From the doctrine of the Church and its history

Contents The name of the Church, its beginning and significance in relation to the universe The Council of Angels and the human race The focal point in the doctrine of the Church The creation of the Church The name of the Church, its beginning and significance in relation to the universe At present, questions about the Church in particular arise: What is it in its essence? How important is it to belong to it? What are the signs of being in its depths? What does it have to do with other societies, especially the State? Should the State protect its existence and laws? What is the position of the Church now and what awaits it in the future? In view of the extraordinary importance of these issues, it seems timely to recall some features from the teaching about the Church and from its centuries-old history. First of all, what does the word Church mean? The Slavic word church is a modified Greek word: Ku ριακόν - house of the Lord. In Greek, the concept of church is meant by the word Ἐκκληαία, which comes from the verb ἐκκαλέω - I call. So, according to the literal meaning in Greek and Slavic languages, the word church means those called to the house of the Lord. This word production provides the key to explaining why the word church also means a church where believers are convened for prayer. On the other hand, the visible image of the church to which we are called for worship and prayer can serve to explain by whom, who, and for what we are called to the Church. Who calls to the Church? God, Creator of the World, Lord of the church, Founder and Head of the Church. Who is called to the Church? All rationally free beings, of the creatures of this kind known to you - angels and humans. Why? According to the nature of the special God-given powers and abilities. Unreasonable creatures cannot be called to this sanctuary. Why are rationally free beings called into the Church? To participate in the highest gifts of divine love. Through creation, the gifts of life are scattered by a generous Hand, and an immense variety of different creatures use them, as best they can and know how. Rational-free beings can use the gifts of God more than unreasonable ones, and so they are called from the general kingdom of nature into the special kingdom of God, into the very house of the Lord - to participate in the great gifts and blessings of life, not only common with all creatures, but also special in close communication with the Supreme Being himself - God. Both for angels and for humans, due to their rationality and freedom, participation in the highest divine life is conditioned by their assimilation of those perfections of divine life, in which and to the extent of which it is possible to enjoy its benefits. And here there is a general world law: you can use the gifts of life, whoever you can and knows how. The good angels have already taken advantage of the mercy of the Heavenly Father and are brought into participation in the divine life. A whole host of holy righteous people already reigns with them in the abodes of the Heavenly Father, of whom, according to the word of the Lord Savior, there are many. But the calling into the Church continues to this day and will continue until the end of the century. God the Father, according to the word of the Lord Savior, set the times and dates for calling into the Church in His power (Acts 1:7). When the Heavenly Father sees that enough sons of the Kingdom have already been gathered in His heavenly abodes, then He will set a limit for the gathering into the Church, and another type of her life will solemnly open - the eternal kingdom of the righteous with Christ the Savior. The indicated features in the teaching about the Church, extracted from its name alone, already represent something very majestic in it. The idea of ​​the Church is the highest thing that divine thought has invented for us, what God’s love has desired for us. The idea of ​​the Church is the highest form or the highest example of life for the highest creatures of the universe. The idea of ​​the Church is inextricably linked with the idea of ​​the redemption of the human race by the Lord the Savior, and in the eternal council of God it is proposed to give man incomparably more than he lost in the fall. The idea of ​​the Church takes precedence over the idea of ​​the universe. She sets a goal for the universe, where it should go and rise. The external, visible world is, as it were, surrounded by higher beings who attract it to perfection. Angels are the firstborn of the universe, man is its crown. Among these rationally free beings is the material world. It must correspond to their perfection and, therefore, be freed from the limitations and shortcomings inherent in it as a material thing, and from the time of the Fall and various disorders and disorders, it must come into conformity with the glory and dignity of the children of the Church, the heirs of the eternal kingdom. The creation, according to the word of the Apostle Paul, awaits with hope the revelation of the sons of God, because the creation was subjected to vanity not voluntarily, but according to the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:19-21). The idea of ​​the Church, inextricably linked in the eternal council with the idea of ​​redemption, is therefore dominant in the universe. The latter submits to it, conforms to it as to the main, sovereign idea. The world is built according to the idea of ​​the Church. Not only the thought of the Church is imprinted in the creation of the world, but in the structure of different parts of the visible world the future destinies of the Church are indicated. The idea of ​​the Church, as something primarily desirable, constantly reigns, as it were, in the thought of the Creator, and the creative thought that is gradually being fulfilled in the universe, as it were, is constantly conformed to it, gradually over the course of six days. This is what Metropolitan Philaret says about this marvelous correspondence in his notes on the book of Genesis. “The Gospel brings the concept of the creation of the World closer to the doctrine of the redemption of man. It calls a person reborn in Christ a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15), the inner enlightenment from God is likened to the origin of the original light from the word of God (2 Cor. 4:6), and the peace of believers in Christ is united with the peace of God after the completion of creation (Heb. 4: 3, 4, 9, 10). From this it is revealed that between the affairs of God in the world great and small, in the kingdom of nature and grace, despite their apparent distance and significant difference, there is some mysterious proportionality and correspondence.” Based on these clear indications of Scripture, the saint observes the correspondence between creation and redemption in relation to the formation of the Church. “In the beginning the Church was heaven and earth together, or heaven on earth. The Fall of man made it an uneducated and empty land. Darkness covered her as if she had completely united with the abyss of fallen spirits. But the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, over the tribes of men who perished in Adam, and grace overshadowed him. God sent him the light of revelation about the Redeemer and separated the kingdom of light from the kingdom of darkness, the believing man from the unrepentant devil, the seed of the woman from the seed of the serpent, the tribe of Seth from the tribe of Cain, the house of Noah from the corrupted ancient world to the end” 1). Saint Philaret further points out the correspondence between the structure of the firmament and the structure among people of society (the visible Church), which would tell everyone the glory of God and proclaim the gracious creation of His hands (Ps. 19:1-5). The waters under the firmament are “after the pandemonium of Babylon, the outcast peoples, who, like waters, covered the earth, only the wisdom of the depths”; Abraham and the patriarchs are the waters above the firmament, ascended to the highest promises and the closest union with God, and the chosen people who came from them were purified and established by the law.” The saint monitors the correspondence of the features of creation with the establishment of the chosen people in the land of promise, with the appearance of the Savior, with the preaching of the apostles, with the enlightenment of the pagans, with the conversion of Jews to faith, which will follow at the end of the ages - until the Great Sabbath of God and man in the kingdom of heaven. In the same way, as if already ready and completely arranged, with all its past, present and future destinies, the Church was reflected in Noah’s ark, with this one door for it, with these many cages not only for clean animals, but partly for unclean ones, with this high mountain on which, after storms and bad weather, the ark safely stopped, and with this olive branch, a symbol of peace and love, in in the mouth of a dove. It was reflected even more clearly in the Tabernacle of Meeting, built by Moses according to the image he saw on the Mount of Epiphany. The closer to the time of the Messiah, the clearer and clearer its features are outlined, and not only in prototypes, but in clear and definite prophecies. From all these prophecies, types and the majestic image in the very creation of the world, it is revealed that the Church is the original, special and preferential creation of God. For the highest purposes intended for her, this visible world was created, which is destined for end, destruction, transformation; she is promised eternal existence, and according to her needs and position the world will be transformed. The Council of Angels and the Human Race Reasonably free beings are called into the Church: it has already been filled with numerous angelic powers; for more than seven thousand years, many from the human race have entered the gates of the Kingdom, but the voice calling to the Church continues to this day. Whether the world of spiritual and moral beings is exhausted by these two species known to us, the word of God does not tell us. However, already one angelic council in the Church of the Lord seems innumerable. The powers of the blessed spirits are thousands of thousands (millions) and ten thousand (billions) (Dan.7:10; Rev.5:11). One of the Lord’s parables brings this boundless wealth of the spiritual kingdom somewhat closer to our view. One of the shepherd's one hundred sheep got lost, and he, forgetting about the ninety-nine sheep, went to look for the lost one. This lost sheep, found and raised by the Shepherd of souls, is the entire human race, both former before us, now existing, and which will come after us. The ninety-nine sheep are angels. Imagine now the boundaries of this world of spirits! The word “angel” does not mean nature, but the position of the highest rationally free beings. One of the properties of Divine wisdom is that the plans laid out by Her are fulfilled by beings created by Her. Angels are the first messengers of the will of the Almighty, the executors of His destinies and plans. You created angels (messengers) Your spirits, Your servants - a blazing fire, sings the Psalmist (Ps. 103:4). Through angels the Lord rules the universe. Angels are entrusted with the custody and management of the forces of the elemental world. In the revelation of Saint John the Theologian we see an angel who has power over fire (Rev. 14:18), an angel of waters (Rev. 16:5); four angels stand at the four corners of the earth and control the four winds of the earth (Rev. 7:1). There are angels of kingdoms and nations, angels of churches or societies of believers. The sacred history of both the Old and New Testaments is full of indications of the various activities of angels for the benefit of people. Their closeness to people, selflessness in the service they perform extend to the point that every Christian from the baptismal font to the grave is guarded by a special angel. The service of angels also extends beyond the grave for those who remained faithful to the faith and the church, as can be seen from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, whose soul, upon permission from the body, was carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham, i.e. to the kingdom of heaven. But the angels did not immediately establish such a close and beneficial relationship with people. As rationally free beings, they themselves could enter the house of the Lord, into close communion with the Trinitarian God, and become true members of the Church along the same path that she now shows us - the path of faith, love, obedience. How great and long-lasting this path was is not revealed to us, but it is known that very many angels, according to some indications contained in Scripture, the third part of the angels (Rev. 12:4), a huge number in view of the vast kingdom of the angels, did not retain their dignity and left their home, and then formed a terrible force hostile to the Church. Through the envy of Satan, sin entered into people, and to save people from the power of the devil, such extraordinary means were required, such as the incarnation of the Son of God and His suffering on the cross. The rebellion of Satan against the Almighty God gave the good angels a reason for the solemn expression of their faith, love and obedience, and from that ever-remembered moment they formed a sacred council or union, under the leadership of the Archangel Michael, to unanimously strive for the glory of the Lord against all His enemies and offenders 2 . But in this very zeal to fight in every possible way against the enemies and insulters of the all-holy name of God, there could be danger for the kindest angels in discerning its limits. The secret of the redemption of the human race was not revealed to them. According to the word of the Apostle Peter, they only want to look at this great mystery with reverent gaze (1 Pet. 1:12); but this gaze, no matter how sharp, could not penetrate its entire depth, embrace all the riches of the wisdom and goodness of God, revealed in the accomplishment of this greatest of all the works of the Lord. Having transgressed the commandment of God according to the teaching of the devil, a person could seem to them, which in part was also an insult to the name of God, and arouse against themselves their pious jealousy for the glory of God. “We cannot know how the angels would have treated us,” writes Bishop Theophan, if not for reconciliation; but we can guess by the angel who stood with a sword at the entrance to paradise, and by the cases in which they later struck down sinners” 3). “Sin came,” writes His Eminence Archbishop Innocent, and placed man in a hostile attitude towards his Creator and the Heavenly World. And this is the reason why the angels of God, these holy and loving beings, will sometimes appear on earth clothed in darkness and storm, even with a sword. So the angel will strike with death the firstborn of the Egyptians, and so the angel will strike in one night entire legions of Assyrian troops 4.” Some of the fathers and teachers of the Church (Chrysostom and Augustine) are even inclined to think that angels were once hostile towards people. This feeling of some sort of hostility towards people, emanating from holy zeal for God and His glory, is not that obstinateness that, according to one of the interlocutors of righteous Job, the Lord saw in His angels (Job 4:18). In relation to the above-mentioned assumption of the fathers and teachers of the Church, which has the significance only of their private opinion, one could note that if the angels were formidable and punishing, then in these cases they carried out the decisions of God’s judgment, which is possible even now in view of the ongoing in the Church and, over time, the more and more intensifying warfare of the Lamb of God and the ancient serpent, and the actions of the angels, formidable in appearance, such as, for example, blocking the entry of the ancestors to paradise after their fall, in essence they were beneficial for people. However, when comparing the relations of angels to people in the Old and New Testaments, one cannot help but see some difference in these relations. In the Old Testament, angels appear, reveal the will of God, give protection and protection primarily to righteous people, patriarchs, prophets, or leaders of clans, rulers of kingdoms and nations; in the New Testament, angels serve every Christian believer, no matter how weak and infirm he may be. In the Old Testament, angels act according to a special command from the Most High for each time: With his angel the commandment for you to keep you in all your ways, David reassures those who trust in God’s providence (Ps. 90:11). In the New Testament, the angels themselves take a living and active part in the salvation of the human race and whole faces rejoice at the conversion of a single repentant sinner. Having studied the Scripture for his insidious purposes, the murderer-devil considers the words of the Psalmist to be attributed only to the Son of God, tempting the Lord Savior with them. According to the word of the Lord, it is applied to every baby received into the Church through holy baptism... With such a distinction between the actions of Angels in relation to people, in the varied service of angels that they performed, at the command of God, in ancient pre-Christian times, a majestic way of gradually preparing them for the service that they perform in the Christian Church appears. The Lord raised them in the spirit of His love, gradually introduced them into the plans of His economy for the salvation of the human race, with special service they were given on Mount Sinai by the law of the canopy, which precedes the law of grace, and in this way transformed their feeling of hostility towards people, if there was one in them, into a feeling of compassion and love for the human race fallen into sin. Finally and decisively, the angels entered upon their service, high in depth of humility, to the human race as the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished His great redemptive feat. At the very beginning of this feat, the Lord Savior already announced this extraordinary service of angels to the human race to His first disciples with special certification of the truth of His words, which He did on especially important occasions. Truly, truly, I say to you, from now on you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man (John 1:51). This great event has a close connection with the glorification of the Lord Savior upon his ascension into heaven, about which the Apostle Paul speaks in the 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews: This (Son of God), being the radiance of glory and the image of the hypostasis of Her (God), and holding all things by the word of His power, having accomplished by Himself the cleansing of our sins, stood up at the right hand of the Majesty on high, being as much superior to the Angels as he inherited a name more glorious than them, for to whom of the Angels did God say: You are My son, today I have begotten You. And again: I will be His Father and He will be My Son (Ps. 2:7; 2 Sam. 7:14). Also, when he introduces the Firstborn into the universe, he says: and let all the Angels of God worship Him (Ps. 96:7). Bowing before the great feat of the Lord Savior and before His divine greatness, the Angels entered into the closest unity with the church He founded and serve every Christian believer, imitating the ineffable love for us of the only begotten Son of God, who shed His most pure blood for us sinners on the cross. So, the varied and beneficial service of the holy angels to us in the Christian Church is a great gift to us from the Lord Savior, one of the rewards for His feat, given to us by His mercy and love. Therefore, on the day of the glorification of the holy angels, the Church sings to the Lord the Savior: You, who ineffably united with the heavenly, Christ, earthly, and made one Church of Angels and men, we unceasingly magnify. The Church of angels and men is one, but unity is not indifference or identity. The Council of Angels and the human race, accepted by the Lord, the Giver of Life, into one Church, have many obvious signs of closeness, many similarities, but there are also significant differences between them. These features do not in any way hinder the unity of the spirit, the union of love. Diversity with unity, on the contrary, seems to be an unchangeable law of true life and a condition of spiritual beauty. The deepest basis of this law is in the Trinity unity of the Supreme Being, the Creator of the universe. Well-organized even before the beginning of the visible world, shining with glory and grandeur, the angelic church represents, so to speak, the prototype of the earthly church. In this earthly church, everything is arranged in the image of the heavenly one, everything good in it rises and reaches spiritual beauty and perfection, with which the Church of the higher ranks of angels shines. The first church of the true God on earth was built by Moses according to the model that was shown to him on the heavenly Mount Sinai (Ex. 25:40). The hierarchy of the Christian church is modeled on the hierarchy of the angelic church. The Savior's parables present a whole series of heavenly things, which correspond to objects, phenomena, and circumstances in human and earthly life. That there is a connection between the heavenly and the earthly, we all more or less feel and realize, which is why we try to explain our thoughts with similarities and comparisons. The greatest minds of mankind pondered this mysterious connection between two worlds and tried to comprehend and define it, but only the Creator of the world knows perfectly the works of His hands. So the Divine Teacher reveals to us in His parables what corresponds to what in the two worlds, heavenly and earthly. We stand on the edge of these two worlds, and now everything in the material world points us to that higher spiritual world, we say: think about that, go there, go there! At all times in the life of mankind, among all peoples, despite the difference in religious beliefs, the need of the human spirit to rise above the usual conditions and constraints of life was felt, and in the church, since the times of the Old Testament canopy, a special institution or society was gradually arose and definitely organized, in which, if possible, the inherent desire of the human spirit to imitate the life of angels is satisfied, and the members of which, having achieved success in this holy endeavor, are glorified by the name: “in flesh angel." From ancient times, the greatest, according to the Savior, of those born of women, Saint John the Baptist was even depicted with the wings of an angel, which signified both the peculiarity of his ministry - the messenger of the Lord and the equalizer of His path, and the height of his life as an angel. Glorifying the venerable ascetics who, through monastic self-sacrifice, achieved high holiness and were glorified by God, the Church affirms that “their spirit rejoices with the angels” (troparion to the venerables). In the Christian Church, several grace-filled angelic apparitions to her sons are known, which are immortalized by their festive remembrance (the miracle of St. Michael the Archangel, September 6). Churches and chapels are built in honor of the holy archangels. The Church established cathedrals - special gatherings of believers - in honor of the great evangelist and minister of the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God, Archangel Gaviel (March 26 to July 13) and the general feast of the Holy Archangel Michael and other ethereal forces (November 8). Many Christians bear the names of archangels and angels, and this is especially accepted in the monastic rank, which is often referred to as angelic. All these are signs, witnesses, monuments of the constant, closest and living connection of the Christian Church with the heavenly, angelic Church. But, despite these similarities and methods of rapprochement, angels differ from us by their very nature: they are only spiritual beings, albeit limited; man is a spiritual-physical being. A person’s body will remain in the future life, only it will be changed and transformed in accordance with the state of the soul. The bodies of the saints are apparently preserved by the power of the Most High for their future life and, by the grace of God, exude miracles of healing. The way angels gather in church is different from that of people. Angels were created by God in immeasurable numbers and, called into the church, they all entered it, with the exception of Satan and his demons. The human race multiplies through natural birth and gradually, over the course of many centuries, gathers into the Church of the Lord, and this convening, as stated above, continues to the present time and will continue until the end of the century. The main and essential sign of difference between the Church of the earthly and the Council of Angels is that Christ suffered and died for us. The fruits of redemption undoubtedly extend to the angelic world, but not in the same form as to the human race and, if it is permissible to say this, not to that extent... The Apostle Paul says: God did not subject the future universe to angels (Heb. 2:5)... He, the Lord Jesus Christ, does not receive angels, but He does not receive the seed of Abraham (Heb. 2:16). Christ is like the Son in the house of His Heavenly Father. We are His house, if only we hold fast the boldness and the hope in which we boast, firmly to the end (Heb. 3:6). Some of our kind, by the gift of grace, achieved purity and holiness equal to the angels. Ever-Virgin Mary, the most blessed Mother of God, surpassed the highest angels in glory and honor, and the Church calls Her more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious than the seraphim. The Apostle Paul lists the characteristics that unite members of the Church of Christ. One body and one spirit, just as you are called to the one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in us all (Eph. 4:4-6). In these words of the Apostle, a special meaning is given to calling into the Church, which, as stated above, is not the same for angels and men, and therefore such a sign is given as a single baptism, which cannot be applied to the angelic church. It is true that, since they had not sinned, the angels had no need for baptism; but it is this method of entry into the Church, completely different from ours, that distinguishes the Church of the earthly from the council of angels. The Apostle Paul says: There is one bread, and we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of one bread (1 Cor. 10:17). Based on these words of the Apostle, in the image of the celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist, the church fathers (Irenaeus, Chrysostom) saw the image of the Church of Christ. Turning to the particulars of the performance of this great sacrament, one cannot help but notice that on the proskomedia diskos around the Lamb there are particles taken out in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos, the nine orders of saints who have pleased the Lord, particles for the living and the departed, that is, only for the glorified members of the Church of the human race who are in need of heavenly help. Before the consecrated Gifts, “all the forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets” and other former members of the earthly church who died in the faith are remembered. But at the same time, it is proclaimed that we, standing before the Lord in prayer, portray cherubim and therefore must put aside all worldly cares in order to worthily exalt the King of all, invisibly carried by the angelic ranks, and the officiating priest brings thanks to the Lord that He accepts from us the sacrifice of love and praise, although the incomparably better servants of us stand before Him - thousands of archangels and darkness angels, cherubim and seraphim, singing a song of victory, crying out, calling out and speaking. – Thus, in the celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist, the unity of the earthly and heavenly Church, and the particular characteristics of both are reflected. The focal point in the doctrine of the Church The Cathedral of Holy Archangels and Angels, Cherubim and Seraphim and other disembodied forces is the first church in the world. Its beginning precedes the creation of the visible world. In this sense, the Church appears to be the original creation of God. In the same sense, the Theology of the Right Reverend Macarius gives the definition of the Church, “as a society of all rationally free beings, i.e., both angels and men who believe in Christ the Savior and united in Him as their single head” 5 . But united in a single Head with the entire Church in the broad sense of this word, the angelic council has its own independent existence and characteristic differences from the earthly church, just as this one has a special history, its own characteristic features, rights and advantages. “According to the second, less extensive and more commonly used meaning, says the Right Reverend Macarius, the Church embraces the actual people who professed and profess the faith of Christ, every single one, whenever they lived and wherever they were, whether still in the land of the living, or already in the land of the dead” 6 . It is significant that the name of the Church of the Heavenly Spirits, which has been established since ancient times, is the Cathedral of Angels. This is the church already assembled and exists in its entirety. Having retreated from this sacred cathedral, the evil demons fell irrevocably. From among the rationally free beings living on earth, the “calling” to the house of the Lord continues and will continue until the end of the age. Finally, the Russian theologian puts a third definition of the Church in a closer sense, but the most common and ordinary one, according to which the name Church means only the New Testament, Christian, militant church, which is called the kingdom of grace, in contrast to the triumphant church, which is called the kingdom of glory 7. From these definitions of the Church it is clear that the focal point in the teaching about the Church seems to be the foundation and structure of the New Testament Christian militant Church. Here is the center of gravity in the teaching about the Church. From here other departments in the teaching about the Church are determined as, in view of the definitions of the Church given by the Right Reverend Macarius, its volume expands, stretching on both sides into boundless space and into endless centuries. Already from the manger of Bethlehem, a strong ray of light rises, extending beyond the boundaries of the worlds of the visible and invisible. Who is this baby, whose birth is announced and rejoiced by angels, and before whom shepherds and wise men bow? Behold, the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), the spotless and pure Lamb, prepared before the foundation of the world, but who has appeared in the last time for us (1 Peter 1:19-20), delivered to death according to the definite advice and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23). The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Where, into what boundless spaces do these divinely inspired words penetrate! With what clarity and firmness they proclaim what was determined about our salvation in the eternal council of the Trinitarian Deity! With what insistence they point out here the beginning of our salvation! This is where the fate of the Church is foreshadowed and predetermined, through which the salvation of the human race is accomplished! Even before the beginning of the world, Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for His sake; He gave Himself up with the decisive will to suffer for us and, through the mediation of the Church, to instill and assimilate into us everything that He had acquired for us. That it was precisely through the mediation of the Church that it was predestined to save us is evident from the fact that, according to the word of the Apostle, God from the beginning, through the sanctification of the Spirit and the faith of truth, chose us for salvation (2 Thess. 2:13). From eternity the Lord, whom He foreknew would be conformed to the image of His Light, He also predestined, and called, and justified, and glorified (Rom. 8:29-30). All these are actions that take place in the Church of Christ. This predestination extends to the final destinies of the Church, to the solemn opening of the kingdom of glory and eternal bliss for those who appropriate the saving grace given in the Church to those who believe in the Lord the Redeemer, and eternal torment for those who do not take advantage of the grace of salvation and reject it. So that's where the beginning of the Church is. The Council of Angels is only in fact the primordial church, but its emergence and organization is preceded by the Divine determination about the salvation of the human race through the Church, and it itself is introduced into the plans of the Divine economy about it. Just as before the creation of the visible world the already assembled and well-organized church of angels shone, so at the dawn of human history the church of sinless ancestors shines. Scientists who search for the origins of the world imagine primitive people as wild and bestial creatures, and their life was in the most difficult conditions of existence, surrounded everywhere by troubles and misfortunes. The general tradition of all peoples who believe in their primitive history to have a “golden age” says something completely different, and the word of God undoubtedly affirms the same thing. Having just emerged from the hands of the Creator, according to Whose word everything created was very good (Gen. 1:31), the first people in all the powers of their souls showed a desire for everything sublime and holy. The image of God shone in their souls, not obscured by anything. Beautiful nature, which in its present form has such a strong and beneficial influence on our soul, filled them with spiritual joy and elevated their minds and hearts to the Creator. Easy and pleasant work in maintaining and cultivating paradise, obedience to animals, close acquaintance with them when naming names, familiarization with all nature given to them, arousing the energy of the spirit in the ancestors, provided a wide field for the exercise and development of their strength, both bodily and especially spiritual. God himself was their mentor and leader. He brought animals to Adam. The ancestors heard His voice walking in paradise (Gen. 3:8). Undoubtedly, they were in communion with the holy angels. The height of the spirit of the first people is evidenced by the spirit of insight, possessing which Adam pronounced the law of marriage for all times, the repentance, although not complete, which the first parents discovered after their fall, and especially the faith with which they accepted the promise of the Savior. This is their greatest merit to all humanity. They are the first heralds of Divine revelation to us. This is how the wise Son of Sirach depicts the life of the primordial people: The Lord gave them power over everything on earth. According to their nature, He clothed them with power and created them in His image. And he put fear upon them upon all flesh, that he might have dominion over the beasts and birds. He gave them meaning, a tongue and eyes, ears and a heart for reasoning. He filled them with insight and showed them good and evil. He set His eye on their hearts to show them the greatness of His works, so that they glorify His holy name and proclaim the greatness of His works. He imparted knowledge to them and gave them the law of life as an inheritance. He made an everlasting covenant with them and showed them His judgments. Their eyes saw the greatness of glory and their ears heard the glory of His voice (Sir.17:1-10). Having accepted with faith the promise of the Savior, our forefathers prefigured the face of those being saved. In this promise, for the first time, the definition of the eternal council about their salvation was announced to people, and for this, the majestic plan of the Divine thought about them gradually becomes clearer, to which the Apostle assimilates the corresponding word: the economy of God. First, the building of the Old Testament church is erected, so to speak, and then the New Testament church. The first represents the canopy, the image of God’s future building, the second is the church itself, the body. Everything in the first represents something attempted, but not completed; the second, in its structure, resembles ancient images and omens. The Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Hebrews: God, who at times and in divers manners spoke of old to the fathers in the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by the Son, whom He appointed Heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds (Heb. 1:1-2). This is the relationship of the Old Testament revelation to the New Testament! Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, the great and small prophets and other teachers of the Old Testament Church proclaimed the truths of Revelation, but in parts and not completely, but in full and perfection these truths were revealed to us by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Founder and Head of the New Testament Church, for example, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the doctrine of love, the resurrection of the dead, the afterlife, etc. From the first promise of the Seed of the woman, gradually through The heralds of Revelation contain prophecies about the Redeemer of the world and about the future destinies of the Church, expanding and enlightening the horizons of faith of the Old Testament righteous, and all these prophecies are fulfilled in the Person of the God-Man and the church founded by him. From the very first promise, usually called the first gospel, comes a series of prototypes that pointed out to the ancients the coming times of the Messiah and the New Testament church. The institution of sacrifices, the sacrifice of Abel, the flood, the sacrifice of Isaac, the ladder seen by Jacob, the fate of Joseph, the Jewish Passover, the passage through the Red Sea, the tree that sweetened the waters of Marah, water from the stone, the construction of the tabernacle, the institution of the priesthood, the rod of Aaron, the brass serpent, Jonah in the belly of the whale, etc., all these are images of the Savior and His kingdom, which He was pleased to establish in His church. In his Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apostle Paul presents a number of sacred persons of the Old Testament Church, who, inspired by faith, performed great feats and wondrous miracles, “conquered kingdoms, did righteousness, received promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were strengthened from weakness, were strong in war, drove out armies of strangers.” (Heb. 11:33–34), were of such heights and holiness of life that the whole world was unworthy of them, but nevertheless such righteous people, so testified in faith, did not receive the reward promised to them because, as the Apostle explains, God provided something better for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us (Heb. 11:40). At the same time, all the most important events in the world seem to be directed towards the goals of the church - expected by the Jews - the New Testament. Why, for example, were there these great movements in the history of ancient peoples, the rise and fall of world monarchies - Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greco-Macedonian, then the strictest solitude, then the widespread dispersion of the Jewish people, the unification of so many peoples under the iron rule of Rome before the time of the Nativity of Christ, the call at the same time of new peoples from the depths of Asia - all this finds an explanation in the history of the dispensation of Christ's Church, and it is all the more certain and certain that all this was foreshadowed in detail by the prophets. Connected by inextricable ties with the Old Testament church, the New Testament Christian church extends the same strong threads on the other side. So, although it differs in concept, in life itself it is closely united with the triumphant church, into which, together with its sons and daughters, a numerous host of men and wives of the Old Testament Church testified in the faith. But the Church is bound not only with the righteous by inextricable ties of spiritual kinship and love for Christ: the subject of her unceasing memory and constant prayerful concern are the fathers and brothers who died in faith and repentance, who, although they themselves did not have time to bear fruits worthy of repentance and did not receive heavenly rewards, but have the hope of achieving eternal bliss, for which the church prayer is offered for them daily. But just as the beginning of the Church was laid in the mysterious depths of the eternal council, so the completion of its destinies is hidden in the mysterious depths of the eternity that is coming to meet the collapsing and transforming world. The Apostle John writes: Beloved! We are now children of God, but it has not yet been revealed what we will be. We only know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). And it has not yet been revealed to him, the seer of the destinies of the Church, what awaits in the future those whom the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has predestined to adopt as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, “in the dispensation of the fullness of times, when all things in heaven and on earth will be united under the head of Christ” (Eph. 1:4-10). Such a comprehensive significance of the Church, founded by our Lord Savior Jesus Christ, in the teaching about it and its history gives special importance to the earthly life of the Savior, as the time of its foundation and dispensation. The beginning of the Church goes back to the mysterious heights of the eternal Council for the salvation of people. Before the creation of the visible world, the already assembled and well-organized angelic church shone. At the dawn of the history of the human race, the church of sinless ancestors flaunts. With this, the church of those saved in the promise of the Savior begins its existence, going through two periods for five thousand years - patriarchal and sub-legal. But all this was only a preparation or preliminary, an image (the Old Testament church) or a model (the angelic church) of the Church that the Redeemer of the World had to found on earth. This event is so great and important that in the great work of Redemption it comes to the fore and is announced before all other works of the Lord the Savior. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, with these words the Forerunner of the Lord John began his sermon (Matthew 3:2). Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself begins His sermon with these literally words (Matthew 4:17). With these literal words, at the command of the Lord, the first heralds of the teachings of Christ, the holy apostles, begin their preaching (Matthew 10:7). Most of the Lord's parables begin with the words: become like the kingdom of heaven. It is also worthy of note that the heavenly Announcer of the birth of the Savior directs the gaze of the humble Mary, the Most Blessed Mother of God, to this same kingdom, considering it the first and, as it were, all-encompassing work of Christ. This one will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give Him the throne of David His Father, and He will reign in the house of Jacob, and His kingdom will have no end (Luke 1:32). So, the gospel of the coming of the kingdom of heaven, as it were, covers and unites with itself all the works of the Lord and His entire saving life for us. Having taken the form of a servant, the Lord Savior in the words of His forerunner and His own, and in the preaching of the apostles, and in the gospel of the Archangel, puts Himself in the shadow, and in the foreground before the eyes of everyone brings forward the work entrusted to Him by the Father - the kingdom of heaven, which He came to found and establish. The concept of the kingdom of heaven is broader than the concept of the church in its most commonly used narrow sense, but not broader than the concept of the same church in its broad sense, as indicated by our Russian theologian, His Eminence Metropolitan Macarius. By the kingdom of heaven we mean, first of all, the militant church and, finally, the entire Church, both angelic and human, headed by the Lord the Savior, and all external nature, transformed for its purposes and in accordance with its spirit. That in these gospels we mean, first of all, the militant Church of Christ, and then the triumphant one, which has the whole world, visible and invisible, to gather under its royal canopy, the word shows: repent... This is the work of the earthly church. When in his great sermon the Forerunner John came to the name of the One Whom he precedes, being unworthy to untie the boot at His feet, he indicates the Founder of the earthly church: You baptize him with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11). How and when did the Lord accomplish this great work of His? With all His life, with all His deeds. If in the Old Testament sacred history there is not a single event in which the fathers and teachers of the church did not see a foreshadowing of the New Testament Christian church, then is it possible to single out anything in the life, deeds and words of the Lord Savior as not related to the creation of the Church? Christ loved the Church, says the Apostle Paul (Eph.5:25). According to the power of this love, the Church is a special, priority object of Divine thought over all. Even in the times of the Old Testament canopy, the Church was represented as a bride, to whom the thoughts, feelings and desires of her heavenly Bridegroom were directed. This is the most suitable symbol to mean what the Apostle Paul expressed with the words: Christ loved the Church. But He extends the similarity even further, to the final limits of human thought and imagination: the Church is the body of Christ (Eph. 1:23). Soul in body - is it possible to imagine a closer connection? Is it possible to indicate at least a moment where this connection could be broken? Is it not here that we need to look for the meaning of the deep words of the twelve-year-old Jesus Mary, His Mother and the imaginary Father Joseph, who were looking for him and found him in the church: Why did you look for Me? Or did you not know that I must be concerned with the things that belong to My Father? (Luke 2:49). The church is the image of the Church. So, both the private life of the Lord Savior and His very preparation for the great feat were devoted to one cherished thought, the thought of the Church, which He loved and for which He gave Himself before the foundation of the world. Although, however, the thought of the Church fulfills the entire life of the Savior of the world, the Apostle points out a particularly important point in the attitude of Christ to the Church He created in the words to the elders of Ephesus: Take heed therefore to yourselves and to all the flock, in whom the Holy Spirit has made you bishops, to shepherd the Church of the Lord and God, which we have acquired with His blood (Acts 20:28). The Divine Redeemer of the world, through His blood shed on the cross, acquired the right to have mercy on people. This mercy is given in the Church. Having ascended to the tree of the cross, the Lord Savior, in the words of the church song, planted His Church on it. The sun rises, this church hymn proclaims, and the moon a hundred in its rank, you ascended, Long-suffering, onto the tree and you planted your Church on it. Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in his explanation of Ps. 118, says that the Lord gathered His Church through the cross. Therefore, the special time for the establishment of the Church on earth is the three hours of the Calvary sacrifice. The time of the Savior’s earthly life before the sufferings on the cross can be viewed as a preparation for the establishment of the Church, the days that followed, as the time of the completion of the building, until the Church was revealed in the world on the day of the descent of the Holy Life-giving Spirit. In a series of preparatory actions for the establishment of the Church, one can distinguish: 1) the discovery of the light of truth, which should shine to the whole world in the Church and through the Church, 2) the election of the apostles - these first members of the Church and its future clergy leaders, 3) the establishment of the sacraments through which the saving grace of Christ should be given to the Church. Notes on the book of Genesis. M. 1867, part 1, pp. 20–30. Prologue and Chetya Menaion on November 8th. Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians. M. 1876, p. 53. The Fall of Adam. Conversation on bicycle fast. St. Petersburg 1847. Page 334–336. Definition of the concept of the Church by His Eminence Macarius. Orthodox dogmatic theology. Part 3, p. 245. Ed. 1851 Definition of the concept of the Church by His Eminence Macarius. Orthodox dogmatic theology. Part 3, p. 249. Ed. 1851 Examples of such definitions show how great and comprehensive the idea of ​​the Church is, and how dangerous it is to extend the lines of similarity and difference beyond the limits indicated by him... About the Church - militant and triumphant, according to the teachings of the Orthodox patriarchs, should not be confused at all; the more dangerous is such a confusion in relation to the council of angels and the human race. The Word of God nowhere defines the Church, but only depicts it, indicates its properties - unity, holiness, etc., and presents it in images and pictures. The Church is the house of the Lord, the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, the pillar and foundation of the truth, the woman clothed with the sun - all these are images and pictures, and not definitions of the Church. The words most commonly used to define the Church—“society” or “union”—do not withstand the fullness or abundance of thoughts contained in the word Church. The framework they form is either too thin and cramped for the concept of the Church, or too vast and extends into endless times and spaces. The very idea of ​​the Church bears the stamp of the highest supernatural revelation. It is amazingly clear and bright in the writings of the Apostles, it embraces everything that belongs to it according to Divine promises, and yet it is not visible where it could be borrowed from in the fullness of its meaning. One source seems to be the highest supernatural inspiration, or, what is the same, direct teaching from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. This idea of ​​the Church illuminated the fate of God’s chosen people, the entire ancient world, the life of our ancestors before and after their fall and the life of the heavenly spirits, attracting them under its wide canopy and uniting everything. You might be interested in: