Characteristics of Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism

Christianity has three main forms of its historical existence or three religions: Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant. Only in the first was it preserved in its true form; in the other two it appeared in a changed, disfigured form. Only the Greco-Slavic world is the custodian of pure Christian truth and a truly Christian church structure, while the Romano-Germanic world is deprived of the possession of true and pure Christianity. What determines this difference in the historical manifestation of Christianity? What determines the calling by the grace of God of some peoples into the Christian Church and leaving others for the time being in a natural state, the same determines among the Christian peoples themselves the calling of some peoples to be bearers of pure Christian truth and the leaving of others to be not entirely faithful to the teachings of Christ the Savior when confessing the Christian faith. The laws of the action of God's grace are always and everywhere the same. The grace-filled calling, both in general to Christianity and in particular to Orthodoxy, within the meaning of church teaching about grace and freedom, cannot be accomplished otherwise than through the interaction of supernatural and natural causes. For grace, according to the teaching of the Church, in its action never destroys human freedom. Thus, the election of certain peoples for life in general in Christianity does not depend on the grace of God alone, but is determined by the degree of their receptivity to life in Christ, the degree of their natural ability to be organs and bearers of Christian truths. God does not call peoples to Christian life until they have advanced so far through natural development that they have all the natural conditions for faith in Christ. This has always been the way of action of God's Providence in relation to the human race. And Christ the Savior came into the world already when the peoples were prepared to receive the Redeemer of the world through natural development, not without the supernatural, of course, action of Providence. The apostles were also not allowed, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles (XVI, 6-7), to preach the Gospel in some places, no doubt because the ground was not prepared there for the preaching of the Gospel. So, in the acceptance of Christianity by some peoples and in the non-acceptance of it by others, it is not the arbitrariness of calling grace that is revealed, but the action of God’s Providence, consistent with the natural state of peoples, and therefore the acceptance or non-acceptance of Christianity is not only the work of God, but also a matter of human freedom. The grace of God follows no other laws in its action on the peoples who have adopted Christianity. And after the adoption of Christianity by a known people, although its natural features are exalted and purified from the supernatural action of God’s grace, they are not destroyed in this people. Meanwhile, these natural features, remaining in a certain nation even after its adoption of Christianity, can either promote or hinder the comprehensive and faithful assimilation of Christian truths by this people. This is the reason why the grace of God makes some peoples, as it were, primarily representatives of Christianity, while others are of secondary importance in the Christian world. In a large house, says the apostle, there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, and some for honorable use, others for low use (2 Tim. II, 20). Such an action of God's grace is not an unjust action, for its basis is not in the will of God, but in the natural development of peoples even before their acceptance of Christianity - an acceptance that depends on their freedom. The grace of God rewards each nation in its own way. It does not depend on grace alone that some peoples have developed in themselves a deeper acceptance and greater abilities for normal development in the kingdom of God, in the Christian church, while others have not prepared such favorable conditions for themselves. Let us now see what natural characteristics different nationalities possessed when they adopted Christianity. Before us are three nationalities: Greek, Roman and Germanic; the first two with a fully developed character, the last with a direction that, although outlined, is not yet quite clear 1. The Greek nation, even before the adoption of Christianity, managed to declare the comprehensiveness of the direction of its spiritual forces and their harmonious development. On all their numerous and varied works, this nation has left the stamp of artistry in the broad sense of the word, balance, harmony between idea and form, spirit and matter, thought and word. This highly harmoniously developed nation brought into all its works the harmony that existed between the forces of its own national spirit. The Latin people, who also managed to discover the direction of their spiritual forces even before the adoption of Christianity, declared themselves not to be comprehensive, but, on the contrary, to be one-sided in their spiritual make-up, precisely by the predominance of practical forces over theoretical ones - and therefore all their works were imprinted with the character of narrow practicality, utilitarianism. She had little inclination to study science in general and philosophy in particular - the latter did not flourish among the Romans; art was also not their sphere. Their real domain was the domain of everyday, everyday needs and human relationships—the state, its power and structure. This was where the primary attention was paid; state interests, goals, state benefit stood above all, and science and art were made nothing more than means to achieve state goals, which is why they received a practical character. The opposite extreme in the direction of spiritual forces has always been and still is represented by the German people. Here we find a predominance of theoretical forces over practical ones. In contrast to Roman practicalism, utilitarianism, the main feature of the spiritual mood of the German tribe is extreme dreaminess, idealism, a view of the world from the side of invisible foundations, from the side of ideals, not from earth to heaven, as the Roman looked, but from heaven to earth. Her real sphere has always been the area of ​​supersensible existence, vague and abstract philosophy and poetry. The world closest to her seemed stuffy and cramped to German thought, and she always tried to leave the solid, but unattractive for her, soil of the visible, real, human world and be carried away into a higher region, vaguely outlined before her, but having for her some kind of irresistible charm. Such features in the spiritual make-up and direction of these peoples, remaining in them even after their adoption of Christianity, should have been accompanied by certain consequences for their life in Christianity, for the assimilation and understanding by their consciousness of the truths of the Christian faith in their basis, mutual connection and necessary consequences, and for the translation of the learned truths into life. The result of the life and activity in Christianity of the Greek East could hardly have been anything other than the comprehensive and complete assimilation of Christian truths, except a system of doctrine, worship and church discipline with the same features that distinguished all the works of the Greek people in the previous pre-Christian period of its development, i.e. with the nature of harmony between the divine and the human - these two elements from which every religion is composed and in the balance of which in the whole structure of church life lies true Orthodoxy. When the Latin West adopted Christianity, naturally, due to its mood, it could not help but focus its primary attention on the human, temporal, sensual element, to the detriment of the divine, eternal, supersensible, and therefore, looking at the latter from the side of the former, it was inclined to imprint the entire structure of its religious life with a human, temporary character. In front of the German West, on the contrary, naturally it was not the human element that should have come to the fore, but the supersensible, divine element, which overshadows the human in Christianity and thus imparted to the entire religious life of the German tribe the character of extreme religious idealization, religious sentimentality, inapplicability to man and his needs. So, it did not depend on the will of God’s Providence alone that the Greek East was destined to be the custodian of pure Christian truth, true Christianity, Orthodoxy. Other nationalities deprived themselves of this benefit through their not entirely normal natural development. Let us now proceed to the very characteristics of Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, trying to depict each of them in its principle and in the most important manifestations of this principle. Let's start with Roman Catholicism. I. The Roman West in the field of Christianity, in accordance with its practical direction, little and reluctantly dealt with the dogmatic questions raised in the East about the Trinity and the Person of Jesus Christ - questions that related in the close sense to the doctrine of God - meanwhile, it was very much interested in those questions of theology that were closely related to man and belonged to the field of teaching about the church, hierarchy, grace, sacraments, and the afterlife. True, he declared some initiative in the doctrine of the Trinity, namely in his famous Filioque, but how did he declare it? He revealed here in the most obvious way his inability to look at the question of the relationship of the persons of the Holy Trinity from the boundary that separates the divine world from our human world; he looked at the divine from the human sphere. Forgetting that the higher world may have different laws and a different way of existence than our world, he did not find it difficult to reject the direct and clear teaching of St. scriptures and St. legends about the origin of St. Spirit from the Father alone, as contrary to the laws of our reason, and composed his teaching. He discovered exactly the same initiative regarding the dogma about the Face of Christ through the teaching about the face of the Mother of God, closely related to this dogma. For Roman Catholic thought, it seemed very decent that the Mother of God should be the fruit of not an ordinary, but a completely pure conception, free from original sin - and Roman Catholicism did not think of making its opinion a dogma, although St. Scripture, by its silence, does not speak in favor of his newly invented dogma, and although the Roman doctrine of the immaculate conception contains many oddities and incongruities and arouses many bewilderments. We are not talking about secondary motives for the proclamation of these two dogmas: about the desire of the Roman west to equal the east in dogmatic productivity, about the desire of the pope to maintain his authority and increase the number of holidays and ceremonies. The duty of justice requires us to admit that the Roman West worked a lot and not without benefit in the scientific disclosure of the doctrine of grace and the sacraments, but even here its practicality did a lot of damage to it. In defining the relationship of grace to freedom, the Roman West apparently tilted the scales towards the side of human will. With special love, having long been engaged in revealing the concept of a person’s merit (megitum), he exaggerated the importance of good deeds and, carried away by his utilitarianism, came to the unfortunate idea: from the merits of the saints, of which they allegedly have an excess, unnecessary for themselves, to make economic use, namely, to replenish the lack of good deeds among the weakest members of the church. He placed the treasury of these supererogatory deeds or merits of the saints at the disposal of the pope, who, for money, through indulgences, disposes of this church property. There is nothing to say about how much the practical, economic, political and economic character of the West is visible in this teaching. Looking at the good deeds of the saints from a purely earthly, state point of view, as super-dutiful deeds, as some kind of special merit, the West, from the same side, looked at the sins of people, as if they still required punishment, punishment, retribution here on earth to satisfy the justice of God, and therefore in the field of eschatology, it invented the doctrine of purgatory, as an average between the heavenly and hellish states and about purgatory fire, as a substitute for temporary torment for sinners who died in faith, but did not suffer temporary punishment for their sins in this life. Such a teaching is very natural from the point of view of human society, which punishes, in any case, the criminal for his crimes, and therefore to the West it could seem very natural and reasonable, and in practical terms very useful, especially in connection with the doctrine of papal indulgences. According to Roman Catholic teaching, papal indulgence has the ability to shorten the duration of purgatory torment and even completely free souls from purgatory. As for the doctrine of the sacraments, having devoted many works to revealing the dogmatic teaching about them, the Roman West imprinted this latter with a unique character; we mean primarily the Roman Catholic opus operatum. This teaching, formed during medieval scholasticism by comparing the sacraments of the Old Testament with the New Testament, was accepted and legitimized by the Roman Church at the Council of Trent, obviously taking into account the primarily practical benefits that can be derived from it (there were, of course, other motives for this). If a “sacrament,” as Doup-Scot, the first to clearly and decisively express the doctrine of opus operatum, defines it, “receives grace according to the power of the deed done (operis operati), so that an internal good movement is not required in order to deserve grace, but it is enough that the recipient does not resist it (non ponat obicem),” then it is clear that the more often the believer approaches the sacraments, even without any good internal movement, i.e. even if unworthy, the better for the one approaching, and, of course, the more profitable for the Roman clergy. Thus, there is no doubt that the Roman Church, legitimizing the famous opus operatum, had, among other things, purely practical goals in mind, namely, it sought to attach importance to the most frequent, even if purely passive, reception of the sacraments, especially confession and communion of St. secrets, for which Protestants rightly reproach Catholics (for example, Mareipeke in their “Symbolism”), despite the denial of many Roman theologians (Bellarmina, Perrone, etc.). But all this is not yet the most characteristic thing in Roman Catholicism. Most of all, it is characterized by: the doctrine of the Church, hierarchy, flock and the canonical structure of the Roman Church. Extremely remarkable and important in its influence on the fate of Catholicism is the fact that Roman-Western thought, without independently working to understand for itself the essence of Christianity, the Christian teaching about God, the Trinity and the Person of Christ the Savior, and, therefore, without turning Christian principles into its own flesh and blood (because all this is achieved only under the condition of independent processing, which is not replaceable by simply taking note of the works of others), directly took up to what it should have arrived at after a long series of preliminary intensive works, that is, it turned directly to practical questions, which should always be resolved only after theoretical ones and not otherwise than on the basis of theoretical principles. Of course, after this one cannot expect that truly Christian principles would be laid at the basis of the Roman Catholic teaching about the Church. This was indeed the case. The basis of the Roman teaching about the Church was a one-sided, purely human, even more mechanical view of the church organism, that view of church society, which vividly resembles the Roman theory of political structure and the worldwide domination of the Roman Empire. The Church seemed to Catholic thought mainly from the side not of its real, eternal goal indicated to it by Christ the Savior, but from the side of its temporary well-being, from the side of the temporary relations and conditions of the church life of Christians, from the side of its external environment. Accordingly, all the attention of Roman Catholic thought was turned to giving the Church a structure that would guarantee its temporary well-being, its external splendor. And under the influence of this view of the matter, various doctrines began to be drawn up, various kinds of means were put into action without further analysis, institutions and laws appeared, and the Roman Church, thanks to all this, truly achieved its goal. With the oblivion of truly Christian principles, with a narrowly utilitarian direction, the Roman Church appeared as a harmonious and powerful building in those aspects that first of all catch the eye - it appeared as a mechanism that presented a lot of amazing things in its structure, but unfortunately too little of what is called the normal life of a religious society - it appeared as a society bearing the name Christian, but representing in its theory and institutions at every step things with an anti-Christian direction. This narrow view of the Church from the outside, everyday relations was expressed in Catholicism in many characteristic phenomena and doctrines. He imprinted the teachings about the primacy of the pope, about the celibacy of the clergy, about indulgences, about the exclusive right of the clergy not only to teach the faith, but also to read St. Scripture, the law on the performance of worship exclusively in Latin, the structure of all worship in general, the inquisition institutions, and the entire system of church discipline. In order for the church building to present the most majestic appearance and stand on a level with the building of the empire, so that the church could be decorated with all the attributes of power, so that it could create for itself the same brilliant environment as secular Roman society, for this, first of all, obviously, it was necessary to concentrate all the moral and material forces and means of the individual members of the church as much as possible. And here comes the doctrine of the highest authority, of the visible primacy, even the infallibility of the pope, of the external focus of all Christians in the person of the Roman high priest, as the visible head, the vicar of Christ. But the centralization aspirations of the West did not end yet. Along with the doctrine of the primacy of the pope, several more doctrines appeared, the internal motive of which was also the desire to centralize the church, to organize it as a society in which earthly goals are far from the last priority. The idea of ​​unlimited papal authority immediately gave rise to the idea of ​​the same unlimited authority of the clergy in relation to the people, gave rise to the desire to place the clergy at such a height above ordinary believers that the latter would be completely destroyed before him, to draw a sharp line between the clergy and the people. Laws prohibiting the laity from reading St. are due to similar aspirations. Scripture and communion under both types, granting a monopoly in this regard to the clergy - laws requiring worship to be performed in Latin, also with the aim of providing one clergy with a clear understanding of the divine service, prohibiting marriage to the clergy in order to separate them as much as possible from the people, to remove them from the latter at the most respectful distance possible. But that's not all. The extent to which the desire to give everything into the hands of the clergy - body, soul, thoughts, and affairs of the people - and, therefore, to take everything away from the latter and turn it into a machine, to what extreme such a mechanical, external, occupied only with temporary goals, view of the life of the church reached in the Roman West - can be seen especially from the establishment of the Inquisition and from the doctrine of indulgences. Inquisition institutions took away from the laity what was apparently inalienable - the freedom to think about religious subjects and forced them to tremble for their very physical life. And the establishment of indulgences plunged a person into a state of moral apathy. But this is not enough. Not content with a despotic attitude towards the religious life of the laity, Catholicism encroached on their freedom in the field of their natural, worldly life, in the field of science, art, public and state life. And here it wanted to dominate without limit, to prescribe secular life not only the direction (which it could and should have done by right and duty), but also the forms themselves. He wanted to make science and art not only Christian in content and direction, but also clerical in form - not allowing science to deviate even from the letter of Scripture, but making only known forms mandatory for art; they wanted to make society not only Christian, but also monastic, and to subordinate state life to the pope, so that the latter would be sovereign over sovereigns, stand at the head of the political union of sovereigns, and so that nothing would be done in the state field without his will. And the Catholic hierarchy tried to maintain such unconditional dominance over all manifestations of secular life, indiscriminately, acting through violence, through the Inquisition and through the system of Jesuitism. So, in Catholicism everything is concentrated in the hands of the pope and the clergy - both the soul and body of the people; they know everything for everyone and think for everyone. In a word, Catholicism wanted, to put it politely, to train the members of the church, i.e. That is, having killed all amateur activity in society, an ardent, heartfelt attitude towards the Christian religion, bring it to a passive state in which it would mechanically perform religious rituals and slavishly submit to church discipline. But does such a structure of Christian society correspond to the ideal of the Church as intended by its Founder? To what extent does such a structure of the church help it achieve its goal - to guide believers to the future life, that is, does it bring them to a state of ardent sympathy for the deep truths and promises of Christianity - does it bring them to this state through prolonged, amateur internal work under vigilant external supervision? Does such a device achieve this goal, or does it achieve something else, completely opposite to it? All these are questions that Roman Catholicism completely ignored from the point of view from which it looked at the church and its life. The same shallow Roman Catholic view of things was reflected in Catholic worship. The structure of this service is brilliant, but this brilliance is of exactly the same kind as the brilliance of harmonious hierarchical relationships and church discipline, that is, more external. Everything here echoes with lifeless mechanicalness; Every movement, every gesture of the celebrant and the people is prescribed: when to kneel, when to stand, even when to raise your eyes to the sky, and when to lower them. Further, all means are put into use here to occupy the attention of the listener and viewer: plastic and music, many magnificent, solemn processes and rituals... But the trouble is that the means were used more than what was needed for the purpose, that the service is too cluttered with such things that one could easily and even profitably do without. Roman Catholic worship is capable of attracting and stopping the attention of even an absent-minded person; but the fact is that its magnificent setting focuses the visitor’s attention too much on itself and therefore does not satisfy its main purpose - to awaken the thought of the believer and, without stopping the latter for too long on itself, elevate it through its mediation to a higher world. So in worship, Roman Catholicism gave great predominance to the human over the divine, to the sensual over the spiritual. Thus, the constant gravitation of the Roman West primarily towards the area of ​​everyday everyday needs and relationships, making its thought petty, superficial, drawing its attention to appearance, appearance, temporary benefit, human benefits, was the reason for the structure of all Roman Catholic dogma and church practice, characterized by an overly earthly, human, temporary, utilitarian character. However, detachment from the earth, from man, in turn, can turn into an extreme. We will now proceed to consider one of these extremes. II. German thought, as stated above, in contrast to Latin thought, was always prone to extreme idealization, to an immoderate detachment from the visible, the human. That is why, when, around the time of the Reformation, she awakened to conscious religious activity and began to independently assimilate Christianity, then the latter appeared to her in a completely different light, directly opposite to the one in which it appeared to Roman thought. Protestantism looked at the work of our redemption and salvation and at the entire life of the church from that unattainable height to which the thought of the Germans was so capable of ascending, and from this height everything human seemed too small, insignificant to it. Everything human merged before her into a mass of little things; people appeared to her as insignificant, almost microscopic creatures; Their needs and claims to rights before God and advantages over each other seemed ridiculous to her. In this mood, very much in Christianity seemed to Protestantism to be unworthy of the heights of the Christian religion, and therefore it decided to reject many things that from ancient times had been considered an integral part of Christian teaching and church life. First of all, it seemed to German thought that there should not exist any - neither sensory in general, nor human in particular - mediation between God and man. A person is saved by a single faith in Christ, which brings a person into personal direct union with Christ. It is clear that with such a view, the sacraments should either turn into simple rituals, as with the more consistent of the Reformed Protestants, or be reduced to an insignificant minimum and still, in essence, appear superfluous, as baptism and the Eucharist are among the Lutherans, difficult to reconcile with their views and constitute a contradiction to their main view - a contradiction that they still cannot reconcile with their only justifying principle. by faith. Due to his insignificance, not a single person, according to the Protestant view, can mediate between God and the human soul, and therefore the hierarchy in Protestantism turns into simple officials, teachers of the people, administrative officials without any grace-filled powers. Before God, however, according to Protestant teaching, the person himself justified by faith is insignificant. Before God, all his spiritual exploits, all his deeds do not matter; they do not justify it before God because of their insignificance, and the more consistent of the Protestants - the Reformed - add further, because the affairs of man are not actually his affairs, but of God Himself. Thus, the Reformed even take away freedom from a person; God alone unconditionally predetermines people to one fate or another, and this predestination is inevitable and irresistible by any human effort. Trying to expel everything human from the Christian religion, Protestantism rejected the doctrine of the authority of the Church and its traditions, and of the connection between the earthly and heavenly churches. Only the invisible society of saints, known to God alone, that is, justified and sanctified, having an internal anointing from the Holy One, knowing everything and not requiring any teaching for themselves, can and should bear the name in the proper sense of the Church. The visible church is a simple assembly of believers in Christ of all kinds and does not have higher authority. The inward anointing is to guide the enlightened by grace in understanding the word of God, the only authority for the justified and sanctified. It goes without saying that there should and cannot be any mediation between God and man and on the part of departed saints; calling them in prayers is an insult to the only Intercessor of God and men. The veneration of their icons and relics is idolatry and is unworthy of a Christian, who must worship the one God. So, the desire to expel everything human from religion led Protestants to a distortion or even complete denial of the teaching about grace, which saves a person and calls for salvation, about the sacraments, about the hierarchy, about the church and church tradition, about the connection of the earthly church with the heavenly, about the veneration of holy icons and relics. This religious worldview in Protestantism created a corresponding church practice. Protestantism in its idea denies the significance of the human element. In practice, it reveals a denial of appearance, sensuality, form, namely, disdain for the firm and clear formulation of its teachings, for the stable establishment of forms of church worship and government. With constant changes in the liturgical and ritual side of Protestantism, this side suffers from extreme underdevelopment and poverty. Protestant worship is too spiritual for a sensual-spiritual being. Church discipline among Protestants is too weak for a person subject to passions and vices. It rather suggests some kind of spiritual being without flesh and blood. The attitude towards the state is characterized by an exaggeration of the idea that the church is not of this world and is therefore characterized by the complete subordination of the church to the state. In general, the life and history of Protestantism is a life of disorder and disorder, chaotic fermentation of religious opinions, disintegration into countless religious sects, in a word - life without firmly defined rules, without firmly established forms. This is not the life of society, but rather the life of individuals. The picture of the life of the papacy is striking in its contrast with the life of Protestantism. Everywhere there is certainty to the point of pedantry, to the point of pettiness, to the point of casuistry, and therefore - monotony, harmony of church life, integrity, cohesion (albeit mechanical) of the church organism. Here everything is the opposite: uncertainty even regarding the most important aspects of church life and, consequently, lack of cohesion and disintegration of the church body. There is external splendor, but there is internal decline; here, on the contrary, there is external decline and strong, albeit abnormal, internal excitement. German thought could not complete its development in this direction in the field of religion, because its latest conclusions threatened the church and religion itself with a complete fall, and while saving both, it refrained from making final conclusions in the religious field. She could complete her work only in the field of philosophy. This last one is the last word of Protestantism. Faithful, although not completely, in religion to its extreme idealism, abstraction and denial of everything visible, Protestant thought in the sphere of philosophy declares itself even more tangibly, its distinctive character and reaches the nec plus ultra in the direction it has accepted once and for all, completely breaks off all connection with human reality, and is exclusively concentrated in the ideal fundamental principle of all things. For her, the world either completely loses its pre-existing existence or becomes spiritualized, deified, and appears as an endless development of one divine principle. Thus, in Protestant philosophy, not only is the balance between the supersensible and the sensory, between the world and the Highest Being, disturbed, but one of these elements - the visible - is declared non-existent in reality, as something separate and independent, merges into one with the invisible and disappears in it without a trace. The conclusions of Protestant German philosophy are the mature fruit of the same trend that passes through and manifests itself in the religious views of Protestants. However, with all the endless opposition between Protestantism and Catholicism, and between these extremes there is something in common; and between them there is a point of mutual contact. Extremes, irreconcilable at the beginning, always converge at the end of their development. So it is in the present case. Catholicism and Protestantism, coming from completely different beginnings, arrive, without noticing it, to one common result, and in the end converge on one point. Catholicism put man and everything human in the foreground, and Protestantism tried to attribute as much as possible to the direct unconditional action in the Church of a higher power, and meanwhile, strangely, while apparently humiliating everything human so deeply, it did, however, do more in favor of the latter than Catholicism itself. Under the form of the highest inspiration, Protestantism freed man's hands to do everything, allowed extreme subjectivism in its theory and the most complete individualism in practice. Sh. But if the idea of ​​Christianity was reflected in the Protestant consciousness in one way, and in the Catholic consciousness in another, then it entered the Orthodox consciousness entirely, with all its main sides. The Orthodox consciousness, the consciousness of the Greeks capable of comprehensive development, as noted above, constantly pursued a lofty goal - to unite the apparently incompatible, to reconcile extremes, to bring unity into diversity and into unity diversity, in a word, to bring comprehensiveness, harmony, harmony to everything that was subjected to its analysis. But Christianity in its idea is itself the most perfect harmony, and therefore it was easy for Greek thought to look directly and correctly at what was so similar and completely consistent with its always-present aspirations. And indeed the Orthodox consciousness was able to understand the essence of Christianity, to master its idea, to approach this idea from the side from which it appeared to him in its entirety, to approach this idea so much that its constituent parts were identified before him equally clearly. It skillfully rose to the height at which our consciousness should stand so as not to fall into one-sidedness. On the one hand, it did not rise so high to the sky that it completely lost sight of the earth with the rational-sensual creatures inhabiting it, plunging its gaze into the vast celestial spaces, and on the other hand, it did not descend so low to the earth that the huge worlds appeared to it as slightly flickering dots and the sky no longer attracted attention too focused on our little world. In this respect, it is highly worthy of note that the East first of all focused its attention and concentrated entirely and for a long time on the person of Christ the Savior. He strained all the forces of his flexible thinking in order to understand for his consciousness, as far as possible, this highest Person and for a long time could not take his eyes off the One, in the correct look at Whom (his own inner feeling told him) lies the fate of the whole life and future of Christianity. Several centuries passed, and the thought of the East was still intensely focused on one subject. The task was difficult; it was easy for the researcher to go to extremes. But the more opportunities for enthusiasm the task itself presented to Eastern thought, the more amazing it is that, among all kinds of mistakes and delusions of private individuals in solving this kind of religious issues, the general consciousness of the East did not deviate a single step in either direction from the true path. We notice, not without surprise, that in the final verdict on every question raised by heresies about the Person of the Savior of the world, the Eastern consciousness was always guided by the thought that in the Person of the Redeemer of the world Divinity and humanity were most strictly combined. The consciousness of the East has always been inherent, and among dogmatic disputes stood especially vividly before it, the image of Christ the Savior - the God-Man in the strictest sense of the word. In this divine-human Person, Divinity and humanity each exist with their own nature and with all the properties of this nature, they exist inseparably and inseparably, but at the same time, unchangeably and unmerged. This is one Person, but with two united natures, with two wills. This is one Person - with the Divinity and deified, but not changing its nature, humanity. This is the Face, still in the womb of the Holy One. The Virgin Mary, at the very moment of her carnal conception, formed from the union of two natures. This is a Person who, with a divine nature, has completely human nature, with all the powers and properties of the body and soul, not excluding the human mind. A superficial person will perhaps see scholasticism in all this, but one who looks deeper at the matter will see here not empty scholastic subtleties that lead to nothing, but will notice an effort to save the human element in the Person of Christ the Savior from being absorbed by the Divine and vice versa, and therefore - to save the very essence of Christianity, the matter was about the very beginning of Orthodoxy, the fate of the entire Eastern Christian movement was being decided. The Eastern consciousness understood that the entire idea of ​​Christianity was most fully and clearly expressed in the Person of the God-Man, that the Person of Christ, as the Person of the Divine, who accepted human nature into the unity of his hypostasis, is the fullest embodiment of the idea of ​​Christianity, and not to explain it as much as possible means for one’s consciousness not to understand the essence of Christianity. From the very beginning, the consciousness of the East was characterized by a special, so to speak, direct sense of truth; During the centuries-long debate about the Face of Christ, this feeling became stronger and developed not without the help, of course, of the Comforter Spirit, the invisible leader of the church. These disputes are important for their consequences for Orthodoxy and are characteristic in relation to the study of it; Orthodoxy owes its distinctive character to them; in them, among them, the direction of Eastern thought was finally determined. Of course, they did not remain completely fruitless for the West, but it should be noted that they brought benefits primarily to the consciousness through which they passed, that is, the Eastern one. The Western, on the other hand, accepted predominantly only the results of these disputes, taking little active part in their process itself, and therefore was not deeply imbued with the direction that lay at their basis. The dogmas about the Face of Christ the Savior had for the West the meaning not so much of a living truth, deeply felt, leaving a certain mark and direction in the soul, but for it they were rather external knowledge that came from outside, and therefore they did not bring it such benefit as the East. Dogmatic disputes about the Person of the God-Man had a decisive influence on the entire structure of dogma, the canonical and liturgical structure of the Eastern Church. In the dogmatic field, they saved the Eastern Church primarily from the excesses of Roman Catholicism. Orthodoxy does not elevate human opinions and considerations to the dignity of thoughts of the mind of God - revealed truths, dogmas; firmly following scripture and paternal tradition, it does not derive new dogmas from the eternal teaching of the church through a series of conclusions, and therefore rejects the Roman dogma of the Filioque. Not having such respect for human fortune-telling and theological considerations, it is alien to the excessive exaltation of everything human, even if it concerns the personality of the Mother of God, or the saints, or the highest hierarchical persons, and therefore, while honoring the Mother of God as the most honorable Cherub, the saints - as those who have pleased God, those close and close to Him, intercessors for us before His throne, the patriarchs - as having great authority in the church, it does not, however, try to attribute neither to the Mother of God a superior human dignity through her supposedly immaculate conception, nor to the saints - their supposedly supererogatory merits before God, and to none of their patriarchs - infallibility. Orthodoxy knows only the only one on earth who is not involved in original sin, the God-man Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Only He considers His merits before God to be exceedingly abundant, while the deeds of the saints, according to Orthodox teaching, are not in the strict sense merits before God, but are only imputed to them by the mercy of God as merits, and moreover, not a single person has them in excess. Equally, no person is an infallible judge in matters of faith; only the Church is infallible in the full composition of its representatives at the ecumenical council, uttering definitions regarding objects of faith, at the inspiration of its invisible helmsman and ruler, the Holy Spirit. Without exaggerating the significance of a person’s temporary merits and merits before God, Orthodoxy does not exaggerate the significance for God of his temporary punishments. According to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, the satisfaction of God's truth for the sins of people was once and forever brought to God on earth by His Only Begotten Son in His suffering and death on the cross, and God does not need any other satisfaction here on earth from man. Therefore, the Orthodox Church does not consider purgatory necessary, as a middle place between heaven and hell, as a place of temporary punishment for sinners who repented, but did not suffer here on earth the supposedly necessary temporary retribution for sins in satisfaction of God’s justice. She teaches that all sinners go to one place, assigned to them by the justice of God, although she admits that some of them, who died with the beginnings of good, but did not bear fruits worthy of repentance, can receive relief from hellish torment and even be freed from hell, but not due to the action of purgatory fire, which supposedly cleanses and corrects them, but through the prayers of the church, which helps them in revealing the germs of good in them. The Orthodox Church does not even know about redemption from this correctional prison through a monetary contribution, in return for which the supposedly supererogatory merits of the saints are given. Having no worldly goals, the Orthodox Church is alien to all such views on human dignity and rights on the one hand, and for sins and punishments on the other. But on the other hand, Orthodoxy, putting man and everything human in their rightful place, does not humiliate them as much as Protestantism. Orthodoxy does not look so low at the human body as to deny it all or many of the sensory means necessary for it to receive the grace of God, and therefore the Orthodox Church accepts the sacraments and not only two, but all seven sacraments, seeing in them not only signs of the grace of God, but the grace itself inherent in them, in the Eucharist - the true body and true blood of Christ, into which they are completely transubstantiated without remainder visible elements. Further, the Orthodox Church, in the matter of assimilation of Christ's salvation, with the help of God's grace given in the sacraments, attributing great importance to faith, does not, however, limit the whole matter of man's assimilation of Christ's salvation to it alone and does not take away any value from his deeds. The deeds of a person, according to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, not having the meaning of merit before God in the strict sense, much less supererogatory, are not indifferent, however, in the eyes of God. Man’s deeds are not only deeds of God’s grace acting in him, but also deeds of his own will, and therefore they have value before God, since grace does not act irresistibly. A person, according to Orthodox teaching, is justified before God not by faith alone, but also by works. By virtue of this, the deeds of people who have pleased God make them intercessors for us before God, although again not on their own, but by the strength of the merits of the one Intercessor of God and men. The Orthodox Church teaches that believers living on earth must ask for themselves the prayers of the saints who have gone to God, and that the prayers of the saints help those living in the matter of their salvation; She expresses her veneration of saints in the veneration of their remains and icons. Orthodoxy, contrary to Protestantism, does not disparage not only the deeds, but also the teaching of the best members of the Church, St. her fathers and teachers, does not consider them, like the Protestants, only learned theologians of their time without any authoritative significance. It looks at what all the church fathers agree on as church tradition, considers them the organs of this tradition, and it respects tradition on an equal basis with St. Scripture, as the second source of faith, as the product of the same Spirit of God dwelling in the Church, which once spoke through the mouths of the prophets and apostles, and now speaks through the mouths of the church fathers and at ecumenical councils. So, again, the Orthodox Church assimilates the authority of the church fathers not entirely and not in themselves, but only to the extent that they were organs of the Spirit of God and the universal tradition preserved in the Church with the assistance of the Spirit of God, its invisible ruler and helmsman. In particular, the character of Orthodoxy was expressed in the doctrine of the Church and hierarchy. The Church, according to Orthodox teaching, is not an invisible society of saints, but is a visible union of all true believers in Christ, the more perfect, righteous, and the less perfect, weak, sinful members. The Orthodox Church does not have the desire to completely expel from the Church everything that is imperfect - and therefore does not eliminate from its composition all its weak, infirm members, remaining faithful to the teaching of the Savior, set out in the parables of the harvest and the net. But, on the other hand, it does not elevate the human, imperfect, to the level of the divine, perfect, like Catholicism. It teaches that besides Christ, the invisible Head and Founder of the Church, and the Holy Spirit, its invisible helmsman and ruler, there is no other Comforter who takes the place of Christ, there is no other Comforter in the Church; there is no other visible Head and Ruler in it, no other vicar of Christ. This denial of the deification of only the highest hierarchy of Orthodoxy does not, however, lead to the Protestant extreme, to the rejection of any divine authority given by the Savior to the apostles and their successors. Orthodoxy firmly adheres to the teaching that the famous members of the church, forming a divinely established hierarchy, represent the focus of grace-filled gifts flowing from its Head Jesus Christ and the leader of the Holy Spirit. This hierarchy, according to Orthodox teaching, contrary to the teaching of Protestants, is not a body of church representation only; she exists not jure humano, but jure divino, she is not only a teacher and ruler of believers, but also a dispenser of grace-filled gifts. Contrary to the Protestants, the Orthodox Church also posits a difference in the degrees of the hierarchy, attributing to each degree a special measure of God's grace bestowed upon ordination. But again, in this case, the Orthodox Church, placing the hierarchy so high, does not, however, attach such exceptional importance to it in relation to the flock as Roman Catholicism. Believing that the leadership of doctrine, the mediation of the communication of grace through the sacraments and spiritual administration are entrusted, by divine right and deliberate embassy, ​​to the pastors of the church, the hierarchy, she nevertheless grants in all these kinds of duties a certain certain share of participation and action to the simple believers, the flock. Thus, the general Orthodox-dogmatic view of the Church is characterized by the fact that Orthodoxy, without sacrificing either the divine element in the Church in favor of the human, as in Roman Catholicism, or the human element in favor of the divine, as in Protestantism, sees in the Church a harmonious combination of the invisible with the visible, the divine with the human, a similar union of Divinity and humanity in the Person of the God-Man. In accordance with this view of the Church, Orthodoxy is true to itself in the canonical structure of the Church. Orthodoxy shuns the Roman centralization of church power in the hands of one person - the pope; on the other hand, it is not deprived of any concentration and unity of power, so necessary in any government, like Protestantism. It adheres to the conciliar form of government; Orthodox bishops are not slaves unconditionally submissive to the will of their patriarch or synod, but have a voice and significance in the eyes of the central government. As for determining the relationship of the clergy to the people, the hierarchy to the flock, Orthodoxy in its institutions walks in the middle between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, sets a boundary beyond which the church hierarchy should not cross, has no desire to deprive ordinary believers of independent activity, respects the rights of the individual, private religious opinion, freedom of conscience and other rights that belong to the flock together with the hierarchy, and therefore does not prohibit the laity from reading the Holy Scriptures, commits worship in national languages, does not have inquisitorial institutions, the Jesuit order, does not separate the clergy and the people through the marriage of priests, communicates the Eucharist to the laity under both types, etc. But on the other hand, it does not allow the independence and initiative of individual members of the church to cross the line beyond which they, ceasing to be useful to the believer, threaten him with falling away from the general church faith and are accompanied by harm to their eternal salvation, and therefore it is alien to the Protestant, unrestrained, free-thinking of private members of the church and the complete equality of individuals with the hierarchy. In its relationship to the state, the Orthodox Church is alien to both the Roman desire to rule over the state and to slavishly submit to it, like the Protestant communities - both to dominate over it and to be enslaved to it. Protecting its independence and leaving the independence of the state intact, it tries to live and act, however, in complete agreement and interaction with it, helping it itself with all the means available to it and accepting its help for itself to a certain extent and in certain cases. Orthodoxy remained completely faithful to its direction in worship. Orthodoxy has always been characterized by the consciousness that, on the one hand, divine services are appointed for a person and, therefore, must be adapted to his needs, and on the other, that it has a higher goal in mind, namely to connect a person with the supersensible, spiritual world, and therefore should be arranged in such a way that the external environment, sensory images necessary for a person by his very nature, do not, however, obscure the inner meaning hidden in them from him, do not stop his attention only on themselves, but on the contrary, they gradually elevated him from the earthly world to the higher world. Thus, Orthodox worship, like all Orthodoxy, is something between the extremely ritualistic, plastic papal worship and the poor-looking, dry, overly spiritual Protestant worship. In Orthodox worship, for example, there is no music, statues, such magnificent processions, etc., as in Roman Catholic worship. On the other hand, an Orthodox church is not deprived of many things that affect vision, it is not poor in liturgical atmosphere and rituals, like a Protestant one. In an Orthodox church there are many icons, there are sacred clothes, there is a lot of singing, many rituals, although they are inferior to the Roman Catholic ones in spectacularity. So, if where the great idea of ​​Christianity is more fully realized, then it is in Orthodoxy. Orthodox thought, which developed and strengthened amid reflections on the Person of Christ the Savior, which combines all Christianity, managed more than others to go in the direction that the Founder of Christianity, our Lord Jesus Christ, pointed out to His church in His own Person. In conclusion, one cannot help but pay attention to the rather striking difference in the degree of development of the direction to which Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy owe their internal character. In this regard, the advantage remains, undoubtedly, no longer with Orthodoxy, but on the side of Catholicism and Protestantism. Everything that was put as their basis, all this was developed in them to all kinds of conclusions and consequences, was fully expressed in fact, revealed in external forms. A lot of evidence of this can be found even in our previous short depiction of the character of Western Christian movements. In general, Catholicism and Protestantism have always kept pace with life, followed and are following it, and in one way or another have always responded and are responding to modern, vital demands and demands. Orthodoxy seems less developed in comparison with them, so when one judges it by its influence on life, by its manifestations in practice, one has to deal with an incomplete expression of its inner content. In many cases it represents gaps, in others only hints, and, finally, quite a few accidental deviations from its origins, which have surpassed it from somewhere. The strong movement of religious Greek-Eastern thought in the first centuries of Christianity, which promised so much in subsequent times, which spoke so much in favor of its energy, was suspended by force of external historical circumstances. A wonderful beginning had been made, a seed full of true life had been thrown into the Orthodox-Eastern soil, but unfortunately there were no favorable historical conditions to continue what had so happily begun: one people (Greek) became obsolete, while the other (Slavic) had hardly yet begun to live a fully conscious historical life, especially in the religious field. Under such circumstances, Orthodoxy, stopping in its further development, but without changing its spirit and direction, focused primarily on the past, choosing its main task to be faithful to its ancient traditions. The lack of movement in its theoretical side, and especially in its practical side, is very noticeable. Orthodoxy very rarely and somehow reluctantly gives an answer to new aspirations, to the constantly new demands of life. It seems to be burdened by its great task - to be the soul of private and public life, to give direction to emerging ideas and aspirations. Realizing that Christianity cannot be exhausted by the thought of one or several centuries, that its rich content can provide new food for every age, every new demand, Orthodox thought, nevertheless, in practice remains focused on what it has already developed in the brilliant, but long-past century of its intensified activity. If we compare the real life of Orthodoxy with anything, then it is most decent to compare it with the life of a healthy, but not fully developed organism, in contrast to the sickly, but fully developed, organisms of Catholicism and Protestantism that have become obsolete, but have experienced a lot, tested themselves in all ways, lived a feverishly intense life. However, speaking in this way, one should not forget one thing. Extremes, as is known, are always expressed in a more energetic form than normal development. The process of normal development always proceeds more calmly and smoothly, and does not present such tension in life as is characteristic of abnormal development. That is why, perhaps, they usually attribute to Orthodoxy more backwardness and immobility than it should. The observer is partly misled here by the abnormally intensified course of life of Catholicism and Protestantism, in contrast with which the delayed development of Orthodoxy is highlighted more sharply than in reality. In addition, in this very delay of the Orthodox direction, no matter how great it may be, there is a side from which the fact is presented in a better light than it might seem at first glance. Undoubtedly - stagnation, lack of energy - a disadvantage. But there is also no doubt that in this unconditional fidelity of Orthodoxy to everything ancient there is something far from useless for the future of the entire Christian Church. Catholicism and Protestantism, having completed the circle of their development, each in the direction it accepted and reaching extreme results, until the complete revelation of their one-sidedness, must sooner or later come to the denial of those principles that were their basis and which turned out to be untenable. Signs of such a reaction in Catholic and Protestant thought are visible even in our time. But you cannot live in denial for long; you need to stop somewhere. They will turn, as they are already beginning to do, to the past, to Christian antiquity. And then in the face of the West it will be revealed, as it is already beginning to be revealed, the striking similarity of what is now in Orthodoxy with what was in the Universal Church before its collapse. The Orthodox Church must then appear to the West as a living interpreter of the past. And through this very thing, how much easier the great work of reunification of Christian churches should be! Orthodoxy must then attract the attention and sympathy of everyone and become a mediator between the warring and opposing churches, sects and religious movements of the West. We do not say anything about the Slavic people here, as well as in the subsequent presentation, because the Slavic world accepted Orthodoxy from the Greek-Eastern world as a completely ready-made system of doctrine and church practice, taking advantage of the works of the East in the assimilation and application of Christian principles in life. You might be interested in: