Orthodox Russian White clergy according to their position and significance in history

Speech delivered on Sunday, October 30, 1910 at the meeting of the founders of the “All-Russian Society for the Care of the Laity for the Needs of the Clergy of the Orthodox Church and Their Families” 1. There are things, phenomena and influences that are so necessary for existence that they are completely unnoticed, since the latter is impossible and unthinkable without them. Unfortunately, such life factors are too often forgotten and trampled upon. Our Orthodox clergy, equally great in their services and their needs, belongs to this category in full and bitter measure in all respects. His mission in this case coincides with the tasks of the Church itself and is inseparable from it, for the Christian transformation of our entire being and system is mediated in the world by the obligatory participation of the divinely established priesthood. With such an immense expansion of this issue, we must necessarily limit our speech to only the principal aspects and the most important points. Christianity, reviving man, graciously unites us to the point of indissolubility with the Lord the Redeemer and through Him, as the only begotten Son of God, makes us sons of God the Father, and therefore believers, being children of God by grace, actually turn out to be brothers among themselves. Here personal grace is unconditionally inseparable from the closest fraternal fellowship of all those justified by their complete equality in Christ Jesus. Along these two lines - personal and general - the Orthodox Church has always acted in Russia through the clergy from the beginning to the present day. Her closest field was the human conscience, where she set up the lamp of Christ’s radiance and helped to see and overcome all darkness within and without. This mysterious process of the hidden grace-filled renewal of every Christian soul, already at first, contributed most of all in Rus' to the spiritual dominance over both pagan vanity and human baseness with the ideals of earthly well-being and despotic domination at the mercy of brute force. And here, in the midst of these gloomy conditions of Russian primitiveness, the Church - in the colorful expression of Prof. V. O. Klyuchevsky - made death itself the builder of a humane community and turned the notary office into the vestibule of the church of God.. And this was achieved by transforming and elevating individual personalities as Christians. For the most ancient period of our history, we note only one specific aspect. The Church found and accepted the Russians when, according to the most ancient chronicler, they were “animal customs” and back in the 12th century they were far from completely freed from this, judging by Kirik’s questioning. Complete indiscriminateness reigned in food, and - as evidenced by one monument with the name of St. I. Chrysostom (in † Prof. A. I. Ponomarev, Monuments III, p. 230) - people “eat the idol’s sacrifice, and the blood and the strangled, and devoured by the beast, and oppressed by the birds.” The Church immediately waged a decisive struggle against these “animal” addictions and through the mouth of Archbishop. Elijah of Novgorod called for the apostolic-conciliar requirement (Acts XV, 29) to be preserved “from blood-eating and from carrion and from pressure and from fornication,” prohibiting in her penance instructions all filth-eating—everechin or ve(e)kishna, strangled meat, colostrum (the first milk after childbirth), she-bear, beaver and etc. Everything convinces us that by the 13th - 14th centuries significant success was gradually consolidated in this area, and one can hardly doubt its importance, since in this way a forest savage with “animal” habits turned into an executor of church statutes, observing the commandments of the Lord, and in fact became a man of Christian life in all his inclinations, moods and functions. This was a great victory for the organization of national life based on the canonical covenants, but - under the protection of the Orthodox Church - it was achieved especially through the labors of the simple clergy through the Christian transformation of each of all believers. It is natural then that further purely Christian unions become possible between them. In this direction, the Church, crushing the tribal system of isolation and hostility in Rus', establishes new bonds of human relationships in the intimate area of ​​marriage, affirms and sanctifies family life on the new foundations of Christian communication, where all external differences are absorbed by the mutual merging of souls. It is clear that with the ennoblement of the family sphere, which is the true calling and glorious kingdom of a woman, internal dignity is ensured in the bright images of a wife and mother, who - according to Klyuchevsky's judgment - owe primarily to the Church, her preaching, her legislation in everything that they value to us and value themselves. And this is truly so, because in Rus' from time immemorial a derogatory view of women, who was more firmly attached to pagan superstition and more difficult to leave it, was dominant and stubbornly maintained. True, under the Byzantine reflections, ascetic views were sometimes too prominent here, but the latter fed and supported the feeling of ideal family purity in the very desires of the flesh, which should, in their functions, serve the goals of the kingdom of God on earth in the multiplication of the children of God. And along with this, it was the white clergy who were the guardians of the unshakable family principles and the bearers of monogamous holiness, often with the most tragic trials, just as they preserved for us the purest Russian blood. Through the family, the Church immediately went against any isolation and strived to establish unity in everything. In the civil and social sphere, she suppressed servile bondage with the Christian recognition that “all are God’s and the Tsar’s sovereign’s people,” and from the rubble of heterogeneous life disasters she organized new non-estate unions for the sake of religious and moral goals and for reasons of compassion and mercy, taking upon herself the responsible work of “establishing the law among people who have recently come to know the Lord,” in the words of Metropolitan. Hilarion. This is how the great state mission of the Church to build the Russian kingdom opens here. Another teacher. Nestor the Chronicler certified the fact of the merger of different tribes of ancient Rus' into “one language, baptized into one Christ” - and, establishing itself on it, the Church achieved that already our first pilgrim, the pious abbot Daniel (at the beginning of the 12th century) had the consolation of lighting at the Holy Sepulcher “a lamp with oil from the whole Russian land.” During the appanage period of strife and strife, the Church powerfully weakened the uncontrollable centrifugality of the world of Christ and on this foundation laid the strong foundations of a broad external unification. It is impossible to deny the involvement of many political and other historical factors here, but if the civil “gathering” of Rus' was crowned with blessed success, then this happened - most importantly - because what was collected found life-giving soil for itself in the spiritual unity that penetrated everyone already through the unity of the Church Slavonic language, which united nationally and made everyone related under the protection of a single and holy mother - the Church. Only under this condition did the external conglomerate form into a harmonious edifice of a living, spiritualized political body. But - by its very essence - the latter is unthinkable without a central and directing primacy, which is why it is natural and indisputable that the Church indicated and sanctified the autocracy, which created the great and glorious, forever invincible Russian state, strong by the power of God. And in the recent sad days of internal turmoil, the happy pacification was greatly helped by the Christian influences of pastoral instructions, pacifying the violent impulses of the agitated masses and suppressing the tendencies of the then ideologists and fanatics of the Babylonian pandemonium... In all these worthy deeds, our clergy does not move forward, being absorbed by the influence of the Church and completely sharing its fate, but this testifies most of all that it has always acted not with its limited human means and with true Christian humility was guided by divine power, which was accomplished even in its very humiliation. And since “with the Russians - according to the observation of one soulful foreigner (Leroy Beaulieu) - it is impossible to separate the concept of the Church from the concept of the fatherland,” we especially owe this to our simple clergy, who introduced such principles into the flesh and blood of the Russian people. In it, statehood was nurtured by the Church, and the Church was fertilized through the clergy. It is natural that the significance of both of them stands out more clearly at critical moments of state life. Under the Tatars, all Russian independence was concentrated in the rights of the Church, which protected and nourished the sprouts of state revival and baptized it for a better life on the Kulikovo Field. The enslaved Russian people seemed to have ceased to exist as an independent nation - with the danger of completely losing hope for the very possibility of their state resurrection; however, it continued to preserve its indestructible originality in the depths of the Orthodox Church, which educated for renewed triumph. It is not for nothing that the unforgettable N. M. Karamzin said that “in two centuries, marked by the spirit of slavery, the (Christian) faith kept us at the level of people, citizens, did not allow our hearts to harden, nor our consciences to become silent; in humiliating the name of the Russian, we exalted ourselves in the name of Christians and loved the fatherland as a land of Orthodoxy.” And during the period of disastrous turmoil and even more dangerous hard times, Rus' did not completely crumble and was not swallowed up by foreigners solely because, together with the Smolensk people, it did not forget the saving confession: “I am brothers and relatives, like the saints from the font and born through baptism and promising to believe in the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, the living and true God.” And this remembrance and its awakening will rightly be learned by the clergy, in whom then - as Karamzin noted - “valor especially shone.” Of course, this difference extended to the highest diocese and to the monastic community, headed by the ancient church of freedom in the Sergius Lavra, but the participation of the white clergy is undoubtedly even in individual outstanding personalities, if in connection with the famous patriotic conscription letters it is said about the teacher. Dionysius and Father Hen, that “and every night is day for them.” And the masses, who defended Russian statehood along with the Lyapunovs, Minins and Pozharskys, had their only inspiration in their folk, rural shepherds. And N.I. Kostomarov impressively states that at this cruel time in Russian history, “the clergy mainly fought against the enemies of faith and the fatherland, and that the merit that, on the one hand, Russian Orthodoxy remained intact at this time, and on the other, the Russian state remained forever independent, independent.” In turn, the Patriotic War was resolved for Russia to worldwide glory and benefit due to the fact that while its very heart was defeated with the loss of its capital, faith was not lost. It was she (in the words of the Highest Manifesto of December 25, 1812) who united everyone into “a single soul, a soul together courageous and pious, also burning with love for the fatherland, with love for God,” but such “victorious” forces of patriotic heroism were drawn from the Orthodox religious sources of the people’s spirit, nurtured by the people’s shepherd. Therefore, in the district letter of gratitude issued, after the expulsion of the enemy, on August 4, 1813, the Holy Synod “by the permission of the Most Pious Autocratic Great Sovereign Alexander Pavlovich, inscribes and testifies to the entire Russian Orthodox Clergy good will, honor and gratitude.” We see the same thing now in the bloody twilight of violent shocks and trials. When our enemy, proud of his ostentatious civilization, quickly turned into a cruel primitive Teutone and put forward demonically sophisticated means of a cultural savage, our warrior opposed this barbarism only with the indestructible strength of the spirit, great on earth and under heaven, on the sea and under water - in his Christian self-devotion for the sake of the desecrated homeland and in the name of the dominion of God's truth throughout the world. From his face impassable mountains melt like wax, and impregnable strongholds dissipate like fog. Who gives this humility such miraculous power - except the Orthodox faith of Christ, planted and strengthened throughout Holy Rus' by our worthy shepherds? Who wonderfully transforms a simple villager into an irresistible hero, if not the village priest, who instilled in him the strength of Christ’s self-sacrifice and glorious triumph? In the thunder of the victories of our incomparable army, we hear a quiet, but truly creative spirit and the victorious spirit of our humble clergy, who from time immemorial have been the life-giving force of the Russian people. And we know that the military priests themselves petitioned that - for the best pastoral influence and their own complicity - they be warned in advance about upcoming battles, offensives and other important moments of military operations, and about the results of this spiritual work - from the lips of the Chairman of the State Council (at a meeting on June 22, 1916) we heard that our fabulous knights were still “carried away by the example of their fearless clergy,” not infrequently who sacrificed his life with the true heroism of the soldiers of Christ. The present serves as a bright seal for the entire past and with its irresistible evidence makes further speeches about the invaluable merits of our Orthodox shepherd unnecessary. In the latter, of course, special mention should be made of the ruling hierarchy, which was completely dominant in the early stages of Russian history, but was not unconditionally successful precisely because it was not then popular. In general, it must be recognized that all external church plans are vital factors and spread to the very edges and depths of the Russian ocean through the white clergy, who everywhere bring the light of Christ in its direct life-giving application. Without it, church leadership could remain only high preaching, while Christianity is a life of grace-filled revitalization of every human person. We do not forget about our monasticism, which ascetically introduced Christian culture among us, but it is the custodian of Christian energy, and its embodiment among the entire Russian people has hitherto been accomplished through the saving labors of simple white clergy, truly holy in their service, although passed over among the saints. On this side, he primarily has the great honor of nurturing an internal affinity between the Gospel and the Russian soul, clear even to foreigners (Leroy Beaulieu), through the introduction and introduction of Orthodoxy, in which the Chronicler welcomed the “bright dawn of happiness in Russia.” The Russian people were internally united with the Orthodox Church and through it “accepted Christ and His teaching into their essence,” as our brilliant writer F. M. Dostoevsky testifies, but here the greatest influence belonged to our white clergy. It was it that always stood closest to the people's conscience and instilled in it the Christian principles of truth, love and faith, living inseparably from the people, which is why it contributed to all its civil successes, just as today it has often saved our national independence amidst cruel trials. During the Polish rebellion, our clergy helped a lot to the success of the Russian triumph and invariably remained the custodian of the rights of the Russian people, inseparable from it, and during the liberation of the peasants, which was accompanied by considerable complications, they were a true peacemaker, happily protecting the birth and implementation of Russian people's freedom. Even in that which is especially condemned by human condemnation, the enormous merits of our clergy are indisputable. On his initiative, an organized fight against the serious illness of drunkenness arose and, through his beneficial participation, sobriety began to spread. The clergy raised their voice against this destructive evil even under the reign of omnipotent taxation and did not cease with their reviving protest, despite the decisive warnings to the Chief Prosecutor from above that “the complete prohibition of hot wine through religious threats and oaths that strongly influence the minds of the common people should not be allowed”... This responsible service of the Russian clergy does not proceed and is carried out without defects, but we are too inclined to exaggerate sins, shortcomings and infirmities, not distinguishing between the voluntary and the involuntary, which fall on the accusers themselves. We will neither deny nor polemicize and will only recall the solemn certification of one authoritative Russian layman. At the celebration of the 900th anniversary of the baptism of Rus', K. I. Pobedonostsev said: “Whoever knows the difficult conditions of life in which our clergy, especially the rural ones, live and operate, the word of judgment, ready for the unworthy, will fall silent before the greatness of the feat performed by many who labor unknown in the middle of the deserts, forests and swamps of vast Russia in great need, in the cold, in hunger, poverty and often resentment. Legions of these workers already stand as prayer books before God - and our Church stands on their bones. But even now how many living people, like them, are working unknown on its creation! Glory and honor to our clergy, and may God’s grace and the strong power of faith, and a sense of love and greed increase for them to teach in word and deed!” This is the unfeigned truth. But along with these holy wishes and bright hopes, a convinced calling and active attention are necessary. An impartial secular author in this case (N.V. Elagin) declared that “our clergy is the best in the whole world,” and one foreigner (Anglican Bishop Leslie in “New Time” No. 14485 for July 4, 1916) recently asked all Russian people: “Do you value your incomparable clergy enough?” And in all conscience one has to answer that his actual position does not at all correspond to this inalienable dignity. The merits of the clergy are easily forgotten and outright denied, and they themselves were more often degraded to the level of the offended and insulted. Together with the light of Christ, the clergy was also the planter of all knowledge, which began, developed and established itself among us precisely thanks to him. The ever-memorable Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, testified that “from the time of the adoption of Christianity until the present time, the Russian people have had no other teachers except the clergy, i.e. ministers of the Orthodox Church, through whose mouth they taught. The spiritual father, testing his parishioners, teaching them in church, sanctifying them with the sacraments, praying with them on all the most important solemn occasions of life, taking a close part in their sorrows and joys, was and is the most natural teacher and head of the rural school. And that the clergy (or represented by the Orthodox Church) justified the calling by the instruction of the people - the entire Russian history serves as proof of this. He endured difficult times of princely civil strife, the Tatar yoke, impostors and the struggle with the Poles, and then “with the French; he generously submitted to the transformational change of the beginning of the 18th century and deserved surprise for his restraint after the Regulations were announced to him on February 19, 1861. In all these cases, for 900 years, he had one school for his entire mass - the Church, and was led by one teacher - the clergy.” All education and all science have come from this primary source, which is fed a lot to this day to the most remote corners of our fatherland - and yet even the very rights of this kind are decisively disputed or rejected insultingly, and the theological school from top to bottom is kept in a shy corral and too much humiliation in all respects. By elevating everyone’s Christian personality and ennobling morals, the clergy most contributed to protecting the universal dignity of all classes in Rus'; he himself suffered “the sad share of humility and humiliation,” as the expert and historian of this subject, Prof., states with convinced sadness. P. V. Znamensky. Even in comparison with monasticism, which throughout ancient history was a revered, privileged and wealthy class, the parish clergy remained a taxing class, powerless, oppressed by need and generally long-suffering. According to the Code of 1649 it was ordered that all members of the white clergy be subjected to merciless justice on an equal basis with the laity, but the dishonor of clergy was assessed at five rubles, just as in the 16th century they punished for the dishonor of a Cheremis or Mordvin and for the murder of the owner’s dog, why in the petition of 1658 Alexei Mikhailovich was told that then “a word of praise from God-fearing nobles and boyar children became: beat the priest like a dog, and throw five rubles.” The civil suppression of the clergy was so common and was recognized as so normal that even under Catherine II it was necessary to protect the clergy from being classified as a philistinist - without any philistine benefits - although later, for a long, long time, the exit from it was open only to the taxable state, and to the soldiers. Only under Alexander I (by decree of May 22, 1801 and confirmation in 1808) did clergy and their families stand out from the mass of the “vile people,” but also Metropolitan. Plato felt painfully and bitterly mourned the pitiful share of the clergy, loudly declaring: “we are a useless burden on earth..., even a harmful burden.” From the lips of the great transformer of Russia came the cruel word that “the root of much evil is the elders and priests,” and this offensive reproach lingers to this day, if modern priests feel as if they were for it. they signify some ancient crime against the people, for which they take vengeance from generation to generation” (Priest A.K. Rozhdestvensky, The difficult position of the Orthodox clergy and the attitude of the State Duma towards them, Yaroslavl 1913, p. 4). Literature did nothing to change these sentiments. The ruler of the thoughts of his era, the famous critic V. G. Belinsky treated the clergy with extreme pessimism, and when N. V. Gogol openly expressed his sympathy for him, declaring that the Orthodox “Church... was, as it were, demolished straight from heaven for the Russian people,” this brilliant artist of ours was declared not only to have lost his talent, but also to have lost his common sense. Even to this day, a tendentious predilection to portray the clergy always prevails with overtones of disdain or irony, and often in a tone of even more offensive condescension and condolences. The ideal of a true shepherd, an authoritative leader and an enlightened adviser in matters of mind and conscience is fading in society. And now many categorically reject science and culture for our pastorate, sighing carelessly and diligently trying to make the priests grayer and simpler, although here simplicity is worse than any theft, for it borders on the highest degree of sacrilege and desecration of the sacred. The material support of the clergy has always been accidental and miserable - and in this regard, Prof. is sadly right. P.V. Znamensky that it is “far from spoiled by good deeds and concern for its fate.” If, according to the rule “those who serve the altar, share with the altar,” St. The Apostle Paul asked the Corinthians (1 Cor. IX, 13, 11): “If we sow your spiritual seed, is it great if we reap your bodily seed?” - then his successors in our towns and villages were forced to repeat a completely different apostolic saying (1 Tim. VI, 8): “having food and clothing, we will be satisfied with these,” and sometimes it was necessary to preserve the second, not even having the first. I. T. Pososhkov (at the beginning of the ΧVΙΙΙ century) asserted that the priesthood is “a holy thing... and exalted above the clouds that exist under the heavens,” but - according to his own testimony - it experienced all sorts of “dirty tricks” in the person of Russian shepherds, who “are in no way different from arable men: a man for a plow - and a priest for a plow, a man for a scythe - and a priest for braid,” so that at the “end of the 8th century, Metropolitan Markell of Pskov complained (in 1685 to Ivan and Peter Alekseevich) that “the bishops do not own the churches, but the peasants do, and the poor priests and clerks do not dare to do anything.” Despite all this, a Russian writer with a German surname, Von-Visina, later composed and launched an evil slander, not alien to our time, that “shepherds line their pockets” through the sacraments, while Christ Himself said (Matt. X, 10), that “the worker is worthy of his reward,” and according to the Apostle (1 Cor. IX, 14) “and the Lord commanded those who preach the gospel to live from the gospel.” According to the impeccable judgment of Saint Philaret, it is necessary for the “class of people” appointed “to serve religion, to sanctify the people through public prayer and sacred rites, to spread and continuously support among the people the teachings of religion and the rules of life consistent with it; so that he is provided with the needs of life”; however, even now such a sorrowful cry is heard (Fr. S. Podgaetsky, How the authority of an Orthodox priest is understood, Kyiv 1911, p. 43): “when St. The apostle showed to the early Christians his selflessness in caring for his piece of bread - then shouldn’t a (Russian) priest point out the same selflessness that he has been bearing for entire centuries - and, moreover, bearing a slandered, humiliated one?” It’s scary to remember horrific examples of how in our days the psalmist sinfully committed suicide, leaving a laconically stunning note that he was “tired of starving” (see Father A.K. Rozhdestvensky on page 7). Yes, the fate of the parish Russian clergy is harsh and difficult, and it is unlikely that all this will soon and significantly be improved by the creation of parishioner bondage and bureaucratic accountability, where every penny will be counted against him. Called to be a lamp in his district, every shepherd must keep himself and his entire family at a decent level in all respects, enduring great self-restraints and constant hardships, but most often they do not want to see them, but only always demand that he stand at the height of his rank and, together with direct church service, free of charge and regularly perform a huge mass of purely civil duties according to state needs. The fate of spiritual orphanhood is even more sad - and from personal indelible experience I feel too well how here every step forward is taken with bloody wounds and mental anguish, which not everyone is accompanied by even the most modest success. The situation of the supernumerary clergy, homeless and helpless, is also bleak, when - with space left - they are often deprived of all shelter, not having provided shelters for modest peace and concentrated prayer. But each of us lives spiritually as Christians only through shepherding. It meets our earthly existence, churchizes us and introduces us to the gracious kingdom of Christ, sanctifies all the most important moments with heavenly blessings, dissolves all our sorrows and joys with divine consolations and highest hopes, and escorts everyone to the “path of all the earth” with the bright promises of eternal blissful life. Receiving so many and great benefits from the clergy, we - the laity - are obliged, according to the Apostle (2 Cor. VI, 13), to extend equal retribution. And now this holy work is being initiated amid the horrors of terrible bloodshed, not only in anticipation of many victims in the ranks of the clergy, but - even moreover - in the heartfelt Christian belief that just as the Church grew on the blood of martyrs, so this undertaking in favor of the servants of the Church will be revived by the sacred redemptive blood of Russia fighting for the truth of Christ, and pastors and members of the clergy will gain special courage from the knowledge that - if possible life's vicissitudes - they are guaranteed freedom of spirit for fervent and undivided prayer for everyone and for everything, for the peace of the whole world, for every Christian soul that is grieving and embittered, requiring God's mercy and help. This is not at all the repayment of our unpaid debt, not due to mutual incommensurability alone, but mainly because - even with the most sincere readiness for fulfillment - everything that is due is done not so much with joy as with sighing (Heb. XIII, 17), while Christian mutual assistance is carried out “neither out of sorrow nor out of need: God loves the giver with a good will” (2 Cor. IX, 7). It is not by theoretical calculation or formal motives that a real institution arises, which is a pure sacrifice of Christian thanksgiving. It is the fruit of a spiritual impulse and sublime inspiration with deep faith in divine creation for him throughout Great Rus'. Therefore, at the consecration of the very beginning, let us proclaim in the name of all participants the holy words of complete devotion and living hope: let us begin with faith and love! Professor Nikolai Glubokovsky. Petrograd 1916, IV, 9 – Holy Saturday. 1916, IV, 12 – Bright Tuesday. This Society is established in Petrograd, but extends its activities to all provinces and regions of the Russian state. It aims to provide assistance to needy clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church and their families. To achieve its goal, the Society: a) arranges shelters for placing in them, with full maintenance, those most in need, due to large families, old age, decrepitude or illness, clergymen and their families: b) arranges sanatoriums for the sick; c) issues permanent or one-time, as well as in-kind allowances; d) establishes scholarships for orphans of the clergy in religious educational institutions; e) issues benefits to large families for the education and upbringing of children; f) provides assistance to those in need and in various other ways depending on him. You might be interested in: