Ганс Эренберг

Dear brother in our Lord Jesus Christ, Professor Ehrenberg! Your fraternal letter is for me one of the gratifying symptoms of the growing desire for unity throughout the Christian world, which is impossible without mutual knowledge and understanding. This is, of course, not an easy matter. It requires from the participants, on the one hand, personal church firmness, because such conversations should not be conducted for pleasantries or compromises, but for the sake of knowledge of the inexorable and inexorable truth, but, on the other hand, this requires special spiritual flexibility and, I would say, a certain culture of not only the mind, but also the heart. Our meeting with you took place on good soil: you are the bearer of a necessary and important mission - to familiarize the Protestant world with Russian religious thought through the publication of the collections “Das Oestliche Christentum” and through your other similar plans. God does His works through meager vessels, but even now one can see how the meaning of this rapprochement and spiritual meetings that are now taking place exceeds our personal smallness and has direct church-historical significance. And this work requires a lot of patience and love, that love that “covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things... does not rejoice in untruth, but rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6-7), in short, church love, which is also possible in relation to those who do not belong to the Church, at least visible and visibly. In response to your questions, I will express only a few of my thoughts, and aphoristically at that. In general, in fact, you are right: biblicalism, a special saturation with the Bible, life in it, is a property - I’m ready to say, even an advantage - of the Protestant world, equally both Anglo-Saxon and German. One of the reasons for this is that outside of biblicalism, Protestantism no longer has anything left that it could consider its own and that would not decompose before everyone’s eyes from the caustic acids of “protest” and criticism (I will no longer touch on the question to what extent this very acceptance of the Bible is legitimate, and whether outside the Church it itself is not decomposing). Orthodoxy, you are also right, biblicalism quand même (after all (French) - Ed.) is unusual, for it is not a religion of the book at all, but of some continuous secret and sacred rites. It also includes the Bible, but not as a book, but as a fact of mystical experience: the Bible - mainly the Gospel and the New Testament, less so the Old - are parts of worship, which is the act of God; and here there is more than reading, but the reading event itself. The Gospel is not only read, but lives and happens in the Church. This, undoubtedly, places an insurmountable limit on pure Biblicalism. But, of course, the Bible remains as a book, since it is part of the general composition of Tradition; along with many other things: liturgical texts, patristic writing, although, of course, it reigns and should reign over them as the Word of God par excellence. True, in real life biblicalism in Orthodoxy is not sufficiently implemented simply due to the low level of ecclesiastical culture of the Orthodox. However, among holy ascetics and even simply pious clergy and laity (in this respect there is no difference between them) you will find deep knowledge and insight into the Bible. However, Orthodoxy is so rich, multi-motivated and complex that, generally speaking, there is less human strength for it than for simple and one-stringed, but in its simplicity, honest and faithful Protestantism with its biblicalism. “There are diversities of gifts... and diversities of ministries” (1 Cor. 12:4–5 – Ed.). And to those who have lost many church gifts, God gave one spiritual treasure - love for the Word of God, and I must, without hesitation and with the joy of church love, admit that in this love for the Word of God - in addition to all that one-sidedness and bias that was born from “protest” - Protestantism is ecclesiastical, and I’m ready to say, Orthodox, and from it Orthodoxy can and actually learns, not as the universal Church, of course, but in historical ways theirs. Biblicalism is the global ecclesiastical significance of Protestantism. However, this has already been done once in history, and any new repetition only multiplies the church poisons of Protestantism and is the product of the deepest spiritual reaction. This is the attitude of Orthodoxy towards the Protestant (“evangelical”) mission among the Orthodox, who are considered as pagans. Historically, the Reformation had not only a well-known justification, but even justification in the extremes of papism: the poisons of the Reformation, “protest,” are the reverse side of Catholicism, the reformers saved Christian freedom from slavery, although - alas! - expensive, excessive price. But now the Reformation itself must get rid of Protestantism by returning to the Church, with its values ​​acquired and confirmed, but not continue the destruction of the Church. 44 Protestantism could find all its true values ​​in Orthodoxy and here preserve and establish its biblicalism. This would be a new spectrum in the pleroma of Orthodoxy, and “pietism” for the purposes of personal piety would be abolished as unnecessary, replaced by simply churchism. As for Russian Protestantism, or Studnism, 45 we consider it as a movement not so much biblical as anti-church. A sharp hatred of the Church, which is not even considered Christianity, inspires these blinded people. This is not biblicalism, but Protestantism in the worst sense. I do not deny human virtues, a certain religious elation and excitement of sectarians, what you call “pietism” in them, but in reality this is often exaltation, often false inspiration, “charm”. Biblicalism is only an external appearance, I would say, a form, a tool and a pretext for church hatred. In this form, Stundism is not even Christianity, which the Reformation did not cease to be; it is another religion, which, in a series of transitional forms, draws closer to even more rationalistic sects and simply turns into philanthropy and socialism. It is not biblicalism, but insensitivity to the Sacraments and impiety towards the Mother of God that inspires them. The Bible in such hands becomes - scary to say - dead and deadening, “for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6 - Ed.). Stundists in most cases know the Bible better than even professional theologians, but they know it with dead, Pharisaic knowledge, without inner understanding. Usually sectarians do not have that common spiritual culture, which is the minimum for Protestant biblicalism, but at the same time there is an arrogance of imaginary simplicity, which they equate with early Christianity. There is a direct analogy here with proletarian class arrogance. Stundism is a product of human pride, and unbearable pharisaism emanates from its leaders. This is my direct and sincere word about Stundism. I, of course, will not deny the countless sins and weaknesses of the historical representatives of Orthodoxy, but this should never be the basis for church self-made work and blasphemy against the Church, the Mother of God, the saints, and the Sacraments. Biblicalism in the hands of the Shtunda is anti-church, and not only in the sense that the Bible is here removed from the church context, but is also directly opposed to the entire Tradition of the Church. And in this sense, I repeat, the Protestant mission is hostile to the Church. Protestantism must not spread as Protestantism, but become obsolete. Only among the infidels, where he brings the Word of God, does he kindle the light of knowledge of God in the hearts. In Orthodoxy there is enough room for biblicalism, it needs its own biblicalism, it can, on the basis of it, become fraternally closer to the Protestant world, but only to the extent that it is genuine biblicalism, but not Protestantism under the pretext of biblicalism. Stundism is precisely Protestantism, and only because of this and for this reason is it Biblicalism. Individually this may be different, but in general, doctrinally, this is so. That is why, by the way, from Stundism there is usually no return to the Church; the soul is dislocated to such an extent that its entire structure is disrupted. Therefore, the biblicalism that Russian Protestantism brings does not serve the Church in any way, and “evangelical” Christianity is not even a reformation, which is unnecessary and inappropriate in Orthodoxy, but only Protestantism as a revelation of church decay, strengthened by the disasters of the Russian Church. A certain type of Russian soul is characterized by a combination of completely non-Orthodox rationalism and at the same time proud stubbornness, on the basis of which Stundism develops. An example is Tolstoy, and in this sense Tolstoy is popular, but also spiritually barren. Such “evangelization” of Russia brings deep harm to the entire Christian world - historical Protestantism must finally understand this. Orthodox biblicalism, the one that is not seen or known from the outside, in its pure form is dissolved with the entire life of the Church, with worship, the church circle, iconography, even everyday life. Orthodox life itself is the living Bible. And yet, I am ready to admit, without seeing a contradiction in this, that we, the Orthodox - not Orthodoxy, but precisely the Orthodox - need to know and love the Bible more, and this is for us a matter of church reason and a requirement of age (although the shtunda does not help or contribute to this). The benefit and influence of historical Protestantism here can be - and even is - different, rather scientific and educational, and only through this religious, rather than directly missionary. We will accept from you the Bible in a critical and generally accessible edition, with various scientific comments, but we will reject any “evangelization” that separates us from the Church, just as Protestantism once tore the Reformation away from the Catholic Church. In this respect to Protestantism, Orthodoxy and Catholicism do not differ. The people in the Church or the people of the Church? I am afraid that in the very formulation of this question there is a struggle, on the one hand, between Catholicism, which, as a dialectical moment, has not yet been overcome by Protestantism, and on the other, “the newest “democracy”. We have Khomyakov with his teaching, which is essentially Orthodox, about the church people as the Body of the Church, preserving the truth. Our hierarchy sometimes falls into a Catholic exaggeration of its significance, establishing in Orthodoxy a purely Catholic division into the Church that teaches and the Church that obeys. But Orthodoxy contains a lofty, although perhaps insufficiently revealed, teaching about the importance of the laity in the Church in unity with the pastors, under the leadership of the episcopate. But the laity are not just objects of passive submission. In turbulent and difficult times, the church people bear the burden of church leadership on their shoulders, this is how it is now in Russia in the fight against living churchism, and this is, potentially, always the case. Of course, the church people can and often do become sick with democracy, just as the clergy are sick with Catholic clericalism. But the Orthodox norm, immanent in the nature of the Church, is precisely the church people, flocked, but not led by shepherds. I am always afraid of populism in the Church, which generally plagues our intelligentsia, but which also plagues Protestantism, which has not yet outlived its opposition to Catholic teaching. It would be more accurate to say that in the Church there are no people, but there are laity and pastors, and to actually implement the norm internally given and set by Orthodoxy is always a creative task. The Spirit of Orthodoxy is not slavery, but the freedom of the sons of God. And here again Protestantism can plunge into the bosom of Orthodoxy with its ecclesiastical love for the people, since it does not become anti-hierarchism that destroys the Church, that is, it does not dry up in the sands of “protest.” These are the few preliminary thoughts that I would like to express not so much in response as in relation to your letter. Dedicated to you, Rev. S. Bulgakov This movement is already beginning, and one of the encouraging symptoms is the publication of “Una Sancta” (The One Holy One (Latin) – Ed.). Stundism (from German Stunde - hour; time for religious readings among German colonists) is a sectarian movement among Russian and Ukrainian peasants in the 2nd half. XIX century, which arose under the influence of Protestantism, elements of which were combined with the beliefs of spiritual Christians. Later merged with Baptistism. – Approx. edit