Евхаристический догмат 132

According to the belief of the Orthodox Church, in the Divine Eucharist bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, in which the Lord Himself is present. Bread and wine cease to be themselves, becoming the Body and Blood of Christ: “this (τοῡτο) is My body,” “this is My blood.” The power of mysterious transformation penetrates the nature of bread and wine and changes it. It becomes other than itself, not what it is as a thing of the physical world. However, bread and wine do not lose their materiality within this world; their graininess and wine quality remain unchanged: smell, taste, weight, color, physical and chemical properties. The change in nature that has occurred does not affect their physical existence. The miracle of the transfusion of the Holy Gifts is therefore not physical, but metaphysical. It is not expressed in the replacement of one substance with another in the realm of the physical world, just as, for example, in Cana of Galilee the substance of water turned into the substance of wine, or, with the miraculous feeding of the people, the quantity of bread itself increased. There is not and cannot even be such a substance in the world into which bread and wine could be transformed during their transformation into the Body and Blood of Christ. Such a transformation does not correspond to any change within the boundaries of this world, for among the things of this world there is generally no substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. A change understood in this sense would mean a completely new creation, accompanied by the destruction of the previous one, but in this case it would not be a transformation, μεταβολή, presupposing a certain identity of the terminus a quo with the terminus ad quern (the initial boundary with the final (Latin) - Ed.), with their complete difference at the same time. A new creation, in place of the previous one, abolishes this connection, destroys the terminus a quo, and thereby the terminus ad quem, in their relationship. The idea of ​​transformation, thus, contains an antinomy that overcomes the law of identity, but not only without abolishing it, but even affirming: transformation is the identity of the different or the difference of the same. It is not a transformation with the absorption of one by the other, but there is a unity and at the same time the opposition of both, an antinomian miracle. And this is expressed directly in the words of the Lord, “this (that is, bread) is My Body” and “this (that is, wine) is My Blood.” This (albeit in the neuter gender, τοῡτο) is a designation of the bread and wine presented as things or objects accessible to sensory perception (and not just a verbal indicative gesture in relation to the Body and Blood). This is My Body, this is My Blood, this is the formula of antinomy, the identity of the different and the differentiation of the same, transformation - as identification in actu, and not a fixed identity, in which different things remain in their difference and isolation, alien to any identification. The miracle of antinomy, transposition, consists in the fact that something is what it is not, and is not what it is: bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, just as vice versa, the Body and Blood are this (Eucharistic) bread and wine. Conversion is not a physical transformation that we have in metabolism: firewood burns, transforming and being replaced by heat, gases, ash; there is no firewood anymore, they were there. Transformation consists precisely in the removal of the opposition between terminus a quo and terminus ad quern, and after the combustion of the wood they simply no longer exist, and therefore there is no place for transformation. The Eucharistic miracle of the transfiguration of the Holy Gifts cannot be understood as the physical transformation of bread and wine into the human body, just as we have in nutrition, with the assimilation of food by the body and its assimilation (although this analogy is of considerable importance for Eucharistic dogma). The Translation of the Holy Gifts even directly excludes such a physical transformation. 133 True, among the pious legends aimed at affirming faith in the Divine Eucharist, there are those in which such a transformation is confirmed by a special vision for the reassurance of non-believers or for the consolation of believers. (Such, for example, is the legend from the life of St. Gregory the Double, Pope of Rome in the 7th century, and then the legend that traveled in the West and East about the vision of the slaughter of the Child and the shedding of His Blood by the Angels.) However, these legends cannot be given dogmatic meaning when understanding the Eucharistic miracle itself; they can be accepted at most as having only symbolic meaning as evidence of the truth of the Divine Eucharist. (The well-known vision from the life of St. Sergius has a similar meaning: that during the blessing of the Holy Gifts, a twining flame of fire entered the Chalice, and the saint communed with fire. The Holy Gifts are often called fire in prayers, although this does not mean that bread and wine are put into fire, but this only indicates the Divine fiery nature of the Holy Gifts from the Holy Spirit resting on them.) The miracle of the transfusion of the Holy Gifts is not physical, but metaphysical. Μετά - pre (in the word μεταβολή, transformation) does not mean a change from one state of matter to another within the physical world, but the connection of two worlds, two areas of existence, separate from each other, metaphysical transcensus (transition (lat.) - Ed.). Translation in this sense cannot and should not become an object of sensory perception relating to this world. Therefore, this transformation itself, completely invisible to the bodily eyes and inaccessible to the bodily senses, can only be an object of faith, which is “the evidence of things unseen” (Heb. 11:1), the knowledge of metaphysical evidence, contrary to or independent of physical evidence. One can and must believe in the Transfiguration of the Holy Gifts with all the strength of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the real power of His institution: “... I believe that this is Thy most pure Body and this is Thy most precious Blood.” The content of this faith cannot become the subject of natural, experimental or scientific knowledge, “natural science,” although it is accessible to internal, spiritual knowledge with its self-evidence, which victoriously testifies to itself in Holy Communion. The confession of faith in the Transfiguration of the Holy Gifts has been the common heritage of the Church since the first centuries of Christianity. It is firmly and invariably expressed in patristic writing, sometimes vaguely and imprecisely (as with the Alexandrians Clement and Origen), but usually clearly and unambiguously, starting from the apostolic men to St. John of Damascus and later (for example, with St. Simeon the New Theologian). During the entire first 1000 years in the history of the Christian Church, in the midst of Christological disputes, the question of the Eucharistic dogma did not arise, which was confessed by the Church directly and vitally, without deliberate explanation and definition (which once again testifies to the secondary and derivative meaning of dogmatic definitions in the Church: primum vivere, deinde dogmatizare (first to live, then to dogmatize (lat.) - Editor's note). Attempts to express the Eucharistic dogma and, so to speak, to comprehend it theologically, appear, as usual in the history of dogmas, with the appearance of heresies, which, in turn, as usual, were a consequence of the dogmatic ferment that began in this area. This ferment was discovered first in the West. The East, which bore the brunt of Christological disputes, remained passive on the Eucharistic issue, rather only defending itself against heresy, and, as often happens, at times it itself fell into dependence on the attacking side. The East has not yet said its own word on this issue, which, however, still needs to be said. In the Western Church in the 9th century, the early representatives of future scholasticism (Paschasius, Radbertus Corbiensis, Rabanus Maurus) appeared the first dogmatic reflection on the Eucharistic dogma, which in the 11th century (in the person of Berengarius de Tours) turns into doubt, and then into outright heresy (in Wyclef, 14th century, and further in Huss). The teaching of Berengarius (although it cannot be established precisely) is the beginning of the Eucharistic disputes, which continue in the Reformation and cannot be considered completed to this day. To the general attempt to interpret the Translation of the Holy Gifts only symbolically, or tropice, the Catholic Church responded with a rough and straightforward definition, which Berengarius had to swear to Pope Nicholas at the Roman Council of 1059: panem et vinum quae in altari ponuntur post consecrationem non solum sacramentum, sed etiam verum corpus et sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi esse et sensualiter, non solum Sacramento, sed etiam in veritate manibus sacerdotis tractari, frangi et fidelium dentibus atteri (that the bread and wine that are placed on the altar after the consecration are not only the sacramental, but also the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are sensually, not only mysteriously, but actually removed by the hands of the priest, are refracted and crushed by the teeth of the faithful (lat.) - Ed. Here the utmost Eucharistic realism was proclaimed, striving to completely reify the Sacrament, to look at it through the eyes of this world. And this has already predetermined the further path of Western Eucharistic theology, which can be defined as cosmological immanentism, the desire to interpret the Sacrament within the confines of this world. The Eucharistic theology of the West has its classical expression in the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, I, Qu. LXXV, LXXVI LXXVII), which remains of decisive importance to this day. It is not only a theological theory, but is canonized as a binding creed for the entire Catholic Church in the canons of the Council of Trent, as well as in the Catechismus Romanus (Roman Catechism (lat.) - Ed.). Moreover, the Reformation Eucharistic teachings in Lutheranism and Reformation can also be understood only in connection with it, as the denial and overcoming of the same teaching. In a word, all Western Eucharistic theology is a positive or negative Thomism, which has a guiding significance here. Moreover, his influence also spread to the East, for the newest Orthodox theology on this issue is still under the indirect, although not sufficiently conscious, influence of Thomism, which must be finally overcome. The main bewilderment, and further doubt, in the Eucharistic dogma relates to the meaning and significance of the transfiguration of the Holy Gifts. Here there is, as indicated above, a clear discrepancy between the evidence of experience and the evidence of faith: the first speaks of the immutability of bread and wine, which is verified by our senses, while the second testifies to their complete and true change through transformation into the Body and Blood of Christ, in which “truly, authentically and essentially - vere, realiter et essentialiter” the Lord Jesus Christ is present. How to combine these two evidences, which are united in the Sacrament of the Eucharist? We are talking, obviously, about the power of transformation as the identification of the non-identical, the combination of different things. As stated, the Eucharistic problem in the West focused on the question of changing the Eucharistic substance and through this it became reified. Thus, she received a one-sided cosmological statement - about the fate of the things of this world (bread and wine) in connection with their mysterious transformation into the Body and Blood of Christ: what happens to these things, as belonging to this world, as a result of transformation? This is a question, so to speak, of sacramental natural science. At the center of the question here is the thing itself, the Eucharistic matter. Such materialism distinguishes Western theology about the Eucharist, both in Catholicism and in Protestantism, which is antagonistic to it, but dependent on it, with its spiritualism. This problematic received its classical expression in the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, the main ideas of which we will now dwell on. The teaching of Thomas Aquinas has, as a philosophical premise, the Aristotelian distinction in the nature of things between substance and accident. The first is what the second belongs (inhaeret) - signs, properties, qualities. It is the abstract of a thing, its non-qualitative basis, to which independent existence belongs, while accidents can only exist in something, having for themselves a “subject”, a substance. Each thing has its own substance, of which there is an indefinite number, and, according to the meaning of the teaching, they arise and disappear along with things. The fate of substances is connected with the fate of things, and substances are inseparably connected with their accidents, which belong to the substance. The inseparability of substances and accidents is the very basis of this doctrine. Thomas Aquinas applies this distinction between substances and accidents when resolving the question of what happens with the Eucharistic substance, with the thing of bread and wine, when it is transmuted into the Body and Blood of Christ. As things, bread and wine also have a substance - that is, an abstract fundamental principle or “place of properties”, as well as accidents, that is, the properties themselves, in other words, what can be called the breadiness of bread and the wineiness of wine. This breadiness and this winefulness, according to the evidence of external senses, remain unchanged even after transformation. Catholic theology, starting with Thomas Aquinas, very consistently develops the idea that the unchanging accidents of bread and wine, even after transformation, fully realize all their grain and wine quality, with all their physical, chemical and even nutritional properties, to such an extent that a change in substance does not affect this in any way. These accidents exist as if absolutely, without substance, which is one of the manifestations of the Eucharistic miracle. In the transposition of the Holy Gifts, according to the teaching of Thomas Aquinas and all Catholic theology, while the accidents remain unchanged, although they remain sine subjecto sive substantia (without subject or substance (Latin) - Ed.), their substance changes, transsubstantiatio (transubstantiation (Latin) - Ed.) occurs. ), and miraculously this change does not affect the accidents at all. Instead of the substance of bread, the substance of the Body of Christ appears, and instead of the substance of wine, the substance of the Blood of Christ appears, and with them, due to the inseparability of the nature of Christ, per concomitantiam, the Lord with His soul and Divine spirit, the whole God-man (totus et integer (whole and whole (lat.) - Ed.)) indwells. This change in substance, the replacement of the substance of bread and wine with the substance of Body and Blood, is an action of the creative omnipotence of God, similar to that which took place at the Incarnation in the single conception of the Virgin through the influx of the Holy Spirit. Through transsubstantiatio, in the accidents of bread and wine, the Body of the Lord is present. 134 Christ is present in the Holy Gifts, the very One who sits at the right hand of the Father with His body: totus Christus est in sacramento... totum corpus Christi, scilicet ossa, nervi et alia cuiusmodi (S. th. Ill, qu., XLXXVI, a. I. ad secundum (all Christ in the Holy Gifts... the whole Body of Christ, that is, bones, veins and everything else of the same kind (lat.) – Ed.)). 135 In Heaven, Christ is present with His body not only in substance, but also in accidents, dimensive or circumscriptive (spatial or descriptive (lat.) - Ed.) 136 in the form as He was in the Ascension. During the Transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, Christ, of course, without leaving Heaven, returns to earth, as it were, moves in and is present in the host. So, the doctrine of transubstantiation affirms the bodily indwelling of the ascended Christ, together with His Divinity, in the Holy Gifts, and only the accidental side of this presence is missing, that is, spatial extension and sensory tangibility. Christ, in Whom substance and accidents are also distinguished, dwells in the host substantially, but without His accidents. This image of only substantial being receives further clarification in Catholic theology. First of all, being present substantialiter (essentially (lat.) - Ed.), the Body of Christ turns out to be free from all spatial definitions, one can even say that it is not present in the place, localiter (Qu. LXXIV, a.V.), which is occupied only by the speciebus sacramentorum (types of the Holy Gifts (lat.) - Ed.). This explains the possibility of the sacramental presence of Christ simultaneously on many altars, as well as in each part of the Holy Gifts holistically and inseparably, for the substantial presence is super-spatial (and also, of course, super-temporal) 137 and only the Eucharistic Gifts, the species in which He is present, move (in contrast to la présence corporelle du Sauveur dans le ciel, où se réalise la localization proprement dite (the bodily presence of the Savior in heaven, where, in fact, His residence is located (French) - Ed.), ib.176). Thus, the substantial presence of Christ in the Holy Gifts is associated with the Eucharistic substance (species), which, in turn, exists sine subjecto, without substance, and in this sense represents only a certain appearance (Descartes), although it retains the ability to influence our sensuality and its place in the world. So, the Eucharistic miracle, in the understanding of Catholic theology, consists of a supernatural, and in a certain sense unnatural, union of the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, deprived of their accidents, with the alien accidents of bread and wine, which have lost their substance. Being mutually alien to each other, the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ and the accidents of bread and wine in the Sacrament are, however, inseparably united to such an extent that with the destruction of the accidents, the substantial presence ceases. For clarity, it should be added that in this case, the accidents of bread and wine, in their separate form, return to the category of things of this world, that is, they again receive their own substance - a trans-transsubstantiatio occurs (as Ockham says, quod ex non substantiis potest fieri substantia (pre-transubstantiation (... since substance can come from non-substances) (lat.) - Ed.). At the same time, grain and wine - although non-substantial, but still the original, unchangeable existence of the Eucharistic elements remains evident, and thus dualism is introduced into the understanding of the Sacrament: Body and Blood are taught under the guise of bread and wine, not only a difference is established, but also an opposition between substantia and species (apparences (substance and species (lat.) - Ed.). )), which Catholic theology is still proud of as its special advantage. 138 The general result is this: to the doubt raised by Berengarius, Viclef and rationalism in general regarding how to understand the presence of unchanged bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood, Catholic theology responded only with a new confirmation of this same doubt. The theory of transsubstantiation is one of the varieties of the theory of impanation (impanatio), that is, the doctrine that in pane, sub rape and cum rape (in bread, under the guise of bread and with bread (lat.) - Ed.) The Body and Blood of Christ are taught. The recognition that bread and wine retain only their accidents is essentially equivalent to the general statement of Protestants that they remain themselves, but when they are eaten, the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is united with them. Protestantism limits this connection only to Communion, while Catholicism extends it beyond this moment. That's all. The doctrine of transsubstantiatio is based on the Aristotelian distinction between ουὐσία - substantia and συμβεβηκός - accidentia (essence and appearance (Greek, Lat.) - Ed.), and in connection with this distinction it stands and falls. Together with the dogma of transsubstantiatio, the Catholic Church has dogmatized this teaching, because outside of it this whole structure loses its meaning. It seems strange in itself such a degree of dependence of a dogma at its core on the purely philosophical doctrine of some philosopher, and a pagan one at that. True, it is impossible to deny the connections of Christian theology with Hellenic philosophy, which developed in its concepts ready-made terms and logical facets for expressing dogmas. Concepts such as ουσία - essence, ύπόστασις - hypostasis, ενέργεια - energy, φύσις natura - nature, etc., which were included in dogmatic definitions, belong to the Hellenic philosophical lexicon. However, in introducing them, dogmatics does not introduce into the church teaching any purely philosophical doctrine, be it Plato, or Aristotle, or the Stoics, or Neoplatonists; it uses the concepts developed by them, giving them its own use and at the same time sometimes significantly changing it from the original (as, for example, ὑπόστασις in trinitarian definitions). The dogmatic definitions of the Church lay the foundation for completely new teachings of Christian philosophy (both in the patristic and modern eras), which, based on ancient philosophy, does not at all repeat it. However, we have a completely opposite case in the doctrine of transsubstantiation, where it is not philosophy that serves theology, but theology is enslaved to philosophy, perceiving one of its doctrines as truth and making all Eucharistic theology dependent on it as a special case of the general relationship between substance and accidents. Such slavery in itself is generally reprehensible for theology, but in this case the matter is aggravated by the fact that we are talking about one of the most untenable teachings. Aristotle himself, although he expounds the doctrine of categories in Metaphysics, however, gives this doctrine a rather logical or epistemological meaning, which in grammar corresponds to the distinction between subject and predicate, subject and predicate, noun and adjective. In epistemology (in Kant), this may correspond to the distinction between Ding an sich (thing in itself (German) - Ed.), or noumenon, as the unknowable and transcendental basis of experience, and experimental knowledge, which does not penetrate into the world of things in themselves, but is limited to coordinating the data of experience. Another epistemological meaning of the distinction between substance and accidents may be that substance is a general category of objectivity, a formal unity of attributes (or accidents), which has its basis in the transcendental unity of consciousness, in a word, “the category of pure understanding.” But, obviously, the Catholic interpretation of Aristotle does not coincide with any of these understandings, and none of them would be sufficient for the purposes of the Catholic doctrine of transsubstantiation, for substance as a category, logical or epistemological, cannot be subjected to any conversion (conversio). To do this, the substance must be transformed into metaphysical reality, which corresponds, generally speaking, to only one of the possibilities in Aristotelism, by no means the best and not the only one (although it is used in the same sense, and also not always successfully, in patristic triadology). 139 This is exactly what scholasticism does, for which substance is reality, the core of being, the radiation of which is carried out in accidents, a certain metaphysical electron or ion, as a charge of energies acting in the world. Moreover, every thing without distinction, great or small, animate and inanimate, table and man, plant and angel - everything in creation equally has substance and accident. Moreover, the number of things constantly fluctuates, because things perish and arise and constantly pass into one another, and with them their substance, so that a constant transsubstantiatio takes place in the world. In addition, there are simple and complex things in the world: a sheep and a herd, a tree and a forest, the Mont Blanc peak and the Swiss mountains, a star and the starry sky, a person and a nation, etc. etc. - and all this has a substance with its accidents. In a word, the world is a flow of substances and their incessant dance, some kind of endless trans... This theory, considered purely philosophically, is so crude and incompatible with modern philosophical consciousness that to impose it as self-evidence, as the Catholic dogma of transsubstantiatio does, is a direct violation of the mind, a completely unnecessary and unjustified archaization. At most, one can see in it one of the metaphysical possibilities of cosmology, along with others, although even this is difficult to accept, but here it is made the only mandatory norm. The history of philosophy knows different possibilities for the doctrine of substance, up to their complete denial by Hegel; 140 Spinoza’s Substantia sive Deus (substance or God (lat.) – Ed.), Leibnizian monadology, materialistic atomism and hylozoism, spiritualism of various shades, Kantian phenomenalism, etc. 141 Between these possibilities, there is least room left for only one, according to which each host or piece of bread and each small share of wine has its own substance, which knows its own destinies. 142 Philosophical conscience does not allow us to accept such a teaching. What is required here is not a feat of faith and humility before the mystery, but the acceptance on faith of a rational and untenable definition that has no direct relation to the Christian faith. The doctrine of substance and accidents extends not only to the things of this world, but also to the Body of Christ, which resides in Heaven, belonging to the Son of God who sits at the right hand of the Father. And it has its own substance and accidents, and in the Sacrament, substantial being can be separated from the accidental, replacing the substance of bread and wine, which retain their own appearance, in transsubstantiatio. Thus, the Body and Blood of Christ, existing in Heaven, are involved in a number of earthly things and share their main fate - variability: earth - grain - flour and water - bread - the Body of Christ - the human body (into which it enters when eaten) - earth again, etc. This placing of the Divine body in a number of earthly things (its immanentization) degrades it and does not correspond to the glorified state of the Body the Lord who is in heaven. The reference to the omnipotence of God, which is used here so indiscriminately, is also inappropriate, because omnipotence overcomes factual impossibility, unbearability for man, but not incongruity, logical or metaphysical absurdity. 143 We have already indicated that cosmism is a distinctive feature of the theory of transsubstantiatio; it determines its problematics and doctrine. Between the glorified Body of the risen and ascended Lord and bread and wine, no more distinction is made here than between different things or substances of this world, it is placed in a row with them and in direct correlation. The further construction corresponds to this: the Body and Blood of Christ, as things that have replaced with their substance the substance of bread and wine, together with themselves “per concomitantiam”, establish the presence in the host of both the soul and the spirit of the Savior, that is, the whole God-man, totus Christus. So, on the one hand, transsubstantiatio is considered as the replacement of the substance of one thing with the substance of another, from which it is clear that both of them are, as it were, on the same ontological plane. On the other hand, the accidents of bread and wine remain, although emptied in their substantiality, without subjectivity, but retaining their reality, graininess and winefulness, that is, roughly speaking, they remain themselves, bread and wine, into which Christ indwells in some mysterious (“substantial”) way, allowing Himself to be eaten “in bread, with bread and in the guise of bread” (in pane, cum pane, sub rape). This is what is directly (and, of course, more consistently) expressed in the theory of impanation by M. Luther (who was bitter towards the Aristotelian theory of transsubstantiation in Thomas Aquinas). Transsubstantiatio, like impanatio, denies transformation, and does not affirm it (as some, even Orthodox theologians, think). In general, the Reformation heresies in the Eucharistic dogma were not only legitimate and, in their way, consistent conclusions from the reifying cosmism of the theory of transsubstantiation, but at the same time they were also a legitimate reaction against its hopelessness, as a search for a way out of the impasse of diphysitism, which denies transubstantiation, which is contained in the doctrine of transsubstantiatio. But another feature of the theory of transubstantiation, associated with the denial of the transmutation of the Holy Gifts contained in it, is a special understanding of the real presence of the Lord in the Holy Gifts. According to him, we have in them not only the Body and Blood of the Lord, given by Him for Communion, but also the Lord Himself, mysteriously (substantialiter) returning to earth and remaining in the Host. We already have here something more than the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ for the Communion of the faithful, but the direct indwelling of the Lord into the host. Thus, the power of the Ascension of the Lord is actually rejected, since the Lord returns to earth to remain on countless altars and in countless hosts, although invisibly, or rather “under the guise”, in pane, cum pane, sub rape. Communion in this understanding is only one of the goals of this new descent of Christ and His indwelling into the Host. Christ is generally present as a guest on earth, in a certain place, on a certain altar. And from such an understanding, a special cult of the Holy Gifts naturally arises and develops, which has become so typical of modern Catholicism. Thus, here too the theory of transsubstantiation does not achieve its goal, because it goes further than it: instead of translating the Holy Gifts as Heavenly bread for Communion, it brings Christ Himself down to earth and in a hidden way denies the power of the Ascension. True, all this is covered up by the metaphysics of substantiality, but isn’t it all the same - to have Christ in the host or in His earthly image, if it is one and the same Christ - totus Christus, moreover, in all the power and in all the fullness of His physicality? However, is another understanding possible if we recognize the reality of the transfusion of the Holy Gifts and the associated reality of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Gifts? Until now, only one answer has been given: in the sense of the theory of transsubstantiation, and Orthodox theologians, especially in the criticism of Protestantism, hesitantly and often without proper consistency repeated this theory, which even crept into other doctrinal definitions of “symbolic” meaning. However, Orthodoxy has not yet said its word here. To do this, we must, firstly, return to the theology of our fathers (1000 years ago), to the patristic teaching, and accept it as a real guide, creatively reveal it and apply it to our time. And secondly, for this it is necessary nothing less than a complete change in the very formulation of the question with a renunciation of Catholic cosmism, which materializes the Eucharistic problematic, and in revealing it, rely not on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, but on the Gospel. In other words, the question must be returned again to the soil of Christology, for it is essentially and entirely a Christological question. Catholic theological thought is exhausted (and this exhaustion is imprinted in the Trentian dogma of transubstantiation) before the question of what changes in the things of bread and wine when they are transmuted into the Body and Blood of Christ, how does one enter into the other, how do they relate in physical coexistence? This question determines the content of the Eucharistic doctrine equally in both Catholicism and Protestantism, and both of them in this respect turn out to be much closer to each other than it seems. It is remarkable that in patristic theology, for eight centuries, this physical question about the Eucharist, precisely about what happens to the bread and wine when they are transmuted into the Body and Blood of Christ, does not arise at all. Reverence for the Sacrament seemed to close one’s eyes, not allowing one to look at what was happening and not to ask oneself about what was happening invisibly. At the same time, bold and firm testimony - in spite of, or, more precisely, independent of sensory evidence - and an undoubted confession that bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ is all that we find in the fathers on this matter. And an explanation for such a lack of explanation cannot be sought only in historical circumstances: on the one hand, the natural bewilderment of the mind regarding the overcoming of sameness taking place in the Sacrament, with the overthrow of sensory evidence, is available to every age (after all, the Jews, having heard “strange words” (John 6:60) about the Flesh and Blood served as food, could not accommodate this and moved away from Christ); and on the other hand, the teachings of Aristotle were close and well known to the fathers and in other cases were reflected in their works. However, the holy fathers not only do not have a physical theory of transformation (except for individual analogies), but they also lack the very problem that arose on the basis of the rising head of rationalism, the humanistic renaissance with its cosmism, which began in the depths of scholasticism. Relying on the patristic teaching, we can leave the scholastic labyrinth into the free air, although for this assimilation, efforts of thought must be made. This is generally the path of Church Tradition: it is always not only protective, but also creative. So, what is the content of the Eucharistic problem? Is it how the physical change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ takes place, the replacement of one with the other, in which Catholic theology has always seen it? Or does Orthodox theology here need to “go out of the city”, commit μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος, reject the very problem in its Catholic understanding and simply establish that such a question does not exist at all, and that false answers are inevitably given to an incorrectly posed question? Western theology, both in orthodox and heretical teachings, and in Berengar and Thomas Aquinas, and in Protestant teachings, is more concerned with showing the real presence of Christ in the Holy Gifts, His indwelling in them, than with the fact that in the Holy Gifts those who partake are given the true Body and Blood of Christ, and through this Communion they are united with Christ bodily and spiritually. Communion of the Body and Blood as the purpose of the Sacrament established by Christ himself (“take, eat... drink of it, all of you”), does not occupy the central place in Catholic theology that it should. It is seen rather as an implied consequence of the accomplished descent of Christ into the Host, which is primarily the concern of theology, albeit in relation to Communion. What is being discussed here is not the transformation for Communion, in relation to it and in direct connection with it, but in itself, and one of its consequences, not the only one and not even the primary one, is Communion. However, the Body and Blood of Christ are given to us, first of all, as Divine food at the Lord’s Table, “the bread of Heaven and the cup of life,” and all teaching about the Eucharist must proceed from this purpose established by the Lord. The promise of the Lord does not refer to the abolition of the power of the Ascension by a new descent to earth, even if sacramental, but to the giving of Divine food, which is the Body and Blood of the Lord. Chapter VI of the Gospel of John contains the Lord’s teaching about the bread of heaven, which “comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33), about the “bread of life”, which is the Flesh and Blood of the Son of God. “For My Flesh is truly food, and My Blood is truly drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him... and he who eats Me will live through Me” (John 6:55–57). And the Lord actually revealed this truth (“Amen, Amen, I say to you”) at the Last Supper, when He gave the disciples to taste the bread and wine as His Body and Blood. This idea of ​​​​Divine food - the Body and Blood of Christ, served for consumption, is revealed primarily in patristic writing. As explanatory considerations given regarding the fact that earthly bread, through the invocation of the Holy Spirit upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two things - earthly and heavenly ἐκ δύο πραγμάτων συνεστηκυία (St. Irenaeus, Bishop Lyonsky, “Against Heresies”, book IV. P.34), we find in some of the holy fathers thoughts that can provide support points for the construction of Eucharistic theology, namely in St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. John of Damascus. The first (in the “Great Catechetical Homily,” chapter 37) reasons as follows: “... I truly believe that bread, sanctified by the Word of God, is transformed into the Body of God the Word, for this body was bread, but was sanctified by the indwelling of the Word. So, for the same reason that in that Body the transformed bread was changed into divine power (that is, ordinary bread and wine, eaten by the Lord to quench hunger and thirst, were transformed into His Body and Blood), and now the same thing is happening. For just as the grace of the Word made holy the Body, the composition of which was made of bread and which in some way was bread itself, here also bread, according to the word of the Apostle, is sanctified by the word of God and prayer (1 Tim. 4:5), not through eating and drinking becoming the Body of the Word, but immediately being transformed into the Body of the Word, as the Word itself said: this is My Body. In St. John of Damascus (in the “Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” Book IV, Chapter 13) we read: “... it is not the ascended Body that descends from Heaven, but the very bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of God... just as bread through manifestation, and wine and water through drinking, are naturally transformed into the body and blood of the eater and drinker and become not another body, different from his former body, so bread, wine and water through the invocation and influx of the Holy Spirit are supernaturally transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ and constitute not two bodies, but one and the same.” Both passages contain the same instruction - to understand heavenly food in connection and analogy with earthly food. Let's take a closer look at this thought. What is our usual diet, 144 what does it mean to eat? In nutrition, a person communicates with the world external to him, a certain identification with it. Food - a thing of the external, non-human world - becomes the human body and blood, a natural transubstantiation occurs in which bread and wine, like other food substances, change into the human body (and by its connection with the soul, we can say that the non-self enters the self). When they are removed back from the human body, in metabolism, we have a further “transsubstantiatio”: the body and blood of a person partially cease to be themselves - they are returned to the world (or, one can also say, the self becomes not-self). In nutrition, we thus have a constantly occurring image of the natural transformation of food and drink into the human body and blood, which is replenished by the reverse process of removing its particles from the body. Life in this sense is a transformation that occurs partially or completely (in a certain number of years). Life as the metabolism that occurs in nutrition is such a constant transformation of world matter into the body and blood of a person, which has its justification in the Divine institution (Gen. 1:29-30). This food in itself, although it supports mortal life, does not provide immortality, for which the tree of life was planted by God - in all its mysterious meaning. In the Church it exists as the bread of Heaven, τὸ φάρμακον τῆς ἀθανασίας (the medicine of immortality (Greek) - Ed.), the Divine Eucharist. The Holy Fathers pay special attention to the fact that both the Body and Blood of the Lord, by virtue of His true incarnation and incarnation, were subject to the action of this natural transformation during His earthly life. Upon eating, the bread became His most pure Body, without losing its breadiness, but precisely according to its strength, for not every worldly substance has this natural ability of transformation, but only in the form of certain food. The same applies to wine and water, which are turned into blood. The body of the Lord grew (“the child expanded,” Luke 2:40) and lived, obeying the general law of human nature, doomed to depend on nutrition, that is, on the constant transformation of the world’s substance into the human body. This revealed not only the authenticity of human flesh perceived by the God-man, but also the reality of the Incarnation of God, for the Lord accepted a living and living body, with all the fullness of corporeality, which is potentially connected with the whole world, and in the metabolism it actually manifests this cosmism. Also at the Last Supper, the Lord ate bread and wine, and they were naturally transformed into His Body and Blood and adored, according to the inseparability of His Divine and human nature. The transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord, performed by Him at the Communion of the disciples, differs from this natural transformation in that this identification of bread and wine with the Body and Blood of Christ, or transformation, took place not in the Lord’s consumption of them, but independently of him, and this is the miraculous, mysterious, supernatural (although not unnatural) nature of the transformation. Saints Gregory of Nyssa and John of Damascus definitely compare the natural transformation of food when eating it with the Eucharistic transformation, which the Lord performed independently of eating, as if expanding His corporeality by the power of His omnipotence beyond the limits of His body. And this food, although not tasted by Him Himself, but nevertheless already deified, He teaches His disciples to eat: “...take, eat,” “drink all of it.” The omnipotence of God here makes the non-existent existent, that is, the bread and wine not eaten by Christ and, therefore, not accepted into the nature of His body and blood, accepted and sanctified. But it extends further: what has not yet happened, although it had to happen, becomes existing, which again removes the boundaries of time and the future becomes the present. It is the Lord who communes His disciples with His Body and Blood as a redemptive Sacrifice (“which is broken for you,” “which is poured out for you and for many”) before His saving death, before Golgotha, and even more so before His glorious Resurrection and ascension into Heaven. What was determined in the eternal council of God about the slaughter of the Lamb, what was already designated as inevitable in the chain of temporary events - the Calvary Sacrifice, is here testified as already accomplished. Here the boundaries of time are removed, for at the Last Supper the Lord performed the Sacrament, which already has all the power of the Incarnation (“remembering everything that has happened to us: the Cross, the tomb, the three-day Resurrection, the ascension to heaven, sitting on the right hand, the second and glorious coming again,” - the priest’s prayer before pronouncing the words “Yours from Yours.”) At the Last Supper, the Lord presented Himself in His Body and Blood as saving food, through the eating of which union with Him is accomplished. But He not only did this in a single act, but also established to create in His remembrance, when He Himself would no longer be on earth, for all time. This opens up a new side to the question of the Eucharist. When the Lord established it, He Himself was on earth in His body, here, in the upper room of Jerusalem, among His disciples. Communion with bread and wine as His Body and Blood, He had His Body and Blood before them directly, and bread and wine would only be a special way of partaking of the most pure Body and Blood. The Eucharistic food was completely identical with this Body and Blood, so that in essence the disciples partook of this Body and Blood. But the question changes significantly as soon as we introduce into consideration the fact that the Eucharist is established for all times when the ascended Lord will no longer be physically present on earth. And first of all, to what time should the actual beginning of the celebration of the Eucharist be attributed to in fulfillment of the Divine institution, what is this possibility connected with and when will it occur? The Eucharist, like all the Sacraments of the Church, became possible only through the descent of the Holy Spirit, and in the Acts of the Apostles the first mention of the “breaking of bread”, naturally, occurs only after Pentecost: “... and they (those who believed) continued constantly in the teaching of the Apostles, in fellowship and the breaking of bread and in prayers” (Acts 2:42) - Author's note. )). On the contrary, before Pentecost (but after the Ascension) it simply says: “They all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with certain women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren” (Acts 1:14) - Author’s note), just as about the very day of Pentecost, just before the descent of the Holy Spirit, it is simply said: “... they were all with one accord together” (Acts 2:1). The Holy Spirit, with His perfect power, makes the presence of Christ palpable in the Church and in the Sacraments. And, in particular, the transfusion of the Holy Gifts is accomplished by “Thy Holy Spirit” (Liturgy of Saints John Chrysostom and Basil the Great). The transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist no longer takes place in the personal presence of Christ, for the ascended Lord, having departed from the earth, dwells at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. And thus, a different, new relationship is established between bread and wine as things of this world, earthly food and the body and blood of the Lord in the glorified state of the Resurrection, Ascension, sitting at the right hand of the Father, that is, a premium, supercosmic or superphysical presence. Of course, this Body is essentially identical with that conceived in the womb of Mary, born and lived on earth, suffered and buried, resurrected and ascended. The tomb was empty after the Resurrection, and there was no body in the tomb, only shrouds and cloths remained, as in the Ascension, “a cloud took Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). However, this self-identity is combined with such a change in the glorified Body in comparison with the earthly one that this is reflected in its relation to the world: the body of the Lord, which belonged to this world before the Resurrection and even before the Ascension, now no longer belongs to it, is supra-worldly, metacosmic. This is where the formulation of the Eucharistic problem follows. We need to pay close attention to those features that the Gospel contains regarding the resurrected Body of the Lord. First of all, it should be established that although the Lord remains on earth until His Ascension, however, in a different way than before the Resurrection: He does not live with the disciples, but only appears to them (“He showed Himself alive... appearing to them for forty days” - Acts 1:3), and these appearances of Him do not depend on the laws of the natural world, but are subject only to His will. He appears to the disciples through closed doors (John 20:19, 26), and He hides from their eyes, becoming invisible to Luke and Cleopas when they recognized Him. It is remarkable, by the way, that these phenomena do not have the compulsion that is characteristic of physical evidence: even the disciples “began to doubt” (Matt. 28:17), so that the Lord, appearing to the eleven, “reproached them for unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who saw Him risen” (Mk. 16:14). It is also worthy of attention that even in His appearance Jesus is not immediately recognized, and not only by two disciples on the way during a whole day of conversation, but also by the loving and faithful Mary Magdalene, who takes Him for a gardener (John 20:15). This phenomenon was obviously so far from immediate, physical self-evidence that it left room for uncertainty, doubt, and bewilderment, as is clearly demonstrated by the story of Luke 24:36–40: “While they were talking about this, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They, confused and frightened, thought that they saw a spirit. But He said to them: Why are you troubled, and why do such thoughts enter your hearts? Look at My hands and My feet; it is I Myself; touch Me and look at Me; for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. And having said this, he showed them his hands and feet.” It is noteworthy here that the Lord also condescends to this bewilderment and offers them the opportunity to sensually (“touch”) verify the authenticity of the phenomenon. And this same feature (“showed them His hands and feet and His side” - John 20:20) is repeated in the story of the Gospel of John about the appearance to the disciples (either the same or different from the appearance of the eleven described in the Gospel of Luke), and the story about the Apostle Thomas has the same sense of special sensory identification (John 20:26–27). All these features necessarily suggest that the appearance of the risen Lord differed from His bodily presence, which never gave rise to doubt and did not need to be certified, possessing indisputable self-evidence. 145 Here is added another feature that confirms a certain inaccessibility of the resurrected Body of Jesus to direct sensory perception in the appearance of Mary Magdalene, when she wanted to touch the feet of Jesus with her usual movement. “Jesus says to her: Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; But go to My brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” (John 20:17). This elimination of the very possibility of touch establishes a qualitative, fundamental boundary between our corporeality and the corporeality of the risen Lord, and this boundary is directly associated with the special state of ascension to the Father. This does not contradict this, however, that the Lord, here showing the inaccessibility of His Body to touch, in other phenomena deliberately allowed Himself to be touched. For the sake of assuring the disciples, the Lord made obvious the connection between Himself and the material world, between His Body resurrected before the Resurrection, revealing their identity, but without destroying their otherness (while in His words to Mary Magdalene it is precisely this otherness that is indicated). This combination of the sameness and otherness of the Lord’s Body during the days of His earthly ministry and in glorification after the Resurrection is affirmed here as a dogmatic antinomy. 146 According to the Gospel of Luke and John, the Lord confirms this connection of His resurrected and glorified Body with the earthly one that belongs to this world, this antinomian sameness combined with otherness, in the most visual way: through eating food: “When they still did not believe for joy and were amazed, He said to them: Do you have any food here? They gave Him some of the baked fish and honeycomb. And he took it and ate before them” (Luke 24:41–43). It is highly likely that on Lake Tiberias the Lord, who took part in dinner with the disciples, also ate before them (John 21:12–13). Of course, eating food is unnecessary for the Lord Himself, for His resurrected and already immortal Body does not depend on it. And, of course, this eating of food could not have any nutritional value for the glorified Body of the Lord. However, this opportunity to eat food testifies to the presence of the remaining connection between the earthly, mortal, and the resurrected, immortal, Body of the Lord. The eating of food by the risen Lord, which has such fundamental significance for the dogmatic teaching of the Eucharist, is close in meaning to the provision of hands, feet and ribs for touch: it certifies the identity of the earthly body of the Lord, which belonged to this world, and His resurrected Body, which does not belong to it, establishes a direct connection between them to such an extent that one passes into the other without violating its own existence. Eating food was not an illusion or an appearance that did not correspond to reality, as if a kind of hypnotic suggestion, but it was not the kind of eating that was characteristic of Christ in the days of His earthly life (in particular, even at the Last Supper). Likewise, the hands, feet and ribs, although they could be shown by the Lord and, of course, had their own reality for this, however, they were no longer available for kissing, washing with tears and myrrh and wiping them with hair, in general they were no longer subject to our sensuality, although, by the special will of God, they could become accessible to it. And the same can be said in general regarding the appearances of the Lord after the Resurrection: they were not purely spiritual, like the appearances of Angels (and, perhaps, the posthumous appearances of the deceased, as far as they are valid), but they were not sensually material, like the Body of the Lord, no longer bound by the spatiality and impenetrability of matter. The Lord could manifest Himself through matter, but not in matter. The Body of the Lord itself was not material, although it retained connection with the substance from which it rose by the power of the Resurrection. This was the Transfiguration of the earthly, spiritual body into a spiritual Body. This transphysicality of the Body, which, however, maintains a connection with the world - simultaneous belonging and transcendence to this world - religious philosophy has still not been able to express in its own terms. However, this distinction between the body in the physical and in the superphysical state 147 does not exhaust the problem of the relationship of the resurrected Body of Christ to the world with its corporeality. The Ascension forms a new facet here. The Lord himself establishes this line in His words to Mary Magdalene: I did not “ascend,” but “I ascend to the Father,” and this ascension takes place in the Ascension. After His Resurrection, the Lord, although he did not live with the disciples, but only appeared to them, nevertheless remained on earth, within the confines of this world, belonged to it, being in a mysterious state of ascension, which was taking place (“I am ascending to My Father”), but not yet accomplished (“I have not yet ascended to My Father”). This ascension is finally accomplished in the Ascension, which signifies the removal of Christ from this world. The Ascension of the Lord is briefly reported by the Evangelist Mark (Mark 16:19): “The Lord ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God,” more extensively by the Evangelist Luke (Luke 24:51): “And when he blessed them, he began to move away from them and was taken up into heaven,” and in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:9): “... He was lifted up before their eyes, and a cloud took Him out of their sight.” Here the event itself is only indicated in images of external distance with being lifted into the air (as is depicted on the icon). But it marks a removal, a final disappearance from this world: and earlier the Lord hid from the eyes of the disciples after His appearance, becoming invisible (Luke 24:31), as if melting away before them. Now this removal takes place not into space, not into the distance, but into the heights, “into the sky.” It was experienced and felt by the students as a departure from this world, which was predetermined for them. In his farewell conversation, the Lord speaks about this: “Children! I will not be with you for long... where I go, you cannot come (John 13:33)... when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to Myself (John 14:3)... a little while longer, and the world will see Me no more (John 14:19)... I go to My Father (John 14:12, 16:16)... it is better for you that I go; for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; and if I go, I will send Him to you (John 16:7)... I came from the Father and came into the world; and again I leave the world and go to the Father (John 16:28)... And now glorify Me, Father, with You, with the glory that I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5). In the Gospel of John there is no direct account of the Ascension of the Lord, as in the evangelists Mark and Luke. True to his usual rule, he does not repeat, but completes their narrative. In this case, he gives, so to speak, the theology of the Ascension, which constitutes the central axis of the farewell conversation: the removal of Christ from the world, that is, the Ascension, and the coming of the Comforter. In other words, what was symbolically marked as an event in the physical world is given metaphysical or metacosmic meaning and power here: the removal of Christ from the world, which naturally begs comparison with His coming into the world - (“He was in the world” - John 1:10) and His new, second Coming into the world. The cloud that took Christ (Acts 1:9) is the Glory of God, according to the farewell prayer (John 17:5), just as in the Transfiguration of the Lord “a bright cloud overshadowed them” (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:34), and from it came the voice of the Father, testifying to the Son. The cloud in the Old Testament is also a sign of the presence of God and the Glory of God, 148 and hiding in the cloud means the reception of the Divine Glory. What does this mean? First of all, after the Ascension, is the same situation restored as it was before the Incarnation? Obviously not, for the Incarnation has a permanent meaning. The end of the Gospel of Matthew tells us about this (Matthew 28:18–20): “And Jesus came near and said, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth... and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen". Here we witness, as given again, not only Divine, but also Theanthropic power on earth and a new inseparability with humanity, and therefore the Ascension does not mean an absence, but a new presence, the presence of Christ with the disciples. At the same time, the Ascension also testifies to the inviolability of the Incarnation, for it took place precisely with the body and in relation to the body, and this bodily existence refers to: “...and I am seated at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19), which constitutes the firm belief of the Church. So, the Ascension does not mean disincarnation, but, so to speak, the perpetuation of the Incarnation of God, which has power in Heaven and on earth: this is precisely the meaning of the image “at the right hand of sitting.” The glorified Body of Christ, having completed its “ascension,” has acquired perfect spirituality, and this spiritual Body is able to be present in Heaven at the right hand of God the Father. It is not incompatible with the absolute spirituality of God, with the truth that God is Spirit. However, does not such spirituality of the Body mean its complete spiritualization, tantamount to disembodiment? No, it doesn't, and that's the point. Although completely spiritual and therefore absolutely alien to worldly matter or flesh, the Body of the Lord retains all the strength of the body, it is a body, albeit only a dynamic one. But this dynamic state is not just potentiality, as if due to powerlessness, but, on the contrary, complete mastery of corporeality (“to Me is given all power in heaven and on earth”), which no longer needs any particular image of the body, being a body in general. It has the power to put on a bodily image according to the needs of the spirit, which is always individual, since it is hypostatic. And the body in general therefore exists or becomes, has within itself the energy to become a definite individual body. Therefore, the Body of Christ retains the wounds and the general identity of its image both after the Resurrection and at the Second Glorious Coming, as specifically confirmed by the Angels: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11). The essence of the body lies not in the material particles of the world entering and leaving it (and in this sense the body is not closed in itself, but open to the world), but in the special power that is inherent in the spirit for incarnation. This ability of the spirit to create its own body and live in it consists of the nature of man as an embodied spirit. In this incarnation of the human, as well as the Divine spirit, two sides can be distinguished: the spiritual body as the ability and power of the spirit to incarnate, and the material body as the implementation of this spiritual energy, this mental image, from world matter, from the “earth”, as the single common source of all corporeality. In this implementation there may be different degrees of adequacy: the mortal body is generally inadequate to its idea due to the weakness of the spirit to master its substance; on the contrary, the glorified, resurrected Body of the Lord is characterized by such adequacy to the highest degree. He was given “all authority in heaven (as God) and on earth,” as a man, which is why this glorified Body acquires all the properties inherent in it. During the unfinished but still ongoing “ascension,” between the Resurrection and the Ascension, this incomprehensible spiritualization, the transition of the Body of the Lord into a state of pure spirituality, obviously takes place. This “victory of the Lord over death,” this “all power” given to Him, was acquired by Him not by the power of God’s omnipotence of the Creator over creation, but by His human nature, the feat of human effort and human life, although inseparable in Him with the Divine. As a truly human being, He realizes through obedience to the end such extreme adequate humanity that it is expressed in the perfect mastery of his corporeality, and therefore in liberation from it as a limiting, inert, disobedient principle. The Spiritual Body, the Body of Ascension, no longer depends on physicality. This does not make it formless, as if incorporeal, but it itself has its own form, there is this pure form. The Ascended Body of the Lord, having separated from the world and thereby losing its corporeality and materiality, does not lose its energetic properties as an individual image of the spirit, its external form (although here we have to distinguish between the external and the internal already in the spiritual realm). Nevertheless, in its state it is, indeed, separated from the material corporeality of this world, which it left behind during the Ascension. However, this separation, or abandonment, is a state, and not the essence of this glorified Body, and it will change at the Second Coming, when this Body will again dress in earthly clothing in order to be available to the sons of this world, when the Lord appears or comes again to this world visibly, that is, He will give His spiritual Body a cosmic robe, characteristic of it, although not necessary for Himself. This is the relationship between the Ascension and the Parousia, the Second Coming. The body becomes a body not through its material composition, but through an internal form that has the ability to dress in the substance of this world, like an artistic image embodied in plastic material. The said distinction between the body in itself, or spiritual, and the body in earthly, inadequate, limited incarnation finds a direct dogmatic basis in the teaching of the Apostle Paul about the Resurrection - 1 Cor. 15. Here the apostle likens the power of the body of the Resurrection to grain: “... when you sow, you do not sow the body that is to come, but naked grain... but God gives it a body as he wants, and to each seed his own body” (1 Cor. 15:37–38). Further, the apostle distinguishes between “heavenly bodies and earthly bodies” (1 Cor. 15:40), and “natural bodies and spiritual bodies” (1 Cor. 15:44), and “as we have borne the image of earthly, we will also bear the image of heavenly things” (1 Cor. 15:49), “this mortal (must) put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). This distinction between two bodies, or two aspects of corporeality, which are expressed by the opposition of the Heavenly (in accordance with the Lord's Body of Ascension) and the earthly, spiritual and physical, especially in connection with the comparison of the grain and the body growing from it, confirms us in a double understanding of the body. The spiritual body is characteristic of all embodied spirits (in contrast to the Incorporeal Forces), while the spiritual body is characteristic of the bodily state of a person, when he does not own the body, but on the contrary, the body owns him. In the next century, spiritual bodies, having put on incorruption, will become capable of holding their form, and all the substance of the world will become common matter, a body for all humanity (through which spatial fragmentation, impenetrability and division will be overcome). Here we should once again return to the Catholic understanding that underlies the theory of transsubstantiation. According to this theory, Christ is present in the Sacrament substantialiter, but not accidentaliter (essentially, but not accidentally (superficially) (Latin) - Ed.), on the contrary, in Heaven, at the right hand of the Father, He is present in His own form descriptive et definitive (descriptively and definitively (Lat.) - Ed.), therefore, accidentaliter. According to this understanding, the earthly body of the Savior in a spatial image, as it was on earth, now occupies a place in heaven, at the right hand of the Father, and both “heaven” and “right hand of the Father” are understood in the same way as a place, only different from the previous place of his presence on earth. The rudeness and, one might say, superstitiousness of such a presentation is amazing. The metaphysical removal from this world with all its temporality and spatiality in the Ascension here is equivalent to the physical removal of the body of Christ to another place, namely from earth to Heaven. But “heaven” is not at all a place in astronomical space; on the contrary, the Ascension consists of a complete abandonment of the world, which is accompanied by the transition of the body of Christ into a spiritual state, free from cosmic matter. This is not disembodiment, but in a certain sense dematerialization. In Ascension the “ascent to the Father” is completed. The resurrected and glorified Body of the Lord acquires such spirituality that it becomes natural for it to withdraw from the world. Therefore, according to the state (that is, accidentaliter and descriptive) between the earthly and the glorified, ascended Body of the Lord, there is not identity, but opposition, and Heaven, where the Lord ascended, is not a place, but a state of spiritual corporeality - just like sitting at the right hand of the Father. It means that the Lord, having retired from the world, did not cease to be a man with a body, but this body became so spiritual that it does not interfere with His presence in heaven at the right hand of the Father, as before the incarnation. It retains all its energetic physicality, but this does not prevent it from being in the sky, that is, the spiritual world. 149 The Second Coming of Christ in relation to the Ascension has the meaning that the Lord again makes His Body not only spiritual, but also earthly, becomes accessible, visible to the world, appears to it. However, this transition of the Lord's body from earthly flesh (σάρξ) into a glorified and spiritual state does not violate its unity and self-identity in all states. First of all, this identity is established in the relationship between the body before the Resurrection and after the Resurrection. In particular, the Gospel evidence boils down to the fact that after the Resurrection of Christ the tomb was empty, and there was no body in it. According to the Gospel of Matthew 28:6, the angel who rolled away the stone said to the myrrh-bearers: “He is not here” (and then follows the story of how the high priests and the elders, having learned about this, bribed the soldiers to spread the rumor that the disciples stole the body: Matthew 28:11-15. The same in Mark 16:6. Luke 24:3 also says that the myrrh-bearers “entered and did not find the body Lord Jesus" (cf. Luke 24:23). The Evangelist John complements this story with new features: when Peter and John came to the tomb, they saw “only linen cloths lying and the cloth that was on His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but especially rolled up in another place” (John 20:6–7). When the Lord appeared to His disciples, He confirmed to them the reality and identity of His body, showing His hands and feet and offering Himself to everyone to touch (Luke 24:39–40; John 20:20), and especially to the Apostle Thomas (John 20:24–28). How to understand this identity of the body lying in the tomb with the resurrected Body? They do not eliminate the distinction between them according to their condition, which is so expressively and indisputably attested to by the same Gospels. Obviously, here we have in mind different images of the Lord’s corporeality, which pass from one to another, while simultaneously preserving this difference and identity. If the body of the Lord did not remain in the tomb after the Resurrection, this still does not mean that the Resurrection is like an awakening from sleep or fainting of this very body. The resurrection is accompanied by a profound change in this same body. 150 Therefore, the absence of a body in the tomb after the Resurrection does not mean that this particular material body was preserved and immortalized in the glorified Body, it has changed significantly. In His appearances to the disciples, the Lord makes His physicality tangible, as if returning His flesh to the world. In Ascension, this appearance ceases. The “ascension” to the Father, which mysteriously and unknown to us took place during the 40 days of the Lord’s stay on earth after the Resurrection, took place in the Ascension. In it, the Lord physically separates from the world, leaves creation in order to return to the glory that He had with the Father “before the world was” (John 17:5), to His divine transcendence. The Ascension in this sense is the direct opposite of the Nativity of Christ. In it, the Lord enters the world from His pre-mundaneity, the Creator is identified with creation through incarnation, the Incontainable is contained, the Eternal lives in time. Ascension is the reverse transition from the temporary and created world to the eternal, Divine existence. However, the connection with the world, the power of the Incarnation remains unbreakable even after the removal of Christ from the world, and this thought is expressed in such a way that the Lord ascended to Heaven with His most pure flesh and sits with it at the right hand of the Father, and the creation gained access to the region of Divine existence (“Having fulfilled his vision for us and uniting us on earth with the heavenly” - kontakion of the Ascension). Here we again have an antinomian definition, both members of which, thesis and antithesis, are inextricably linked: the body of Christ, belonging to human nature and this world, ascends, moves away from this world, the peaceful becomes supermundane, already belongs to the Divine life, revealing the perfect deification of human nature, but also the perfect incarnation of the Divine. Here we find the basis of the Eucharistic dogma. Having withdrawn from the world, the Lord retains all connection with it: “all power has been given to Me in heaven and on earth,” and this connection exists not only spiritually, through the spiritual indwelling of Christ in man (“I live not for this purpose, but Christ lives in me”), but also physically. Ascending from the earthly state of the body to the glorified and resurrected one, the Lord does not abolish this state as a stage passed and completely abandoned, but includes it in His God-manhood. By the strength of this correlation, the Lord, being in His resurrected Body no longer accessible to the sensory perception of the disciples, appears to them, again taking on the image of His earthly body, even giving it full tangibility, although it no longer corresponds to it. Even more striking is that the Lord eats earthly food in front of the disciples, of course, no longer having any need for it, which He also had in the “days of His flesh” (Heb. 5:7), when He, after a forty-day fast, “had a hunger” (Matt. 4:2; Luke 4:2). Now, of course, not to satisfy his own needs, He asked His disciples: “...do you have anything to eat here?” (Luke 24:41), but in order to show all the more clearly that He is not a “spirit” who “has no flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). In other words, although He possessed a spiritual Body, He did not therefore become an incorporeal spirit; He did not separate from His Body, but maintained contact with it. And as evidence of this, “I took before them in poison” (Luke 24:43) part of the fish and the honeycomb. This part, eaten by the Lord, was thereby transformed into His flesh and blood according to the power of this eating, just as “in the days of His flesh” the food He ate (which was noted in the already cited texts of St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. John of Damascus). Having no material body, He accepts it according to His will. In this sense, the Lord’s stay on earth after the Resurrection reveals this connection of His glorified Body with the world, it is this very connection in actu (in action (lat.) - Ed.). The Lord, during the days of His sojourn on earth, in His suffering and Resurrection, acquired “all power” on earth according to His divine-human nature, so that the body no longer has power over the God-man, but is completely obedient to Him. The direct connection with the world ceases with Ascension, but it itself is not destroyed. The fact that the Lord ascends with the Body means that His connection with the world not only does not cease, but receives final indestructibility for eternity. The sitting of the Son in Heaven at the right hand of the Father with His body means the possession of all the power of corporeality, the spiritual energy of the body. This is the spiritual body, which from the point of view of earthly materiality is not even a body, for it is completely free from matter, but obedient to its command. This dematerialization of the spiritual body, which retains full capacity for new re-materialization, is different from disembodiment. The latter is ontologically completely opposite to the spiritual body, for it completely denies the possibility of new materialization, supposedly overcoming it (in Origen, as in various theosophical teachings). The developed doctrine of the spiritual body has nothing in common with Protestant ubiquitas (university (lat.) - Ed.). ), according to which the body of Christ, not being limited to a place, is present everywhere, ubique, like the world's ether or electricity, although this presence becomes clear and tangible only in Communion. The Lord is not present with His spiritual Body in any place, because in general His superspatiality is above place, but by His will He can enter space and then reveal Himself in a certain place. The ubiquitas theory regarding the Eucharist suffers from the same Catholic materialism that it wants to overcome. Now we can turn directly to the Eucharistic dogma, to the doctrine of the transfusion of the Holy Gifts. The Lord performed the Last Supper during the days of His earthly ministry and communed His disciples in bread and wine with His Body and Blood, and both His body and blood and the bread and wine belonged to this world. And what was mysterious here was the image of the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord, which was accomplished not in the usual way, that is, through their eating by the Lord (this usual and, so to speak, natural transformation is pointed out by Saints Gregory of Nyssa and John of Damascus), but by the word of the Lord: “this... is.” And Communion was established by the Lord not only for the Last Supper, when He Himself was still in the world, but for all times, “until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). We can say more definitely that it was established precisely for the time when the Lord departs from the world through the Ascension, and therefore His body and blood will no longer be in the world. Nevertheless, Communion for the sons of the earth, as before, as at the Last Supper, must have as its “matter” the substance of this world, in particular bread and wine. And the Lord establishes the celebration of the Sacrament, despite His removal from the world, in earthly matter - bread and wine, despite the fact that the Ascended One Himself no longer eats earthly matter as food and does not transform it through eating into His Body and Blood. However, the Lord retains His connection with the world and power over it. The Lord demonstrated this power already after the Resurrection, when he ate (and of course, not ghostly) food before His disciples, obviously thereby making it His body, although in this case not for the purpose of Communion. (The tangibility that the Lord gave to His glorified Body when He showed His hands and feet to the disciples and allowed the Apostle Thomas to touch His wounds has a similar meaning). 151 And this power over the substance of the world is preserved, of course, in Ascension. The ascended Body of the Lord, glorified and spiritual, is in itself, of course, free from the “earth”, from the substance of this world, but it retains the power to manifest itself through this latter, and it thereby becomes the Body and Blood of the Lord. 152 The establishment of the Eucharist during the Lord’s sojourn in the world connects its accomplishment with bread and wine as the substances of this world. The Lord, by the power of His spiritual body, makes them truly His Body and Blood. Bread and wine, according to the word of the Lord, are the very Body and Blood of Christ, and this identification is not subject to any restrictions of doubt and reinterpretation. Here it is impossible to distinguish between the substance, which was supposedly transformed, and accidents, which were not transformed, but remained as they were. Bread and wine completely and completely, without any restrictions, become the saving Body and Blood. And, however, it is bread and wine that are offered, that is, not the unqualified, abstract substance of this world (“earth”), which does not exist at all, but a qualitative, specific kind of this substance, namely bread and wine, which, as substances of this world, remain without any change, however, they no longer belong to themselves and not to this world, but to the spiritual glorified Body of Christ. The whole problematic of the theory of transsubstantiatio (transubstantiation (lat.) – Ed. note. ), completely alien to the undivided Church, stems not from the difficulty of accepting the transformation of world matter into a supermundane being, but to explain the transformation of one substance into another within the limits of world existence. But no transformation occurs, and there is no place for it at all, because different things of the same natural world can transform, and not those belonging to different areas of existence. The latter can only be transformed into one another, while maintaining their own way of being in their area. The Body of Christ, appearing in bread and wine, does not cease to be a spiritual body that exists above this world. Both bread and wine, becoming Christ’s Body and Blood, already belonging to His premium, glorified corporeality, do not lose their existence in this world, because otherwise the very transformation of μεταβολή, which requires the presence of both terminus a quo and terminus ad quem (initial and final time boundary (lat.) - Ed.) would be abolished. Bread and wine in this world and for the life of this world remain bread and wine, their transformation is not physical, but metaphysical, it is beyond this world. For him, it simply does not exist, which is why the Holy Gifts, even after transformation, retain all the properties of natural matter. But these substances directly, as such, without any transformation, become the corporeality of Christ. The translation does not mean the physical transformation of bread and wine into body and blood through a physico-chemical process. The Catholic transsubstantiatio wants to explain why this does not happen, excusing the absence of the miracle of natural transformation. But such an understanding of the transformation degrades the Sacrament and distorts its meaning. The latter does not consist in the fact that believers partake of a particle of body and blood in its natural form, but they partake of the one and inseparable corporeality of the Lord, uniting with Him physically, and through this spiritually. We would not be able to partake of the spiritual, glorified Body and Blood of the Lord if He had not made His physicality material for us in the Sacrament. Eating food before the disciples, the Lord showed the substance of this world united with His glorified body; in the Sacrament it is the other way around. He allows Himself to be eaten, uniting with the substance of this world. Bearing in mind the meaning and power of the transformation, we can not only say that bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ, but also vice versa, that the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament are bread and wine. Therefore, in the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great (as in the Apostle Paul), the already consecrated Gifts are still called bread and wine. No transformation is required for transformation, because according to the will of God in this world, in this place, on this altar, the Body and Blood of Christ are this bread and wine, since they are, and they do not need to be transformed into anything for this; on the contrary, they should precisely preserve their nature, with the destruction of which the Sacrament loses its power. This relationship is best expressed in the already quoted words of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, that in the Eucharist heavenly food and earthly food are united (see above). Not every substance can be food, but only certain ones. The Eucharistic substance, bread and wine, are eaten, and the spiritual Body of Christ is also eaten in them, having received them into itself and in this sense identified with them. At the same time, questions about whether the whole (integer) Christ with all His parts of the body is present in the Holy Sacrament completely disappear, as impious and thoughtless. The decisive significance here is that bread and wine generally belong to the body of Christ, spiritual and glorified, and represent in the world the actual corporeality of the premium Body. However, there still remains the difference and separation of the Body and Blood of Christ. Doesn't this contradict what we say when we object to Eucharistic physiology in Latin? The separation of Body and Blood in Communion, established by the Lord, is primarily significant for the Eucharist as a Sacrifice that reproduces the death of Calvary. The separation and separation of the Body and Blood, its posthumous outpouring on the Cross means sacrificial death, acceptable by the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. Therefore, in the Eucharist, insofar as it is a Sacrifice, there must be this division. And this division is complemented by a new union of Body and Blood (in the Eastern Liturgy this is expressed in the omission of the particle “IS” into the Holy Chalice with the words: “filling of the Holy Spirit,” and further in the omission of particles for communion or in the drinking of the Blood of the spare Lamb and, in general, spare Gifts). This union corresponds to the Resurrection of the Lord by the Holy Spirit, and believers are taught the Body of Christ, not dead in the tomb, and the Blood of Christ, not poured out after death, but the Body with the Blood, although it passed through this sacrificial, mortal separation, through death, but resurrected, glorified, spiritual. The distinction and union of the Body and Blood of Christ therefore do not mean the opposition and juxtaposition of the solid and liquid parts of the body, but signify his path from earthly life through death to resurrection. The body and blood separately are not yet a life-giving, although viable substance, which when combined forms a body. The biblical usage of words also corresponds to this understanding. Blood has a special sacred meaning in the Bible. In the law of sacrifices, the shedding of blood, sometimes the sprinkling of blood, the anointing with it has sanctifying, cleansing and generally fulfilling power, which is not characteristic of meat. And in accordance with this sacred meaning of blood, God strictly forbids Noah and his descendants from eating blood: Gen.9:4, and the same prohibition is in the Law of Moses: Lev.3:17, 7:26–27, 17:14; Deut.12:16–23, 15:23. This is motivated by the fact that blood is the soul of the flesh: “Only the flesh with its life, its blood, you shall not eat” (Gen. 9:4). “For the life of every body is its blood, it is its soul” (Lev. 17:14), “the blood is the soul; Do not eat the soul along with the meat” (Deut. 12:23). So, blood is the “soul,” the life of the body, which has a material substrate in the blood. Accordingly, in the New Testament, in the Gospels and Apostolic Epistles, the Savior’s atoning sacrifice is usually spoken of as an outpouring of blood for atonement (Eph.1:7; Rev.5:9), propitiation (Rom.3:25), justification (Rom.5:9), pacification (Col.1:20), cleansing (1 John 1:7; Heb.9:14), sanctification ( Heb.13:12), whitening of robes (Rev.7:14), victory (Rev.12:11) by the Blood of Christ. All these expressions have the general meaning that the Lord “gives His life” (John 10:17) for the sins of the world. Likewise, during the establishment of the Eucharist, the remission of sins is directly spoken of only in relation to the outpouring of the Blood, but not about the Body. 153 It can be said that the Body is the place of the life-giving action of the Blood, for the blood does not exist outside the body if it is alive, and is shed only at its death. It contains the strength of the victim, her soul. This distinction can also be interpreted in a Christological sense. According to the definitions of the IV and VI Ecumenical Councils, in rejection of the heresy of Apollinaris, Christ took on human flesh, animated by a rational soul (ἄνθρωπον ἀληθῶς τὸν αὐτόν ἐκ ψυχῆὶς Λογικής καί σώματος (truly the Same Man from the rational soul and body (Greek) - Ed.)) two principles corresponding to the acceptance of flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary. All this together corresponds to the tripartite composition of man: spirit, soul and body, and the hypostatic spirit in the God-man is the Logos himself, and the Blood and Body correspond to the human soul and flesh. This is also confirmed by the image of Christ’s death on the cross, according to the Gospel of John: He “gave up the spirit” (John 19:30), and as a sign of his departed life, blood and water flowed out from the piercing with a spear, so that a bloodless, lifeless body was lowered into the tomb. His human soul left his body along with his blood. From here, by the way, the dogmatic meaning of Communion under two types is clarified: what is essential here is not the partaking of both types (which may not happen, for example, when infants receive communion with one Blood, and to a certain extent during the Communion at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, where the preliminary drinking of the Lamb with the Blood does not quite realize Communion under two types), but the union of the Body and Blood, corresponding to the Resurrection and glorification. Those who receive communion are not taught the dead, bloodless Body of Christ, resting in the tomb, but the living, resurrected and glorified one. Therefore, the preliminary omission of the IS particle is so essential, in the “filling of the Holy Spirit,” corresponding to the new union of body and blood during the return of life to the body, that is, in the resurrection. 154 So, the transmutation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ does not mean the infusion of the Heavenly Christ substantialiter (essentially (Latin) - Ed.) into these accidents as some kind of unchangeable shell, but their direct conversion without any limitation or remainder into the Body and Blood of Christ - a true transformation. In this case, it does not matter at all that bread and wine in their earthly nature remain what they were. They, as such, have become different from themselves, no longer have independent existence as a thing of this world, but belong to the Body of Jesus, just as the bread and fishes that He ate before the disciples belonged to it. The Lord, in His spiritual and glorified Body, existing at the right hand of God and the Father, creates in His transformation a Body from bread, the substance of this world, and animates it with His Blood. For this transformation, not only does the “transubstantiation” of the thing itself (bread, wine) not be required, but even this is excluded, for there is no such thing at all in the world into which they could be converted: the glorified Body of the Lord resides outside this world. The Lord established the Sacrament of the Eucharist during His earthly stay, when He had an earthly body. But this body was transformed into the Body of the Resurrection, and then in the Ascension it became premium. Therefore, the transmutation of the Holy Gifts should be understood not as the “transubstantiation” of one substance into another, but as the connection of the spiritual Body of the Lord with the Eucharistic substance (“matter”) of this world, and the establishment of this connection is transfiguration, an act not physical, but metaphysical. It represents a direct analogy of the Incarnation and means the appearance of Christ on earth after the Ascension, with the Eucharistic substance being the mediating image of this appearance. If we understand the transposition in this way, all puzzling questions regarding how the Lord allows Himself to be eaten in many altars, at the same time at different times, and is present entirely in every part of the Holy Communion disappear by themselves: these are the essence of the images of His appearance, and, of course, there are and cannot be limits to this appearance. At the same time, no single Eucharistic meal exhausts this manifestation of Him in the world; it cannot be said: here and only here Christ is fully present, so that he is no longer present elsewhere. Indeed, in His earthly existence the Lord, having accepted genuine human flesh, together with it accepted its spatial limitations. According to His Divinity, being super-spatially in Heaven, in the bowels of the Holy Trinity, on earth He was subject to the boundaries of space and time, and, being present in one place, He was already absent from all others. However, in His Resurrection He is freed from spatial limitations and appears and hides from the disciples contrary to the law of spatial impenetrability. In the same way, divinely transcending the boundaries of time, the Lord celebrates the Last Supper, at which he communes with the Body and Blood, “for much that was poured out,” before the outpouring itself, as well as the Resurrection and removal from the world. The Last Supper, although performed by the Savior in time, rises above time and times, for in it the union of the Heavenly and the earthly is established. So, for the appearance of the Lord there are no earthly boundaries of space and time, and the Lord appears on earth in all the countless Eucharistic Sacrifice “fragmented, but not divided.” This is the so-called Eucharistic presence of Christ. It is not diminished in its power by the fact that the Eucharistic Translation is understood by analogy with the appearances of the Lord after the Resurrection: just as these appearances were not illusory, but completely real, according to the testimony of the Lord Himself (Luke 24:37-40), so the appearance of the Lord in the Holy Gifts is His true presence. However, there is a difference between these phenomena. The Lord’s appearances to the disciples refer to the transitional time of “ascension”, and they are also distinguished by their transitional nature: the Lord who appears still belongs to this world and no longer belongs to it, which was characteristically expressed, on the one hand, in the prohibition of Mary Magdalene from touching Him, and, at the same time, in the command by the disciples to Thomas to touch Him. The Lord has physicality when he assimilates it for the sake of his disciples, and, as it were, frees himself from it when he hides from the disciples, and ultimately ascends from them. After His Ascension, the Lord no longer belongs to this world and does not appear in it as He appeared while still abiding in it. Now He appears differently, not in His Own glorified image, but only in earthly matter, by the power of the connection of His spiritual body with the world. And this appearance of the Lord in the substance of this world is the transfiguration of the Holy Gifts. However, this appearance of the Lord is different from the appearances to the disciples after the Resurrection, both in character and in purpose. In His appearances, the Lord then appeared to the disciples clearly, with sensory evidence, in order to overcome their unbelief. With these appearances He testified to His presence on earth, although in a different state than before. And the appearances of the Lord were external, which left the possibility of unbelief and doubt (Matthew 28:17; Mark 16:14; Luke 24:37). The presence of the Lord in the Holy Gifts is not externally obvious - it does not have the potential to become such - but only mysterious and internally obvious. And it becomes such in Holy Communion. The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us in the Holy Sacrament not without regard, but for communion, and only for this specific purpose the appearance of the Lord in the Holy Gifts is determined and limited. In the West, after the heresy of Berengarius, starting around the 12th century, the practice of worshiping the Holy Gifts and their special display for this purpose, completely alien to the Ancient Church, developed. She seeks to turn the appearance of the Lord in the Holy Gifts for the purpose of Communion into the appearance of the Lord to remain on earth in a certain place (Christus in pyxide (Christ in a box (lat.) - Ed.)). Here there is opposition both to the Last Supper and to the command of the Lord, with which He gave His Body and Blood to the disciples: “take, eat... drink of it, all of you,” and at the same time to the Ascension, which ended His stay on earth. 155 Worship of the Holy Gifts, which are the true Body and Blood of Christ, is given in the Orthodox Church only at the Liturgy, when the Holy Gifts are worn for Communion, and then when transferred to the altar for consumption (which corresponds to the Ascension). They worship the Lord Himself in His appearance in Holy Communion. The Holy Gifts reserved for Communion of the sick, the so-called reserve ones (which corresponds to the allocation of the moment of Communion outside the time of the Liturgy) are not displayed, but are hidden in the tabernacle located on the throne. True, when they open for Communion, they are given adoration (as at the appropriate moment of the Liturgy), but this is limited to that. The Orthodox attitude towards the reserve Holy Gifts is practically expressed in the desire not to see or show, but to keep them safe not only as the greatest shrine, but also as the greatest secret - the Eucharistic presence of Christ on earth is revealed only when Communion occurs. The stated difference between the Catholic and Orthodox understanding is well expressed in the following words of St. John of Damascus: “... it is not the ascended body that comes from heaven, but the bread and wine itself are transformed into the Body and Blood of God. 156 Likewise in the “Epistle of the Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith of 1723,” member 17: “...and this is not because the body of the Lord, which is in heaven, descends on the altar, but because the showbread, prepared separately in all churches and, after consecration, translated and transposed, is done one and the same with the body that is in heaven.” The descent of Christ to earth corresponds to the erection of earthly matter until reunification with the glorified Body of the Lord. The world is not closed and beyond the control of the Lord, and He is free, out of love for man, to raise the substance of this world to the point of union with Himself, so that believers can through this be united with Himself. As Saint Irenaeus of Lyons says, bread, receiving the blessing, is “the Eucharist, consisting of two things, earthly and heavenly.” The Holy Mysteries are given to us for Communion, and only in Communion is unity with Christ given to us: “...he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). This, of course, does not mean that the Body and Blood of Christ are such only in the eating of simple bread and wine, as is understood in Protestantism. Communion is the eating of the Body and Blood given by the Lord for communion. From the absolutely correct position that the Bread of Heaven is not ordinary food and requires worthy eating (otherwise it will lead to judgment and condemnation), an incorrect, because exaggerated, conclusion is drawn that the Sacrament is actually established by faith, and in order to free its understanding from mechanization, it is subjectified. 157 The Church therefore believes that the Transfusion of the Holy Gifts is performed for Communion, but the bread and wine are already the Body and Blood of Christ before and outside of Communion, which only therefore becomes possible. The Lord is present in the Holy Mysteries, and this real presence of Him is the common belief of both the Orthodox and Catholic worlds. However, the understanding of this real presence (“praesentia realis”) requires the most precise explanation, especially since this is a concept of scholastic, and not patristic origin. What exactly is this real presence? The dominant concept in Catholicism is that the Lord is present in the Host, although invisibly, without “accidents,” however, essentially exactly as He is in Heaven at the right hand of the Father. Therefore, His appearance is tantamount to His return to earth after the Ascension. In this sense, the host is displayed for worship on the altar, worn in processions, signifying the Lord who is on earth. The Orthodox understanding of real presence is that the Lord is truly present in the Holy Gifts, but given only for a specific purpose, namely Communion, and only in relation to this purpose, from which it is completely wrong to separate this presence. The presence of the Lord is revealed only in Communion. It is impossible, following the Catholics, to completely separate this presence from its deliberate purpose and equate it with the general appearances of the disciples. This distinction can be shown even for the Last Supper: the Lord was present here among the disciples, just as He was present among them in His appearances after the Resurrection. But at the same time with this, so to speak, direct presence, the Lord communed with His Body and Blood to the disciples, that is, He revealed for them the image of His mysterious presence in Communion. By this the Lord distinguished and even contrasted both images of His presence, and their indistinction or even tendentious confusion and identification constitutes the main flaw of Catholic understanding. It also cannot be said that this distinction between the images of a phenomenon, immediate and mysterious, exceeds the measure of knowledge accessible to man. We are given this distinction: the Lord after the Ascension is not personally present on earth and does not appear to us as before, but He gives Himself in Holy Communion, and to that extent He is present in it. Therefore, in Holy Communion we have, on the one hand, the true presence of the Lord himself and we worship Him, and on the other, this is a definite, specific presence of the Lord only for Communion, and we should not try to spread it, separating it from this goal, which is done in Catholic adoration. It follows from this that it is possible to worship the Holy Gifts and prayerfully contemplate them only at the Last Supper, that is, at the Divine Liturgy, where, in addition to direct Communion, all the faithful participate spiritually through this presence. A general doubt may arise as to whether it is appropriate to limit this presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to the express purpose of Communion. However, this is the direct will of the Lord: take, eat and drink. Here we need to remember in general that, although in all the Sacraments of the Church the gift of the Holy Spirit is taught equally, it is nevertheless different in all, and this distinction, so to speak, the specification of the phenomenon, is combined with the unity and self-identity of the Appearing. Likewise, in the Eucharist we have the appearance of Christ on earth, but also only limited to the purposes of Communion. We worship the Holy Gifts in the Sacrament of Communion, for in them Christ is present, giving Himself to those receiving communion, but we cannot “touch” Christ in them and do not seek to keep Him in our communion. Here a comparison arises, and at the same time a distinction between the Holy Gifts and the holy icon. As is known, it played a large role in iconoclastic disputes, since the iconoclasts revered the Holy Gifts as the only icon of the Savior that should be worshiped. The Orthodox (St. Theodore the Studite and others) objected that the Holy Gifts are not an icon, for the Lord Himself is present in them in His Body and Blood. An icon, although it is a place of the Lord’s gracious presence in His image, is not a personal presence, like the appearance of the Lord Himself. It is only a manifestation of His power or action, which is why the icon is not appropriate for worshipful service, but for “relative” worship as a place of the presence of the Lord. This presence of the power of Christ in His icon is also associated with a specific purpose, namely for prayer in front of it, addressed to Christ Himself, and in connection with this, for worship (through kissing, placing candles, censing, etc.). The Holy Gifts are given not for prayer before them, but for Communion, and they should not be turned into an icon. 158 So, the question of the transfusion of the Holy Gifts is not cosmological, but Christological; it is posed and resolved within the limits and on the basis of Christology, precisely on the basis of the teaching about the body of the Lord, earthly and glorified, before the Resurrection and after the Resurrection. This doctrine of the relationship between both states of the Lord’s physicality has been least considered in theology. This study represents an attempt to return the question to its real content, which is reduced to the following provisions. 1. In the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the earthly substances bread and wine are truly transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. 2. As a result of this transformation, bread and wine with all their properties generally cease to be the substance of this world, to belong to it, but become the true Body and Blood of Christ. 3. This transformation is accomplished through their union with the spiritual and glorified Body of the Lord, ascended from the world, which appears in them on earth. 4. As earthly substance, the Eucharistic elements remain bread and wine for the world, and yet, being transformed, they already belong to the Body of Christ, located outside and above this world, and are thereby raised to the metacosmic existence of this Body, revealing the corporeality of Christ on earth. 5. Due to the fact that the Body of Christ after the Ascension remains outside the world in a spiritually glorified state (and, therefore, has no earthly “accidents”), the transfiguration of the Holy Gifts cannot manifest itself sensually to the world. Bread and wine, becoming the Body and Blood of Christ through union with the glorified spiritual Body of the Lord, should not change their earthly image, for this metaphysical change does not apply to it. However, they are completely, without any distinction between substance and accidents or essence and “species,” transformed into the Body and Blood of the Lord. 6. On the basis of this completeness of transformation, all theories of impanation disappear, since they deny transformation, replacing it simply with the actual union (consubstantiatio) of the incompatible: bread and wine, the substances of this world, and the premium Body of Christ. In other words, this connection can only be expressed in a preposition, which is actually implied, although poorly expressed, in theories of impanation. However, their merit lies in the fact that they overcome the idea of ​​physical conversion (or transubstantiation), which is substituted for transposition, and thus the question of true union comes into play. 7. The general basis for the Eucharistic Translation is that the Lord passed from earth, where he had an earthly body, to Heaven, where he has a heavenly Body, maintaining connection with all the states he has passed through. Therefore, He can return to the earthly state of His Body through transformation. He established the Eucharist, while still on earth, for earthly people and for this purpose He gives them an earthly body. But beyond the Resurrection, when this earthly church burns down, Communion will be performed directly from the spiritual Body, which is what we pray for before the Holy Gifts: “Give us the opportunity to partake of You in the eternal days of Your Kingdom.” Sophiological interpretation of the Eucharistic dogma The content of the Eucharistic dogma, as we have seen, is revealed through the distinction, and at the same time the identification of different images of the Savior’s corporeality. This raises the question of this corporeality in general, which was not sufficiently discussed both in the era of Christological disputes and later. According to the generally accepted opinion, the Lord became incarnate in order to become human, and the incarnation is viewed primarily as a means to becoming human, as the humiliation of the Lord, who took upon Himself what was unusual for Him: “He made Himself of no reputation, and took on the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of mankind and being found in the likeness of man” (Phil. 2:7). However, humiliation refers only to taking upon oneself the created “image of a slave.” But the incarnation of the Lord also has an independent meaning, in addition to redemption. The incarnation of the Word - ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, the Word became flesh - is an act, although supernatural in relation to the world and to man, but not unnatural either for the world or for the Divine. For it is unnatural and impossible, and the humiliation of the Lord must be understood only in the sense of voluntary humiliation of Himself, but not of abrogation, to any degree, of His Divine nature (as is understood in kenotic theories). In other words, the incarnation in a certain sense corresponded to the own nature of the Word, which was originally human: it was “the light of men” (cf. John 1:4), “who enlightens every man who comes into the world” (John 1:9). Man, who bears the image of God within himself, has for him the Prototype in Adam from Heaven, and in this sense we can talk about the humanity of God, who is the Prototype of man. This general idea about the godlikeness of man and, therefore, the humanity of God, when applied to the Incarnation, means that, although it carries out the Divine plan of redemption, it has a basis for itself in humanity itself. By its creation, it is called to accept the Logos, and in this no violence is done to human nature, but only its entire primordial depth is revealed. In particular, here our attention should be focused on the question of physicality. The Incarnation, as the acceptance of the human body from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, is not unnatural for God as the Spirit, as if it were some kind of ontological contradiction? If God is Spirit, is incarnation even possible for Him? Doesn't it contain not only kenosis, or self-abasement, but also self-denial? Can the hypostasis of the Logos become a hypostasis for the human-corporeal nature of Christ, and does the Chalcedonian dogma about the duality of natures with the unity of hypostasis not contain a direct ontological contradiction? This is the question that inevitably arises in Christology, connecting it with sophiology. Does the nature of the absolute Divine Spirit eliminate corporeality as its negation or, on the contrary, embrace it within itself and justify it? In other words, when applied to man, is the image of God denied or limited by his physicality or, on the contrary, is it affirmed and revealed in it? This question is answered positively by the very fact of the Incarnation, which, of course, would otherwise be ontologically impossible. Angels are disembodied spirits, but this disembodiment is not only the basis for their hierarchical height due to their closeness to God, but also their limitations in comparison with man. The disembodiedness here is also a certain powerlessness (ontological) of the spirit, its natural limitation, that is, the incompleteness of the image of God in the Angels in comparison with man, although they also have it. Here we must free ourselves from the usual prejudices and associations that have obscured the essence of the question of the corporeality of God, reducing it to crude anthropomorphism and paganism. Christianity, as a belief in perfect God-manhood, remains equally alien to both false spiritualism and materialism. The body and corporeality in its essence are not at all a material and inert principle, flesh that suppresses and closes the life of the spirit. On the contrary, the body is the image and self-revelation of the spirit, and the Absolute Spirit can also have absolute corporeality, which is nothing other than the Glory of God. It is the life of the Divine Trihypostatic subject, the Consubstantial Trinity, which has it not only in ideal possibility, in potentia, but also realizes it in reality, in actu, as absolute content, the Divine world. To reject this would be to limit the life of the Divine to subjectivity, potentiality, non-being. God, living the Divine life, reveals His Divinity. This Divinity in God, the Glory of God, Sophia is this Divine corporeality, which not only does not contradict the spirituality of God, but absolutely realizes it. This corporeality is as spiritual as the being of God, from which it does not differ, but at the same time it is completely concrete, as the image of all images, an organism of ideas taken not only in their ideal content, but also in real existence, by the power of the Word, by which all things were, and the Holy Life-Giving Spirit, and in this sense, as if embodying ideal images. Corporality is the unity of idea and image, content and being, thought and life, Word and Spirit, which reveal in Their dual unity the Father, the revealed God. This corporeality, the Divine Sophia, is inherent in the Holy Trinity, as the single life of the Three and the life of each of the hypostases separately, as in connection and unity with others. The outline of the Image of God in it is directly given by the Son as the image of the Father, but is accomplished by the Holy Spirit as the “image of the Son,” and this is the image of the “heavenly man,” for the corporeality of God, Sophia, is eternal humanity existing in the Divinity. Therefore, it is the Son of God who incarnates and becomes human on earth, as a cosmourgic hypostasis primarily, but through the Holy Spirit, inseparable from Him (although the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is not incarnated). Human corporeality, which microcosmically contains the “compressed world,” is only an image of Divine corporeality. It enters into the fullness of the image of God and is correlated with it. Therefore, the Incarnation is the absolute realization in man of the human image through the combination of the image and the Prototype, and this is the true meaning of the Chalcedonian dogma. The Sophia of man is revealed and realized through the Incarnation of God, through the union of the created Sophia with the Divine. God the Word, who came to earth, in His pre-eternity is not a God alien to corporeality; on the contrary, He pre-eternally has it in the Divine Sophia, in the Divine world. This is Glory, which is hidden in created, human corporeality. This Divine corporeality, or Glory, appears in the Transfiguration. And the Lord speaks about it in His high priestly prayer. 159 What exactly did the Lord perceive during His incarnation in relation to physicality? Not physicality itself as such, but a created, world-specific image of physicality, “flesh”. Earthly man, Adam, in whom the Lord clothed himself, although he has the image of Heavenly Adam, is in created nature, in a body of flesh created from “earth,” which is created from non-existence, from nothing. Therefore, both temporality and perishability belong to him. But at the same time, the body of flesh is inherent in universality; it is the world in human form. It is further inherent in it to be a body, that is, an image of the spirit, its artistic form and real existence, an ideal-real revelation of the spirit. This is the essence of the properties and tasks of absolute physicality. However, these tasks were in part not fully implemented, and in part were not feasible by the person himself. The creation of man, in particular his physicality, was not completed in the six days of creation, for the image of creation was still to come, not from the outside, by the omnipotence of God, but from within, through the Incarnation. The main property of human corporeality is its creatureliness and its inherent weakness of half-being. The human body, although it came out of the hands of the Creator, already having within itself the fullness of its destiny, was weak, first of all, in relation to the power of life. It needed food, thereby testifying to its incompleteness and incompleteness, and it was, if not directly mortal, then not immortal. It was not a spiritual body, completely obedient and transparent to the spirit, but inert, plump, material, which with its life captivated and fettered the spirit. It was imperfect and incomplete, for it allowed carnal reproduction. And with all this created incompleteness it was connected with the insignificance from which it was created, with the earth: “As you are earth, you will return to earth.” This separation, and at the same time the rapprochement of the earth and the body, testifies to the incompleteness of the body. However, in this earth, as primary matter, lies the ontological privilege of the world and man, his extra-divine self-existence, which outside of God could rest only on nothingness, fertilized by the Word of God and becoming earth. 160 The earthly body is at the same time the own body of man and creation (hence the instinctive pathos of materialism). The human body is the “contracted world” of the earthly creation, which has a hypostatic existence for itself in man. The hypostasis of the human spirit lives and realizes itself through it in this world. However, through original sin, the human body lost its Sophia “glory”: “...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). From royal greatness in the world, man is cast into captivity of his body, which has submitted to the elements of the world instead of serving the spirit. However, this loss by a person of his sophia, which is directly expressed in the loss of control of his body, its solidification, refers only to the state, and not to the essence. The Sophia dignity of man, and in particular the human body, is indestructible, just as the image of God is indestructible. “I am the image of Your ineffable glory, even though I bear the plagues of sins.” Therefore, it can and must be restored, which is accomplished through the Incarnation, for Christ is the “Savior of the body” (Eph. 5:23). The Lord, in the perception of human flesh, unites His Divine corporeality, Sophia, Glory with the created corporeality of human nature. He accepts her truly and completely, however, except for sin, that is, the damage that was introduced into her condition by Adam’s fall. Born of a Virgin, without a husband, the Lord takes on the body of Adam as it is outside the Fall. He lives in the midst of a world damaged by sin, but this damage affects His life only from the outside, not from the inside. Thus, He shares with all humanity the need for food, which is no longer given to man directly from the tree of life and from the trees of paradise, but is obtained by the sweat of his brow. He needs clothing and shelter (although he does not have it all the time). He becomes weary and suffers. However, His own body remains pure and immaculate, alien to sinful movements, not subject to disease and free from the inevitability of natural death, for the Lord accepted death on the cross. With regard to immortality, the body of the Lord was in a state corresponding to Adam before the Fall: Adam might not die, but he was capable of dying, which possibility for him after sin became a reality. He still had to become immortal. So, the Lord accepted the physicality of the unfallen Adam in His Nativity from the Virgin and lived the life of this body. Having two natures, He also had two corporeality, Divine and human, which have one foundation in Sophia. The first corporeality, Divine Sophia, is the eternal Glory of God, the uncreated Light, which covers the Divinity “like a robe” (Divine “energy”). Strictly speaking, it is not a body and is no longer flesh in any sense (therefore, of course, it cannot be said that the Lord had two bodies). The second corporeality, created Sophia, is a body created from earth, human flesh, σάρξ. The human body covered the Divine Glory, which the Lord, as God, had before the creation of the world, eternally and, of course, according to Divinity, never lost it and could not lose it. But according to His will, He could reveal His Glory, Divine, spiritual, luminous physicality through the veil of His human body, making it transparent for this appearance. It was on the Mount of Transfiguration. The “cloud”, the Tabor light, is a tangible manifestation of the Glory of the Divine. This “appearance of the Kingdom of God coming with power” represents a preliminary to what is generally the work of the Savior in the salvation of the body. This is that He will transform the body of our humiliation into conformity with the body of His Glory by the power (κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν) which He acts (πού δύνασθαι) and puts all things in subjection to Himself” (Phil. 3:21). Even without the Fall, Adam’s body should not have remained in its unchanged, original state. It had to receive the positive power of immortality and be clothed in glory, to actually realize its primordial sophia. We do not know what the paths would have been for this transformation of Adam’s body from mental to spiritual, from mortal (at least potentially) to immortal, if the Fall had not occurred. After the Fall, this transformation took place through redemption in the Incarnation. The Lord accomplished it in His own body, and through it in all humanity, in the “salvation of the body” through His Resurrection. The Lord, the new Adam, carried out spiritual mastery of the body, completely subduing it to the dictates of the spirit and thereby making it consistent with the Divine Glory inherent in Him by Divinity. The Lord speaks of this conquest, which was expressed in victory over death, before His Passion in a farewell conversation as His Glory, both at the beginning (“now is the Son of Man glorified”), and especially at the end, in the high priestly prayer. Here the Lord prays to the Father to glorify Him with the Glory that He had from the creation of the world. Of course, this prayer, relating to suffering and the Resurrection, does not remain unfulfilled, it itself testifies to its accomplishment. However, at the same time, it also testifies to the fact that in the state of earthly humiliation (kenosis), putting on the old Adam, this Glory was not characteristic of the Lord, of course, not His Divinity, but human nature, in everything similar to ours, except for sin. In other words, there was a discrepancy between the state of the body and Glory, Divine and human corporeality, and this discrepancy is precisely the humiliation and self-deprecation of the Lord. His glorification consists in establishing a correspondence between the Divine and human nature. It was miraculous, in anticipation of what was to come, revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration, and it already became unchangeable and constant in the Resurrection. The Lord's saving feat is carried out primarily and directly in His own human corporeality, which has changed, glorified, while remaining self-identical. The feat of the Lord's earthly life, completed by Him. death on the cross, obedience to the Father even to death reveals such completeness of the spirit’s possession over the body, in which the body itself completely submits to the spirit. That internal norm is restored that predetermines man at creation, but which was violated in his existence after the Fall. And by this feat, together with the dwelling of His Divinity in the body of Christ, this body was sanctified, became spiritual, in a word, received the ability to become itself until the end in the Resurrection. The resurrection occurred by the finishing power of the Holy Spirit in response to the complete victory of the spirit over the body demonstrated by the incarnate Word. The descent of the Holy Spirit, which preceded the Incarnation at the Annunciation, which preceded the earthly ministry at Baptism, reveals its fulfilling power in the Resurrection, and after a forty-day stay on earth in the Ascension and Pentecost. In the Resurrection and the Ascension inextricably linked with it, one must see not only the victory over death, but also the glorification of the body, its transformation; it acquired the state of a spiritual, immortal, ever-living Body, which, although like all created things, arises in time, however, it already acquires the immutability of eternity. It thereby becomes, although not identical to the uncreated (as the created always remains different from the uncreated), but corresponding to it in state, in the life of the single hypostasis of the Word, which unites inseparably and inextricably both natures - Divine and human. Human nature reaches that correspondence that it did not yet have in Adam, and is clothed with glory (this is what in theology is called περιχώρησις). True, even Adam, before his fall, was clothed with glory, which he lost along with his descendants in the Fall (Rom. 3:23). However, this was only its anticipation, which therefore could have been lost, but the glory of immortality is inalienable and passes into eternal life. It is very important to establish that the Resurrection, as the glorification of the body, although it is the saving action of God over man and in man (like his creation), is not ontological violence against him, in contradiction to his nature. On the contrary, it is the fulfillment of the task that, as a creative task, was implanted in human nature at creation: man in the resurrection becomes god by grace, but this is because he was created in the image of God, that is, as a man-god. The human body was destined for the glory of immortality at creation. The Body of Christ in the Resurrection is the human body that has become itself, as it was destined to be, that is, glorious by the glory of the Divine. Christ has His Glory, His Sophian corporeality, so to speak, the same, but twice: as uncreated, divinely, and as given to the deified creation, createdly. The pre-eternal and created Sophia is the one self-identical Sophia, existing in God and in the world, and Christ in His incarnation united the Divinity and the world in a hypostatic unity. His corporeality (or, in Eucharistic language, Body and Blood) is the Divine Sophia, the Glory of God, revealed not only in God, but also in creation. 161 Just as the world created by God is sophia in its foundation and ultimate task (“God will be all in all”), so the human body in general, and in particular the human Body of Christ, is sophia and in conformity with the Divine, destined for glory and is completely glorified in Christ, in whom the created and Divine Sophia are identified. The Lord, fulfilling all truth, fulfills in Himself the truth of the body, giving it all the glory that belongs to it, perfect sophia. In this sense, the Body and Blood of Christ, given by Him in Divine Communion, has the power of Divine sophia, which connects the Heavenly Body and earthly matter. The Lord, ascending to Heaven and departing from the world, does not abolish His connection with the world, but affirms it, raising it to a premium eternal existence. His corporeality, existing in Heaven, permeates all creation (“all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me”) and is inseparable from it. Therefore, the substance of this world, bread and wine, can be raised by the Holy Spirit, according to the commandment of the Lord, into a state of bodily sophia, that is, to become the Body and Blood of the Lord. In the light of these relationships, the transfiguration of the Holy Gifts can be understood as the complete osophification of the world's substance, bread and wine, through their union with the glorified, spiritual Body of the Lord. Bread and wine, belonging to this world, thereby ontologically participate in the earthly body of Jesus, which He had while in this world, and the ontological possibility of their transformation is based on this participation. But this participation in their body of Jesus also testifies to their original sophia, which is the basis of the creation of the world. But this sophistry is hidden by all the inertia and lack of enlightenment of the world’s matter, disobedient and resisting the dictates of the spirit. However, it has already been defeated and overcome through the Resurrection of Christ and does not exist in the new Adam, who conceals within himself a new earth and a new Heaven, a new world in His glorified physicality. This transformation of creation, corresponding to the Second Coming of the Savior, takes place mysteriously in the Divine Eucharist, that is, clearly only for the eyes of faith, over the Eucharistic substance. What is accomplished in the Sacrament will, at the end of time, be accomplished throughout the whole world, which is the body of humanity, and the latter is also the Body of Christ. 162 Orthodoxy and socialism (Letter to the editor) 163 The Soviet publication “Anti-religious” (No. 7, July, 1929) contains an article by B. Kandidov ““Days of Repentance” in Crimea in September 1920” (Historical background on unpublished materials). These “unpublished materials” are nothing more than minutes of meetings of the Higher Church Administration in the south of Russia, left during the evacuation to Sevastopol. In this regard, I consider it necessary to make an explanation regarding one issue in view of its fundamental and practical importance. The latest minutes of the meeting of the Supreme Church Administration in the south of Russia 164 contains a resolution with the following content: “Instruct a member of the VCU, prof. Archpriest Bulgakov to draw up a draft doctrinal definition on the nature of socialism and submit such a draft for approval to the next meeting of the VCU.” This meeting did not take place after the evacuation, and the project I drew up remained unconsidered. Nevertheless, there was some preliminary discussion of this issue. The external reason for its production was the persistent petition of Archpriest Vostokov, who sought church condemnation (“anathematization”) of socialism as such. In my preliminary report to the VCU, I stated that for such a condemnation of socialism in general, as a known system of economic and social policy, there is no basis either in the Gospel or in the Orthodox Tradition. And even on the contrary, here we find the commandment of social love and justice, care for those who work and are burdened, which will be asked of everyone at the Last Judgment of Christ. In socialism, it is not the system of socio-economic ideas that must be negated and overcome, but the militant atheism with which it is often combined, especially now in Russia. And perhaps some of the blame for this lies with church society, with its indifference to the social issue. In the exchange of opinions that arose, different points of view on socialism were expressed, and I was fully joined by the presiding Archbishop Dimitri. The draft definition was drawn up by me according to the original plan, otherwise I, of course, could not have fulfilled this order. Socialism (in all the ambiguity of this term) for a Christian has only an applied meaning, in other words, this is not a question of worldview, but only of practical ethics, practical expediency. The goal of socialism, understood as the implementation of social justice, the protection of the weak, the fight against poverty, unemployment, and exploitation, is to such an extent morally self-evident that disagreement can only be regarding the practical expediency or feasibility of certain measures. The Church should not associate itself with capitalism as an organization of class exploitation (although in practice the principles of economic freedom and private property may still turn out to be more expedient for the whole society than the prematurely and forcibly introduced forms of state socialist bondage). If we turn to the Gospel and the New Testament, then there we will not find, of course, any basis for connecting the Church with any fixed forms of social structure or economic organization. The Church stands above all historical forms and judges them with the highest court of conscience. If we turn to patristic writing, then in the works of the holy fathers Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan and others, we will find vivid examples of spiritual freedom and Christian boldness in judging various manifestations of social egoism of owners. Therefore, in Tradition there is no point of support for establishing the inviolability of private property on the basis of Christian morality. 165 History shows that the institution of private property has actually changed beyond recognition over the centuries, subject to various forms of public control and restrictions. And accordingly, the concept of socialism covers the whole variety of forms from Soviet communism to the social regulation of capitalist industry (which was said by one English politician back in the 19th century: we are all now socialists (We are all now socialists (English) - Ed.). Salus populi - supreme lex (The good of the people is the supreme law (Latin) - Ed.) in relation to means, however, the dictates of conscience must come from the Church, and if people are silent, then the stones will cry out. If the Church does not use its right, which is also a duty, then it is usurped by its enemies: - another comes in his name, and he is accepted (see John 5:43). Of course, the enemies of the name of Christ will always want to see in the Church only an instrument of class domination. But the Church itself must remain in full possession of its royal freedom and truth, in particular, and social truth. is heard throughout the Christian world. Stockholm Conference of Social Christianity (Life and work (English) - Ed. )) united representatives of all Christian denominations (except Catholicism), and the Orthodox delegation there was headed by the elderly Patriarch Photius of Alexandria. By its participation in Stockholm, where a permanent international organization was created to develop issues of social Christianity, the Orthodox Church de facto (in fact (lat.) - Ed.) determined its attitude to the social issue. True, so far no “doctrinal definition” has been given about the nature of socialism either in the Russian Church or in universal Orthodoxy. But, according to what has been said, socialism as a socio-economic doctrine is not at all a matter of doctrine. To turn it into such would mean to damage Christian teaching itself. To the extent that it is connected with theomachism, judgment and condemnation should apply only to the latter. However, this connection is factual, historical, and not internal. To consider this connection indissoluble is a dangerous mistake and short-sightedness, because it would mean giving the cause of Christian truth into the hands of its enemies. Therefore, the church’s “anathematization” of socialism and its transformation into a “bogeyman” not only has no basis for itself, but would also be a genuine religious temptation. Published according to “The Path”... Nos. 20–21. February-April 1930 – Approx. edit In the so-called “Teaching News” of Hieromonk Euthymius (XVII century), which is now published as an appendix to the Service Book, there is, among other things, an indication that if the Holy Gifts take the form of meat and blood, then they must be put aside and not receive communion with them until this sign is over. For us, this warning seems to have more of an educational, dogmatic, rather than practical meaning. The important thing is that such a supernatural sign, even if it were, seems unnatural for the Divine Eucharist, and not at all the fulfillment or revelation of its authenticity, the reality of the Eucharistic miracle, which does not consist at all in such a transformation. It should be noted that Catholic theology in the doctrine of transsubstantiation generally has difficulty with both types: Body and Blood, and, in essence, does not know what to do with the second type - Blood, although it usually does not notice this difficulty. All his reasoning relates to the first type, to the host, in which the Lord is present entirely, and the second type is somehow simply forgotten, which corresponds to both its removal from Communion and the impossibility of preserving it for worship. When the presence of Christ in the Holy Gifts is spoken of, then of course there is usually only one consecrated host - Christus in pyxide, and His Blood is forgotten. However, we will not dwell on this side, so as not to complicate the reasoning. The same is true in Cathechismus Romanus: Quare dicitur totius substantiae? Resp.: quia omne illud, quod pertinet ad substantiam et intergritatem corporis, ut ossa et nervi, vere et realiter in Eucharistia reperitur. (in the Roman Catechism: Why do they say “of the whole substance”? Answer: because everything that relates to the substance and wholeness of the body, such as bones and sinews, is truly and truly found in the Eucharist (lat.) - Ed.) You can find directly the following comparisons in Catholic literature: au ciel le corps de Jésus Christ occupe par ses dimensions un lieu correspondant à sa grandeur naturelle parce qúau ciel II possède sa présence locale par l’extension, (in heaven the body of Jesus Christ occupies a place in size corresponding to its natural size, since His presence in heaven has a broader meaning (French) - Approx. ed.) (G. Barielle. Le catéchisme romain ou l’enseignement de la doctrine chrétienne, t.IV, 2 e partie, 1909, page 463.). At the same time, Catholic doctrine strives to preserve all the realism of this presence. See the articles Eucharistie, Apparences, Messe in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. Wed. my "Chapters on Trinity". Theological Thought, I. Vl. Soloviev cheerfully chorused: “There are no substances, Hegel destroyed them, but even without them we will live happily.” However, he forgot at that moment that substances found a quiet refuge in the Trentian Canon, which dogmatized the teachings of F. Aquinas, and this should not have been indifferent to Vl. Solovyova. The doctrine of substances and accidents introduces a naive and unnecessary duplication of reality, against which empiricism is right, seeing in things a “bundle” of attributes. Substance has to be the hypostatic spirit, ὑπόστασις - substance, the subject of all its states, or “accidents,” but this does not apply at all to things, but only to individuals. Substance can be considered the whole of the world, as a spiritual or material (ὕλη), being, as a single whole or as an organism of substantial monads, which have the same, individually and in their relationship, original, “pre-established” being, and not at all accompanying things in their changeable formation. Finally, substance can also be understood in a formal epistemological sense as a transcendental subject or a categorical synthesis that determines objectivity. To become understandable and convincing, Aristotle's theory must, firstly, be translated into the language of modern critical philosophy, and, secondly, philosophically substantiated. In its current form, it remains so problematic that it is, in any case, an unsuitable tool for Eucharistic theology, and the whole theory of transsubstantiation is, at the very least, “an attempt with unsuitable means.” True, Catholic theologians assure that the fathers of the Council of Trent did not intend to connect their definition with any philosophical doctrine. However, outside the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, based on Aristotle, it simply cannot be understood, and therefore cannot be accepted. Such an absurdity is, for example, the opinion of Duns Scotus that by the omnipotence of God matter can be transformed into form, bread into soul, etc., expressed by him in connection with the doctrine of transsubstantiatio. For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see my Philosophy of Economics. M., 1910. medicine of immortality (Greek) – Approx. ed. As it is said: “... about what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, about the Word of life - for life was revealed, and we have seen and bear witness” (1 John 1:1-2). This same antinomian identity is otherwise confirmed in the words of the Apostle Paul, where he equates the appearance of the risen Lord before the Ascension with His appearance to himself already in heavenly glory: “... (Jesus - author's note) appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve; then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time... Then he appeared to Jacob, and also to all the apostles. And last of all he appeared to me, as to a certain monster” (1 Cor. 15:5-8 – Author’s note). Theosophists, who are unconcerned with philosophical precision, distinguish these states as "planes" or "bodies": the physical and the etheric. Christ appeared to the disciples after the Resurrection in the etheric body, and they saw Him on the etheric plane, in a special way of clairvoyance. Wed. my “Burning Bush”, an excursion about the Glory of God. In relation to this body, Catholic judgments about sitting at the right hand of the Father, descriptive and definitive, with the presence of present properties or accidents, are obvious anthropomorphism. This change in attitude towards all humanity is established by the Apostle Paul: “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; sown in humiliation, raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in strength; the natural body is sown, the spiritual body is raised” (1 Cor. 15:42–44). At the same time, the question that occupies Catholic theology cannot arise: do we have here an adductio, that is, a spread, as if an increase (augmentatio) of the Body of the Lord beyond its own limits. With this formulation of the question, the different are compared and the incommensurable is formed (the worldly and spiritual, the indivisible and integral body and the image of its own material phenomenon). It is also inappropriate to further Catholic wisdom that the totus Christus, with all parts of His Body, is present in the Host. This very distinction of parts and reification of the bodily image is completely inapplicable here, where we are talking about the appearance of body and blood, the corporeality of Christ, on earth, in earthly matter. Here it is appropriate to talk about the body (and blood) only as about corporeality in general, just as when eating food naturally, when it enters the body, it becomes an integral part of it in general, and, content with this, we no longer try to establish into what part of the human body each particle of food has been transformed. Therefore, the sensual-materialistic idea of ​​the totus integer Christus (the whole Christ (Latin) - Ed.), present even if only substantially (essentially (Lat.) - Ed.), as if folded in the Host, must be completely rejected. So, every particle of bread and wine, transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, holistically reveals His corporeality, and, therefore, the Lord is present in it. An understanding close to this is expressed by Rosmini (which was condemned by the Vatican: Denziger, 1919, 1920). Rosmini uses precisely the patristic image of the transformation of food into the Body, seeing in transsubstantiatio (transubstantiation (lat.) – Ed.) that “Christ makes (the Gifts) the place of His sentient principle and enlivens it with His life”). In this regard, it should be noted that the spiritual body is not an abstract body in general, but a completely individual one, which contains within itself a certain form, even if it is as universal as the Body of the Lord. And in this sense, His resurrected and ascended Body, residing at the right hand of the Father, is His personal Body, which He had in the days of His earthly existence, and it bears traces of the saving Passion on the Cross. Only in the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 11:24) do we find: “...that which is broken for you.” And then the same is done over the remaining part of the Lamb, through lowering into the Chalice with immersion in the Blood, or through drinking the Blood (as is done during the preparation of the Lamb at the Liturgy of the Presanctified, as well as the reserve Gifts). The Catholic deprivation of the Chalice to the laity corresponds to the fact that it is not the Body of the risen Lord who is communing, but the one who is in the tomb, separated from the Blood. True, here too part of the host, with which the priest receives communion, is lowered into the Chalice, and the meaning of this immersion can be extended to all the hosts being consecrated. However, they themselves are deprived of the saving connection with the Blood. And this difference further increases the advantage of the priest, who alone has all the power of Communion, while the laity are left with Communion, which does not have full power. And the whole meaning of sub utraque ((communion) in both forms (lat.) - Ed.) is precisely this reunification of Body and Blood, soul and body. In Catholicism, there is even a custom of consecrating the Host deliberately for the ostensorium, that is, not for Communion (it is only consumed by the priest after a certain time, but in a different order than for Communion: in other words, it is never used for communion). True, here too the desire of Catholics is to keep Christ on earth, not content with Communion, to have Him among us and to worship Him. Hence the special “Eucharistic” piety. However, Catholic violence is not allowed to change the will of Christ Himself, who wanted to give Himself only in Holy Communion, but not in any other manifestation of Himself, and the presentation of the Holy Gifts for worship remains only an excessive expansion of the Eucharist through Communion not only with the lips, but also with the eyes (the so-called “spiritual communion”). Wed. "An Accurate Statement of the Orthodox Faith." Book IV. Chapter 13. This is also connected with the denial of the sacrificial meaning of the Eucharist in Protestantism. The Lord Himself connected and identified the Communion of His Body and Blood with their sacrificial separation and His death on the cross: “...you proclaim the death of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:26), says the Apostle Paul about the Eucharist. In addition, the icon is a clear image, but without the physical presence of the Lord, while the Holy Gifts are such a physical presence, but mysterious, that is, without a clear image. “And now glorify Me, Father, with You, with the Glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5; cf. John 17:24). This relates directly to the future glorification in the Resurrection and Ascension and sitting at the right hand of the Father. And this same glory is communicated in the resurrection to the deified human nature: “... the glory that You gave Me I have given to them” (John 17:22). Wed. about this in my “Non-Evening Light”. Along the way, it can be pointed out that the Mother of God, glorified in Her resurrection and ascended to Heaven with her body, has the same glorified, Sophia-like physicality as Her Son, to whom She gave a human body. Christ's glorification of the human body, before manifesting itself in the entire human race in the resurrection (“sown in corruption, raised in glory”), is manifested in the Mother of God, who, like the Mother, has, as it were, one body with the Son. However, this resurrection and glorification already has a different basis, it is not initial, but derivative, accomplished by the power of the Resurrection of Christ and is a reunion with Him, in His Glory: the Mother of God sits at the right hand of the Son, who sits at the right hand of the Father. At the same time, in the glorification of Mary, who is also the Mother of all human nature, the entire human race has already been resurrected. In connection with this, one should also understand the osophification or ultimate sanctification of the creature in the glorification of the Mother of God. The flesh of the Mother of God is the very earthly body of the Lord, which He received from Her by the Holy Spirit. Of course, the flesh of the Lord is alien to original sin and is sanctified by unity with His Divinity, but at the same time it belongs, like the flesh of the Mother of God, to that very world to which the Eucharistic substance, bread and wine, belongs. And in this sense, by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we mysteriously enter into natural communion with the Mother of God, we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ and the flesh of the Mother of God. On the other hand, Her resurrection by the power of Christ and, of course, the Holy Spirit, together with Her ascension in the flesh to Heaven and sitting at the right hand of the Son, testifies that Her body became similar to the body of Her Son, that is, glorified, spiritual, special, capable of dwelling in Heaven. If so, then a transformation happened to him, which is also a change, but the opposite of what we have in the Eucharist. There the glorified Body of Christ, descending into the world and returning to nature, transforms into itself the worldly substance of bread and wine, and here the earthly body of the Mother of God is transformed into the Heavenly, similar to the Body of Christ and coexisting with It. But after the general resurrection, the transformation of the earthly or mental body into the heavenly or spiritual will spread to the entire human race, and the sons of the resurrection will, being in direct bodily unity with the Mother of God, be led by Her, and being in direct communion with the Lord, they will no longer partake of Him externally, but internally, in the communion of life. Thus, the path from Heavenly Sophia to earthly Sophia passes in two directions: from earth to Heaven and from Heaven to earth. Published by “The Path”... No. 20. February 1930. P.93–95) its members included: chairman Archbishop Dimitri († schema-archbishop Anthony), Archbishop Theophan, Bishop Veniamin, Archpriest G. Spassky, Count P.N. Apraksin, myself and others under secretary Makharablidze. Only in Catholicism, through the mouth of Popes Pius IX and Leo XIII, the inviolability of private property was proclaimed, but even then not as a Divine, but only a natural institution: ius proprietatis ac dominii ab ipsa natura profectum, intactum cui libet et invialatum esse (Ecclesia) iubet (The Church orders that the right of ownership and possession, established by nature itself, be inviolable and inviolable (lat.) - Ed.; Ec. Quod Apostolici muneris, Denzingeri Symb. Wed. also "Syllabus" of Pope Pius IX.