Confession of the Orthodox Faith

Do not be a Greek, a Jew, or a member of the Church of God; 1 speak the divine and worshipful word of the apostles. How else can this be corrected by us, if not by the orthodox and Orthodox faith, and by an honest and godly life and diligent keeping of the divine commandments of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; According to the divine god Jacob, the brother of God, faith apart from good deeds is dead, 2 similarly, deeds other than right faith are of no use either. It is fitting for a man of God to be perfect in both, according to the great Basil. But this is wretched. Because there are slaughtered people, we don’t know what happened to them, they are not afraid to call a heretic an innocent person, and the enemy and traitor of the God-protected Russian powers, we need to appear and righteously small ones to answer about ourselves, and even teach those who slander me about themselves with unrighteous slander, as by the grace of our true God Jesus Christ and the faithful I am a Christian in every way and a good-willed and diligent worshiper of God-protected Russian powers. I pray therefore to every pious and Orthodox priest and prince to listen to my answer with decent Christian prudence and Christ-like meekness, having rejected all unrighteous anger and rage; For the anger of a man does not turn into the righteousness of God, 3 as the divine Jacob said, adelphotheu 4. Where anger and rage possess, that and every soul is disorganized and ugliness and disorder of the verbal parts of the soul, the mind has already been blinded and darkened by an angry storm. Having illuminated your minds with the usual Orthodox silence of sacred love and meekness, help me if anyone deviates from the Orthodox faith, either through foolishness, oblivion, or unlearning of their mind and reason, correct me with the spirit of meekness 5 according to the divine Apostle. I am not ashamed of my correction, I will revoke it below, but I also wish it greatly, and I will accept it kindly, as if firmly instructing me towards the heavenly kingdom hoped for by the faithful. I believe and confess with all my soul and tongue the one God above, the creator of all, beginningless, ever-subsisting, endless, in three hypostases, that is, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, inseparably divided, the source and beginningless beginning of the Son and the Holy Spirit; The Son is begotten and without beginning and ever-present from Him, begotten and in His hypostasis worshiped and glorified, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the same Father and in His hypostasis believed and confessed, one God in three; There is one being, one deity, one kingdom, one dominion, not separately divided by hypostases, and united not by confusion by the all-essential divine being. This is why I am an imam and I philosophize, as if I spoke briefly about the holy and consubstantial and indivisible Trinity. In the same way, I believe and confess that the Son and God the Word, born without beginning and everlasting, was born from the beginningless God and Father, by the favor of the Father and by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, who was conceived in the most pure womb of the most holy and ever-virgin Mary, the Mother of God, having come from her with the holy flesh received from her most pure blood. in its own way, perfect of man and perfect of the same God, in one hypostasis and in two natures and actions and wills, both existing and believed, below His deity I am transformed into humanity, below humanity I am transformed into deity. Likewise, I believe and confess the same for the sake of our salvation, and the cross and passion and death and three-day burial, having endured by will and desiring in my flesh, His divine nature remained in addition to every passion: the divine nature is higher than all aphids and passions, having risen from the dead on the third day by the power of His God and Father, who raised Him up, and ascended to heaven with its holy flesh, having already become incorruptible and impassive, and sitting bodily at the right hand of God and the Father, and again coming with glory to judge the living and the dead, and will reward each according to his deeds. In the same way, I believe and confess the All-Holy Spirit, the true God in His hypostasis, existing and worshiped, emanating from the One Father, just as the divine voice and secret teaching was given to us by the holy gospel of the divine John. More than that sacred mystical teaching about the Holy Dus, I philosophize below, below I teach not a single person, but with all my soul I abide in all the theological dogmas and wisdom, which I have handed down to us by the self-visionaries and servants of God the Word and according to them the entire universe has been assembled by the divinely inspired fathers, below adding whatever is not to them, below laying down, 6 or changing not a single jot or tittle, but I keep the entire Orthodox faith and theology in my heart whole and unconditionally. Likewise, their church traditions, too, are tired of the worship of venerable icons, and also of the monastic order and dispensation, and also of the divine hymns and the writings and traditions of the saints and apostles and conciliar churches, and I accept and confess and kiss them all with my heart. Moreover, I confess and preach to myself and to every believer my most blessed Lady Theotokos, the intercessor and intercessor of all Orthodox Christians, in all being holy and most pure and immaculate and Ever-Virgin, that is, before the divine and seedless birth of the only-begotten Son of God incarnated from her and in her, and in at birth and after birth, likewise the Most Pure Virgin, below before the seedless conception of Emmanuel I accepted the temptation of a man, below after His birth from her. Never let a Christian who is proud to think blasphemously about this all-holy and most immaculate ever-virgin maiden, more honorable than the cherub and more glorious than the unapologetically seraphim. Only about this, and let me not bother your faithful with too many words. This is what I say in short: I am the imam in my heart and on my tongue, and I philosophize about the holy and immaculate Christian faith, right and unblemished wisdom. Why don’t they be horrified by calling me another heretic, but they say, let them bring it to light, let them make corrections and expose me, and expose me; I do not reject correction, I am not ashamed of reproofs, until fatherly love comes with peace and meekness. By the grace of Christ, by all my copying and by the very former translation and correction of your divine books, I teach every person to directly philosophize about the incarnate Word of God, that is, not to say that He is the only man according to your words, but God is perfect and man is perfect in one hypostasis, the one God-man. Likewise, I confess with all my soul the same God-man, who rose from the dead on the third day, and did not die an endless death, as they preach Him everywhere, even as you have interpreted the Gospel; I teach that I was not created according to the Divinity of the same to believe and preach, but not created and created, like the evil Arius blasphemer and your trio preach Him everywhere, and you do not disdain to rule them. I think and confess the same one from the Father without a mother, born before all ages, according to the divine Apostle and all God-inspired theologians, and not the Father; He is 7 motherless in the holy scriptures, nowhere is it said, below is more expressed, or came from another being, his oldest; May this blasphemy disappear from the Orthodox. For the Father is beginningless and unborn and endless, having brought his own being and hypostasis into his own divine being, just as some madmen philosophize wickedly; If we give this, it will follow from the need to say, as if he had not before, to bring himself into being, and he is created, and is his own fault and beginning, and under time and under beginning and end, 8 Who alone is not created, without beginning, ever-present, pre-eternal and infinite, together with the Son and the Holy Spirit who come from Him. And even according to you, the 9th hour-speakers of the motherless son preach Him in secret, and you despise such blasphemy and do not correct it. Through my writings I denounce, destroy and corrupt all Latin heresy and blasphemy, Jewish and pagan, 10 as my very writings testify. With the same notes of mine, I think that I should live for myself and every faithful monk, and organize my life in accordance with God’s holy commandments and traditions and statutes, apostolic and paternal, and let them retreat from all covetousness and untruth and theft of other people’s estates and labors, as if they are doing nothing for the kingdom of God. are accepted, but are sent into endless torment by the terrible Judge according to the holy gospels 11 and all the holy scriptures. Should I appear to you for the sake of these troubles and call myself a heretic? Judge, if it is righteous for me to suffer from you and hear, I am innocent, that is, especially about the Orthodox faith. And according to my life and iniquity, no one is more sinful than me. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God, listened to me, for apart from the multitude of my iniquities, there is nothing else that is blasphemous about the holy and immaculate Christian faith; below is the evil one that is intended and slanderous about which I am faithful, even though I have become embittered, or it seems embittered; For we have the commandment of Savior, saying: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who attack you and persecute you, so that you may be sons of the Most High. 12 For it is clear that these are the opposite of the holy commandments, and those who do and philosophize are not the sons of the Most High, but a fighter against God and a hater of man, the devil of the devil and the saint. Elma 13 And the Nets, bearing enmity towards me, offer a certain speech to slander me, from the worth of which I created the translation of the third, and with it they are trying to show me a heretic; It is necessary for those who judge in small ways to answer about themselves, so that no one else in the same sin will unjustly get stuck with those who condemn an ​​innocent person. I'll start with the tits. In the stichera of the terrible ascension of the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ into heaven in the flesh, my slanderers have found my speech in a certain way, as they imagine: Thou art sat down, and another: gray, and they say: Behold, Maximus excommunicates the right hand of the seat of God and the Father, co-throne and co-eternal with His Son; this: you are saddled and grey, besides the past time, you speak a fictitious verb, and not a present and everlasting one; It was revealed that Maximus is from here, wisely, the former Only Begotten was driven away to the right hand of God and the Father of the seat. This is the essence of what slanderers reveal to me as my intentions and guilt. But before God Himself, the witness of the heart, before whom not a single creature is hidden, I answer you most God-loving with all the truth, even if in no wise when the truth is blasphemous, or now I am philosophizing, or in the future I want to be philosophic against our Lord Jesus Christ, just as my slanderers unrighteously denounced me. they slander, so that the Lord will not grant the future to the faithful the message and standing at the right hand of the terrible Judge, when he comes to judge the living and the dead, but I will be excommunicated from their standing and eternal glory and joy, and condemned with the evil Arius, may I be thrown into utter fire. I, with Paul, the divine apostle, dangerously preach and say with all my soul and tongue: Who is the radiance of the glory of the Father and the image of His ever-being, and bearing all things with His power, has made cleansing of our sins, He is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty on high, 14 and so on; In the same way I sing and say with all of you faithful all day and night: and she ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father, and even now; Likewise, in daily praise I sing, bless, glorify and say: Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, take away the sins of the world, accept our prayers, sit at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us, and so on. By this you know, the most God-loving bishop and the most luminous prince and bolyar, that when I was a sinner, the triode correction was told in a Latin conversation 15 by your interpreter Mitya and Vlas, who had not completely studied your conversation; 16 If something blasphemous seems to you in those words: “You are gray, you are gray,” and it is right to impute this absurd contempt to them, and not to me; I still didn’t know the difference between the Chinese sayings. If he had known, he would have remained silent, but he would have corrected such an absurd inventory in every possible way. What good is it to me from these black rubble and prayers and monastic residence and these many years of my sorrows, if I find blasphemy against the Lord and God and my Savior Jesus Christ, which I once trusted from my youth? I pray for your good faith: do not listen to the slander of the unrighteous, and like good faith imitators of the merciful and philanthropic Christ, judge my judgment, and show your mercy to me, your poor and needy pilgrim. Because through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we enlighten and instruct, I continually pray with all my soul to the Master and Creator for mercy, life, health and salvation and times of peace, and to remain in observance of the God-protected power of the blessed Grand Duke of the Russian Ivan Vasilyevich, and for his brother, Prince George, bowing ten times every day My silent knees are about them before our Lord and God Jesus Christ who reigns above, who is also my witness that I speak the truth. What kind of evil do they call him without truth, a traitor and an enemy of the God-protected power? May the Lord God not give them this sin! It is neither good nor proper for a priest to be the priest of the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God in the highest to overcome with rage and anger and remembrance of malice and to unrighteously hate and persecute the innocent with hostility, and especially to those who constantly pray for you and respond with God’s zeal and strive for the truth of the Gospels and the decency of life. monastic If our zeal and boldness for the truth according to God are displeasing to you, since we dare in God, trusting in your and our Orthodox faith and love, why do you keep us here by force? Moreover, who forces you to do anything by force? But you do what you want; We need to preach the commandment of God to all those who ask us, even about the truth of the Gospels and the Apostles and the well-known monastic life and law. For it has been spoken by the heavenly King Jesus Christ: you who have heard in the darkness, roar in the light, and whoever speaks in your ears, preach on the rooftops: and again: whoever is ashamed of my words in this generation 17 and the rest is wise to my masters. Why are you calling me here from the holy mountain? Why, then, do you keep me here by force, since you do not demand part of the art of the Holy Scriptures that exists in me? But I pray you: do not be embarrassed about these verbs, by the power of my being I will keep you from you; I make this answer to the faithful and Orthodox judges and princes. We know that the statute of the great first council of Nicea is also good, as it firmly commands the omnipresent blessed saint not to judge anything other than his own limits and areas, but to know everyone’s own area. Even if I am either good and right about the Orthodox faith, or depraved, I am guilty of the judgment and justice of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and not the saint of the blessed Russian land; I am a Greek and in the Greekness of the earth and was born and raised and took monastic vows. For this reason, I am guilty of the Greek priesthood according to the Divine rule and charter of the council of saints. It is right for you true believers to listen and obey in everything the Divine Rule and Rule of the Saints Council, so that in all things you may appear to rule before God, and before people you will show praise and honor. If I appear here, having offended anyone in any way, or having evil intentions against the faithful and glorious Grand Duke of Russia, and my slanderers bring him to it, I do not deny all death penalties, I will truly endure all temporary executions in sweetness, so that I may be granted the excess of eternal torment. But I trust in the indescribable bounties of God, as in everyone he lied to me, then slandered me; whoever they were, may God forgive them. But even this alone is enough of an answer. Even though I am not great in the mind and art of the Divine Scriptures, I was nevertheless sent here from the all-holy mountain on the issue and according to the letter of the blessed and ever-memorable Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich, of All Russia, who received great honor from him for 9 years, obeying his command not exactly the interpretation of the psalms, the work is deliberate and full of all spiritual benefits and sweetness, having been translated from the Greek language into Russian, but also other inspired books, variously spread out from those who wrote them, by the grace of Christ and the collaboration of the Holy Paraclete, most kindly corrected, as you and my masters know there is tea. If there is something, either due to oblivion, or due to some other circumstance, it was contemptible to me 18 and it was not good that was presented to you, because many things happen at every hour to the imperfect existence of the human mind, for forgetting darkens it and grief confuses it, but there is always rage and anger and drunkenness darkens it; Because of such anxiety, the weak human mind is overwhelmed, even if there is no place where it is despised, it is not appropriate to be astonished, less embarrassed, less than heresy to condemn it, but rather to show righteousness and even Christ-like love to show to it, and even if it is despised from it, whether due to oblivion or due to some other circumstance, to rule along with him; Since no one has received perfection in humans, we are all subject to oblivion and ignorance, some more, some less, but we all demand advice and help from each other. Therefore, for those who have this, it is righteous and reverent for you to imitate this most good shepherd, who, having left 99 on the mountain, went out to seek the lost, whom he found and took to the frame, returning, rejoicing much more over him than over those who were not lost; You, too, have imitated his mercy and meekness, like the honor of his priesthood and the secret teacher of his verbal sheep, having laid down 19 every absurd movement of the verbal parts of the soul, 20 I pray your reverence, destroy the long-term aversion against me, poor one, 21 let me not say enmity, and show me, the accursed one, love and the meekness of God and the Savior of all Jesus Christ, so that you too may appear in all His imitators and associates for the salvation of the erring, and diligently and firmly keep His sacred commandments, that is, holy and God-imitating and God-creating love, which is the fulfillment of all the law according to the divine Apostle, by which alone you can receive the endless kingdom of heaven Masters, who came to earth will save and not destroy the soul of man: To him be glory forever and ever, amen. Brother of God - αδελ φός Θεοῦ. stop being hostile to me. Written by St. Maxim in captivity in the Tver Otroch Monastery after 1534. You might be interested in: