Who's to blame? (On the question of the reasons for the diversity of liturgical rites and sequences in our ancient church liturgical books)

On the question of the reasons for the diversity of liturgical rites and sequences in our ancient church liturgical books It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the question of the diversity of “church ranks” and the reasons for this diversity arose in Rus'. There is reason to think that he was not alien to the consciousness of the bookish people of the 12th century. The famous Kirik, with his questions to Niphon, Bishop of Novgorod, seems to us to be a man quite interested in this issue, a man for whom the diversity of church practice in general, even if this diversity concerns, from our point of view, the most trivial issues, is far from an indifferent matter. But this question was clearly and distinctly raised only in the 14th century by Metropolitan Cyprian. He was the first of the Russian metropolitans to openly call our church liturgical rites, which even in his time were distinguished by very significant diversity, “wrong church rules” and in their place recommended to the Russian clergy the right and true rites, copied by himself. “And what we heard,” Metropolitan Cyprian wrote in 1395 to the Pskov clergy, which you do not have the right church rule, then we, having copied, gave them the charter of the divine service of Chrysostom and the Great Basil, the same service of Chrysostom, and the priesthood on the first day of the month of August, according to the charter, the same is the right, true synod, which is revered in Tsarigorod, in Saint Sophia, in the Patriarchate: yes, we added to the way we commemorated the Orthodox kings, we also commemorate the great princes, both dead and living, for we commemorate here in the metropolis, the baptism of children and every Christian, then betrothal and wedding. write, and even then you will have it; but what was written down and sent to you with your brother, that is, everything is right, true 1.” Here, as well as in other letters and to other persons, Metropolitan Cyprian did not say a single word about the reasons for this diversity. In the 15th century, the question of the diversity of liturgical rites did not move forward, but remained in the same position. “Let them naturally send me one priest, a skilled man,” said Metropolitan Photius in 1431 to the same Pskov clergy, and I will teach him about everything about church rules, and about church singing, and about holy services, and I will send the great holy ointment with the same, and whatever holy scripture you need, I will send everything, having copied it out, to to you: it is necessary for true Orthodox Christians to live according to the law and send praises to God, according to tradition and the legalization of holy gatherings 2.” It was only in the 16th century that for the first time those responsible for the diversity of our liturgical rites were named. “Wonderful and graceful philosopher” Maxim the Greek, as our antiquity characterizes him, who came to Rus' at the beginning of this century to translate liturgical books, dismissing the unfair accusations brought against him by his contemporaries, wrote the following in his justification: “And because I do not spoil the sacred books, as they slander me with my hostility in vain, but diligently and with all with attention and the fear of God and the right mind I correct them, having become corrupted in them - both from those who prescribe them, unlearned beings and unskilled in reason and cunning grammar, and also from those who first created the book translation, the men of ever-memorable men, the truth speaks: there are nowhere who incompletely understood the power of Hellenic speeches and for this reason far away The truths have fallen away, because Hellenic conversation is much and it is inconvenient to discuss the difference in the type of sayings; and even if someone who is dissatisfied and perfect has learned grammar, and literature, and rhetoric, and philosophy itself, he cannot directly and completely understand what is written below, and apply it to a foreign language 3.” Thus, Russian translators and copyists, according to Maxim the Greek, are the real culprits of the diversity of liturgical rites in our Church. But Maxim the Greek with his writings is important for us not so much because he named the true culprits of the diversity of liturgical rites by name, but because he was the first and perhaps the only person to fully understand and correctly evaluate the activities of our translators and copyists in the matter of diversity of liturgical rites in our Church. This “elegant and wondrous philosopher” showed with a number of brilliant examples that the activities of both in relation to the diversity of liturgical rites should be reduced to a minimum, i.e., that if our Russian translators and copyists were the reason for the diversity of liturgical rites, then it concerns only their text, and not the design of their order and the prayer books of sacred rites contained in them, as the metropolitans thought: Cyprian and Photius. Unfortunately, this wonderful example in the further history of worship in our Church did not find worthy imitators, and the opinion of Maxim the Greek remained without support. Apparently, the hundred-domed council, at the beginning of its activity, developed the same idea, reproaching the scribes for the fact that they “write from uncorrected translations, but having written do not correct, inventory after inventory remains and incomplete writings and indirect points 4,” but with its further decrees the following: “decree the divine services, as it is worthy for a priest or with a deacon to serve or alone 5,” “on child baptism 6,” “on betrothal and wedding 7,” rite and decree, even if a widower understands a widower or a widow marries a young man 8,” the fathers of this council made it clear that their views on the activities of Russian translators and copyists in relation to various liturgical rites have nothing in common with the views of Maximus the Greek, and that they follow the same the road on which the metropolitans stood: Cyprian and Photius. It must be admitted that the fathers of the hundred-domed cathedral could not, for many very reasons, rise to the level of concepts of a “wonderful, elegant philosopher.” For the council of 1666–67. again they openly started talking about “the corruption of sacred and liturgical books” and “the desecration of the rites of the sacraments and orders of the church.” Thus, it is not surprising that in our historical literature, and especially in polemical anti-schism literature, the opinion has been so firmly established that our Russian copyists and translators were not a small reason for the diversity of liturgical rites in our Church. This opinion is held even by such experts in church and liturgical writing of past centuries, as for example. Gorsky, Nevostruev, Vostokov, Undolsky, Rev. Makariy and some others. 9 Researchers with less talent, little familiar with our liturgical writing and even less familiar with the writing of Greek and South Slavic lands, began to compose entire periods in the history of worship in our Church, characterized by “a continuous change in the liturgical order, falling for the most part on that part of the service that, being performed secretly by the priest, did not feel influenced by itself the conservatism of general custom and was less subject to the control of the people” 10 (This opinion was developed in detail by Prof. of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Mr. Katansky 11 ). In our time, in view of the noticeable revival in the study of ancient writing, it would seem that this opinion should weaken, but in fact it has turned out quite the opposite. The idea that Russian translators and copyists served as a significant reason for the diversity of liturgical rites was not only not abandoned, but even strengthened and further developed. In our time, the conviction has emerged that our scribes and translators introduced into our liturgical rites very much from the liturgical practice of the Latin Church. True, supporters of this opinion somewhat limit their thought. They say that the influence of the practice of the Latin Church extended almost exclusively to that sacrament, one or another way of performing which determines a person’s belonging to one or another confession - namely, the sacrament of Baptism. This influence of Latin practice, in their opinion, seems to go through almost the entire history of worship in the Russian Church, expressed either in the placing of bandages on the anointed places of the body of the newly baptized, then in the performance of baptism by pouring, then in the use of the Latin world, then in the custom of having two recipients at the baptism of a child - a man and a woman, then in the division of the question of negation from Satan into five separate questions 12, etc., etc. Apparently, the supporters of this opinion, like the first, express it not without reason. In his replies to Abbot Aoanasius, Metropolitan Cyprian speaks about the recipients: “and if many baptize one child, he eats 13 according to the Latin duty.” Regarding the form of baptism, the same metropolitan wrote in the same answers: “do holy baptism in this place: do not pour water on it, as they do in Latin, but immerse it in a receptacle or a clean vessel placed on it” 14 . “They hear,” Metropolitan Photius wrote in 1431, in the letter we mentioned in Pskov regarding anointing, and there is another not like thing in you that is hated by God, and is denied by the saints and God-bearing fathers and is unforgiven: it is heard that those who want to be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, instead of the great holy ointment, you anoint with the Latin ointment, and offend me with this menacing hearing, trouble my heart." 15 But no matter how convincing the arguments of the supporters of one and the other opinion regarding the reasons for the diversity of liturgical rites may seem, we allow ourselves the courage to put again the long-resolved question: are our Russian translators and copyists really guilty of what they are accused of, i.e., of uncontrolled arbitrariness, using which they could introduce into our liturgical rites everything that seemed good to them, even if it was from the practice of the church Latin? We answer: no, not guilty. Let us go into some more specific considerations on this subject. Let us turn our attention first of all to how our translators and copyists themselves viewed their activities; what motives guided them when carrying out such work. Our scribes expressed all this in the so-called afterwords, written by them on their own behalf in the books they copied. Those who study ancient Slavic writing know about these afterwords and have no doubt read them, but surprisingly, for some reason they do not attach almost any importance to these very truthful and completely sincere confessions in resolving the question we have posed. Meanwhile, in our opinion, these afterwords provide the first key to solving it. We must recognize the afterword found in the pseudo-Cyprian Service Book of the 16th-14th century as a model of afterwords. "If you prescribe and are taught by these books, whether you offer the divine and bloodless sacrifice of the Lord, priests, and pray with these books of prayer, it is said in this afterword, remember our humility, as if you too will be worthy of the same remembrance. If anyone wants to prescribe these books, it is added in this afterword, look not to add, or to put aside one certain word, or a single point or hooks, which are under the lines in rows, below to apply a certain syllable, or to add from the usual ones, which were first used to, or to put aside: neither in deaconships, lower in exclamations, nor in prayers, but with great attention, learn to read, or ascribe, as if not from negligence in You will fall into sin, which is worse than what happens out of ignorance 17.” In other afterwords the same thoughts are expressed, i.e., the desire to hold on to the original slavishly lying in front of the copyist and an apology for involuntary errors in the form of typos. “They copied these books,” says Marco Vecherovits, Demidov’s son, copyist of the Paraklitic of 1369, in the afterword, for their own salvation, and for the saints in honor... and where I will describe myself, and you, fathers and brothers, sing in correction, but don’t criticize me.” 18 “I beseech you, brethren,” the scribe of the Four Gospels of 1609 appeals in the afterword, especially to the reverent priests and consecrated deacons, when this book of honor happens to you, and wherever it is described in a line or in a word, or in a title, or in a point, honor and correct, and do not blame me, a sinner, but pray for me God, I am rude and ignorant; I have not learned the goodness of the books, but I hoped in the Trinity to serve the only God... and love for mankind, and I tried, not with an angelic... human mind and mortal hand, to write these divinely inspired books, I entrust them to your love and in... I give them to your hand, please accept them kindly, but to me, a sinner. bless." 19 Thus, these are the motives that guided our Russian copyists: - 1) with deep faith to serve in this matter the salvation of their own soul and the souls of their “relatives”, 2) with the ardent hope of their feasible work and ability to benefit the Church and its members; and from here in 3) a clear and distinct consciousness of the importance of the voluntary task taken upon oneself and the heavy responsibility for its poor performance before God and people. With such tasks, there is very little room left for the uncontrolled arbitrariness of Russian scribes in the matter of diversity of liturgical rites. There could have been diversity in the text of ranks, or rather, involuntary errors, and our Russian copyists were not at all so scrupulously proud that they began to justify themselves from such errors. On the contrary, they openly admit that books copied “with a perishable hand and a perishable mind, and not with the Holy Spirit,” are not devoid of deviations from the originals in the form of “inscriptions and omissions in a line, or in a word, or in a title, or in a dot.” Our scribes even explain the reasons for these deviations, which are: “lack of Thinean education” (i.e., Greek - Athenian), “not studying bookish knowledge well and very skillfully,” mental rudeness and ignorance, severe headache, drowsiness, talking with a friend while writing, lack of comfortable living quarters and the dilapidation of the originals from which new books were copied, etc. “And the sinful servant of God Eutherey, the priest’s son of Ondreev, wrote, we read in the afterword to the Lenten Triodion of 1559, where, sir, he peed himself, or rewrote, or did not finish writing, and you, sir, do not curse God for the sake of sharing, nor bark, correct yourself, but don’t be surprised at my wit, sir, Phineas has more money (i.e. Aoinyan) was unprecedented 20. “Writing with great need,” says one afterword, “I was sick in my head and soul.” “Lord and brethren, begs the great sinner, the first among sinners, the last in the confession of holy monks, a certain Semenishche, a copyist of the Apostle of the 15th century, where I described myself with my foolishness, dozing, or talking to a friend, and you, oh Lord, correct it yourself, and for God’s sake, do not blame me for this and forgive me.” 21 “Remember me, the unworthy Gabriel eromonk,” we read in the afterword to the service book, who copied this service book in the holy mysteries and correct sins with blessing, and do not curse God for the sake of God, because he is very poor in mind and without a place in strange houses from foreign books in impoverished bodily needs in plunder (speed). 22 In the same afterwords, our Russian scribes left evidence in the form of an exact indication of the time when they began to copy this or that liturgical book and when they finished it, evidence of how much work and effort they put into this, in their opinion, holy work, with what attention and with what thoroughness they performed their work, experiencing, as we saw, a lot of all kinds of inconveniences. Therefore, the genuine delight that escaped from the depths of the soul of the writer of the Lenten Triode of 1559, Euferius, Ondreev’s priest’s son, is understandable, who expressed it somewhat rudely like this: “just as the hare was glad to be understood, so I am a sinner, glad to have copied this book, glory to our God.” 23 Everything that we have said about Russian copyists, the same must be said about Russian translators of liturgical books, adding to this that the latter diversified the text of our books with their translations due to poor knowledge of the “laborous and artistic, extremely sparse Hellenic language.” As we already know, the “wonderful and graceful philosopher” Maxim the Greek accused the Russian translators of this. So, according to the consciousness of the translators and copyists themselves, they are not to blame for the diversity of liturgical rites in the sense of changing their design and introducing features of their own that were not present in the originals. Moreover, Russian scribes and translators cannot plead guilty for the fact that they allegedly introduced into our liturgical rites quite a few features from the liturgical practice of the Latin Church. Who knows well the history of the relationship of our Church to the Latin Church; whoever has read the messages written against the Latins by our Russian metropolitans 24 will understand the entire groundlessness of this completely unfair accusation. For our part, in order to highlight more clearly for people who are little familiar with either one or the other, our ancient antipathies to the Latin Church - “the worst of heresies,” as they said then, and to everything Latin, we allow ourselves to quote the following passage from the confessional decree for the monks and schema-monks of the 16th century: “those who sinned by going to the Latin shrines and listening to those singing and meeting, or standing or saying from Latin and from Armenian and from the Jews in oblivion peace and blessing of the rivers and giving the right hand and after departing with forgiveness verbs, in oblivion I heard the same from them.” 25 Given such a squeamish attitude of Russian people towards everything Latin, the idea of ​​our Russian scribes borrowing the features of the liturgical practice of the Latin Church can be called incredible, to say the least. But no matter how truthful, no matter how sincere our Russian copyists and translators are in their afterwords, no matter how obvious their antipathy towards the Latins and everything Latin, we nevertheless see, as contemporary literature shows us, too few people who believe in all this. We think that even after what we have just said from the words of our scribes and translators, in defense of them from the unfair accusations brought against them, not everyone found it convincing. On the contrary, we are almost sure that, based on what we said about the history of the issue that concerns us, we have already raised quite a few questions, and, perhaps, have generated some bewilderments in the minds of our readers. In fact, if Russian copyists and translators are not to blame for the diversity of liturgical rites, as we assert, then how, we will be asked, for example, Metropolitan Cyprian decided to call the liturgical ranks that took place in liturgical practice before him “wrong church rule” and recommended the rites written off by himself as “right and true"? How, further, was Metropolitan Cyprian’s successor in the department, Metropolitan Photius, only 6 years later, forced to send his ranks to the same regions “according to tradition and the legalization of holy collections”? How then can we reconcile the activities of these two great archpastors, who successively sat one after another on the metropolitan see, in relation to the structure of the entire divine service in general, and in relation to the same rites in particular? Where, finally, did that diversity of liturgical rites come from, which was noticed before Metropolitan Cyprian and which only he was the first to express with such decisive courage, and the rites were called “wrong church rules”? Thus, therefore, the correct and more or less convincing solution of these questions will now mainly depend on the fact that our opinion about the innocence of Russian copyists and translators in the diversity of liturgical rites, so categorically expressed by us, will be favorably listened to by our readers, and if possible, then accepted by them. We will answer in the order of the questions we asked. Metropolitan Cyprian, as you know, was a Serb by birth, and was the nephew of the famous Patriarch of Tarnovo Euthymius, who worked hard and zealously on the organization of worship not only in his native Bulgaria, but also far beyond its borders. Metropolitan Cyprian was educated on Mount Athos, which at that time was the center of book activity and the center of higher spiritual education for all Slavs without exception. He could finally occupy the Russian metropolitan see only in 1390, precisely at a time when the liturgical rites of our books, which gravitated almost entirely to the liturgical monuments of the Greek Church, were already distinguished by a very significant and striking variety of features, especially to such newcomers as Metropolitan Cyprian was in the first years of his service in the Russian Church. This variety of our liturgical rites could not help but amaze the worthy archpastor and provoke him to think about the means for its speedy destruction in the practice of the Russian Church. He found a worthy example of such activity in the person of his own uncle, the aforementioned Patriarch of Tarnovsky Evfimy. But as a Slav by blood and upbringing, who knew theoretically and practically well the divine services in the South Slavic churches and mainly in the Athonite monasteries, he naturally had to accept and accepted as a model for comparing our rites and sequences the liturgical books of these churches, which, as it later turned out, had quite a few features different from our liturgical books. The disadvantage of such a comparison for our liturgical books is obvious to everyone; his results should have turned out exactly the same as those he outlined in his letter to the Pskov clergy, calling our rites “an incorrect church rule” and recommending instead true and right ranks, which he himself copied, obviously, from liturgical books of South Slavic origin. Thus, this is where lies the reason for the circumstance why the liturgical ranks with the name of Metropolitan Cyprian, despite their direct inscription that they were copied “from Greek books” 26, in essence, are nothing more or less than copies from the liturgical monuments of Yugoslav churches. Here is one of the main reasons for the very curious phenomenon that at the end of the 14th century. and at the beginning of the 15th century. Especially many liturgical monuments of the Serbian Church appear in our Rus' in the originals, and moreover, in copies of them made by Russian copyists. Metropolitan Cyprian’s successor, Metropolitan Photius, had completely different views. Being a Greek by birth from Morea, who even poorly understood Slavic speech and who came to us directly from Constantinople, Metropolitan Photius, like his predecessor, also turned his attention to the state of worship in our Church, but compared it with the monuments of liturgical writing of the Greek Church of his time, which was best known to him. It goes without saying that such a comparison could in no way be in favor of our liturgical books, even if it were possible in them to destroy the features of the liturgy of the South Slavic churches introduced by Metropolitan Cyprian. Whoever knows the state of worship in the Greek Church before the 13th century (for example, according to ευχολοηιον-Gohar) and who knows the worship in the same church during the time of Metropolitan Photius (for example, according to the writings of Simeon of Thessaloniki), he, without a doubt, imagines what a significant step the service in the Greek Church took in its development, and how comparatively far Divine services in our Church have fallen behind him. Therefore, it would not seem surprising if Metropolitan Photius, having come to us in Rus' and turning his attention to the liturgical rites of our monuments of ancient editions without the peculiarities of South Slavic worship, began to recommend to his clergy, as the most faithful and “true”, rites, approved by himself and under his leadership translated from the contemporary liturgical monuments of the Greek Church. Moreover, nothing can be strange in the fact that Metropolitan Photius, as a Greek, not knowing the real reasons for the variety of features that worship in the Russian Church represented in his time, recommended his rites “according to tradition and the legalization of holy gatherings” for its destruction. Thus, it is clear - that’s why Metropolitan Photius in 1431, i.e. exactly 36 years later, was forced to send his ranks again “according to tradition and the legalization of holy collections” to the same Pskov region to which Metropolitan Cyprian (in 1395) sent his “right church rule.” That is why, further, the ranks of our liturgical monuments of this time, in their characteristics, are closer to the liturgical monuments of the Greek Church of the 14th and 15th centuries. That is why, finally, in our liturgical monuments of the 15th century we often find two lists of the same rite, of which one, in its characteristics, is adjacent to the rites of the Serbian edition or the most ancient Greek editions, and the other has a striking resemblance to the liturgical rites of the Greek Church, but in a later edition. So, although both famous hierarchs of our Church proceeded in their activities from the same impulse - this is to reduce all the diversity of our liturgical rites to the uniformity due to the order and to make our rites “right and true,” “according to tradition and the legalization of holy gatherings,” but, considering and evaluating the liturgical rites of our books from different points of view, the Metropolitan Cyprian and Metropolitan Photius achieved results that were completely undesirable for them, that is, both metropolitans, by issuing their rites, not only did not destroy the existing diversity of liturgical rites, but, on the contrary, against their will, contributed to an even greater increase in it. The number of lists of the same rites grew, and at the same time, more and more features and diversity naturally accumulated in these rites in particular and in general in all services in our ancient Church. The reason for all this, as you see, is far from the uncontrolled arbitrariness of innocent scribes... If now we do not have factual data to accuse our scribes of the 14th and 15th centuries for the diversity of liturgical rites, then the scribes and translators of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries are even less subject to our judgment, when the connection between our still young Church and its mother, the Church of Constantinople, was the most vibrant and close, when we tried to follow her example in everything down to the smallest detail, to imitate her, when, therefore, the very idea of ​​the manifestation of those and in other ways of independence - with the aim of introducing into liturgical practice this or that rite, this or that prayer, which would not have been known to the modern practice of the Greek Church, could seem positively incredible to our scribes and translators themselves. However, is it still possible to talk about Russian copyists and Russian translators of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries? Did we have them at that time? - that’s the question. At least, the chronicles have preserved for us the news that Grand Duke Yaroslav and our other princes 27 ordered scribes from Bulgaria. Consequently, the Russian people of that time still needed to learn writing from these scribes, and not engage in writing. Without a doubt, there were scribes (very few) from the Russians (monuments written by them have survived to us), but, firstly, everyone knew them by name, and secondly, they all lived either at the courts of princes, or at episcopal sees, or, finally, in monasteries, where they were under the strictest, most careful supervision, and where, therefore, one could not count on impunity in any way. As for now the diversity of liturgical rites, which we see much earlier than the arrival of Metropolitan Cyprian to us in Rus', who decided, and completely unconsciously, as we saw, to call these rites “wrong church rule,” then in this case we followed in the footsteps of the Greek Church. We owe this variety of liturgical rites almost exclusively to Greek liturgical books, which were far from distinguished by the stability of the rites they contained and the uniformity of the liturgical order. That this is so - as proof, let us refer to the ευχολοηιον of Gohar mentioned above. It contains several lists of the same rites of the Greek Church of the 8th, 9th and even 12th centuries, but all these lists do not represent the same thing. We see here the differences between the lists of the same order, which, according to the time of their origin, belong not only to different centuries, but even to the same century. (We do not intend to talk about the opinions that were expressed at the councils of Stoglav and 1666, because these opinions are echoes of those judgments that were expressed partly by Maximus the Greek, and for the most part a repetition of what was said by Metropolitan Cyprian and Photius). After all that we have said about the reasons for the diversity of rites in our ancient liturgical books and about the innocence of ancient Russian scribes and translators in this diversity 28, we think it would be completely unnecessary to justify these latter from another more serious accusation brought against them, namely: as if our scribes and translators, taking advantage of the lack of control of their arbitrariness, introduced into our liturgical rites and predominantly The rites of the sacraments of baptism and confirmation contain many features from the liturgical practice of the Latin Church. The accusation, we repeat, is very difficult for our old-time scribe, but it falls by itself after what we expressed in their defense regarding the first accusation. In fact, if the reason for the diversity of our liturgical rites was the liturgical monuments of the churches of the Greek and South Slavic lands and our Russian scribes and translators have absolutely nothing to do with this, then, consequently, the idea that they borrowed a lot into our liturgical rites from the liturgical practice of the Latin Church is not only completely unnecessary, but even strange. However, the fact of some dependence of worship in our Church on the liturgical practice of the Latin Church, at least in the regions of Pskov and Novgorod, as can be judged on the basis of the above-mentioned letters of Metropolitans Cyprian and Photius to these regions, is apparently beyond doubt and requires some explanation on our part. First of all, we note that those who accuse our scribes of their arbitrary variety of liturgical rites significantly exaggerate the words of these metropolitans, because they speak of the influence of Latinism on the liturgical practice itself, and not on the liturgical rites contained in our liturgical books, as not being subject to any influences other than the practice of the Greek churches and the lands of the South Slavic. Then, the features of our ancient Russian liturgical practice indicated by Metropolitans Cyprian and Photius, as evidence of its existing connection with the practice of the Latin Church, are not justified by the actual state of affairs, because with the exception of confirmation with the Latin chrism and partly pouring baptism 29, all other features were not alien to the liturgical monuments of the Greek churches and the lands of the South Slavic. But behind all this, the clearest, most visual, most irrefutable proof of the innocence of ancient Russian translators and copyists can be provided, in our opinion, by a careful and comprehensive study of the liturgical writing of the Christian East and the works of fathers and other writers who in one way or another dealt with issues in the field of Orthodox Christian worship. We personally, having become familiar with the Slavic-Russian liturgical literature in various Russian libraries, in order to compare the features noted in it, which are different from our contemporary liturgical services, considered it urgently necessary, in the interests of historical truth, to study Greek and South Slavic manuscripts in the libraries of the St. Petersburg Imperial Public, Moscow Synodal, M. Rumyantsev Museum, M. Edinoverie Nikolsky Monastery (former merchant A.I. Khludov), partly Vatican Roman 30, etc., study the patristic works of Cyril of Jerusalem, Dionysius the Areopagite, Tertullian, Augustine, Simeon of Thessalonica and others. and get acquainted with Gohar's ευχολοηιον, Gabert's Αρχιερατικον and other works of learned Western writers who were interested in the worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The result of our acquaintance with the study was the study “Divine services in the Russian Church in the 16th century, part 1 31” on the one hand, and on the other hand, the conviction that no matter how large the number of lists of liturgical rites in our ancient liturgical books, no matter how diverse the existing features in them, nevertheless all these lists can be divided (although not without some difficulties) into three far unequal groups. The lists of ranks of the first group or edition, in their characteristics, are adjacent to the monuments of the Greek Church, but the oldest editions are approximately until the 14th century, the lists of ranks of the second group are to the ranks of the monuments of the South Slavic lands, and, finally, the lists of the third group of ranks are to the monuments of the Greek Church, but in the newest editions, from the 15th century onwards, ending with Venetian early printed editions. It is difficult to attribute to the share of Russian translators and copyists any features of our ancient Russian worship, although some very few of them still remain without explanation. It seems to us, or, better to say, we are confident that with greater acquaintance with the liturgical writing of the Christian East, stored in the libraries of Athos, Sinai, Palestine, Constantinople and other places, these features of worship in our Church will be explained... So, in the end we must come to the following conclusions: 1) The beginning of the question about the origin of the variety of rites of liturgical practice in the Old Russian Church dates back approximately to the 12th century, but the culprits of this diversity were named by name only in the 16th century by the famous scientist Maxim the Greek. 2) The participation of our translators and copyists in this diversity was, so to speak, involuntary and relates more to the appearance of the manuscript than to its internal content, i.e. if they diversified our ranks with features, it depended either on poor knowledge of the Greek language or on negligence and inattention during their correspondence, but in no case from intentionality in the hope of lack of control and impunity on the part of the higher authorities - to introduce into our liturgical rites their own fabrications and “conjectures” that are not found in their originals. 3) The real reason for this diversity were the originals, from which our manuscripts represent almost word-for-word correspondence, that is, Greek and South Slavic manuscripts that came to us in Rus' at different times and in different editions. 4) Unwitting accomplices in this diversity were not only our Russian princes, who gave liturgical manuscripts of the most varied editions for translation to their translators and copyists, generous donors who quite often, along with objects, donated liturgical manuscripts to the church, quite often bought from the southern Slavs, but even the Russian high priests, who zealously cared for bringing to the monotony of our worship, as, for example, Metropolitans Cyprian and Photius, who gave rites of various editions and different origins as a model to their clergy. Russian Histor. bib. 1880, vol. VI, p. 239. Sochin. Maxima Greek. ed. Kazan, vol. III, p. 62. Stoglav, ed. Kazan. 1864 chapter. 5, question 5, p. 52. Ibid. chapters 17, p. 108. Ibid. chapters 19, p. 111. Most recently, professor of the Kazan Theological Academy N. Krasnoseltsev joined these researchers. Having published a “monument of ancient Russian writing relating to the history of our worship (?) in the 16th century” of rather dubious origin, the mentioned researcher provided it with rather extensive notes, in which his view on the issue raised by us was clearly expressed. “The inclination of the performers of worship to be guided in the field of liturgical practice by their own “conjectures,” their own discretion and reasoning, says Mr. Krasnoseltsev in his remarks, constitutes one of the very prominent characteristic features of Russian religiosity of the 16th century” (Right. Sobesedn. 1884, book 1, p. 97). “At the end of the 15th and 15th centuries, the desire for the improvement of divine services in our country was very strongly demonstrated not only in the highest church and government spheres, but also in the lower circles of copyists of liturgical books, most of them clergy, who were at the same time the performers of divine services” (Ibid. p. 98). "This desire, unfortunately, according to the author, manifested itself mainly in unfounded and arbitrary conjectures and fabrications. The scribes began to treat the rites they copied differently than before; the vows of the old scribes - not to change anything, not to subtract or add, apparently had little meaning for them. When copying, for example, the rites of the liturgy, our scribes of that time did not were already content with an accurate reproduction of one original, but usually took several originals of different editions and origins, supplemented them with one another, and sometimes with their own inventions, and thus compiled new, more extensive, consolidated editions... At the present time, it is still impossible to determine with accuracy how far the speculations of our scribes extended when compiling these editions, but there is no doubt that something was introduced here and not from the writing of these sources. sources, but from ordinary purely Russian practice, the image was gradually formed on the basis of everyday skill and ignorance” (Ibid. p. 100). In order to at least somewhat support this a priori “undoubted” conclusion with facts, Mr. Krasnoseltsev dwells, among other things, on the list of feasts of the Mother of God and the Forerunner at the proskomedia when removing particles from the second and third prosphora, a list very often found in the Missals of the 16th century. “Obviously,” Mr. Krasnoseltsev concludes, this is a purely Russian speculation, practiced first in addition to the liturgical text, and then included in the text” (Ibid. p. 101). But with a careful study of the monuments of liturgical writing of the churches of the Christian East, the prototypes of our liturgical books, “certainty” can be significantly shaken and even become a question of a rather dubious nature. So, for example, in this case, we have not seen and do not yet know such a listing of the feasts of the Mother of God and the Baptist in the rank of proskomedia in the service books of Greek, Serbian, Moldavian-Vlachian, etc., and therefore we cannot say definitely where this feature came from in our service books, but we can confidently assert that such a listing of holidays came into practice precisely from written sources, the “liturgical text.” We know the Moldavian-Vlach service books, in which there are special, now non-existent in our books, holidays with a list of holidays in honor of the Mother of God and even the Forerunner (RKP. Imperial publ. bib. No. 8 l. 147–148; No. 9 l. 78–79; RKP, assembled. Khludova No. 113 l. 78–82). It is not surprising, therefore, if upon a more careful and thorough study of the liturgical writing of the Christian East we encounter in it a feature of the rite of proskomedia that interests us. That is why we would recommend that researchers of our worship be more careful if possible and not rush to their “undoubted” conclusions... Odintsov. Order. total and private worship services. in ancient times Russia until the 16th century 1881 Sib. p. 297; Christ. Read 1868 book X, p. 567. Christ. Read 1868 book. X, page 567. Odintsov. Order. general, and private, divine services. Until the 16th century page 299. Russian Histor. bib. vol. VI, p. 254. Russian Histor. bib. vol. VI, p. 255. We made a rather extensive remark about this Service Book, as well as about its name pseudo-Cyprian, in the article: “Divine services in the Russian Church for the first five centuries” (Right. Sobesedn. 1882, book II, p. 155, note 1). Service RKP. M. Synod, bib. No. 601 l. 72; Description glory RKP. M. Synod, bib. dept. III, part I, p. 11. RKP. Moscow Synod, bib. No. 837 (Description Vol. Sh, Part I, p. 473). East. Description RKP. Rumyantsev, bibliography. Description RKP. M. Synod, bib. dept. III, part I, p. 253. Description RKP. Solov, monastery K. 1881, part I, p. 84. East. Description RKP. Blush. bib. page 606. Description RKP. glory M. Synod, bib. dept. III, part I, p. 524. See Historian-literator. Review of ancient Russian. polemical works against the Latins by A. N. Popov. M. 1875 and Crete. experiments on the history of ancient Greek-Russian. polemics against the Latins by A. S. Pavlov. St. Petersburg 1878 Req. RKP. M. Synod, bib. No. 310 l. 159 rev; RKP. Solov, bibliography. No. 1085 l. 262–270; No. 1086 l. 100–101; No. 1089 l. 245 rev. –259 rpm, etc. Description, Slavs, handicraft. M. Synod, bib. dept. III, part I, p. 11, 203 etc. He diligently reads and reads books often night and day, says our ancient chronicle about Yaroslav the Wise, “and the scribe collected many from Greek into Slovenian and copied many books” (Full. Collected Russian let. vol. I, p. 65). The chronicle conveys something similar about the Grand Duke Konstantin Vsevolodovich (Ibid. pp. 187, 188), about the Volyn prince Vladimir Vasilkevich (Ibid. vol. II, pp. 222 and 223) and about other princes. Beyond all doubt. that the collected scribes were far from being Russian people, or at least most of them, since these latter were people at a low level of culture and did not speak Greek enough to freely translate liturgical books into Slavic, and, in all likelihood, they were foreigners, i.e. Bulgarians, Serbs and, perhaps, even Greeks, who became acquainted with the Slavic language through the southern Slavs. Justice, however, requires noting that at the end of the 16th century, and especially in the 17th century, when Russian Orthodox people were divided into two hostile camps: the Orthodox, who later received the nickname “Nikonians,” and the schismatics, “conjectures” of the Russian scribes’ own invention began to be included in liturgical and other church books in order to defend one or another of their opinions, which did not have a historical or factual basis, but all such manuscripts are easily recognized by people familiar with real liturgical writing, and most importantly, hardly anyone would dare to use them to characterize the services in our Church at one time or another. Therefore, we ignore manuscripts of similar origin when addressing this issue. As for baptism by pouring, this form can hardly be considered exclusive to the practice of the Latin Church. This form of baptism was allowed in exceptional cases in the ancient Christian Church (Bingh. Origin, eccles. edit. II Magdeb. 1755 an. vol. IV pag. 336) and even almost from the time of the apostles (Trud. Kiev. spirit. Acad. 1884, book XI, p. 377). Currently, acquaintance with the manuscripts of this library is quite possible from the book of Prof. N. 0. Krasnoseltsev, which recently appeared in the world, under the title: Information about some liturgical manuscripts of the Vatican library with comments on the composition and features of the liturgical rites contained in them and with appendices. From a report on scientists employed abroad in 1882.” Kazan. 1885 We proved the same thing in our critical articles “Divine services in the Russian Church for the first five centuries” (Right. Sobesed. for 1882 and 83). Confirmation of our thought can be found in the major works of Professor Moscow Spirit. Academy of I. D. Mansvetov and even in the last work of N. 0. Krasnoseltsev, which we mentioned in the previous note. You might be interested in: