orthodox worship. It came to us from the West, and several decades ago it was in particular use. The sacramental verse was replaced by a concert that resembled an opera. The ear of a secular person, indulging in entertainment and amusement, is not as strongly struck by this incongruity as the ear of a pious person who leads a serious life, who talks a lot about his salvation and about Christianity as a means to salvation, who wishes with all his heart that this means be preserved in all its purity and strength, as a treasure of the greatest importance, as the most precious inheritance for children and grandchildren. You need to know that in Russia the entire mass of the people lead a very serious life, being forced by circumstances to lead such a life. Very few people can lead an entertaining, cheerful life in the sphere of modern progress, because such a life requires sufficient material resources. Those who have fun on earth should not judge other people, as they usually do, by themselves. In order for one to have fun, often a thousand and thousands must endure the hardest labor, shed bitter tears and bloody sweat: how can the thoughts and feelings of these thousands be the same as the joyful unit? Suffering and crying are the heritage of fallen man on earth, as the Gospel teaches us, and this fallen and lost man comes to the Church of God to pour out his sorrowful feelings before God, to reveal his wretched state before God. Most of the prayers sung and read in church express the request of the deceased for mercy, develop the concept of the destruction of humanity, show its many different shades and signs, and contain a confession of human fall in general and a calculation of the particulars of the fall. They move from time to time to the praise of God, to the joyful praise of the actions of the Redeemer and the Atonement: but this doxology and these praises are uttered by prisoners imprisoned in prison, who have received hope of liberation, but have not yet received liberation. The joy produced by the hope of our salvation is necessarily combined in us with a sorrowful feeling of sinful captivity. Quite rightly, the Holy Fathers call our spiritual sensations “joyful sorrow.” This feeling is fully expressed by the znamenny chant, which is still preserved in some monasteries and which is used in churches of the same faith. The Znamenny chant is like an ancient icon. From his attention, the same feeling takes over the heart as from closely looking at an ancient icon painted by some holy man. The feeling of deep piety that pervades the melody leads the soul to reverence and tenderness. The lack of art is obvious; but it disappears before spiritual dignity. A Christian who spends his life in suffering, constantly struggling with various difficulties of life, hearing the Znamenny chanting, immediately finds in it harmony with his state of mind. He no longer finds this harmony in the current singing of the Orthodox Church. Court singing (here I am referring most to mass; however, “Lord, have mercy,” sung at the Liturgy, is already sung at all church services), which has now come into general use in Orthodox churches, is unusually cold, lifeless, somehow frivolous, urgent! The works of the newest composers express the mood of their spirit, the mood is Western, earthly, spiritual, passionate or cold, alien to the feeling of the spiritual. – Some, noticing that the Western element of singing cannot in any way be agreed with the spirit of the Orthodox Church, rightly recognizing Bortnyansky’s famous compositions as voluptuous and romantic, wanted to help the cause. They rearranged, preserving all the rules of counterpoint, the Znamenny chant into four voices. Did their work satisfy the demands of the Church, the demands of its spirit? We are obliged to give a negative answer. The Znamenny chant is written so as to sing one note, and not according to the beginnings (partheses), no matter how many singers sing it, starting with one singer. This melody must remain inviolable: its arrangement is certainly a distortion of it. This conclusion is necessary for an initial reason: it is justified by experience itself. Despite the correctness of the transcription, the Easter canon has lost its character of solemn joy and acquired a sad character: this is no longer the delight produced by the resurrection of the entire human race in Christ, it is a funeral lament. The change in character, although not so sensitive, is noticeable in all transcriptions of the Znamenny chant and other ancient church chants. In some of the transcriptions, those who worked on them introduced their own character, destroying the completely church character: military music is heard in them, as, for example, in “Bless the Lord, my soul,” with which the all-night vigil begins. Why is this so? Because the arrangement was carried out under the leadership of a military man, a completely secular man, who formed his taste in anti-church music, who inevitably, out of natural necessity, introduced his own element into the purely church element of the Znamenny chant. The Znamenny chant must remain inviolable: the unsuccessful transcription of it by music experts has proven this truth. Any translation must distort its character. An ancient icon should not be covered with new paints, leaving its design intact: this would be a distortion of it. No prudent person who knows foreign languages ​​perfectly would dare to translate a mathematical book from them without knowing mathematics. Why shouldn’t those connoisseurs of music who are alien to the grace-filled spirit of the church, bestowed by God for a deeply pious life, adhere to the same prudence regarding church singing? This is not the judgment of any private person, this is the judgment of the Orthodox Church. The Holy Spirit declared that the song of the Lord cannot be sung “in foreign lands” (Ps. 136:4). Not only the son of the world is incapable of this song, but also that deeply pious Christian who has not yet freed his heart from the yoke of passions, whose heart is not yet free, does not yet belong to him, as enslaved by sin. The one who, in the field of Christian asceticism, walks around lamenting all day long is not yet capable of this, that is, he is still in constant contemplation of his sin and in lamentation about it, in whose inner cell the voice of rejoicing has not yet been heard, rejoicing in the spiritual villages of the righteous. Who is able to sing the song of the Lord? in whose soul can it be born for the consolation and pleasure of that soul, for the consolation and pleasure of the entire Orthodox Church? Saint John Climacus. Liber de Pracscriptionibus, cap. VII. Hue sunt doctrinae hominum et ducmoniorum etc. Chetii-Minei. The Life of the Venerable Simeon and John, His Companion. July 21. Philokalia. Part 1. Saint Gregory of Sinai. The chapters are very useful, ch. 128. The memory of this saint is celebrated by the Church on August 8. According to Russian translation: “transform”. According to the Russian translation: “no prophecy in Scripture can be resolved by oneself.” According to the Russian translation: “presenting the spiritual spiritually.” According to the Russian translation: “because one must reason spiritually about spiritual things.” This is what it says in the letter issued by the bishop to the priest upon his ordination: “It is fitting for the priest to diligently diligently read the Divine Scriptures, and not to interpret this differently, but like the Church luminaries, our holy and God-bearing Fathers, shepherds and teachers, interpreted with great agreement.” Further, the letter bequeaths to the priest a strictly moral Christian life. Word of St. Mark the Ascetic. The Holy Father further explains that the three images of piety are the following: the first is not to sin; the second is to endure the allowed sorrows after a sin; the third is to cry about the lack of patience when we cannot endure the sorrows generously allowed (by Providence). According to Innocent: Nisibius the Wonderworker. See the life of Gregory of Akraganti. “The Sermon on the Spiritual Law” by St. Mark the Ascetic, ch. 2.