85. 1459 г. декабря 20. Послание митрополита Ионы литовским князьям и панам о непоколебимом пребывании в православной вере и о непризнавании митрополитом Исидорового ученика Григория

From the collection of Count A.S. Uvarov No. 512 (formerly Tsarskogo No. 366), l. 300 rev.–304; It was published in the first volume of Historical Acts under No. 66, according to the synodal collection No. 562 (fol. 32 vol.–35). The latter is entitled: Message from Jonah, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, to Lithuania, about Grigoriev’s parishion Blessing of Jonah, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus', about the Holy Spirit to the beloved sons of our humility, noble and faithful princes, and honest lords and boyars, and governors, and to all the people of the Lord named after Christ, who live and believe in our true great Orthodoxy, and who, from the beginning, received from the former master and saint, equal to the Apostles of the Grand Duke Vladimir, the holy Orthodox immaculate Greek Christian true faith, according to the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ: grace to you, and peace, and mercy, and strength from the Almighty God and that most pure Mother of God, together with our humility, blessing and unceasing prayer to God for you. Desiring everything [and] asking God to be with you and bless your children, and to see and show your great Orthodoxy, in order to confirm the great strength and inviolability of our spiritual salvation: but God, sons, visited me with great weakness, and for that reason I was weak to go to you; and now, whether God willing, pleases me as best I can, I want to visit my children, and bless you, and pray to God for you. Now I am writing about these things to you, my children, with great prayer, remembering this apostate, like the ancient Formos, Isidore’s coming to us, like a wolf dressed in sheep’s skin: and having been here for a little while, he went to the council in Rome, before the pope, resolving - about strengthening our Orthodoxy. Yes, then, we hear how he came to Riga, and our great Orthodoxy met him with crosses, holding the honor of a vulgar saint, and Kaplan’s greeted him from his shrine in his own way, with his roofs: and he left his Orthodox Church and the holy icons and honorable images, and went to the shrine with his protodeacon, with the monk and Gregory, whom now, as we hear, He went out to the metropolis, and they shouted in Roman. And our elders were with him, and they were there from the laity, and they saw them, and taught him to talk about it, and he forged them and tortured them, and imprisoned the elders; Yes, from that time on, everywhere he taught liturgy in mansions, on the table, on which the meal was set before him, and not in the holy churches of God of our Orthodoxy and not according to the divine sacred rules; Yes, then he showed his obvious retreat, calling himself and writing light-footed and called himself a cardinal. Yes, with this he came to us from Rome, although, like chaff in the wheat, the Roman teachings in our great Orthodoxy, and he began to commemorate the Pope’s name in our holy cathedral apostolic church, and he wanted to introduce many other oppositions to us secretly. The man-loving Lord God, having mercy on creation and the unshakable faith with His hand, put this on the heart of my lord and son, Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich: understanding and knowing his apostasy, he sent that hour to his pilgrims, to archbishops and bishops, and to archimandrites, and having gathered from them all the great priesthood; They, having come together, looked into the divine and sacred rules of the holy Apostles and God-bearing holy Fathers, and searched the gathering, what Isidore brought from Rome that was foreign and contrary to our great Orthodoxy, and dividing this, they ordered him to stay in the monastery of the holy Archangel Michael until my lord and son the great prince dealt with the great cathedral of Constantinople and to tell the truth about their former cathedral. Sidor Pak, realizing his deviation from our Orthodoxy, and he, hiding, fled at night; and now, sons, just as you yourself hear that he is with the pope in Rome, but he is trying to send to you his like-minded people, those who were there with him at the council and fought for it, but wants to send them with his disciples and writings. And I bless you, about the Holy Spirit of the sons, and I pray with a great request, not sharing for myself, below my own deed of what convenience I am writing this to you, but out of my priestly duty, having care for your only-begotten and immortal souls: whomever that apostate Isidore sends to you with his teachings and writings, they would not naturally obey him, nor would they heed him in any deeds, Even if they repress someone with death, even if they separate Christ’s flock of verbal sheep, and tear them away from the true great Orthodoxy, and lead them [with] themselves into eternal and endless torment: before, sons, they are like the Macedonian Doukhobortsy teaching. And whoever, son of a son, is fortunate enough to suffer death for this, will receive not death, but true life, and will receive the crown of torment from the Lord Christ himself. And you, sons, according to this writing and prayer of ours to you, how powerfully, would cherish your true great Orthodoxy, and with God’s help you would firmly and immovably hold the faith of Christ, according to the commandment of the holy rules of the holy Apostles and Holy Fathers, unshakably. And the Almighty Lord God will give you great strength and strength for this task, according to the desire of your hearts, and the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, which I pray you all will receive. 2795 And God's mercy is upon you and our 2796 humility is a blessing. And written in Moscow, December 20th day, indicta 8. 2797 Indict from Acts of History. No. 67. You might be interested in: