History of the Russian Church. Volume I. Part 1

Volume 1. Part 1 • Volume 1. Part 2 • Volume 2. Part 1 • Volume 2. Part 2 The first edition of the present 1st half of Volume of my History of the Russian Church, printed in 1880, has long been sold out. Having prepared it for the second edition no less long ago, I did not see the opportunity to print the second edition, and I put aside any thought about it. But unexpectedly an opportunity arose... People who favorably greeted this first half of volume I of my History of the Russian Church in the first edition, I hope, will also favorably accept it in the second edition. And as for the people who met it with hostility in the first edition, I must tell them that, although their enmity is not at all something pleasant for me, but that, in any case, I had no desire, by forcing my convictions, to bend their anger to the mercy of some concessions to them. I owe sincere gratitude to the Society of Russian History and Antiquities, which took upon itself to publish my History, and which has already published two of its books, comprising two half volumes. I consider it my duty to publicly testify to this sincere gratitude to the Society. Having the opportunity to do much less for Russian church history than what I wanted and hoped to do, I console myself with the words of the biblical sage, who says: “There are many plans in the heart of man, but only what is determined by the Lord will come to pass” (Prov. 19:21). And from myself, turning my thoughts forward, to future workers on Russian church history, of whom many more are expected. With all my heart I wish for them that each of them, at the end of their work, instead of the words of the biblical sage, could speak other words: “all the plans that were in the heart of a person, he had the opportunity and managed to fulfill with the help of God.” History of the Russian Church regarding the quality of its sources. Its division into periods. Image of presentation. Processing any history is a very slow task, requiring a more or less long series of workers. However, this does not mean that every story, given the time and talent used, can be brought to the possible degree of perfection desired from a real story, or otherwise, that all stories, with the same treatment, can be equal in merit in terms of content. History is not poetry, and historical processing is not creativity, but only the processing of ready-made and given historical material. The task of historians is to extract (and squeeze) out of this material everything that serves to create real history; but they cannot go further than this and are powerless to add to the material itself or improve it. Meanwhile, historical material is not always and not everywhere the same in abundance and quality, but in each particular case it is different, starting with its complete absence or complete unsuitability (so that some people do not have any stories, while others have only completely fabulous ones). Thus, stories, like stories, can be more perfect and less perfect, and in general have very different and different degrees of perfection. Our Russian church history, in its dignity as history, should be placed in a very low place and classified among the stories that are destined to remain far from perfect. According to its scientific ideal, history is, perhaps, a satisfactory reproduction of the past historical life of people - such a reproduction that this historical life appears before us as real, in all its vital liveliness and in all its integral completeness (with that addition against the present - so that with all its meaning). There is not a single real history that would fully achieve this ideal (for the ideal of history is just as unattainable as any other ideal); but the degrees of approach to it can be very different, and our Russian church history is precisely one of those stories that are able to approach it the least, or, in other words, from among those stories that have the ability to reproduce past historical life far from to any desired degree. The sources of history, how many of them there may be, are divided into three classes: written, material and (if we are talking about living peoples, not extinct) represented by living life 2. Written sources, divided into several separate classes, consist of: 1) from deliberately narrative tales, which are the essence of general and private chronicles and historical monographs about individual, especially remarkable, persons and events; 2) from works that are not deliberately descriptive of everyday life and morality, which are the essence of works of legal and so-called journalistic content; 3) from monuments of two kinds: on the one hand - activities, namely government-legislative and administrative, which are the essence of legislative acts, decrees and charters. On the other hand, life, namely mental and moral life, which literature represents with all its, more or less, presence. Material sources are preserved material monuments: buildings, household accessories, works of crafts and arts. Living life is the source of history in language, in everyday life, in epic folk poetry, in beliefs and superstitions, etc. Russian church history has all the currently indicated sources, so that in terms of their number it can be ranked, so to speak, among first-class histories 3 . But another thing is their quality and abundance... The listed sources of history are divided into main and secondary. Some provide historical information in the proper sense, positive information and precisely about what is essential in stories. Others either provide information that is not very positive and reliable, relate to aspects of life that are not major, but secondary, or represent only general evidence in their totality and can only serve as data for conclusions. The only main source should be the chronicle, as it is the only direct and deliberate source. But chronicle writing from its very beginning until later times was conducted by people one-sidedly. Human societies, which form the subject of history, consist of two parts - the societies themselves and the governments. Society is something that has a purpose in itself, in its life. The government is a necessary organ of society, without which it cannot exist as a society, whose purpose is to support the life of society and promote its movement forward (i.e. This is the idea, although in the latter case this is not always the case in reality). The real history of any society must be the history of both halves, and not just one, because otherwise it will not be a complete and real history. But only in our days has the apparently very simple truth been properly understood and accepted that societies, as societies, with their lives, must form the subject of history. According to the views that prevailed from ancient times to ours, societies were represented only in the form of their governments, which is why the history of societies meant exclusively the history of governments. In accordance with this view, the chroniclers narrated only about the deeds and deeds of individuals who constituted government shifts, and did not at all deliberately concern themselves with depicting the life of societies. When telling a story about the activities of government officials, it is impossible not to touch upon the life of societies to some extent. For, although this activity is by no means entirely devoted to societies, as would be expected from the idea (and with the exception of such all-round great people who represent the rarest rarity, such as the Frankish Charlemagne or, for example, Peter the Great), but, in any case, for the most part it is devoted to him, a lot or a little. Thus, if it were the custom of chroniclers to narrate all the activities of government officials, then at the same time, to a fairly significant, although far from sufficient, extent, they would depict to us the life of societies. But to the above, one more significant limitation must be made. The chroniclers developed a view of historical affairs worthy of narration (formed, it is understood, together with all other people, for chroniclers are not an exception from all other people) that they are only noteworthy affairs, and from this concept of noteworthy the activities of rulers that were not loud in appearance for the benefit of societies were excluded. Thus, chronicles would be a completely insufficient source for the history of the life of societies if we did not have other sources. These other sources are: monuments of legislation, works of legal and so-called journalistic content. How the monuments of legislation can constitute a source for the knowledge of life is self-evident, for legislation is precisely the organization of life. Essays of legal content, commenting on laws and in general, one way or another, interpreting them, at the same time necessarily provide, to a greater or lesser extent, information about life itself. Of the works of journalistic content, we mean the department that in secular literature is called satire 4, and in spiritual literature - accusatory words: satire and accusatory words, depicting the vices and shortcomings of the life of modern societies, through this very thing become a source for the history of this life. Russian church history cannot boast of these main sources of stories at all - qualitative in quality, quantitative in abundance. We said that in chronicles history is usually written one-sidedly. So this is in them with civil history. But with church history something else may be different, namely, that it is not written in them in any way. And, alas! this last case occurs in our annals with our church history. Due to the degree of our education, which consisted in the absence of real education, we were not capable of independence and could not go further in historiography than the position it was in among the Greeks who were contemporary with us at the beginning. But among the later Greeks, after their education began to decline, the concept of the historical, completely ceasing to know life as life, descended to the possibly narrow and petty concept of the remarkable. And since the affairs of the church in this later time, having been arranged and put in order, ceased to be unusual and took on the usual course, therefore, they ceased to be noteworthy, their church historiography completely fell. Having stopped keeping special church chronicles, church history was limited only by assigning it the most insignificant place in civil chronicles, and, not caring at all about it as a separate history, they did not keep it in the form of a continuous and consistent narrative, but only wrote down some of it in a random and scattered manner. What happened to the church chronicles among the Greeks, no better thing should have happened to them with us, that is, to put it differently and more clearly - the best thing that happened to the Greeks could not have happened to us. But imitators sometimes still lag significantly behind their models or those they imitate: and this is precisely the case that took place with us in relation to church history. We, like the Greeks, kept only civil chronicles; but in these latter, the insignificant place allocated to church history in the Greek chronicles was further diminished to such an extent that anything less would have been nothing at all. Our very first chronicler, if we exclude the rather detailed stories about the founding of the Pechersk Monastery by the Monk Theodosius and about the initial residence in the monastery, which is explained by the accidental circumstance or the special reason that the author himself was a monk of the Pechersk Monastery, all church-historical news consists of: A brief note about the installation of one metropolitan (also made due to the accidental circumstance that this installation was in connection with the history of the Pechersk Monastery); To mark the year of the arrival of two metropolitans in Rus'; In marking the year of death of one metropolitan; In random mentions of two more metropolitans - and that’s all. At the beginning of these scattered notes there is not even the news of the arrival of our very first metropolitan in Rus' and his establishment of church administration in our country 5 . Further chroniclers present some progress against the first, but very small and consisting of the following: Chroniclers of the pre-Mongol period - firstly, note the years of accession to the see and the years of death of, if not all metropolitans, then most of them, and secondly - as an exception, they report a certain, very small amount of fragmentary news about church affairs. Post-Mongol chroniclers carefully note the years of accession to the see and the years of death of all metropolitans, starting, however, not with the first, but with the second of these latter, and also, as an exception, report the same amount of news about the mentioned affairs. Thus, our chronicles provide our church history with a bare catalog of the primates of our church, for ancient times far from complete and in terms of chronology far from unsatisfactory, and an insignificant amount of fragmentary, mostly very unsatisfactory in quality, news about church affairs. To be, however, completely accurate in relation to the chroniclers of the pre-Mongol period, we must make a reservation. Almost giving no place at all to church affairs and events in the strict sense of the word, these chroniclers, in addition to records of the installation of metropolitans, also keep records of the installation of bishops and the construction of stone churches. So, to be precise, their church history consists not of one catalogue, but of three: metropolitans, bishops and stone churches. If among the later Greeks, and after them among us, church history was excluded from the field of general chronicling, then even less so with them and with us it could be the subject of private chronicling, which is represented by monographs. In the ecclesiastical field, instead of historical monographs, they and we had only mythical monographs - lives of saints 6 . The lives of the saints, no matter how alien they are to history, which is not their goal (and which sometimes stands in the way of their goals), still cannot do without reporting at least some historical information about those persons whose feats of holiness are described. Thus, if our lives of the saints were precisely the lives of our metropolitans, they would still be far from useless for history, although they would give real historical information and not particularly much. But we have a very small number of lives of metropolitans 7 , and most of the rest, quite a significant number, telling about the exploits and holy lives of people who did not stand on the stage of history and did not belong to its figures (who deliberately distinguished themselves and removed themselves from society), gives almost nothing to history. In the past, before a thorough acquaintance with the lives, there was a hope that, without providing factual information, they would provide abundant material for depicting society in moral and church-everyday relations. In fact, it turns out that the hope was completely in vain: Firstly, the writers of hagiographies care very little about what is called “drawing the situation.” Secondly, they depict their meager surroundings not through living features taken from real life (contemporary with the saints themselves or, if the authors of the lives are late, contemporary with themselves), but through general passages and rhetorical phrases in which there is almost nothing living and individual, but only one thing that is applicable to every place and time and to all people. After chronicles and monographs, the source for the history of government officials and their activities remains the very monuments of their legislative and administrative activities. In order to make improvements in the life and everyday life of societies, large or small, general or private, usually not all rulers, but only some, legislate. In our country, as we will say below, only a very few of the church rulers were legislators, and the overwhelming majority of them were simply administrators. That is, rulers who, without moving life forward, cared with more or less jealousy about maintaining it at a given level, and who, with more or less jealousy, tried to raise all parts of the whole to this level. But the monuments of administrative activity represent a very unsatisfactory source for the history of government officials. Since they were not general laws, but private decrees directed against individuals or in certain individual places, they could not be preserved intentionally, but could be preserved in greater or lesser numbers only by chance. Consequently, here a greater or lesser number of surviving monuments is a simple matter of chance and does not give any reason to conclude anything about the quality of the activity itself. Then, the monuments of administrative activity, not being illustrated by chronicles and generally third-party evidence, for the most part represent a dumb and blind letter, in which it is difficult to read anything with confidence. Administration (administration) is the fulfillment of established and defined duties, which can be done either with the greatest jealousy or without any jealousy, simply in a formal manner. Individual and scattered monuments of the administration, unless they represent something exceptional and too characteristic, do not at all say whether they belong to people of the first category or the second, and whether they are the fruit of jealousy or a simple formal performance of duties. Let us assume that from some metropolitan we have several monuments of punitive administrative activity. If the monuments do not stand out as anything special, then they will tell us absolutely nothing: perhaps they belong to a person who was animated by zeal for the fulfillment of his duties, and it is equally possible that they belong to a person who limited all his zeal to signing decrees. Human societies move forward by themselves, by their inherent power of movement, and by the efforts of governments, which are the organs and instruments of societies, specifically for the purpose of supporting their life and moving it forward. Governments move or attempt to move societies forward through legislation. Government officials, from whose succession governments are composed, are either ordinary people or exceptional people, the so-called great people. Nature is generally extremely stingy with great people and there are very few of them everywhere. As for ordinary people who make up the succession of government officials, they are the children of their societies, that is, they do not rise above them at all. For this reason, just as much as societies themselves have the power to move forward, government officials also have the energy to move them forward. Our Russian society, endowed with this power of movement less or no less than others, in any case, demonstrated it very weakly. It goes without saying that this was the same in both the state and the church. In the pre-Mongol period, the succession of government and church officials was not our own Russian, but someone else’s - Greek. But among the Greeks, in later times, the power of our movement completely weakened, and they were not capable of arousing it in others. As a result, our Russian Church is comparatively extremely poor in monuments of legislation. From the pre-Mongol period we do not know a single such monument. Perhaps they existed, but they have not survived or are still unknown. In any case, there is no reason to suppose that they were numerous. The great disaster - the invasion of the Mongols - forced the Russian church to take some care of its improvement, which concern was expressed in the acts of the Vladimir Cathedral of 1274. And after that, no legislative measures until the 16th century, when the councils of 1503–1504 and the Stoglavy Council of 1551. Fortunately for us, the latest council greatly compensates us for the lack of legislative monuments in the previous time. Under Ivan Vasilyevich IV, Rus' became a new state - from a grand duchy to a kingdom, with the great role of the second Byzantium and the third Rome. Having become a new state with great significance, Rus' realized the need to renew its state and church life, which resulted in the publication of a civil Code of Laws and, to improve church affairs, the convening of the Hundred Head Council. In the latter case, the matter could be handled in one way or another, posed narrowly and broadly, embracing a lot or being limited to something. The then head of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Macarius, who recognized the need for its renewal, set the matter in the broadest possible way, so that the renewal would be as universal and holistic as possible. The actions of the Stoglavy Council had no practical significance, because renewal did not follow at all; but they are extremely important for us as a historical source: we find in them a living and possibly complete picture of the Russian church and Russian society in ecclesiastical terms during the 16th century. Among educated people, works of legal content consist of scholarly commentaries on laws, and in general, in any scholarly treatises about them. Since we had no education and learning, we could not have had anything like this. Thus, we are completely deprived of this source of history in its own form. We have, however, works that can be attributed to it in an improper sense and which represent, as it were, private legislation. People who knew church laws and customs, either on their own impulse or in response to questions from people who did not know, wrote disciplinary and canonical instructions. These instructions, which date primarily to the pre-Mongol period, more or less touch upon church life and everyday life with their living features. Secular satire and spiritual accusatory words can also exist only among educated people. First of all, in order to expose the vices and shortcomings of life in modern society, you need to recognize them and rise above them (if not in life, then in thought). But the usual means to this consciousness and elevation for selected natures is education. True, there is also an extraordinary means, which even in uneducated societies leads people to the consciousness of their vices and shortcomings, namely, the achievement of vices and shortcomings to too extreme an extreme. But even in this case, uneducated people cannot express their consciousness in satire or accusatory words. Satire and accusatory words constitute a type of writing that requires literary education. Ridiculing and denouncing is not at all the same as telling a story about something. Anyone can compose stories, good or bad, about these stories, and keep a chronicle or weather record of such stories. But satire and accusatory words are a completely different matter: they can only be artificial compositions. To write them, it is not enough to be aware of vices and shortcomings and to be filled with indignation against them. But you need to have the art of composing, otherwise nothing will come out except awkward and brief something. Therefore, with us, although our church life brought people to the consciousness of its vices and shortcomings, there could be no real denouncers of it, and the matter had to be limited to only the most insignificant attempts at this denunciation. However, here, as in the monuments of legislation, fate was not entirely unkind to us and sent us one accuser from the outside. In the 16th century The Greek scientist arrived in Russia to carry out a private book business. After completing the job, he had to return home. But fate (for the benefit of Russian church history, albeit to his own misfortune) decreed that he would remain forever in Russia, and this Greek, the famous Venerable Maxim, having become a flagellant of the vices and shortcomings of contemporary Russian church life, vividly portrayed to us this life with all its meaning for a given period of time. From what has just been said, it is clear to what extent our Russian church history is not rich in those main sources on the basis of which real histories are created, and how tricky and vain it is for it to dream of getting any closer to the ideal of history. This ideal of history requires that the people who make up the succession of government officials, and in general all historical figures, be depicted as living people with an individual personal physiognomy and with the individual moral character of each. Because in history, like the real life that it reproduces, every person matters only as a living moral person and because our moral sense seeks to be in living communication with historical people and wants to know whether we should honor them or pronounce a strict, so-called historical judgment on them. But what kind of living people are there in our church history, when the chronicles give us only names and names and do not outline the people with a single line? Throughout the entire space of pre-Petrine church history, only Patriarch Nikon appears to us as a living person to some extent, who to some extent outlined himself 8, and all the rest are completely impersonal shadows and shadows, and just labels in empty places. Even our most famous figure, Metropolitan Macarius, stands before us behind his affairs, like a vague shadow, whose living face we try in vain to discern. The ideal of history requires that the life of societies be depicted in all its gradual (or not gradual) movement. But we know enough Russian church life only for the 16th century (thanks to the actions of the Stoglavy Council and Maxim the Greek), and then, turning back and going back to the very beginning, there is either complete darkness or only some incoherent features. So, Russian church history, in terms of its quality as history, belongs and has to belong to the number of histories that are not at all high. It goes without saying that this is not joyful, but sad. However, it is sad, so to speak, in a very special sense. Our church history is not high, that is, it is destined to be low, not from any accidental circumstances about which we would have the right to complain, but through our own fault, because we have not written it (directly and indirectly) in a more satisfactory manner. We did not write it in a more satisfactory manner because we were unable to write it. And they were unable to write because they were incapable... because in our past - sad or not sad, but a real fact - we were a historical people of low dignity. In this last circumstance lies the whole simple secret, for every people has the ability to write its history to the extent that it has the ability, or to the extent that it demonstrates the ability to live historically (to the extent that a people is enlightened and inclined to progress or movement in life, to the extent that it writes its history in direct chronicle and leaves it in monuments) 9 . One might think that the more sparse a history is in sources, the easier the task of processing it. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Draw from abundant sources with your full hand and, having the talent of a historian, just create real history. But it’s a completely different matter when sources are scarce. In order to do anything, the writer of history must turn into the most diligent rag picker, so to speak, must carefully rummage through all the rubbish a dozen times so as not to leave a single scrap or shred that could be used and be useful. Without drying up the living person within himself, which a historian needs to be, he must be a painstaking worker; and with all this, he is constantly accompanied by a feeling of dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction... If the processing of any history requires a number of workers, then such a history as the Russian church requires it all the more... Let us make here an explanatory note regarding our chronicles for the pre-Mongol period. During this period, we have all-Russian chronicles (more precisely, we should say main Russian, because the chronicles called all-Russian are actually chronicles of great reigns) and local chronicles. With the first of the chronicles for our period, the matter is presented in this form. The space of time from the beginning of the state to 1110 is described (that is, we have it described) not in several chronicles written at once or simultaneously, but in one chronicle, which was all compiled by an unknown monk of the Pechersk Monastery, who lived in the second half of the 11th - early 12th centuries (unfairly mistaken for the Monk Nestor). From this “original” chronicle there are two series of (gradually conducted) continuations: One series, initially conducted in Kyiv or generally in Southern Rus', and then in Vladimir or generally in Suzdal Rus', reaching the very end of the period and then going further, constitutes the Kiev-Suzdal chronicle. Another series of continuations, all conducted in Kyiv or in general in Kievan Rus and brought to the year 1200, when the political role of Kyiv almost completely ended, constitutes the Kievan Chronicle. Thus, for the pre-Mongol period we have: the initial chronicle from the beginning of the state until 1110 and then simultaneously two chronicles - the Kiev-Suzdal and the Kyiv. The original chronicle has come down to us not in one edition, but in several – the oldest and four or later. The later editions represent greater or lesser surpluses compared to the oldest edition. The Kiev-Suzdal and Kiev chronicles have reached us: firstly, each separately, and secondly, in the later vaults of both in one place. The later codes, just like the later editions of the original chronicle, represent greater or lesser surpluses against both chronicles in their separate form. The remains of later editions of the chronicles of the original and later sets of chronicles of the Kiev-Suzdal and Kyiv chronicles are of two kinds. Some constitute an undoubted and obvious fiction, while others have no signs of fiction. Since the later editors of the original chronicle and the later compilers of the Kiev-Suzdal and Kyiv chronicles could have in their hands other sources besides these same chronicles, or even these same chronicles in a different form than in which they came to us, i.e., than what they have - the original chronicle in its current ancient edition, and the Kiev-Suzdal and Kiev chronicles each in in its current separate form: then the second type of excess either remains to be accepted as reliable, or, in any case, there is no right to directly reject it as false. The oldest lists, in which the oldest edition of the original chronicle has come down to us, are: Lavrentyevsky, written in Suzdal in 1377 by the monk Lavrenty, from whom it received its name, and Ipatyevsky or Ipatsky, written by an unknown person at the end of the 14th - early 15th centuries and received the name from the Kostroma Ipatsky monastery in which it was found. The oldest list of the Kiev-Suzdal chronicle is the now mentioned Laurentian chronicle, in which it follows the original chronicle, and the oldest list of the Kyiv chronicle is the second, mentioned above Ipatievsky, in which it also follows the original chronicle (in the Laurentian list: the original chronicle, the Kiev-Suzdal chronicle until the end of the period and then its continuation until 1305; in the Ipatsky list: the initial chronicle, the Kiev Chronicle and then the Galician-Volyn Chronicle, which is discussed below). When we quote the “original chronicle” or simply “chronicle,” this means that we mean the original chronicle according to its oldest edition in the Laurentian and Ipatian copies. When, for the space of time covered by the original chronicle or before 1110, we quote some chronicle with a certain name - Sofia, Resurrection, Nikonov, etc., with the exception of the Novgorod one, which is now discussed below - and for the rest of the period of the pre-Mongol chronicle, not the Laurentian or Ipatian chronicle, but some others, with the exception of the same Novgorod one, then this means that the news is taken either from later editions of the original chronicle, or from later collections of the Kiev-Suzdal and Kyiv chronicles. The lists of the oldest edition of the original chronicle, Laurentian and Ipatian, present some few differences: where we need it, that is, where the differences specifically concern us, we will point out this. We have two local chronicles from the pre-Mongol period: Novgorod and Galicia-Volyn. The Novgorod Chronicle, written around 1120–1130, begins in 1116, and for the preceding time from the founding of the state it contains partly in full, partly in abbreviation, the all-Russian chronicle. In the collection of chronicles, the Novgorod Chronicle is printed (in volume III) under the name 1 Novgorod Chronicle (in contrast to the later Novgorod Chronicles, which are chronicle collections and compilations of the 16th and 17th centuries). The Galicia-Volyn Chronicle, which describes the history of Galicia-Volyn (Volyn-Galicia) or Red Rus, covers only the last forty years of the pre-Mongol period, for it begins in 1206 (with the death of Roman Mstislavich Volyn, who united both regions into one principality). It is read in the Ipatian list, following the Kyiv chronicle, so if we quote the Ipatian chronicle after 1200 (with which the Kiev chronicle ends), this will mean that we quote in it the Galician-Volyn chronicle 10. If periods in the histories of societies are spaces of time, one distinct from another not by some external and random signs, but by the very life of societies and its character, then there are three such real, and not imaginary, periods in the history of the Russian church: Kiev, Moscow and the current St. Petersburg. The Kiev and Moscow periods actually represent one whole, characterized by the lack of real enlightenment, which we did not assimilate with the adoption of Christianity and without which we remained until Peter the Great himself. But in this whole they form two special halves. For all peoples who do not have real enlightenment, religion must appear in such a form that the external more or less prevails over the internal - conventional formal ritual over true faith and external piety (religiosity) over true piety (morality - as is the case with all educated peoples in the lower uneducated classes). This is how it was with us before the advent of enlightenment. Having become a characteristic feature in the development of our Christianity, this predominance had its own history with us, consisting in the fact that for a certain time it kept the measure or did not go beyond it, and then fell into extremes. The time of measure and the time of extremes constitute the Kyiv and Moscow periods. The current period in St. Petersburg is the period of the introduction of real enlightenment in our country, and at the same time, it is implied, a more perfect understanding of Christianity 11. We will divide our history of the Russian Church into the three indicated actual periods. Without the Mongol invasion and long before it, the center of state life was moved from the south to the north. Without this invasion, the center of church life would have been transferred there, because it is not natural for the church and the state - we mean the representation of power, which also implies the representation of life - to be in different places. But, accelerating or not accelerating the natural course of events, the invasion of the Mongols forced the church to move from south to north. Therefore, it should be placed on the line between the Kyiv and Moscow periods. (And therefore the Kiev period itself, in a simply descriptive sense, can be called pre-Mongol). The border between the Moscow and St. Petersburg periods is Peter the Great, and a certain church event - the establishment of St. Peter. Synod. The history of any society is a reproduction of its life. The life of societies, civil or ecclesiastical, has its own goal, which it achieves or should achieve with the assistance of a deliberate body, which is the government, and through the use of its own means. Thus, the history of any society is - firstly, the history of what serves it in achieving the goal of its life; secondly, the history of his life itself, in so far as it achieves its goal. The purpose and purpose of the church as a society is to educate people in the Christian faith and morals to assist them in obtaining earthly well-being and to bring them eternal salvation; her governmental body, serving her for this purpose, constitutes a divinely established hierarchy. Its means are: teaching in a double sense - in its own sense and through the scriptures and worship (with the teaching of the invisible grace of God in the sacraments). What parts (factors) make up the whole life of each church, the history of each church, which reproduces life, should also consist of such parts. Consequently, the composition of the parts of any church history, since it is necessary and, so to speak, organically determined by the composition of church life, which history reproduces, must be: government with its activities, teaching, worship, church life of society. This composition of parts of church history, determined by the concept of the church in itself, must be supplemented by what external relations bring into its life. Every church is not only a society, but a society within a society, a spiritual one within a secular one—in a state. And, since state power never treats the church indifferently, leaving it to itself, but either patronizes it or oppresses it and oppresses it, then certain relations of the state to the church, which significantly influence its life, constitute a necessary subject of speeches in any church history. This is also followed by additions that constitute either introductions to the history of churches or random sections that may or may not exist. Since every church, before it appears, must be founded, it is obvious that the history of any church (as such) must be preceded, as an introduction to it, by the history of its foundation. Every church, as a private whole, can have some kind of relationship with other churches (that is, any special relationship, other than the self-evident “unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” with other private churches with which it forms one whole). In any church, confusion may occur that leads to schisms; a teaching may be preached that deviates from the content of its teaching and creates heresies in it, etc. In accordance with what has just been said, we will present the history of the Russian Church for each of its periods. In this volume of our history we have the need to quite often turn to the Greek Church - to its life and archeology. At the same time, we constantly quote some related books. Here is an explanation of the quotes we make in abbreviation. Bingh .-Josephi Binghami, Angli (Rectoris Ecclesiae Haventinae in agro Hantoniensi) Origines sive Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae, ex lingua Anglica in Latinam vertit Jo. Henricus Grischovius Halberstadiensis. Voll, decem. Halae, 1724–29. Ducange Gloss. Graecit .-Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis et caet., auctore Carolo Du Fresne, Domino Du Cange (His Gloss . Latinit .– Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae Latinitatis). Rally and P.– Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων τῶν τε ἁ γίων καὶ ?? ? Α. Ῥ αλλη καὶ Μ . Ποτλη .– Six volumes. Ἀθήνησίν, 1852–59. We quote Karamzin’s story from Einerling’s edition. From which edition we quote this or that volume of the History of the Right Reverend Macarius and this or that volume of the History of S. M. Solovyov, we always indicate this directly. In the Society, I owe special gratitude to its treasurer, my former student at the Moscow Theological Academy, S. A. Belokurov. At whose suggestion the Society took upon itself the printing of my History. Who helped me in printing the books and who took over their sales. So in matter; in form - direct chronicle and monuments (written, material, and - if we are talking about living peoples - represented by living life: in language, beliefs, customs, etc.). And it even has one extra source against the stories of all Western churches: these are legends or notes about Russia by Western foreigners. In recent times, not just one satire, but a so-called novel in general. Whether or not there was an entry in the chronicle about the baptism of Vladimir, that is, the story of the baptism currently read in the annals, which constitutes a later insertion in it, whether it was placed in it in the place of the entry that previously stood in it or in a clean place, on which there was nothing before, this is a question. For the entire space of time before Peter the Great, we have, however, one exception, this is the biography of Patriarch Nikon, written by Ivan Shusherin (and to some extent, the Siege of the Trinity Monastery of Avramius Palitsyn can be considered a church monograph). And these existing lives show how little historical information we would receive from the lives of other metropolitans. And to some extent, his predecessor, Patriarch Joseph, whom Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich describes from some sides in his famous letter to Nikon. For my last words, some special kind of patriots (now, however, almost completely extinct) are extremely angry with me. But there is no great sense and no great benefit in portraying ourselves as beautiful in the past with the help of writing and fantasies. We should not do this, but something else, so that, having the courage to recognize the past as it was, we should try, in deliberate compensation for it, to become the best possible in the future (and not complain about God for sending us Peter the Great, but perhaps pray to God that He would send us another Peter the Great...) For a note regarding chronology, see additions and amendments. We invite the reader to look further at the division of Russian church history into periods in the preface to the first half of volume II of our History. You might be interested in: