The Persecuted Church and the Established Church

To celebrate the 1600th anniversary of the Edict of Milan When Moses was tending the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, he saw a bush burning with fire, and the bush was not burned. Some of the ancient church writers applied this image of a bush burning and not burning to the Church of Christ in the first three centuries: it burned in fire for almost three centuries and did not burn - on the contrary, it grew, blossomed and bore fruit. The flame of the fiery temptations of the Church either weakened or flared up with new, even greater force. There were outbreaks of an ignorant and superstitious crowd, which was ready to blame Christians for all public disasters, and therefore shouted: “Christians to the lions!” There were outstanding rulers on the Roman throne, people of political ideas, under whom the state flourished and the people prospered, but Christians seemed to such rulers to be traitors, an obstacle to the implementation of Roman ideals - and periods of prosperity for citizens were times of suffering for Christians. The Church suffered the most prolonged and severe persecution from the state. The more the pagan society got to know Christians, the more they loved them. Persecution prescribed from the center often did not meet with local sympathy. The pagans persuaded the confessors to spare their lives. There were even cases when a pagan crowd repelled respected Christians who had been arrested from a state convoy. After the edict issued by Galerius in 311, the return of Christians from exile, from the mines, to their place of residence was sometimes almost triumphant in character, and it is especially remarkable that they were greeted with joy not only by their fellow believers, but also by the pagans, who sincerely welcomed and congratulated their fellow Christian citizens on their liberation. And who was the government persecuting? It persecuted its ally, who did not betray him, despite the insults and injustices, countless and endless. In the book of the Acts of the Apostles we read: “King Herod raised his hands against some of those belonging to the church to do them harm, and killed James the brother of John with the sword. Seeing that this was pleasing to the Jews, he then took Peter too... and, detaining him, put him in prison” (Acts 12:1-4). What did the Apostle Peter answer? We can find the answer in his First Epistle: “Fear God, honor the king” (1 Pet. 2:17). And another apostle writes to Christians who lived in the center of political life, in the Eternal City, to which all the roads of antiquity led: “The existing... authorities were established by God...”; “Let every soul be subject to the lawful authorities” (Rom. 13:1); “Whoever resists authority resists God’s ordinance” (Rom. 13:2). The same apostle commands Christians to “make prayers... for kings and for all those in authority” (1 Tim. 2:1–2). It would be natural for the state to persecute and persecute rebels, rebels, revolutionaries, but to persecute preachers of humility and submission to authorities - wasn’t this abnormal? The Roman state absorbed religion; it turned out to be only one aspect of national life. In the person of the Christian Church, a religion has entered the world that is not subordinate to the state and does not mix with it, but supports legitimate power, considering it a Divine institution. Since then, the possibility of a new relationship between state and religion has opened up - the possibility of a union between Church and state. The foundations of this union do not lie in the mutual benefit of the parties entering into the union - no, but in the very essence of the Church and the state. One involuntarily recalls the wise words of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow: “Yes, there is a benefit when the altar and the throne are united; but it is not mutual benefit that is the first basis of their union, but an independent truth that supports both. Goodness and blessing to the king, patron of the altar; but the altar is not afraid of falling even without this protection. The priest is right when he preaches respect to the king, but not by right of reciprocity alone, but by pure obligation, if that happened - and without the hope of reciprocity.” An alliance with the Church is needed primarily by the state. Is that law reliable which is based only on the shifting sand of human opinions? The Edict of Milan is the recognition of the state that it needs the Church and that it must be fair to its benefactor. Isn’t this very idea clearly visible in the most important words of the edict: “Having carefully considered all the ways for the common benefit and good, we, Constantine Augustus and Licinius Augustus, among others, useful for many reasons, orders, or, better said, before all other orders, have deigned to make a decree by which fear and reverence for God would be protected, that is, we have deigned to leave both Christians and everyone free to observe it worship, such as anyone desires, so that the Divine and Heavenly Being, no matter what He may be called, would be favorable to us and to everyone under our power. So, guided by common sense and direct sense, we declare the following our will: let no one be absolutely forbidden to choose and observe Christian worship, but let everyone be free to turn their thoughts to the faith that he finds consistent with his own conviction, so that the Divine, in any case, will send us quick help and every good...” The text of the Edict of Milan, according to historians, is not distinguished by clarity and certainty, but its excellent interpretation was given by Constantine himself in his relationship to the Christian Church. Already from the few documents that Eusebius preserved in his “Church History”, it is clear that what was presented to the consciousness of Constantine was not Christianity as an abstract religious teaching, but the Church, a religious society, corpus christianorum. He orders the ruler Anilin to take care of returning to the Christians of the Catholic Church everything that belonged to them in each city. The enemies of the Catholic Church, even posing as Christians, did not enjoy the favor of the emperor. To Miltiades, Bishop of Rome, Constantine writes: “Your attentiveness, of course, does not hide my respect for the legitimate Catholic Church, which makes me wish that you would not leave the slightest schism or division in any decisive place.” In a letter to the Syracuse Bishop Christ, the emperor recalls: “When others began to think badly and perversely about the reverence of God, to evade holy and Heavenly power and to dissect the Catholic Church, I wanted to stop this hostility.” Constantine writes to the Proconsul of Africa, Aulavius, about how he is concerned about the Donatist schism, which could cause “the wrath of the Supreme Deity not only against the human race, but also against myself, to whose government care the heavenly mania has entrusted everything earthly. I cannot remain completely calm until all my subjects, united in fraternal unanimity, render to God the true worship prescribed by the Catholic faith.” Constantine openly confessed that for the benefit of the state it is not at all indifferent to what faith its members adhere to. From here there is a direct transition to possible state support for the true Church. “Having decided to send something for the expenses of some well-known ministers of the lawful and most holy Catholic worship in all the dioceses of Africa, Numidia and Mauritania,” Constantine, with a special letter, commands the African treasurer Ursus to count out three thousand folles to the Bishop of Carthage Caecilian. “If, in fulfilling this desire of mine, you see that something is missing, then, without any doubt, you can demand as much as you deem necessary from the custodian of our property, Praclides, whom I personally ordered, in the case where you demand money, to give it without any delay.” The proconsul Anilinus and the vicar of the prefects, Patricius, were given orders to have special supervision over those restless people who “by shameful deceptions dare to corrupt the people in the bosom of the most holy Catholic Church.” Konstantin’s reasoning in one letter to Anilin is very important. Here the emperor acknowledges that the maintenance of true reverence for God “by the good pleasure of God brought the greatest prosperity to the Roman state and special happiness to all human affairs.” “Therefore, I want that in the area entrusted to you, the persons of the Catholic Church, who devote their service to this holy faith and are usually called clerics, remain completely free from all public duties.” “For if they serve the Divine with all zeal, then it seems that very much good will come from it for public affairs.” Here is the legislative interpretation of the Edict of Milan! The Edict of Milan is the line between the persecuted Church and the ruling Church. An end has been put to injustice in relation to the state towards its well-wisher – the Church; the state wants to be grateful for the benefits it receives from the truth, that is, from the Church, and tries to protect the truth itself from distortion by heretics and schismatics. The state realized that to shake the truth means to upset every order and every right. Truth must rule over lies and error. The Edict of Milan is an open worship of power before the truth, of the state before the Church, of the earth before Heaven, of the kingdom before the priesthood. The church was persecuted. There were falls, there were fallen people, but there was a lot of heroism. Christian martyrs are incomparable representatives of the strength of the human soul, the firmness of conviction, and the boundlessness of selflessness. But the era of persecution in the life of the Church was an abnormal period. The Church did not seek persecution and condemned those fanatics who sought persecution as a positive goal. The Church has always rejoiced at the end of persecution; Through the mouth and style of apologists, she asked the state for justice. Fulfilling the commandment of the Apostle, we now pray that the Lord would speak peaceful and good things about His Holy Church in the hearts of the state authorities, so that it would be possible to lead a quiet and silent life in orthodoxy and in all piety and purity. The Church, recognizing itself as the truth, can only wish for the truth to reign and not be persecuted by those people for whose sake it was created on earth by the incarnation of the Only Begotten Son of God. There is always a certain amount of heroism in the human soul. In the persecuted Church he was revealed as a martyr. In the mainstream Church other ways of using it are indicated. Heroism in the fight against sin, in that battle “to the point of blood” that the Apostle Paul speaks of (Heb. 12:4). Is it an accident that after the end of persecution, monasticism, hermitage, and asceticism develop? Martyrs are the heroes of the persecuted Church, ascetic ascetics are the heroes of the ruling Church. The sufferings of the martyrs and the lives of the venerable ascetics are edifying, for they constitute two parts of the same majestic poem in honor of the heroism of the Christian soul, in honor of the strength of the human spirit, eternal and invincible. You might be interested in: