Theology and freedom of the Church

On the tasks of the liberation war in the field of Russian theology 1. Among the difficult and sorrowful circumstances of the times we are living through, one bright and reconciling ray of hope shines, hope for the renewal of the Russian people's consciousness, for the increase of Russian spiritual values. Already, even now, hymns to Russia and everything Russian are heard, even from that side, where so recently they could sing greatness only in front of the idols of Europe, where these dead and soulless idols were replaced by Orthodox miraculous icons. Two centuries ago: we abandoned our fatherland, rushed off into the distance, captivated by a foreign land, native land, despising existence (K.S. Aksakov. “Return”). It was as if we were ashamed of the fact that we are Russians and have the misfortune of living in the East. We dressed up in someone else's clothes and spoke in alien languages. In all areas of Russian life for two hundred years only one thing was heard pathetic babble of strangers' words. Slavophilism did not meet with sympathy among wide circles of the intelligentsia; in these circles it was called “Chineseism,” “reaction,” and other terrible names. But here we are repeating the same thing that happened a hundred years ago and what was said in the prayer of the Christmas prayer service. “About their own jealous admonition, these we had (and now we have) violent and bestial enemies,” - we have already started talking about the “debunked idol” of European culture, and gaze is fixed with love on the East. War is a bitter medicine, but it cures our society of “the hateful longing for a foreign country.” “Longing for the homeland” began to ache in the Russian heart. The real war has already been called “liberation” in the broadest sense of the word. We want to free ourselves from foreign influence and live with our own Russian mind. The need for just such a liberation war is now being spoken loudly. Don't you think that it is our duty to take an active part in this necessary war? But can we take any part in this war, sitting behind these high walls of the monastery, gathering in the auditorium, looking for books in the library and bending over these books in our rooms? There is a bloody war on the battlefields. They need guns and shells, and you and I are unarmed people. A war begins with the Germans in the field of trade and industry. This war requires millions of capital, and our capital consists of kopecks and very few rubles. Our tools are books; our missiles are words and thoughts; We do not shed hot blood, but cold ink. But we can and must fight the enemy with these weapons. I want to tell you about the need for a war of liberation in the field of Russian Orthodox theology. We have already started talking in newspapers and magazines about “non-humanism” in theology. The schismatics took up all these speeches with particular pleasure. Many kinds of accusations have been made against us, against the theologian professors, the most serious and often simply offensive. Many people who have nothing to do with either Russian or German science have taken up arms against the “unmet” in Russian theological science. In all these speeches about German dominance in Russian theology, I see how people, firstly, go to extremes, and, secondly, do not indicate the real enemy, which is why the entire important question raised in its discussion loses the seriousness it deserves. Many are inclined to see the dominance of the Germans simply in those numerous German quotations that can be seen in Russian theological books. They don’t want to recognize any scientific achievements of the Germans. They forget that science cannot be limited to general views and conclusions. Real scientific conclusions require painstaking grunt work; One hour of synthesis sometimes requires years of analysis. In this menial work we have lagged behind the Germans and must inevitably use their labors. After all, I think that if we could now receive guns from the Krupp factories, they would not be rejected just because they are German. They probably would have been taken, but they would have been directed at the Germans. But we have many scientific instruments from the Germans, we can use them, but we must give them the purpose we desire. For example. We talk a lot about the study of the patristic works. But try to do this without the help of others, if in Russia they have never published patristic works in the originals! If you want to study the Latin church writer in the original, you will, of course, prefer the best edition of the Vienna Academy of Sciences - Corpus scrfiptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum. You will need an ancient Greek church writer - you will be pleased to learn that it is already available in that most perfect publication that the Prussian Academy of Sciences has undertaken - in Die griechische christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte. It is hardly possible to imagine anything more scientifically perfect than the publication of the “Church History” of Eusebius of Caesarea by Eduard Schwartz! Even if this publication, as soon as you open it, has a German title: “Eusebius Werke”, this may only make us ashamed, but it is hardly harmful to us! If we speak from the academic department about the need for a war of liberation in the field of Russian Orthodox theology, then we need to speak seriously - not pay attention to the little things, but point out the real and extremely harmful enemy, determine how and where he came from and why he spread and established himself among us. This is what I will try to do. I must start from afar and briefly recall several well-known historical facts, because foreign dominance in Russian theology has very deep historical roots and stands in the closest connection with the events of even Russian civil history. 1. Even at a time when Muscovite Rus' was living its own unique life, when all the “basurman” who happened to come were still looked at with superstitious horror, even then Western Rus' not only came into contact with the West, but also came under Western influence. Western Rus' was, after all, under the Polish Catholic empire. She had long encountered Catholicism and with difficulty in constant struggle defended her faith and nationality. Catholicism soon put its stamp on public education. Especially this Catholic influence on Western Russian enlightenment has been intensifying since the beginning of the 16th century. From the West, an enemy in the form of the Reformation was approaching Catholicism in Western Rus', and the Catholic hierarchy began to organize schools to repel this enemy. The Janissaries of Catholicism, so to speak, the Jesuit Fathers, were summoned. The papal nuncio urged the Polish king to establish Jesuit colleges, quasi praesidia religionis, in his state, as fortresses of faith. 2 And during the 16th century, Western Rus' was covered with a whole network of Jesuit colleges, led by the Vilna Academy. Orthodox Christians also studied in all these schools; Jesuit pedagogy was designed in such a way that the majority of students were converted to Catholicism. Before their eyes, Catholicism triumphed everywhere: in worship, in dogma, in polemics, and in exemplary debates, where the Jesuits, armed with brilliant dialectics, victoriously refuted everything non-Catholic 3 . But even when a student of the Jesuit school remained faithful to Orthodoxy, he left school imbued with the Catholic spirit, especially in the field of theology. And how could it be otherwise if, in his study of theology, he was guided by the doctor angelicus Thomas Aquinas with his Summa totius theologiae! In 1592, Metropolitan of Kiev Mikhail Ragoza wrote in his district message: “the teaching of the holy scriptures has become very poor, especially the Slovenian Russian language, and all people have adhered to the simple imperfect Lyadsky scripture, and for this reason they have fallen into various heresies, not leading in theology the power of perfect grammatical Slovenian language" 4. The Metropolitan points out the lack of national Orthodox education and the harm to Orthodoxy from teaching the Lyadsky Scripture. They tried to compensate for the lack of Orthodox education by establishing Orthodox schools of the Western Russian brotherhood. In contrast to Latin Catholicism, fraternal schools placed the study of Greek Orthodoxy in the foreground, but Orthodox schools could not do without the Latin language and without Latin science, because they were in a Catholic state and prepared citizens of a Catholic state. Latina were needed in Poland ad forum, for the affairs and life of civilians. Sylvester Kossov, for example, argues in his “Exegesis” as follows: “Our people need to study Latin sciences, first of all, so that our poor Rus' is not called stupid Russia. The advice to study only Greek and not Latin is good in Greece, but not in Poland, where Latin is especially common. The poor Rusyn will go to the tribunal, to the Sejm, to the sejmik, to the city, to the zemstvo - to pay his guilt without Latin; only, like a kite with its eyes wide open, it looks closely at this and that.” 5 The Latin and Polish languages, and with them the Catholic spirit, soon penetrated even the most Orthodox schools. “Each school went through two stages of its development: at first it existed as a Greek-Slavic school, then it gradually moved closer to the Latin-Polish one, and this rapprochement sometimes went very far” 6 . Some zealots rebelled against Latin teaching in Orthodox schools. Such, for example, was the Athonite monk John of Vyshensky, who said that “the fruits of the school of Latin rot and stink of eternal destruction”, that this “cursed school will not save a single student, will not give birth to the Kingdom of Heaven and will not teach him, even if he sends all his students to eternal destruction, because the teachers in it are scoundrels, Aristotelians, Magi, heretics, Origen and others like that.” Read about this in his essay “The beginnings of a wise Latin scholar with a stupid Rusyn in a dispute” 7 . The people themselves were sometimes indignant against the Latin direction of schools. So, for example, when Archimandrite Peter Mogila established a Jesuit-style college in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, “there was great indignation from the uneducated priests and Cossacks: why are you starting a Latin and Polish school, which has never happened to us before, and they were saved. They wanted to beat Peter Mogila himself and the teachers to death: they were barely persuaded” 8 . The Cossack massacre threatened to be serious. Remember from Gogol the picture of the Cossack massacre of the Jews in the Zaporozhye Sich. “Sink them in the Dnieper! To the Dnieper, gentlemen!” Something similar happened in relation to the Latin school; at least Sylvester Kossov, who himself was subjected to a pogrom, recalls: “What Peruns, what thunder rained down on us then, it is impossible to describe in ink. There was such a time that, having confessed, we were just waiting for them to start stuffing the stomachs of the Dnieper sturgeons with us, or to send one to the next world by fire, another by sword” 9 . But all such protests turned out to be powerless in the face of the course of history. Orthodox scholars, constantly polemicizing with Western heretics, gradually became saturated with their spirit, borrowed their theological system and rented (weapons) even the most polemical weapons. Having established itself in Western Rus', Catholic influence penetrated into Moscow Rus' in the 17th century. In the field of scientific and theological, Muscovite Rus' very soon came under Little Russian influence. Last year, the 1st volume of Prof.’s major work was published. K. V. Kharlampovich - “Little Russian influence on Great Russian church life” (Kazan, 1914). Only persons of southwestern origin who were active in various fields of Great Russian church life are listed here. Reading this book makes a very impressive impression. For two centuries we had some kind of Little Russian invasion in Moscow. “The newcomers occupied the most prominent and influential positions, from hierarchs to the administrations of consistories established by them, from educators of the royal family to monastery abbots, to rectors, prefects and teachers of schools designed by them, to cabinet and printing scientists, clerks, clerks and secretaries. Almost everything was subject to their reform, to an extreme irresistible influence: theological teaching, correction of the sacred and liturgical text, printing, matters of schism, church administration, preaching, church, public and home singing, sheet music, the appearance of bishops' houses, their way of life, carriages and harnesses, the clothing of ministers, for example. singers, type and composition of schools, subjects and methods of teaching, maintenance of libraries, spelling, pronunciation of oral and reading speech, public games and shows, etc., etc. 10 Moscow enlightenment in the 17th century came under the special influence of the Latinized Little Russians. It was in the 17th century that Moscow society and the Moscow government came to the idea of ​​the need to establish a properly organized school in Moscow. The Eastern patriarchs also took care of this. They looked at Moscow with very definite hope, as the only place where Orthodoxy enjoyed the support of state power. Constantinople was already in the hands of the infidel Turks. Back at the end of the 16th century (in 1593), the Alexandrian Patriarch Meletius Pigas wrote to Tsar Theodore Ioannovich: “establish a Greek school for yourself, O Tsar, as a living spark of sacred wisdom, because in our country the source of wisdom threatens to dry up to the ground” 11 . However, schools were not established in Moscow until almost the end of the 17th century. They limited themselves to calling individual scientists. Such people were needed by both the church and state governments. But where can we get such people? They were taken in Kyiv. In the 17th century in Moscow we find an original type of people - court monks, so to speak, invited from Kyiv. The duties of these monks were very complex and varied. They translated books that for some reason seemed necessary from different languages; They also compiled lexicons. They delivered sermons and, on special occasions, special “orations.” They had to write solemn and congratulatory verses for the joyful events of palace life and “Frenes” or “Lamentations” on the occasion of one or another death. They composed dogmatic treatises and denounced schismatics. Their responsibility was to compose church services for Russian saints, as well as “comedies” for the court theater. But Kyiv gave Moscow monks of different directions: some were supporters of Greek education, others were fans of Latin science. The pillar of the Greek trend and the center around which Moscow Grecophiles gathered was the Kiev scientist Epiphanius Slavinetsky, who lived in the Miracle Monastery. Contemporaries speak of him with the strongest praise. He was “a man of many learning, not only in grammar and rhetoric, but also in philosophy and theology itself, a famous tester and a most skillful reasoner” 12. But in the proper sense, Simeon of Polotsk was a court monk. This was a scientist of a completely different direction. “And he studied, but not so much (like Epiphanius), he was not a philosopher, and then only studied, as the custom is Pole and Lithuanian in Latin and Polish, but knew nothing of Greek scripture” 13. But it was Simeon of Polotsk who was the most influential scientist in Moscow. He was the teacher of the royal children - later the Russian rulers Feodor Alekseevich and Sofia Alekseevna. Under his leadership, in the palace of the Moscow Tsar “they read Lyak books for pleasure,” Latin-Polish education becomes fashionable in the palace and palace life is partly rebuilt in a European manner. Through Simeon of Polotsk and his zealous student and follower Sylvester Medvedev and through other similar Kyiv scientists, Latin influence penetrates into the area of ​​Moscow church life that interests us, the area of ​​theology. At the end of the 17th century, an interesting and very characteristic theological dispute flared up in Moscow about the time of the transfer of the Holy Gifts in the liturgy, and the Kievans of the Latin school directly defended the Catholic view. In Moscow cathedrals, real scholastic sermons are heard, even with references to the wise Anselm, to Bellarmine and the like. Imagine Moscow in the 17th century, with its churchly Orthodox way of life, with its complete distrust of everything foreign, with its boyars in long robes and high hats, with its magnificent cathedrals, where the Moscow high priests rest... And suddenly, in this setting, a scholastic sermon with references to Anselm is heard! The confusion that seized the Russian Orthodox people at such manifestations of the Latin-Little Russian invasion of Moscow is quite understandable. It seemed to the schismatics that Nikon’s corrections were inspired by Latinism, that the same “all-evil enemy” Satan, who “created the Roman kingdom in the west, where his throne is, created the mother and friend of all heresies and the source of all wickedness,” who in the form of the Latins “looked into our blessed Russian kingdom many times.” Now “the Russian kingdom has been torn away by Nikon’s trunks from Orthodoxy” 14. The foundations of such a philosophy of history were found in St. Scripture. Rome fell away a thousand years after the founding of the Church, when Satan was released from prison and went out “to deceive the nations” (Apoc. 20:7). And add the apocalyptic number 666 to a thousand, and you get the time of Nikon’s patriarchate. The well-known schismatic teacher, former Annunciation Cathedral, Deacon Fyodor Ivanov, was inclined to accuse the entire Orthodox hierarchy of sympathizing with Latinism. “They hated the curses, he writes, the holy Eastern Church of Zion and our mother’s right dogmas, and they scolded and trampled underfoot, but they loved and kissed the Roman harlot... and they receive with honor and listen with love to her cursed and flattering didaskals, and from those unclean spirits they get drunk with muddy drink, like the pig of a tavern bard” 15. The dissenter, however, presents the matter in a completely wrong way. In fact, the Moscow hierarchs of the 17th century fought with all measures against the Latin influence on Orthodox theology. After all, the great Nikon himself, hated by the schismatics, was an outstanding Greekophile. But Patriarch Joachim, who was previously the patriarch of the Chudovsky archimandrite, a friend of Epifan Slavinetsky, and the patron of the outstanding zealot of Greek Orthodoxy, the Chudovsky monk Euthymius, worked especially hard in the fight against Latin influence. Throughout his patriarchate, Patriarch Joachim tirelessly fought against Latinism, which was penetrating into Moscow, and before his death, at the council of 1690, he condemned the “bread-worshipping heresy” and other Latin wisdom of the Kievites. The patriarch gave an extensive report to this council, known as “Instructive Words.” From this word we can learn the way of thinking of the then helmsman of the Russian Church and his assessment of the events that took place in the second half of the 17th century. Here we read: “In the kingdom of the most pious sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Alexy Mikhailovich, autocrat of all great and small and white Russia, after the capture of the Polish state, a certain hieromonk came from the city of Polotsk to the reigning city of Moscow, who studied Latin with the Jesuits, with the name Simeon, nicknamed Polotskaya, he said to himself Eastern piety follower of being. The pious Tsar and the priestly bishop, believing him to be pious and Orthodox, entrusted him with all kinds of church affairs to write. He is Simeon, even if he was a learned and good-natured man, but he was forewarned by the Jesuits, the papists of existence, and was deceived by them, moreover, he reads their Latin books, but is not skilled in reading Greek books, for the sake of your wisdom, the Latin innovations of the right to be, from the Jesuits I learned whom, especially only Latin without Greek, the Orthodox Church cannot be weighty, the Eastern Church cannot be a sincere son; For they, the Jesuits, are forcing them to take terrible oaths to be obedient to the pope, their father, and a follower in everything and a Uniate and a defender of the Western Church, as the victims themselves knew this. He wrote some scriptures, collecting them from Latin books, and prepared others from the same Latin books. And in all his writings, the Latin malice wrote certain heresies: whether from lack of art, or from cunning, his conscience is a message, both hidden and unrecognizable, lying in his writings” 16. Further, the patriarch condemns various works of Simeon of Polotsk. Simeon had a book called “The Soulful Lunch.” The Patriarch said that this book is filled with “spiritual troubles.” “The book “The Crown of Faith”, which is woven not from beautiful flowers, God-bearing words of the fathers, but from the gory thorns of the vegetated innovation in the West, from the inventions of Scotus, Aquinas, Anselm, and similar heretical fornications” 17. The Patriarch forbids reading the works of Simeon of Polotsk. “By the authority given to us by the All-Holy Spirit, we prohibit all Orthodox sons, obedient to our archpastorship, from daring to read those books, which are considered to be blasphemy and heresies, as if they are not blessed, publicly and in churches, under church execution, for the sacred – under the eruption of the priesthood, and for the people – under excommunication” 18 . The patriarch also speaks about Sylvester Medvedev in his “Word”. “Following Simeon of Polotsk, his disciple and heir, the monk Sylvester Medvedev, who followed, for apostasy and heresy and against the holy Eastern Church for slandering him, was deprived of the image of a saint and the title of monk and was named after Senka Medvedev, deceived, as he himself says, from the Kyiv newly created books from the Latin teaching and from books and writings and words the approved teacher, the Uniate of Polotsk Semeon (living together with him in a single cell and always hearing his words, the Latin thoughts are full of existence, without knowing, he says, the flattery of his, seduced by the trail of his wisdom), expanding and establishing the Latin heresy among the people" 19. “The newly created books of Kiev, from which Senka Medvedev was deceived,” the patriarch and the council anathematize: “If anyone from now on hides his, Senka, and other writings in himself, he will not reject the evil of his tares-sowing fornication and denounce his devilishly flattering writings and will not repent of it and does not confess our morality or his spiritual father and does not lag behind, such a one will be, by the power given to us from the All-Holy and All-Effective Spirit, to bind and decide, bound and excommunicated from the Church of the Holy and Most Pure Mysteries of Communion and receive eternal punishment from God” 20 . This is how His Holiness Patriarch Joachim decisively fought against Latinism, which was brought to Moscow by Kyiv scientists and “newly created Kiev books.” The patriarch had fought against the Kyiv books before. He instituted the strictest censorship for them: he forced them to reprint, and sometimes simply tear out entire sheets; and completely prohibited other books 21. And yet Western Russian books were widely distributed throughout Muscovite Rus'. There was something that favored them. What exactly? This was the Moscow royal court, where there were even patrons of the Jesuits, like Prince P.V. Golitsyn, so close to Sophia. It was in these very court circles that Simeon of Polotsk and Sylvester Medvedev found support and even influence. Western Russian scientists even invented a special way to distribute their books in Moscow: they dedicated their books to the persons of the reigning house 22. In the palace, these books found a completely different reception than with the patriarch. The court favorite Simeon of Polotsk did not even submit to the censorship and control of the patriarch in his literary activities. The patriarch himself speaks about this in his “Instructive Word.” “That’s why Simeon got the hang of publishing some of his own books with printed embossing, slandering our regularity, prescribing in them, supposedly with our blessing that his books were printed. But we, before the typical publication of those books, read below, below as if we saw, but even after printing, it was by no means only a blessing, but below was our will” 23 . Obviously, in his struggle against Latin influence, Patriarch Joachim encountered opposition from the Westernizing and Latinophilizing court party. But if Patriarch Joachim failed to clear Muscovite Rus' of the “newly created Kievan books,” then he defeated the Latin party in establishing a higher school in Moscow. At the beginning of the last quarter of the 17th century, the idea of ​​​​establishing such a school finally matured among the Moscow government. A struggle began between the Greek and Latin parties over the question of what the higher Moscow school should be - Greek or Latin. The Greek party grouped around the patriarch. We also have literary monuments of the mentioned struggle, from which we see how the Greek party tried to protect the Moscow theological school from Latin influence and in which it saw the danger of Latin teaching. The actual question of whether to learn Greek or Latin is discussed in these monuments, but this question then had a real theological meaning. Language was, one might say, the banner of one or another theological direction. In our academic library there is a manuscript with the title: “The argument in brief, that the teachings and language of Hellenic Greek are more necessary than the Latin language and teachings, and how they benefit the Slavic people.” The need to study the Greek language here is proven by various considerations and the conclusion is drawn: “It is especially appropriate to study Greek, since that language not only does not harm the Orthodox faith, like Latin, but is also greatly corrected, and learn together with Slavic, as time has also purified the Slavic language (which is very rich) and has combined with other learned languages. And according to the Greek teaching, who wants to learn Latin without harm, and in the first to study the Latin language, there is great fear, as if the mystery and faith and Latin customs were not crept up by the Latin language, as we see in different peoples, especially in French, nothing changes the person and morals of the world, as if it were a strange teaching... And although the Belarusians study the Latin language, they are poor for the sake of Greek teaching (except for Lvov, where they study in Greek), but it is necessary to remember that a small part of them do not fall into it, the remnants of the Jesuvites are recognized in them, since the Jesuvites do not teach them high sciences, until they promise to hold the Latin religion before God" 24. But an even more interesting monument was preserved in the manuscript of the Petrograd Academy (No. 423), namely: “Reflection on whether we should learn useful grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and theology, and poetic art and from there learn the divine scriptures, or, without learning by this cunning, please God in simplicity, and from reading the mind of the holy scriptures learn - and what is better for Russians people learn Greek." It is possible that this reasoning belongs to the Miracle monk Euthymius. This is already an extensive treatise, written with very thorough and even versatile erudition. Here, by the way, is what we read here: “The Latin teaching on theology is corrupt and destructive and leads to the delusion of those. Our ancient holy fathers Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Athanasius the Great, John of Damascus and others, as if studying theology in the Greek language, so did both the faith and the writings and the study entrusted to them. Latin women believe in the theology written by him and corrupted by the enemy of the Church, the holy Eastern Jesuit Thomas Aquinus, and thus they study and teach; and having studied, anyone will conveniently fall into the rapids of that destruction, having retired from the holy fathers of feology, as the wise Greek Maximus says: “the destructive Latin teachings and wisdom of the God-bearing fathers are so far removed by tradition and teaching, as God alone can correct the mighty, this, they will understand the spoken power not in another city, only been to Roma itself; there the one who committed the lawlessness will be seen.” And again: “heretical grandeur and the latest Latin novelty and vanity - darkness and deep darkness; everything like the Latins is fierce and worthy of great disgust, even if the teachings of the God-bearing fathers do not agree, for they cannot rightly theologize.” “From the teachings of the Latin, without even seeing anything, the Eastern saints began to be strange and alien to the Church, our mother... and this is the beginning of the Slavs who accepted the Latin teaching even lower; Whenever you put this teaching into action and you will begin to prosper without suffering, according to the parable: those who fled from the smoke would not fall into the flames. To this end, when they hear the Latin teaching, which has begun in Moscow, the enemy of the truth, the weeder of Western thorns in the midst of pure wheat, the wicked Jesuits sown from the East, the wicked Jesuits will come and their incomprehensible syllogisms, or soul-destroying arguments, will begin to cunningly all, then what will happen? Nothing else, as if the smoke of the purifying fire, smoked by the smoke of Latin wisdom, will conceive a cock and give birth to strife, then (have mercy, God) a deviation from the truth, which little Russia suffers or has already suffered, having become accustomed to Latin, not all Uniates, Redians, and remaining Orthodox. For the sake of all of these, it is appropriate for the archpastor and for everyone, with an alert mind, to premeditate, anticipate, contemplate and extinguish with prayers, teachings and prohibitions the small spark of Latin teaching, not to allow those to be ignited and fumed, so that the flame of Western malicious wisdom does not spread and burn into nothing will convert Eastern Orthodoxy to the truth, since that multi-generational fire flares up and whoever falls into it will not be freed from it even with great difficulty, but will drown in it forever. If the people of Great Russia study the Greek-Slavic language (grant, Lord) and the honor of this book, they will avoid all these predicted troubles, and will agree in everything and be in harmony with the Eastern Holy Church and with the most holy, equal saints, the Evangelist, the Patriarchs, and the true disciples of Christ will be healthy and strong, and unshakable from attack non-Orthodox will remain in the Orthodox faith, based not on the sand of new thoughts, but on a solid foundation erected, on the very cornerstone of Christ, because no one can lay another foundation. Also, the most holy patriarchs will give a great blessing and prayer for the well-being of the Great Russian Empire, and the people of this surrounding, existing Eastern Orthodoxy, will thank God and bow to the Tsar’s Majesty, but they will also marvel at the opposition of Westerners and others to the courage, firmness and constancy in the faith of the Great Russian people, as if nothing could shake them. And their people, from the noble to the simple, and even the most, I say, villagers, having heard the Greek teaching, will rejoice and praise, and the rebels to the Church, putting aside all rumors, will be calmed down and will submit to the Holy Church and cleave through repentance. Even if the Latin teaching is heard among the people, and especially among the simpletons, we do not know what good to hope for, but, God, deliver us from all opposition.”25 All these and similar reasoning are very characteristic: they show us how firmly and adamantly the Patriarch of Moscow and his associates stood guard over the purity of Orthodoxy and with what apprehension they looked at the possibility of Latin influence on Orthodox theology. They considered Latin theology to be completely alien to the spirit of the Church, which is why they protected the Orthodox school from this theology. In the matter of establishing a higher school in Moscow, the Greek party, led by Patriarch Joachim, gained the upper hand. In 1682, the famous “privilege for the Academy” was drawn up. Here the Academy was granted very broad rights. The Academy was not only supposed to be a scholarly and educational institution; she has oversight over public education, over book printing, over the purity of the Orthodox faith, even the court for religious crimes. It is unknown who created this privilege. It was considered the work of Simeon of Polotsk 26, but there is no doubt that its final edition belonged to supporters of Greek Orthodox education” 27. In some places the privilege is directly directed against southern Russian scholars who might bring Latin influence into the school. “And those who come to our kingdom from the Lithuanian country and from Little Russia and from other countries, learned people who want to be Guardians and Teachers here in our schools, come and tell about themselves that they are pious, and from pious parents were born and raised in the Orthodox Eastern faith: and without genuine news about them, and reliable pious people, the testimony of their words is not believe, and in the Guardians and in the Teachers it would not be possible to establish them, even if one of them confirmed and reproached the truth of our Eastern faith with Scripture, and denounced and reproached the untruth of our Orthodox faith from the Romans and from the Luthers and from the Calvins, and from other heresies: for the sake of this, that custom is such a way for deceivers to confuse faiths create; First of all, such people appear to be supposedly completely pious, and strong zealots for piety, and then, when they are convinced of being pious, then little by little the corrupt words of our faith become overwhelming, and they begin to torment their immaculate integrity” 28 . Even before the publication of this privilege, the patriarch opened an elementary Greek school at the printing house, and when the Greeks of “self-brotherhood” Likhuda Ioannikis and Sophronius arrived from the East from the patriarchs, the foundation of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy was laid, where the Greek language immediately gained dominance: teaching itself was conducted in Greek, and educational manuals were also in Greek. At first the Academy itself was called “Greek schools”, “Hellenic-Slavic schola” 29 . Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church of the 17th century, headed by His Holiness the Patriarch, firmly adhered to Greek Orthodoxy and fought with all its might against the alien Latin theology, which was brought to Moscow by learned Little Russians. Thanks to the tireless labors of the zealous patriarch, the Greek direction is winning in Moscow, and everything Latin is moving away from the new theological school. It must be said that the Moscow patriarch was not alone in the fight against Latin influence. Even if he no longer found sympathy in this struggle from the Moscow government, the Eastern patriarchs were with him for one thing. The Russian Church was then in very lively relations with the ecumenical patriarchs, who personally came to Moscow and exchanged letters with the Russian church and civil government. The Eastern patriarchs always supported the Russian hierarchy in the fight against Latinism, sometimes even encouraged this fight and by all means contributed to the strengthening and dominance of Greek Orthodox education in Moscow. On the day of the Nativity of Christ in 1668, on behalf of the patriarchs present in Moscow, the word “On the seeking of Divine wisdom” was pronounced. Here the patriarchs mourn that the study of the Greek language is neglected in the Russian Orthodox family and persistently convince the tsar, hierarchs and all the people to take care of establishing a Greek school in Moscow. “From now on,” the Patriarchs turn to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, “put in your heart, the hedgehog schools - both Greek and other - to edify, to multiply students mercifully and benevolently, to seek good teachers, to encourage everyone with honors for hard work, then if you see many teachings, you will receive them in a little time, God willing, the fruit is a hundredfold and the handles full of these seeds” 30. But special mention should be made of the Patriarch of Jerusalem Dosifei, a great zealot of Orthodoxy in the 17th century, who vigilantly followed Russian church life and often wrote messages to Russian patriarchs, tsars, even individual church and civil leaders. Patriarch Dosifei looked at Russia as the support of all universal Orthodoxy, and therefore Russia, first of all, needs to adhere to the Orthodox faith in all its severity and purity. The patriarch looked with great alarm and great apprehension at the growing Western, predominantly Catholic, influence in Moscow. Patriarch Dosifei thought very clearly about Catholicism. “Papish charm is synonymous with atheism, for what is papalism and what is union, if not obvious atheism?” “The lawless fathers are worse than the wicked and godless; they are godless, for they offer two Gods - one in heaven and the other on earth.” “Nothing else is papism, but clearly not doubtful atheism” 31. “The Latins, who introduce church news into the faith, the sacraments and all the decrees, are obvious wicked people and schismatics, because they make the private church universal, and instead of Christ they consider the popes to be the head of the Church, and they consider the Roman Church, which is a private church, to be universal. And therefore, according to the fathers and teachers of the Church, they are deceivers, worthless and shameless people who do not have love, enemies of the peace of the Church, slanderers of the Orthodox, inventors of new errors, disobedient, apostates, enemies of the truth, envious, stubborn, disobedient, as the fathers admit them, and therefore worthy of contempt” 32. It is quite understandable that Patriarch Dosifei recommended the most drastic measures to the Moscow government to suppress Catholic influence. The Patriarch knew that in Moscow the Little Russians were the organs of Catholic influence, so don’t let them into the borders of the Moscow kingdom, especially don’t give them hierarchical positions! “It is appropriate to know that, because of the new cutting of Latin in the symbol of faith and the rejection of the church, falling into many lawless new cuttings, as if the proud papacy has disturbed and confused the customs and canons and traditions of not just the holy fathers, but also the spirit-bearing apostles themselves. The Russians in Ukraine, even though they preserve Orthodoxy unshakably, have corrupted many of the customs of the Orthodox” 33. “Oh, if only, most pious, the ancient charter was preserved there in Moscow: let there be no abbots and archimandrites from the Cossack family, but Muscovites both in Moscow and in Cossack land, and Cossacks only in Cossack land, for it is not proper to harness a horse and a donkey together, or to weave fleece and flax together. Let the Cossack priests be far from the abbess of Moscow and from other dignity. Although we profess the Cossacks to be Orthodox, many of them have corrupt morals and these morals are not appropriate for the local Orthodox to adopt from them” 34 . “Even if serfs or Greeks or other people come from here, even if by chance there were the wisest and most holy persons, your sovereign and God-established kingdom will never create a metropolitan or partrarch of a Greek, a serf or a Russian, but a Muscovit, and not just Muscovites, but many and great natural Muscovites for the sake of wine: ...most of all, Muscovites are the guardians and praisers of their dogmas. But it is not appropriate for a Greek and a Serf and a Rus to have possession in Muscovy, for it may be good for them, but it may also be contrary to them. Then the Muscovites keep their fatherly faith, not newly cut, being not curious and not crafty people; but strangers and strangers who pass here and there can produce some news in the church” 35. “If your great kingdom,” Dositheus already wrote to Peter, has the intention of making the election of a patriarch, let him command that the election of a person not be carried out from among the Cossacks and (few) Russians and Serbs and Greeks, there is a lot of confusion and gossip with schismatics and heretics, and the same below they have not flattering and pure Orthodox dogma in everything, but yes order that a person be elected from among the Muscovites himself, and so that he is old and of good citizenship, for the time being the Muscovite patriarchs were there, keeping the preaching of Orthodoxy intact” 36. In Moscow, Patriarch Dosifei learns, Western books have appeared in great abundance 37 and he writes to Patriarch Joachim of Moscow in 1679: “Take heed with great diligence so that none of the faithful, both great and small, do not honor or keep in their possession books that contain the nasty and godless teaching of father’s admirers, or the godless and the bad teaching of the Luthers and Calvins, because they are filled with the essence of flattery and deceit, and in the pretense of piety they have the teaching of godlessness” 38. Two and a half years later, at the beginning of 1682, Patriarch Dosifei again wrote to Patriarch Joachim: “Keep, keep, keep the flock of Christ clean from Latin letters and books, as everything in them is the teaching of the Antichrist, since they are full of new cuttings, full of blasphemy; in them there is the atheism of Calvin and Luther, the splendor and beauty of the holy churches of Christ prevails; Do not mix with fornicators, as the apostle said, for fornicators are heretics and their books. The great king Constantine and Theodosius and Ustinian, who laid down the law of Porphyry and Manentus, let the books not be found, where they are found, they are burned, and the elders are buried, they are executed by death. Do the same about Latin books, for they are flattering and charming... And if anyone seeks teaching, learn the Hellenic language, and not another” 39. Advising to mercilessly burn Latin books, the patriarch at the same time strongly urged “to set up a Hellenic Greek printing house in Moscow and print several books for the Latins who are opponents of the Church of God, and after printing those books, translate them into the Slovenian language, from which all Orthodox Christians will have many and great benefits, and disgrace for the heretic and the enemy” 40. It is necessary to print theological books “in order to tear apart and destroy the purulent false teaching woven by the lawless from thorn threads, and to spread the tunic of Orthodoxy” 41 . The Patriarch contributed to the opening of a Greek school in Moscow and joyfully welcomed this opening, and also expressed his view on the study of the Greek language: “And this is a divine work for Christians to learn the Hellenic language, in order to understand the books of the Orthodox faith as they are scriptures, and to understand their interpretations conveniently, and especially so that they are kept away from the Latin ones, whose fulfillment is wickedness and delusion, heresies and godlessness" 42. On another occasion, Patriarch Dosifei expressed his views on the study of Russian languages ​​even more sharply. Deacon Polyansky turned to the patriarch with the question: should children be taught Greek or Latin? The Patriarch writes in response: “The Hellenic language is incomparably preferred to Latin, and whoever prefers Latin is a heretic and wicked” 43... As you can see, on all issues of the fight against Latinism, the Moscow Patriarch had an adviser and like-minded person in the person of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. In this unity with the East, the Moscow church government, of course, had no small assistance in the fight against the enemy. The firm ecclesiastical authority of the patriarch, based on unity with the Eastern churches - this is what successfully contrasted Moscow Orthodoxy of the 17th century with the foreign Latin invasion! The fight against Latinism was therefore even successful, although the royal court already sympathized with Latinism. The free Russian church did not submit to foreign domination in theology. But soon everything in Russia became different. 2. The last year of the patriarchate of Joachim was the first year of the sole reign of Peter. On the royal throne was the protodeacon of the most drunken and most humorous council... When I think about Peter, I can’t help but think of Konstantin Aksakov’s poem “Peter”: All Rus', all her life so far This stamp lies on the entire eighteenth century of Russian history. It is painful and offensive for the Russian heart to read the history of this unfortunate century, when the “chicks of Petrov’s nest” were fooling around, as Klyuchevsky put it, over Russia. Among these “chicks” there appeared in abundance Germans, with whom Peter had previously organized campaigns against Ivashka Khmelnitsky in the German settlement, then transferred them, heretics and foreigners, first to the Moscow Kremlin, and then to his northern “Paradise”, whose name, as a voluntary confession, The St. Petersburg era began in the history of Russia... The time of evil and grief has come, the time of German dominance has come, when the Russian people were bewildered to see the German government in their midst, when even the Courland groom tried it on. Difficult days have come for the Orthodox Church since Peter. Peter's reform was carried out in wartime; therefore, it was of a nervous and painful nature, often losing all meaning and seriousness when, for example, it invaded the department of tailors and hairdressers. It was a revolution in its methods and in the impression it made on the minds and nerves of its contemporaries 44 . The popular opposition to such a reform, which seemed to be an incomprehensible breakdown of age-old customs, the ancient way of Russian life, and time-honored folk beliefs and habits, is understandable.”45 The people responded to Peter's reform with the legend of the impostor Tsar and the Antichrist Tsar. “The Germans bypassed him. Now he’s stepped on God, he’s removing the bells from churches.” If Peter did not step on God, then undoubtedly he stepped on the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox hierarchy, he stepped with all his heavy feet. In ancient Rus', the Orthodox hierarchy was completely popular: it lived the life of the people, had a powerful influence on it and enjoyed full respect and authority. The Great Russian hierarchy, together with the people, also shared an unsympathetic attitude towards the Petrine Revolution. Lack of sympathy and even at times opposition to the hierarchy angered the angry king and he declared: “The elders and priests are the root of much evil.” And so Peter begins to change, or, better said, replace the hierarchy. He appoints Little Russian hierarchs to the Great Russian dioceses who would sympathize with his reforms and defend them from the church pulpit, even if they are of a low moral level and of very dubious Orthodoxy. Such were, for example, Theodosius Yanovsky and Feofan Prokopovich, who brought a lot of evil to both individual people and the entire Russian church. Along with an alien government, an alien hierarchy was also created. The dominance of Little Russians in church administration reached its highest tension in the 18th century. Already Catherine II, for political reasons, issued a decree according to which, so to speak, the Great Russians were given equal rights with the Little Russians in the Great Russian dioceses. The Little Russian hierarchy, implanted by Peter, was extremely unpopular. Both the people and the clergy treated her with contempt and hostility. “Cherkas”, “lyashenok”, “oblivanets” - this is how the Little Russian hierarchs were usually called, from whom they often had to endure great insults. “They had expensive carriages and golden carts. And we, victorious, oppressed, cry day and night; They variously order secretaries and clerks to annoy us Russians and do dirty tricks, but they supply their Cherkasy people and protect them in every possible way” 46 . Theophan went so far that in 1726 even Catherine pointed out to him: “from now on, he, the bishop, will be opposed to St. Do not repair anything to the church, and have a pure, seduced life, like all Great Russian Orthodox bishops live” 47. A firm and more or less independent church authority, which, as we have seen, struggled in the 17th century with Latin influence on theology, was not in Peter's interests; he needed to eliminate it. And Peter destroys the patriarchate, appointing Little Russian Stefan Yavorsky as locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, and then establishing the “Spiritual Collegium”. The dishonest sophisms with which Feofan Prokopovich proves in the “Regulations”, contrary to the 34th apostolic canon, the advantages of collegial governance in the local church, of course, did not convince anyone. The real goal of the reform was clear - “to reduce the supposedly cruel glory of the bishops,” i.e. deprive the church hierarchy of its former influence on people's life. The Synod could not replace the patriarch for the church and people's life, especially since Peter filled the Synod with Little Russians at its opening. The original composition of the Synod included five Western Russians, one Serb, one Greek and four Great Russians, with the president and both vice-presidents being Little Russians. The rude protesting response of the Trinity-Sergius hieromonk Vikenty Chertsov is understandable: “What a Synod, and what a Synod! “Everyone in the Synod is a fool, the Poles” 48. Russian church power, I said, found support and support in unity with the Eastern patriarchs. Since the time of Peter, Russia did not see an ecumenical patriarch until 1913. Peter himself, of course, considered it unnecessary to consult with the patriarchs. He turned to them only so that they would allow “the Most Illustrious and Most Pious Greatest in Christ the King of all Great and Little and White Russia of all the northern countries, the Possessor, Sovereign Peter Alekseevich, the consumption and communion of meats during all good fasts throughout the summer” 49 . Peter laid his heavy hand on Russian enlightenment. We have seen how the Moscow government of the 17th century cared about scientific enlightenment precisely in the spirit of Greek Orthodoxy. This religious interest was completely alien to Peter. He not only began to send Russian people to study with the Western heretics themselves, but also in Moscow on Pokrovka he set up a German gymnasium for the Protestant pastor Gluck, especially since it was Gluck who lived with the schones Madchen von Marienburg, a Livonian peasant woman and the future Russian Empress Catherine I 50 . Finally, Peter very decisively touched upon the church school specifically, the young Moscow Academy, where, as we have seen, at the end of the 17th century, at the insistence of the patriarch, the Greek direction was established. A new period in the history of the Academy began with Peter. “When, after the death of Patriarch Adrian, in 1701, His Grace Metropolitan of Ryazan, Stefan Yavorsky, was entrusted with the rule of the patriarchal diocese, and ordered by decree to take charge of the same monastery and the Academy of Latin Teaching; then he called spiritual teachers from Kyiv”... and “teachings were carried out in the Latin dialect in the Zaikonospassky monastery” 51. From 1704 until the time of Metropolitan Plato, the Academy for the most part had mentors from Kyiv, who in teaching followed the Kyiv educational manuals, and introduced into the life of the Academy the rules that had long been established in Kyiv, in a word, they gave it their spirit, their direction. There is reason to think that in order to speed up education, Kyiv mentors even brought trained students from Kyiv with them to Moscow: in the list of philosophy students that has come down to us in 1704. Among the 34 people, only three are Great Russians, and all the others have Belarusian and Polish surnames. All lessons were read and essays were written in the same Latin language 52. The Academy lost not only its former Greek direction, but also its Greek name. The name “Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy” has been established since the time of Metropolitan Plato. Before Peter, we saw that the Academy was called the “Hellenic-Slavic schola.” In the Senate decrees of Peter the Great's time, the Academy is called “Latin schools” 53 or “Slavic-Latin” 54; the very teaching at the Academy is called the “science of the Latin language” 55. Patriarch Dosifei of Jerusalem learned with sorrow about the change of direction at the Moscow Academy. He hoped that this change would be a fleeting phenomenon, that “I bless God, the guardians of the Catholic Church of Christ will awaken, and all those who exist here will sense the smell of death, hidden in the smell of life, and will trample it underfoot and crush it” 56 . The patriarch's hope was in vain. The future promised little comfort. Indeed, in the 18th century there were times when every word in defense of Orthodoxy and in denouncing Western heresies was considered a political crime, an insult to the ruling German-Courland party at court. Some bishops lost their sees and went to prison simply because they published and distributed “The Stone of Faith” by Stefan Jaworski, this extensive polemical work directed against Protestants. Feofan Prokopovich, who sympathized with Protestantism, considered the distribution of the “Stone of Faith” a personal insult, and it was dangerous to insult Feofan, because he was a friend of Biron and Osterman. With the complete dominance of the Little Russians in the Academy in the 18th century, Western scholastic theology was established. As an authority, they referred, among other things, to Thomas Aquinas, in whose system “in the shadow of vices and sins, the light of virtues and grace shines more clearly” 57 . Scholastic theology established itself in all theological schools, which began in the 18th century. All future shepherds of the Russian people, all future theologians spoke Latin. Here we need to see the beginning of the alienation of the clergy from the people. The Latin language and Latin theology dominated the theological school in the 19th century. Latin lectures on theology were also given in our Academy, 58 and these lectures were often closely related to Western heretical models. Our grandfathers still studied Latin in seminaries. Now seminarians can barely translate the Latin book, but scholastic theology is still alive to this day. So, this is how far and deep in history lie the roots of foreign dominance in our theology. In Muscovite Rus', foreign influence on theology found proper rebuff from the zealots of Orthodoxy and from the firm church authorities. During the Petrine Revolution, church power was crushed and suppressed, and alien theology was, as it were, forcibly planted on Russian soil. This is a sin not so much of the church hierarchy as of the civil government, created by Peter and a spirit alien to the Russian people. The enslaved Church could not overthrow from its theology with a firm hand the Latin-German yoke imposed on it, pleasing to the state power of the 18th century. Western heresies were closer and more understandable to the Russian government than Eastern Orthodoxy. But what was the impact of Latin and Western influence in general on our school theology? Have our theology and our theologians, having fallen under Western influence, begun to preach the Filioque, papal supremacy and papal infallibility, or to deny the authority of the Church like the Protestants? Nothing of the kind. Our theology was rather replete with polemical works directed against all the above-mentioned and similar Western errors. What then is the Latin influence? The Latin influence has affected our solution to the most vital theological issues, touched the very soul of theology. The polemic with Latinism, touching on the indicated dogmatic differences, did not have in mind the most important and significant. Since ancient times, Orthodox polemicists, in their polemics with Latinism, strained out mosquitoes and left camels without attention. There were dozens of Catholic heresies, but they did not indicate the main destructive error of Latinism. Indeed, among the Catholic heresies, for example, our Russian Metropolitan George pointed out the following: they eat bear and donkeys; Their priests eat beaver meat for fasting, they say that fish eat all sorts of things from water; they shave their beards with a razor, which is calculated from the Law of Moses and from the Gospel" 59 . In comparison with these “heresies”, unleavened bread, papal infallibility, Filioque and other things that are refuted in our “accusatory theologies” are, of course, incomparably more important. However, the essence of faith, its soul, is not here. “Religion is, or at least claims to be, an artist of salvation, and its job is to save” 60. Religion, according to the Orthodox understanding, is piety, eusebeia, reverence for the good, striving for the good, and religious good is salvation. “The question of personal salvation represents precisely this point in the system of our religious doctrine, at which the latter comes face to face with reality, with real being, and wants to show in life, in practice, what exactly is the truth that it preaches. At this point, each religion can find an impartial assessment. Anyone who wants to know the true essence of Catholicism, Protestantism or Orthodoxy must turn not to their theoretical teaching, but to their concept of life, to their teaching, namely, about personal salvation, in which (the teaching) this concept is most clearly expressed - he must question each of the faiths, in what it believes the meaning of a person’s life, his highest good” 61. So, the soul of faith is in salvation and the soul of theology is in the doctrine of salvation. So what? During the Latin and German invasion, did our theology preserve the Orthodox teaching on salvation? Let us briefly recall the basic concepts of the Orthodox teaching on salvation. The free retreat and isolation of the progenitor from God resulted in expulsion from paradise, alienation from God and human suffering. All human nature fell under the power of decay and death. The Only Begotten Son of God is incarnated from the Virgin and takes full human nature into the unity of His Divine Hypostasis. In Christ, human nature and Divine nature are united “unfused, unchangeable, inseparable, inseparable,” and human nature itself has therefore been deified and received new powers. Christ is the new Adam, the founder of the new humanity. He who is in Christ is a new creation. The “primordial beauty” of human nature is restored, which in Christ turned out to be “alien to corruption” and has conquered death and corruption. Having the gracious help of the Holy Spirit, a person is reborn, cleanses himself of sin and corruption and again returns to himself “first bliss.” This bliss is not given as an external reward, but as an internal consequence it grows from virtue and freedom from sin. The point is that, having become a participant in the Divine nature and having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, a person again becomes σως - whole, healthy, normal. The state of creation about which the Lord God once said: “all good things” is restored. Thus - incarnation, re-creation, deification, incorruption and bliss - within the framework of these concepts the Orthodox teaching on salvation moves. Read the works of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Athanasius the Great "Words against the Arians", St. Gregory of Nyssa “Great Catechetical Discourse”, St. Gregory the Theologian “Words on Theology” and “On the Epiphany”, Rev. John of Damascus “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” - everywhere you will see in what a close and inextricable connection soteriology and Christology stand with each other, how the entire teaching about salvation converges to a single center - the Incarnation of God the Word, to the great mystery of piety: God appeared in the flesh! St. Irenaeus of Lyon calls those of little faith who do not attach any importance to the economy of the incarnation, through which the perfection of our humanity was realized 62. Here are a few lines from the famous words of Gregory the Theologian “On Epiphany” or “On the Nativity of the Savior.” “The Word of God itself, the eternal, invisible, incomprehensible, incorporeal, the beginning from the beginning, light from light, the source of life and immortality, the imprint of original beauty, the unbearable seal, the unchangeable image, the definition and word of the Father, comes to His image, bears flesh for the sake of flesh, unites with the rational soul for the sake of my soul, purifying like with like, becomes man in everything except sin. Although the Virgin bears womb, in whom soul and body are purified by the Spirit; However, what came into being is God and with what was received from Him (human nature) is one of two opposites - flesh and Spirit, of which One deified, and the other deified. Oh, a new mixture! Oh, wonderful dissolution! He who is rich becomes poor; he becomes poor even in my flesh, so that I may become rich in His Divinity; He who is fulfilled is exhausted, exhausted not for long in His glory, so that I may be a partaker of His fullness. What a wealth of goodness! What is this mystery about me? I received the image of God, and did not keep it; He perceives my flesh in order to save both the image and the flesh to immortalize. He enters into a second communication with us, which is much more wonderful than the first, since then he gave us the best, but now he perceives the worst; but this is more divine than the first, this is higher for those who have intelligence!.. How many triumphs each mystery brings me! In all of them, the main thing is one thing: my accomplishment, reconstruction and return to the first Adam” 63. This is how the Holy Church theologizes about salvation! But what does our school theology tell us about salvation? Let's see. “The whole mystery of our redemption by the death of Jesus Christ is that He, in our place, paid with His blood the debt to the Truth of God for our sins, which we ourselves were not able to pay: otherwise, in our place, He fulfilled and suffered everything that was required for the remission of sins... The Lord Jesus brought full and completely satisfactory payment for our debt. This duty of ours to God consisted in the fact that we did not fulfill His will, which we should have fulfilled, and by our disobedience we endlessly offended our Creator, and after that we were condemned by Him to suffering and death, which is the inevitable consequence of sin and just retribution for sin... The Lord Jesus brought an abundant payment for us. For no matter how great and numerous the sins of the entire human race may be, they are limited both in nature and in number; and the self-sacrifice, suffering and death of Jesus Christ, the Divine and infinite Person, must have infinite value, in all respects, before the court of eternal righteousness. And, therefore, no matter how great, no matter how immense the insult,. caused by our sins to the Majesty of the highest Being; but the satisfaction brought for them by Jesus Christ is incomparably greater. And therefore, He not only completely paid off the debt for us with His priceless blood, but also bought for it, acquired eternal blessings for us... That is why we believe that the suffering and death of our Savior have not only the meaning of a ransom for us and payment of the debt; but also the significance of the greatest merits before the court of eternal Truth” 64. Here we have a completely different set of concepts: insult, retribution, curse, atonement, satisfaction and merit. Read the article by Prof. in the first volume of our anniversary collection. A.P. Orlova: “The Soteriology of Anselm of Canterbury” - there, in this father of Latin scholasticism, you will find all these concepts. And in comparison with Gregory the Theologian in the seminary textbook, Metropolitan Macarius speaks differently about salvation: “The main thing is my completion, reconstruction and return to the first Adam!” “The whole mystery of our redemption by the death of Jesus Christ is that He, in our place, paid with His blood the debt to the Truth of God for our sins.” This is what Latin and German slavery did to our theology! In the doctrine of salvation, this slavery has torn our theology away from Gregory the Theologian and other Church Fathers and brought us closer to Anselm and the other scholastic Fathers! Macarius even accepts the concept of merit; all he has to do is add a little in order to transfer into the work of salvation the entire Catholic mechanism of the banking house, which A. S. Khomyakov spoke about 65 . But ask people who have gone through secondary theological school how they theologize about salvation! Ask our rural uneducated priests! First of all, you will learn that they generally do very little theology, but still you will notice without much difficulty that they think about salvation according to Macarius, and not according to Athanasius the Great or Gregory the Theologian. The school has put its scholastic stamp on its eyelids... But let none of you think: has the Church really betrayed its Orthodoxy? The schismatics no longer failed to give their malicious positive answer to such a question, for example, in Melnikov’s cleverly conceived and blasphemously written book on “wandering theology.” No, the Church has not and could not change its Orthodoxy; As soon as the school ceased to think completely according to the Church, a certain gap occurred between the Church and the school. The Church now lives and breathes the same idea of ​​salvation that it lived and breathed one and a half thousand years ago. The Church even now has its own treasury of theology, which is significantly different from school theology. This treasure is in the liturgical books. After all, most of our liturgical books were compiled at a time when there was not even any Latinism and there was no scholasticism. Many of the liturgical hymns, stichera, and canons were written by the great theologians of the ancient Church. In worship we hear a pure and unspoiled echo of the theology of the patristic, ancient church. For several years now, sorrow and bitterness have been oppressing my heart from the awareness of how the Christian idea of ​​salvation is distorted in our school theology, and without a joyful trembling of my heart I cannot hear our worship. I rejoice as a son of the Church and as a theologian, because every almost minute in the service I hear those very pure and lofty concepts about the truths of Christian life that captivated me in patristic theology. Read the service for Christmas and the Annunciation, and you will find the same thoughts about the matter of salvation that St. expressed in the second century. Irenaeus of Lyons, in the fourth - Athanasius, Vasily and both Gregory, in the seventh - Rev. Maximus the Confessor, in the eighth - Venerable. John of Damascus, in the eleventh - Rev. Simeon, the New Theologian, or, better to say, everything and in all centuries in the sacred East! In the liturgy itself, when we begin to celebrate the greatest sacrament, we priests speak in the altar before the throne about salvation, which is not at all what school dogma teaches us. In the liturgy of St. We confess John Chrysostom: “Thou hast brought us from non-existence into being, and thou hast restored us to what had fallen away, and thou hast not retreated, having created all things, until thou hast raised us to heaven, and thou hast granted Thy kingdom to the future.” More details in the liturgy of St. Basil the Great: “When the fulfillment of times had come, You spoke to us through Your Son Himself, in Whom You also created the eyelids, Who is the radiance of Your glory and the mark of Your Hypostasis, bearing all the words of His power, not theft of Nepschev’s being equal to You God and Father, but this Eternal God, appearing on earth as a man Having lived and been incarnated from the Virgin Mary, He has given Himself the form of a servant, becoming conformed to the body of our humility, so that He may make us conformed to the image of His glory; For since by man sin came into the world and through sin death, Thy Only Begotten Son, who was in the bosom of Thee God and Father, being of the holy wife of the Mother of God and the Ever-Virgin Mary, being under the law, was pleased to condemn sin in His flesh, so that in Adam, who died, they might be quickened in Thy Christ Himself.” So, look what a disagreement there is between the Church and the school! This is what the Latin-German dominance in theology has done in Rus'! The classroom department of a theological school and the church pulpit and choir speak different theological languages ​​at the same time! I consider it my moral duty to call you to fight against this harmful Latin-German dominance and its sad fruits in our theology in this terrible time of the Patriotic War of Liberation. The fight has already begun. Over the past twenty-five years, many theological works have already been written, the contents of which are significantly different from the works of the recent past. In our country, thank God, a new theological direction has already arisen, overthrowing the deadening bonds of former scholasticism. It is this direction that one must adhere to with all the fervor of youth and without any doubt. It is necessary to ensure that this new direction receives the widest distribution and complete dominance. And even now, we still have quite a few hunters who brand everything that does not agree with Macarius as “liberalism” and even “non-human”! In the scholastic doctrine of salvation, first of all, two forts, two concepts, must be demolished to the ground: satisfaction and merit. These two concepts must be thrown out of theology without a trace, forever and completely. Destroy these two forts, and the ghostly stronghold of scholasticism will soon fall and crumble. And her sad memory will die without noise... But where is the reason that is alien to the spirit? Does the Church of Scholasticism persist in our theological school and in theology even in the twentieth century, even to this day? There could be quite a few reasons, but I will point out first of all one that most closely concerns you and me. One of the reasons is the grave sin of the students of our theological academies. Having observed academic life for ten years, I involuntarily noticed with sadness and sadness, sometimes with indignation, that Academies students do too little theology and are even less interested in theology. The result is an extremely abnormal phenomenon: a student at the Theological Academy, finishing the course, has some philosophical, historical, even political views, but does not have certain theological views. Purely theological questions do not bother him; It’s as if he doesn’t even understand how this theological question can touch the very core of the soul, break and turn a person’s whole life upside down, force him to plunge into fire and water. The ghostly stronghold of scholasticism also holds on because there are no animated warriors who would attack it with bitterness, realizing and feeling how this stronghold interferes with the spiritual life of a person, how it stands in the way of his spiritual development and improvement, on the path of Christian salvation, replacing spiritual revival and salvation with some strange legal transaction with the Lord God. This is why they take on scholastic emptiness because they have no life-theological convictions. It is in these war days that I appeal to you. You are exempt from military service, you are sitting not in trenches, but at desks - so do not shy away from the necessary recruitment into the army of Christ, into the already small army of theologians! The scholastic fortress is our academic section of the common front. If we are living people and living members of the Church of Christ, we must feel that this fortress is interfering with us, our Orthodox life. To raze the enemy fortress of scholasticism to the ground - this is our academic task, if we really want to participate in the great war of liberation! And one more wish and hope. I told you why in the 17th century our fight against Latinism was even successful, but in the 18th century this fight stopped. My answer to this question will not help us unite in a common desire that what was lost under Peter two hundred years ago be returned to us: the patriarchate and freedom of the Church! Introductory reading September 12, 1915. K. Kharlampovich. Western Russian Orthodox schools of the 16th and early 17th centuries, their attitude towards non-Orthodox people, religious teaching in them and their merits in the defense of the Orthodox faith and church. Kazan 1898, p. 39. A. Khlarlampovich. Western Russian Orthodox Schools, p. 104. See Acts relating to the history of Western Russia. Ed. Archaeogr. commissions. T.4. St. Petersburg, 1851, No. 32, stlb. 42. O. T. Golubev. History of the Kyiv Theological Academy (pre-Mogila period). Vol. 1. Kyiv. 1886. Applications, p. 82. See also Kharlampovich, Western Russian Orthodox Schools, p. 426. K. Kharlampovich, Western Russian Orthodox Schools, pp. 414–415. S.T Golubev. Kiev Metropolitan Peter (Mogila) and his associates, vol. 1. Kyiv. 1883. Applications, p. 102. S.T Golubev. Kiev Metropolitan Peter (Mogila) and his associates, vol. 1. Kyiv. 1883. Applications, p. 432. S.T. Golubev. History of the Kiev Theological Academy, p. 229 and Appendixes, p. 80. P. Bessonov. Belarusian songs, prev. VI, See K.V. Kharlampovich. Little Russian influence on Great Russian church life, p. 3. Malyshevsky. Patriarch of Alexandria Meletius Pigas. vol. 2. Kyiv. 1872, p. 10. See About the wisest Hieromonas Epiphanius of Spavinetsky and Simeon of Polotsk. Osten. Kazan. 1865, p. 70. Prof. N. I. Subbotin. Materials for the history of the schism in the early days of its existence, vol.6. Moscow. 1881, pp. 281. 282. 284. Materials for the history of the schism, vol. 6, pp. 252. See prof. K.V. Kharlampovich. Little Russian influence, pp. 442–447 See prof. K.V. Kharlampovich. Little Russian influence, p. 450 Additions to the edition of the works of the holy fathers. 1889. Part 44, pp. 679, 677 See M. Smentsovsky. Brothers Likhud. St. Petersburg 1899. Appendices, pp. 22–23, 24–26 Hierotheus of Tatar. Simeon of Polotsk. Moscow. 1886, p. 261 Prof. N.F. Kapterev. About Greco-Latin schools in Moscow in the 17th century. Additions to creativity St. fathers. Part 44. p. 655, esp. 670 Add. to creation St. fathers. Part 44, pp. 663–634 S.K. Smirnov. History of the Moscow Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. Moscow. 1855, pp. 38–39, 44–60 See Prof. N.F. Kapterev. Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. T.2. Sergiev Posad. 1912, p. 457. N.F. Kapterev. Relations between the Patriarch of Jerusalem Dosifei and the Russian government. Moscow 1891, pp. 87–88. History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem. Book 10. Part 3. Ch. 1. Par. 9. N.F. Kapterev. Relations between the Patriarch of Jerusalem Dosifei and the Russian government. Appendix No. 16. Moscow 1891, p. 69. Archive of Southwestern Russia. V, page 154. Letter to the sovereign dated June 2, 1702. N.F. Kapterev. Relations between the Patriarch of Jerusalem Dosifei and the Russian government. Appendix No. 8. Moscow 1891, p. 42. Right there. Appendix No. 11, page 56 See prof. for more details on this. K.V. Kharlampovich. Little Russian influence, p. 440 N.F. Kapterev. Relations between the Patriarch of Jerusalem Dosifei and the Russian government. Appendix No. 14. Moscow 1891, p. 64. Right there. Appendix No. 15, page 67 N.F. Kapterev. Relations between the Patriarch of Jerusalem Dosifei and the Russian government. Moscow 1891, pp. 103–104. Description of documents and files stored in the archives of the Holy Governing Synod. T.1. St. Petersburg 1868. Applications, stlb. SSSSP Greek Affairs 1702 No. 1. N.F. Kapterev. Relations of Patriarch Dosifei, p. 172. Prof. V.O. Klyuchevsky. Russian history course. Part 4. Moscow. 1910, pp. 285–292 Prof. V.O. Klyuchevsky. Russian history course. Part 4. Moscow. 1910, p. 297 Prof. K.V. Kharlampovich. Little Russian influence, p. 474 Prof. K.V. Kharlampovich. Little Russian influence, pp. 471–472 Complete collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, vol. 5. St. Petersburg. 1830. No. 3020, p. 468 See about this gymnasium from prof. V.O. Klyuchevsky. Course of Russian history, part 4, pp. 322–327 Historical news about the Moscow Academy, composed in 1726 from the Director of Information Fyodor Polikarpov, and supplemented by His Grace Bishop of Smolensk Gideon Vishnevsky. Ancient Russian Vivliofika, part 16. Moscow 1791, pp. 302–303 S.K. Smirnov. History of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, pp. 81–82 Complete Collection of Laws, vol. 5. No. 2978, p. 189 Complete Collection of Laws, vol. 5. No. 3182, p. 554 Greek affairs 1702 N.F. Kapterev. Relations between the Patriarch of Jerusalem Dositheus and the Russian government, p. 172 See S.K. Smirnov. History of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, pp. 142–143 S.K. Smirnov. History of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. Moscow. 1879, pp. 13–22 Prof. A.S. Pavlov. Critical experiments on the history of the ancient Greek-Russian polemic against the Latins. St. Petersburg. 1878, pp. 192, 195, 152 Prof. Priest P.A.Florensky. Reason and dialectics. Theological Bulletin. 1914. T.3, p.87 Archbishop Sergius. Orthodox teaching on salvation. Ed. 4. St. Petersburg. 1910, pp. 5–6 Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, ch. 99. Word 38. Creations 4. 3. Ed. 3. Moscow. 1889, pp.202–203, 205 Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow. Guide to the Study of Christian Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, § 98 Wed. Review by A.S. Khomyakov about the works of Metropolitan. Macarius in a letter to A.N. Popov dated October 22. 1848: “Makarii reeked of scholasticism.” See Prof. V.Z.Zavitnevich. Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov. T.1. 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