Глава восьмая. Епископ Филарет 1817–1819

On July 5, 1817, a coffin with the body of the deceased Lieutenant General Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov was brought to the Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. A childhood friend of Alexander I, a like-minded person on reforms, who shared with him the bitterness of the defeat at Austerlitz. A dashing grunt, he beat the French and Turks, went with Bagration to the Aland Islands, fought like a lion in the Battle of Borodino, replacing the wounded General Tuchkov, fought at Tarutino, Maloyaroslavets, Krasny, near Leipzig, Hamburg. The whole chest is decorated with orders. In the battle of Craon, Pavel Alexandrovich suffered a terrible misfortune - a French cannonball blew off the head of his nineteen-year-old son Sashenka. He was unable to recover from this grief; he began to get sick and developed consumption. And then he died untimely at the age of forty-three... The emperor himself and his brothers Nikolai and Mikhail came to say goodbye to the one they had loved since childhood. The floor before the burial was given to Archimandrite Philaret. He began it with a long address to the deceased and only then moved on to a conversation with those gathered. It was beautiful and touched everyone. The moved emperor personally thanked the eloquent preacher. Then he asked the Metropolitan whether it was time to promote Philaret to the clergy, and eighteen days later, on the proposal of the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Ambrose (Podobedov), Archimandrite Philaret was ordered to be Bishop of Revel, vicar of the St. Petersburg diocese, leaving him the post of rector of the academy and administrator of the Novospassky monastery. The aging Ambrose was very, very glad to have such a wonderful bishop at his disposal as a vicar. In Greek, "bishop" simply means "overseer." This is what the apostles called themselves (Acts 1:20). From them, this title of bishop passed into use throughout the Christian Church. At the beginning of the 19th century, only the archbishop and the metropolitan were higher than the bishop. Now, as in pre-Petrine times, the patriarch is higher than the metropolitan. On August 5, in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Archimandrite Philaret appeared before Metropolitan Ambrose, who ordained him bishop. The newly ordained one knelt before the Holy Throne, and the Gospel was placed on his head with the letters facing down. The Metropolitan read the secret prayer. Then, after the litanies, the vestment in bishop's robes took place. The archpastors present greeted Bishop Philaret with a fraternal kiss. Near the relics of the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky, he was given a pastoral staff. The current Metropolitan of Tallinn and Estonia Cornelius (Jacobe) is the twenty-fourth First Hierarch of the Estonian Orthodox Diocese. The unforgettable Patriarch Alexy II (Ridiger) was his twenty-third predecessor in this post. And the first in 1817 was Bishop Filaret (Drozdov). Tallinn bore the Swedish name Revel. The Reval diocese had just been formed as a subordinate to St. Petersburg, and therefore the bishop was called suffragan. Vicar means vicar. Thirty-five-year-old Filaret was destined to begin the creation of a new diocese. Relaxation for him was always not an idle pastime, but some new activity. The translation of the Gospel is completed, things are going well at the academy, so we can start working on the Revel reconstructions. In the fall of 1817, Filaret went to Moscow with the court. The fifth anniversary of Napoleon's flight from the Mother See was celebrated there. On October 12, together with the emperor, Bishop Filaret arrived in Luzhniki and prayed with Alexander under the arches of the Church of the Tikhvin Mother of God. Then we went to the Moscow River, where we performed the blessing of water. After this, on the Sparrow Hills, the king laid the first stone for the foundation of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. This is how the plan of the architect Vitberg began to be implemented, which was not destined to be finally implemented. Filaret was not delighted with the plans of this architect. Swede Karl Magnus Witberg was a prominent Freemason from Labzin’s circle and dreamed of embodying his Masonic ideas in a new majestic temple. With this, he captivated Chief Prosecutor Golitsyn, and he defended Vitberg’s project with all his might before the sovereign. In order not to confuse Russian hearts with the fact that the church would be built by a Swede, Witberg accepted Orthodox baptism in 1817 and began to write himself not as Karl Magnus, but as Alexander Lavrentievich, and the sovereign himself became his godfather. The 1817 design is amazing. It would be a church similar to St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, but with a three-dome, it would stand on the Sparrow Hills, towering above all of Moscow, decorated with many columns, at that time the tallest building in Europe. At some distance from it, on both sides, two huge columns should have risen, the first - built from enemy cannons captured in 1812, the second - from enemy cannons taken during the Foreign Campaign of 1813-1814. It was planned to build an underground church. Actually, it is difficult to find anything reprehensible in the church projects themselves put forward by Vitberg. However, the very fact that the architect is a major Freemason and Golitsyn’s favorite and that the construction of the church according to Vitberg’s design was compared by the Masons to the reconstruction of Solomon’s Temple alarmed the bishops, including Filaret. There was another important topic for debate, which was seen by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, who was the first to object to Vitberg. The architect conceived the creation of the Moscow Vatican, a religious city inside Moscow. Thus, as in Rome, two centers were to be formed in Moscow - the Kremlin as the center of secular power and the Sparrow Hills as the center of ecclesiastical power. In Masonic circles, to which Witberg belonged, the idea of ​​overthrowing the Kremlin as the ancient symbol of Russian Orthodoxy had long been welcome. Bazhenov’s dizzying project, which involved the demolition of the Kremlin and the construction in its place of something similar to what we have in the center of St. Petersburg, has not yet been forgotten. Bazhenov's project did not come true. Now, according to Witberg’s project, the Kremlin was supposed to share the fate of the Roman Lateran, which became the center of the Christian church under Emperor Constantine, but faded into the background after the Vatican became the capital of Catholicism under the patron of the ideas of the “Renaissance”, Pope Julius II. Karamzin was the first to oppose such an idea; in church circles, of course, they supported him and not Vitberg. But what to do, I had to put up with the opinions and preferences of the sovereign. The laying of the foundation stone was consecrated, construction began, and Filaret, together with the emperor, at the end of the Moscow celebrations, went back to the Northern capital. At the end of 1817, a ten-thousandth edition of the four Gospels with parallel texts translated by priest Gerasim Pavsky, Archimandrite Moses (Bogdanov-Platonov-Antipov), Archimandrite Polycarp (Goitannikov) and Bishop Philaret (Drozdov) was published. Here I am holding in my hands our homemade “Holy Gospel”: St. Petersburg, Synodal Printing House, 1911, seventy-fifth edition. And then the first one came out. The Bible Society joyfully reported: “The Gospel in Russian, eagerly awaited, was received with extreme pleasure and increased the desire to read the word of God even more... It is impossible not to mention here the joy with which these books of the words of the Lord are received by our fellow tribesmen in a natural, intelligible language for everyone, nor to explain the benefit that can be expected from it; Such benefit is most foreseeable for the youth who are supplied with these books. Truly, we can say that the work of translation is the greatest blessing for the Russian people, who have been inclined towards piety since ancient times and have always thirsted for spiritual, Divine enlightenment...” But there were also very zealous opponents of the new translation, and above all members of the patriotic society “Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word”, led by the leader of conservative thought in Russia, Vice Admiral Alexander Semenovich Shishkov. This “fatherland-loving husband” is undoubtedly one of the pillars of Russian culture of the 19th century. In his youth, a brave sailor, who from an early age simultaneously began to become interested in philology and translate foreign books into Russian, he was a staunch opponent of clogging the Russian language with foreign language and successfully fought to preserve the originality of our speech. Under Emperor Paul, he became not only a naval commander, but also an official historian of the fleet. Under Alexander Shishkov, young reformers pushed aside. At the same time, enmity arose between him and Golitsyn, whom the decent Alexander Semenovich fiercely hated as an upstart and a fanfare. In 1803, Shishkov published his most important work, “Discourse on the old and new syllables of the Russian language.” In 1805, his translation of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” was published. In 1811, he created the society “Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word”. We all remember how mischievous people, fooling around with Shishkov’s desire to find a Russian substitute for foreign words, came up with the following tease: “The good house is walking through the boulevard from the disgrace to the lists,” which, translated into foreign borrowed words, meant: “A dandy is walking along the boulevard from the theater to the circus.” We also remember Pushkin’s evil epigrams on Shishkov. But if you carefully read Shishkov’s “Discourse on the Old and New Syllable,” which contains an extensive dictionary of Russian words that Alexander Semenovich proposed to resurrect, replacing them with overseas ones, it is not difficult to see how many of these words Pushkin used in his works, thereby bringing Shishkov’s dreams to life! So Alexander Semenovich also had a hand in the creation of the Russian literary language. And even very much so. During the years of patriotic upsurge associated with the war against Napoleon, Shishkov came to court and in 1812 - 1814, when Speransky was removed, he held the post of Secretary of State, the second most important in the Russian Empire after the sovereign. In 1814, he was replaced by Alexey Nikolaevich Olenin, but while remaining in the State Council, Alexander Semenovich continued to be one of the most influential statesmen of the empire. When the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs and Public Education was born in 1817, headed by the hated Golitsyn, Shishkov, of course, immediately became a fierce enemy of this institution. He did not stop fighting the Bible Society, openly calling its members accomplices of world Protestantism. He accused Golitsyn of a decline in morality, rampant free-thinking and anti-Orthodox mysticism. Shishkov said: “It seems as if all schools have turned into schools of depravity, and whoever comes out of there will immediately show that he has been seduced from the true path and his head is filled with emptiness, and his heart is filled with pride, the first enemy of prudence.” And about translations of the Bible into a new language, Alexander Semenovich spoke like this: “These are translations from the language of the Church into the language of the theater.” However, Shishkov’s main battles with the Bible Society were still to come, and while Alexander Semenovich was only grumbling, the new Gospel was spreading rapidly. In 1818, the second edition was published, and in 1819 – the third, with the addition of “The Acts of the Holy Apostles.” At the beginning of 1818, in the Kazan Cathedral of St. Petersburg, the Bishop of Revel delivered a sermon before the swearing in of the nobility and citizens to elect judges. It is notable for the fact that in it he talks about the trust that the Lord has endowed on modern man. In ancient times, God himself judged “the corrupted first world and determined for it the execution of the flood; judged the proud Babylonians and punished them with confusion of tongues; the corrupted Sodomites and, like a perspicacious physician of souls and bodies, burned out entire cities of them, like incurable and infectious scabs on the face of the earth, with fire and a bogey.” But the more a person moved away from bestiality, the more the Lord entrusted judgment to man. And this will be the case in the future, but only on one condition: that the judges will remember God and His judgment, which is terrible if the judges are criminal. – Do you finally see what you are doing, electing judges and organizing the court? – Filaret addressed the audience. – You are preparing instruments for God himself; for Him you are building a sanctuary. And since the dispensation of the court, just like the court itself, is His, then you yourselves become His instruments; your class is the assembly of the Lord... It would be nice for today’s judges to re-read this fiery and instructive word of Philaret from time to time! On May 21, 1818, the second of the highest patrons of Philaret, the first of whom was Plato, passed away. Now Bishop Ambrose has passed away. Due to health reasons, he was transferred to the Novgorod department, where he left this mortal world. Ambrose's place was replaced by another wonderful shepherd - Metropolitan Michael (Desnitsky). He was very educated, spoke different languages ​​easily, and had the gift of preaching. Emperor Paul made him a presbyter at court. Severe grief burst into the life of Father Mikhail - he lost his wife and children at once. After that, he became a monk. The tonsure took place in Gatchina in the presence of the entire imperial family. For a long time he was Archbishop of Chernigov. In 1813 he was summoned to St. Petersburg to attend the Holy Synod. On August 30, 1814, he received the title of member of the Synod and member of the Commission of Theological Schools, and then also received the title of member of the Humane Society and the Russian Academy. Soon, Archbishop Michael became a member of the Bible Society, in which he immediately entered into hostility with Golitsyn, considering him a harmful distributor of Protestant infection and mystical nonsense. The year 1818 was marked by the publication of the first eight volumes of Karamzin’s “History of the Russian State”, the erection of a monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Moscow’s Red Square, the opening of the Warsaw Sejm, the birth of the sovereign’s nephew Alexander, the future Emperor Alexander II, the death of Ataman Platov and Field Marshal Barclay de Tolly, as well as the creation of the secret society “Union of Welfare”. The future Decembrists were supporters of the newfangled Lancastrian education system, in which high school students take on part of the responsibilities of teachers. In this, their aspirations coincided with the aspirations of many members of the Bible Society, who were also supporters of Lancastrianism. In such a bizarre way, in the Bible Society, Filaret and his translators simultaneously coexisted with Western liberals, many of whom were Freemasons, which is in no way compatible with Orthodoxy! Of course, Filaret could not have any spiritual unity with the freethinkers. He simply always, as they say now, kept his “finger on the pulse”, tried to read everything that the St. Petersburg society of that time was interested in, including mystics - Francois Fenelon, Karl von Eckargshausen, Jung-Stilling, Meister Eckhart, and willingly discussed all this with mystics and masons like Labzin or Lopukhin. Quakers, supporters of the mystical teaching, according to which a person should strive to have his soul and flesh tremble, feeling the power of the Lord, poured from America to St. Petersburg. In fact, the name of the sect itself comes from the word “quake” - “to shudder”. Filaret willingly communicated with the Quakers in order to know what they were breathing, whom they so kindly welcomed and listened to in the capital’s living rooms. But “keeping his finger on the pulse,” he remained Filaret, without becoming either a mystic, a Mason, or a Quaker. Being, as it was believed, “Golitsyn’s man,” he only paid tribute to the patronage that Alexander Nikolaevich provided him, but in no way became the same as the chief prosecutor, and he never became truly Orthodox and even in religion sought salvation for himself from the boredom of life and the greatest diversity. And Filaret could not like the way Golitsyn provided patronage to all sorts of rogues flying to the banks of the Neva with their sparkling new teachings. The very thirst of society to grasp at these teachings showed that there was a need for spiritual education. You couldn’t just get up and go aside, and let them do what they wanted. And Filaret came to the idea of ​​​​the need to write a catechism.