Regarding the publication of several treatises and letters of Archbishop Nikephoros (Theotoki)

(Dedicated to the pastors and flock of the Astrakhan diocese) A tireless researcher of the monuments of ancient writing of his people, the venerable Greek scientist John Sakkelion, who now holds a modest, but sympathetic to this worker and suitable for his advanced age, position of curator of the manuscript department at the national library of the University of Athens, continues with remarkable energy to give, and quite often, to historical science with his valuable publications. True, his publications are always not large in volume, since they are initially placed in one of the numerous scientific periodicals of Athens, but they always enrich historical science with something new, or make up for existing shortcomings in it. An expert on the Patmos manuscripts, the description of which was awaited by scientists with keen interest and has now already been published, and a wonderful bibliographer, Mr. Sakkelion provides his publications with extensive and, according to the news of the material, very valuable notes, thanks to which his publications acquire special value and significance in the eyes of those studying Greek and Byzantine antiquities. This time we intend to draw the attention of Russian readers to one of his publications, which for us Russians is not without special significance, since it is directly related to the history of our fatherland. In 1890, in Athens, the city of Sakkelion published a brochure that contains several treatises and letters of Count Nikifor Feotoki, the former Archbishop of Astrakhan (1786 - 1792). The personality of Count Feotoki Nikifor is equally interesting both to his compatriots and to us Russians, because his pedagogical and scientific activities mainly belong to the East (until 1779), and his administrative and journalistic activities belong to Russia (1779 - 1792). It is not surprising, therefore, that this personality, very remarkable for his time, but not appreciated in literature, should attract the attention of scientists in Greece and Russia. A complete description of this glorious hierarch, a scientist and a great orator, has not yet been made, and is not timely, since his numerous scientific works, his sermons and extensive correspondence have not yet been published. The lot of modern scientists, therefore, falls to the modest role of being for now only publishers of the numerous works of this hierarch. This modest role was taken on by the most respectable worker I. Sakkelion, who published, as stated above, several of his treatises and letters. The most prominent and first place in this brochure is occupied by the excellent and extensive treatise of Archbishop Nicephorus “on the prayer of the saints, when, according to the teaching of the inspired Scripture and the God-speaking apostles, the Apostolic Church of your Lord Jesus Christ began to consider the saints as intercessors before God,” occupying almost half of the entire brochure (pp. 1–42). Immediately following it is an equally interesting and extensive treatise by the same archbishop in response to the question of Hierodeacon Kavsokalibit Neophytos: “Are the words of Scripture true: “Their message went out into all the earth” (Ps. XVIII: 4), etc. and in another place: “For the hope set aside for you in heaven, which you first heard in the word of the truth of the gospel, that which exists in you, as in the whole world, is fruitful and growing” (Col. I: 5 – 6),” addressed to them in a special letter dated August 25, 1773, which the publisher prefaced in the brochure with the archbishop’s very answer. Nikifor Feotoki gives an affirmative answer from Leipzig on the 30th day of October of the same year to his student. Here the famous hierarch of the Russian Church reveals not only a deep acquaintance with the word of God, but also enormous erudition in the natural and geographical sciences. His answer cites the journey through Siberia of our 13th century traveler Krasheninnikov, the German journey through Kamchatka by Steller, the Italian “travel around the world” (Giro del mondo), published by John Francis Carreri in Naples in 1699. In the last work, by the way, the author described Mexico and other areas of the new continent and proves the idea that Christianity was known in America before 1492, that is, the time when the famous Columbus made the discovery of this continent. He bases his proof on the theory, now well known, about the connection of the continents of old and new in the place where the Bering Strait is now located, which was formed due to the actions of volcanic underground forces that tore apart these two once connected continents. Peoples, enlightened by the light of Christ's faith, moving north, at this connection of continents, could easily move from one continent to another and bring there the teachings of Christ and the beginnings of civilization, which Europeans found in America. Reducing the question posed in this way to another - about the unity of the human race, descended from the God-created couple Adam and Eve, His Grace Nicephorus points to the commonality of religious traditions everywhere, although they are not expressed in the same external forms, etc. In addition to the above two large treatises by Rev. Nikifor, the city of Sakkelion places three letters from him to a certain friend Eleutherius Mikhailovich Larissky. In his first letter (from Vienna, April 16, 1774), the Right Reverend Nikephoros explains the meaning of the words of Scripture: For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be salted with salt (Mark IX, 49); in the second (from Bratislava, September 8, 1774) - why the soul is involved in bodily illness and labor and why the Apostle Paul says: Even if our outer man decays, yet the inner man is renewed all the days (2 Cor. IV, 16) and, finally, in the third (from Moscow, September 14, 1793) he consoles his friend in his deep sorrow for his deceased brother Nicholas. In order to have a clear idea of ​​the nature of this friendly correspondence from the Most Reverend Nicephorus of Astrakhan, we will present here, translated into Russian, his third letter, addressed by him to the mentioned Eleutherius already when he was retired in Moscow in the Danilov Monastery. This letter was communicated to Mr. Sakkelion by the most educated Kerkyra Archbishop Eustathius Vulisma (to whose name the publisher the brochure itself is dedicated), who, when he was the archimandrite of the Greek Odessa Church, found it in a manuscript belonging to the local Greek school, and published it in “Kherson. Eparch. Vedomosti" for 1875 No. 11, pp. 355–358. This is a wonderful letter: “My dearest, Mr. Eleutherius, I wish you consolation coming from heaven! "Woe is me! You mourn your brother, second father and patron, and I mourn a pious, honest and helpful friend to people. But why are we crying? If we mourn him, then we are unjust, but if we mourn ourselves, then we are selfish. For he, having lived piously and God-lovingly, and was well advised by heavenly means: repentance, confession and communication of the Savior through the divine Eucharist, freed from this vale of mourning and the countless, varied and terrible sorrows in it, now rejoices with unspeakable joy, in the beloved villages of the Lord (Ps. 83:1), dwelling and rejoicing to the righteous and constantly glorifying his thrice-holy Savior with the thrice-holy song. To cry over such prosperity and bliss is an obvious and undoubted injustice. And we, who grieve because of the deprivation of help, intercession and other services and consolation from him, turn out to be overly proud, loving ourselves above him. The all-glorious Paul gave us an example of grief for the dead, saying: “Do not grieve because others have no hope” (1 Thess. IV, 13), why he allowed grief, but forbade excessive grief for him. The hope here is the hope of eternal life, the deprivation of which in unbelievers causes inconsolable and immeasurable grief, but we, the poor, who are rich in it, cry comfortably and in moderation, for we are convinced that “believe in Me” (i.e. in the Lord Jesus), “even if he dies, he will live” (John XI, 25) and that the dying does not die, but has passed away (exactly: will pass) from death to the belly (John V, 24). So, my beloved Eleutherius, you and I, as people, have grieved, but now, as believers and obedient to the apostolic commandment, we will wipe away the drops of tears and turn our minds and our care to something else. You dedicate your care and guardianship to the house of your beloved brother, being the father of his household, as he once was to you, and I will institute a memorial for my beloved and dear blessed friend Nicholas and (offer) my unworthy prayers, asking that the All-Bountiful One may order his soul in the villages of the righteous, in the lordships of the saints and in the guilds of the angels. Amen. “I’m cumming because tears came to my eyes again. At another time, I will write you the epitaph that you asked me for, as soon as the pain of sadness that has taken possession of us has subsided for you and me. “Be healthy in that other person (i.e., soul and body), comforted and strengthened by the Lord God. “From Moscow 1793, September 14th. “Dearest to me is your honesty in Christ, prayer book Nikifor, former (Archbishop) of Astrakhan,” It is hardly necessary to add that with this small brochure of Mr. Sakkelion, the grateful sons of free Hellas have not yet done everything to adequately illuminate the personality of the famous hierarch and outstanding scientist and thereby pay a fair debt to him, as “the forerunner of the mental and political awakening of the Greeks,” for that ardent love for his unfortunate homeland, which animated him in all his fields various activities, wherever he was at this moment of his life, not without the thorns of his past life. The brochure we have examined does not even include those literary and still unknown in print works of this great archpastor and some of his correspondence with friends, which are listed by Constantine Safa in his well-known biographical and bibliographic work (“New Hellenic Philology.” Athens, 1868. Page 584), and yet in manuscripts scattered in various libraries and from private individuals, there are more There are many works by the prolific and talented pen of the Most Reverend Nikifor Feotoki. We, Russians, should not be content with the fact that we become aware of this hierarch from the publications of Greek scholars, and in turn, out of gratitude to this bright personality of the great Catherine’s era, we are obliged to independently work on the publication and study of some of his literary works, which appeared in Russian and were of significance only in our fatherland for our Russian Church. Greece does not know about these works of its best son and can hardly be interested in them. We mean the preaching literary works of Archbishop Nicephorus, which were mainly created during his service in Russia in the rank of archbishop, first of Slavic, and then of Astrakhan. True, many of his conversations and words on the Sunday Gospel and Apostolic readings were subsequently reviewed, redone by the Most Reverend Nikephoros and included in his known “Kyriakodromion”, published in Moscow in 1796 and 1800, but these publications did not exhaust the rich material of his prolific oratorical talent. Without any doubt, there were, and in fact are, words and speeches of this preacher that in no way could be included in the aforementioned, so to speak, indifferent collections intended by the author for the edifying reading of the Orthodox people without any distinction of nationalities at all. In the life of Archbishop Nikifor, full of constant work, everyday adversities and worries, there were many reasons to utter words and speeches that were exclusively autobiographical or historical in nature. Entering the flock, saying goodbye to it, opening educational institutions (such as the opening of the Slavic Seminary) and his appointment to teaching and educational positions, etc. - all this could not but excite the impressionable soul of the archpastor, for whom his remarkable oratorical talent reached its highest tension in these moments of emotional unrest. Having before our eyes examples of the eloquence of the great archpastor of the Astrakhan Church at these significant moments of his life, we are not at all surprised that the contemporaries of this archpastor called him a “sweet-tongued writer”, from whose lips flow “mellow streams of words” (see the funeral epitaphs printed in the preface to “Answers of the Most Reverend Nicephorus to the Old Believers,” p. 5–6), and that a mass of people always flocked to his teachings and conversations, which had an encouraging effect on the speaker. As an example, we will introduce our readers to the still unpublished word of Archbishop Nikifor Feotoki “on his departure from the diocese” (Astrakhan), which, in our opinion, represents a wonderful example of the eloquence of our archpastor and his outstanding purely literary merits. One can imagine what a strong impression the Astrakhan people made when they parted with their beloved archpastor, if even in reading it makes a deep impression. This word contains many autobiographical features of the preacher. After thirteen years of his archpastoral service (ordination as Archbishop of Slavic took place on August 6, 1779) of the Russian Church and five years of administration (he arrived in Astrakhan on May 5, 1787, and the decree of resignation was issued on April 16, 1792), in particular the Astrakhan diocese, Archbishop Nikifor, already a sixty-year old man, young life which, as we said, was full of anxiety, deprivation and assiduous work, felt weak and unable to continue to remain in the department. The Astrakhan diocese, with its vastness and diversity of its population, posed and presented extremely complex and varied requests to its archpastor, which were not easy for the elder archbishop to satisfy. The Most Reverend Nikifor decided to ask for retirement due to poor health, which request was respected by assigning him a pension of 1000 rubles and indicating his place of residence in Moscow in the Danilov Monastery, which was given to him to manage. The last service of Archbishop Nikifor took place in the Assumption Cathedral on June 15, with a huge crowd of people. At the end of the liturgy, he delivered his next eloquent speech to the leaving flock: Word on departure from the diocese “When the time came at which the holy prophet Samuel, due to his old age, ceased to rule the people, he did not first want to be separated from him until he asked everyone: did he fulfill his calling directly and righteously, and until everyone unanimously exclaimed: you have not offended anyone; perfect and holy was your care for us (1 Samuel XII:1-5). My beloved Christians! Now the time has come in which I, due to my no longer young years and weakness, have been dismissed from the care of your eternal salvation; I would not like to say goodbye to you, except after receiving from you what Samuel received from his people. But is it permissible for me to ask from you what he asked? No. It is the greatest audacity to want to equate oneself with the holy prophet of God. Through this, perhaps, I would expose myself to the danger of hearing fair accusations against me. “God is my witness that I wanted and tried, so that my priests will be like burning lamps, illuminating with the divine word of preaching and holy virtuous example. I wished and asked from God that warriors would always be strong defenders of the fatherland, rulers would be fathers of the people, judges would be executors of justice and laws, merchants would be useful to society, artists would be diligent and zealous. I wished, I say, and tried, so that all my Christians would agree, loving each other, guardians of God’s commandments and all virtues as an example, so that they would be prosperous on earth and blessed in heaven. But the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matt. XXVI, 41). I wanted, I tried, but the word of my preaching was weak, the example of my life was gloomy. “But you,” I confess now in your presence, and then in your absence, as long as I live, I will not cease to confess, “you, I say, showed such love, goodwill, respect and obedience to me, a foreign husband, weak, in your language poor, that I cannot sufficiently marvel at and praise your kindness. “From this great complacency of yours and from any of my care has come any spiritual fruit, this test does not belong to the present time, for now is the time to bless you and say the last “forgive me.” “It did not seem proper to me to speak to you as Saint Samuel did to his people, but it is permissible for me, in bidding farewell to you, to use the words of the divine Apostle Paul, with which he bid farewell to the Ephesians: and now behold, for all of you shall not see my face, in whom I preached the kingdom of God (Acts XX, 25). “Honest elders, my co-servants, and the entire congregation of the Church, consecrated by the grace of the Holy Spirit through my hands or others, leaders appointed by God, all Orthodox Christians living in the Astrakhan flock, I speak with everyone, although not everyone is present here. My Christians, the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy tongue, the people of renewal (1 Peter II, 9), my beloved sheep, dear children in Christ, forgive me everything! Forgive me, my flock, and you, my throne, and you, the famous Astrakhan Church, forgive me! I know that neither you will see my face again, nor I yours, for now we must be separated. You will spare my shortcomings. I now commend you, brethren, to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to reward and give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified (Acts XX: 32). “But for a father to be separated from his dear children is truly painful and regrettable. What do you want? Do you perhaps want us to create a great cry? Do you want to fall on my neck and, uniting your tears with mine, kiss me, as the Ephesians did with the divine Paul when he was parting from them, bidding farewell? But why this? Is it so that we will see each other if we admire each other, but how and when? - Listen. “Two are the essence of the wings with which we fly over worldly deceits and fly to heaven. The reigning prophet asked for these wings. Whoever gives me, he said, a krill like a dove, I will fly and rest (Psalm LIV, 7). One of these wings is the Orthodox faith, and the other is true virtue. Just as a bird, not having another wing, cannot fly in any way, so a person who does not have the Orthodox faith or naked virtue will in no way be above wickedness and cannot fly to heavenly peace. “We, by the grace of God, have one of these wings, that is, the most perfect, holy, saving faith, but if we gain the other, that is, true virtue, by sweating, then we will see each other. But when? “When the Lord Himself, by command, in the voice of the Archangel and in the trumpet of God, descends from heaven, and the dead in Christ rise first, then we who are left alive will be caught up with them in the clouds at the meeting of the Lord in the air (1 Thessaloniki IV, 16:17), then you will see my face, then I will see you, saints, glorified, immortal and filled with eternal salvation, and thus we will always be with the Lord (v. 17). Only begotten Son of God, Lord of heaven and earth, to our Savior, Jesus Christ, so be it. Amen". But in addition to words and speeches, like the just cited word “on departure from the diocese,” which, in addition to purely oratorical and literary merits, has significance for characterizing the personality of the preacher, we should not ignore those conversations and words of Archbishop Nicephorus Theotoki, which he pronounced on the text of the day’s Gospel reading and even, perhaps, later became part of his “Kyriakodromion”. The initial appearance of such sermons by the famous archpastor gives us a clear idea of ​​his literary and homiletical techniques, of his oratorical manners in the church pulpit. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, the presentation of Archbishop Nikifor’s sermons in the Slavic-Russian language, in the knowledge of which he considered himself “weak and meager,” reveals to us his struggle with this very important shortcoming in the matter of his apostolic service at the department. From them we form a clear understanding of the literary talents of his closest assistant in writing sermons, Hieromonk Michael, who translated the sermons usually dictated to him in Latin into the Slavic-Russian language, placed emphasis on the words and listened to the zealously devoted archpastor during his home exercises in the correct pronunciation of words alien to him (“Astr. Eparch Ved. "1878 No. 51, p. 787, note). An example of such sermons can be the very good unpublished word of the Eminence Nicephorus on the week of Thomas, contained in the same collection No. 163, fol. 50–54, our Church Archaeological Museum (we cited an excerpt from the second part of this word above in a footnote to the word “on his departure from the diocese”). There were quite a lot of similar sermons of the great archpastor, a stranger to us by blood, but a companion by faith, during his thirteen-year service at the episcopal see, since, according to his custom, he did not leave a single service without preaching, but all these sermons were scattered across various collections compiled by admirers of his oratorical talent. Handwritten collection No. 163 of our Museum, from which we became acquainted with two curious words of our archpastor, was, before entering the Museum, the property of one of the Astrakhan priests, a lover of church eloquence. Old priests of the Astrakhan diocese and church libraries have many such collections. Undoubtedly, in these collections there will be other works by this archpastor. Grateful memory of this archpastor entrusts us, the Russian people, with the responsibility to revive in the memory of posterity the bright personality of Archbishop Nikifor Feotoki and, by publishing his numerous fruits of church sophistication, to testify to the high zeal with which he served the Russian Church for the benefit of our people. / Astrakhan Diocesan Gazette. 1895. No. 8. P. 235–244. You might be interested in: