Вероучение

The Orthodox Church has only a limited number of dogmatic definitions, which are a generally binding confession for each of its members. Strictly speaking, this minimum is limited by the Nicene-Constantinopolitan symbol, which is read at baptism and at the liturgy, and by the decrees of the seven ecumenical councils. This does not mean that they exhaust the entire doctrine that is vitally contained by the Church, but all this other doctrine has not received a mandatory dogmatic formulation for itself; it is contained only in theological teaching, although it concerns subjects of extreme importance (such as the veneration of the Mother of God, saints, the doctrine of the sacraments, of salvation, eschatology, etc.). This is generally the style of Orthodoxy, which is satisfied with the essential minimum of mandatory dogmas, in contrast to Catholicism, which strives to formulate in the canons the entire dogmatic inventory of the Church. Of course, for Orthodoxy the possibility of new generally binding dogmatic formulas adopted at new ecumenical councils is not excluded, however, strictly speaking, the existing minimum is sufficient in essence to be an unshakable foundation on which dogma can develop without any new formulations, revealing itself in the conciliarity of the church and depositing itself in the theological teaching of the Church (Theologumena). The predominance of Theologumena over dogmas is a special advantage of the Orthodox Church, to which the spirit of legalism is alien even in dogmas. Even in the presence of a diversity of theological opinions, this did not and does not constitute any practical damage to Orthodoxy. There is one basic Christian dogma, which is common to the entire Christian world, confessed by the Apostle Peter on behalf of the entire apostolic face, and in it on behalf of the Church: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” This was also the subject of the apostolic preaching from the day of Pentecost. Jesus Christ is the eternal Word, the Son of God, who took on human nature, inseparably and unmergedly, true God and true man, who came into the world for the salvation of man, accepted free suffering and death on the cross, was resurrected, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father and is coming again into the world for the final judgment and his eternal kingdom. In this faith, Orthodoxy does not disagree with either Catholicism, or Anglicanism (at least with Anglo-Catholics), or orthodox Protestantism. At the same time, Christological dogma is understood in all the power of realism, which was given to it in the era of the ecumenical councils. This expression of it, in its way, is complete and perfect for all times. Of course, we now perceive it through the philosophical and theological means of our time. There is no archaization here, just as there is no modernism (in the bad sense). At the same time, dogma is not afraid of the rationalistic reagents to which liberal Protestantism exposes it. The Christological dogma for Orthodoxy today is as modern as it was in the era of the ecumenical councils. For Orthodoxy, modern rationalism seems blind and limited, which, from the fullness of faith in Christ, removes the subtleties of faith in Jesus, as the one who demonstrated the sonship of God, although a man, but the son of God. This “Jesuanism”, as Christianity, is not only spiritual bad taste, but also theological limitations. The idea of ​​God’s sacrificial love for His fallen creation, reaching the incarnation and death on the cross, and on the other hand, the idea of ​​God-manhood, as a positive relationship between God, who created man in His image, and man, elevated through the incarnation to the state of deification - these are the highest self-evidence for religious philosophy, and they are revealed, as such, with special love in the latest Russian theology. In any case, the Protestant prejudice that Orthodox Christology is an “acute Hellenization of Christianity” or that Orthodoxy is a “petrification of antiquity” is theological naivety and is generated by rationalistic arrogance and narrow-mindedness. Orthodoxy in its theology is by no means less, but more than “religious-historical Jesuanism.” And faith in Christ as the Son of God, for Orthodoxy, is not a Christological doctrine, but life itself, it penetrates everything from top to bottom, everyone throws himself at the feet of the Savior with a joyful cry of faith: “My Lord and my God,” is present at His Nativity, suffers His agony on the cross, is resurrected with Him in the resurrection, trembles at His glorious coming. Without this faith there is simply no Christianity. And truly, the newest Christians without Christ (Jesuanists), trying to make religion scientific, achieved one thing: they deprived Christianity of its spirit and fire and made it boring and mediocre. Christianity is faith in Christ, the Son of God, our Lord, Savior and Redeemer, this is “the victory that has overcome the world; this is our faith” (1 John 5:4-5). But faith in Christ as the Son of God is at the same time faith in the Holy Trinity, in whose name, according to the commandment of Christ (Matthew 28:19), baptism is performed. She is already included in faith in the Son, sent by the Father and sending the Holy Spirit. Christianity is the religion of the Holy Trinity - so much so that even a one-sided concentration of worship only on Christ is already a practical deviation towards Jesuanism. It is worthy of attention that in the liturgical life of Orthodoxy, in proclamations, doxologies, and prayerful addresses, the Name of the entire Holy Trinity decisively prevails over the Name of Jesus individually, which indicates that the knowledge of Christ is inseparably linked in the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. God is a Spirit who has a triune consciousness with the unity of life and being, and in this trinity the originality and separateness of the three divine hypostases is combined with the unity of divine self-consciousness. God is Love. As such, He is not a monohypostatic subject, for whom uniqueness, which dooms him to all-consuming egoism, is also limitation. God is the self-denying Love of Three, which has such fullness of reciprocity that it unites three in one life. In this way, the limitations of monohypostasis are overcome and the fullness of life of the absolute self-sufficient spirit is revealed. The dogma of the Holy Trinity is also common in Orthodoxy with the entire Christian world, both Catholicism and Protestantism, except for those of its movements that reject the Trinity in the name of unitarianism, reproducing Sabellianism or modalism or drawing closer to Judaism and Islam (thus denouncing themselves as a religious reaction). The dogma of the Holy Trinity is also confessed by Orthodoxy in the form in which it was expressed in the era of ecumenical councils and enshrined in the creed. But this does not make it archaic to any extent, because for modern religious and philosophical consciousness it is the highest truth of speculation. The fact that it is incompatible with rationalism, which approaches the comprehension of divine things with the rational categories of immobile unity or plurality, does not make it at all alien to the theological mind. In our own self-awareness we find such dazzling signs of the Trinitarian trinity (I-you-we) that this dogma is both a necessity for thought and the initial theme for metaphysical constructions 22 . The dogma of the Holy Trinity is not only a doctrinal formula, but a living and constantly developing Christian experience, a fact of the life of a Christian. For life in Christ unites us with the Holy Trinity, gives knowledge of the love of the Father and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There is no Christian life outside the knowledge of the Holy Trinity (as all Christian literature abundantly testifies to). And Unitarianism is no longer Christianity, cannot be, and Orthodoxy cannot have any points of contact with it. In fact, the newest Arianism, Jesuanism and Unitarianism turn out to be connected with each other and equally remain outside church Christianity. The confession of faith in the Holy Trinity is the common property of both the undivided Church and after its division. The difference between the Eastern and Western churches, which gradually became established from the 5th century, consists, as is known, in the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. According to Orthodox teaching, the Father, as the first principle (άρχή, αίτα), eternally gives birth to the Son and gives birth to the Holy Spirit; this is the divine unity of command in the Holy Trinity. This raises the question of the relationship between the Second and Third hypostases. According to paternal writing. The Holy Spirit proceeds through (διά) the Son and rests on Him, this is where their connection by origin is expressed. In the West, this relationship, which was not fully clarified in the Church, began to be understood as the participation of the Son in the very production of the Holy Spirit, with a violation of the principle of monarchy and the dissection of the Holy Trinity into two binaries (Father - Son, Father and Son - Holy Spirit). Hence arose the theological dispute about the filioque, which from a difference of theological opinions turned into a dogmatic disagreement, after the Western theologumenon, itself the product of primarily theological inaccuracy, was transformed into an inviolable dogma through the infallibile magisterium of the pope. As the experience of the Bonn Conference of Orthodox Christians with Old Catholics showed, it is possible to seek grounds for mutual theological understanding, and the dividing factor here is, first of all, the papacy with its claim to infallibility and persistence in local one-sidedness or errors, taken for the truth itself more than the teaching itself. God is the Creator of the world, who created it out of nothing. The all-blessed God does not seek in it to replenish himself, but out of His goodness He wants to make non-being part of being, and to reflect His image in it. The creation of the world from nothing is a work of love, omnipotence and wisdom of God. The creation of the world is accomplished by the Holy Trinity, the Father speaking the Word in the Holy Spirit. This is figuratively expressed in the narrative of Chapter I. Genesis: God (the Father) says (in His Word): let it be, and all good be done (the Holy Spirit, life-giving and perfecting). The Holy Trinity is directly addressed to the world by the Word, by which all things are (John 1:3). The Son is the peace-giving, cosmourgic hypostasis, in the Word telling the ideal existence of the world, but the Holy Spirit also accomplishes, gives life, gives reality to the world. The images of the world have an eternal foundation (παραδείγματα) in God, and these eternal seeds of being, immersed in non-existence, grow the spiritual, angelic world (“heaven”) and the earthly world (“earth”). The spiritual organism of these primordial prototypes of existence constitutes the single origin of the world in God, that divine wisdom, which “the Lord had as the beginning of His way before His creatures from the beginning” (Proverbs 8:22), which “was before Him as an artist and His joy every day, rejoicing in His presence at all times” (Proverbs 8:30–31. Compare the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon and Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach). This divine prototype of creation has its peak and center in man; “My joy,” says Wisdom (Proverbs 8:31), “is with the sons of men.” Man is the goal and pinnacle of creation, he is a microcosm, a compact world, and the entire six-day period can be understood as the gradual creation of man, who is created on the last day to become the master of creation. The angelic world is in a service relationship to this world, headed by man, despite its hierarchical height, resulting from its proximity to the throne of God 23. Man is created in the image of God. This is the divine and indestructible foundation of the human being, by the power of which man is destined to become “God by grace,” the son and friend of God. This image is revealed both from his spiritual face and from his relationship to the world through his body. Man has spiritual likeness to God not only as a rational and moral being, gifted with the knowledge of truth, the will to goodness and the knowledge of beauty, but above all as a hypostatic spirit. In his personal self-consciousness he has the image of the divine hypostasis, and in his generic being he also has the image of the hypostatic trinity, he realizes himself not only as me, but also as you and us. In his male and female nature, a person contains a dual image of spiritual existence, with the primacy of reason and with the primacy of beauty and love, in accordance with the face of the Second and Third hypostases. Through the possession of a body, a person is not only a citizen, but also the master of this world, in him the Wisdom of God revealed in creation is accomplished. This image of God, revealed in man, is the basis of his creation and its purpose, but it must be freely realized by him in himself, and this is the likeness of God. The world and man came out of the hands of the Creator immaculate and perfect, but this was only a measure of created perfection, which must be confirmed by man’s own free deed in fulfilling the will of God and in realizing his own perfection. Primordial man was in a state of purity and the resulting closeness to God, with the possibility of direct communication with God, but he himself had to self-determine and establish himself in God, and thereby strengthen his bodily existence, raising him to immortality. The state and fate of the world, of which he was the center, were connected with man. He received from God everything that God could give him by His omnipotence, but he could not and should not receive from God what he himself was called to realize with his created freedom, in a certain sense, to create himself. This self-creation in freedom is symbolically expressed in the commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man fell through disobedience and burdened himself with so-called original sin. He allowed the predominance of the selfish created element in himself, turning from God to the world, and thereby gave strength to the non-existence from which he was created. He became carnal, and therefore mortal. Throughout his life, his created limitations appeared, which further led to direct evil and error, both in knowledge, and in will, and in creativity. Man remained alone in the world, for direct communication with God was interrupted with his expulsion from paradise. He had to look for God, who himself came to talk with him before the Fall. What was the impact of this original, metaphysical sin on human nature? Original sin means the general damage to human nature that has deviated from its own norm. It has the first consequence of the loss of that state of grace that was characteristic of man due to the inherent image of God and the communion with God based on it, as well as general damage to human nature, which, having separated from life in God, accepted death and became mortal. The carnal nature of man has lost its obedience to the soul and, on the contrary, has gained undue dominance over it; lust has taken possession of the man. Self-love, envy and pride have risen in spiritual life - real knowledge of good and evil, i.e. the constant struggle between darkness and light. Through this, human freedom was also limited: he became a slave of nature, a captive of the flesh and a slave of passions. And, nevertheless, all these perversions and damage to the true humanity of man were not such as to completely paralyze it and weaken human freedom. Man remained a man, a free-spiritual being, who through spiritual achievement, assisted by the deliberate help of God, is capable of ascending to his original norm. In human life, this path of grace-filled ascent has been outlined, which has as its pinnacle the Virgin Mary, who revealed the utmost human holiness and testified that humanity, even in the state of original sin, retained its true humanity, capable and worthy of accepting the Divine, the incarnation of God. Man, created in the image of God, through the realization of God-likeness in himself, destined for deification, has deviated from this path. But God Himself, who gave His image, became human, being born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, having passed through carnal conception in sin, and through this united the divine and human nature in His hypostasis. He became the man Jesus, having His own individuality, but in human nature He took on all humanity, being the new Adam, all-man, and all His works have all-human significance. In His earthly journey, together with the Divine power of a miracle worker and the divine wisdom of a prophet, He revealed a true and perfect Man, obedient to the will of God to the end, until death on the cross, making His human will consistent with it, and thereby elevated His humanity to the highest dignity of immortality and spirituality. In His spiritual (Gethsemane) and physical suffering (death on the cross), He bore the full burden of human sin and Godlessness, brought a sacrifice of propitiation to the God of righteousness, atoned for our sin and reconciled us with God. Therefore, looking at the cross of Calvary, we, hitherto children of the body, are already children of God. Having raised human nature to its primordial nature, He united it - inseparably and inextricably - with the divine and through this deified it, as a result of which the divine nature clothed the human, (περιχώρησις), without destroying it, like fire heats iron, and thereby granted man salvation, eternal life in God, already here, among tribulations, and in the next century, in the life of resurrection, for, having risen Himself, He will resurrect all humanity with Himself in the flesh. So, universal salvation is the deification of human nature; personal salvation is the assimilation of this gift through personal feat, for deification is not a physical or magical action on a person, but an internal grace-filled action in a person, which is accomplished with the participation of human freedom, not apart from the person himself. This is life in Christ, accomplished by the Holy Spirit. Here human effort is mysteriously combined with the Divine gift of sonship with God, the power of deification. This effort must take the whole person, and not just one side of him: it is expressed in the feat of faith, which certifies for a person his redemption by the blood of Christ and reconciliation with God, and works, life, which is the natural fruit of faith, and at the same time the path, the life of faith: “faith without works is dead.” Faith and deeds are the participation of man himself in his deification by the power of Christ; this is the realization of the likeness of God by the power of the image of God restored in man, which is Christ. And the degree of realization of this similarity remains different: “There is another glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another of the stars; and star differs from star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41). Personal salvation is the spiritual birth of oneself with one’s own freedom for eternal life through the assimilation of the grace-filled gift of redemption and deification. Here the thought of any merits of a person (due or super-due) by which he rightfully acquires this gift of grace is inappropriate, for it is incommensurable with any merits and is grace-filled (gratia gratis data). The idea of ​​the equivalence of a gift of grace and human achievement is simply inappropriate and misunderstood. Feat (good deeds) is not merit (for no one deserves and cannot deserve grace-filled salvation through human deeds), but a person’s personal participation in the implementation of his salvation, which has no measure at all, for the power of deification is infinite, like eternity. Therefore, the idea of ​​due and supererogatory deeds is just as erroneous as the idea that a person does not have any personal participation in the assimilation, in realizing salvation for himself, on the basis that it has already been done for us by God, and it is enough only to recognize it by an act of faith. However, if we free this Protestant thought from its polemical side, caused by polemics with the Catholic arithmetic of merit, then it can be understood in the deeper sense that faith is not a one-time act, but a long-term and incessantly affirmed state, and for this affirmation, faith must also be effective, i.e. include good deeds. In this interpretation, the Protestant idea of ​​salvation by effective faith is closer to Orthodoxy than the Catholic doctrine of meritum, which is, to a certain extent, in an equivalent and even super-equivalent relation to salvation, since it radically denies precisely any equivalence. But it becomes one-sided, since it establishes indifference in the work of salvation or the image of it, which is associated, of course, with the radical denial of freedom in fallen man, due to slavery to sin and the fundamental depravity of human nature. With this understanding, in Protestantism every person can be forgiven and justified only by faith, for he is not capable of anything else, and faith is only the vision of one’s salvation. But man has retained the remnants of primordial freedom, and cannot lose it without losing the image of God and the spirituality of his being, and therefore, he is called upon to create his own salvation within himself. At the same time, its individual images, paths and degrees, in a word, a person’s personal participation in his salvation, may differ. Man does not thereby become his own co-redeemer or co-savior with the Savior; but he performs his share of participation in his personal assimilation of salvation, is personally saved and personally accomplishes the work of his salvation during his life. And in relation to this personal salvation, feat - “deeds” can be called merit, and the achieved salvation - bribe, reward, reward; in this relative sense, therefore, man may be said to deserve for himself his share in eternal bliss. But this has nothing to do with the Pharisaic, legal self-salvation by good works. In general, in the Orthodox understanding of salvation, the legal criterion that occupies a primary place both in Catholicism (the doctrine of satisfactio) and in Protestantism (justificatio forensis) completely recedes. Without detracting from the justice and truth of God, which must have satisfaction, Orthodoxy places at the center of the teaching on salvation the love of God, which did not spare the Son of God for the sake of saving the world through his deification. The Incarnation of God, which is performed directly for the redemption of fallen man and his reconciliation with God, is perceived in Orthodoxy, first of all, in its general and independent sense - the deification of man, the communication of divine life to him. Since man has fallen, becoming God-man becomes, first of all, the way of reconciling man with God, redemption, which results in salvation in the sense of his deification (θέωσις). Redemption is the free sacrifice of Christ, taking upon himself the sin of man, whose nature He took upon Himself. This sacrifice is made through His entire life, filled with sorrows and suffering, and through His death on the cross. In the Gethsemane struggle it is freely accepted as a cup of suffering given to Him by the Father. The Calvary sacrifice is propitiation and retribution to the Truth of God. It is the mystery of redemption through the intercession of the One for all humanity. Sometimes this thought in Orthodox theology is expressed in terms of Anselm of Canterbury, as satisfaction (satisfactio). However, the thought of God’s Truth here is invariably combined with the thought of God’s Love for man, merciful and saving. Redemption through the incarnation is not only the liberation of man from sin by merits and the Savior’s sacrifice on the cross, it is also the new final creation of man as God by grace, not only by the omnipotence of God, like the first creation, but by His sacrificial love. The world with man at its center was created in its nature by the creative word of God, but it is created and formed in its freedom by the sacrificial incarnation of God himself, the Word of God, through whom all things came into being (John 1:3). Christ, in His holy and sinless humanity, sanctified and deified all human nature. But this salvation of man, which was accomplished by the New Adam, Christ, for all mankind as a free feat, is freely assimilated by each individual person. It cannot be achieved by one’s own strength, but his freedom is left to his acceptance or rejection, the assimilation of salvation through the revival of the likeness of God in himself. It is precisely this meaning that the feat of faith has, carried out both in the feat of life and in deeds. With his human strength, man could not be reconciled with God, or rise from his fall. And deification, which can only be accomplished for him by divine condescension, is no longer completely accessible to man. The objective side, the basis of salvation for man, is accomplished by God, but the subjective side, the assimilation of salvation, is accomplished by man himself. Therefore, it is not enough for a person to have passive faith in his salvation, which leaves him in the consciousness of his personal sinful powerlessness and gives him only confidence in his justification at the judgment of God, in acto forensi, through the application of some kind of amnesty. And man also cannot, through his efforts (faith and deeds), earn for himself salvation, which is given to him by the gift of God’s love, or multiply this gift for himself on the basis of the right that belongs to him, but he can and must assimilate this immeasurable gift of deification for himself to the extent of his free effort, creating in himself the likeness of God on a single foundation, which is Christ. Wed. my “Chapters on Trinity” (Orthodox Thought, 1928, I; 1930, II). Also: Die Tragodie der Philisophie, Darmstadt, 1927. See my book: Jacob's Ladder (about angels), 1929.