44. Обнаружение ошибок в богослужебных книгах и разностей в обрядах. Попытка исправления их

The excitement excited by the heresy of the Judaizers had barely subsided when disputes began in the Russian Church over errors noticed in the liturgical books and some features in the rituals. From its very beginning, the Russian Church already had sacred and liturgical books in the Slavic language; this is an invaluable gift to our Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles. Since the time of Grand Duke Yaroslav, we, in Russia, have begun to translate various church books. The rites of worship were adopted from the Greek Church and were observed with unwavering fidelity. But over time, various errors crept into the liturgical books, and some novelty appeared in the performance of divine services. Errors also creep into printed books, despite the strictest attention of the performers of the work; the more easily they could sneak into handwritten books. It happened that someone who was copying a sacred or liturgical book expressed bewilderment about some expression and put another word he had invented on the side; another scribe entered this word into the text. Copies were made from damaged manuscripts, which were distributed in large numbers, and errors were confirmed. Enlightened people noticed errors and tried to correct them in manuscripts. An excellent example of such a correction is the handwritten Gospel of St. Alexis. But education fell during the difficult times of the Mongol yoke and, due to its lack, the opinion began to spread that it was impermissible to change old liturgical books, even to correct errors that had crept into them. At the beginning of the 16th century, a very learned and enlightened monk, Maxim the Greek, was summoned to Moscow from an Athonite monastery. He was first tasked with revising and putting in order the grand ducal library, and then he was given the right to correct the liturgical book Triodion. While correcting this book and reviewing some others, Maxim was horrified by the many errors he noticed in them 71 . When he announced these mistakes, many rebelled against him not only from the common people, but also from the clergy, and even Metropolitan Daniel himself. There were shouts: “He (i.e., Maxim) changes the words according to his own will and condemns the sacred books, according to which the holy fathers pleased God.” For his trial, a council was appointed in 1525, at which he was condemned as a heretic, corrupting, rather than correcting, liturgical books, and was exiled first to the Volokolamsk Monastery, where he was forbidden to further partake of the Holy Mysteries, then to the Otroch, with some relief of punishment, and finally to Trinity-Sergius. Here the Monk Maxim died after thirty years of suffering in 1556. Among the new customs during divine services, before others (at the end of the 15th century), the custom of reading and singing “Alleluia” not three, but twice, became known. This custom originally arose in Pskov. Here a legend appeared, compiled by some cleric Vasily, as if the Monk Euphrosynus, who died in 1481, introduced the double “halleluia” in his monastery, that “alleluia” means “risen” and signifies the mystery of the resurrection of Christ, and the Most Holy Theotokos Herself taught him to understand its meaning. At the same time, some discovered another deviation from the ancient order - walking in procession around the church not to the east of the west, but on the contrary - salting (as the sun moves). When the Assumption Cathedral was consecrated under John III, some accused Metropolitan Terenty of why he didn’t walk around the church with a cross, and even armed the Grand Duke against him. Soon, however, they learned that on Mount Athos religious processions are held against the sun, and the metropolitan was acquitted. But this did not prevent many from remaining in their delusion. At the beginning of the 16th century, the (false) word of Theodoret (a teacher of the Church of the 5th century) became known. Some people tried to prove to them that they should fold not three fingers for prayer, but two, or bend three. In order to correct the errors that had crept into the books and the disorder during divine services, councils were convened under Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, in the first, happy half of his reign. Of these, the most remarkable is the cathedral called Stoglav (according to the book “Stoglava”, which contains some of its definitions). It was convened in 1551 under the chairmanship of the enlightened Metropolitan Macarius. At this council, regarding the books, the need to correct them was clearly recognized, but only partial and hesitant measures were taken towards this, namely: the archpriests and senior priests were ordered to inspect the sacred and liturgical books in the churches, if any turn out to be incorrect and with typos, then correct them according to the best lists, supervise the scribes so that they copy books from good translations, and take away the uncorrected ones from the scribes and from those who bought books from them. Such private measures, obviously, could not lead to a complete daily correction of liturgical books, but on the contrary, due to the arbitrariness and insufficient education of the correctors themselves, they led to greater damage to them. At the council they also discussed the newly emerged rituals, but did not come to an agreement; on the contrary, this council discovered how deep the division between its members was on the issue of these rituals. Chairman of the cathedral, Metropolitan Macarius. for example, he was against the two-fingered folding of the cross, but there were also ardent adherents of this rite. The same thing happened with regard to other ritual differences. “They argued a lot about them,” says one of the contemporaries of the Stoglavy Cathedral (Troitsky Abbot Artemy), “but they didn’t achieve anything” 72. – Some of them were very rude, for example: the Lord Jesus Christ was called one man, created, died an endless death; God the Father was called co-mother with the Son; the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ was called indescribable. At the same time, Maxim’s student, Zinovy, noticed the addition of an extra word in the VIII member of the Creed: true. – In order to avoid multiplying errors from copying liturgical books for the future, Tsar John Vasilyevich, soon after the council, established a printing house in Moscow. The first book printed in the printing house was the Apostle. The list from which it was printed was not free from damage, and it was not considered necessary to correct it from the Greek original. Other books were printed this way. Thus, errors and clerical errors from manuscripts passed into printed books, from where it became even more difficult to eradicate them. Soon after the establishment of the printing house, its enemies appeared in the person of old scribes who were left without employment and means of living. The first printers, Deacon John Fedorov and Peter Timofeev, were forced to flee from Moscow abroad to save their lives. They were accused of heresy, the people became agitated, and the printing house itself was burned. You might be interested in: