Введение

I. The position of archeology in Russian society The position of archeology in Russian society, school and among related specialties. Objections to the scientific validity of archeology and their analysis. The concept of an archaeological site. Definition of the subject of church archeology. Connection with recent liturgics; remarks on the relationship of ancient Christian life to church ritual forms. How is the science of church antiquities understood in the West? Auxiliary scientific branches of church archeology; significance for the development of its classical archeology and history. The Challenge of Church Archaeology. When presenting each science, some preliminary explanations and considerations are required. Their purpose is to show what can be expected from science and what questions it answers. I will not hide the weak, or rather, unattractive aspects of my specialty, just as I will not go completely silent on the fact that, in my opinion, it deserves the right to the attention of not only a scientific specialist, but also every educated person. In this case, I am faced with the delicate task of unraveling the facade of our science for the first time and uttering the last word, which it came to after the persistent and painstaking, successful, but even more often unsuccessful, work of its numerous and sometimes selfless workers. In a general introductory essay, each science seems more or less attractive: the latest conclusions, great scientific discoveries and big names of scientists are able to puzzle and attract the attention of anyone entering an unknown field of knowledge, where the most valuable and outstanding things are deliberately collected before his eyes. The impression he makes is quite strong, but anyone who would think that with a careful study of this new branch of knowledge he would often have to admire beautiful views and deal only with this front side of the matter would be sorely mistaken. If he is an amateur, he will stop at this appearance and will not go further; but if anyone wants to know the matter in detail and give himself a clear account of what he has seen, he will have to abandon the beautiful views and look at the other side of the coin. But it is well known that this side is not very attractive, that the reverse side is not always beautiful, although it is from this that one can actually recognize the weaver’s work and the goodness of the material. Church archeology, perhaps more than any other science, has the unenviable property of repelling oneself with the dryness of its content and lack of vital interest. Among the numerous branches of historical science, it is one of the oldest in terms of the material it deals with, and perhaps the youngest in terms of the time of its birth, in terms of the degree of processing and systematization. Perhaps, thanks to this backwardness, she has not yet managed to occupy a real position in a number of professions related to her and has not found proper appreciation for herself in school and society. In no scientific field does the contrast between serious understanding and current ideas reach such great proportions as in the science of antiquity. While specialists, as a result of a very understandable psychological process, exaggerate the importance of the subject of their studies and are ready to find in archeology the solution to almost all questions related to the history of man, others, on the contrary, continue to connect with the concept of archeology the idea of ​​​​a knowledge that does not have a proper basis, is lost in trifles and deals with issues that lead nowhere. Understanding archaeological materials as various fragments, scraps and all sorts of junk, they consider the study of this subject to be a fun of idle curiosity and a lot of learned luxury. The time has not yet come to judge what the science of antiquities can do in the future - it can be guessed, but not decided: one can challenge the introduction of this subject into the course of our high school, but it is hardly possible now to doubt the validity of the idea that this still relatively young branch of knowledge will have an enviable future, when more extensive material material will come to its disposal, and most importantly, strict techniques or methods will be developed for evaluating this material and for making conclusions about its historical value. While other sciences have already made known the material at their disposal, archeology is still collecting it and has not managed to collect everything that is possible and necessary to make known its means and to determine the boundaries of its research. In some departments she still walks by touch and is not yet able to get out on a straight and rough road. The lack of a strictly developed method and precise criteria for the scientific assessment of existing data is a sore spot in modern archeology and is a target for all sorts of attacks on archeology from the side of its scientific validity. These attacks are indeed strong, but archeology can only partially bear them. A significant share of this failure must fall on the poor development of certain branches of historical science, for example, ethnography, paleontology, paleography, folk psychology and even linguistics. To present the matter more clearly, I will point out several examples from general archeology. Until now, for example, no completely positive criterion has been developed for determining the style of primitive decorations on dishes and bone tools from the most ancient period of human life, these signs have not been classified by eras and tribes, and, thus, science is content with approximate conclusions and conjectural conclusions. The features that distinguish the arts and crafts of historical peoples have not even been fully clarified, while each tribe, each people puts a special stamp on its products and on its way of life, according to its taste, and modifies what it borrows from others. The objections directed at archeology from the side of the material that is subject to its study are superficial. They say that shards, bones, pieces of rusty metal, the remains of ancient buildings and inscriptions scratched by someone unknown who and for what purpose are not scientific material, that the science of antiquities deals with trifles and has nothing to do with serious knowledge. Such a judgment, based on a misunderstanding, is the result of a unclear understanding of the archaeological site and an inept attitude towards it. But since a strict concept on this score has not yet been established, and, meanwhile, without it the systematic formulation of archeology as a science is impossible, I will make a few comments about what should be understood by an archaeological monument, and whether all material remains of antiquity have the right to this name. With regard to antiquities, there are two extremes that are very unfavorable for science. Some overestimate them, others underestimate them. Let's say we found a piece of mosaic or a fragment of an ancient vessel. The ultra-archaeologist, whom we called the overvaluator, will preserve this find without further ado, transfer it to his home collection and, if he is a rich person, place it under a display case. The latter - an undervaluer - will not pay any attention to this fragment, because, in his opinion, an archaeological monument is something integral, characteristic, exemplary. Both of them are wrong before science. The first introduces into it the techniques of a ragpicker and identifies the archaeological object with rarity; the latter applies a non-scientific scale to the assessment of the monument, attaching importance only to monumental and well-preserved objects. By adhering to such a one-sided view, he narrows, to the detriment of science, the scope of material subject to its evaluation. Where is the truth and scientific attitude to the subject? I will indicate here several features that are essential to characterize an archaeological site, to highlight and distinguish it from what is called a find and an antique object. To be an archaeological monument, an object must serve as a visual representation of ancient life or characterize the views of a certain time. It must bear the stamp of the era, the dominant taste and concepts in it. Guessing these features is another question, the solution of which will depend not on the quality of the material, but on the preparation and skill of the connoisseur. In the absence of historical specificity, the object must at least bear the imprint of personal relationships - even if these are individual features put on it by the person who made it or owned it. We, for example, have many rings and seals from the Byzantine era. Some of these items can serve as examples of the craftsmanship of that time; others express the superstitious concepts of the time and were used as phylacteries and amulets; still others explain the history of Byzantine shrines. This is the general side. But then Mr. Dethier finds in Constantinople and describes a ring with the seal of John the Cappadocian, a famous figure and collaborator of Emperor Justinian. In general, the ring does not provide anything new compared to other known rings, but by the name of the owner, by personal conditions, it acquires the significance of a monument. The same type of typical features also includes postscripts in manuscripts. They determine the time of origin of the manuscript, the name of the scribe and owner; they talk about the purpose of the manuscript: whether it was intended for personal use, or for contribution to the church for the remembrance of the soul, or for replenishing the library. The same should be noted about the name of the painter on the icon and the craftsman on other utensils. In the case when we are dealing with small objects, not completely preserved, damaged by time and representing in the proper sense fragments and random scraps of ancient objects, one of the essential conditions for the scientific significance of such remains is the determination of the conditions of their location, their relation to others found together with them (if any were found) and comparison with homogeneous objects already known and evaluated in science. Thus, an antique iron nail found somewhere by chance cannot lead to any scientific conclusion and cannot be considered an archaeological site; but, if the same nail is found in an ancient grave, it already indicates its origin from the era of the so-called Iron Age and, in turn, is clarified by other items of grave goods in terms of its everyday meaning. Outside of these conditions, it remains only an iron nail and has no scientific significance. In the same way, a fallen piece of plaster with traces of painting does not in itself have archaeological significance if it is not known in what place and under what conditions it was found, or to what type of painting it belongs. In the absence of these conditions, it loses the right to be recognized as an archaeological monument and may end up in an antique shop window as a rarity or a curious item, but nothing more. The degree of preservation of the monument should also be taken into account. How many ancient inscriptions have reached us in such a damaged form that they not only cannot be satisfactorily read and explained, but even their meaning and paleographic features remain completely unsolved. Having thus explained that not every object of antiquity has the right to be considered an archaeological monument, we must add in conclusion that they retain or lose this significance not so much from their own unimportance, but due to the absence of those conditions under which even the most insignificant remains of antiquity become reliable material and can lead to historical conclusions. Thanks to the inattention of the archaeologists of old times to these signs, the science of antiquities lost a lot of very valuable material and lost it not from the disappearance of monuments - no, it would have been better if they had not yet appeared in the light of God - but from the fact that they were mined with an inept hand, tearing them away from the environment with which they stood in close kinship and from which they received a certain meaning and illumination. Such objects are lost to science, and what’s worse, they give rise to erroneous conclusions. For example, the movement of bones and traces of rodents on them in graves led to the creation of cannibalism in places where it did not exist. The misunderstanding arose from inattention to the conditions of the original position of these remains and their superficial analysis. The third reproach that archeology makes relates to the pettiness and narrowness of its work, the scattered nature of its materials and the absence of broad generalizations in archeology. “To limit ourselves to the study of details, to develop the material side of a material monument, to blur in this diversity is a task too insignificant,” they say, “for science and hardly justifies the efforts that the study of archaeological monuments requires.” There was a time in the history of almost every science when it dealt with particulars and trifles, studied individual facts and got lost in the details, not always giving itself a clear account of what all this preliminary work would lead to, and what kind of building would be formed from these disparate materials that accidentally came to hand. Archeology has held on longer than others and continues to do so on the basis of this painstaking work, digging in the ground, collecting debris, rummaging in the dust of libraries and reading ancient inscriptions and tomes from warehouses. The hardworking researcher, to whom modern science owes its foundation, had before his eyes a heap of material scattered everywhere, sorted it out and put it in order, and little by little arrived at its historical significance. From that time on, the classification of the scattered material began, and from the heap of debris a museum began to be assembled, in which each thing found its place as part of the whole in accordance with the chronological and historical conditions of its origin. In this already processed form, archaeological monuments are now subject to our study. We are not dealing with fragments that came to us from God knows where, not with a mass of fragments of dubious value, not with signs of incomprehensible alphabets, scratched by someone unknown and for what purpose, not with scraps of an old costume, not with curiosities and rarities, but with historical monuments, as with representatives of the ancient way of life of mankind. We are guided by choice, we study historical fact, we already have a positive goal. Approaching the matter in this way, we are equally far from superficial amateurism, which sees in archaeological material a collection of ancient curiosities, and from narrow specialization, which confuses small and large, unimportant and important, values ​​a fact for its own sake and does not go beyond its single meaning. Fortunately, this scholastic time is passing for our science, and living historical thought begins to connect and penetrate the study of dead and silent monuments of antiquity. But “dead and dumb” is a relative concept. These are expressions that have become stereotypical from frequent use, but whose meaning is far from being as clear as the sanction of their long-term use would require. The monument of the distant past is dead, but only until its significance in historical life is understood; he was mute until they learned to understand his language, listened to his talk about that distant past from which he survived to us. And if it were possible to bring together these incorruptible witnesses of the long past and listen to what the past life of humanity says through them, then its past fate would be repeated before us, the interests and tasks of our distant ancestors would appear. Paleontologist, studying the structure and functions of any fossil organism; A geologist, analyzing the composition and characteristics of various formations, works in the same field and for the same purposes as an archaeologist. Just as for the former the task extends much beyond the study of this or that fossil, organism, this or that formation, and the center of gravity of their work lies in the conclusions to which the study of the forms of the fossil world leads, so for the archaeologist it is not the parchment of an old tome that has value, not the remnant of a destroyed building in itself - a precious find, but those historical and everyday relations that are understood from the monumental remains of the former. Let's explain this more clearly. The archaeologist, tearing up the mound, opens a grave crypt under the embankment and in it are the skeletons of the dead, as they lay, perhaps for hundreds of years, and around them are various household items: vessels, weapons and metal accessories of a suit. Using these remains, he resurrects the everyday life of a grave tribe that had long disappeared from the face of the earth, reproduces burial rituals, guesses their ideas about the afterlife, and makes many other conclusions about the historical fate of the inhabitants of this necropolis. Often one inscription reveals such details from the past life of peoples that legend is silent about and folk memory has forgotten. For example, how much light was shed in Egyptian antiquity when Champollion found the key to reading hieroglyphs and the wedge-shaped writing of the Assyrians was deciphered! How information about the life of the ancient Egyptians and Romans increased after the research of Lepsius and excavations at the site of ancient Pompeii! I will not talk about the major scientific significance of the subsequent discoveries of Smith in Assyria and Schliemann on the site of ancient Troy and Mycenae and very, very many other later researchers. These acquisitions are too significant to be assessed in a few general phrases. Moving on to more recent times, we see that thanks to epigraphy much of the ancient history of Christianity was clarified. It has been proven, for example, that some members of the Roman imperial family in the 2nd and 3rd centuries already professed Christianity, and the ongoing development of the catacombs has led to many conclusions that completely change historical views based on the stories of the church historian Eusebius and other written monuments. This, in our opinion, is the true significance of the archaeological monument, and this should be the scientific attitude towards it. The question arises: what kind of monuments are subject to our study? Everything that bears traces of antiquity, testifying to one or another side of ancient life, is subject to archeology in the broad sense of the word. A burial mound with its contents, ancient utensils and clothing, coins and medals, monuments of architecture, painting and sculpture - all this and much more is included in the concept of archaeology. But the very name of our subject, church archeology, already provides the first general sign for the specialization of the vast and varied archaeological material that is subject to the study of the science of antiquities, and determines the range of our immediate activities. But we still need to agree on this name and explain in what sense it can be accepted. Like most names of sciences, it is conditional and acquired the right of citizenship due to its antiquity; in fact, when applied to our specialty, it is very broad, vague and does not give a clear picture of the matter. The concept of church archeology, 1 starting from this name, includes everything that ever existed in the ancient church, and now has partly fallen out of use, partly still exists, but in a changed form. Such a broad designation allows us to subsume under it all the forms in which ancient Christian life was expressed: whether these were forms of doctrine and worship, or canonical decrees, or everyday relationships. But this would be such a complex content, the review of which would require a presentation of the history of religious doctrine, church rites, canon law, which is not at all relevant to our specialty and is not necessary for our study. Placed within such a broad framework, this name is a remnant of the previous understanding, when archeology in the Greco-Roman world meant ancient history itself, the depiction of events and institutions of the distant past. The first time this word was used by Plato was in his dialogue: Hippias, where the word αρχαιολογία refers to stories about ancient peoples, heroes, people and their way of life, about how cities were created in ancient times. He calls all these stories about past times άρχαιολογίαν in abbreviated form (συλλήβδην). It is clear that the field of church archeology is much narrower not only than this understanding, but also its definition in the sense of the science of Christian antiquities. Without scattering among other specialties and without seizing material that does not belong, a church archaeologist deals primarily with two categories of data, namely: with the forms of church worship (= cult) and partly of ancient Christian life. The concept of church cult includes two sides: liturgical, that is, various forms of liturgical rites in their historical development, and monumental - those material means that make up the setting and material of liturgical actions, that is, the church as an architectural whole, with all the devices related to worship, church painting, clothes, utensils and all material liturgical accessories in general. The purpose of the first part is to outline the history of church rites; the second task is to present the history of church art, at least in its main branches. Taken together, these parts correspond to what is called in the language of classical archeology: antiquitates religiosae, religious antiquities. But in addition to the forms of worship, the field of church archeology, as I said, also partly includes the study of ancient Christian life. By the word everyday life we ​​mean the external environment of everyday life, those forms and rituals in which the needs of community life, concerns about food, clothing and housing, the spirit of society and its worldview are expressed. Combining in my program the forms of church-liturgical and everyday life, I do not introduce, as it might seem at first glance, two separate categories of data, but I take two sides of the same phenomenon, organically connected with each other, having the closest points of contact. Fair in general, this position receives special strength when it comes to the original Christian society, where church life, or what is now called cult, did not stand completely apart and did not stand out too much from the conditions of everyday life, but often took its origin from here and took root here, as if on its own soil. If these two main questions of our science are translated into the language of general archeology or, using the school expression, archeologia prophana, then they will, perhaps, correspond to the two main departments of the latter: the history of art and ethnography. It is not scientific, of course, to distinguish monuments of art from monuments of everyday life, because the boundary line between them is elusive, and the transition from one to the other cannot be separated by a demarcation line. But taking this division as a remnant of the old concept of archeology, as the history of art and, moreover, ancient art, we have the right to include in this part monumental monuments, in which not the everyday aspirations of man were expressed, but the artistic views and ideals of an entire era and entire peoples. In the science of church antiquities, this department will correspond to the history of church art, expressed in monumental monuments that have a connection with the general culture of mankind. As for ethnography, the task of which is to study folk life and its psychological characteristics, then another part of our specialty will fall under this category - the history of church rites and partly ancient Christian life. – We will develop this last consideration in more detail in its place, and now we will make a few brief explanatory remarks about the relationship of everyday forms to church ritual forms. The question of the mutual relationship between worship or worship, as they say in the West, and everyday life has not yet been the subject of deliberate, special study, as far as I know, and was even influenced by special doctrines that prevented its scientific formulation. The connection between these phenomena was either not understood, or ignored, or even artificially broken. Under the influence of ultra-religious views, they even found it incompatible with the honor and dignity of church rite to draw any internal connection between it and the customs of everyday practice. In church worship or worship, people tended to see opposition and denial of everyday forms rather than any related aspects with them. Such arguments cannot be called sound either from an ecclesiastical or from a historical point of view, and here’s why. Both church and everyday rituals have their basis and explanation in the laws and forms of universal or local symbolic language. Each liturgical rite, as a well-known liturgical form, represents either a single symbolic act or a whole series of similar acts, the expressions of which are special movements, special sacred rites and a certain grouping of external signs or material objects. There are a lot of such organs or, as it were, ritual factors, but they all boil down to well-known elementary actions and techniques that underlie the rituals of everyday life. This idea, which is generally true, gains even greater strength when we take into account not the everyday, everyday environment of life, but those forms of life that took shape in connection with its significant phenomena and, as being out of the ordinary, were distinguished by typical rituals. Let us refer as an example to the customs observed in ancient times at the birth of a child, at the conclusion of marriages, at funeral ceremonies and memorial rites. In all these cases, everyday ritual used, in its main features, the same means that were accepted in church services for expressing the corresponding ideas. But at the same time, one should never lose sight of the fact that the church ritual in its established, immovable structure preserves the ancient, archaic forms of universal human symbolism, and everyday ritual is constantly changing under the influence of cultural successes, with the development of taste and everyday conveniences. Therefore, it would be at least strange if someone decided, for example, to draw a parallel between the everyday costume of the recent past and church clothes; but it’s another matter if we take for comparison Jewish clothing, the Greco-Roman costume and its modification in Byzantium: then this parallel will turn out to be necessary and will clarify much in the composition of our current liturgical vestments. The prayer gestures of Christians, with the exception, of course, of the sign of the cross, belong as much to the Christian world as to the pre-Christian one; as many were used in everyday practice as in Christianity. Or, for example, walking in a circle - a round dance, an emblem, in our opinion, of the sun and the solar path, from time immemorial has become an expression of joy and fun in people's everyday life. Let us recall a similar phenomenon in liturgical practice, in the rituals of the newly baptized around the font, those initiated into hierarchical degrees - around the throne, newlyweds - around the lectern, religious processions - around churches, cities and villages. The liturgical language also corresponds to the internal meaning of this rite - a symbol of spiritual joy. In fact, what word denotes this ritual of circular walking? In the word χορεύειν (from χορός = choir, round dance, round dance with singing), which means: to dance in round dances, dance, have fun, rejoice, and this last word translates χορεύω in the famous verse that is sung when treating the newlyweds: Isaiah rejoice. In our ancient missals, this everyday trait found its place in the following characteristic expression: to walk around, uzokol, and it is known that kolo in the Old Church Slavonic language means a circle, a wheel, a ring, and by analogy with a circular movement - the round dance itself. Thus, a specifically church ritual is reduced to its simplest basis, to an elementary ritual in which universal human consciousness expresses itself. The use of rings and wreaths during marriage ceremonies, processions with lit lamps, incense and various types of kissing during services, the construction of a throne, the basis for which was a table, the decoration of churches with paintings and carvings - where did all these liturgical details come from, to what do they owe their meaning, their irresistible influence on human feelings? Why are all these forms so close and accessible to everyone, speak so much to our hearts, and have become an educational tool in the hands of the Christian Church? Certainly not because they were invented or adapted, but thanks to the general psychological basis on which they rest. There are rituals, however, very few, that have, so to speak, a universal, universal character. They do not belong to one particular people or a specific locality, are not developed by any particular religious sect and do not constitute part of a private cult or divine service, but express universal human content and, moreover, in a form that fully corresponds to this content and clearly speaks to the consciousness of different eras and nationalities. Such universal world forms of symbolism stand above religious particularism and originate from the same sources to which Christian religious contemplation sometimes turns. That is why, next to the specific forms of biblical symbolism, ancient Christian art contains several that took place in ancient art and were observed in the home practice of the Greco-Roman world. In these world forms the private and individual disappears; they are not accepted or borrowed, but constitute the common property of humanity and a necessary element of its spiritual life. Analyzing the church rite from this side, we will find in its present structure several details that are common to it with the everyday forms of the ancient world and with the language of universal human symbolism. Therefore, the historian of church ritual should never completely lose sight of this important element in the development of worship, and the interpreter of the latter should strictly distinguish its internal side from the external. Starting from the latter, he will have the task of figuring out first the universal meaning of one or another church ritual form, and then the specific, special meaning developed by church symbols. The developed idea seems to be contradicted by the fact that the Christian Church often had a hostile and negative attitude towards the rituals of everyday life and tried by all means to eradicate them. But was the church armed against the rite itself, as a known form, in these cases? Of course not, but against those ideas that the ritual served as a vehicle. If the idea of ​​a ritual does not contain anything reprehensible, or if it is forgotten and has become obsolete, then the ritual becomes an indifferent form under which the most varied content can hide. This is what usually happens in an era of decline in national life, when ancient forms of life have already outlived their time and, having lost their original meaning, have turned into a dead ritual, which is followed out of habit and to calm the conscience. In this case, the ritual, like a dead letter, either completely disappears from practice or decomposes, and its scattered parts or details, taking on new combinations, become part of other rituals and form new everyday forms. These latter are subject to the same fate, fluctuating and changing along with the fluctuations of the people's life. Even in those cases when a well-known everyday or religious ritual encountered opposition from Christianity, it was not condemned to complete destruction, but was often only smoothed out and changed under the influence of church institutions and in this revised form acquired the right to further existence. In this case, either the assimilation of Christian ritual with everyday practice occurred, or some new institutions arose in which a person of the previous system could find a replacement or replenishment of his old concepts. The history of the medieval church provides many examples of this conciliatory practice. This is how local folk customs were formed, in which there was a significant admixture of superstitious concepts, but which, nevertheless, received church processing, became connected with church rituals and were explained from the point of view of the latter. In the theoretical field, this direction corresponds to the way of explaining the ancient myth, according to which the latter is, as it were, a premonition of Christianity, a weak semblance of its religious ideas. For example, we still have a local custom of sending funeral services for the deceased in the first days of St. Thomas Week. This purely folk custom is called rainbows and is accompanied by details that originate from pagan practice. On these same days, church commemoration is also celebrated, since in the Easter week there were no church commemorations - nine days and forty days - according to ancient regulations. The folk custom adjoins the church custom, as an additional part, as a concession to the ancient rite, but not as an independent part with its own special pagan character. Or, for example, in the Middle Ages, the beginning of February coincided with a pagan festival of purification, which lasted several days and gave this month its very name: februarius from februo; februare enim purgare dicimus quo mense lustrabatur civitas. In contrast to this holiday, the popes established on the day of the Presentation a solemn procession with lighted lamps, the setting of which was clearly designed to counter the ancient Roman holiday of lustrationis and could serve as its replacement, “To proceed with the lithium outside the monastery” or church until the hours and liturgy on February 2, on the day of the Presentation, is also prescribed by our Typicon. Folk practice also followed the same path of rapprochement with church ritual. In a society that has adopted Christianity, but has not yet had time to assimilate its spirit, there is usually a struggle between the traditions of the past and new religious ideas. The general order of life still continues to adhere to the same foundations, but next to it another order is being formed under the influence of the church and its institutions. At first and in the most closed spheres, these two systems meet as two hostile and contradictory forms of life, but then the sharp struggle softens, people’s life seeks a way out of this contradiction and tries to find some common points of rapprochement between the old and the new. Time and habit gradually smooth out the contrast between them, remove the harsher, more prominent features from the old, and in this softened form pave the way for it to converge with church forms. Understanding these latter still from the point of view of their previous concepts, the people at this stage of religious consciousness are dual-faith. He not only divides himself between the old and new order of life, between pagan and Christian ideas, but tries to align the latter with the forms of his ancient life, connect them with them and in this form make them more accessible to understanding. Under the influence of such popular understanding, the faces of the Christian cycle appear with the attributes of ancient pagan gods. Thus, the prophet Elijah, in the popular understanding, retained some similarities with Perun; veneration of St. Friday or Petka was complicated by superstitious ideas from folk mythology; the feast of John the Baptist on June 24 was combined with the performances and rituals of the summer solstice; St. Blasius replaced the ancient Volos. In the history of popular superstitions of the Christian period there are too many such parallels for doubt to arise as to the validity of such a qui pro quo; 2 one encounters these attempts to comprehend the Christian rite in a folk way at almost every step. That is why, for those studying the ancient life of the people of the Christian era, of any locality and origin, acquaintance with the church rite and its forms can provide a very important service for understanding the ethnographic phenomena themselves and mainly for understanding the way in which the development and processing of the folk rite took place from its external side. This especially needs to be said about that side of folk life, which is usually given a place under the heading: “folk diary,” where beliefs, legends, customs and rituals dedicated to certain days of the annual circle are recorded; but the annual cycle in this section is located according to the church calendar and folk practice itself ties its favorite ancient beliefs to it in one way or another. At this transitional stage of its development, the folk ritual takes on a mixed character; on the one hand, it retains the features of its primitive type, but, on the other hand, it absorbs many details and elements of church practice. You don’t have to look far for examples of such interaction, and it’s enough to pay attention to the facts noted in our ethnographic collections. In some places in Little Russia, on January 15, until relatively recently, the holiday “oddannya” was celebrated. Oddanny, as this word is explained in the Proceedings of the Ethnographic Expedition, in southwestern Russia is called magic, through which a sorcerer can make lizards and reptiles appear in a person’s insides. 3 What is this strange explanation, and how did it come about? Probably so. This belief and the name itself are based on the fact that on January 14, the charter stipulates the celebration of the feast of the Epiphany, and since the baptism of the Savior, according to the church view, was associated with the consumption of snakes and dragons nesting in the water, then, very likely, with the day when this holiday ends, with the celebration, the belief is connected that these reptiles and snakes again acquire strength. This church performance also influenced the iconography itself, evoking figures of dragons and monsters under water in the miniatures of the baptism of Christ. In the front psalter of the Trinity Lavra by Simon Azaryin, 1634, there is a remarkable illustration of the words of the psalm in this regard: Thou hast erased the heads of the serpents in the water, Thou hast crushed the head of the serpent (Ps. 73:13). The miniature included here represents the Baptism of Christ in the following form. On the top of the mountain there is a cross with a spear, a sponge and other accessories of the crucifixion, below it is the head of Adam; on the left a chest-length image of God the Father protrudes from the cloud; from his mouth a long ray of light falls on Christ; below - under the water there are schematically shown two serpents with an open mouth and protruding pointed tongues, between them is the head of a demon; on the sides - two angels pierce him with spears (l. 96). This iconographic detail and its explanation are, in turn, based on the words of the baptismal prayer: “You have sanctified the streams of the Jordan, You have sent down Your Holy Spirit from heaven, and You have crushed the heads of the serpents nesting there” (l. 34). 4 In this regard, the legend of Cain and the sinful manuscript is explained in the form as it is set out in the apocrypha published by the late Tikhonravov. 5 Twelve serpents guarded this handwriting at the bottom of the Jordan, but when Christ came to be baptized in the Jordan, then the heads of the serpents stood in the streams of the Jordan against the Lord, and “break the heads of the serpents in the water.” – Another example of similar syncretism in the ritual. On the second day of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Byzantine women used to bring bread in honor of the Mother of God who gave birth. 6 The basis is the feast in memory of the Motherland of the Mother of God, or έπιλόχεια της Θεοτόκου, established on December 26 in some Greek monthly books (the 79th rule of the Trullo Council, by the way, speaks about it). The Thursday of Holy Week is called clean, and in the morning on this day they bathe, but it is known that on this day the washing of the feet of the apostles by Christ is remembered, and a similar ritual is performed in the church. Summarizing the above considerations, I come to the conclusion that everyday and church rituals have always had more or less close points of contact. This interaction was mutual; thanks to him, folk life left its traces in the field of church rite, and church rite, in turn, acted on the processing and storage of folk customs. We defined our science in the sense of the history of church worship and part of ancient Christian life. Strict archaeologists of our time disagree with the definition we have adopted in the sense that only material, monumental materials are recognized as a source for the science of antiquities, and written monuments are accepted only in a very limited number, insofar as they are needed for understanding and explaining material data. Most of all, the concept of the history of Christian art is suitable for their system of Christian archeology, but it is only partially suitable in terms of the properties of the material and turns out to be significantly narrower in terms of the volume of objects being developed. After Professor Pieper, who treated this issue in his “Monumental Theology,” 7 the best word on this subject continues to be the monograph of the recently deceased Kraus, professor of church history, first at Strasbourg and then at the University of Freiburg, where he taught a course in archeology: “On the tasks and scope of church archeology.” 8 In this essay, Krause attempts to establish the concept, content and scope of ecclesiastical archaeology. Under his pen, it is a science of very diverse content, which includes: 1) the antiquity of church government and law, 2) the antiquity of cult, 3) the antiquity of private life, 4) the antiquity of art and 5) the antiquity of literature and dogmatics. All these departments, belonging to different specialties, are connected by the unity of the processed material. But it is hardly possible to combine all these doctrines on this basis, especially given the current state of monumental information, and in many cases it would be necessary to limit ourselves to only fragmentary data, and not to a holistic scientific presentation of each part. Therefore, the more practical and careful taxonomies of our science are limited to only three departments: 1) the history of ancient Christian art, which is joined by two more special branches - epigraphy and numismatics, 2) the topography of Christian art and 3) the methodology of science itself. However, with one or another formulation of our subject, very wide auxiliary scientific means are required to process it, so that hardly any other specialty needs such a lot of preliminary knowledge as archeology. Many, however, have abused and are abusing this title and consider the archaeologist to be the wrong one. In the old days, an illiterate businessman who bought old books from second-hand booksellers and compiled a collection of various curiosities was already considered an archaeologist; seekers of material gain, treasure diggers also had the claim to belong to figures in the archaeological field; and even now many lovers of rarities, having neither a solid education nor scientific training, are known under this undeserved name, but in fact they are not much different from grave diggers and ragpickers. An archaeologist must be a linguist and have a solid knowledge of history in general and culture in particular, and a church archaeologist also needs special theological education and knowledge of church literature. Without this condition, explaining archaeological material is impossible. It is possible to determine its significance in cultural life, its connection with one or another aspect of church life only with the help of historical and literary data, only with the help of analysis and study of the life of that time and its surviving remains. Diggers and gatherers are needed only as labor, as a mining apparatus, and even that can achieve its goal only with experienced leaders. The people who left a prominent mark on the history of our science were versatile scientists and amazed with their erudition. With this extensive armchair education they also combined perseverance, diligence and the ability for long and hard work. Such, for example, was the famous Bosio (born around 1576), who more than three hundred years ago began to study the Roman catacombs. In Rome, in the library of Santa Maria della Vallicella, a mass of his handwritten notes, extracts and treatises have been preserved, amounting to four large volumes - more than a thousand folio sheets. From this gigantic work it is clear that he re-read almost all the eastern and western church fathers and writers known at that time, was familiar with conciliar acts and decrees, with all the literature of the lives of saints, with church historians and theologians, and, in addition, with the extensive literature of classics and medieval travelers. Having set to work with such serious scientific means, at the age of 36 he did much more than his successors had done for almost two centuries. And this is the reason why his research still remains capital work and does not lose its value in the current work in the field of catacombs, despite the fact that they are carried out by a very experienced hand and under much better scientific and technical conditions. As for our immediate, school goals, here I will limit myself to a general indication only of the main auxiliary scientific branches; Among these latter I will name mainly classical archeology and history. Christianity arose and developed on the basis of the ancient world, which by the time of its appearance had reached a high degree of development, especially in cultural and everyday relations. These forms constituted the historical environment in which the Greco-Roman world contemporary with Christianity revolved. Thus, the soil on which the initial development of Christian life took place was saturated with the traditions of the centuries-old life of the ancient world, and almost the majority of these elements, and it must be admitted, elements that were especially stable, belonged to the life of that time and were partly retained in the artistic and liturgical life of Christianity. Whatever may be said about the decrepitude of the obsolete institutions and forms of the ancient world, history, through the experience of many centuries, destroys this scientific illusion. It turns out that new principles introduced by Christianity entered this decrepit life through bloody sacrifices and amazing efforts. Even the era of the beginning triumph of Christianity was not free from this strong dependence. Let's look at the coins of Constantine's era and a number of his successors, and we will see on the obverse of these coins, next to the cross and the monogram of Christ, a pagan stamp in the form of a winged genius, the goddess of victory and other ancient symbols; Let us descend from this official sphere into the realm of everyday relations, and we will see the power of paganism in the mass of everyday forms, in customs and superstitions, with which Christian moralists wage a constant struggle in the 5th–6th and subsequent centuries. With such vitality of pagan forms of life, no matter how we begin to imagine the attitude of the church towards them - whether in the form of a sharp protest or a more lenient attitude - all the same, we would not understand the origin and task of many Christian institutions if we decided to ignore the situation in which they arose and developed. If we want to understand the development of church art in the field of architecture and iconography, we need to turn to the monuments of ancient painting and architecture of that time. Catacomb painting bears traces of ancient examples and stands in close connection with those remnants of classical painting that have been preserved in Pompeii and Rome. Christian churches in their established architectural type originate from Roman basilicas and from here they borrowed motifs for decoration and decoration. Quite a significant part of the church clothes would be inexplicable without knowledge of the Roman costume of that time. In a word, without Greco-Roman archeology, church archeology would have become a book without a beginning, and this loss of the first page from it would have been an unrequited loss for the history of church life and ancient Christian relations. The manual of classical archeology is especially sensitive in explaining issues related to Christian life and antiquities during the period when historical life was influenced by the classical world, and when this latter lived and acted as a solid worldview and a living historical factor. The first five or six centuries of the Christian era were painted with this ancient flavor, and almost all of the life of that time was still based on a classical basis. The fall of Rome under the onslaught of alien peoples, the appearance of the Germans on the historical stage and the formation of the Eastern Roman Empire or the Byzantine world give a new direction to the historical life of that time and put into motion such forms of art and such relationships in church and everyday life, which the ancient world did not know, and which contradicted its basic structure. Now in the field of church rite and art the differences between East and West are gradually beginning to show themselves; they take on a clearly defined form over time, and the present rite of our Russian Church is already partly the result of this isolation. Our entire churchliness, our worship, our canonical relations bear the stamp of Byzantine decoration and are known to us no longer in the ancient Christian form, but in this also ancient and no less characteristic form. Thus, it is impossible to understand the meaning of the current church rite and determine the nature of the art that once existed among us except in connection with the church and partly political life of medieval Greece. This task lies with the special responsibility of our science and constitutes a significant difference in its formulation in comparison with the Western school. Church antiquities are studied there, mainly within the boundaries of the classical period we have designated. Further development is provided to various historical branches. This is not how a Russian church archaeologist should look at the matter. He is obliged to deal not only with early Christian church antiquities, but with the art and worship of the Greek Church, which came to us along with faith, developing in parallel with the movement of ritual and art in Byzantium. Ancient Christian art and worship represent the first step and the beginnings of the artistic and liturgical movement, and, knowing only this first step, we would understand too little about later worship and church art. This is, in essence, the task of our science. II. Where, when and by whom did the collection and study of monuments of Christian art begin? Where, when and by whom did the collection and study of monuments of Christian art begin? The most remarkable of Western museums of Christian antiquities. Collections of Russian church antiquities. Professor Pieper's system of monumental theology. Are the available resources at the disposal of the science of church antiquities at the present time adequate to this task, and how high in general is the level to which it has risen in its historical development? In answer to this question, I must say that church archeology is a relatively young phenomenon, and that it lags far behind other theological branches, which began their historical field earlier and were sooner developed. In this regard, it was the history of church art that was especially unhappy. For some time, people of science could not think of recognizing the importance of studying monuments of Christian worship; Yes, in addition, collecting and acquiring them required great expenses, was associated with difficulties that repelled scientific curiosity and could cool the most persistent zeal. The success of monumental work was greatly hampered by the exclusive, ecclesiastical point of view from which its occasional figures looked at the tasks of church archeology. Studies of church antiquities began with the Renaissance, and at this time, in fact, the first beginnings of collecting and scientific study of monuments of Christian art were laid. But since the tastes of that time gravitated toward the art and literature of the classical Greco-Roman world, monuments of church art were touched upon only in passing, by chance, when they came across them while searching for antiques. The migration of many learned Greeks to Italy after the disaster that befell Constantinople in 1453 was a stimulating motive for studying this subject. Among the first emigrants from Constantinople were many people of science who were fluent not only in the Greek language, but also in knowledge of classical antiquity in general. Received with complete cordiality in Italy, they became teachers in the high schools of Rome, Florence, Bologna and some other cities and did their work with such success that they soon acquired worthy students and successors, and through them they promoted the study of classical antiquities not only in Italy itself, but in France and Germany. Influenced by these aspirations, Italian scientists undertook numerous trips to find monuments of art, traveled to cathedrals, churches and monasteries, visited libraries and archives and retrieved antiquities from everywhere. More systematic works on Christian art began with Rome and its monuments. Onuphrius Panvinio was the first to begin describing the basilicas of Rome, and the immortal Bosio, as I have already mentioned, ventured into the Roman catacombs and brought to light a mass of ancient Christian monuments of primitive architecture, fresco painting and sculpture, from which, in fact, the scientific development of the history of Christian art began. Their successors followed in the footsteps of these workers. Not content with the finds, they began to compile collections from them, and the collections of antiques, which were not rich at first, served as the basis for extensive museums that began to appear in the West from the middle of the 17th century. Of the many institutions of this kind, it is worth naming and getting to know in the most general terms some that are more remarkable in terms of the quantity and quality of the monumental material collected in them. In terms of seniority and content, the Vatican Museum in Rome should undoubtedly be placed at the head of them. It was founded in the half of the last century by Pope Benedict XIV (1740–1758). In addition to a huge number of artistic and everyday works of the Greco-Roman world, it included mainly art monuments extracted by Anthony Bosio and his numerous successors from the catacombs, and the very establishment of the museum coincided with the time of a new study of Roman dungeons carried out by Bottari. This is the richest and most valuable collection of Christian antiquities. All the monuments are here - ancient Christian sarcophagi, tombstones, diptychs, etc. etc. – in the originals and provide the researcher with such extensive material that cannot be found anywhere else. This museum was then constantly replenished, and when in the 50s of the last century the now deceased de Rossi undertook his study of the Roman catacombs, the previous premises of the Vatican turned out to be insufficient, and Pope Pius IX in 1854 opened a new department in the Lateran Palace, as a result of which this department, in contrast to the Vatican Museum, is called the Lateran. This included numerous epigraphic collections, remains of fresco painting, many tombstones with relief images of a symbolic and historical nature - mainly objects obtained by the research of Father Mark and his gifted student Rossi, and part of the rich collection of ancient Christian sarcophagi and the famous statue of Hippolytus of Rome were moved from the Vatican Museum. The Roman Museum, founded in the 17th century by the Jesuit Kircher, is known to the scientific world for its rich collection of ancient Christian light bulbs, a marble figurine of the Good Shepherd and a caricature of a crucified man with a donkey's head. Not to mention the fact that, in addition to the aforementioned collections, the entire “eternal city” in its entirety: underground Rome - with its inexhaustible riches of ancient Christian life and art, and aboveground - with its basilicas shining with precious marbles, seems to us to be one of a kind and incomparable, first of all, as an ecclesiastical and archaeological museum. In France and Germany, the study of Christian art for a long time did not arouse such widespread interest as in Italy, and therefore museums appeared here later. In their composition and content, they belong either to the East and the ancient classical world, or to the medieval era and consist mainly of monuments of the Roman-Byzantine era, German Gothic and Renaissance style. Having more local significance - for the Christian archeology of France and Germany, for us they are therefore not particularly important. But, on the other hand, in Berlin there is an exemplary institution of this kind, adapted to the systematic, strictly scientific study of Christian art and, despite the lack of original works, has earned itself European fame. I mean the relatively small museum of Christian antiquities at the University of Berlin. The initiative of this institution and his further work on its structure belonged to the famous Berlin professor Pieper in the community of some Western scientists who contributed to the founder with their works and partly with material means. Relying on these funds, Pieper already in the 60s of the last century saw his enterprise implemented and firmly secured for its future. Since this museum is exemplary and better than others corresponds to the goals of the scientific study of Christian art, I will dwell in some detail on the transfer of its contents. The arrangement of art objects in the museum was done by an experienced hand, and most importantly, imbued with living historical thought, carried out systematically in the general plan and details of this wonderful institution, which represents, as it were, an outline of Christian culture based on monumental data. The first section of the museum is called “the threshold of Christianity” and depicts the transition from polytheism to monotheism, as reflected in the works of the last era of the pagan Greco-Roman world. Here are placed monuments of ancient art, in which the rise of religious consciousness is revealed from a crude polytheistic form of representation to monotheism, and in which, as it were, a premonition of Christian revelation is reflected. Here are paintings of Pompeian painting, photographs from coins, gems and inscriptions on various objects of ancient art, such as “To the Highest God, Eternal God,” as well as images of the goddesses of eternity and providence. Busts of Greek and Roman philosophers, who rose above the ideas of popular religion, complement the content of this leading section and lead the viewer to the main thing, i.e. ancient Christian. This included, first of all, tombstone inscriptions extracted from the catacombs and taken from the sarcophagi of Rome, Florence, Germany and France. Behind this epigraphic department there is a department of church architecture with complementary utensils. Here are plans and models of the most important works of church architecture, from catacomb crypts to later works of the Romanesque and Gothic styles. Next to the architectural department there is a series of monuments of Christian painting and sculpture. This extremely interesting section contains many photographs and originals, ranging from the most ancient era of Christianity to monuments of medieval painting and works of the Italian school. In parallel with this, a large number of photographs from miniatures on ancient manuscripts and paleographic samples are posted here and there. Generally speaking, the Berlin Museum is not rich in the number of collected objects and has very few originals, so in this respect it is inferior not only to the most famous museums in Italy, England and France, but perhaps also to some private collections. But what gives it special significance among others is the plan of its organization and strict systematicity, thanks to which the Berlin Museum is an example of scientifically organized collections of this kind and can serve to visually familiarize not only with the most remarkable examples, but also with entire eras of Christian art. As for the collections of antiquities that we have, they consist mostly of objects of Old Russian life and church art and of very few Byzantine monuments. The connection between the two is self-explanatory, and I will not expand on it. I will only note that the objects of our native antiquity have not yet all been brought to light and described, and most importantly, they are scattered throughout church, monastery and cathedral sacristies, in museums of archaeological societies and institutes, diocesan church-archaeological committees and provincial archival commissions, in antique shops and the homes of private owners-lovers of antiquities. To get acquainted with church art in Rus', integral collections of church antiquities at the Academy of Arts, the Museum of Emperor Alexander III, the Moscow Rumyantsev Museum and the Kyiv Theological Academy are especially important. Of the collections of Byzantine-Russian antiquities collected in the Rumyantsev Museum, the following deserve special attention of a church archaeologist: a collection of icons and utensils brought from the Orthodox East by Sevastyanov, and numerous photographs from miniatures of the remarkable Athonite manuscripts. Unusually quickly, thanks mainly to the generous donations of private individuals, the developed archaeological museum at the Kyiv Academy will always arouse deep interest among church archaeologists with its rich collection of highly diverse, rare and expensive ancient Greek and Russian icons. Needless to say, the Synodal sacristy in Moscow represents the richest collection of authentic church utensils and vestments dating back to the 14th century; There are especially many of them from the patriarchal period. Similar collections are located in the sacristies of the Trinity-Sergius and Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Kiev-Sophia and Novgorod St. Sophia Cathedrals and in some other church repositories. Here, undoubtedly, precious monuments of our church antiquity have survived, from which you can clearly imagine the atmosphere of our ancient worship, the life of the highest clergy and monasticism, and many other phenomena of our church life. But all these collections have a local, conventional imprint and do not give an idea about the progress of art in Rus', about the movement of our cultural life. For this last purpose, we obviously need systematic collections or scientifically organized museums, the strength of which is not in the quantity of material, but in its selection, not in the number of originals, but in the sequential arrangement of casts, snapshots and photographs, reproducing the most typical monuments of past life. In this regard, the Imperial Russian Historical Museum in Moscow, opened in May 1883, can provide an important service to our historical and ecclesiastical archaeological science. In its present form, it does not yet fully justify the plan according to which it was conceived, but still represents a very solid beginning of the implementation of the grandiose idea underlying it “to visually depict Russian church and everyday life through material monuments preserved on Russian soil.” Currently, only 13 halls are open. The objects collected in the first five halls embrace the culture of the primitive population of the present territory of Russia; Based on a number of items they used during this prehistoric period, this era is known in science under the name of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. Further, in the 6th hall, there are Hellenic-Scythian monuments or the remains of burial structures and utensils that belonged to the barbarian tribes that roamed the southern steppes of Russia; They are followed in the museum by monuments of life and art of the Greek tribes that once inhabited our Black Sea region. These settlements were formed from Greek colonies, which settled on the shores of the Euxine Pontus for trade relations, established offices and harbors here, and transferred the culture of their homeland. Their first traces date back to the 7th century BC, and the most ancient of these settlements were Panticapaeum near the Kerch Strait and Olbia at the mouth of the Bug. Christian monuments (in Hall B) begin with finds on the site of ancient Chersonesus, which was located very close to present-day Sevastopol. Chersonesos, where St. was baptized. Vladimir was a transfer point through which the church life and liturgical rituals of Byzantium passed to Rus', and when Vladimir the Holy built his famous Tithe Church in Kyiv, then, in the words of the chronicler, “he put into it everything he had taken from Korsun: icons, vessels and crosses.” The eastern edge of the Black Sea region (hall B), or our present Transcaucasia, was also occupied by Greek settlements, although not as densely as its northern shore. But some areas of Transcaucasia, for example, Pitsunda and Kutaisi, have still preserved the remains of ancient Greek Christianity in stone crosses, in various ruins of architectural monuments, for example, in the Kutaisi Cathedral, built in the middle of the 11th century. But the monuments of church art in Rus' of the most ancient era were not our national work: they were taken either ready-made from Byzantium, or represent their imitation. And Byzantine monuments, for their part, constitute a continuation, modification and processing of ancient Christian art forms. Therefore, for a conscious study of ancient Russian art, it is necessary to bring it and put it in connection with these ancient prototypes. This last purpose, in fact, should be served by the round hall (A) in the Historical Museum, reminiscent in its architecture of the Church of St. Sofia in Constantinople. This hall is still far from being filled, and very large gaps are felt in its composition, but what they managed to do to replenish it deserves serious scientific attention. In the dome of this rotunda, in the spaces between the upper windows, there are facial images from the catacombs, in the vaults with their sails - photographs from some Ravenna mosaics and several images from St. Sophia of Constantinople. Here, in the middle of the hall, flaunts the above-mentioned statue of Hippolytus of Rome, which has not yet been reproduced anywhere in a cast; sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, half of the 4th century, from the crypt of St. Peter's in Rome and several other examples of the same kind from the Lateran Museum. Further acquisitions allow us to hope that this hall will serve well for those involved in church archeology and will provide photographs of objects that are not accessible to everyone even at the location of their originals. The next two open rooms (7 and 8) are occupied mainly by monuments of Kievan Rus. One of them contains antiquities from 988, i.e. the year of the baptism of Rus', until 1054 - the death of Yaroslav I; in the second - from 1054 to 1125, ending with the reign of Monomakh. Of the items collected in them, excellently executed copies from mosaic images of the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral deserve special attention, such as: The Last Supper under two views; The Annunciation, in which the Virgin Mary is depicted with a ball of purple yarn in her hand and a spindle; a cast of an ancient bell found in the Church of the Tithes; tomb of Yaroslav the Wise; tracings from the genre mural painting in the narthex of the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral, apparently depicting episodes of the grand ducal hunt and some scenes from the Byzantine circus. The last five halls are occupied by monuments of Veliky Novgorod and Pskov, the Vladimir-Suzdal region and Moscow. The high interest that the study of church art has achieved has aroused a long series of outstanding works in the West and in our country on this subject, thanks to which the literature of our subject has been enriched with capital aids. We will not list these remarkable works of scholarship, diligence and sympathy for church antiquities, but let us dwell on one of them, in which, better than others, in my opinion, the importance of monuments of church art for the student of Christian worship and theology in general was clarified, and the culmination point, so to speak, to which our specialty can rise and reach in its historical development was outlined. When I say this, I mean “Introduction to Monumental Theology” by Professor Pieper, in which at one time a bold plan for building a science of church antiquities was projected. 9 By archaeological monuments, the Berlin professor meant all material data in general that owes its origin to the Christian consciousness and can serve as an expression of the religious life of Christian society in different eras of its existence. But this is not the history of Christian art, as systematic archeology was understood before him by researchers of ancient life, but rather the history of inner life and cultural relations based on the monumental remains of the past. The task of the researcher, according to Pieper, is not to characterize the forms of art and determine the techniques, styles and history of production, but in those conclusions and applications to Christian science that can be made on the basis of these monuments. At this point of monumental theology lies the center of gravity of Pieper's entire system and the final conclusions from the rich material of Christian antiquities, carefully grouped by him. Church architecture with its styles is included in this part mainly due to its symbolism. The application of church painting or iconography is much broader and more significant. The subjects of church iconography, as is known, are very diverse, and its content is borrowed partly from the Bible, partly from church history until recent times and events in church life. Thanks to this broad content, iconography provides rich material for the history of the Kingdom of God on earth and clarifies many subjects related to the field of doctrine and morality. Already John of Damascus, in his speech about icons, compared them with translations and interpretations of scripture. There is no need to say how many services numismatics and epigraphy, of course, of the Christian period, can provide in this regard. They contain a rich source for characterizing the early Christian views on the afterlife, the veneration of saints, for understanding the initial relationship of Christians to pagan society, and much more. This material has long begun to attract the attention of Western European scientists and prompted some of them to think about building a special science under the name “Theologia lapidaris”. Returning to Pieper's work, I must note that he limited himself to one introduction and was not moved forward one step. True, in this introduction the solid foundations of a new science were laid, but its building itself was not begun, and this is the reason why this bold and, one might say, brilliant idea, having flown around the scientific community at one time, now seems to have frozen and with the death of the author retreated into the realm of attempts, serious indeed, but not justified in practice. Yes, a comprehensive justification of this plan is hardly possible with the available resources at the disposal of the current science of church antiquities, with the collection of its materials still far from complete. As Guericke rightly notes in his manual, – Guericke, Lehrbuch der christlich kirchlichen Archäologie. what for (lat. editor's note) Labor Vol. III, people's diary. Σύ και τα Ίορδάνεια ρείθρα ήγίασας ούρανόθεν καταπέμψας το Αγιόν Σου Πνεΰμα και τάς κεφάλας των έκεΐσε έμφωλευόντων συνετριψας δρακόντων, – Γοαρ Εύχολ. ρ. 371; ed. 2, 1730. Monuments of Renounced Literature, I, 16–17. On the same day in Rus' they celebrated the Family and Rozhanitsa, Golubinsky, History of the Russian Church, I, 22, 855. F. Piper, Einleitung in die monumentale Theologie. Cotha. 1867. F. Kraus, Ueber Begriff, Umfang, Geschichte der christlichen Archäologie. Freiburg, 1879. F. Piper, Einleitung in die monumentale Theologie, 1867, ss. 54–69. You might be interested in: