The significance of Metropolitan Philaret in the history of Russian preaching

Your Holiness, highly revered archpastors, venerable assembly! The artistic, important word, which had been heard in Russia for half a century and more than half a century, now deeply penetrated into the secrets of the knowledge of God, now clothed the mind of Divine truths with strict and powerful beauty” (I. S. Aksakov). In the halo of undying glory surrounding the majestic historical appearance of Metropolitan Philaret, what most struck his contemporaries was the glory of his church history. Filaret, as an incomparable preacher, was more tangible, more visible, and therefore more striking for wide sections of society than in other manifestations of his genius. “The glory of the preaching gift was a constant companion of the ministry” 2 of Metropolitan Philaret, and “this glory, as a preacher, preceded the glory of his service in all other fields” 3 It was the gift of preaching that sharply promoted Philaret from among his peers during his years of study at Trinity Seminary, made him a favorite of the famous church leader - the archpastor of the Catherine era - Metropolitan Plato, and set him on the path of ascension through the degrees of church-hierarchical greatness: having noticed in Philaret, even when he was still at school, a “special gift of preaching”, a great Archpastor-Vitya “applied special efforts in his upbringing, fatherly efforts,” 4 encouraging him with constant attention and fatherly love; and upon completion of the course he made him a poetry teacher at the seminary and a preacher at the Trinity Lavra. This same glory of church development, marked by the attention of M. Plato, turned the eyes of the highest church authorities on him - a friend of M. Plato, - the leading member of the Holy Synod of M. Ambrose of Novgorod, and from provincial silence brought him to the very center of church and public life: to St. Petersburg, to become a mentor first at the seminary, and then at the newly reformed Academy. Here, it is preaching that gets him special attention from those at the helm of church and state government, and even up to the Emperor and the royal family, Filaret receives a number of awards and promotions, to the post of rector of the academy, sometimes with a direct indication that they are done “for excellence in preaching the word of God.” Even Philaret’s parent, a provincial Kolomna priest, at the end of 1811, when Philaret was still only a bachelor of the academy, received an award unprecedented in his position, namely two distinctions at once: a kamilavka, according to St. Synod, and a pectoral cross on the proposal of the chief prosecutor, and it was officially announced that this was being done “by the special favor of the Monarch, to the son of the recipient, who has distinguished himself in the field of preaching the word of God.” At the same time, the sermons place Filaret at the center of the literary movements of the time as an outstanding member of well-known literary societies and circles of that time - “Conversations of lovers of the Russian word”, founded by Shishkov, a circle that gathered with A. N. Olenin and others, and thus turn the eyes of the entire educated society on him. In the literary world, Filaret the Preacher occupies, in the minds of many, a place next to Karamzin. The famous Count Speransky, regarding Shishkov’s discussion “about the old and new syllable,” declares: “I don’t know either one or the other: I know only the syllable of Karamzin and Filaret.” 5 Already at the very beginning of his church-hierarchical service - as a professor and rector of the St. Petersburg Academy - Filaret eclipsed the glory of all the outstanding church leaders contemporary to him (such as the archbishop Feofilakt Rusanov, Metropolitan Mikhail Desnitsky): and throughout the subsequent period of Philaret’s life, until the 60s, his preaching seemed in the minds of educated society and especially the clergy as an unattainable example of preaching, which only one younger contemporary of Philaret, the brilliant church leader Innokenty (Borisov), Archbishop of Kherson, dared to measure worthy of but even this boldness of the latter, despite his obvious rights, for a long time confused the majority of church society, which could not come to terms with the idea that any church leader could become on par with Philaret. And even to this day, the older generation of clergy from the capitals to the most remote corners of the province lives in the memory of Filaret, as an unattainable example of preaching. We, the young generation, from an early age, even before the years of school education, in the houses of our fathers and grandfathers, were accustomed to hearing the name of Philaret, surrounded by feelings of surprise and admiration for the unattainable merits of his sermons, and these feelings unconsciously, deeply absorbed into ourselves, and we live by them to this day. And I dare to think that of those who came to our present academic and public commemoration of the great hierarch, many, like me, were attracted here first of all and most of all by these paternal and grandfatherly feelings of admiration for Filaret, as a famous preacher. I would like to receive an objective substantiation of these feelings, I would like that at this sacred moment of commemoration of the great hierarchical development, traditionally inherited feelings would be reborn into a conscious, deep conviction. But it would be a deep mistake if anyone began to try to look for justification for their traditional, paternal and grandfather’s feelings towards Filaret from the point of view of the tasks and demands that the era after Filaret’s, the era from the 60s and especially the present tragically turbulent moment of general state destruction, makes for preaching. Every genius, no matter what field he is in, is always the son of his historical era, and Philaret’s era “went to the grave” 6 almost simultaneously, along with him. The era of Philaret is the era of the harsh regime of the second half of the reign of Emperor Alexander I and especially the reign of Nicholas I. Any public initiative in this era was at first constrained to the extreme, and then almost completely strangled: to think independently and publicly, especially in print, to talk about state and public needs, pressing demands and tasks, was strictly prohibited and forbidden by all means. The suffocating shackles of police investigation, discretion, arbitrariness and censorial oppression were gradually imposed on every step of public and even private activity, on every word, even at home. “Do not reason - obey” - this is the basic rule that was consistently implemented into public life by the Nikolaev government and which created a grave silence on the surface of Russian public life. Everything was shackled, leveled by the shackles of iron discipline, as if pulled into a monotonous uniform: “a uniform, one uniform,” one of his contemporaries characterizes this time in despair. Deprived of the opportunity to apply their forces to the construction of social and state life, educated Russian society directed these forces into that sphere that remained and was essentially inaccessible to government influence - into the field of abstract speculation, or aesthetic contemplation. Russian educated society consistently moves from the channel of mysticism to the channel of the thought of Schelling, then Hegel, and then Fichte, Feuerbach, the “utopian” socialism of Fourier, and finally Marx. In this era, writes one of the outstanding historians of the Russian public 7, life becomes “so monotonous and boring in its flow that it is impossible to be interested in its appearance, and for every sensitive and intelligent person there is only one way out: this is a distraction from the facts and the transfer of one’s interest to that general thought, to the general meaning that these scattered facts, so insignificant and gray, if taken one by one, should have.” a thought that would reconcile a person with the colorless environment around him; would interpret to him the meaning of what does not strike him with either beauty, variety, or surprise; which would finally connect into one whole everything that he managed to learn about the past and that he managed to grasp in the present - this desire is reflected very clearly in the advanced circles of society, especially in criticism, journalism and literature of the Nicholas era. The well-known centers of social thought of that time - the circles of Stankevich and Herzen - were circles of theorists, par excellence. Let interest in pure speculation and aesthetics prevail in one circle, and in social issues in the other, but for the members of both circles the general meaning of phenomena was more valuable than their appearance. They were always ready to interpret this appearance in favor of a well-known theory; and they had very little of what is called practical sense; Nor did they have the ability to merely admire a fact and be content with the impression it makes. They always think about everything. This precisely explains their fascination with the abstractions of German philosophy, which is apparently so far from Russian life: it was valuable to them because it provided ready-made formulas for their theoretical calculations. From these same foreign philosophical formulas, with an admixture of national sentiment, our Slavophiles derived their teachings. And they were theorists and thinkers par excellence, with very little sense of real fact. They were ready to make peace with many, even undesirable, phenomena in our life, covering them up with an abstract interpretation. Art criticism became just as abstract as this journalistic and historical thought in those years. First Nadezhdin, then Belinsky turn criticism into a philosophical and aesthetic treatise. The critic begins to look mainly for the meaning of those works of art that catch his attention. First, he is most interested in the process of artistic creation itself, then the general meaning of those phenomena of life that are embodied in artistic images. And only in the mid-forties did the critic begin to appreciate artistic monuments as documents of a given historical era. This desire to highlight in the living phenomena of reality, first of all, their general meaning penetrates into the field of pure artistic creativity... The invasion of generalizing thought into art is clearly reflected in the works of writers of the Nicholas era. – All of Herzen’s stories contain ethical and social thoughts in the form of a fictional story. News book. V.F. Odoevsky is also nothing more than philosophical and ethical reasoning in person. But the most characteristic example of the invasion of thought into creativity and a vivid example of the struggle of this thought with creativity is given by the history of the development of Gogol’s talent. Rarely has there appeared an artist who could so directly and accurately grasp reality as Gogol. In particular, the cheerful and comic side of life was clearly visible to him. But from the very first years of his literary work, Gogol was convinced that he was called upon not only to depict life, but also to unravel its mysterious meaning. the palace and there she dozed, shrouded in dreams” 9. In this era, the era of the dominance in an educated society of contemplative thought, “reflection”, speculation, naturally, church sermons addressed to Russian society take the same path of contemplation, speculation, “reflection.” - The great representative of this sermon is M. Philaret, the most typical son of the Nicholas era. Philaret himself was quite clearly aware of the general nature of his sermon: he himself calls his sermons with “reflections, research, reasoning.” The sermons of Philaret’s senior contemporary, Archbishop Feofilakt Rusanov, were of the same direction. But while Theophylact tried to conduct his “reflections” in the plane of those ideas and concepts by which certain representatives of social thought lived, tried to illuminate and evaluate these ideas and concepts from a Christian point of view, Philaret leaves aside modern philosophical and speculative moods and systems, but sets himself the task - without connection with them, independently of them, to give his own, purely Christian, church speculation, based entirely and exclusively on the Holy Scriptures and dogmas of the Church. “In our time,” Philaret says in one of his sermons, “in our time, when people, more than before, “seek many thoughts” (Eccl. 7:30), when from the early years of life they try to stimulate and strengthen mental activity... it is especially necessary to call people to thinking, thorough, pure, sublime, pious.”10 Filaret the preacher stands among modern representatives of social thought on a par with them, as an independent thinker, exploring, like them, the highest, general foundations, the beginnings of life; but, if they are looking for these foundations and principles in the sphere of natural phenomena, Filaret explores and reveals only the religious foundations and principles of life. His thought does not revolve in the area of ​​​​the fundamental principles of modern philosophical thought, like that of modern secular thinkers, or like that of apxea. Theophylact, but in the area of ​​principles, dogmas of the church faith, truths and facts of Divine Revelation. His searching thought rises above the plane of philosophical ideas and concepts of time; it does not rely on them, does not dress in them and does not fight with them. She strives, as far as possible, to comprehend the principles and sacred-mysterious facts announced by Divine Revelation, and in her research she wants to rely exclusively on the divinely inspired words of Revelation - Holy. Scripture, in its church patristic interpretation. Philaret's sermon, which is generally devoid of a polemical element, is entirely based on the interpretation of the biblical text to an extent like no other Russian preacher. The interpretation of one or another selected biblical text gives him the main idea - the theme of each individual sermon, the interpretation of other texts gives him the basis for establishing individual arguments in revealing the main idea or theme, and thus the entire content of the sermon, both in the main and secondary thoughts, is based on the text of the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures. And not only in content, but also in structure and style, Philaret’s sermon is based on St. Scripture. In Philaret's sermons the text of St. Scripture gives not only the main idea, but also determines the very form of the sermon, its construction, so that the sermon in its form is “a strictly exegetical development of the biblical text,” 11 striking with the sacred-artistic symmetry of its construction, becomes, as the homiletics of the West say, “an artistic homiley.” From the Holy Filaret takes a wealth of images from the Scriptures for the artistically vivid embodiment of his thoughts, and from there, from the Slavic text of the Bible, he borrows a wealth of words and even word formations for the appropriate verbal expression of these thoughts. – In the inimitably skillful, brilliant achievement of this organic correspondence of the sermon – St. text, at the same time and harmoniously both in content and in construction and style - and this is Philaret’s greatest merit in the history of Russian preaching. Of course, the sacred text of Scripture has always and everywhere, in all periods of the development of preaching, been considered and relied on as the basis of the sermon, because the sermon itself, in its essence, is nothing more than the illumination of modern life with the light of the Holy Spirit. Scriptures. Contents Holy The Scriptures and the content of modern life are two elements, the harmoniously correct combination and interpenetration of which forms a sermon. But this relationship is achieved by preaching only gradually and relatively: this is the ultimate goal towards which it always strives, but never fully achieves it. The whole history of preaching is the history of the struggle between these two basic elements, the history of attempts to achieve their completely correct and perfect combination so that the Holy. Scripture illuminated the content of modern life, but did not completely displace this very content, and vice versa, so that the content of modern life, instead of being illuminated by the light of the Holy. Scripture would not of itself illuminate the text of the Holy Scriptures. Scripture, give it your own meaning, invest yourself in it, in other words, put on the clothing of the Holy text. Scriptures. The deviation of the sermon towards the first extreme means reducing it to a simple repetition of the Holy Scriptures. Scripture, deviation towards the second extreme means carrying out purely human content under the guise of the Holy. Scriptures. Russian preaching before Philaret, for more than a century, showed a strong, deep inclination towards the second extreme. As is known, from the half, approximately XIII century until the beginning of the XVIII century. In Rus' we had no live preaching at all. It actually appeared with us only at the beginning of the 18th century, and originates from representatives of the southern Russian scholastic preaching - Stefan Yavorsky, Metropolitan of Ryazan, and Feofan Prokopovich, Archbishop of Novgorod. Their sermon, like any scholastic sermon, sinned with a strong bias towards the second extreme: it was based entirely on the Holy Scriptures. Scripture, but in such a way that from Fistula. She took only the form of Scripture for herself, only the basis for a plan, only images and words to express thoughts, and put thoughts into the text of Scripture, borrowed from everyday or school use. For example, Stefan Yavorsky takes the text of Luke 2:21 as the basis of the word: “I circumcised him and called his name Jesus” and puts into it a completely alien thought: “We learn from here that we may know that a great name, a great title, is not without suffering, not without patience, not without shelter.” This idea, in itself, is completely correct, but it is equally obvious that it does not follow from this text: as you know, circumcision was an act applied to all Jewish babies, and did not in any way distinguish the Savior from other fellow tribesmen. Text of the Holy The Scriptures gave the preacher only initial images and words to express thoughts that were completely alien to this text. Or Stephen takes as the basis for his sermon the text of the Gospel about how the Lord gave a helping hand to the drowning apostle. Peter and brings out from him a completely unexpected idea that the Lord endowed Emperor Peter I with five virtues - strength, faith, patience, love for others and humility. How? The text speaks of the Apostle Peter: this is enough to apply the text to the Emperor Peter of the same name as the Apostle; the text says that the Lord stretched out his hand to Peter; and the human hand has five fingers: "the first finger is called strong, because it is stronger than all the fingers, as everyone knows from experience. The second is called the index finger, because with that finger they indicate something. The third is called the middle one. The fourth is ring-bearing, because rings are worn on it. The fifth, the smallest ear, because they clean their ears with it." The property of each of these five fingers coincides, in the opinion of the preacher, with the properties of the five indicated virtues and therefore the five fingers of the hand given by the Lord to the apostle. Peter, mean the five virtues given from above to Emperor Peter; The preacher speaks consistently about each of these virtues in his sermon. From the entire gospel narrative, Stephen takes only one external image, “Christ stretching out his hand,” and fills this image with content that is completely alien to the gospel narrative; in its external aspect, in presentation and construction, the sermon is indeed based on the biblical text, but in content it is completely independent from it. This was a significant drawback of Russian preaching when it appeared among us at the beginning of the 18th century. The entire subsequent history of preaching from Stephen to Philaret represents a consistent series of attempts to get rid of this shortcoming, attempts to come closer not only in form, but also in content to the text of St. Scriptures. But before Filaret, none of the outstanding representatives of Russian preaching succeeded in this task to the fullest extent. Stephen's younger contemporary, the famous Vitiya Feofan Prokopovich, in his theoretical judgments, was a strong supporter of the idea of ​​the need to substantiate the sermon on St. Scripture not only in form, but also in content; but in practice, although it is significantly freed from the deficiency that manifested itself in the sermons of Stefan Yavorsky, however, in most cases, under the guise of biblical sayings, he still pursues the political views and ideals of Peter the Great that are alien to them. In the era from Peter to Elizabeth, preaching again falls to the level of Stephen's attitude towards the Holy Spirit. Scripture and even lower. Since the famous revolution of the end of the Elizabethan era by Bishop Gideon Krinovsky, Russian preaching has begun to revive again and is even trying to equal the preaching of the famous French preachers of the era of Louis XIV, especially Massillon, under whose influence it is now clearly and, it must be said, with benefit for itself. But the preachers of Catherine’s era, with all the literary brilliance of their sermons and undoubtedly great success, in the sense of approaching not only the form, but also the content of the Holy. text, nevertheless, under the cover of the biblical text, fashionable ideas of the time, especially the principles of natural morality, are often pursued. Russian preaching reached its highest development in the Catherine era in the person of the famous great teacher M. Philaret - Metropolitan Plato of Moscow. His literary brilliant sermons captivate St. the text is unprecedentedly deep both from the side of content and from the side of form, but still from the side of form it is much deeper than from the side of content: nevertheless, even in it the biblical content is replaced to a large extent by natural morality; and the biblical form - the sacred text and sacred images - covers up ideological elements that are alien to this form. And only Philaret’s genius managed to completely solve a problem that Russian preaching could not solve for a whole century, to achieve the goal to which it had always strived in the person of its outstanding representatives. In literary terms, Philaret’s preaching reached such heights that his first sermons in St. Petersburg aroused the suspicion that he had “robbed Massillon.” In the field of literary style, Filaret makes the same huge step forward in his sermons as Karamzin did in secular literature: between the style of Philaret’s sermons and the style of his famous great teacher, Plato, there is as obvious a huge difference as between Karamzin’s style and the style of his predecessors in the history of literature. But that's not the main point. The main thing is that the brilliant literary merits of the sermon do not prevent it from achieving an amazing harmony of form and content, both among themselves and with the form and content of the biblical text. "When revealing a known truth, Philaret borrows or derives not only the main, but also private thoughts and evidence from the text. To do this, he carefully examines the text underlying the sermon from various angles, namely: in relation to itself, analyzing the words and expressions contained in the text; in relation to texts related to it or to the context of speech, also in comparison with other similar passages of Scripture and, finally, in consideration of its various circumstances, what are: the purpose of the text, specific and general, the special intention of Holy Scripture, motives, modern cases, the moral character of the person speaking in the Bible, etc. - Being a thorough and deep connoisseur of Holy Scripture and an experienced exegete, M. Philaret with extreme skill penetrated into the content of the text chosen for the sermon, examined it from all sides and revealed the depth of its content. At the same time, deep concentration of thought, the strictest consistency in the development of a given topic, and the power of dialectics are integral features of each of his sermons. Conciseness and perfect purity, the strictest correctness, artistry or grace and at the same time “simplicity” are the distinctive properties of his style - exemplary words 12. Quite rightly, the famous successor of his preaching glory and disciple, Archbishop of Kharkov Ambrose, wrote about M. Philaret: “Everywhere the only one, everywhere inimitable, in God the deceased saint created his writings is a special world, inaccessible to the ordinary mind. This is an ideal, and the dignity of a church writer will long be measured by the measure of his approach to this ideal. The destiny of his literary works is immortality, along with all his works of genius, his words shine like diamonds - as if forged from steel and gold.” His sermons “will forever remain the unattainable ideal of church preaching, deep, sparkling with abundance, strength and height of thought, an ideal to which every preacher of the Orthodox Church should strive... They will always be studied as an example of true Christian sophistication in Orthodox Russia” 13. But, recognizing Philaret's sermon as the ideal of church sermon, "one must not forget that every genius, in any field, is always the highest expression of one side in a given field of creativity. If we can say that Pushkin's poetic creativity is an ideal, a model in the field of poetic creativity, this does not mean that in him equally all sides of poetic creativity reached complete perfection; no, he is only one of the greatest Russian representatives of one of the types of artistic realism. So is Philaret. He is a leading, brilliant representative of preaching. In his person, Russian preaching first achieved perfection, but only in one of the two main aspects of its content - in the revelation of the Holy Scriptures. Philaret’s preaching word, according to the apt description of his famous contemporary I. S. Aksakov, was truly inimitable “artistic, important word, sometimes deeply penetrating into the secrets of the knowledge of God, sometimes strict and powerful.” with beauty clothed the mind of Divine truths” 14. However, a sermon is not simply an objective interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Scripture, but the sanctification of modern life by the light of Scripture. Filaret, in accordance with the direction of interests of modern educated society, set himself the task of illuminating with the light of Scripture only the general principles of life, so to speak, the peaks of life phenomena, but left specific, living details and details of these phenomena outside the field of his religious illumination. Life, in the living diversity of its immediate impressions, did not deeply excite Philaret’s soul. He was cold towards her, looking at her with the stern eye of a monk who had renounced the world. Filaret's gaze is turned to the sky, to the heavenly dwelling; and only reluctantly, as if by chance, stops on earthly things. “Our life is in heaven - we must not look at the visible, but at the invisible”, “the visible is temporary, but the invisible is eternal”, “the gospel pronounces judgment on all the love of the world without exception: the love of this world is enmity to God”, “vanity of vanities - all vanity”... “I have hated all the world”, the gospel to the earthly threatens well-being as dangerous, and despises this well-being as a guarantee of heavenly bliss 15. When a person, deep in thought, does not notice what is happening around him; or when, overcome by sadness, what is closest and most pleasant until then, becomes distasteful and alien. renounces everything external 16. This is the order of thoughts and feelings that dominated in Philaret’s soul over all other thoughts and feelings in relation to earthly things, and which, even at the dawn of his preaching glory in his youth, he did not hesitate to categorically express in the court church in the presence of the empress, which forever blocked the path of a court preacher that was planned for him 17. This sternly ascetic disposition of Filaret was revealed in him in connection with a characteristic feature of his mental make-up: he was a man primarily of thought, and not of the immediate impressions of life. The impressions of life by themselves, directly, were not able to evoke strong feelings in him; only illuminated, experienced by thought, only transformed into ideas and mental images did these impressions awaken a response of feeling in his soul; and in this case the feeling was deep and strong, according to the intensity and depth of the work of thought, and could reach the strongest deep animation. Filaret himself speaks about this property of his in one of his sermons: “the conviction of the mind itself is reborn into a living feeling of the heart, and to the extent that the light from the sun of truth multiplies in the mind, the heart warms and ignites.”18 Cold to the immediate impressions of life, Filaret was warm in heart to the religious ideas and images he contemplated; he perceives them not as cold teachings, but experiences them, spiritualizes them, revives them with a hot, strong feeling, like a religious poet. Hence, Filaret’s sermons are full of deep, sublime poetry to the extent that he, detaching himself from earthly everyday phenomena and demands, soars with thought and feeling in the world of religious ideas and images: here Filaret gives amazingly wonderful examples of religious poetry. This quality of Philaret’s preaching was noted by his contemporaries even when he first appeared in the northern capital, and one of the first sermons there on Easter 19, 1810 was recognized by the most picky critics not so much as a sermon as a religious ode or hymn. Indeed, ecstatic religious lyrics are a predominant element of the word. The lyrical, hymnological character of the word is especially evident at its beginning. Christ is Risen! - “So He has risen, Christians!” “Truth has risen from the earth” (Psalm 84:12), where human injustice and the just judgment of God brought it down. The seal placed by unbelief on her cold tomb melted from the fire of the Divinity hidden in it. The heavy stone of temptation that covered him fell, and only struck the Jewish stiff-neckedness and the Greek arrogance. This tomb, in which the “hope” of every “creature” was recently buried (Rom. 8:19), now let the heavenly messenger, sitting at its head, seem to draw on it a tombstone hitherto unbecoming for any mortal, but which from now on will be the common tombstone of mortals: “Where are you, death, the sting? Where, hell, victory?“ (1 Cor. 15:55) – How one moment changes the face of the world! And I don’t recognize hell; I don't know what is heaven and what is earth. Is this hell, which imprisoned the slaves of damnation, which now gives away the sons of freedom? Is this the earth where the Divinity shines with heavenly glory? Is this heaven where earthly creatures settle and humanity reigns? An incomprehensible transition from complete exhaustion to the fullness of perfection, from the deepest misery to the highest bliss, from death to immortality, from hell to heaven, from man to God! Great Easter! – Celebrate this Easter, happy wanderers of the unfortunate country! “And this day shall be yours, in remembrance, and celebrate that feast of the Lord all your years: celebrate it lawfully forever” (Ex. 12:14). - Let us reveal more about the property of the eternal Passover, in order to better determine the internal value of the present celebration 20. The predominance of the lyrical element is clearly expressed in other individual places of this word; The depiction of the inner spiritual struggle of a sinful person is especially remarkable. "Oh, poor flesh! lazy dust, with which the active spirit is suppressed! A burden that follows me even in flight from the world! A treacherous friend, a flattering enemy! A traitorous helper! A terrible one, a beloved one! Where can I hide from you? I make peace with you, without defeating you, without enjoying the world, I resume my warfare. You groan when I exhaust you." when I favor you, you are self-willed. Sharp thorns pierce you; fragrant roses plunge you into bliss and relaxation. You serve as a target for the flaming arrows of the evil one and even cover his forges. to the very source of life, like this Magdalene, you are still waiting for a dead body - “Touch me not” (John 20:17), the Lord says to you: and the spirit itself, more or less, is forced to share this condemnation with you. - Which of us is protected from these various temptations that sometimes crushed the apparently chosen vessels of grace?..." 21 Philaret’s word reaches extraordinary, astounding heights of religious lyricism and at the same time theological contemplation in three sermons on Great Friday, on the mystery of redemption, delivered in 1806 (“It has been accomplished”), in 1813 (“What now do you, listeners, expect from the servants of the word? - No more words!”) and in 1816 (“Is it now about love"...). The second of these words, especially famous for its introductory artistic turn, is the most famous. Less widely known are the other two words, opening with introductions that amaze with the height of religious-poetic inspiration and theological contemplation. The first was pronounced in the Trinity Lavra in the presence of the great teacher M. Plato and according to his appointment and is noted in the manuscript with Plato’s praise: “wonderful! wonderful! Note: wonderful, since we know you as the first of the preachers in the Lavra Seminary.” “It is finished!” (John 19:30) Jesus cried out on the cross, and cried out “with a great voice,” so that it would be heard in heaven and on earth and in the underworld with a voice that rent the church veil to show the passing of the legal canopy: - with a voice that shook the earth and went into the hearts of the mountains, stone, so that at the same time it would penetrate and - if this is possible omnipotence - to soften the stony heart of a hardened people. But “the heart of these people is white,” complains the Physician of soul and body... Oh, Crucified One! Even at the distance of many centuries, we hear Your cry, we see Your wounds - and the weapon of sorrow passes through our heart. Having been accomplished, but the Redeemer was sold, the truth was condemned, holiness was desecrated, God abandoned God (Matthew 17:46). It's done! But Israel is blessed on the tree of the curse, but the desire of the tongues dies. It's done! But fallen man again falls lower than before and the suicide becomes a “deicide.” What horror! It seems that hell is gnashing joyfully, and our proud enemy wants to assure himself and his like-minded people that everything has been accomplished, which means everything is lost. O Crucified One! We are not offended because of You, we and Your disciples are “the verb of You being Christ of God, the power and the wisdom of God” (Matthew 16:16; 1 Cor. lt 24); we believe that You are “the verb of the eternal life of God” (John 6:68). Heal with Your word the wound of the pierced soul with Your wounds, and at the same time stop the lips of those who speak unrighteously; teach us the mystery of Your sufferings; Reveal to us what great work and for whom it ended with Your death? Christians, He no longer answers us. He has already “bowed his head and given up his spirit” (John 19:30), as if he wanted to leave us meditating at His cross and tomb. Completed. Do not think that dying Wisdom has left us ignorant of the mysterious sign of this saying. We find his beautiful explanation, begun in the book of human existence and completed in the book of the life of Jesus. Reading these great books can and should take a lifetime, but a few lines from each are enough to enlighten us." 22 This word, spoken in the 24th year of the preacher’s life, still bears traces of some immaturity. The third word, spoken 10 years later in St. Petersburg, is much more perfect. The tone is calmer, but the depth of contemplation and artistic side is much higher. Word on the text “God so love the world” (John 3:16). "Is it now about love, perhaps some will say? Is it now, when the fruit of enmity has ripened in the garden of the Beloved: when the earth trembles with horror, and the hearts of stones are torn; and the eye of heaven is darkened with indignation? Is it now about love for the world, when the Son of God, suffering in the world, is left without consolation, and His prayerful cry: “My God, my God, you have forsaken Me everywhere” (Matthew 27:46) - without a fatherly answer? True, Christians! This is the day of hostility and horror, the day of wrath and vengeance. But if so, then what will happen to us when the earth is not solid under us, and the sky above us is not calm? Where to escape from the shaking earth? Where to escape from under the threatening sky? Look more diligently at Golgotha: and where you see the focus of all troubles, you will open a refuge. Then, how “the earth was trembling and the foundations of the mountains were trembling and moving, as if God was angry with him” (Psalm 18:8), don’t you see how unshakably the unrooted tree of the Cross stands there? Then, just as the dead do not rest in their tombs, don’t you see how peacefully He crucified on His cross rests, no matter how hard His co-workers tried by the glory of the Savior: “Who can save himself?”; by the very dignity of the Son of God: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross; by the very goodness of faith in Him: let him now come down from the cross, and believe in Him? So, let us confirm in our hearts this strange and terrible for the world, but joyful for believers, truth: “that in all the world there is nothing harder than the Cross and safer than the Crucified. The horrors of Golgotha ​​are scattered throughout the world so that we, not seeing safety anywhere, would run straight to Golgotha, and throw ourselves at our feet, and hide in the wounds and immerse ourselves in the suffering of the Crucified Savior. O sun! Why would you hide your face from Him at noon, when the great work of darkness, even in your light, has already reached its midnight, and when the eyes of the All-Seeing One are the brightest darkness of your light, and in the darkness they see just as clearly the shame of Deicide? “So your indignation was impressed by our admonition; you hastened to accomplish the visible day of hostility and anger in order to conduct us to the contemplated day of love and mercy, illuminated by the unsetting light of the trisolar Deity. Christian! let "darkness cover the earth! Let darkness fall upon the tongues! Arise from fear and perplexity! Shine with faith and hope. Through the darkness "thy light comes" (Ps. 61:1:2). Walk the path that the tearing veil of the sacraments opens to you; enter into the inner Sanctuary of the sufferings! of Jesus, leaving behind you the outer court, given over to the tongues to be trampled upon. What is there? - Nothing but the holy and blessed love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for the sinful and damned human race. The Father's love is crucifying. The love of the Son is crucified. The love of the Spirit is triumphant through the power of the cross. About this love, Christians, may you be allowed to speak a little before you, since it is not even possible to express it, so that the Word of God itself, in order to perfectly depict it, fell silent on the cross” 23. An equally majestic religious and artistic picture opens the sermon on the day of Pentecost 1811 on the texts “All were filled with the Holy Spirit” of Acts. 2:4. “After “plunging into the creatures,” unable to bear the uncreated light, man “hid” (Gen. 3:8) from God, and God hid from man, so as not to destroy the criminal with His holy presence, the “One” Trinitarian “by ineffable goodness, again approached the alienated” in gradual revelations, Yes, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor. 8:13) will raise up and again exalt the fallen. The Father appeared with promises of love and mercy and the sinner, frightened by almighty justice, was accompanied to the intercession of the Son: the Son appeared over the cover of humanity, and, in Himself, having conquered sin and put to death death opened the door of the Grace of the Holy Spirit to the sons of wrath: the Holy Spirit finally appeared in the sign of fiery tongues and penetrated the human nature of the apostles in order to assimilate to him the favor of the Father and the merits of the Son” 24 . The beginning of the words on the Nativity of Christ in the same 1811 bears the character of a sacred hymn on the text: “Great is the mystery of godliness, God appeared in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). "The new Adam comes from the virgin land. The woman, the source of the curse, brings the dew of blessing. The true Noah appears, who "will give us rest from our works, and from the sorrow of our hands, from the land that the Lord God has cursed (Gen. 5:29). The rootless Melchizedek (Heb. 7:3), born without a mother, born without a father, comes to inherit the Kingdom and Priesthood the eternal. Finally, the long night of fear and expectation of the universal comes; and the morning light penetrates into the darkness of the Old Testament Sanctuary, open not so much to the daily as to the eternal East. The Heavenly Manna pours out from the stash that hid it. The Rod of Jesse vegetates instead of the withering Rod of Aaron. Come, meek shepherds, and kiss the Lamb and the Shepherd, the Lamb who feeds the shepherds, and the Shepherd who has to gather the wolves with the lambs, and the young men with the lions, into one peaceful fold. Come, wise magi, and worship the mysteries of the ancient child; learn from the word of the dumb, eat from the angels' bread at the table of the dumb, and see that the Lord is good. The hosts of heavenly powers, who “praised” the Lord, “when the stars were created!”, double and triple your praises before your Sun and for us, rising. Christ is born" 25). But Philaret’s most favorite subject of religious, poetic and theological contemplation was the mystery of the Annunciation of the Mother of God. From the first years of his preaching ministry until the end of his life, the religious and poetic spirit of Philaret, a lover of antitheses of thought and historical oppositions of shadow and light, dwells with special love on this mysteriously great border between the Old and New Testaments. Philaret's lyrics here acquire a peculiar enchanting character of some special softness, sincerity, sad and majestic thoughtfulness, and elegance. Eighteen times the religious and poetic inspired gaze of Philaret the preacher turns to this sacred event and each time perceives it in a new light, from a new side. In the word of 1810, Filaret depicts the event of the Annunciation from a sacred-historical perspective; word on the text: “And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign in the house of Jacob forever” (Luke 1:32:33). "Come and reign, King of bliss and glory! Without You, the world lies in evil (1 John 5:19); the darkness of Egypt spreads and threatens the whole earth; Your enemies roar like skimmen, or carelessly fall asleep on the corpses of their prey; the remaining drops of oil burn out, it seems, in the lamps of Your vigilant servants and their flickering illuminate the universal midnight. Hasten, Bridegroom of pure souls, rise, Sun of righteousness, King of bliss and glory! For a long time now, the misfortunes of mankind have thus called upon the Deliverer. Finally, the day awaited for centuries is approaching. The broken scepter of Judah, the completion of the weeks of Daniel, the rumor about a new kingdom predetermined by fate, which would begin from Judea, spreading among the pagans themselves, pre-announce Him; The angel brings a direct prediction about the coming Seed of Promise; the blessed Virgin is preparing to be his mother; those awaiting deliverance in Jerusalem are filled with impatience. - But what will follow this expectation! The great successor of David will be born into a low family of woodworkers; will grow in poverty; will spend his wonderful life in troubles and misfortunes; for a moment they recognize him as king and soon, instead of a throne, a cross is erected for him. He himself almost renounces, apparently, the crown of his father David: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). - At the sight of seven, vice again lifts the brow; cowardice falls; faith and virtue raise their hands to heaven and call for consolation. - Quiet light of holy glory! send Your ray to dispel the darkness of restless thoughts, so that we may see, although the dawn of hope, sitting in the darkness." 26 In the word of 1835 in Moscow, Filaret inspiredly transports the listener to the heavenly world and depicts the surprise of the angels at the mystery of the incarnation; 27 and in the word of 1848 he presents a sacred picture of the descent of the archangel Gabriel into Nazareth. “In what silence, what a great event took place on a day which we now return with solemn remembrance from the depths of the past!” - One of those closest to the throne of the Almighty, Archangel Gabriel, “receive the commanded secretly in your mind,” as the Church, knowing the heavenly language and order, retells the unheard of, flies through all nine ranks of angels, from the highest to the lowest heaven and strives for the earth. The inhabitants of heaven look and do not comprehend what is happening. “Angels desire to penetrate" (1 Peter 1:12). Where is he? Is it not to Sinai to the lawgiver Moses, with a new revelation? But Sinai no longer shines and thunders; and Moses is no longer there. He completed and crowned his work when he said and wrote: “A prophet from your brethren, like me, The Lord your God will raise it up for you, listen to Him” (Deut. 58:15). Is it not to Jerusalem, or to the church there, with a wonderful cloud to the ark of the Divine tablets with heavenly fire for the sacrifice? But this ark is no longer there: the point is to arrange an animated ark for the Hypostatic Word of God. Where is the Archangel? To inglorious Nazareth, to a small church, to the poor Virgin, not known to many for her extraordinary love of God and virginity. She alone hears what the Archangel says; only this knows after his conversation: and Her faithful guardian, righteous Joseph, does not know what has happened. What happened? The eternal decree of God about the salvation of the fallen human race has been put into effect." 28 But the most excellent of all Philaret’s sermons on the Annunciation must be recognized as the word of 1843. First of all, it provides one of the most beautiful examples of the inspired, artistic, deep preaching exposition of St. Philaret. Scripture 29 (homiletical exegesis) with skillful extraction from it of the main idea or theme of the sermon. - About the obedience of faith. The speech of Mariam: Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be unto me according to thy word (Luke 1:38). These are earthly words, but which, like heavenly ones, are purer than sophisticated silver, more desirable than gold, more valuable than precious stones. Here is the treasure that heaven has been looking for on earth for five thousand years, and which one of the closest primates of the heavenly Throne was sent to discover! – Truly, Archangel Gabriel not only brought the Virgin Mary the word of the Divine Annunciation, but also sought to hear from Her the word of correspondence. When he uttered only a word of greeting: “Rejoice, full of grace: the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women”: the annunciation of the Savior of the World has almost already taken place, because the Mother of the Lord is thus commemorated and indicated. But as the Virgin became confused and remained silent, reflecting, the Archangel continued and strengthened the word of the annunciation: “Give birth to a Son; - He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; - and His Kingdom will have no end.” Now the annunciation on the part of the Angel has been decisively accomplished: but he still does not consider his embassy to be over, because it is not the one he is waiting for who hears the word: “How will this happen, even if I have no husband?” Finally, he resolves the question: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” and receives the answer he was looking for: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: wake me according to your word.” And now the sought-after treasure is revealed. With the joyful annunciation from heaven the annunciation was acquired from earth to heaven, mutually desired. The heavenly embassy completely achieved its goal. “And the Angel departed from her” - What does this mean?... In the decisive saying: “Behold the servant of the Lord, be unto me according to thy word,” the obedience of faith expressed itself... And this obedience bowed Her soul under the shadow of the Holy Spirit, united Her will with the will. God, Her heart opened for the entrance of the power of the Highest; and the eternal Light came and shone in Her life, new not only for the earth, but also for the sky, heavenly in the earthly, eternal in the human, all-giving life in the dying. “And the word became flesh, and dwelt in us.” Having risen, through inspirationally deep penetration into the sacred Gospel text, to contemplation of the depth of the sacred experiences of the Most Holy One. The Virgin at the moment of the Annunciation, or, more precisely, the essence and meaning of Her great internal religious and moral feat at this moment, as a feat of obedience to faith, Vitiia the artist gives in his sermon a strikingly artistic image of the extreme greatness of this inner feat of the humble “unknown" Virgin, invisible to the world. Whoever has read this passage of Philaret’s sermon at least once can never forget the indelibly strong impression that it leaves in the soul: everything it consists of a majestic rock, towering in its strength with the much-loved artistic spirit of Philaret, wondrous antitheses, gradually moving from external to internal and moving to the height of a hymn to the greatness of the humble feat of the Most Holy One. Virgo; and everything is enveloped in some special, soft feeling of deep heartfelt penetration into that incomprehensible, completely sacred-mysterious distance, where in the twilight of centuries, on the verge of covenants, the “canopy of the law” begins to gradually dissipate in the light of New Testament revelation. "Wonderful are Your works, O Lord! Wonderful are Your secrets, O Theotokos!" Who hears Your quiet words in Your closed prayer church? Who can see what great things your little word leads to? Does the world feel this moment, in which a turning point in its entire destiny is being made, in which the relations between earth and heaven are changing? Does Rome, dreaming of world dominion, know that in one of distant regions of it, a certain daughter of the kings, calling herself “the handmaid of the Lord,” pronounced a sentence that is preparing for the world a new, better, highest Lord, and for Rome the destruction of a proud and capricious dominion? Do the glorious soothsayers of the pagan peoples guess that from the lips of the unknown Virgin a prophecy has flown out that will make them fall silent, cast down their idols and idols, stop bloody sacrifices, destroy the bloodthirsty priests? Do the sages of the world imagine that at the voice of the Jewish woman, a “hitherto unknown” Wisdom will descend from heaven, which will envelop the wisdom of the wise, and will reject the mind of the wise, but will reveal to infants secrets incomprehensible to the sages? - What am I saying? - Jerusalem and the tribes of Israel, who from distant ancestors know and keep the promise of God about the great Deliverer and Pacifier, and “without ceasing day and night they earnestly hope to finish” (Acts 26:7) to the fulfillment - they rose to the knowledge that, having passed through a vast area of promise, on this day or this night, they suddenly approached the limit of fulfillment and that the limit this one was placed in Nazareth? The scribes, who read so many times in the book of Isaiah: “Behold, the Virgin will conceive in her womb and give birth to a Son, and will call His name Immanuel,” and they were hardly as many times perplexed about this - do they think that the Virgin, foreseen by the prophet, has already understood this prophecy, and is preparing to fulfill it? Does the righteous Joseph, no longer completely alien to the mysteries, even know? Ever-Virgin, as the one who betrothed Her to himself so that She could remain a virgin - does he know that after this She becomes betrothed to the Holy Spirit in order to become the Matter of the Lord? In the whole world, no one except one knows the Annunciation of the Archangel when it is accomplished: and it must be announced to the whole world when it is accomplished. And having heard early, apparently simple words of Mariin’s Annunciation; "Behold the servant of the Lord: be unto me according to thy word," - who would exhaust all their reason, would feel all their power? And their mind merges with the abyss of the mind of God, and embraces time and eternity: their power is coupled with the power of the Most High and will transform the earth and fill the sky "31. If this majestic poetry of Philaret the preacher is not the fruit of direct feeling, if it is not the poetry of Ephraim the Syrian and not the religious poetry of Pushkin, then this is the poetry of “that enthusiastic feeling that an abstract thought awakens in a person at a certain height” and the representative of which in secular literature was, for example, the contemporary poet D. V. Venevitinov 32 of Philaret; this is the poetry of that enthusiastic religious feeling that ignites in the heart a believing thought at the heights of theological contemplation of the mysteries of Divine Revelation; this is poetry in the spirit of the great Athanasius of Alexandria, as his great teacher M. Plato once characterized Philaret’s sermon. And it is no coincidence that the famous brilliant poet Innocent the Bishop of Kherson, during his dying illness, strengthened and consoled his spirit. reading Philaret's sermons. But every time when Philaret, from the world of purely religious ideas and images, of necessity descends in thought into the world of everyday phenomena and interests of life, this thought, as it reluctantly, involuntarily approaches the earth, loses its power over the feelings and, abandoned by him, remains lonely, not warmed, not spiritualized, cold. The religious poet and artist then turns into a dry, cold prose writer, touching the living, tender nerves of life directly with the blunt blade of a cold mind. But this is not enough. As if an eagle, accustomed to the expanse of heaven, but descended to earth for a while, he seeks everywhere the native expanse of heaven and measures everything earthly, limited, conventional, by the scale of his native expanse of heaven, wants to see everything only in the conditions of this expanse of heaven: Philaret’s view of individual modern events and needs of life is abstractly idealistic, often too far from the correct representation of the fullness of the actual real conditions of life and therefore in immediate practical application is inevitable lead to results that are completely opposite, not ideal, properties. The most striking example of this deep methodological one-sidedness of Philaret the preacher in relation to modern life is his teaching on state power. Clinging with his heart to the intelligible order of the heavenly world, where everything comes from the one will of the Most Holy God and everything moves by this Most Holy Will, Filaret, and lowering his thoughts to the earth, to the order of human society, builds the earthly according to the heavenly: as in heaven - unconditional autocracy, so on earth there must also be unconditional autocracy - autocracy - argues Filaret, completely losing sight of the fact that there in heaven the unconditional autocracy of the Most Holy and All-Perfect Being and therefore morally just, but here on earth there is not and cannot be such an all-perfect human being, and the unconditional autocracy of a sinful and limited being cannot be of the same order as the unconditionally holy one sovereignty of God. Philaret, as you know, belongs to this deeply idealistic in essence, but also deeply erroneous, contradicting all the indisputable provisions and facts of historical and social science, doctrine of the divine establishment and divine nature of the royal autocracy: “God, in the image of His heavenly unity of command, created a king on the earth; in the image of His omnipotence - an autocratic king; in the image of His eternal kingdom, lasting from century to century “hereditary king” 33. This abstract idealistic doctrine of state power, firmly established under the influence of Philaret’s authority in the Russian church and especially in the church pulpit as an immutable almost dogma of faith, had the most dire consequences for both the church and the state, and above all for the sermon itself. It elevated a one-sided political doctrine to the level of Christian teaching and at the same time declared the existing, extremely ugly, autocratic state system to be an invariably obligatory requirement of the Christian faith: due to this, all other political views were recognized as contrary to faith, anti-Christian, and the people who professed them were anti-church people, non-believers, despite their undoubted deep religiosity for everyone; the church and church preaching took on an extreme political party coloring and thereby alienated most of the Russian intelligentsia, who courageously fought against gloomy absolutism in the name of popular representative government; Moreover, this very noble struggle of the intelligentsia for the noble ideals of true civil freedom turned out, with the practical application of Filaret’s doctrine of state power to it, to be a struggle against the demands of the Christian faith, an anti-Christian struggle; and this not only increased among the intelligentsia the feelings of alienation from the church and church preaching, but also gave rise to direct hostility towards it, as a conscious support of political absolutism, and an irreconcilable enemy of political freedom 34. And there is no doubt, of course, that this teaching, having established itself in the Church and church preaching as a religious teaching, strengthened the stubbornness of imperial absolutism in its reluctance to give constitutional guarantees, despite the fact that this was urgently required by the interests of the correct development of people's life. And if we now, seeing complete anarchy in public life, remember that the reason for this lies in the fact that the constitution was not given in a timely manner, which was supposed to gradually educate the people for true democracy, then we must admit that part of the blame in what is happening lies, may the great spirit of Philaret forgive me, in the erroneous and too long infatuation of the official representatives of the Church with the abstract idealistic doctrine of the divine, inherited from Philaret, as if would be, the nature of imperial absolutism, with the latter’s obvious, for the entire educated society, factual failure. Filaret's contemporaries retreated into the realm of abstract speculation precisely because they loved life with all its earthly values, but could not come to terms with its distortions in the tragic and sad modern Russian reality. Their speculative constructions grew out of an ardent love for life in all the fullness of its blessings and an equally ardent protest of the heart against the existing social and political conditions that were disfiguring life. Philaret the preacher immersed his mind in the contemplation of the mysteries of Divine Revelation, soaring in spirit at the extreme height of monastic-ascetic renunciation of all earthly goods, joys and values; at that height from which only general perspectives and peaks of life phenomena are visible, while the specific, complex content and essence of these phenomena are inaccessible to either contemplation or illumination. From his youth, alien at heart to the fullness of earthly interests and demands of a living, earthly human personality, the ascetic monk Philaret could not understand the entire complex depth of the experiences of the soul of the contemporary man and modern society; could not grasp the real complex driving forces of modern social life. He saw only the surface of social movements, but could not understand and appreciate their deep, inevitable, concrete life causes and conditions. He saw in modern society a desire for civil freedom, but, alien in heart to the earthly, human, good of civil freedom, as well as to many other earthly values, the ascetic monk could not, within the framework of his monastic-ascetic worldview, indicate to this desire any other root than “pride, disobedience and self-will,” he could not treat it with anything other than condemnation and denial. He did not know and did not understand the unbearable suffering, the unquenchable protests of a stifled free personality striving for the breadth of creativity in personal and public life, the torment of suppressed social self-awareness, a suppressed conscience, free thought, free speech, free science: in Philaret’s ascetic mood, detached from the world, they could not and had no place, because Philaret’s heart did not know the sweetness of the feeling of such freedom, and his monastic ascetic worldview of the holiness of this feeling; instead, his soul was completely satisfied and pacified by the sweetness and holiness of the feeling of “humility and obedience,” and in this feeling, he, surrendering himself and others to the will of God, could calmly come to terms with any untruth of personal and social life, no matter how great it was, unless it came from him or through his fault - His soul was not outraged by all those horrors of the gloomy Nicholas regime, from which all the best people of that time were suffocating, envying, like Granovsky, those who “died in time”; his soul did not suffer from the severe abnormalities of the modern social capitalist-bureaucratic system and especially about that greatest social untruth, which for decades painfully tormented the conscience of the entire advanced Russian society - about serfdom... His soul was not tormented by the mental suffering of victims of the social order, humiliated, insulted and dispossessed by the tyranny of the powerful and poverty, by the hardships of a difficult struggle for existence among the “dark abysses of violence and evil”, by the torment of failed personal happiness, by the suffering of an unsatisfied life, suffering from “painful questions” of the life of the soul, and finally by the fate of a civilly disenfranchised humiliated Russian woman - in general by all those the untruths of life, with which the soul and conscience of advanced Russian society were seriously ill and of which it tirelessly and more and more insistently recalled in the fiery word of fiction and criticism, especially since the forties, in the person of its famous spiritual leaders - Belinsky, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nekrasov, etc. Like Moses on Sinai, groaning in his religious speculation at the distant heights of monastic-ascetic renunciation of earthly things, Filaret looks at all these distant earthly sufferings and worries through the thick appearance of monastic-ascetic ideas and moods separating him from them and remains to the end cold in heart and alien in thought... The moods in advanced Russian society changed... The era of fascination with abstract speculation passes, the era of “realism” begins: from the contemplation of ideas, society moves on to the consideration of the tactile facts of life, vital reality... And at the same time, Philaret the preacher with his sublime speculation, divorced from the painful demands of current life, is becoming more and more alien to him. He was and remained for them an outstanding artist of church oratory, but this word belonged either to the sphere of that “pure art” that dominated in the Pushkin era of the 20s and 30s and to which the era of the 40s was so hostile, or directly passed into the field of that literary movement deeply hostile to advanced society, which was called “official nationality.” People and generations change, leaders and heralds of social thought and conscience are replaced: passive carriers of abstract thought are replaced by active preachers of the living, urgent matter of rebuilding life - people of the sixties, realists in thought, in word, and in deed, with a whole range of urgent issues, new methods of thought, a new sense of life and life understanding - Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev and friend. Life began to beat at an extraordinary feverish pace, so alien to the strictly disciplined thought and word of Filaret. Under the terrible roar of the defeat of the military power of the Nicholas regime near Sevastopol, with the symbolically menacing glow of its conflagration, all the usual foundations of the social system and personal life began to crackle. With alien, cold, fading eyes, the seventy-year-old old man met the rise of new people, new moods and social movements that had been growing before his eyes for decades, but the essence, size and value of which he could not understand. And suppressed by the formidable pressure of the approaching new era, Filaret, in a vague awareness of the completeness of his life’s feat, humbly confessed in a letter to his “friend,” the viceroy of the Lavra, Arch. May the venerable assembly forgive me that, along with Filaret’s great historical merit, I am now touching on this shadow side of Filaret’s preaching talent. This shadow side only more clearly emphasizes the true greatness of the historical significance of the preaching genius of Philaret. Filaret brilliantly resolved the first half of the main problem facing Russian preaching: he inimitably skillfully raised it to the thought, spirit and form of the word of Divine Revelation and illuminated with it the highest peaks of life; in this regard, it was the completion, the wonderful crowning of the entire preceding hundred-year period in the history of Russian preaching from the beginning of the 18th century. In the time following the era of Philaret, the task falls - to resolve the second half of the historical preaching problem: to bring the light of the Word of God, shed by the high speculation of Philaret the preacher to the heights of life, further, deeper, into the very thickness of life, into the very whirlpool of eternally flowing life phenomena. The famous successors of Philaret’s preaching glory, people of a different era and a different mental make-up, devoted their energies to solving this new task: Archbishop Innocent. Khersonsky, Dmitry Archbishop. Khersonsky, John Bishop. Smolensky, Nikanor apxhiep. Kherson, Ambrose Archbishop. Kharkov and a number of other less glorious church developments. All of them are disciples of Philaret: they all come from that great, spiritual wealth that the high speculation of Philaret, the preacher, extracted from the word of God; they are all trying to stand at the same height of internal and external co-dissolution of preaching with the thought, spirit and letter of the Holy. Scripture, as demonstrated by the example of Philaret. The attentive gaze of a researcher, a historian of preaching, reveals in the sermons of these famous church developments of the second half of the 19th century that both in content and in form they were generated, inspired and deeply imbued with the preaching genius of Philaret: their glory is, first of all, the glory of their spiritual teacher and father - Metropolitan Philaret. – Being a wonderful crowning of the previous hundred-year period in the history of Russian preaching, Filaret, thus, is at the same time the father of a new period of Russian preaching, extending even to the present day. The father of a number of famous church revolutions of recent times, Philaret the Preacher, does not, however, convey to them the full power of his revolution so that they can completely replace it with themselves. They complement Philaret, but cannot completely replace him for us: whoever has not read Philaret’s sermons will understand too one-sidedly the nature and properties of the sermons of his famous disciples, and therefore, anyone who would wish to learn preaching only from the sermons of Innocent, Nicanor, Ambrose and other disciples of Philaret, bypassing him himself, would voluntarily doom himself in advance to a one-sided and imperfect mastery of the art of preaching. I will say even more decisively: anyone who has not read Philaret’s sermons cannot be a good preacher. The great father and teacher of our immediate famous teachers of preaching, Filaret at the same time himself is directly and directly our irreplaceable great teacher in the sacred art of preaching. Our grandfathers and fathers bowed before this teacher, living in direct memory of him: we, who know him only from his immortal creations, should bow before them with reverence. With complete, deep conviction, the impartial contemplator of the fate of Russian preaching bows before them - the science of preaching, on behalf of which I was sent to testify before this memorial assembly to the objective, scientific truth about the undying greatness of Philaret in the history of Russian preaching. Speech at the solemn meeting of the Moscow Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment and the corporation of the Moscow Theological Academy under the honorary chairmanship of His Holiness, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon - in the hall of the Moscow Theological Seminary on December 3, 1917 in memory of the 50th anniversary of the death of M. Philaret. From the greeting address of the Petrograd Theological Academy on the fiftieth anniversary of Metropolitan Philaret. Zarnitsky, Filaret M. Moscow as a preacher (S.P.B. 1898), p. 12. Ts Sushkov, Notes on the life and use of St. Philaret of Moscow (M. 1868), p. 44. Hm. also ours, essay "Plato and Philaret. Metropolitans of Moscow. (Comparative characteristics of their moral character)". Sergiev Posad, 1913. Korf, Life of Count Speransky vol. II. pp. 77–78. approx. I. S. Aksakov in the newspaper “Moscow” for 1867 No. 184 N. Kotlyarevsky. Literary Trends of the Alexander Age (1913), pp. 377–378. N. Kotlyarevsky, Literat. Directions of the Alexander Age, pp. 379–380. History of Russian. literature of the 19th century under. ed. Ovsyaniko Kulikovsky, vol. III, p. 224. Words and speeches. Part V, p. 152 (M. 1885). Tolmachev “The Spirit of a Christian” 1861–62, p. 495 Cenik, M. Filaret, as a homiletician, pp. 24–25. Tver, 1892 Shower floor. Thurs. 1868, January, page 42 Words and Speeches by M. Philaret, vol. V, pp. 32–33. Words and Speeches, vol. III, 55. Wed. our essay “Plato and Philaret, Metropolitans of Moscow (a comparative description of their moral character)”, p. 13. Words and Speeches, vol. I, p. 3. (Ed. 1873). Words and Speeches, vol. I, pp. 140–144 Words and speeches, g. I, 140 –141. Words and Speeches I, 121 – 122. Words and speeches vol. IV, 541–542 An equally excellent example of the interpretation of the same text of St. The Scriptures represent the word for the Annunciation of 1824 (Words and Speeches II, 148–156), which served as a pretext for the Minister of Education Shishkov to accuse Filaret of unorthodoxy (See Korsunsky, Filaret m. Moscow (Kharkov) 54–60). Words and speeches III, 235, 236, 237. Words and Speeches, vol. IV, 237–8. N. Kotlyarevsky, Literary trends of the Alexander era. Page 220. Words and speeches of Philaret, V, 126 We will devote several special essays to clarifying this side of M. Philaret’s preaching activity. Letters from M. Philaret to the architect. Antonio, III, 320. You might be interested in: