Archimandrite Cyprian and his book about St. Gregory Palamas

From a magazine photograph published shortly after the death of Fr. Cyprian, looking at the “people of the future” with a sad, haggard, tragic face. All verbal portraits agree that he almost did not know the joy of life, the “gaiety of the heart.” “He had a hard life in the world” (V. Veidle). “In life he was almost always in a sad mood” (B. Zaitsev). “Many did not understand that in front of them was a man mortally wounded - not by some single circumstance - personal tragedy, misfortune - but by life itself. It was difficult for him to live, just as it is difficult for others to climb the stairs” (A. Schmeman) 1. Konstantin Eduardovich Kern belonged to the second generation of Russian theologians in exile. He was born in Tula on May 11, 1899, in 1922 he graduated from the law faculty, and in 1925 from the theological faculty of the University of Belgrade 2. By this time, not only such stars as Fr. S.N.Bulgakov, B.P.Vysheslavtsev, V.V.Zenkovsky, I.A.Ilyin, L.P.Karsavin, Fr. P.A. Florensky, S.L. Frank, but younger ones have already managed to make themselves known - Fr. G.V. Florovsky (b. 1893), bishop. Cassian (Bezobrazov; b. 1892). The atmosphere of the “Russian religious renaissance” with its refined aesthetics, Fr. Cyprian could not help but be affected, for he grew up in it, and although, according to the testimony of A. Schmemann, in the last years of his life he renounced all this “intelligentsia” and reviled it, “he remained marked by this tonality, a special structure of consciousness, forever.” In a religiously sensitive soul, a reverent attitude towards the older generation inevitably precedes ideological independence, and therefore one must clearly understand and feel that Vl. Solovyov and A. Blok were “fathers” for Konstantin Kern, that love for K.N. Leontiev and D.S. Merezhkovsky coincided with the maturation of his own life ideals, and to doubt the church sensitivity and theological insight of Fr. For him, P.A. Florensky was tantamount to betraying a loved one... Konstantin Kern took monastic vows in 1927. It is difficult to judge how conscious, internally prepared, spiritually verified this step was, whether aesthetic motives did not play a decisive role here, the example of the same K.N. Leontyev. Those who knew Fr. Cyprian touches on this issue very delicately, but quite definitely. “The monastic path,” writes B. Zaitsev, “with the cutting off of the will, the removal from the elements that own us all, weave the earthly fabric, the path actually “angelic”, didn’t it turn out to be the most difficult for him?” And o. Alexander Schmemann speaks with great conviction: “In Fr. The Cyprians had a huge unspent reserve of personal love, tenderness, affection and, at the same time, the inability, inability to reveal them. He freely chose loneliness, but he also suffered from it. He was a wonderful friend, an interesting conversationalist, a welcome guest everywhere; but how soon, I remember, - in a conversation, at a party, at a table - he began to feel a growing anxiety in him, a desire to leave, some kind of pointless anxiety. He seemed to suddenly realize that all this was still “not the same”, that he was only a guest, and a guest should not stay too long, a guest does not “belong” to the house, he must leave... And so, he went back into his loneliness, with the same unquenched love, undisclosed, unfulfilled... " Be that as it may, Fr. Cyprian performed with great responsibility and exactingness towards himself. From 1925 to 1928 he was a teacher at the Bitola Seminary in Macedonia, shortly after taking monastic vows. At this time, he completed work on his first book, “Prayer Krins,” which was published in Belgrade in 1928. It reflects “his perception of worship at a certain period of his life” (A. Schmeman). In the fall of the same year, Fr. Cyprian met at a congress of writers in the Serbian capital with the then widely known writer B. Zaitsev and presented him with his opus. This event marked the beginning of their acquaintance and many years of friendship. B.K. Zaitsev in the following words conveys his first impression of his meeting with Fr. Cyprian: “not only an archimandrite, but also a lover of literature and the arts in general. All this fits perfectly with his appearance, beautiful eyes, long graceful fingers. It was obvious from the conversation that he wanted to go to Paris, to the Theological Institute, to the source of Russian theology (Fr. Sergius Bulgakov was still alive then)” 3. In fact, the semi-legendary personality Fr. Sergius undoubtedly attracted the young scientist, who knew first-hand “The Never-Evening Light” and “Quiet Thoughts” and calibrated his guidelines and sympathies according to them. But this does not mean at all that all of Bulgakov’s theological ideas were accepted by him with reckless trust, without internal critical work. This is what Fr. wrote. Cyprian about his senior comrade in the year of the 25th anniversary of the Theological Institute: “The whole path from Marxist lies to church truth, Levitical traditionalism in one and bold breadth in the other, rare philosophical flair, culture, a warm pastoral heart and exceptional prayerfulness - our late dean carried all this within himself. Meaning o. Sergius may not be at all what both his rare students and his many ill-wishers so want to see him in. All of us, his colleagues and friends, fully justifying the freedom of his daring and agreeing with everything in the formulation of these particular problems, at the same time did not completely share his theological statements. We must directly and decisively declare publicly: the Theological Institute has never considered the speculations of Fr. Sergius with his official theology. No school of his own. Sergius was never able to create it with us. Moreover, he did not leave a single student among his former students, and now teachers. There is no “Parisian theology”! Yes, to true church ears and theological taste, this expression sounds unbearably false and provincial. It can only exist in the imagination of obscurantists who are suspicious of everything” 4. In Paris, however, Archimandrite. Cyprian didn't hit it right away. In 1928–30 he was the head of the Russian mission in Jerusalem, and from 1931 to 1936 he again taught at the Bitola Seminary. However, connections with the center of Russian theology were gradually improved: in 1932, in the 32nd issue of the magazine “Put”, an article “Ideals of the Anglican Church” appeared signed “K. Kern” 5. Finally, in 1936, Metropolitan Evlogy summoned Fr. Cyprian to Paris, and he began teaching Greek, pastoral theology and liturgics at the Theological Institute. He received his parish on Lourmel Street, where he became close to Boris Zaitsev and soon became his family’s confessor. He served here for a short time. According to the memoirs of B. Zaitsev, Fr. Cyprian quite soon moved from his mother Maria, who was “the complete opposite of him,” to Sergiev Compound, and received a parish 12 versts away in Clamart. Here Fr. served with him for five years. Alexander Shmeman, first a student and then a teacher at the Theological Institute. In assessing the church-liturgical ministry of Fr. Cyprian’s close friends are completely unanimous: “I am absolutely convinced,” wrote Fr. A. Schmeman - and this conviction is based on five years of constant concelebration with Fr. Cyprian at the same altar, that the only true joy in his life was worship, the celebration of the Eucharist, the mystical depths of Holy Week, Easter, and holidays. Here lived all his love for the Church, never wavering, complete devotion to it.” Boris Zaitsev speaks in almost the same words: “I think his main joy and consolation was Divine services.” And V. Veidle admires the liturgical image of Fr. Cyprian: “How good he was in the church when he served...” In everyday life and everyday situations this image was often distorted. “The character is difficult, contradictory, with unexpected outbursts. Fluctuations from high elation to melancholy and melancholy, intransigence, sometimes intolerance” (B. Zaitsev). Where is Fr. Cyprian freely revealed the best sides of his nature, so it was in the estate of Prof. Elyashevich in Bussy. As B. Zaitsev recalls, here “he felt like he was among friends, he was simple, affectionate and frank.” It was here that his artistic talent clearly manifested itself. Narrator Fr. Cyprian was “wonderful, he perfectly portrayed different people, from simpletons to bishops. An artist, an artist, actually sat in it. He could very well play in Stanislavsky’s theater” (B. Zaitsev). Apparently this is true. But not every role would have fallen to Fr. Cyprian likes it. He did not like brashness, merchant scale, Russian recklessness. The heroes of Dostoevsky, Gogol, Ostrovsky were not to his liking. With all the commitment of Fr. Cyprian to the Byzantine-Russian church rite, his aesthetic sympathies were more likely to lean towards the West. There is a lot of evidence of this. According to B. Zaitsev, he “couldn’t stand it when the protodeacon called out the Gospel so that the windows shook. "Zamoskvoretsky style, for Ostrovsky's people." And o. Alexander Schmemann noted that in Kern “there was nothing of the “Russian priest” - be it in his “kenotic” rural incarnation or in his metropolitan-synodal appearance.” For Schmemann, Archimandrite Cyprian was the embodiment of the Byzantine “royalty” of Orthodoxy, which was not assimilated by the Russian tradition, despite many features of external similarity. At the same time, to Boris Zaitsev he seemed like an “Orthodox Benedictine”... So, such a detail, for example, is by no means accidental and psychologically very significant: Fr. Sergius Bulgakov is remembered by Kern in the image of “some Florentine Quattrocento...” 6. And what can we say about the mysterious hobby of Fr. Cyprian by the French writer Leon Bloy? Remy de Gourmont defined the journalistic talent of this author as follows: “His books seem to have been edited by St. Thomas Aquinas in collaboration with Gargantua... No Christian can accept them, but no atheist can enjoy them... These books are the mirror of a soul that is violent, unjust, proud - and, perhaps, sincere” 7. And here is the impression of Jules Renard: "The man may be vile, but what he says makes one think... the writer is bitter, cynical, less a great writer, less an artist and less proud than his teacher Barbey d'Aurevelly" 8. Something apparently connected Leon Blois with both K.N. Leontyev and V.V. Rozanov, and this “something” found a lively response in the “royal” structure of the soul of Archimandrite Cyprian... Scientific interests of Fr. Cyprian were closely connected with his pedagogical activity and were largely determined by it. They mainly focused on pastoral theology, liturgics and patrolology. He began writing on pastoral theology back in the thirties - then the already mentioned article “Pastoral Problems” and “Leviticism and Prophecy as Types of Shepherding” (Living Tradition, 1937, No. 3, pp. 140–152) were published, and the final work was the book “Orthodox Pastoral Ministry” (Paris, 1957) 9 . However, according to Fr. A. Schmemann, there is no direct connection between these works and it is even “hard to believe” that they belong to the pen of one person: “they were not connected by the slow maturation and gestation of one central theme”, they reflected more of a “movement of the heart” than speculative quests. The same applies to other works of Fr. Cyprian. “His own theme, which he would have been obsessed with all his life,” says Fr. A. Schmemann, “he didn’t have his own questions, the answer to which he would devote all of himself... Father Cyprian was not an intellectual, but an emotional person, he did not feel the need for intellectual “calibration” of his emotions.” This conclusion is quite consistent with the judgments about the artistic nature of Fr. Cyprian, but inevitably raises doubts about the scientific value of his works... Therefore, it must be emphasized: the scientific integrity of Fr. Cypriana was always above suspicion. The simple fact is that the problems that he solved were often not his hard-won problems; he approached them as if from the outside, “for obedience.” This is exactly what Fr. A. Schmemann, when he says that “he was not a theologian in the strict sense of the word.” The main work of Fr. According to Cyprian's liturgics, the Eucharist appeared (Paris, 1957). In the preface to it, Fr. Cyprian quite accurately pointed out that it “is not a study,” but a “compilative work.” The historical part of this book is significantly more meaningful than the section with “practical instructions” and “theological interpretations,” but it is also to a large extent already outdated and, moreover, almost completely bypasses the problems of the Russian liturgical tradition. Meanwhile, there are also topics here that directly resonate with the dissertation of Fr. Cyprian about St. Gregory Palamas 10. The indisputable merit of Fr. Cyprian in the field of liturgics was the organization of an international seminar on this discipline at the Sergius Metochion in Paris. But the primary attention about. Cyprian devoted patristics. In addition to his doctoral dissertation “Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas,” which will be discussed further, he authored the books “The Golden Age of Patristic Writing” (Paris, 1967) and “Russian Translations of Patristic Texts” (Cheveton, 1957, in French). Among other excursions, Archimandrite Cyprian deserves to be noted for the article “Pre-revolutionary Russian clergy abroad (ecumenism before the ecumenical movement)”, published in “Orthodox Thought” (No. 11, 1957, pp. 101–122) and a publication dedicated to one of the thinkers he especially valued - “From the unpublished letters of K. Leontiev” (Paris, 1959). In all his works, Archimandrite. Cyprian strove for the uncompromising implementation of the ideal of true scientificity, hard-won by Russian academic theology of the last century. “Everyone who knows the past of our Academies,” he wrote in the article “A Quarter of a Century,” “still remembers too many scientifically valuable works that were not missed, however, not by the learned board of professors, but by the synodal reviewers. The prohibitions against writing dissertations on well-known topics are memorable. The names of the professors who suffered from the bishop's revisions of our Academies are memorable - quite a long synod. The constraint of the scientific-critical method and general suspicion of historical perspectives in science are memorable.” Such pseudo-church, but essentially clerical, theocratic or Caesar-papist tutelage over scientific thought could not be accepted by the archimandrite. Cyprian even for reasons of “economy”. Deals with his own conscience, regardless of the circumstances justifying them and “good intentions,” were for him tantamount to falling away from the Church. The true “measure of churchliness” served for him, as indeed for most professors of the Theological Institute, “the bold freedom of St. The teachers of the Church should question and think, not limiting this freedom only to the chosen ones who lived and taught before them, but excluding ourselves from this golden chain of church tradition and captivating ourselves in the immobility of thought.” That is why he resolutely called for the fearless acceptance of all historical-critical data - “philological and grammatical analysis, archaeological discoveries, comparisons of texts”, for the fearless debunking of all “pseudo-epigraphs and anonyms and generally pious forgeries, in order to confidently use only material that has passed through the purifying fire of serious research”; Likewise, he put forward the demand “to stand at the height of the philosophical preparedness and scientific achievements of our time and not be afraid to accept, when necessary, Kant and Fichte, creative evolution and psychoanalysis, biology and comparative linguistics” (article “Quarter of a Century”). Serving the ideal of Orthodox scholarship in continuous unity with the pastoral and liturgical service of Fr. Cyprian carried it with complete selflessness until the last day of his life. He died in the Sergievsky Metochion in Paris on February 11, 1960. Due to the shortage of elders, B.K. Zaitsev read the Gospel over his late “abba”... His doctoral dissertation on the anthropology of St. Archimandrite Gregory Palamas Cyprian wrote during the difficult years of World War II (remember that for him it began in 1939), and defended it shortly before the capture of Berlin, on April 8, 1945. Five years later, it was published as a separate book by the YMKA-PRESS publishing house. Contents of the book about. Cypriana is significantly broader than its name. Most of it is devoted to the presentation of the anthropological views of St. fathers. There was no such review in Russian theological literature before Kern, and there was none after him. A. Pozov’s extensive study “Fundamentals of Ancient Church Anthropology” is not structured according to personalities - strings of quotations from church writers are intended here to reinforce one or another link in the very sophisticated triadological scheme of the author himself. So the book is about. Cyprian today remains the only introduction in Russian to the study of patristic ideas about man. A noticeable shortcoming of this part of Fr. Cyprian is the lack of presentation of the anthropological views of Blessed. Augustine and his followers in the West. The consideration that Augustine could not influence St. Gregory Palamas, can be extended to Thomas Aquinas, however, without a comparative analysis, the origins and essence of the dispute about “energies” are significantly obscured. At the same time, it is necessary to make sure that the majority of Palamas’ opponents had nothing to do with Augustinianism or Thomism and that the same eastern soil served as support for their doubts regarding theological innovations... In the context of the topic posed in the title of the book, the review of patristic anthropology was apparently supposed to solve one main task, namely: to remove or confirm doubts about the continuity of Palamism with the theology of the Eastern Fathers. We think that for this purpose the principle of presentation should rather have been chosen differently - from the texts of St. Gregory, with indexes of texts quoted by him and terms used, auxiliary florilegies compiled by him or in his circle. The path that Fr. took. Cyprian inevitably led to too sharp a distinction between the “historical” and “systematic” parts of the work and weakened the functional significance of the first. Actually the anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas in Kern's book is devoted to only three final chapters (VI-VIII), since the fifth offers a brief outline of the entire theological teaching of St. father. It is impossible not to notice that as we approach the central theme of the work, quotations from Palamas noticeably become thinner and are replaced by incidental reminiscences. Thus, in the sixth chapter, dedicated to human nature, we find the anthropological scheme of B.P. Vysheslavtsev, a commendable review of the insights of the symbolists of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, and a presentation of the medievalist concept of Huizinga. The conceptual result is very modest: like other Byzantine thinkers, Palamas is inclined to a symbolic vision of man, which, however, was also characteristic of the Neoplatonists - it is no coincidence that the chapter is preceded by an epigraph from Plotinus... Chapter VII – “The Image and Likeness of God” – is significantly more meaningful and, one might say, daring. It is about the philosophy of creativity, the theological justification of Christian culture. Here the voluntarily suppressed artistic nature of Fr. Cyprian. He indicated the leitmotifs, not without a visible challenge to his opponents, with quotes from the disgraced Archimandrite Theodore (Bukharev) and N.A. Berdyaev. He responds to the invective of V.V. Rozanov, M.M. Tareev and others - tacitly recognizing their validity - with excerpts from St. Gregory and Rev. Maxima. Orthodoxy, true Orthodoxy, is palamism, and palamism is “joyful cosmism”, “bright asceticism”, “glorification of the flesh”, “obedience to creativity”. Presentation about. Cypriana in this chapter acquires a completely ecstatic character. But sometimes it even seems that he is not describing Palamas, but one of the Renaissance thinkers like Gianozzo Manetti, for his hero “dares to praise a person in a way that, perhaps, few of the Fathers of the Church.” In any case, a certain doubt remains: are the themes of “philosophy of creativity” and “glorification of the flesh” as central for Palamas as Fr. Cyprian, through whose efforts the metahistorical unity of the Thessalonian saint with N.A. Berdyaev was realized... As for the “deification of man,” to which the final chapter of the book is devoted, then, as Fr. Cyprian, “Palamas does not put forward any new “theory” and “does not create any theology of his own.” He has his own private opinions about the classification of passions, and there are thoughts that evoke analogies with psychoanalysis. But on the whole, he is completely unanimous with tradition, and only uses the expression ὁμόθεος “most often.” Archim. Cyprian especially insists that it can only be translated into Russian as “divine,” but not as “equally divine.” This pious warning significantly reduces the very idea of deification and opens up wide scope for speculation about the degrees of communion... The meaning of the book about. Cyprian is concretized only in comparison with the thematically related works of Russian religious philosophers and theologians. In the 20th century, the topic of man, besides the already mentioned B.P. Vysheslavtsev, N.A. Berdyaev and A. Pozov, was treated in sufficient depth, perhaps, only by Fr. Vasily Zenkovsky and S.L. Frank. Kern has a lot in common with them, even in his sympathies for certain Western authors (for example, E. Brunner), but he does not repeat anyone, and if he is somewhat inferior in his philosophical training, then in terms of specific historicism he occupies one of the first places. Russian theological literature is also not rich in studies about Palamas and Palamism. The closest predecessor of Fr. Cyprian was Bishop Vasily (Krivoshein), on whom he relies. There was also a book by Abbot Modest (Strelbitsky), published in Kyiv in 1860, and several encyclopedic and magazine articles. Palamas was mainly studied by Catholics and Protestants. Unfortunately, I didn’t know. Cyprian, that another adherent of the Palamite synthesis lives in his homeland and even publishes his works. Although from the beginning of the 1920s the main branch of Russian theology developed in relatively favorable conditions of emigration, another, barely noticeable, still defended itself in Russia in an atmosphere of political bad weather. There was practically no communication between them, and therefore it is very instructive to trace what unites and separates them in the interpretation of such a significant phenomenon as Palamism. An ardent supporter of Palamas in Russia was A.F. Losev, who in 1930 in Moscow published his large-scale monograph “Essays on Ancient Symbolism and Mythology” as an “author’s publication.” It summed up his many years of studies in Platonism and in its final part contained a lengthy excursion into the culture of the Christian Middle Ages. The main motive of this emotional, openly confessional-tinged text is that “Plato can in no way be combined not only with Christianity, but even with Western European romanticism.” Citing direct and indirect conciliar anathematisms against adherents of Platonic speculation, A.F. Losev sets out in detail the essence of the debate about the Light of Tabor and, although with some stretching, classifies Varlaam and Akindinus as Platonists, and then Latinism as a whole, along with its filioque, psychologism and prayer practice, considering it as a modification of Platonism. The teaching of St. Gregory Palamas serves as the result and ultimate synthesis of Orthodox theology, and with it he strongly connects the doctrine of name-glorification, which, following Fr. P.A. Florensky and Fr. S.N. Bulgakov defended it already in his “Philosophy of the Name” (1927). It only remained to include the idea of ​​Sophia-Wisdom among the “uncreated energies,” and the continuity would be almost complete... In such an extreme and polemically sharpened form, the point of view of A.F. Losev, Archimandrite. Cyprian, of course, could not divide. Platonic motifs from St. Gregory were too obvious for him; he did not swear allegiance to the doctrine of name-glorification, and he considered it necessary to warn against “hasty and not based on church tradition constructions of Russian theological thought of recent times” on page 298 of his book. One of the closest students of Fr. Cyprian and the continuator of his Palamite theme was Fr. John Meyendorff. His book "Introduction to the Study of Gregory Palamas" (1959), published in French, is essentially faithful to the tradition of Bishop Vasily (Krivoshein) and Archimandrite. Cyprian and significantly contributed to the revival of interest in the Byzantine theologian in the West. That is why it is extremely important to imagine how Fr. decides. John, the most pressing questions related to the assessment of the legacy of St. Gregory. In comparison with Kern, Meyendorff is even more restrained, academic and cautious, but with regard to language, terminology, i.e. expressive side of Palamas’s teaching, he had to speak out quite clearly. “Palamas,” he writes, “has great terminological fluctuations caused by the fact that the theological vocabulary in use was too dependent on the essential categories of Greek philosophy to adequately express the existential reality of Living Being” 11. It is difficult not to stumble over this argumentation, for the “used theological language” in Byzantium was not the language of St. fathers who actually relied on the Greek philosophical tradition, and his “inadequacy” in expressing the experience of living knowledge of God does not mean the “inadequacy” of the entire Tradition? This contradiction about. John obviously does not notice and strongly insists “on the incompatibility of the essential metaphysics, which goes back to Greek philosophy, with the personalistic and existential metaphysics that Palamas inherited from the Bible and the Fathers” 12. One can only wonder how Palamas became the heir to a speculative tradition that did not have its own language, and with the help of what concepts did Greek church writers express their thoughts until the 14th century? Similar doubts go back to the contemporaries of St. Gregory, but the Sergiev Theological Institute was never able to give a clear answer to them. In Russia itself, despite the close tutelage of the dominant ideology, the theological tradition was not interrupted and its few representatives even managed to compare different points of view on Palamas, including A.F. Losev, Kern and Meyendorff. First of all, the name of Vladimir Veniaminovich Bibikhin, in the past a close student and personal secretary of A.F. Losev, should be mentioned here. In particular, he is responsible for the translation of the “Triads” of St. Gregory Palamas, prepared in 1978, but only now seeing the light of day. In a very balanced, stylistically strictly maintained afterword to it, V.V. Bibikhin criticizes the tendency to present the matter as if “in the person of Varlaam, St. Gregory argued, as it were, with Catholicism, as well as with nominalistic humanism and even with the beginning Renaissance,” 13 without, however, mentioning “Essays on Ancient Symbolism and Mythology.” He believes that the arguments put forward by Prokhor Kydonis against the doctrine of energies are “irrefutable,” but ultimately the point is not in logical arguments and concepts, but in the true spirit of tradition. Thus, he comes to the point of view of Fr. George Florovsky, expressed by him in the article “St. Gregory Palamas and the tradition of the Fathers." This all-conciliating position should inevitably give rise to thoughts about whether, in the era of Monothelite disputes, it was worth breaking spears over the “single godly energy” and whether, in fact, opponents of the doctrine of energies opposed the spirit of tradition? And in general, isn’t it more often than we usually think that in religious disputes everything happened according to the formula: “The arguments are different, but the spirit is the same”? Otherwise, even the Dithelites can be reproached for introducing the distinction between “nature” and “will” into divine simplicity, just as Palamas was reproached for the separation of “essence” and “energy”... Ultimately, only soteriological certainty can serve as the supreme criterion, and everything that obscures or distorts it will certainly be swept aside by the ecclesiastical mind... A prominent ideologist of the “neopalamite synthesis” is Sergei Sergeevich Khoruzhy, the author of “The Diptych of Silence” and many articles on Russian religious philosophy of the 20th century. He was also connected with A.F. Losev through personal communication and ideological sympathies, but in his programmatic works he gravitates not to “Essays on Ancient Symbolism and Mythology,” but rather to Chapter VII of the book by Fr. Cyprian... His desire to identify in the history of Russian thought and culture those links that ensure its continuity with Palamism is very noticeable, but it turns out there are not so many of them. Scholastic captivity, which Kern also wrote about, has long become a commonplace in historical and theological research. And there is no escaping the fact that already at the turn of the 18th century, the language itself, the very concepts of Palamite thought, seemed completely incomprehensible to the learned Russian hierarchs. This is clearly demonstrated by the dispute between Stefan Yavorsky and Sophronius Likhud 14. At the same time, the memory of St. Gregory will invariably be solemnly celebrated on the second Sunday of Great Lent. - Memory without a clue?.. Father John Meyendorff at one time, not without reason, stated that polemical treatises compiled in the 14th century by Palamite theologians are practically absent in the libraries of Russian monasteries. There was no need to translate them, he believes, because “Rus did not have its own Varlaam” 15. It is difficult to argue anything here, but nevertheless we cannot help but point out one unique copy of such a treatise, which we found in 1981 in manuscript No. 235 from the collection of E.V. Barsov, stored in the State Historical Museum in Moscow. This collection, in the 4th part of the sheet, written in semi-format on 391 sheets, is remarkable primarily because it was created at the turn of the 14th - 15th centuries, during the time of St. Nikon of Radonezh (paper watermarks, based on Moshin-Tralich’s album, No. 2624 – 1397–1413, No. 1068 – 1390–1400, No. 3625 – XIV/10, No. 2490 – 1399, No. 6430 – 1394/95, No. 6325 – XIV/10). Records from the 19th century indicate that the book belonged first to the monastery of St. Paisius Velichkovsky (1864, 1868), and then to the New Jerusalem Monastery (1887). In this collection, along with the works of Hesychius, Gregory of Sinaite, Isaac the Syrian and others, there is an essay with the following title: “Testimony from the divine scriptures and our God-bearing fathers, as if by the communion of the divine spirit, those who believed, as befits them, were given their gifts by their coming, from which the Father and the Son are bought and the Holy Trinity is a home.” (l. 233–294 vol.). Judging by the fact that the name of the compiler of this florilegium was initially absent from the title and was added at the top a little later (“The Father of the Holy Father, Archbishop Gregory Palamas of Thessaloniki”), it should stand very close to the Greek original. And if we consider that our list is undoubtedly of Serbian origin and it was the Serbs who ransomed Palamas from Muslim captivity, we can assume that both the florilegium itself and its translation date back to 1355... But this is just a guess. I have not seen the Greek text. In volume 150 of Minya’s “Patrology”, this or a very similar florilegium is mentioned under No. XIV (see columns 779–780) among the works of Palamas, but was not published, but in the book of Fr. I. Meyendorff 1959 nothing is said about him. At the same time, there is also a Russian copy of the 18th century, already in the collection of works of Palamas (Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library, collection of Stroev, No. 44). Here the above name is common as an anti-Latin phrase, and there are a number of different interpretations. These and similar evidence of the existence of Palamite texts in Rus' in both the 15th and 18th centuries can provide rich material for a new generation of theologians and researchers of the Byzantine-Slavic cultural tradition to understand the connections of the Thessalonian saint with his “spiritual ancestors,” the expressive means of his thoughts and their reflection in other languages, and the activities of Russian centers of book writing. Thin, decaying threads connect the 14th century with the 20th, and therefore it is so important to illuminate them as fully as possible with the rays of Christian historical consciousness. In this, too, our “obedience to creativity,” to use Kern’s expression, will manifest itself, a living connection with the founders of “smart doing” - and new patterns of the dazzling robe of the spiritual world will be invisibly woven. In godly quests, creative daring and joyful surrender of the world to the “people to come” in the Lord, the book of Archimandrite Cyprian “The Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas" is an indisputable evidence of the selfless asceticism of Russian learned monasticism. Obituaries written by V. Veidle (In Memory of Father Cyprian), B. Zaitsev (The Hard Path) and others. A. Schmeman (In Memory of Archimandrite Cyprian) published in the Bulletin of the RSHD, No. 56, 1960, p. 44–55. Biographical information about the archimandrite. I took the Cyprians from the following sources: Zernov N. Russian religious revival of the 20th century. Paris, 1991, p. 352–353; Twenty-fifth anniversary of the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. 1925–1950. Paris, 1950, p. 22–23 (Reprint from the “Church Bulletin of the Western European Exarchate”, No. 4 (25), June-July 1950). Zaytsev B. Distant. Inter-Language Literary Association, 1965, p. 70. Cyprian, archimandrite A quarter of a century // Twenty-five-year anniversary of the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, p. 8–9. It is unlikely that it could have belonged to another person. Later in this journal, Fr. Cyprian published the article “Pastoral Problems” (No. 58, 1938–39) and a review of the book by Fr. F. Mersenier “Prayer of the Churches of the Byzantine Rite” (No. 55, 1938). The magazine responded to the book by Fr. with a review by I. Smolich. Cyprian about Fr. Antonina Kapustin, published in 1934 in Belgrade (No. 52, Nov. 1936 - March 1937). Cyprian, archimandrite A quarter of a century, p. 9. Remy de Gourmont. Le II-me Livre des Masques. Paris, 1898, pp. 51–52, 54. Renard J. Journal. Paris, 1935, pp. 415–416. Apart from the conspicuous preponderance of Western examples and quotations from Catholic authors, this book contains many undeniable features of Latin clericalism and sacramentology. Nevertheless, one cannot help but admit that it quite adequately describes and to a large extent shapes the pastoral consciousness of the 2nd half of the 20th century. See also: Gostev A., priest. The problem of pastoral theology today in the light of the legacy of Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). // Cultural heritage of Russian emigration. 1917–1940. Book I. M., 1994, p. 269–274. See, for example: A. Pentkovsky. From the history of liturgical transformations in the Russian Church in the third quarter of the 14th century // Symbol, No. 29, 1993. p. 217–238. Meyendorff J. Introduction a 1'etude de Gregoire Palamas. (Paris), 1959, p. 307. Veniaminov V. Brief information about the life and thought of St. Gregory Palamas // St. Gregory Palamas. Triads in defense of the sacredly silent. M., 1995, p. 356. See: Answer by Sophrony Likhud. Transl. and will enter, article by V.V. Arzhanukhin // Historical and Philosophical Yearbook, 1993. M., 1994, p. 228–255. Meyendorff I., prot. Byzantium and Muscovite Rus'. Essays on the history of church and cultural relations in the 14th century. Paris, 1990, p. 154–175.