Общие вопросы

I. What was the reason for the split in the Old Believers in our country? 113 By the middle of the 17th century, by the accession of Nikon to the patriarchal throne, we Russians were somewhat at odds with the Greeks regarding church rites and customs, and likewise, our liturgical books did not entirely agree with the Greek books. Nikon, upon his accession to the patriarchal throne, decided to bring us to an agreement or agreement with the Greeks regarding rituals and customs, and also to correct our liturgical books according to the Greek books. This decision of Patriarch Nikon caused a split in the so-called Old Believers in us: there were people who raised a protest against our agreement with the Greeks in church rites and customs and against the correction of our liturgical books according to Greek books, and who ultimately separated from the church to form their own special schismatic or schismatic society 114. What did this protest mean against our agreement with the Greeks in rituals and customs and against the correction of our books according to the Greek books? Did we really have people who demanded that we, being of the same faith with the Greeks and having borrowed faith and books from them, should have rituals and customs that were different from them and that our liturgical books should not agree with their books? We did not have such people at all; on the contrary, we all fully recognized that we must agree with the Greeks in rituals and customs, and that our books must agree with the Greek books, and just as Nikon undertook his correction of our rituals and books in the name of the principle that in relation to one and the other we must agree with the Greeks, so those who signed the protest against his correction did it in the name of the same principle of our agreement with the Greeks. Such a very strange and incomprehensible at first glance phenomenon that in the name of the same principle Nikon undertook the correction of rituals and books and raised a protest against his correction, which led to the formation of a split in the Old Believers, is explained by the fact that Nikon and those who protested did not look at the Greeks of their time with the same, but completely different, eyes. Some of our disagreement with the Greeks in rituals was a long-standing matter, and we knew very well about it even before Nikon; but we had a long time ago, and right up to him - Nikon, there was a conviction that the fault in this case was not with us - the Russians, but with the Greeks. We have formed the conviction that we - Russians - have invariably preserved rituals and customs, as well as books, in the very form in which we received them along with the Christian Orthodox faith from the ancient Greeks, and that, on the contrary, the later Greeks themselves, having departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, introduced heretical and sinful innovations into rituals, customs and books, which they partly borrowed from the Latins, and partly they created it for themselves, by their own arbitrariness, or under the influence of the Turkish yoke. This belief was a generally accepted belief among us before Nikon. Nikon came and was brought to the realization of the fallacy and unfoundedness of his conviction, and in the name of the principle that we must agree with the Greeks in rites and customs, as well as in books, he undertook his own correction, that is, the correction of rituals and customs according to contemporary Greek rites and customs and the correction of books according to contemporary Greek books. As a result of Nikon’s statements and representations, the belief about the Greeks was changed and the need for its correction was recognized by the majority of representatives of the Russian church, and the majority of the church’s representatives were followed by the majority of its members. But there were some people who did not want and could not change their beliefs about the Greeks of their time; These individual people, in the name of the same principle that we should agree with the Greeks, and by the Greeks, separating the ancient Greeks from the later ones, they thought to mean the former, and raised a protest against Nikon’s correction. But how could this apparently completely incomprehensible thing happen, so that, without any real reason, our ancestors formed the belief about the later Greeks that they had departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks and were infected with heretical and sinful innovations? The reason for this phenomenon, which seems incomprehensible and so uniquely characterizes our history and our church life, is that our ancestors, due to their lack of enlightenment, formed special views on church customs and that by the time these special views of theirs matured, some customs remained diverse (in fact, bivariate) among the Greeks, and after them among us, and that other customs, having become uniform among the Greeks, We haven’t yet managed to become like that in our country. Custom is something that comes into use and remains in use without a positive written law (among jurists: ἔφος νόμος ἄγραφος, custom is an unwritten law). But regarding what there is no positive written law, it may exist in use (as not directly defined by written law) monotonously, or it may not exist monotonously 115. Likewise, church customs, representing precisely customs that existed in use without written laws regarding them (which would have already turned them from customs into a legal matter), could exist in use monotonously, that is, in only one form or one form, or they could exist not uniformly, that is, not in one form or one form, but in several. In fact, it was the case that some customs existed monotonously, others not monotonously. Church authority, through its written laws, could, of course, give uniformity to those customs that were not uniformly used. But the heterogeneity of the form or type of other customs was a matter of indifference, since one and the other forms that came into use were equally acceptable; The church authorities did not make it their task to regulate in a deliberate manner what was an indifferent matter. Meanwhile, our ancestors, due to their lack of enlightenment, formed a view of church customs that did not allow any custom to exist not in one form, but in several. A simple, uneducated person usually attaches exaggerated importance to external church customs, equating them with the dogmas of faith: he knows little or nothing about the dogmas of faith, and customs constitute what he himself necessarily fulfills or sees necessarily fulfilled, and he gets used to believing in customs the very essence of faith or taking them for this essence, and usually derives them from Christ himself and the apostles and presents the matter as if Christ and the apostles established them in one form that will remain unchanged forever. Among all nations, the lower uneducated part of the people equates customs regarding their importance with the dogmas of faith 116. But if a whole people does not have enlightenment, then the whole people falls into that extreme that becomes its characteristic feature, in order to equate customs with the dogmas of faith. This last case happened with our ancestors. If customs are the same as dogmas and have the same importance and meaning as them, then it is unacceptable that any custom could simultaneously exist in several forms. Just as every dogma, expressing some truth of the Christian doctrine, contains within itself a single and unchangeable teaching, for the truth is one and unchangeable, otherwise, just as every dogma cannot have several types in order to affirm not just one thing, but one and another and a third, for example. that Jesus Christ is God and not God, that He is the God-man and not the God-man: so customs, in the opinion of people who equate them with dogmas, obviously can have only one unchanging form. And thus, from the point of view of people who equate customs with dogmas, only one known form of a custom can be true and Orthodox, while other forms are untrue and unorthodox, and just like disagreement and disagreement in relation to dogmas, they constitute heresy. Our ancestors formed the distorted view of church customs just mentioned as a result of our lack of enlightenment. Meanwhile, as we said, this view, having matured or established itself, found in reality that some customs continued to remain not uniform among the Greeks, and after them among us, and other customs, having been uniform among the Greeks, had not yet become so among ourselves; namely, the proclamation of the hallelujah song continued to be performed among the Greeks, and after them among us, in two indifferent forms of amplification and triplication or doubling and tripling, and the folding of fingers for the sign of the cross, existing among the Greeks in a uniform form of three-fingered, was used in our country in two more types of two-fingered and three-fingered. This duality of form or appearance in one and the other case was something impossible according to the concepts that our ancestors had about customs, and they had to recognize one form in both cases as correct and Orthodox, and the other form as incorrect and heretical. So they really did, as they should have done according to their concepts of customs. But the disputes that we raised about which in both cases is the correct and Orthodox form and which is incorrect and heretical, ended with the fact that in the first case, in relation to the song of Hallelujah, the form that subsequently became commonly used among the Greeks was recognized as incorrect and heretical, and in the second case, in relation to the addition of fingers, that form was recognized as incorrect and heretical, which, not yet becoming common among us, it was already, as it remains, common among the Greeks. Thus, our ancestors formed the belief about the later Greeks that they, having departed from the purity of Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, introduced heretical innovations. At the same time, at first things worked out in such a way that it was as if representatives of the Greek church itself gave our ancestors the right to accuse the later Greeks of their alleged heretical innovations, and the circumstances that happened gave them seeming grounds to produce the alleged heretical innovations of the later Greeks precisely from the Latins. The peculiar views of our ancestors on church customs or, in other words, their peculiar theological views did not develop suddenly. Gradually taking shape over the centuries, they finally declared themselves and spoke out for themselves at the beginning of the fifteenth century. From the time we adopted Christianity until the beginning of the 10th century, for four hundred years, the song of Hallelujah was proclaimed among us, as well as among the Greeks, in an indifferent manner, two-lipped and three-lipped, and finally, representatives of our matured theological views raised the question: which of the two methods of proclamation is true and Orthodox and which is untrue and unorthodox. The issue was first raised in Pskov, during the reign of Metropolitan Photius 117. Not supposing in their newly formed view of the subject that the Greeks could have the same thing that we had, that is, that the song of Hallelujah would be proclaimed in an indifferent manner purely and strictly, the Pskovites turned to the metropolitan for a solution to the issue, and he, in a message dated August 12, 1419, ordered them to repeat the song of Hallelujah 118 . Ordering the Pskovites to repeat the song of Hallelujah, Photius did not want to say that the doubleness was incorrect and unorthodox, for this would mean that he himself would say something unorthodox; He also did not want to say that tripling was then the dominant custom in Greece, for we positively know that in Greece at that time both tripling and doubling were in equal use: he only wanted to give the Pskovians an answer that would calm and satisfy them and stop their disputes. Finding from their point of view that two forms of the same custom cannot be equally correct and Orthodox, they asked the Metropolitan: which one should they use? to tell them that use both did not mean to give them an answer to their question, and Photius instructs them to use one form, only, not foreseeing the sad consequences of his omission, he does not make a proper explanation regarding both forms (but orders to triple, and not double, as one must think, because triplicity in his time was predominant among the Greeks in Constantinople itself, or, at least, predominant in that Monemvasian diocese from which he himself was). After Fotiev’s answer, a uniform custom of tripling the song of Hallelujah was established in Pskov and the Pskov region, and the Pskovites, of course, began to look at the indifferent use of tripling and doubling in other places as a very big irregularity. But if in Pskov the opinion (and belief) was established that the correct way to proclaim a song is three-way, then there could be one-sided defenders and doubles, and it was natural that the defenders of the new one-sided opinion would enter into a fight with the defenders of the previous one-sided opinion. And so it happened. Thirty-five or forty years after in Pskov, on the basis of the message of Photius, they began to triple the song of Hallelujah in a uniform way, a certain monk Athanasius, who had previously been in the East, appeared, who began to reproach and denounce the Pskovites for their tripling, claiming that on Athos and from the Patriarch of Constantinople Joseph, he was taught to double the song, and not triple 119. That on Athos Athanasius found, if not exclusively dominant, then predominant the custom of doubling the song of hallelujah, this is very possible, for we have later data that really force us to assume that there, if not exclusively dominant, then doubling prevailed 120; It may even be that Athanasius met monks on Athos who, in their theological views being the same as our ancestors, that is, not higher than them, strongly condemned triplicity; but for Patriarch Joseph to tell him that the song of Hallelujah should be doubled is completely incredible: the patriarch could only tell him that the Athos double is as Orthodox and acceptable as triple, which was the patriarch’s answer to him and could have been misunderstood by him. Be that as it may, Athanasius spoke out against the tripling of the Pskovites for his doubling, citing Athos and Patriarch Joseph. He was a very respected man, an ascetic of the desert and the builder of his own cenobitic monastery, so the Pskovites could not suspect him of lying about the Greeks or that his reference to them would represent any kind of misunderstanding. But, of course, they could not think about Metropolitan Photius, whose instructions about the hallelujah song were understood by them in such a way that the only correct and proper way of proclaiming it was trinity, prescribed for them some other method of proclamation, and not the one that was in his time among the Greeks. Thus, Athanasius’s reference to the Greeks in defense of the doubleness of the hallelujah song was necessary for the Pskovites to understand in such a way that the Greeks, after Metropolitan Photius, adopted a novelty regarding the proclamation of the hallelujah song. It remained, therefore, to solve only the question: where could the Greeks have taken the novelty from? In the period of time between Metropolitan Photius and Afanasy’s speech against the Pskovites with his statement that the Greeks were doubling the hallelujah song, the Florentine Council took place (1438–39), at which the Greeks accepted a union with the pope: how could the Pskovians not think that this council and union were to blame for the novelty of the Greeks or that the Greeks borrowed the latter from Latins? True, they knew that Patriarch Joseph, to whom Athanasius referred, did not return from the council to Constantinople in order to be able to introduce Latin innovations in it, but died at the council itself (which they themselves directly spoke about in disputes with Athanasius); but without coming up with another source from which the Greeks could have borrowed novelty, and at the same time without any doubt that it was a matter of novelty, they probably imagined the matter in such a way that Joseph began to borrow novelties from the Latins even before the council and before the adoption of a formal union with them. One way or another, the Pskovites answered resolutely and in the harshest tone to the defender of the double hallelujah song, who referred to the Patriarch of Constantinople Joseph and the Athonite monks, that he was referring to people who had already become corrupted regarding the faith and had turned away from the truth (rejected). Patriarch Joseph, - the Pskovites told Athanasius, - with the Russian Metropolitan Isidore and the Pope of Rome in these years ("on these years") held the 8th (ecumenical) council in the Fryazh city of Florence, which should not have been at all, and for this the patriarch soon received vengeance from the righteous judgment of God, did not return to his table; at this council was the beginning of the destruction of the Greek land, for at it the Greeks turned away from the truth to their destruction; and that you cite the words of Scripture: “For out of Zion the law and the word of the Lord will go out from Jerusalem,” then these words refer to the apostles and their successors - the holy patriarchs, now we must expect from Jerusalem only the Antichrist with his destructive teaching; you have become corrupted from the Greek lands, but it was not appropriate for you to accept new teachings and believe the corrupted Greeks, but you should have believed the holy fathers and Cyrus Metropolitan Photius, who wrote to us in the house of St. Trinity in Pskov (that is, regarding what the Hallelujah song should be trinity) 121. In the first half of the 10th century, when the Pskovites, on the basis of the decree of Fotiev, which they misunderstood, stood for the triplet of the hallelujah song, as the only correct and Orthodox form of its proclamation, and the monk Athanasius, on the basis of an erroneous belief formed by him, acted as a defender of the double song, as the only correct and Orthodox form of its proclamation, among the Greeks, in fact, both forms remained in indifferent simultaneous use proclamations. Subsequently, the Greeks came into general or uniform use of the form that was established in Pskov on the basis of the decree of Fotiev, i.e. tripling. If after Pskov this form had come into general uniform use throughout Russia, then the accusation of the Pskovites against the Greeks that they were infected with a heretical novelty from the Latins regarding the song of Hallelujah would have turned out to be a simple misunderstanding. But our debate about the hallelujah song ended with the fact that, on the basis of the testimony of the monk Athanasius, to whom, through falsification, much greater authority was given than what it had in his mouth, and through the invention of supernatural revelations, 122, and most of all because in this case he did not show the necessary fortitude to testify to the truth of St. Maxim the Greek, the correct and Orthodox form of her proclamation was recognized not as triplicity, but as doubling. Thus, the form that, on the contrary, came into general use among the Greeks was recognized as incorrect and unorthodox. And thus it happened that in relation to the song of Hallelujah, the Greeks turned out to be infected in our eyes with heretical novelty. The Pskovites accused the Greeks of borrowing from the Latins the heresy of double song. But when it was decided and accepted among us that heresy is not double, but triple, then, having changed their opinion regarding the type of heresy, but without changing their opinion regarding its source, we began to accuse the Greeks of borrowing the triple song from the Latins 123. As for the front addition for the sign of the cross, then, as we said, this latter, having been uniform among the Greeks by the time our unique views on church customs were discovered, had not yet had time to become so among us ourselves. At the moment we adopted Christianity from the Greeks, the latter generally used two fingers for the sign of the cross, which, of course, we borrowed from them. But over the course of time from the end of the 12th to the second half of the 13th century, instead of two fingers, three fingers came into common use among them 124. After its introduction among the Greeks, three-fingeredness began to spread among us, in order to replace, like them, the previously existing two-fingered one. If it had time to come into general use among us and completely replace double-fingered behavior before our unique views on church customs matured and began to manifest themselves among us, then this change among the Greeks from one form of custom to another would not have been reflected in any way among us and would have passed or remained unnoticed, simply having a place among us, as among them. But this did not happen, because it did not have time to happen, and by the time our unique views on customs matured, the matter of folding fingers for the sign of the cross turned out to be in the same situation as it was with the proclamation of the Hallelujah song, namely, that at the same time we were in use two ways of folding fingers - two-fingered and three-fingered. Again the question had to be posed and was actually posed: which of the two finger formations is true and Orthodox, which is untrue and heretical. But again, as in relation to the hallelujah song, it happened that partly on the basis of misunderstood evidence only from archaeological, and not historical (pertaining to a bygone time), partly on the basis of fictitious evidence, the question was decided not in favor of the method of addition that was dominant among the Greeks. Thanks to this second accident, a second imaginary heresy of the Greeks appeared among us, the easy explanation as to the source of which was to derive it from the Latins. If not in all of Russia, then in Pskov, the question of folding the fingers for the sign of the cross was resolved in favor of double fingers, already by the time there were disputes with the monk Athanasius about the hallelujah song, and the Pskovites told the latter that just as in relation to the song, the Greeks turned away from the truth in these years, so as not to confess the Trinity (with double fingers), and regarding the sign of the cross they accepted the seal of the Antichrist on forehead and right hand 125. So, our ancestors, due to their lack of enlightenment, formed for themselves such a unique view of church customs, which, equating customs in their importance and meaning with the dogmas of faith, allowed for each of them only one form, as the true and Orthodox form. Meanwhile, by the time our ancestors’ unique view of customs had matured, 126 the Greeks, and after them also us, still indifferently used two forms for the proclamation of the hallelujah song - doubling and tripling, and separately, they themselves were still in simultaneous use of two forms of finger formation for the sign of the cross - two-fingered and three-fingered. In accordance with their view of customs, our ancestors had to recognize and proclaim in both cases one form as true and Orthodox, and the other as untrue and heretical. It so happened that in relation to the song of Hallelujah, they recognized as true the form that was later abandoned by the Greeks, and as untrue they recognized the form that came into common use among them, and that in relation to the folding of fingers for the sign of the cross, they recognized as true the form that had long been abandoned by the Greeks, and as untrue they recognized the form that was adopted in their place. abandoned. In the opinion of our ancestors, this meant that in both cases the Greeks adopted heretical innovations, and at the same time, the circumstances of the time gave them a reason to see the heretics, from whom the Greeks allegedly became infected with their innovations, in the Latins. Regarding two particular cases, our ancestors formed the belief that the later Greeks retreated from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks and adopted Latin heretical novelties. But we fell apart with the Greeks not only in relation to the two mentioned cases. On the one hand, we accepted Christianity from them when all their rituals did not have complete uniformity and were still in a state of formation, for which reason, with the further establishment of uniformity and completeness among them and us, some disunity between them and us in ritual particulars was inevitable; and on the other hand, we allowed some direct novelties against them, as well as some uncommendable liberties. In all this, attributing from our point of view even unimportant differences very important significance, we had to blame someone, ourselves or the Greeks, and, of course, we blamed not ourselves, but the Greeks, after their admission of imaginary heretical innovations in relation to the two indicated cases was recognized by us as undoubted. And thus, our ancestors began to accuse the later Greeks of deviating from the purity of Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, not only in relation to the two indicated points, but also to quite a lot of other things. In general, with us the matter has begun to be presented in such a way that everything in which the Greeks differ from us constitutes their heretical and sinful novelties; in other words, the matter began to be presented in such a way that we, Russians, invariably preserve the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, and the later Greeks more or less retreated from this purity 127. In leveling such a grave accusation against the later Greeks as betrayal of the purity of Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, people, apparently, should have been embarrassed by the too great improbability of the assumption that the later Greeks would have allowed and were able to allow such a betrayal. But with their view of church customs and under the circumstances, the Russians necessarily had to accuse the Greeks of betraying Orthodoxy (for otherwise they would have to recognize themselves as heretics); For our ancestors, their special and original view of another subject, we mean, Christian piety, served to calm confusion and resolve bewilderment. Our lack of enlightenment in relation to faith resulted in the fact that we equated church rituals and customs with the dogmas of faith; but it had its own special consequences in relation to piety, namely, that we went to the extreme of so-called external piety and began to rely mainly on piety, to the detriment of true piety - Christian life, in zeal for external prayer and for the beautification of places of public external prayer - churches, in strict observation of fasts and in diligent visits to holy places 128, and from our point of view In view of piety, we have indeed become very pious people. But the Greeks never fell into our extremes and, in terms of outward piety, were and are far behind us, of which they themselves fully admitted and admit (calling and calling, partly with respect, but more with irony, our Moscow pious Moscow). Not seeing a sufficient degree of piety among contemporary Greeks, our ancestors, who, of course, did not consider this piety of theirs to be their own creation, but who derived it along with faith from the Greeks, concluded that the later Greeks had lost the piety of the ancient Greeks. If people were capable of losing the ancient piety of their fathers (as our ancestors thought of the Greeks), then, of course, it was possible for them and from them that they would lose the purity of the ancient paternal Orthodoxy. At the same time, the later Greeks themselves, as it were, deliberately tried to degrade themselves to the last degree in the eyes of our ancestors from the moral side in the precise sense. The installation of the impostor Pimin as metropolitan of Moscow (very incorrectly and very naively understood by us, and in reality the main fault was not with our ambassadors, but with them - the Greeks) was such a flagrant act on their part that the Patriarchate of Constantinople itself had to appear to our ancestors as nothing other than deeply fallen in a moral sense against ancient times 129 . But if this was so in relation to the Greeks, then on the contrary, the belief of our ancestors that they were the unchanging guardians of the purity of Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks found confirmation and strengthening in the political events that happened and in the views that our ancestors formed regarding the events. We mean the capture of Constantinople by the Turks and the view that, as a result of this capture, our ancestors formed towards their Moscow. After the Turks captured Constantinople, which we took to be the second Orthodox Rome, which had its mission to protect Orthodoxy on earth, our ancestors began to look at Moscow as the third Rome, to which the now indicated mission was transferred from Constantinople (a well-known view, which we do not consider necessary to expand on). But if Moscow was destined and entrusted with the lot to be the guardian of Orthodoxy on earth: then, of course, already through this it was recognized and testified that it preserved the purity of Orthodoxy (for how would it be entrusted with the preservation of Orthodoxy if it itself did not preserve it?). A peculiar view of church customs, as we said, became with us the view not only of the lower part of society, constituting the so-called common people, but also of the entire society in general, because not only were our common people uneducated, but there was a lack of enlightenment in the entire society. Consequently, the conviction regarding the later Greeks, which stemmed from our view of church rites, that they had departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, should have become our common conviction. Indeed, it became this general belief. But the Florentine Council created such ecclesiastical circumstances, and soon after that the subsequent capture of Constantinople by the Turks created such ecclesiastical and at the same time state circumstances that our government not only did not try to delay the statements by our theologians of their newly formed views, but, prompted by its practical goals, even captured their initiative in this case and, having already or not yet had time to sincerely assimilate their views, somewhat earlier than them began to affirm and preach about Greeks, as if the Council of Florence and the capture of Constantinople by the Turks damaged and destroyed their Orthodoxy. After Isidore's flight from Moscow, the new Metropolitan St. Jonah was installed by the Russians in Moscow itself and without permission from the patriarch. The reason for the self-will was that the patriarch was a Uniate 130. But it seemed insufficient to the Russians to refer to this reason alone, and in order to justify their self-will, they presented the matter as if after the Council of Florence in Constantinople, Orthodoxy had completely collapsed. Metropolitan Jonah, in his letter of notification to Lithuania about his appointment as metropolitan, justifying the fact that he was installed in Moscow itself and without the permission of the patriarch, says that “if there was Orthodoxy in Constantinople, (until then) and (the Grand Dukes of Moscow) from there received the blessing and the metropolitan,” and what now, when - it is implied - there is Orthodoxy in Constantinople collapsed, the Grand Duke himself ordered to make him a metropolitan 131. In the message of the council of Moscow bishops to the council of Lithuanian bishops on the occasion of the arrival of Uniate Metropolitan Gregory in Lithuania, in explanation and justification of the same unauthorized appointment of Jonah as metropolitan by the Grand Duke himself, it is stated that “now the Tsaryagrad church has become shaken and has retreated from our Orthodoxy” 132 . Isidore's attempt to introduce the Florentine Union in Moscow ended with him having to flee from it in disgrace to Rome to the pope. But dad did not fall into complete despair from this outcome of the matter. Having waited for time and favorable circumstances, 17 years after Isidorov’s flight, in 1458, he appointed Isidorov’s student, the now mentioned Gregory, as metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus', so that he would occupy, if not the entire Russian metropolitanate, then at least the Lithuanian part of it subordinate to the Polish king. In view of such dangers that unexpectedly appeared, such as the loss of the See of the Metropolitan of All Russia of its Lithuanian half and the establishment of a union in Lithuanian Rus', which would pose a danger from the latter for Moscow Rus' itself, in Moscow Metropolitan Jonah of All Russia made the most intense efforts to convince the Lithuanian Russians not to recognize Gregory. For this purpose, Jonah wrote a whole series of messages to Lithuania both on his own behalf and on behalf of the council of Moscow bishops. In these messages, as one of the decisive means of persuasion not to change Orthodoxy, we find an indication of the disaster to which the Royal City or Constantinople was subjected when it retreated from piety, that is, from Orthodoxy, it is implied - at the Council of Florence. In one of Jonah’s own letters we read: “You yourselves know, sons, that the reigning city first suffered trouble from the Bulgarians, also from the Persians: as in the depths of it trembled (hu) for seven years; but even more trembling, sons, piety, the city did not suffer anything; when you retreated from your piety, you know that it suffered (–a, i.e. from the Turks), what kind of captivity and death are distinguishable in everyday life, but God knows the same about their souls” 133 ... St. Jonah was made metropolitan in Moscow and by his bishops because in Constantinople the patriarchal see was occupied by the Uniates; but at the same time it had not yet been decided to always do this in the future. When, during his time as metropolitan, Constantinople was taken by the Turks (1453), the Russians immediately made this final decision. Their motives were of two kinds: on the one hand, to eliminate the unwanted, and on the other hand, to satisfy their own claims. Just as the Greek Emperor was the temporal head of the Patriarch of Constantinople, confirmed him in his rank and bestowed on him the distinctions (insignia) of the latter, so the Sultan became the same worldly head in relation to him and the Sultan began to do the same, as a result of which the patriarch now turned into a slave of the Christ-hating busurman. But the Russians could not have a desire for their metropolitan to receive initiation from this Busurman slave - for the Busurman filth, which the Sultan communicated with his own hands to the Partarch, to pass on to the Metropolitan, and that through the slavery of the Patriarch to the Sultan, they themselves, to some extent, became slaves of this hater of the cross of Christ. And the matter here was not just about abstract concepts and opinions, but also about tangible reality, for the Russian Metropolitan, who had to go - assuming that he would be elected at home - for initiation to Constantinople, possessed by the Turks, would have to have direct relations with Turkish officials, in whose jurisdiction the patriarch and the church were, could be required for direct presentations to the Sultan himself, who could apparently arrange things in such a way that he, the metropolitan, would seem to be as much his slave as the patriarch himself, through which the Sultan could make some claims to supremacy over the Grand Duke himself. Thus, the Russians should have abhorred the idea of ​​their metropolitan going to Constantinople for consecration, after the latter had fallen into the unfaithful and nasty hands of the Muslim Turks, and should have found this impossible for very important and tangible practical reasons. Another and opposite impulse to desire that after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, our metropolitans would become virtually independent of the patriarchs of Constantinople, was for our ancestors in the indicated view of their Moscow, which appeared to them after the fall of Constantinople, as the third Orthodox Rome, destined to protect the Church of Christ on earth. If, after the fall of Constantinople, Moscow occupied this high position in the Christian world, then how could its metropolitans remain dependent on the outside and receive dedication for themselves precisely where the enemy of the cross of Christ was installed? Our ancestors, in their opinion about the new high position of their state, should have desired the complete independence of their church, with the establishment of an independent patriarchate in it. But this last desire had not yet occurred to them. They did not go further on this path than the desire for the actual independence of their metropolitan from the patriarch. For the reasons we have indicated, the Russians decided to grant such actual independence from the patriarch to their metropolitan after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. Initially, we did not want to independently assign actual independence to the metropolitans or the right to be supplied to them in Russia itself, and they turned to the patriarch with a request for this, and only, having not received satisfaction from the patriarch of their request, did they see themselves forced to act without permission 134. But it is necessary to think that the government was embarrassed by its self-will, that it saw or assumed disapproval of its behavior on the part of the Russians themselves, 135 and it considered it necessary to justify itself before Russian public opinion and together give it the tone or direct it in the way it desired. It did this in such a way that, regarding the appointment of Ionin’s successor, Metropolitan Theodosius, it issued a copy, under the title: “The Word Selected from the Holy Scriptures, in Latin,” etc. (the title is very long), which is a kind of political brochure of official or semi-official origin, which has as its goal and purpose to show that the Russians legally and for good reasons acted as they did. The right of the Russians to have a metropolitan actually independent of the patriarch or, so to speak, autocephalous, at least that is implied, and contrary to the Greeks, in the word is proven, firstly, by the fact that the Russian sovereign, being constantly called in him the blessed and divinely crowned tsar 136 and being dignified in him with the titles of an associate of the piety of true Orthodoxy, the highest issue of piety, although not entirely in an open, but undoubtedly quite understandable speech for contemporaries, he is presented as the successor of the Byzantine emperors; secondly, by the fact that the word speaks of the piety that has shone forth in the Russian land and that it is fitting for it, the Russian land, to rejoice in the universe and under the sun’s radiance, since it is clothed in the light of piety, has the cover of God on itself, the abundant grace of the Lord and is filled with the flowers of God’s beautifully blooming churches, like the stars of shining holy churches, like the shining rays of the sun, adorned with splendor and glorified by the cathedral of holy singing (whereby the reader is silently invited to make a comparison between us and the Greeks who fell under the power of the Turks), and finally it is directly stated that in Russia there is “greater Orthodoxy and higher Christianity,” although without adding directly, but with a clearly implied: than in Greece 137. Metropolitan-Uniate Gregory, who was appointed by order of the pope, about whom we spoke above, arrived in Lithuania in 1458 or 1459, remained a uniate in it for 11 or 12 years, it is unknown - to what extent he was recognized by the Lithuanian-Russian Orthodox bishops; but in 1470 he decided to return to Orthodoxy and sent his ambassador to the Patriarch of Constantinople, expressing his desire and asking that the Patriarch recognize and confirm him in the rank of Russian Metropolitan. Patriarch Simeon of Trebizond, to whom the ambassador was sent, either refused the request or, perhaps, did not have time to fulfill it, since he occupied the patriarchal chair for a very short time. But Simeon's successor Dionysius, inclined, as our news assures, by the great gifts of Gregory, reunited him with Orthodoxy, confirmed him in the rank of metropolitan not only of Lithuania, but also of all Rus', and sent his ambassador for him not only to Lithuania, but also to Moscow and Novgorod, with the command to these last two places so that he would be recognized as their metropolitan, and that the metropolitan, installed in Moscow itself, was removed as illegal and not recognized by the Church of Constantinople 138. When he led book Ivan Vasilyevich learned about the deeds of the patriarch and that his ambassador was going to Rus', he immediately convened a council in Moscow of bishops, archimandrites, abbots and the entire priesthood, and at the council it was sentenced that the ambassadors of the patriarch and Grigoriev should not be allowed into the Moscow land and that the patriarch himself, without caring about his blessing or unblessing, would be “a stranger from himself and renounced." To justify his formal renunciation of the patriarch, the Grand Duke cites the fact that, according to the recognition of the patriarchs themselves, Orthodoxy among the Greeks had already been destroyed as a result of the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. In his message to the Novgorod archbishop regarding our case, the Grand Duke assures that Patriarch Simeon (called Simon in the message), to whom Ambassador Grigoriev arrived, refusing the ambassador’s request, motivated his refusal by the fact that “I myself live in squalor, in the hands of Besermen, in someone else’s captivity, and our Orthodoxy has already been destroyed” 139 . In 1474 or 1475, Patriarch Raphael of Constantinople, either being bribed himself or executing the orders of the bribed Sultan, installed as metropolitan of Lithuania, in the place of the deceased Gregory, a self-proclaimed candidate, not asked by the Lithuanian Russians, a certain Tver monk, named Spiridon Satan (a very smart and dexterous adventurer and, probably, rich). When the Moscow Russians learned about this appointment, they feared that the Patriarch and the Sultan would not decide to impose their metropolitans on them, and against the possibility of this, a measure was taken in Moscow that in the so-called voluntary (actually: promising in the sense of: giving an obligation) letters that were given by the newly installed bishops to the metropolitan, a formal obligation was included not to accept metropolitans, initiated in Constantinople, as having lost - it was implied - Orthodoxy. Spiridon arrived in Lithuania, endowed with the rank of metropolitan by the patriarch, in 1476, and in the free letter to Metropolitan Gerontius of Tver Bishop Vassian, installed on December 6, 1477, it reads: “and to Spiridon, called Satan, who sought (-she) in Constantinople was appointed, in the region of the godless Turks, by the filthy king, or whoever another metropolitan will be appointed from Latin or from the Turkish region, I will not approach him, nor will I have any association with him.” 140 The deliberate preaching of the government, caused by circumstances, as if after the Council of Florence and the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, Orthodoxy among the Greeks was destroyed, as we said, somewhat warned the convinced preaching of our theologians, as if after the council the Greeks were infected by the Latins with their heretical innovations in relation to the song of Hallelujah and to the folding of fingers for the sign of the cross. It may very well be that the government's preaching gave our theologians the courage to express their convictions for the first time. But in any case, this sermon, although it stopped when the need for it passed, should have greatly contributed to strengthening the real or sincere opinion of the Russians about the corruption of the purity of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks. Apparently, it was completely untenable to claim that the Turks destroyed Orthodoxy among the Greeks, for the Turks, being not Christians, but Muslims or infidels, could force the Greeks to accept their faith instead of Christianity, but could not destroy them, that is, distort, infect Orthodox Christianity itself with heresies. But the Turks really destroyed Orthodoxy among the Greeks in the sense that they took away their splendid churches, allowing them to build new churches only in the form of sheds and shacks that did not have crosses on them, and that they restricted their freedom of worship by prohibiting them from solemn and open ceremonies (and, as Ivan Vasilyevich stated in the above-mentioned message to Novgorod, allegedly prohibiting them from ringing, which they, however, do not have was, since the ringing constitutes a kind of Latin heresy for us, having been borrowed by us from the West), and so, forcing people, who are really inclined to put what is now indicated in a more or less close connection with the very essence of faith, to think that everything could perish with this, the government claimed that the Turks destroyed Orthodoxy among the Greeks in the proper sense of the word... In turn, the convincing preaching of our theologians regarding the latter’s explanation of how the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks disappeared among the later Greeks seems to be bewildering and convincing. Our theologians explained this disappearance not by one thing, but by one thing, and another, and a third: first they referred to the Florentine Council, then they began to refer - on the one hand, to this, indicated by the government, capture of Constantinople by the Turks, on the other hand - to the fact that the Greeks printed their books in Latin lands and that the Latins allegedly got the opportunity to include their heresies in their books, and also referred to something else. But in fact there is nothing strange about this. Our ancestors formed a conviction about the later Greeks that they had departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, not on the basis of any actual data, which alone in this case they would have pointed to, but due to the fact that they had formed a unique view of church customs and that regarding the latter we were separated from the Greeks, in other words, that they formed a conviction for themselves in a theoretical and a priori way, regardless of any dependence on any reality. Based on their unique view of customs, with the addition of the fact that we were separated from the Greeks regarding the latter, for them it was an undoubted fact that from someone and somehow the later Greeks were infected with heretical innovations and that someone somehow destroyed the purity of ancient Orthodoxy among them (a custom can have only one Orthodox form; but among the Greeks, some customs had a different form against us; therefore - The Greeks borrowed this other, heretical form from someone and somehow). A fact that was undoubted in itself had to be explained somehow, that is, by something external: it turned out to be possible to refer to the Florence Cathedral, and our ancestors referred to it; the opportunity arose to refer to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, to the printing of books by the Greeks in Latin lands - and our ancestors began to refer to both. If it were not for the Council of Florence, if it were not for the capture of Constantinople by the Turks and the printing of books by the Greeks in the Latin lands, the damage to the purity of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks would have remained for our ancestors all the same and still an undoubted fact, and only to explain it they would have referred to something else. In a word, the very fact of damage to the purity of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks, which was undoubted for our ancestors, had to be explained by something external, so they were ready and sought to explain it with everything that seemed possible, that is, more or less probable. So, in the middle of the 15th century, regarding the song of hallelujah and making the sign of the cross, our ancestors formed the belief that the later Greeks had deviated from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks. This conviction has been since the half of the 15th century and remained the firm and common conviction of our ancestors until Patriarch Nikon himself. The existence of precisely this conviction explains the bewildered history of our disputes about church customs and the streamlining of the ritual side of worship by church authorities after half of the 10th century, as well as the history of our pre-Nikon correction of liturgical books. In 1479, a very heated dispute arose between Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich and Metropolitan Gerontius about how to perform religious processions - along the sun or against the sun. It would be natural to expect that in order to resolve a dispute that they could not resolve themselves, they would turn to the Greeks for help. However, this was not done at all and, on the contrary, the reference to the Greeks of one of the persons participating in the dispute was left without any attention. This means that we no longer trusted the Greeks of that time and that they were no longer considered competent to resolve the dispute. One of the tasks of the Stoglavy Cathedral was to streamline our church rituals and liturgical rites. It would be natural to expect that in this case we would have before our eyes the example of the Greeks. However, this did not happen at all, so for the cathedral the Greeks seemed not to exist. The reason for this was that at the time of the council we no longer considered the Greeks to be an obligatory example of ourselves 141. Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich instructed Maxim the Greek to correct our liturgical books according to Greek books; but when Maxim, fulfilling his assignment, discovered important errors in the books, he attracted the grave anger of both the Grand Duke and all Russians with his discovery. This means that the Grand Duke allowed only some unimportant disagreement between our books and the Greek books (implied, that is, as the sovereign meant - the ancients) 142 and that the discovery of Maxim encroached on the faith of the Russians that they were the guardians of the intact purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks (and for this purpose, by the way, to undermine the authority of Maxim as a corrector of books, and tried as much as possible to bring up accusations against him as a corrupter of books). When book printing was introduced in our country and the printing of liturgical books began, the so-called book references of the pasha encountered great difficulty in preparing the originals for printing, that is, in preparing the lists from which to print books, because in the manuscripts the books presented a great variety (this variety will be discussed more deliberately below) and the references did not know what to prefer and what to choose. With such a difficulty, it would be natural to turn to the help of Greek printed books. But we do not see this at all before Nikon, and the reason for this is that we did not believe printed, as well as new, Greek books in general 143. Direct statements from the Russians after the half of the 15th century that the purity of Orthodoxy was damaged among the later Greeks and that only they, the Russians, remain the guardians of this purity, have not been made known to this day. But, in any case, we have one containing these statements, a monument or document, the purpose of which, as if in a deliberate way, is to eliminate all our doubts and present the matter to us with complete clarity. We mean “Debate” with the Greeks about faith by Arseny Sukhanov 144. This debate, on the one hand, undoubtedly proves that the Russians’ view of the Greeks and themselves, which is subject to speeches, was firmly held by them immediately before Nikon; and on the other hand, it depicts our view with such certainty and such thoroughness that there is nothing left to wish for anything more 145. So, from the middle of the 15th century, due to the reasons we have indicated, we formed the conviction about the later Greeks that they had departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, and the matter was understood as if everything in which the Greeks differed from us in church rites and customs and liturgical books was their heretical and sinful innovations. This completely unfair, but long-term and firm conviction was the reason for the split in the Old Believers in our country 146. Patriarch Nikon realized the injustice and unfoundedness of the belief, as a result of which he undertook his correction of rituals and books. The decisive majority of society recognized and accepted Nikon’s correction, changing their view of the Greeks in its wake. But among the whole society there were individual people who, in the name of the previous view of the Greeks, rebelled against Nikon’s correction. It was from these individual people that the split in the Old Believers began 147. From what we have said, it is clear that our split in the Old Believers is a consequence of the interaction of two reasons: our disunity with the Greeks in some church customs and our lack of enlightenment, which was the reason for the formation of our own unique views on church customs. If we had not separated from the Greeks in customs, then even in the absence of enlightenment a split in the Old Believers would not have arisen among us, because then we would have had no reason to accuse the Greeks of heretical innovations. If we had had enlightenment, then even when we were separated from the Greeks, a schism in the Old Believers would not have arisen among us, because then we would not have looked at their differences with us as heretical innovations. But under the existing conditions in relation to ritual (we mean that the Greek diversity of the latter passed on to us and that uniformity was established between them and us independently of each other), it was very difficult not to happen that in some way we would not be separated from the Greeks. Consequently, the main reason for the emergence of a schism in the Old Believers among us is our lack of enlightenment, with the existence of which, in any or no case, a schism would not have taken place among us, since then we would not have developed unique views on church customs. II. How did Nikon come up with the idea of ​​​​correcting rituals and books, and what was it or what did his correction of books consist of? Before Patriarch Nikon, the Russians explained their differences with the Greeks in the rites and customs of the church and the disagreement of their Slavic liturgical books with the Greek books in such a way that they, the Russians, invariably preserve the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, and as if the later Greeks, having departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, allowed themselves heretical and sinful innovations. Patriarch Nikon realized the injustice of our opinion about the later Greeks, which is why he undertook his own correction of rituals and books. But how did it happen that Nikon realized the injustice of this opinion, after it had prevailed among us for entire centuries and was held by us with all firmness for centuries? Our Russian opinion about the later Greeks, that they departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks and became infected with heretical innovations, was a blatant injustice in relation to these later Greeks. This blatant injustice had to come to an end someday, and Nikon was called upon to put an end to it. On his own he would hardly have been able to rise to the consciousness of the injustice of our opinion of the later Greeks, because of himself he could not have been aroused to this by anything. But he was able to listen to the ideas of outsiders regarding this, which actually took place: a revolution in opinion about the later Greeks was carried out in him by the Patriarch of Jerusalem Paisius and the Kyiv scientists. Patriarch Paisius of Jerusalem arrived in Moscow for alms on January 27, 1649 and remained there for four and a half months until June 10 of the same 1649. It was completely natural that, prompted by the desire to receive the most generous alms from the sovereign, he tried to gain the favor of the people who were closest to the sovereign. One of the people closest to Alexei Mikhailovich at that time was Nikon, whom Paisiy found as Archimandrite Novospassky and who, under him, on March 11, 1649, was installed as metropolitan of Novgorod. And indeed Paisiy tried to get closer to Nikon. Five or six days later after his arrival in Moscow, before the onset of Lent (which in 1649 began on February 4), he submitted his “sheet” to the sovereign through the Ambassadorial Order, in which, having expressed his wishes to spend the time of fasting healthy and unharmed, etc., he addressed him with a request: “while staying with your grace, I spoke in the past days with the reverend Archimandrite of Spassky Nikon and I fell in love with his conversation - he is a reverent, idle man (pleasant, serious, edifying 148 and faithful to your kingdom: I ask that you have the freedom to come to us to talk at your leisure, without the prohibition of your great kingdom." From the beginning of the 16th century, Greeks began to come to Moscow for alms in very large numbers, so that before Paisius there were a great many of them in Moscow; if the stay in Moscow of any of the former Greeks was not accompanied by the consequences that accompanied the stay of Paisius: then on the one hand, this perhaps means that none of the former Greeks had the courage to tell the Russians about the injustice of their opinion about them - the later Greeks 150, and on the other hand, this in any case means that before Nikon the Russians had no desire to listen to such speeches. How little desire the former Russians had to listen to the aforementioned speeches, we see this in the example of their behavior with the patriarchs Jeremiah and Theophan: satisfying the unreasonable demand on the part of the Russians, based on their peculiar Muscovite understanding of the matter, that the patriarchs had an excess of episcopal grace, Jeremiah had to appoint Job as patriarch, and Theophan - Philaret, repeating the full episcopal ordination 151, and then the first of the two, through a handwritten signature, had to confirm the Russian opinion about Moscow as the third Rome, and that it “exceeds all in piety,” for this is read in the established document on the establishment of the patriarchate, signed by Jeremiah 152, and the second without ceremony taught (and humbly allowed himself to be taught) Russian customs and procedures worship services 153. If Paisius decided to talk to Nikon about the injustice of the Russian opinion regarding the later Greeks, then it is necessary to understand this in such a way that, having the courage and desire to raise a speech about this, he noticed in Nikon a willingness to listen to it. Regarding Paisius’s courage, of course, we must assume that he was endowed with it by nature and that by this quality of his character he was an advanced person; and as for the desire, it is completely understandable: there is no doubt that it was a long-standing desire of the Greeks. Nikon’s willingness to listen to Paisius’s speeches, of course, should have depended on the properties and qualities of his mind. What was needed was tolerance, which would allow Nikon to listen to arguments against what was a firm conviction in Moscow; strength of mind was needed to recognize the soundness of the arguments, and finally, courage of mind was needed not to be embarrassed by the thought of the need to change a previously existing conviction. That Nikon was distinguished by the strength and courage of his mind is a generally recognized fact. Apparently he was not at all tolerant. But if he subsequently carried out his new conviction with intolerance, then it always happens that people who are newly convinced are not distinguished by tolerance, and this in no way denies the presence of tolerance in them during the, so to speak, normal time for them, as long as they hold on to the old conviction: tolerance is a property of strong minds, like not being embarrassed by the thought of the possibility of changing their view, otherwise, with a stubborn “I don’t want to listen,” the transition from prejudice to conviction would be impossible for them. Brought by Paisius's arguments to greater or lesser doubt about the validity of the prevailing belief in Moscow that the purity of Orthodoxy was damaged among the later Greeks, Nikon had to report his doubts to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Alexey Mikhailovich, who did not at all have Nikonov’s strong character, was, as is known, a man of exceptional intelligence, in which he was in any case equal to Nikon, and perhaps to a significant extent superior to him. Consequently, if Paisius’s arguments in favor of the Greeks had an effect on this latter, then they could have the same and even more effect on the sovereign. In addition to Nikon, Alexei Mikhailovich, a 20-year-old youth in 1649, had two more people, without whose advice he did not give his thoughts any definite direction: his educator, boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov, and his confessor, Blagoveshchensk archpriest Stefan Vonifatievich. Both of these latter were very outstanding people, capable of listening to the voice of truth, and both of them took the side of the doubts of the sovereign and Nikon. Brought to doubt, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his advisers decided to subject the question to their own research, so that, in view of its great importance, not to remain with one doubt, but to dwell on something positive. For this purpose, at first it was decided to send a reliable Russian person to the East, who would bring as detailed a report as possible on how much the Greeks differ from us in rituals and customs and in church ranks. In pursuance of this decision, the famous Arseny Sukhanov was sent to the East along with Patriarch Paisius himself, who then presented his Proscinitary 154 to the sovereign in the form of a report. With all probability, one should think that this first study of the issue was a private and secret affair between the king and his three named advisers, and that Patriarch Joseph himself was not privy to the secret. By secret we mean not that Arseny was sent to the East secretly - he was sent completely openly, but that the true purpose was secret, for which the sovereign needed to have information about the ranks and rituals of the Greeks. During Paisius’ stay in Moscow, such a strong quarrel occurred between the Tsar’s confessor and Patriarch Joseph that it made it completely impossible to involve the latter in the secret, and the reason for which will make it clear that they could not have even wanted to involve him in it. The point was this. Regarding the performance of divine services, in order to speed it up, we have since a very long time introduced the most outrageous custom of singing at once in both choirs and reading at once in several voices in five, six and even more 155 . It was in vain that Metropolitan wrote against this custom. Photius, in one of his messages to Pskov (the same one in which about the threefold song of the Alleluia), in vain made his decree of the Hundred-Glavy Council and in vain confirmed the decree of the Council of Patriarchs. Hermogenes 156. 24 years after the death of Hermogenes, the immediate predecessor of Patriarch Joseph, Joasaph the 1st, turned his attention to the outrageous disgrace and tried to at least somewhat limit it through a compromise, namely, he ordered that polyphony should not go beyond two or three votes at a time 157. Stefan Vonifatievich, who was not only a very outstanding person, as we said above, but also a truly remarkable church leader of ours, became the spiritual father of Alexei Mikhailovich, inspired by the best intentions towards the state and the church from the very beginning of his reign 158 and immediately acquired the greatest influence on him, set himself to the idea of a broad and serious church reform in our country - about correcting the morals of the clergy and the laity, about bringing the hitherto ugly worship into its proper form and about resuming teaching to the people in the churches (through the reading of the works of the fathers and the lives of the saints, as prescribed by the charter, as Joseph’s predecessor Joasaph also prescribed). But, not to mention the correction of the morals of the clergy and laity, bringing the hitherto ugly divine service into proper form or introducing unanimity instead of polyphony was not a joke at all. Since the introduction of unanimity was the same as a significant lengthening of the divine service, all the laity were most resolutely against it, and the question of it being seriously posed aroused a whole real revolution in society. Stefan Vonifatievich gathered around him in Moscow a circle of people who sympathized with him, who ardently propagated his idea of ​​​​the need for unanimity; attracted some provincial archpriests to his side (or, through the mediation of the sovereign, put like-minded people in the archpriest’s places): but without the official and active participation of the patriarch and bishops, the goal could not be achieved. Meanwhile, Patriarch Joseph, either to please the boyars, who did not want unanimity at all, or, as Shusherin says, out of stupid attachment to antiquity, stood for polyphony. This advocacy by the patriarch of the old outrage was the cause of the terrible quarrel between him and Stefan Vonifatievich. On February 11, 1640, on Assembly Sunday, the patriarch and the bishops who were in Moscow came after the service to the royal chambers. During their presentation to the sovereign, Stephen made a public complaint against them to the latter, which in its nature was a cruel abuse against them: they were called wolves and destroyers, and not shepherds 160. After such a strong quarrel between the confessor and the patriarch, in which, as one must think, Alexei Mikhailovich himself took an indirect and hidden part 161, there could be no question of trying to involve the patriarch in the secret we are talking about. That the matter really was a secret is clear from Arseny Sukhanov’s behavior towards the Greeks: in his well-known debates with them, he most decisively defends the Moscow view of them and most decisively denounces them for heretical innovations; but if he had known by what motive and for what purpose he was sent as a gift to describe the rites and rituals of the Greeks, he would have spoken with the Greeks in a significantly different tone, and it is very possible that his very debate with them would not have taken place. But before Arseny returned from the East with his Proscinitary, a final revolution in opinion about the Greeks took place in Moscow. The work begun by Paisius was completed, as we said, by Kyiv scientists who arrived in Moscow immediately after the Patriarch of Jerusalem left it. Among scientists there should be only one person in mind, this is the famous Epiphanius Slavinetsky. Kyiv scientists were called by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich for two purposes: for rhetorical teaching and for reference of the Greek Bible into Slavic speech, i.e., for the establishment in Moscow of a real school with scientific education and for verification and correction of the Slavic text of the Bible according to the Greek original. The first, to some extent real, school was opened in Moscow under Mikhail Feodorovich and Patriarch Philaret at the end of 1632, thanks to the arrival of a Greek capable of being a teacher; but, having existed for not much more than a year, it closed due to the death of the teacher (protosyncellus of the Alexandrian Patriarch Joseph) 162. At the beginning of 1646, that is, already during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich and under Patriarch Joseph, some Greeks who wanted to introduce enlightenment among us sent another teacher (Archimandrite Benedict of Constantinople); but this teacher was not liked in Moscow, mainly, it seems, by the patriarch and his closest advisers, with his real, or only so found among us, learned arrogance, and, after living in Moscow for a year, he was released back from it 163. Meanwhile, if Mikhail Feodorovich and his father were not averse to starting a real school in Moscow when the opportunity presented itself, then Alexey Mikhailovich, going further than his father and grandfather and representing the true forerunner of his great son, was animated by a positive and passionate desire to introduce “rhetoric teaching” in Moscow, that is, real scientific education 164. After the failure with the Greek teacher, it was decided to turn to the Little Russians 165. In 1640, the Kiev Metropolitan Peter Mogila proposed to Mikhail Feodorovich that in his reigning city, with his royal treasury, he ordered the construction of a monastery in which the elders and brethren of the cenobitic Kyiv Brotherhood Monastery would teach the tenacious children of the boyars and the common rank Greek and Slovenian literacy. In accordance with this idea, it was decided to act, only at first to conduct the matter not as a royal matter, but as a private matter. In 1647–48 A person close to Alexei Mikhailovich, the famous Fyodor Mikhailovich Rtishchev, built a cenobitic monastery at one church, located on the outskirts of Moscow, and convened up to 30 Little Russian learned monks into it 166. These monks began in Moscow the rhetorical teaching that Alexei Mikhailovich passionately desired. But it soon turned out that the learning of the monks who gathered at the Rtishchev monastery (in all likelihood: “some from Borka, some from pine”) is very small and that there are no real scientists among them 167 . Then the sovereign, on his own behalf, turned to Kyiv with a request to send real scientists. Another thing for which Alexei Mikhailovich needed Kyiv scientists, that is, real scientists, was, as we said, verification and correction of the Slavic text of the Bible according to the Greek original. We already had all the liturgical books in print, but there was no Bible yet: Alexey Mikhailovich wanted to print that too (together with the Helmsman’s book, which also remained unprinted). They wanted to prepare the text for printing as satisfactorily as possible, having verified and corrected it according to the Greek original 168; and since there were no people in Moscow who knew Greek, Kyiv scientists were needed for our work. Probably, on the instructions of one Muscovite, who became a monk in Kyiv and arrived in Moscow for alms 169, the tsar asked the Kyiv spiritual authorities in two, one after another, letters, from the unknown beginning of 1649 and from May 14 of the same year, to send him teachers Arseny Satanovsky and Damascene Ptitsky, of whom the first was a monk of Bratsky, and the second of Pechersky monastery Damascene Ptitsky was not sent (he arrived in Moscow a little later, at the end of 1650), and instead of him, the hieromonk of the same Fraternal Monastery, Epifaniy Slavinetsky, was sent with Arseny Satanovsky. Arseny and Epiphany arrived in Moscow on July 12, 1649 170 The two requested teachers, Arseny and Damascene, did not distinguish themselves in anything in Moscow and immediately upon their arrival there sank into obscurity, but the third, uninvited and accidentally sent, i.e. Epiphanius, in addition to his very extensive literary activity (mainly devoted to translations from Greek and Latin, as required by the circumstances and needs of the time), in addition to his activity as a corrector of liturgical books, in addition that for one and for another activity he prepared and left such a successor as the monk Euthymius, finally - in addition to his participation in church affairs as a person giving his competent voice, he also has that very important and greatest merit that he finally brought about a change in view of the later Greeks in Moscow and that thus he was indirectly one of the culprits of Nikon’s correction of books. If, of the three sent, it was he, Epiphanius, who came forward and became an influential figure: then, it goes without saying, because he towered over the other two and that he was capable of becoming an influential figure 171. Now we have expressed that Epiphanius finally made a change in his view of the later Greeks in Moscow: it is not without reason that we expressed it so generally, without pointing to Nikon as the person in whom Epiphanius made the change. The first doubts about the validity of the previous view came from Nikon, being the fruit of his conversations with Patriarch Paisius; but as for the final recognition of the unfoundedness of the view, there is every possibility of thinking that things did not happen in such a way that Epiphanius managed to achieve this in relation to Nikon, and Nikon in relation to the Tsar and others. At the moment of the arrival in Moscow, July 12, 1649, of the Kyiv scientists, Nikon was in Novgorod, to the metropolitan see of which he had been appointed four months earlier, and did not come to Moscow, at least until the winter of 1649–50 172. Consequently, until this winter he could not see Epiphanius. Meanwhile, we have reason to believe that in Moscow the final change of view, if not completely accomplished, then at least began before Nikon could see Epiphanius. Sylvester Medvedev in his “Table of Contents of the Books, Who Compiled Them” claims that the latter translated the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom from Greek into Slavic in the summer of 7157, which should be understandable about the months of July and August of 1649, for September 1649, according to the then September account, was already in the summer of 7158. Given to Epiphanius immediately after his arrival in Moscow, the order to translate the liturgy of Chrysostom from Greek into Slavic is undoubtedly and clearly related to the question of our view. In all likelihood, the matter should be understood not in such a way that Epiphanius, immediately upon his arrival in Moscow, managed to convince whoever needed it that Slavic books should be corrected according to the Greek original, but in such a way that in Moscow, immediately after his arrival, they wanted to know and see how much our Slavic liturgy differs from modern Greek, or, conversely, how much modern Greek liturgy differs from ours Slavic. But in any case, this desire and the extreme impatience with which they wanted to satisfy themselves regarding him clearly show that the issue that Nikon initially raised was of keen interest to people besides him. And if they were keenly interested in the issue, it is clear that they were not at all against the possibility that it would be resolved in favor of the Greeks, for otherwise they would prefer ignorance to investigating the matter. Apart from Nikon, as we said above, there must be three more people interested in the question and privy to its preliminary secret: Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself, his confessor Archpriest Stefan Vonifatievich and his tutor Boris Ivanovich Morozov. The tsar himself, as far as we know, did not have personal relations with Epiphanius, and therefore the first who had direct conversations with him about the Greeks, in order to resolve the issue about them, and who was immediately more or less disposed by him in favor of the Greeks in order to win over the other two, was either Stefan Vonifatievich or Boris Ivanovich. Between two persons - the confessor and the secular, of course, there is every possibility of thinking about the first, and not about the second, and thus, Stefan Vonifatievich should be given, together with Nikon, the honor of the first mover of our very important question to the solution that he received. From September 1649 to the end of July 1652, when Nikon was appointed patriarch, two years less a month passed. We have reason to assert that Nikon was appointed patriarch with the decided intention of undertaking a correction of rituals and books, and therefore with a changed view of the Greeks; but when, in the course of our time, he, together with the sovereign, the two named and perhaps some other advisers to the sovereign, privy to the secret (among whom it is very likely to think of at least one - Fyodor Mikhailovich Rtishchev), finally changed their view of the Greeks, we are not able to say this positively. It may very well be that this took place on his first visit from Novgorod to Moscow, which, according to our information, should be attributed to the winter of 1049–50. 173 But if the gentle Alexei Mikhailovich did not want to impose a new view of the Greeks on the elderly Patriarch Joseph, in order to force him to undertake the correction of rituals and books, and preferred to wait for his death: then there could be no incentive for him to declare your new view through some completely clear actions. On the contrary, he had to conceal from the patriarch his new view and the decision connected with it or necessarily resulting from it to undertake the correction of rituals and books, so as not to upset the patriarch in a vain and pointless manner. So it really was 174. And therefore we are placed in the impossibility of indicating - which, however, is not particularly important, when exactly during the time we indicated it happened that the sovereign, together with Nikon and his other advisers, finally changed his view of the later Greeks 175. But how did Epiphanius manage to finally change Moscow’s views on the Greeks? When, regarding some matter, we do not know directly how it happened, then, of course, in response to a question about it, only speeches that seem most probable to us can take place on our part. Arriving in Moscow and learning about local views on the Greeks, hearing local speeches about them, Epiphanius should have been in the greatest amazement, for there was nothing like this in Kievan Rus. Perhaps there, too, at the same time as in Moscow, those peculiar views on church customs began to take shape, the consequence of which were Muscovite views on the later Greeks; but enlightenment appeared there, which was supposed to suppress the beginnings of views. And not only in the time of Epiphanius there was nothing like this in Kievan Rus, but, on the contrary, there, fighting against the Latins and Uniates, they most deliberately and most urgently tried to hammer home the integrity of Orthodoxy among the Greeks (for the Latins, attracting the southwestern Russians to the pope, tried to prove to them, on the one hand, that the Greeks had accepted the Florentine Union, and on the other hand - as if Christianity fell under the Turkish yoke among the Greeks). In Kyiv they ardently argued for the integrity of Orthodoxy among the Greeks and their firm devotion to it, and in Moscow they held beliefs about the later Greeks that they had betrayed the purity of Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks and adopted heretical innovations! It was completely natural for Epiphanius to act as the most ardent apologist of the Greeks, and since people already had their ears open and prepared to listen to the apology (of course Patr. Paisius), it happened that it had its full effect and that after the start laid by Patr. Paisiy, led to the end, that is, so that Moscow would finally change its view of the later Greeks. Our Muscovite conviction regarding the later Greeks, that they were infected with heretical innovations, stemmed from our peculiar view of church customs; but, of course, we did not realize this (for no one is aware of their misunderstanding, otherwise the latter cannot take place) and sought to explain the matter by external reasons. As external reasons, we pointed precisely to what was refuted in Kievan Rus (i.e., as if the Greeks accepted the Florentine Union, as if Christianity had fallen under the Turkish yoke), and therefore, Epiphanius could only use ready-made (already developed and properly presented) evidence. One must think that the own living example of Kievan Rus seemed to be especially convincing evidence for the Muscovite people (those few in question). It was not difficult to prove from simple common sense that the Turks, as infidels, could not damage the Orthodoxy of the Greeks; but common sense alone was not enough to prove that the Greeks did not borrow heresies from the Latins, for there was something in itself possible, and in this case the living example of Kievan Rus could serve as convincing evidence. If the Kyiv Russians, waging a most persistent and bloody struggle with the Latins, at the same time ardently defended the integrity of Orthodoxy among the Greeks, then it was too clearly clear that they did not recognize the justice of the fact that the Greeks were infected with Latin heresies. Consequently, for the Moscow Russians the only question that could arise was: were the Kyiv Russians mistaken about the Greeks? But at that very time, the Moscow Russians realized the superiority of the Kyiv enlightenment over their ignorance; and thus, they had to admit and admit that it was more natural for them - the Moscow Russians - with their ignorance to be mistaken about the Greeks than for the Kievan Russians. At the same time, the great shadow of the just deceased Peter Mogila should have risen before the eyes of people. Peter Mogila solemnly recognized the integrity of Orthodoxy among the Greeks by presenting for their conciliar consideration and approval the catechism he compiled (Orthodox Confession of Faith): could he, a man of such intelligence and such zeal for Orthodoxy, be mistaken about the Greeks? This circumstance, that at that time it was the Moscow Russians who had risen to the point of recognizing the superiority of enlightenment over ignorance, gave Epiphanius the opportunity to immediately convince them of the error of their view of the later Greeks. We looked at the differences between the Greeks and us in church customs as heretical innovations they had allowed. But it is clear that innovations were easier to allow for ignorant people, such as we were, than for educated people, such as the Greeks; and thus, relying on this, then recognized by the Moscow Russians, the superiority of enlightenment over ignorance, Epiphanius was able to convince them that heretical innovations were not allowed by the Greeks, but, on the contrary, by ourselves, as a result of our irresponsible ignorance 176 . We said above that Nikon ascended the patriarchal throne with the previously accepted intention of correcting rituals and books. This is clearly evident from his behavior upon accession to the throne. Before expressing his consent to accept the rank of patriarch, he demanded that everyone give him a solemn promise that they would obey him as a shepherd and father in everything that he would proclaim about the dogmas of God and the rules 177. Nikon had no incentive to make this unusual demand in the past, for the past did not provide any examples of disobedience to the patriarch, and it is obvious that he did not mean the past, but the future, i.e., that he was afraid of disobedience and resistance to himself regarding the correction of rituals and books that he had already decided. Before turning to another question we have raised, we must speak of a new opinion recently stated regarding the previous question. A new opinion belongs to our venerable comrade N.F. Kapterev and consists in the fact that the sinful view that we had of the later Greeks was changed not by Nikon, but by his predecessor Joseph, and that “Nikon in his activities only continued what had begun under his predecessor” (see the study of Mr. Kapterev mentioned several times above: “Patriarch Nikon and his opponents in the matter of correcting church rites”). Justifying ourselves with the well-known: magnus amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas, we must decisively speak out against the justice of Mr. Kapterev’s new opinion. A change in view of the Greeks, as we said above, actually took place in our country in the last years of Joseph’s patriarchate; but it took place apart from him and even, as it were, secretly, in secret from him, with the hostile attitude towards him of the circle of people indicated above, with the king at its head, who rose to the point of changing his view. As for Joseph himself, there is no doubt that before the change in his view of the Greeks began, independent of him, he did not change this view at all and continued to remain with the same view as his predecessors. If only Patr. Joseph, earlier than Nikon, changed his view of the later Greeks: then they would also have undertaken the correction of rituals and books: one necessarily presupposes the other, just as it is necessarily assumed that if I realized a mistake and if I have good will and the opportunity to correct it, then I immediately correct it. The matter has itself in exactly this way, and just as to assume about someone that he realized his mistake, has the desire and opportunity to correct it, and at the same time does not correct it, is a complete inconsistency in essence and a logical contradiction: so to assume about Patriarch Joseph that he changed his view of the later Greeks and yet did not undertake the correction of rituals and books, would be the same incongruity. Our old view of the later Greeks was that their ritual differences with us were recognized by us for their heretical and sinful innovations; to change your view of them meant to admit that the heretical and sinful innovations were not theirs, but ours. But if this is so, then Patriarch Joseph, realizing that the Russian Church is infected (unconsciously for himself) with heretical and sinful innovations, of course, along with this and inseparably from this, should have had a desire to eliminate the innovations and immediately actually undertake their elimination; and therefore, if he did not do or did not attempt to do this last thing, then to assume about him that he changed his view of the later Greeks, while he did not undertake to correct the rituals and books, means to admit about him the non-sens and incongruity that we indicated, that the person realized the mistake, had the desire and opportunity to correct it, and at the same time did not correct it. Thus, if Patriarch Joseph did not undertake to correct the rituals and books, then it necessarily follows or this necessarily assumes that he did not change his view of the later Greeks 178. G. Kapterev did not pay attention to the striking details. The main heretical novelty of the later Greeks, in the opinion of the Russians, was that for the sign of the cross they used three fingers, not two fingers. If Patriarch Joseph had changed his view of the Greeks and therefore recognized this three-fingeredness as Orthodox antiquity, and the two-fingeredness that we had as a heretical novelty, then he would have to take care to introduce the first into general use among us instead of the second. But what do we actually see? In fact, we see just the opposite, namely, that Patriarch Joseph made the most diligent efforts to introduce into our general use precisely that method of finger formation, which, if his view of the Greeks changed, he should consider it a heretical innovation among us, i.e., two fingers. Mr. Kapterov also forgot about Arseny Sukhanov. If Patriarch Joseph had already changed his view of the Greeks, then what was the purpose of sending Sukhanov to the East, and why on earth would the patriarch, who had changed his view of the Greeks, want to send a man who so fanatically adhered to the old view? Of course, Mr. Kapterov does not present the case in such a way that Patriarch Joseph changed his view of the Greeks, but that Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich had not yet changed his view (and this presentation by Sukhanov to the Tsar and Patriarch, after a change in view of the Greeks took place in Moscow, his “Debate”, in which he so mercilessly denounces the latter from the point of view of the old view, would be nothing more than a daring and grave insult to the Tsar and Patriarch! 179 Finally, Mr. Kapterev either considers Patriarch Nikon to be a brazen liar and a braggart, which we, of course, do not think, or he has lost sight of how Nikon presents the correction of rituals and books he planned in his well-known proclamations to the council of 1654, i.e., that Nikon presents it as a completely new undertaking, undertaken and started by him 180. What Patr. Joseph did not change his view of the later Greeks; this constitutes (according to the above) something unconditional and, so to speak, mathematically undeniable. If so, then, obviously, there cannot be evidence to the contrary, and what is cited as such evidence, as contradicting the undoubted, is either something incorrect and non-existent, or something requiring a different explanation than the one given. G. Kapterev provides the following evidence that Patr. Joseph, before Nikon, changed his view of the later Greeks: 1) under Joseph, two polemical collections borrowed from Kievan Rus were published in Moscow against the Latins with the Uniates and against the Lutherans (Kirillov, the book and the Book of Faith), in which the integrity of the Orthodoxy of the later Greeks was strongly demonstrated; 2) Patr himself. Joseph, in his letters to Prince Voldemar, speaks directly and clearly about this intactness of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks; 3) Patr. Joseph himself testified that he did not consider Orthodoxy damaged among the later Greeks: he turned to the Patriarch of Constantinople with a special letter, in which he asked him for permission to certain church issues; 4) Joseph’s inspectors clearly expressed the idea that our Russian liturgical books should be corrected according to Greek books. The first three of these proofs represent something to which a different meaning should be given than what is given, and the fourth proof either constitutes an incorrect (confused) reference to something that actually did not happen or fits into the same category with the first three proofs. If in Moscow, under Patriarch Joseph, two South Russian polemical collections were published, in which the integrity of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks was strongly defended, then the Moscow Russians, printing their collections and not releasing speeches from them about the integrity of Orthodoxy among the Greeks, could understand these latter not in an unconditional, but in a limited sense, namely, to recognize that Orthodoxy among the Greeks was intact, as far as they agree with us, but at the same time implying that it is damaged in them, to the extent that they disagree with us 181 . The collections themselves were supposed to justify this way of understanding the Moscow Russians and make them think that the southern Russians understand the matter in the same way: they defend the integrity of Orthodoxy among the Greeks and at the same time, the folding of fingers for the sign of the cross is prescribed not Greek, but Moscow, not three-fingered, but two-fingered 182. That such a way of understanding was possible on the part of the Moscow Russians is proven to us by a real example of such an understanding: Philaret’s inquirers, Abbot Elijah and Grigory Onisimov, left inviolable in the catechism of Lavrentiy Zizaniy his words that “the Greeks have preserved the faith of Christ intact and inviolable to this day” and at the same time made to him their well-known statement about the unacceptability of Greeks in Moscow printed books as more or less damaged. Patr. Joseph, in his letters to Prince Waldemar, speaks directly and clearly about the integrity of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks precisely in the sense we have now indicated, i.e., meaning its integrity in relation to those points that were the subject of dispute between us and the Lutherans and in relation to which the Orthodoxy of the later Greeks was actually recognized in Moscow as intact. But what about Patr. Joseph recognized the integrity of the Orthodoxy of the later Greeks (as long as we agreed with them in our own creed) and did not recognize it (how much they differed from us in rituals), it is clear from the fact that he himself wrote to the prince about the integrity of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks, and that one of his representatives in disputes with the prince’s pastor, Ivan Nasedka, spoke about the corruption of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks If Patr. Joseph in 1650 turned to the Patriarch of Constantinople Parthenius with a request to give an answer to some questions: then again this may not be understood in such a way that he would change his opinion about the Greeks and at the same time recognize the obligatory authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople in matters of religion and practice. The issue here was mainly about unanimous reading and singing. Being terribly reproached by his opponents for his reluctance to introduce unanimity, Patriarch Joseph naturally wanted to justify himself by citing some authority that was recognized by his opponents, and since he knew that his opponents were inclined to recognize the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople (for the secret with which the king covered the matter with his advisers, of course, was not hidden from him), he could turn to the patriarch in vain (perhaps instilled in him by some Greek rogue) the hope that he would receive an answer from the latter, which he could refer to in his justification 183 . That Joseph’s inspectors clearly expressed the idea of ​​​​the need to correct our liturgical books according to Greek books, this is asserted on the basis that in the preface to Smotritsky’s grammar, published by them in 1648, extensive extracts from the words of Maxim the Greek are given, with which he justifies himself in correcting our books according to Greek books. But extracts from Maxim’s words are given in the preface not with the purpose of showing the need to correct our books according to the Greek books, but to show the need for us – Russians – to learn and enlighten. The entire extensive preface to grammar, which is the initial wisdom of the seven free wisdoms or the first science in the circle of school sciences, is devoted to proving this necessity for us of teaching and enlightenment. After a long series of evidence in favor of the need for enlightenment, borrowed from the lives of the holy fathers and from the works of the fathers, evidence in favor of the same is given from Maxim the Greek, who is verbose in Russia. “Maxim the Greek,” says the preface, “in his book, with his writings, he reproaches those who blaspheme the teaching and those who do not demand it, and even more so, he denounces, and the rest does not implore, so that they may be skillful and teach the divine scriptures,” and with the now indicated purpose, he cites passages from Maxim; and if he quotes them precisely from the words of Maximus, with which he justifies himself in correcting our books from the Greek books, it is because these words contain the passages desired by the author of the preface (saying that the errors in our liturgical books arose from the ignorance of our translators and copyists and that for a good translation from Greek one must be an educated person). But even if we agree that Joseph’s reference books came to the realization of the need to correct our books according to Greek books, then by Greek books we must mean not new or modern, but ancient 184; As for the first ones, we have a direct review of them by one of the inquiry officers (Ivan Nasedka) as damaged books 185 . If only Patr. Joseph changed his view of the Greeks in order to take action in relation to rituals and books corresponding to this change of view: then the protest that we see raised against Nikon should have risen against him. G. Kapterev claims that this really happened. But this is a strange misunderstanding on his part. To Patr. Members of Archpriest Stefan Vonifatievich’s circle harbored strong enmity against Joseph; Mr. Kapterev believes that not all members of the circle harbored enmity, but only some, namely, that these were the same members of the circle whom we later see protesting against Nikon, and that they, having separated from Stefan Vonifatievich (who, according to subsequent information about him, should have been considered to have changed his mind along with the patriarch) rebelled against Joseph for the same thing for which they later rebelled against Nikon. In fact, not just some, but all the members of Stefan’s circle (which did not disintegrate throughout Joseph’s reign), with himself at its head, were at enmity against Joseph, and the real reason for the enmity was not the patriarch’s change of view of the Greeks (then Stefan would not be against the patriarch, but with him, as he later was with Nikon), but in his resistance to the introduction of unanimity. At the council on unanimity, which took place on February 9, 1651, Patriarch Joseph complained that he “has been beaten by the wedding for the third time this summer, suffering slanderous wounds”: the third summer from 1651 is 1649, and it is clear that Joseph is talking about the beating from the wedding, which began with the scene of February 11, 1649, which we talked about above 186. Let us turn to another question we posed: what was or what did Nikon’s correction of the liturgical books consist of? Based on the preface to the service book of 1655, which is the first liturgical book corrected by Nikon, they answer the question that he, Nikon, corrected the liturgical books printed before him based on ancient Slavic and Greek manuscripts. But how exactly should we understand this correction? The preface to the service book says that in the new Moscow printed books there are many inconsistencies with the ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts, or, more directly, sins against them, but that these latter “show a single order and charter,” in everything agreeing with each other, and usually, or at least for the most part, the matter is understood as if Nikon’s correction of the liturgical books consisted in an accurate and true reproduction of ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts, or was nothing more than this exact reproduction. Such an understanding of the matter, based on an erroneous interpretation of the insufficiently defined words of the preface to the service book, is a completely incorrect understanding, for the correction of liturgical books presented in this form was completely impossible and would be a matter devoid of meaning on Nikon’s part. At the moment we adopted Christianity from the Greeks, which we partly spoke about above, their worship had not yet reached the end of its formation and had not yet arrived at complete uniformity; on the contrary, it continued to form and continued to maintain greater or lesser diversity in particulars for a very long time even after our adoption of Christianity. Everything new that, over the course of time, appeared in the divine services of the Greeks was borrowed from them by us, and almost all of the diversity that, despite the passage of time, remained in the Greek liturgical books, passed from these last books into our Slavic books 187. And for this reason, the ancient Greek and ancient Slavic manuscripts of liturgical books, meaning in them “everything” not in a special and particular sense, as is understood in the preface to the service book and what is discussed below, but in the ordinary and general sense, not only do not represent perfect agreement among themselves, but, on the contrary, represent such a disagreement that, speaking without exaggeration, it is difficult to find two manuscripts that would be completely in agreement with each other 188. Given the current state of affairs with ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts, how would it be possible to correct books based on them in such a way that would amount to an accurate and true reproduction of them? Here one of two things would be possible: either that one Greek or Slavic manuscript was taken as the original, or that a code was made from many manuscripts. But in the first case, what reasons could Nikon be guided to choose a well-known manuscript, and in the second case, what reasons could he be guided to take one thing from the manuscripts into his collection and not take another? But let's assume that the impossible was possible. Ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts present worship in the form in which it existed at the time of writing each of them; but later worship moved forward from ancient times, having received one or another addition, undergoing one or another change: why on earth would Nikon, subjecting living life to archaeological restoration, want to return our worship to ancient times and what meaning could this desire have? And with this and here, as above, what reason would he have to dwell on one ancient time, and not on another, on a third? Nikon undertook his correction of the liturgical books because he changed his view of the later and contemporary Greeks, and, having abandoned our previous opinion about them that they had lost the purity of Orthodoxy, he began to look at them as invariably and intact preserving this purity. What followed from this in relation to liturgical books? It is obvious that he would want and undertake to correct our books according to modern Greek books, in order to bring us, regarding them, into full agreement with the Greeks of our time. That regarding worship we should agree with the Greeks, from whom we accepted Christianity, or that our worship should, for the reason now stated, be one and the same with them, this constituted the same generally accepted position among us as the fact that, having accepted faith from them, we must be of the same faith with them, that is, expressing the matter in a general abstract formula, as the fact that we must be what we must be. When our ancestors suspected the later Greeks of deviating from the purity of Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, they naturally began to teach that we should be in agreement regarding worship with the ancient Greeks, whose Orthodoxy had not yet been damaged. But if Nikon changed his view of the later Greeks and began to look at them as invariably and undamagedly preserving the purity of Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks: then it naturally and necessarily followed that we must be in agreement regarding divine services with these last Greeks, for otherwise to recognize the purity of Orthodoxy of the later Greeks and not want to be in agreement with them regarding divine services would be absurdity, a logical contradictio in adjecto. But finally, starting to correct the books that Nikon proclaimed at the council of 1654, in his well-known “proclamations”, is it not that he wants to bring the Russian Church, regarding rituals and worship, to agreement and unity with the modern Greek Church? 189 What needed to be and what alone could be, was in fact. The service book first corrected by Nikon and all subsequent new service books up to the present do not constitute any secret books against which verification would be impossible. This documentary verification proves that Nikon corrected the service book not according to ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts, but according to the contemporary printed Greek Euchology 190 and according to the modern living rite of the Greek Church. The library of the Moscow Synodal Printing House still preserves a copy of the Greek printed euchology, from which, at the direction of Sylvester Medvedev, the service book of 1655 was corrected 191. But how can we understand the assurances of the preface to the service book that Nikon intended to correct the books, but the service book itself was actually corrected from ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts? That these assurances should be understood not in the ordinary sense, but in a special sense, not in a general sense, but in a particular sense, is absolutely clear from the preface itself. It itself directly and persistently says that Nikon undertook his correction of the books with the goal of bringing the Russian Church into full agreement with the modern Greek Church regarding them 192; and if so, then it is no longer at all intelligible to correct books based on ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts in the ordinary and general sense of the word. In what particular and particular sense should the assurances of the preface be understood, that the books were supposed to be corrected, and the service book was actually corrected according to ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts, this cannot be doubted and is self-evident. Having changed his view of modern Greeks, Nikon recognized our differences with them in books for our sinful innovations, and now, arguing that this is really so, the preface to the service book refers to Greek and Slavic manuscripts, i.e., he wants to say that regarding the differences between us and the Greeks, both manuscripts testify that the Greeks have antiquity, and we really have sinful innovations 193. At the very beginning of the preface to the service book it is said that he “corrected himself from the ancient Greek books of St. Mount Athos and other and Slovenian charateans”; but then, to explain the real meaning of these words, it talks about the correction of the service book, that the correction was made or carried out through the selection of the true from the Greek and Slavic manuscripts (“from the Greek and Slavic ancient books, the true election and this holy book of the service book ... ordered to be printed” 194. (The service book corrected by Nikon, having been printed three times under him - in 1655, 1656 and 1658, was reproached for the fact that the publications did not have perfect agreement among themselves, but that all three represented greater or lesser mutual discord - see Solovyov, vol. XI, ed. 2 p. 287, cfr p. 281, also Medvedev “The news is true.” The book collectors themselves, according to Medvedev, explained this discord by the fact that in the first edition, for the sake of haste, they “didn’t look around,” that is, they made mistakes, and that in the next two editions these errors were corrected, cfr the reference books’ own words in the preface to the irmology of 1657. But another, more significant, reason for some discord may be assumed, namely, that, on the one hand, the printed Euchologium, which was at the hands of the inquiry officers, more or less diverged or did not converge with the modern living practice of the great or Constantinople church and the holy mountain, which they wanted to follow, and on the other hand, that this very practice in the great church and on the holy. grief was not yet identical to the fulfillment 195 and that therefore a possibly satisfactory text of the missal 196 could not immediately be established. III. Was Nikon’s correction of rituals and books necessary, and does Nikon’s work now require any corrections? By the time of Patriarch Nikon, there were some differences between our ancestors and modern Greeks regarding church rites and customs, and also our liturgical books did not completely agree with the contemporary Greek books. But these differences and this disagreement, no matter where and how they originated, did not represent anything substantial and important, nothing that would concern the dogmas of faith and damage them, and likewise nothing that would constitute a violation of the positive laws of the universal church (with one and special exception in the latter case) 197 . Consequently, even with the existence of differences and disagreement, the Russian Church was just as completely Orthodox as the Greek Church, and just as much as the latter, preserving the positive laws of the universal Church. If so, then, apparently, there was no need for Nikon’s correction of rituals and books, for the existence of differences between private churches regarding rituals and worship, to the extent that they are indifferent differences, was always recognized as something completely permissible and tolerable, in accordance with the ancient patristic, that in una fide nihil officit sanctae ecciesiae consuetudo diversa (with the unity of faith not at all various customs harm the holy church) 198. Patriarch Paisius of Constantinople also spoke to Nikon about the unnecessaryness of correction in his famous answers to his questions. Paisius wrote to Nikon: “he grieves greatly (thy blessedness) about the disagreement of certain ranks that exist in certain churches, and he grieves that these differences among ranks corrupt our faith; about him we praise the thought, for who is afraid of the crime of small sins, is preserved from great ones, but we correct the intention, for, as much as about heretics, the imams commanded from the apostles, we flee them according to the first and second punishment, as if they were corrupted, likewise dissenters, even if they are, as if they agree in the great dogmas of the Orthodox, but they have a certain and their own alien from the conciliar thoughts of the church; but if it happens that a certain church differs from another in certain rites that are not necessary and essential to the faith, that is, those that do not touch the inherent composition of the faith, but small ones, such as the time of the liturgy (which, by the way, Nikon asked about) and the like, this does not create a single separation, only when the faith is always preserved immutably, for our church has not taken this image from the beginning the following, which now holds, but little by little”..., and then, pointing out the differences regarding divine services that existed between private churches in ancient times and did not make divisions between them, he concludes: “It is not proper now to be negligent, since our Orthodox faith is being corrupted, if one creates his own following little different from the other in things that are not nouns, that is, the composition of the faith, only if it agrees with the conciliar church in what is necessary and proper”... What prompted Nikon to undertake a correction of rituals and books, for which, apparently, there was no need? Every person always acts and acts in accordance with his point of view on an object or in accordance with how he understands the matter: it cannot be otherwise (because point of view is the basis for action). Whether Nikon’s correction of rituals and books was necessary or not, which is discussed below, but in any case Nikon himself, from his point of view on this subject, should have found the correction absolutely necessary. The Russians of the 15th century formed the belief about the Greeks of their time that these Greeks had departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, as we have said many times, due to the fact that, having pleased themselves with a unique view of church customs, namely, giving them an exaggerated meaning and equating them with the dogmas of faith, they began to look at the differences between the Greeks and them regarding customs, as heretical and sinful innovations on the part of the latter. The direct return path to the true opinion about the later Greeks, that they invariably preserved the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, was to acquire for ourselves a real or proper view of church customs, as something about which differences do not constitute heresies and sins, but a matter of indifference, with the addition, of course, to admit that it was not the Greeks who were to blame for the differences, but ourselves (for of course it was necessary to assume that it was not they who were separated from us, but we from them, since it was not we for them, but they for us who constituted an example of following and imitation). But Nikon changed his view of the later Greeks not in the way indicated. In order to assimilate a real view of church customs, it was necessary to have a general theological scientific education and more or less sufficient archaeological information, while Nikon had neither one nor the other. He did not at all change the previous Russian view of church customs and firmly continued to maintain it, but at the same time he changed his opinion about the later Greeks in such a way that he began to consider ourselves as the culprits for introducing heretical and sinful innovations, not them, but ourselves, or that he began to look at how heretical and sinful innovations are not their differences with us, but our differences with them. Some dispute the validity of the fact that Nikon looked at our differences with the Greeks as heresies and sins; but this is undoubtedly true. In a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople Paisius, Nikon very much “complained” (complained, as if from the Greek original: he cried) that the differences that exist between us and the Greeks are corrupting our faith 199, and about the books of Bishop Paul of Kolomna and Archpriest John Neronov, i.e., in other words, in general, he spoke about our previous printed books as books filled with heresies 200 ; in the preface to the first corrected service book of 1655. our differences with the Greeks are called sins with deliberate innocence: finally, the two-fingered sign of the cross, which constituted our main difference with the Greeks, was solemnly cursed by Nikon at the council of 1656) 201. But if Nikon looked at our differences with the Greeks as heresies and sins, then it goes without saying that he should have looked at the correction of rituals and books as a matter as necessary as the cleansing of Orthodoxy from heresies and sins. Apparently, the ideas of the Patriarch of Constantinople should have had an effect on Nikon, after which he could have assimilated the real view on the subject with the help of the Kyiv and Greek scientists who were around him and who, no doubt, looked at the subject more or less properly, for the real view on the subject, to a greater or lesser extent, was the view of the entire generally enlightened part of society among the Greeks and among the Kievites or among the South Russians. But in Moscow, its own and original view of the external, ritual side of faith, as something almost the same and as important as the dogmas of faith, was rooted for centuries and was rooted so firmly that people were not able to suddenly part with it in order to adopt a more correct view. When we talk about Nikon, in this case we do not at all mean him alone, but also all those who, together with him, changed their belief about the Greeks. Just as he, having changed this conviction, remained with his former view of the rites and customs of the church: so all the others, who changed their conviction together with him, remained, like him, with their former view of the rites and customs, or, like him, were not able to rise to a real view of these latter. And thus, when we say that Nikon, from his point of view, should have found the correction of rituals and books absolutely necessary: ​​then we want to say that all the others should have found it absolutely necessary, otherwise, that it was necessary from the general Moscow point of view and that in his place, anyone else and anyone else (implied - from among those who changed their belief about the Greeks) would have acted in the same way as he did. So, we repeat, Nikon, from his point of view on the subject, should have found the correction of rituals and books absolutely necessary. But in fact, wasn’t this correction of his a vain affair, and not only vain, but, since it caused a split in the Old Believers, also worthy of regret? The correction of rituals and books was not absolutely necessary; this necessity could only be recognized through some particular amendments to the books 202; but it was very, and not only very, in the most decisive, one might say - unconditionally, desirable. Some of our discord with the Greeks regarding church customs and some disagreement between our liturgical books and the Greek books did not in the least prevent us from being completely Orthodox: but for discord and disagreement, not only was there no blessed guilt, but, on the contrary, their guilt was directly and positively extremely unblessed. We separated from the Greeks in church rites and customs and in liturgical books solely due to the fact that, thanks to our ignorance, we formed a completely unfounded conviction that the later Greeks had departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks. If we had not formed this conviction regarding the later Greeks, there would have been no disunity between us and them. As soon as this single reason was eliminated, that is, as soon as it was realized and recognized by us that our conviction regarding the later Greeks that they departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks was completely unfounded: what could we do, in the complete absence of another reason for discord, if not to restore harmony? Having borrowed the Christian Orthodox faith from the Greeks, we borrowed from them, along with faith, rituals and worship. We could then exercise our right to be independent in rites and worship, in so far as this right is granted to every private church. But, not to mention the fact that we were not at all able to use this right, because, in our ignorance, we were far from strong enough to be creators in worship, we did not want to use it (the right) at all, because there were no motives or purposes with which and for which we would use it. And therefore, our always indispensable desire was to be in agreement with the Greeks regarding rituals and worship, or more precisely, to have the same rituals and worship as the Greeks, or precisely Greek, so that one and the other with us represented nothing more than a reproduction and an exact copy of one and the other among the Greeks, in other words, and closer to say: we have always recognized as absolutely obligatory for ourselves that there should be as many of the same rituals and one divine service with the Greeks, as long as we were of the same faith with them. If, despite all our desire to be in agreement with the Greeks regarding rituals and worship, we disagreed with them regarding both: then the reason for this was as unblessed as the conviction formed by our ancestors that the later Greeks had departed from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks was unfounded, for this very conviction (which was the fruit of our ignorance) was the reason for the discord that occurred 203 . Was it not only highly, but also most decisively, unconditionally desirable that the agreement, the necessity of which we so much recognized, but which was violated for such an unfavorable reason, for such a regrettable misunderstanding, was restored? Nikon undertook his correction of rituals and liturgical books because he attached exaggerated importance to the rituals and rites of worship. Let us assume that he would have taken a real or proper point of view on rituals and worship: we certainly wanted to be in agreement with the Greeks regarding rituals and worship; meanwhile, contrary to our wishes, we separated from them due to a most regrettable misunderstanding on our part: shouldn’t he (Nikon) have considered it his indispensable duty to restore agreement after the misunderstanding was discovered and clarified? To clearly explain the matter, let us imagine an everyday example: suppose that you would certainly like to be friends with someone and that, despite your desire, you will have a quarrel with this someone because of a most regrettable misunderstanding on your part and through your fault: after the misunderstanding is cleared up for you, will you not immediately try to restore the friendship and this restoration of the friendship you desire, after they have disappeared in your eyes imaginary reasons for a quarrel, wouldn’t it be a necessary action on your part? Thus, we repeat, and from a proper point of view on the rites and ceremonies of worship, the correction of rites and liturgical books undertaken by Nikon, although cannot be recognized as an unconditionally necessary matter, should nevertheless be recognized as a most decisively desirable matter. And thus it is obvious that the correction of rituals and liturgical books undertaken by Nikon was a completely undertaking and not at all in vain. Nikon's correction of rituals and books caused a split in the Old Believers. This is, of course, very unfortunate. But, firstly, Nikon could not have foreseen that this would actually happen like this, and secondly, what would have happened if, in carrying out all sorts of desirable things, people stopped before unreasonable objections to them from some? Having changed his view of the later Greeks, but remaining with the same view of church customs, Nikon, in his correction of rituals and books, accomplished a task, although not absolutely necessary, as he looked at it, but nevertheless the most decisive and, one might say, unconditionally desired. However, Nikon’s previous exaggerated view of church customs actually resulted in the fact that he made one regrettable mistake. This regrettable mistake is the solemn curse he pronounced at the council of 1656 on the two-fingered sign of the cross 204. However, the schismatics have no right to complain about this regrettable error, excused and redeemed to some extent by the opposite error of the Council of the Hundred Heads, which condemned every non-two-fingered sign of the cross, for it was not at all the reason for their separation from the church, and they would still have separated from the latter even if the curse on the two-finger had not been pronounced. As for those schismatics who would like to reunite with the church, but under the condition of maintaining two fingers, then with the church’s admission of unity of faith, Nikon’s sinful curse is removed from them 205. Some have a tendency to imagine Nikon’s correction of rituals and books as Nikon’s sole work: he conceived the correction of rituals and books, he undertook it and he carried it out, while others were only simple executors of his orders, voluntary or involuntary. This presentation of the case is completely unfair and unfounded. The first thought about correction is attributed to Nikon’s exclusive and sole inspiration in the preface to the first corrected service book of 1655; but we have already said above that in the preface to the missal, the exact historical truth is sacrificed in this case to some extent to the convenience of presenting the case. The first thought about correction did not belong to Nikon alone, although it really came from him (not as the fruit of his inspiration, but as the fruit of his conversations with the Jerusalem Patriarch Paisius), but as much as he did, so did Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with the latter’s other closest advisers, and had not the sovereign, like Nikon, been able to heed ideas about the injustice of our opinion regarding the later Greeks, as if they had lost the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancients Greeks, Nikon’s own correction of rituals and books could not have taken place, for the sovereign’s veto could have stopped the matter at the very beginning (and it could even have been the case that Nikon, imbued with the idea of ​​the need for correction, would not have been elected patriarch). The enterprise of correcting rituals and books and its management is taken over solely by Nikon, despite the positively and indisputably known history of the matter. Having come, together with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and other closest advisers to the sovereign, to the realization of the need to correct rituals and books, Nikon undertook and led it with conciliar approval and under the conciliar supervision of the representation of the Russian church: the council of 1654 approved the correction, the council of 1655 reviewed and approved the correction made to the most important of all liturgical books - the service book. To assert that these councils had the meaning of only a simple comedy with which Nikon wanted to cover up his self-will, and that they did not at all testify to the real consent of the leaders of the Russian Church to correction, would be nothing more than tendentious or deliberate arbitrariness: Nikon sat next to the despotic (let us assume that this is so) at the council of 1654. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was not at all despotic, and if Paul of Kolomna was not stopped from speaking out against the correction at the council, then, of course, they would not have been blocked by any other bishop, and Nikon’s very despotism, in the example of Paul, manifested itself only after this council (and showed itself too cruelly, as needed, or, at least, one might think, precisely because everyone was too decisively against him alone). But let’s assume that Nikon was terrible; however, clear evidence in favor of the fact that all the bishops, with the exception of one Paul of Kolomna, spoke out for correction not out of fear of Nikon, but out of voluntary sincere consciousness, to which they were brought by the admonitions he made (at the council and, as it is likely to assume, before it), the following history presents us. If people acted out of fear of Nikon, then they should have taken advantage of the freedom that was soon returned to them, for Nikon’s removal from the throne took place only four years after the start of correcting rituals and books (July 10, 1658); Meanwhile, we know that even after Nikon’s removal from the throne, only one of the bishops (Alexander of Vyatka) harbored a temporary prejudice against his correction, so we have the right to assume among the bishops that unanimity and unanimity for correction, which they solemnly and deliberately testified at the council of 1666. Thus, the so-called Nikon correction of rituals and liturgical books is unfair is presented by some as Nikon’s sole work; on the contrary, it was the common cause of all representatives of the Russian church (with the exception of one), and therefore, through the representatives of the church, the common cause of this latter 206. It would be in vain to dispute the validity of the opinion that Nikon’s character was one of very unhappy and far from bright characters. But nevertheless, it would be completely unfair to believe that this unfortunate character was to blame for the split and that if Nikon had been another person with a different character, the split might not have happened. Next to Nikon, who was unhappy in character, stood a man endowed with the happiest character, this is the royal confessor Stefan Vonifatievich. Being an ardent supporter of Nikon in the correction of rituals and books, he managed to retain all respect for himself and the people who rebelled against the correction. But even Stefan’s meek admonitions, which compensated for Nikon’s obstinate orders, had no effect on the rebels: they continued to maintain their respect for Stefan, but as for their attitude towards correction, in this case they did not want to obey him at all 207 . Nikonov’s character flaws, which concern us in this case, were among those shortcomings that are characteristic of people with strong characters: Nikonov’s character flaws were not the reason that caused the split, but we owe it to the positive side of his character that he undertook the correction of rituals and books that was possible only for a person with a strong character. As for the split of the Old Believers, its occurrence represents one of those sad historical cases that among entire masses of people, when they have to renounce errors, there are often individual people who, being stubborn and inveterate champions of antiquity (Old Believers in the general sense of the word), act as defenders of errors. On the proper formulation of polemics with Old Believers Our polemics with the Old Believers to this day explains the origin of the differences in church customs and in the rites of the liturgical books that we had with the Greeks before Nikon and which currently constitute the differences between the Old Believers and us, the Orthodox, in the same way as Nikon himself explained them, namely, he looks at them as our innovations that appeared in relation to customs and introduced into the books, thanks to our ignorance. The polemic makes only one correction against Nikon, that while he considered and declared some of our differences with the Greeks to be heresies, at least, she sees in all differences only errors 208. But the archeology of rituals and worship, which has recently begun to be seriously studied in our country and on which, in relation to worship, new light has been shed by the description of the manuscripts of the Moscow Synodal Library by the late L.V. Gorsky and K.I. Nevostruev, reveals that this representation of the matter, remaining from the time of Nikon, does not correspond to reality - that most of our former differences with the Greeks are not innovations, but only differences that arose from our accidental separation from the Greeks - that other differences, although they really are innovations, are in a very relative sense, so that it would be unfair to assign the name of errors to them, and that only a few differences should be recognized as real innovations are erroneous. In relation to church customs, the most important former differences between us and the Greeks are: two-fingered, especially alleluia, seven-prosphoria and walking with salt. But two-fingered not only is not an innovation, but also an antiquity, even more ancient than three-fingered, for the history of the form of the sign of the cross was that initially single-fingered and five-fingered were used, then two-fingered and finally, as a form that remained forever, three-fingered 209. The extreme alleluia is as ancient as the three-sided alleluia, and it was not only used by the Greeks together with the three-sided alleluia until a very late time, but is partly still used today 210. The seven-prosphoria is an innovation, but it is a very relative innovation, for the five-prosphoria is an innovation against the four-prosphoria (which was used by the Greeks in the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the second half of the 16th century 211, and in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem even in the half of the 17th century) 212 and so on until one prosphora, with which it began and on which it was performed for a very long time proskomedia. Moreover, the seventh prosphorion should be recognized as an innovation and not in the completely strict sense of the word: in private use (depending on the will of the ktitors of monasteries and churches) it was among the Greeks from very ancient times 213 . Walking in the salt water seems to really be our innovation, and some kind of mysterious one at that, 214 but in any case the innovation is not particularly important. A positive answer to the question regarding liturgical books, what is new in them and that the differences resulting from accidental disunity with the Greeks is very difficult, or, better to say, completely impossible, because this would require making such a comparison of Slavic manuscripts with Greek ones, which has not yet been made at all and which, probably, will not be made very soon. At the moment we adopted Christianity from the Greeks, the liturgical books of the latter presented a very significant diversity in terms of particulars, because this very significant diversity still existed among them then in the divine service itself. As time passed, their diversity gradually decreased, but still remained more or less significant until the very beginning of the printing of liturgical books, which actually introduced real monotony. If not completely, then to a very significant extent, the diversity of Greek liturgical books passed into our Slavic books. When the printing of liturgical books began among us, it was necessary to compile uniform sets for printing from the various existing books, and since the work was carried out independently of the Greeks (since they were already considered among us to have deviated from the purity of ancient Orthodoxy) and without reference to the printed Greek books, it was very easy for our printed books to become separated to some extent from the printed Greek books. That one of the reasons for the discrepancy between our pre-Nikon printed books and Greek printed books was the now indicated random disunity, this is a positively known and undoubted fact 215. To the question: from what greater reason did the disagreement arise - from random disunity or from the willfulness of our copyists of books, who allowed themselves to introduce their own innovations into the books, as we said, a positive answer cannot be given; As for the hypothetical answer, then with all the decisive probability one must think that the main reason for the disagreement was precisely random disunity and that the self-will of the scribes was this reason, perhaps only to the most insignificant degree. Our book scribes, quite often, and if they had the opportunity, then for the most part, were not only scribes, but also editors of books, namely, that, when copying books from some lists, they supplemented and corrected their copies from other lists (if they had them at hand); but so that they themselves introduce innovations into the books in the precise sense of the word, i.e. something of their own composition, this seems extremely unlikely and such self-will or willful creativity on the part of the scribes can be acceptable or cannot be denied only in the form of extremely rare, and by their nature, very insignificant exceptions. Thus, regarding the differences in our printed pre-Nikon books with printed Greek books, it is necessary to think that in the largest part of them and in the most important ones between them, they do not represent our innovations in the proper sense, but taken from the same Greek books, only at the same time taken randomly so that our printed books were separated from the printed Greek books (i.e., they represent something taken from manuscripts that is not in the printed books Greek or what is not included in the latter). Be that as it may, we know the actual errors between the differences and there are only two: this is the addition in the 8th term of the symbol of the word “true” (representing a combination of two different translations of the Greek word Κύριος) and the prayer “for this” of the priest before the service, and regarding the second error it is not at all impossible to think that it is already a Greek error and passed into our books from the Greek books, as already finished 216. To confirm that our Donikon printed liturgical books are faulty, they cite Rev. Maxim the Greek and to the afterwords to the books themselves: but neither one nor the other references can be considered valid and represent a misunderstanding. Maxim found in our books several (compared to the size of the books, very few) gross errors, which were partly made by the translators, partly, perhaps, depended on typos in those Greek manuscripts that served as originals for the translators, partly were scribes’ typos of only some manuscripts, and he corrected all the errors he encountered. What follows from this except that before Maximus there were some gross errors in our books that occurred one way or another 217, and that he corrected them? It may very well be that Maxim did not correct all the errors (for, as it seems, he did not correct all liturgical books without exception); but in order for the printed pre-Nikon books to contain errors similar to those that Maxim corrected: then no one pointed out a single such error (introducing heretical thoughts or being complete nonsense), and therefore, it is necessary to think that if such errors remained after Maxim, they were corrected and removed by the book references when printing the latter 218 . In the afterwords to the printed Donikon books one reads complaints that in the divine writings there is a lot of certain and excessive discrepancy in the manuscripts, which is learned by the translators and scribes of the books. But by the discord of the afterword they do not mean any innovations introduced into our books, but a discord that, having been in the liturgical books of the Greeks, was transferred to us and which among us was further multiplied by the scribes through the compilation of new editions from several manuscripts (as discussed above). For example, book reference agents wanted to print a service book; to prepare the original from which to print, they took several manuscripts; but between the manuscripts (both new and ancient harathean) there was a discrepancy or disagreement that had to be united: it is precisely this discrepancy that book reference books complain about in the afterwords to books. From what we have said, it follows that our polemic with the Old Believers should be posed differently than how it has been posed so far. We indicated above what a different formulation of the debate should consist of. Most of our pre-Nikon differences with the Greeks did not constitute our faulty innovations; only a few of the differences were such faulty innovations. But nevertheless, it was necessary not only the partial elimination of a few actual errors, but also that general agreement between us and the Greeks in rituals and books, or the correction of rituals and books that Nikon made. Differences that did not represent innovations, even if infallible, but were only simple differences that arose as a result of our accidental disunity with the Greeks, and differences that were innovations that cannot be called sinful, did not arise due to any valid or even just excusable reason, but through our most unfavorable fault, as a result of the most regrettable misunderstanding on our part. 219, and therefore their elimination, although during their existence our church did not lose the purity of Orthodoxy, it was just as obligatory for us as it was unfair and incongruous that our ancestors suspected the later Greeks of deviating from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks. We have always considered it obligatory for ourselves to be in complete agreement with the Greeks regarding rituals and worship. Despite this recognition, we separated from the later Greeks regarding rituals and worship due to the fact that we suspected these later Greeks of deviating from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks 220. But the suspicion was completely unfair and unfounded. Consequently, after we realized the injustice and groundlessness of the suspicion, to which Nikon came to consciousness, it was necessary to restore agreement between us and the later Greeks regarding rituals and worship. We have outlined these brief provisions in more detail above and we consider it unnecessary to repeat them. The position that we must be in complete agreement with the Greeks regarding rituals and worship, since the latter are Orthodox, is not at all disputed by the Old Believers. On the contrary, the very split of the Old Believers arose precisely as a defense of our position. The founders of the schism rebelled against Nikon’s correction precisely as champions of our agreement in rituals and worship with the Greeks, since the latter are Orthodox, since they looked at the later Greeks, with whom Nikon undertook to bring us into agreement, as having apostatized from the purity of Orthodoxy. Consequently, in our polemics with the Old Believers, one point actually needs to be proven, namely, that the later Greeks did not at all deviate from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks. As soon as this is proven, then everything will be proven, for if the later Greeks did not deviate from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, then it will necessarily follow from this that we must be in agreement with these later Greeks regarding rituals and worship 221. But what has just been said implies something else that constitutes conditionem, sine qua non. The Old Believers look at the matter with the wrong eyes, giving church rites and customs, as well as liturgical rites, the exaggerated significance that we spoke about above. Just as any dispute between someone is possible only if the disputants stand on the same point of view on the subject: so a polemic with the Old Believers necessarily presupposes the same thing, that is, that the latter are forced (of course, convinced) to recognize the real or correct view of the rites and customs of the church with the rites of worship 222. We have a sufficient number of guidelines for polemics with Old Believers. But the recently significantly expanded historical and archaeological information related to the controversy requires that some additions and amendments be made to the existing manuals. These few additions and amendments constitute the purpose of writing these articles. Our schismatics protest against being called schismatics and demand that they be called Old Believers. But their protest and demand are completely unfounded. Since schismatic (σχισματικός, schismatic) is a general or generic name, meaning all people who separate from the church due to some private reasons of a certain nature and character or of known importance (Basily the Great canonical rule 1): then, of course, they are not just schismatics, but schismatic Old Believers (more precisely, it would be non-believers, special believers, But it would not be completely wrong and unfair for the New Believers, since in their differences with us there are differences and innovations). But they really are schismatics, and if it is customary and has become a custom for us to call them simply by this last name without the addition of Old Believers, then the understandable reason for this is that we do not have other schismatics, which would make a particular designation necessary. And if schismatics make a claim that we, calling them Old Believers, do not connect with this the concept of schismatic or do not consider them schismatics: then the claim is tantamount to us recognizing ourselves as schismatics (for between the two of us, someone and a schismatic, and not both of us, are equally Orthodox, which is impossible). Regarding what, for example, we have a written law in Russia, it exists uniformly throughout the entire space of the state, but regarding what there is no written law, then in some places it can be one way, in others it can be different, and in the same places it can be one way or another. So it was for example. and among the Greeks, whose simple people precisely because they equated customs with the dogmas of faith, the Latins counted the greatest variety of heresies. That Russian views regarding the shouting of the hallelujah song were first and foremost stated precisely in Pskov, this, one must think, was not without significance. Declaring Russian views and initiating corresponding disputes, which represented a kind of protest against the existing order, in other places was probably prevented and not allowed by the episcopal authority, which, more naturally, stood for the statu quo. Pskov was only in very weak dependence on the Archbishop of Novgorod, whose veto was powerless here. Message from Rev. Macarius in History, IV, 379, and in Pavlov in Monuments of Old Russian Canon Law, I, No. 48, col. 408. From records on manuscripts, the Tver hieromonk Afanasy is known, who was on Mount Athos in 1430 - 32 and who returned to Russia no later than 1436, see Stroev in the Bibliological Dictionary, pp. 5 (approx.), 19, 27–28. We consider it very probable to accept that it was this Athanasius who initiated the disputes with the Pskovites about the hallelujah song, namely, that he built a monastery, as this is the last known about Athanasius, who argued with the Pskovites, in the Pskov region (examples of people building monasteries not in their own, but in foreign regions, for various reasons, are very numerous), that he introduced a double song in his monastery, and that then either he himself began to denounce the Pskov people for their triplicity, or, on the contrary, he was reproached by them for his innovation. Afanasy's dispute with the Pskovites took place after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, for those who are pushing through speak about this event, between 1455 - 60, since Metropolitan Jonah convinced the Pskovites to stop some disputes that they had, in all likelihood ours about the hallelujah song, in a message of 1461 (in Pavlov's Monuments of the Canonical Law, No. 90, col. 677), and the metropolitan may or may not have learned about the disputes very soon. This is discussed in a special article about the Hallelujah song, which is published following this one. See the letters of an unknown Pskovite to the monk Afanasy about the hallelujah songs, published in the Orthodox Interlocutor of 1866, part II, pp. 140–166 (These messages, placed in the Chet - Menaia of Metropolitan Makariy, were assimilated, as the publishers were assimilated, by Metropolitan Makariy himself, but due to some very strange misunderstanding). – If the Pskovites had paid their attention to the fact that before 1419 they themselves had triplication and doubling of the hallelujah song, as a result of which they addressed their question to Metropolitan Photius, then, one must think, they would find it difficult to make a doubling from the Latins and from the Florentine Cathedral. But they did not pay attention to this... (however, perhaps they looked at the double vision that they had as a borrowing from the Latins). Let us understand the life of the first. Euphrosynus of Pskov, which is a fake in a broader sense than is usually accepted. This is discussed below in a special article about the Hallelujah song. The Council of the Stoglavy, which finally resolved the dispute between tripling and doubling in favor of the latter - Stoglavnik ch. 42. This is discussed in a special article about finger formation, which will be published later. In one of the letters of an unknown Pskovite to the monk Athanasius it is said: “the seal of the Antichrist (Greeks) is on the forehead and on the right hand; this is not something else than the seal of the Antichrist, unless one puts the right hand on the forehead and marks the honorable and life-giving cross of Christ,” p. 143 beginning. Since the accusation against the Greeks that they did not place their right hands on their foreheads and were not marked with an honest cross would be a complete inconsistency: it is necessary to understand the speech, intentionally or unintentionally, strengthened (or perhaps known to us in a damaged reading, with an omission at the verbs: “not to place” and “not to sign” the adverb: “right”) about the sign of the cross incorrect. And by this incorrect sign of the cross we must mean the three-fingered sign, for it was then in common use among the Greeks. We said above that the peculiar view of our ancestors on church customs first manifested itself at the beginning of the 15th century. This is the beginning of the 15th century. should be taken not for the time of the general spread of the view between our theologians, but for the time of its first discovery between them, during which the spread has already followed. Our unique view, which represented our unique theology, finally matured and became established among us by the middle of the 16th century. At the same time, as for the history of its proclamation, private theologians walked ahead and only sought church authority with their official voice. As for the liturgical books with the order and composition of their rites and their text: here the question of the disunity of the Greeks with us and the accusations against them of allowing innovations could only arise with us much later, and it was not so that this disunity was the reason, but for which we accused the Greeks of departing from the purity of Orthodoxy, but so that, having already had a previously formed or ready-made conviction in the departure of the Greeks from the purity of Orthodoxy, we explained it (disunity) to ourselves by this latter. At the moment of our adoption of Christianity, the liturgical books of the Greeks were distinguished by great diversity in terms of particulars, which diversity remained with them until the very beginning of the printing of books, with the help of which uniformity was introduced into them. From the Greeks, the diversity of parts passed to us to a large extent, and the end of this diversity in our country could only be put through printing. As long as there was no uniformity in the Russian books themselves, so long, obviously, the accusation against the Greeks of deviating from the purity of Orthodoxy in relation to books could not take place, because we ourselves did not have something for the lack of which we could accuse them of (i.e. this uniformity). Through printing, the Greeks introduced one type of uniformity, and we, acting independently of them, because we were already prejudiced against them, introduced a slightly different one. Then, with the real discord between ours and the Greek books established, we began to explain this discord in relation to the books with the help of a ready-made, previously compiled, conviction that the purity of Orthodoxy among the Greeks was damaged. Let the reader remember the reproof of this our piety from the Rev. Maxim the Greek. The son and successor of Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy, under whom the mentioned act took place, Vasily Dmitrievich, as Metropolitan reported to Constantinople. Cyprian, despised (despised, περιεφρόνει) both the emperor and the patriarch, see Miklošić's Acta Patriarcliatus Constantinopolitani, t. II, p. 189, with Russian translation from Pavlov in Pamyatnn., second account col. 269. Having declared Isidore a heretic and overthrown, the Russians would have to declare the Uniate patriarch a heretic as well, in order to refuse to recognize his power. But our ancestors did not dare to do this last thing. Without rejecting the power of the Uniate patriarch, they only wanted their Orthodox metropolitan not to be installed by the hands of this patriarch, who, in their opinion, had fallen into heresy (although recognized by them!). Not having time to receive permission from the patriarch to appoint a metropolitan themselves, they finally decided to act on their own. Message in Memory Pavlova, no. 64, col. 540, cfr another letter of Jonah to the Lithuanian bishops, ibid. No. 87, col. 646, in which he speaks of his journey to Constantinople before the installation of Isidor: “I reached the Reigning City, flourishing in the former piety of Greek Orthodoxy”; and that we knew very well the actual state of affairs in Constantinople after the Council of Florence, that is, that the union was not at all accepted by the clergy and people there, see also Jonah’s letter to Lithuania, ibid. No. 66, col. 558 fin. In Memory Pavlova No. 84, col. 633 fin. In Memory Pavlova, No. 81, col. 623. The request was made by Metropolitan. Jonah to Patr. Gennady; that Gennady’s request was not satisfied is evident from the subsequent statement of Patr. Dionysius, about whom below. What St. Jonah, who was appointed metropolitan in Russia itself and without the permission of the patriarch, was not recognized by some Russians as a legitimate metropolitan, we know this positively (from the story of St. Joseph of Volokolamsk about Jonah’s quarrel with Paphnutius of Borovsky). And Met. Jonah in one of his letters calls vel. book Vasily Vasilyevich as Tsar, - in Memory. Pavel. No. 90, col. 673. The word was published in the Historical and Literary Review of Old Russian polemical works against the Latins by A. Popov, p. 360 sqq. See Rev. Macarius in Ist., IX, 36 sqq. In Memory Pavlova No. 100, col. 711. See Pavlov in Memory. col. 683, approx. 2. There is reason to believe that Metropolitan Macarius was very interested in the question of whether our Russian opinion about the corruption of the purity of Orthodoxy among the later Greeks was fair, and that he personally seemed inclined to consider the opinion unfair. We will talk about this elsewhere. The Grand Duke admitted the existence of errors because some of the Greeks who came to Russia with his mother and served at court told him that our books were faulty. Patriarch Filaret Nikitich, regarding the controversy about the word “and by fire” in the Epiphany consecration of water, turned to the Eastern patriarchs with a request to check in the Greek books whether the controversial word is read or not read in them. But Filaret asked the patriarchs to consult in the new books, which he did not believe with all Russians, but in the ancient ones: if it was a question of new books, then Filaret had nothing to ask the patriarchs to consult in the books, but simply needed to ask how it was read (for what was in the new books, the patriarchs knew well even without references), and then the news directly states that he asked to consult in the ancient books. Published in Nos. 11 and 12 of Christian Reading for 1883; a detailed summary of the contents from Rev. Macarius in Ist., XI, 142 sqq. From the previous time, after the above speeches of the Pskov clergy, monk Athanasius knows the following statements: Metropolitan. Philip the 1st, who in his letter to the Novgorodians of 1471 writes: “Now in our years, the great city of Costantinople, which formerly reigned in piety, for the sake of Latin charms, perished and was destroyed from great piety,” - in the Memorable Book of Paul, col. 728 fin., cfr Collected Letts. VI, 7 sub fin.; writer lives of the saints under Metropolitan Macarius, priest Vasily, who in the life of Savva Krypetsky, comparing the Greek land with the Russian one, says: “there the Orthodox faith was corrupted by Makhmet’s delusion from the godless Turks, but here in the ruins of the earth our fathers prayed more for the saints’ teaching” (see Klyuchevsky in Lives, p. 228); Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, who in a letter to Novgorod in 1617, but on the occasion of the conclusion of peace with the Swedes and the return of Novgorod to Russia, speaking about the corruption of the faith of the Romans, by the way, says that among the Greek people, the Muslim peoples “corrupted their faith, which their fathers had previously held” (Collected state charters and treaties. III, p. 152, col. 2); Epiphany Abbot Elijah with the inspector Gregory under Patr. Philaret and priest John Nasedka under Patr. Joseph, the statement that printed Greek books, as spoiled by the Latins, in whose lands they were printed, is not accepted here in Moscow (the debate between Elijah and Gregory with Lavrentiy Zizaniy was published in Volume II of the Chronicles of Russian Literature and Antiquity by Tikhonravov and especially by the Society of Lovers of Ancient Writing, No. XVII; about the Mother Hen, see Description of the Synod of the Russian Communist Party. Gorsk. and Nevostr. No. 279, l. 381, p. 375 fiu.); unknown compiler of the Russian calendar, dating back to the beginning of the second half of the 17th century and read in one of the manuscripts of the library of our Academy (fundamental No. 201, according to the new line, fol. 339 vol.) the words that the Greeks “for the sake of violence from the godless destroyed all their piety.” Rev. Maxim the Greek, in refutation of the Russian view of the Greeks, wrote “The Legend of that the holy ones are not desecrated, even if they have been in possession for many years, the essence is from the filthy” (his “Legend to those who deny their ordination and swear by their handwriting”, etc., partly has the same goal). The correction of Nikon was followed by the reform of Peter the Great, which represented the transfer to us from the West, so to speak, of state and everyday heresy, and it decisively served to give the schism its strength. It may seem puzzling that the Russians considered the Greeks to be heretics and at the same time were in communication with them and recognized their legal rights and spiritual grace in them (the establishment of our patriarchate and the installation of our first patriarch Job by Patriarch Jeremiah, the installation of Patriarch Philaret by Patriarch Theophan), as if they were Orthodox. But the Russians did not recognize the Greeks as real heretics, like the Latins, for example, but as Orthodox, only with a damaged Orthodoxy, or as Orthodox, who were only externally, so to speak, more or less infected with heresies (just as, having entered into relations with the Georgians and finding many ritual differences with them, the Russians recognized them as Orthodox, but with a damaged and full of heretical innovations of Orthodoxy). For them, the point was that not our ritual differences with the Greeks should be considered heresies, but, on the contrary, their differences with us, and that the imaginary heresies of the Greeks should not concern us at all and should not be imposed on us, but in addition to their heresies (which they, the Russians, seemed to be something external and as if only a mechanical addition to Orthodoxy or a mechanical layering on it, heap) the Greeks were still Orthodox for them. Translation of which is either from Greek: χαρίεις, σπουδαῖος, διδακτικός. Paisiy turns to the Tsar with the above request because at that time we were not allowed to have relations with important visiting foreigners, including the Greek patriarchs, without the knowledge and permission of the government (and “in the past days,” that is, immediately after Paisiy’s arrival in Moscow, Nikon “spoke” with him, that is, he had a meeting and conversation with him, as one must think, on orders sovereign, who probably instructed Nikon to take a better look at the patriarch). Along with the lack of courage, Olearius indicates another reason why the Greeks did not tell the Russians about the injustice of their opinion, this is the fear of losing the significant gifts that they annually received from the latter - the Russian translation of the Journey to Chten. General East. and Ancient, 1868 book. 4, p. 387. Rev. Makaria East. X, 36 beginning and XI, 6. Collection state government gram. and agreements II, 97 col. 2. See Archim. Leonida in the Description of Manuscripts of the Moscow Theological Academy, supplement to No. 32 (202), first issue, p. 165. It may seem puzzling that Sukhanov was sent to Jerusalem, and not to Constantinople or Athos, to describe Greek liturgical rites and customs. But in Moscow, as it is necessary to think, they assumed the existence of universal uniformity among the Greeks in liturgical rites and customs, and meanwhile, by sending Sukhanov to Jerusalem, they wanted to achieve two goals - to obtain a description of the Greek liturgical rites and, at the same time, a description of the Palestinian holy places. Commemoration of Patriarch Joasaph 1st Tiunu Manoil in Act. Exp., III, No. 264, cfr petition patr. Joseph of one unknown, regarding church unrest, printed in the 1st issue; works by Mr. Kapterev Patriarch Nikon and his opponents in the matter of correcting church rites p. 168 (an unknown person says that thanks to polyphonic singing, services are performed in the churches of God in the form of frantic drunkenness. - The later Greek church authorities performed church services with multiple voices while on the road (see article by Arseny Sukhanov. About the Greek rites in brief) one must think that We borrowed this road polyphony from the Greeks for its usual use. But the Greek road polyphony did not represent the disgrace that our polyphony, which was always present among the Greeks, was not sung or read loudly in several voices at once; one choir sang or read loudly, and several others read secretly). Stefan's predecessor as the Annunciation archpriest and royal confessor Nikita Kavadeev was mentioned in May 1644 (as one of the participants in the debate with the pastor of the prince Voldemar); We find Stephen as the Annunciation archpriest and the royal confessor in September 1645, - Vivliof. VII, 242, when in the intervening time he became the Annunciation archpriest and the royal confessor remains unknown. If Alexei Mikhailovich did not inherit him from his father († July 12, 1645), but chose him himself, then it will be necessary to think that he chose him because of his outstanding qualities. We have no biographical information about Stefan. Archim. Leonid, in the Description of Manuscripts of the Library of the Moscow Theological Academy, based on a source that he does not indicate, makes the proposal that he was a Novgorodian, no. II, No. 18 (178), p. 208. The fact that he founded a hermitage in honor of Zosima and Savvaty of Solovetsky (Marchukovskaya near Moscow) and that in monasticism he himself took the name Savvaty makes it likely that he was from somewhere in the north, where Zosima and Savvaty of Solovetsky were especially revered. Speeches about Stefan Vonifatievich, giving a sufficient understanding of him, can be read in the indicated essay by Mr. Kapterev (Chapter VI). See petition patr. Joseph to the sovereign on Stefan Vonifatievich in the appendices to the indicated work by Mr. Kapterev. That the reason for Stephen’s complaint and abuse, which is not directly stated in the petition, was precisely the patriarch’s advocacy of polyphony, see below. Due to his extremely gentle character, Alexei Mikhailovich himself could not act decisively against the patriarch, but it is necessary to think that Stefan started a quarrel with the patriarch with the prior consent of the tsar. It can be assumed that the patriarch and bishops came to the palace not according to the custom that existed on that day, but having been deliberately called (cfr Exits of the Sovereigns; and the patriarch says in the petition that the tsar ordered him and the bishops to be with him). However, the existence of this feather school is not known with complete certainty. Joseph was left in Moscow, by the way, in order to “teach the Greek language and literacy to small children in the teacher’s yard,” but whether he really taught, we have no positive information about this. It is not impossible that Benedict had the courage to reproach the Russians for their opinion of the Greeks. This passionate desire of Alexei Mikhailovich is directly evidenced by Patriarch Paisiy in a message to him from the way back from Putivl - Act of the South. and Western Russia vol. 3, no. 262 (“about teachers who had a great desire”) At the beginning of 1648, Smotritsky’s grammar was printed in Moscow “for the teaching of the Orthodox, especially for living children”; at the beginning of 1649, the so-called Small Catechism was printed in Moscow “for the sake of teaching and teaching all Orthodox Christians, especially children who study.” Shouldn’t this be understood to mean that initially they wanted to set up a school in Moscow with borrowed textbooks on your own? When exactly Rtishchev built his St. Andrew’s Monastery remains unknown. But we know that some students of the monks of his monastery no later than the beginning of 1650 left for Kyiv to finish their studies there in Latin - Solovyova East. vol. X, 2nd ed. p. 150; in Kapterev’s book, p. 140, approx. (In the Essay on the collection of Undolsky manuscripts, owned by the late Viktorov, it is said that in one of the manuscripts of the collection there is historical information about the Rtishchev brotherhood - page 5. According to the inquiries we made - through one young scientist - the information does not contain anything new). Slich. previous note. There are no positive reasons to present the matter the way we present it, but it must be presented this way based on obvious considerations: if there were real scientists among the monks of St. Andrew’s Monastery, then Alexei Mikhailovich would have no need to contact Kiev with a request for new scientists. Until the Russians changed their opinions about the Greeks, by the Greek original we should mean the original of ancient manuscripts. A certain old man Mark. With the first letter addressed, due to the non-existence of Metropolitan Sylvester Kosov in Kyiv, this elder Mark was sent to the Bishop of Chernigov Zosima (Kapterev p. 20); but that he left Moscow no earlier than the beginning of 1649, see Acts of the South. and Western Russia, vol. 3, additional. No. 15, VII. Having met with Patriarch Paisius, who was returning from Moscow, in Putivl. - At the same time, how to call Kyiv scientists, the Moscow government took the opportunity to acquire a Greek scientist: we mean the leaving of Paisiev’s companion, the famous Arseny the Greek, in Moscow. Initially, he came forward randomly. Kiev scientists needed people who knew Greek, while his companion Arseny Satanovsky did not know this language, but only knew Latin. That after his arrival in Novgorod on March 24, 1649, Nikon remained there for the summer of our year, we know this positively - see Solovyov in Ist. vol. I, 2nd ed. page 164 fin. Nikon's arrival in Moscow in the winter of 1649–50 should be assumed on the basis of the testimony of Shusherin, who says that, being Metropolitan of Novgorod, Nikon, by order of the sovereign, came to Moscow every winter, and this time, as can be seen from one letter from Alexei Mikhailovich to Nikon - Act. Expedition Vol. IV, No. 42, unless in the letter, in order to comply with the accepted form, and to those present, it is not written as to those absent, the earliest date of arrival can only be considered to be Christmas Day 1649. That Alexei Mikhailovich and his advisers really kept their change of view towards the Greeks secret until the death of Patriarch Joseph, we have direct indications regarding this. Stefan Vonifatievich, undoubtedly, was one of those who changed their minds and one of the main ones in this number; Meanwhile, the people who later rebelled against Nikonov’s correction tried to have him installed as patriarch in Joseph’s place. In the afterword to the Shestodnev (collection of the daily services of the week), published at the end of 1650, a new instruction is made, contrary to what is laid down in the text itself, regarding the singing of kontakia at Vevepers and Midnight Vigils after the Trisagion and at Matins according to the sixth canto, and in explanation of the prescribed amendment it is said: “before and in Greek translations according to the same charter (as prescribed in afterword) acquired, for this purpose and subsequently, also by decree and by placing at the end of this book; Along with (in the text itself) no one is surprised at what is indicated, but below is confused about this, since the previous translations have been printed, but the Greek ones have not yet been seen.” An additional instruction containing an amendment undoubtedly belongs to Epiphany Slavinetsky, regarding whose participation in the printing of liturgical books in 1650 we also have positive evidence (see Medvedev in the Table of Contents of the Books, who compiled them, § 23, St. Athanasius). But there is no sufficient basis to conclude from this instruction that by the end of 1650 a change in view of the Greeks had already finally taken place in Moscow. The amendment, which is made by prescription, could very well have been allowed even if the old view of the Greeks existed, under the condition that the ancient Greek books spoke for it (thus, Patriarch Joasaph the 1st, on the basis, by the way, of Greek books, excluded the rite of priestly burial from the Trebnik of 1636). In the preface to the first corrected service book of 1655, the matter of Nikon’s decision to correct rituals and liturgical books is presented as if he himself independently made this decision. Why the matter is not presented as it was is completely understandable: present it as it was, i.e. that almost everything depended on the arrival of a Kyiv monk in Moscow, it should have seemed offensive to the honor of the Moscow Russians and to the honor of Nikon himself, and in general it would have been inconvenient (and if Nikon had to attribute the initiative to himself, then, of course, there should have been explanations as to how this happened regarding the act of the Council of Constantinople on the establishment of our patriarchate, whose speeches about the consumption of all new items from church enclosures as if they gave Nikon the first thought about the correction, it is necessary to think that he did not find it by accident, but deliberately, for the initial purpose of placing its translation in the appendices to the Helmsman’s Book, and that only then did he make a new use of it: that Nikon did not see the addition to the symbol on the sakkos of Photius, but learned about it from the instructions of the Patriarch of Constantinople Paisius, we know this positively - Paisius’ letter to Nikon, and about This, in a strange contradiction to itself, is directly stated in the very preface to the service book). For those who do not want to know any “things should have been this way,” i.e., do not recognize any historical probability or plausibility in itself and believe only in direct and clear evidence, we have, fortunately, this direct and clear evidence: there is a note on the correction of the Bible under Alexei Mikhailovich, the author of which does not call himself by name, but obviously there is a contemporary and more than likely - a student of Epifaniev Evfimy; This note directly and clearly states that Nikon began to correct liturgical books as a result of the ideas of Epiphanius, see in the Dictionary about writers of the ecclesiastical rank under the following words. Epiphanius, 2nd ed. 1, 179. We said above that the Kyiv scientists, and among them Epiphanius, were summoned to Moscow for rhetorical teaching and to correct the Bible from Greek to Slavic speech. As a result of the undertaken correction of the liturgical books, and Epiphanius became one of the main workers, both of them faded into the background. That this was indeed the case is undoubtedly proven by one of Nikon’s letters to Alexei Mikhailovich, in which he speaks of his receipt of the aforementioned promise: to lie and invent Nikon before the Tsar himself would be something impossible: in the same way, the fact was recognized by the Tsar himself during the trial of Nikon (only with a statement of dispute against the breadth of the promise that Nikon gave to the latter in his letter to Patriarch Dionysius). True, in his present book, Mr. Kapterev claims that the view of the imaginary innovations of the Greeks as heresies was not a universal view among us, much less an ecclesiastical one. But, firstly, he must contradict himself in such a way as to recognize and not recognize the Stoglavy Council as a representative of our church (p. 26), secondly, we will answer him the following: Patriarch Nikon, having changed his view of the later Greeks, but without changing his view of church customs, in relation to some, at least the differences between us and the Greeks, behaved in such a way that he undoubtedly recognized them as heresies (see about this below); thirdly, we will remind him that the council of 1666 began its activities with the questions: “how should one not think about the most holy Greek patriarchs, are they Orthodox? And if Patriarch Joseph changed his view of the Greeks, then how would Arseny, not on his own behalf, but on behalf of all Russians, constantly repeat to the Greeks that here in Moscow they look at them in such and such a way? And the evidence that Nikon himself, before ascending the patriarchal throne, looked at the Greeks in the same way as those who rebelled against his correction? We believe that this is exactly how the Old Believers, who highly respect our collections, understand the matter. For this agreement between southern Rus' and Moscow regarding the sign of the sign, and in southern Rus' it was not at all given the meaning that was given to it in Moscow, see the special article on the sign of the sign. Patr. Joseph addressed the Constantinople patriarch. Parthenius with a request to give answers to four questions, namely: 1) if many bishops and priests perform the liturgy, then is it possible to serve with two chalices, 2) in the service of secular churches and monasteries, can it be read unanimously, 3) if wives leave their husbands out of dislike and are tonsured into monasticism, and if their husbands do the same for the same reason, then does the party remaining in the world have the right to enter into another marriage; 4) Is it appropriate to priest (to be ordained a priest) for someone who marries a widow, a slave, or the daughter of his slave, or a harlot, or a scoundrel, or who marries a second time. The last two questions, as most likely one must think, were asked only for the sake of counting, so as not to turn to the Patriarch of Constantinople with too few two questions, for the answers to them were in the Book of the Helmsman (the answer to the first question, which is that the party remaining in the world has the right to enter into another marriage, is in the 81st paragraph of the 42nd chapter of the Helmsman, which is the 40th chapter of the 123rd novel of Justinian; the answer to the second question, negative, in the 17th and 18th apostolic canons). As for the first two questions, which constitute the real questions, then regarding the first of them we must think that Nikon wanted the introduction of two chalices, that Patr. Joseph, for his part, opposed this and that by asking a question to the Patriarch of Constantinople, he (the Patriarch) hoped, as in fact it was, to receive a negative answer to the question (after some time, Arseny Sukhanov addressed the same question, among other questions, to the Patriarch of Alexandria, and Sukhanov’s questions to this last Patriarch should be considered as questions entrusted to him by Nikon with a circle of those people who began to change their view of the Greeks). To his own question, “Is it appropriate to read unanimously in services for secular churches and monasteries,” Joseph received from the Patriarch of Constantinople the answer, “It is not only appropriate, but also absolutely must (That Joseph addressed the Patriarch of Constantinople with his questions secretly from people of a contrary way of thinking with him regarding polyphony, this can be seen from the now indicated circumstance that Sukhanov again addressed the Alexandrian Patriarch with the question about the chalice. If Nikon, who should have assimilated the questions proposed by Sukhanov to the Patriarch of Alexandria, had known about Parthenius’ answer to Joseph regarding the chalices, he would not have asked the question about them another time. – The Constantinople Greek Thomas Ivanov traveled with a letter from Joseph to Parthenius. This Thomas Ivanov was a close person to Parthenius (see in the 1st book of 1891 Additions to the works of the Holy Fathers, the article by Mr. Kapterev: Arrival of the Jerusalem Patriarch Paisius to Moscow, p. 235 note), and it was he who probably encouraged our patriarch that he would bring him an answer about unanimity from the Patriarch of Constantinople desirable for him. Moreover, they would have held erroneous ideas regarding the possibility of correcting Slavic books based on these ancient Greek books, which is discussed below. G. Kapterev also points to actual attempts to correct Slavic books based on Greek books, which took place during the latter part of Joseph’s patriarchate. But Joseph in the last period of his patriarchate, as Mr. Kapterev knows, was not so much a real as a nominal patriarch, and some attempts to correct books, which began under him from the time of the arrival of the Kyiv scientists and belonged to these latter, should be taken as the initiative not of him, but of those whom Epiphanius Slavinetsky managed to win over to the side of the Greeks (of course, the correction of Shestodnev, indicated above, which, however, it does not have the meaning that Mr. Kapterev assigns to him; and the afterword in the Helmsman’s Book, to which he also refers, belongs not to Joseph’s, but to Nikon’s edition of the latter, and he misunderstands Joseph’s time; moreover, this afterword speaks of the Greek Helmsman’s Book, written by ancient scribes. Board of Patr. Joseph is called and called a dark time because during his time the most diligent efforts were made to introduce the two-fingered sign of the cross into common use among us. This, of course, is completely unfounded (and if you like, even more than unfounded). People used diligent efforts not at all because they were comparatively dark or ignorant, but for a completely different reason: two-fingered fingers have long been recognized among us as the correct and Orthodox way of putting the finger together, which should be used by everyone (definition of the Stoglavy Council); but it did not come into general use among us even until the time of the patriarchs. Joseph (since even before his time, along with two fingers, three fingers continued to exist); and therefore he made efforts to achieve what, according to the then understanding of the matter, which alone, of course, he could and should have been guided by, should have been long ago; in other words, these concerns of Joseph about the introduction of two-fingers into general use testify not to his darkness, which has nothing to do with it, but to his special zeal for eliminating - implying, as he understood the matter, the error that continued to remain (the use of three-fingers). How to think about Patr. Joseph, of course - about him personally, this is not a completely resolved question and, in any case, talking about this would require such a long digression, which we cannot afford here. What is certain is that the “new trends” that began during the latter part of his reign did not come from him at all, but from the tsar himself with Nikon, Stefan Vonifatievich and other sovereign advisers. During the last period of his reign, when a confessor who was extremely hostile to him came between him and the tsar, he was, as we have already said, a more nominal than a real patriarch, he thought and said only that “they want to change me, throw me off,” intending to voluntarily leave the department out of shame (Book reference books of the time of Patriarch Joseph, who had nothing to do with Habakkuk and Lazarus and represented a whole corporation of scientists in In the sense of that time, undoubtedly, there were very remarkable people, in their comradeship and in their circle they came to the consciousness of the need for enlightenment - not somehow, however, suddenly, but progressing in the direction that had already begun earlier, which would also be inappropriate to talk about here - and it is not impossible that the passionate desire that animated Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to introduce rhetorical teaching in Moscow, although it was partly the fruit of the influence of the printing house on royal palace). Regarding this, compare our History of the Russian Church, Vol. I, sexes. 2, page 297 sqq. Regarding Slavic manuscripts, see Descriptions of the manuscripts of the Synodal Library of Gorsky and Nevostruev, section three, containing liturgical books (and read the preface), regarding Greek manuscripts, see Euchologius of Goar (Εὐχολόγιον sive Rituale Graecorum, operâ Jacobi Goar - first edition in Paris in 1647, second edition in Venice in 1730; in particular, see In sacra di Chrysostomi liturgiam variae lectiones, the very beginning, Paris ed. Cfr new Russian studies: Katansky's Essay on the history of the liturgy of our Orthodox Church, St. Petersburg, 1868, Odintsova The order of public and private worship in ancient Russia until the 16th century, St. Petersburg, 1881, Dmitrievsky's Divine service in the Russian Church for the first five centuries, Kazan, 1882, Mansvetova - Metropolitan Cyprian in his liturgical activity, M. 1882, and the Church Charter (typical), its formation and fate in the Greek and Russian Church, M. 1885. It is remarkable that, referring in these proclamations to Greek and Slavic books, Nikon refers to Slavic books: ancient, old, ancient (old) harathein, but does not apply these epithets to Greek books (“in Greek service books, translations, and in our old ones... as the Greek and our old books and statutes command..., against the ancient harathean to Greek books” and etc.) The Greeks do not have our service books in a separate form, but their service book is always combined with a missal, which constitutes the euchology (our prayer book in ancient and old times is a prayer book). It would be a vain effort to look for an ancient handwritten service book that could be mistaken for the original of Nikon’s service book of 1656, and to convince yourself that this service book is really corrected according to the printed Greek euchology, one should only take Goar’s euchology and compare the service book with it (taking down the main text of the euchology, which is not quite a modern edition, and in those cases where it differs from the service book, with Variae lectiones, which contain readings from the printed Venetian service books. Nine particles from the third prosphora on the proskomedia instead of one is a feature between the Greek euchologies of the printed Venetian euchologies, and between the Slavic service books - the Kyiv printed service books). The printed Greek Euchologium, from which, at the direction of Sylvester Medvedev, the missal of 1655 was corrected, does not have, just as in Medvedev’s time it did not have, a shirt or title and an exit page, so the year and place of its printing remain unknown; regarding the place, it is necessary to think that it is Venice, for the Greeks exclusively printed euchologies there, as well as other liturgical books, and as for the year, then, according to the instructions of Gohar (Prooem.) and Vreto (Νεοελληνικὴ φιλολογία I, Nos. 7 and 83) The 1655 Euchologium was printed in Venice many times, namely in 1526, 1544, 1570, 1600, 1629, 1638 and 1652. (currently on the back binding board of the euchology, a fragment of the title of some book is pasted on the inside, on which there is an image of a tree with the letters F. A. R. near it and with the inscription under it Ἐνετίῃσιν, παρὰ Αντονιῳ τῳ Πινίλω, αχβ, that is, in Venice, in the printing house of Anthony Pinel, 1602; it is believed that this is a fragment of the title of the euchology itself, which is why it is attributed to 1602; it is unknown why and it is more likely to consider our passage as a remainder of the title not of the euchology itself, but of some other book - perhaps the December monthly menaion, which was printed by Anthony Pipel in 1602 - Vreto, no. 29). For the copy of the euchology, which served as the original for the service book of 1655, see Medvedev’s essay “True Izvestia,” published in the 1st book of Readings of the Society of History and Antiquities for 1886 by S. A. Belokurov, and in the preface introduced to the work by the publisher (Medvedev presents the matter as if Nikon and subsequent authorities ordered inspectors to correct books according to ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts and that the reference workers, deceiving Nikon and subsequent authorities, made corrections based on printed Greek books - is, of course, unfair, for the polemical purposes with which he wrote the work). The words given in the preface from the message of Patr. Paisia ​​to Nikon: “let (all the sacred persons in Russia) perform the following and every sacred act according to the order of the great church, and not a single difference of imams, for they are the true children of one and the same mother of the Eastern Apostolic Council of the great church of Christ...; For this reason, out of great love and desire for God, we wish that imams be united and alike, like one church body, so that they may be corrected (disagreements in church things), so that there may not be some word among the heretics to condemn us, like the imams of the differences between us. those who find executions from there, having escaped, will live in true understanding and in harmony with the Greek Orthodox laws.” Not all Greek and Slavic ancient manuscripts showed the same order and charter in the sense of unanimously speaking in favor of the Greeks and against us regarding the differences between us and the Greeks. The manuscripts were divided in this regard into three classes: some did not speak either for the Greeks or against them for us, because what was the subject of the dispute between the Greeks and us in them was still different, in a more ancient form, than as it is among the Greeks and us; others spoke for the Greeks against us, others spoke for us against the Greeks. The preface does not mean manuscripts of the first class, just as they were not meant when correcting books, because they did not serve to resolve the dispute and, being, so to speak, aloof from it, they were only monuments of abandoned antiquity. Understanding the manuscripts of the second and third classes, the preface, apparently, does not tell the truth that they showed one order and charter in the sense we indicated. But the book correctors, a priori (based on the general position that modern Greeks are Orthodox), who recognized that our differences with the Greeks are our sinful innovations, looked at those manuscripts that spoke in our favor against the Greeks as damaged manuscripts. And thus, when the preface says that all ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts show one order and rule: it means that all manuscripts that should be recognized as intact (for, saying that all manuscripts show one order and rule, it at the same time speaks of damaged manuscripts, from which Moscow books were printed before Nikon). From our present point of view, such an attitude of book correctors to manuscripts is, of course, something arbitrary, but it was not at all arbitrary from the point of view of that time, given the state of archeology in our country at that time and with our understanding of the matter at that time, the differences between us and the Greeks could be explained in our country only in such a way that innovations were recognized on one side or the other, and therefore, that either one or the other was recognized as damaged manuscripts; Having changed his view of the Greeks, Nikon recognized the innovations on our side, and thus, a priori, he had to recognize those manuscripts that spoke for us as damaged. The preface to the service book and to some other corrected books (the Lenten Triodion of 1656) states that the correction was made according to ancient Greek and Slavic manuscripts: but the prefaces to other books say that they are books newly translated from Greek texts (translations - irmology of 1667) or that they are corrected from Greek books (followed psalter of 1658), and, as is made clear (in the preface to the irmology), by books we must mean new books. Manuscripts are not called in the preface to the service book, as in other prefaces, manuscripts (which name is used only by ourselves), but ancient books and translations, i.e., lists, and it may very well be that by Greek ancient books and translations they mean just books of honor, for in the preface to the book of hours of 1653, which was somewhat corrected before the beginning of the general correction, it states that it is corrected "against the ancient Greek printed translations." Cathedral 1666 already quite directly lets us know that the correction of our books was carried out according to Greek printed books (“what about the Greek printed and ancient handwritten books, are they righteous and reliable”? - Act 1). Cfr Synod Descriptions. rukopp. Gorsk and Nevostr. Nos. 368 and 369. Cfr afterword to the 1667 edition of the service book. We mean the addition in the 8th member of the creed, which was not an addition in the proper sense, but a combination in one place of two different translations of the same word Κύριος. Words of St. of Pope Gregory the Great, see Bingham in Origines sive Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae, vol. VII, p. 52, lib. XVI, cap. 1, § XV, where and in general about indifferent differences in rites and customs. Paisiev's messages answers 8th and 9th. Rev. Macarius, referring to the fact that Nikon once said to Neronov: “wallpaper (books, old and new) are good, it doesn’t matter which way you want, that’s how you serve,” and that to please the latter, he allowed that in the Assumption Cathedral (Moscow) for several days, along with the triplication of the alleluia song, doubling was also used, asserts that Nikon was ready to allow his opponents to use both what they call the old rites, if only these opponents are in common faith with the church and in submission to its divinely established hierarchy (Ist. XII, 218 sqq). But if Nikon had really been ready to allow his opponents to use the old rituals on the specified conditions, then he would not have limited himself to the words quoted, once spoken to Neronov, but would have made a formal proposal regarding this to all those who rebelled against his correction, because this would have been a means of reconciliation with all of them and settling the whole matter, and his very important idea about “uniform faith” would not and could not be left behind after him. It is impossible to think that Nikon was capable of calling the same thing both black and white at the same time, and if he proclaimed our differences with the Greeks for heresies and sins, then, of course, he could not allow people to contain heresies and sins under the specified conditions. That in this case it was not at all a question of “uniform faith” is evident from the fact that, to please Neronov, Nikon allowed the double hallelujah song in his Assumption Cathedral, for one cannot think that he was disposed to allow unified faith within the walls of this latter. As for the true meaning of Nikonov’s words and actions, then, firstly, we know about them from the testimony of Neronov himself, and it may very well be that the matter was significantly different from how he presents it; secondly, if it really was so, then one should see here on Nikon’s part a simple special kind of courtesy towards Neronov, allowed by him out of a desire to soften the latter’s heart and reconcile him with himself (and as for the words in particular, one should see in them, if only they were really spoken, only one of the examples of Nikon’s hasty immensity in expressions). We mean such amendments as the exclusion of the word “true” from the creed, the exclusion of the priest’s permissive prayers “for you” from the service book. Before the Greeks began printing liturgical books, we had the same divine service with them, but with borrowing from them the diversity in particulars that existed among them. After they established uniformity in their worship with the help of printing, we should also learn from them this uniformity established by them or established among them. But when the Greeks began to print liturgical books, we already looked at them as having departed from the purity of ancient Orthodoxy, and we, having in turn begun to print liturgical books, established uniformity in our liturgical services independently of them, and in this uniformity we separated from them (so that they had one uniformity, we had another). The main blame for this error should be placed on the Patriarch of Antioch Macarius, who, out of selfish servility, indulging in Nikon’s erroneous view, not only did not keep him from cursing, but also gave him his manuscript, which directly authorized him to do the latter. Let us note here by the way that the desires and solicitations of the schismatics to have the oath of the council of 1667 withdrawn are extremely strange and unfounded. The council could have offered those who rebelled against Nikonov the correction of rituals and books to remain in the church on the terms of the current unity of faith, and did not do this; but this is already the past. As for the present time, now, with the assumption of unity of faith, this omission has already been filled and from those who express their readiness to reunite with the church under the condition of preserving pre-Nikonon rituals and books, the oath of the council is withdrawn, and to remove it from the schismatics themselves would mean nothing more than to recognize the schism for non-schism (and if there are some Orthodox Christians who sympathize with the desire of the schismatics, then here is sympathy, out of ignorance extending beyond what is due), cfr in “Conversations to the Verbal Old Believer” Met. Philaret “Answers to the questions of the verb Old Believer on the occasion of a conversation about the Hundred Main Cathedral”, § 3 fin. Recently, the most extreme opinion was expressed that the correction of rituals and books was not only the sole work of Nikon, but that Nikon, not caring about serious motives, undertook it because he frivolously succumbed to the influence of all sorts of Greeks, good and bad. The inconsistency of this opinion is so obvious that we do not consider it necessary to refute it. Until recently, our anti-schism polemics wanted to see the main cause of the schism in the personal wounded pride of those individuals who rebelled against Nikonov’s correction, arguing that these people were book examiners under Joseph and that Nikon disgracedly removed them from their honorary positions. This turns out to be unfair, because, as has now been established, none of the people who rebelled against Nikonov’s correction were book reference agents. However, there is real reason, if not to assert, then to partly suspect that personal wounded pride had some share of participation in creating the schism. During the last period of Joseph's patriarchate, the affairs of the church were actually managed by Stefan Vonifatievich with a circle of people close to him, the main one among whom, after himself, was Ivan Neronov, and not without a voice among whom was Avvakum; Nikon also belonged to the circle, being very kind and good (and even seemingly searching) with the rest of its members. But when he (Nikon) was appointed patriarch, then, either taking revenge on Neronov and his brethren for their efforts to incline the choice of the sovereign as Joseph’s successor to Stefan Vonifatievich (which was done without the knowledge and will of the latter, who did not at all think about the patriarchate and was decisively in favor of Nikon) or simply not wanting to see them as his intrusive advisers, he immediately completely broke off his previous closeness with them. One may suspect that the deceived expectations of Neronov and Avvakum to be Nikon’s confidantes as patriarch and to play a prominent role under him were part of the reason that they opposed Nikon’s correction of rituals and books. However, we repeat, one can only suspect, and nothing more; and directly wanting to see the main reason for the schism in nothing other than precisely this offended pride of Nero and Avvakum (cfr. Rev. Macarius Ist. XII, 120) would be as unfounded as asserting that the correction of rituals and books was the sole and violent work of Nikon. Stefan Vonifatievich, Savvaty in monasticism, died in Nikon’s Iveron Monastery on November 11, 1655 or 1656, see Nikon’s letter to Alexei Mikhailovich in Letters of Sovereigns, No. 388, p. 350 (about Stefan’s relationship with Nikon cfr also ibid. No. 383). Cfr History of Rev. Macarius vol. XII, p. 221. We again refer the reader to the deliberate article on finger formation, which is published after this one. See the current euchology for the rite of priestly burial. In the Greek original of the Nikon Tablet, printed in 1574, there are not five prosphoras, but four prosphoras (1. lamb, 2. in honor of the Mother of God, 3. in honor of the Forerunner and the saints, 4. for the living and for the dead). Proskinitarium of Sukhanov (the prosphora are the same as above). See my History of the Russian Church, vol. I, 2, 310, and in Mansvetov’s essay: Metropolitan Cyprian in his liturgical activity, appendix. page XXXVII. Vel. book Ivan Vasilyevich, who unexpectedly declared Metropolitan. Gerontius was of the opinion that crosses should be salted when consecrating churches, and stubbornly stood by his opinion with very few of the clergy who supported him, did not provide any evidence in his favor, except for very incomprehensible speculations (at least in the form in which the latter are conveyed in the chronicles). See Descriptions of the Synodal Manuscripts of Gorsky and Nevostruev, section three, containing a description of liturgical books, which often indicates that what is read in our ancient and old liturgical books, but not readable in the current ones, is in Greek. Prayers “for you” are read already in the service book of the 12th century, assimilated by Rev. Anthony the Roman, see Description. synod RKPP. Gorsk and Nevostr. No. 342 first. For a very important error in the printed service books of Donikon, Rev. Macarius believes that in all these service books in the rite of the Liturgy of Basil the Great the words are not read: “transformed by your Holy Spirit” (History of the Schism, p. 128). In fact, this is not an error at all (in the sense of our omission). These words in the rite of the Liturgy of Basil the Great are not read in many ancient Greek service books, and for their non-reading (specifically in the liturgy of Basil the Great, but not Chrysostom) some new Greek scholars are ardently defended, see in the Pidalion note to the 19th rule of the Council of Laodicea (cfr Description of the Slavic manuscripts of the synod. Libraries. Gorsk. and Nevostr., department 3, preface, p. VII). If in Job's service book it is prescribed that sick infants should be baptized in warm water through dousing: then received by the Rev. Macarius for dousing (ibid, p. 126) a special type of immersion (up to the neck without the head, which is watered) is not our innovation, but constitutes the usual Greek method of baptizing children from ancient times to the present time - about ancient and old times, see the apology of Gregory Mamma against the letter of Mark of Ephesus, - in Patrol. Minya t. 160, rub. 137, nomocanon in the breviary, according to ed. Pavlova Ave. 200 and 201, and in the Debate of Arseny Sukhanov, conversation on June 6, cfr our II. R. C. 2 floors. I vol., pp. 365 fin. (before Patriarch Philaret we had an error, which constituted our actual innovation and consisted in the addition in the Epiphany rite of the consecration of water the word: “and by fire”). And when Maxim makes such general reviews of our books that they seem to be full of errors (and among the actual errors that were in all or many copies of any book and depended on the translation, he unfairly includes random errors in individual manuscripts made by illiterate or careless scribes, such as the Greeks often had scribes): then undoubtedly, in the interests of self-defense, he falls into strong exaggeration (a sufficient number of manuscripts have survived to us and we have every opportunity to see how fair his words are; impartiality and comparison with our own time require us to speak about the translations not with censure, but with special praise). And what about the book collectors, as they have been since the time of the patriarchs? Philaret, were able to correct all such errors (with the possible exception that something somehow escaped everyone’s attention), this cannot be doubted. Due to the same ignorance of ours, which explains the matter and our current polemics, only through a different manifestation of it than what the latter sees. This implies an intermediary idea that, having suspected the later Greeks of deviating from the purity of the Orthodoxy of the ancient Greeks, we retired and distanced ourselves from them in relation to rituals and worship and, so to speak, began to live for ourselves in relation to the latter, independently establishing for ourselves the forms or types of customs and, with the introduction of printing among us, independently bringing the hitherto diversity of liturgical books to uniformity (and thus introducing a different uniformity from that which was established or accepted among the Greeks). An article on the integrity of the Orthodoxy of the later Greeks, i.e., dedicated to proving this integrity, will be published by us among subsequent articles. Among the subsequent articles we will publish an article on the meaning of church rites and customs. You might be interested in: