Old Russian saints. Holy ascetics in Russia Old Russian ascetics and saints
Main part................................................ ................. 3
1. Prince Vladimir ................................................ ................. 3
2. Boris and Gleb ............................................... ....................... five
3. Sergius of Radonezh................................................ ....... nine
Conclusion ................................................. ......................... eleven
List of used literature ................................ 11
Introduction
Every society, like every person, needs a bright spiritual ideal. Society needs him especially urgently in an era of troubled times. What serves us, the Russian people, with this spiritual ideal, the spiritual core, the force that has united Russia for a whole millennium in the face of invasions, unrest, wars and other global cataclysms?
There is no doubt that Orthodoxy is such a connecting force, but not in the form in which it came to Russia from Byzantium, but in the form in which it acquired on the Russian land, taking into account the national, political and socio-economic characteristics of Ancient Russia. Byzantine Orthodoxy came to Russia with an already formed pantheon of Christian saints, for example, such as Nicholas the Wonderworker, John the Baptist and others, deeply revered to this day. By the 11th century, Christianity in Russia was taking only the first steps and for many ordinary people of that time it was not yet a source of faith. After all, in order to recognize the holiness of the newly arrived saints, one had to believe very deeply, to be imbued with the spirit of the Orthodox faith. It is a completely different matter when before your eyes there is an example in the person of your own, a Russian person, sometimes even a commoner, performing holy asceticism. Here the most skeptical person with respect to Christianity will believe. Thus, by the end of the 11th century, a purely Russian pantheon of saints began to form, revered to this day on a par with common Christian saints.
The interest in this period of time in Russian history, interest in the historical role of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as some unpopularity of this topic among the students (with the exception of theological seminary students) made me start writing a work on this topic. In addition, this topic is more relevant than ever in our time of transition, when many talk about Orthodox ideals and values, often not adhering to them, when the emphasis is only on the visible side of worshiping God, and when many of us do not live according to the commandments that formed the basis of Christianity ...
Main part
The turbulent Russian history has put forward many bright, extraordinary personalities.
Some of them, thanks to their ascetic activity in the field of Orthodoxy, thanks to their righteous life or deeds as a result of which the name of Russia gained greatness and respect, were honored with the grateful memory of their descendants and canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
What kind of people were they, Russian saints? What was their contribution to history? What were their deeds?
Prince Vladimir
A special place both in Russian history and among the saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church is occupied by Prince Vladimir (? -1015, the son of Prince Svyatoslav, Prince of Novgorod (from 969), the Grand Duke of Kiev (from 980), in the Russian epics he received the nickname, Red Sunny, what is so remarkable about this prince and how did he take his place in the pantheon of Russian saints?
To answer these questions, one should analyze the situation that developed in Kievan Rus by the end of the 10th early 11th centuries. During his lifetime, Prince Svyatoslav transferred the Kiev throne to his son Yaropolk, another son, Oleg, became the Drevlyan prince, and Vladimir sent to Novgorod.
In 972 - with the death of Prince Svyatoslav, civil strife broke out between his sons. It all started with the fact that the Kiev governor, in fact, initiated a campaign against the Drevlyans, which ended in the victory of the Kievites and the death of the Drevlyan prince Oleg. When retreating, he fell into the fortress ditch and was trampled by his own warriors. Having learned about these events, Prince Vladimir gathers Scandinavian mercenaries, kills his brother Yaropolk and seizes the Kiev throne. If Yaropolk was distinguished by religious tolerance, then Vladimir at the time of the conquest of power was a staunch pagan. After defeating his brother in 980, Vladimir built a pagan temple in Kiev with idols of especially revered pagan gods, such as Perun, Khors, Dazhdbog, Stribog and others. In honor of the gods, games and bloody sacrifices with human sacrifices were arranged. And Vladimir began to reign in Kiev alone, - says the chronicle, - and set idols on a hill behind the terem courtyard: wooden Perun with a silver head and golden mustache, then Khors, Dazhdbog, Stirbog, Simargla and Mokosha. And they brought sacrifices to them, calling them gods ... And the Russian land and that hill were defiled with blood "(under the year 980). Not only the prince's close associates, but also many townspeople, were approving of this. And just a few years after the reign in Kiev, in 988-989, Vladimir accepts Christianity himself, as well as converts his subjects into it. But how did a convinced pagan suddenly believe in Christ? It is unlikely that he was guided only by the understanding of the state benefits of Christianity.
Perhaps this was due to remorse for the atrocities committed, fatigue from a riotous life. Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev, the monk Jacob and the chronicler Saint Nestor (XI century) named the reasons for the personal conversion of Prince Vladimir to the Christian faith, in accordance with pointing out the action of the invoking grace of God.
In his "Word about Law and Grace," St. Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev, writes about Prince Vladimir: "A visit from the Most High came to him, the All-Merciful eye of the Good God looked upon him, and his mind shone in his heart. He enlightened the vanity of idols' delusion and sought the One God , who created everything visible and invisible. And especially he always heard about the Orthodox, Christ-loving and strong faith in the Greek land ... Hearing all this, he kindled in spirit and wished his heart to be a Christian and convert the whole Earth to Christianity. "
At the same time, Vladimir, as an intelligent ruler, understood that a power consisting of separate, eternally warring principalities needed some kind of super-idea that would unite the Russian people and keep the princes from civil strife. On the other hand, in relations with Christian states, the pagan country turned out to be an unequal partner, with which Vladimir did not agree.
There are several versions regarding the question of the time and place of the Baptism of Prince Vladimir. According to the generally accepted opinion, Prince Vladimir was baptized in 998 in Korsun (the Greek Chersonesos in the Crimea); according to the second version, Prince Vladimir was baptized in 987 in Kiev, and according to the third - in 987 in Vasilev (not far from Kiev, now the city of Vasilkov). The most reliable, apparently, is to recognize the second, since the monk Jacob and the Monk Nestor agree in 987; the monk Jacob says that Prince Vladimir lived for 28 years after baptism (1015-28 \u003d 987), and also that in the third year after Baptism ( i.e. in 989) made a campaign against Korsun and took it; the chronicler Saint Nestor says that Prince Vladimir was baptized in the summer of 6495 from the creation of the world, which corresponds to 987 from the birth of Christ (6695-5508 \u003d 987). So, having decided to accept Christianity, Vladimir captures Chersonesos and sends messengers to the Byzantine emperor Vasily II with the demand to give him the emperor's sister Anna. Otherwise, threatening to approach Constantinople. Vladimir was flattering to intermarry with one of the most powerful imperial houses and, along with the adoption of Christianity, this was a wise step towards strengthening the state. Kievans and residents of the southern and western cities of Russia reacted calmly to baptism, which cannot be said about the northern and eastern Russian lands. For example, to conquer the Novgorodians it even took a whole military expedition of the Kievites. The Christian religion was viewed by Novgorodians as an attempt to infringe on the ancient primordial autonomy of the northern and eastern lands.
In their eyes, Vladimir seemed like an apostate who had trampled on his primordial liberties.
First of all, Prince Vladimir baptized 12 of his sons and many boyars. He ordered to destroy all idols, throw the main idol - Perun into the Dnieper, and the clergy to preach a new faith in the city.
On the appointed day, a mass baptism of the Kievites took place at the confluence of the Pochayna River into the Dnieper. "The next day," says the chronicler, "Vladimir went out with the Tsaritsyn and Korsun priests to the Dnieper, and there were no number of people there. up to the neck, others up to the chest, the young near the shore up to the chest, some held babies, and already the adults wandered, the priests were praying standing still, and joy was seen in heaven and on earth over so many souls being saved ... , having been baptized, dispersed to their homes. ”Vladimir was glad that he knew God and his people, looked at the sky and said:“ Christ is God, who created heaven and earth! Look at these new people and let them, Lord, know You, the true God, as Christian countries have known You. Confirm in them a right and unswerving faith and help me, O Lord, against the devil, so that I may overcome his wiles, relying on You and Your strength. "
This most important event took place, according to the chronicle chronology, accepted by some researchers, in 988, according to others - in 989-990. Following Kiev, Christianity gradually comes to other cities of Kievan Rus: Chernigov, Novgorod, Rostov, Vladimir-Volynsky, Polotsk , Turov, Tmutarakan, where dioceses are created. Under Prince Vladimir, the overwhelming majority of the Russian population adopted the Christian faith and Kievan Rus became a Christian country. The baptism of Rus created the necessary conditions for the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church. Bishops headed by the Metropolitan came from Byzantium, and priests from Bulgaria brought with them liturgical books in the Slavic language; temples were built, schools were opened to train clergy from the Russian environment.
The chronicle reports (under the year 988) that Prince Vladimir "ordered the chopping down of churches and erecting them in the places where idols used to stand. And he erected a church in the name of St. Basil on the hill where the idol of Perun and others stood and where the prince and people. And in other cities they began to erect churches and identify priests in them and bring people to Baptism in all cities and villages. "With the help of Greek craftsmen, a majestic stone temple was built in Kiev in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos (Tithes) and the saints were transferred to it. relics of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga. This temple symbolized the true triumph of Christianity in Kievan Rus and materially personified the "spiritual Russian Church".
2006 yearIntroduction
1. History of the canonization of saints
3. Old Russian saints
Conclusion
A multitude of scattered calendars and diptychs, local veneration and a separate celebration of saints brought many inconveniences to the hagiographic, liturgical and hymnographic practice of the Church. In this regard, the question arose about the unification of the calendar. Simeon Metaphrast and John Xiphilin compiled a corpus of minologues of all the saints revered throughout the Greek Empire. This minology is essentially the foundation of the later "saints of the Church of Constantinople", which were included in the saints of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and through them in the saints of the Russian Church.
2. Features of the canonization of saints in the Russian Orthodox Church
The earliest document concerning the practice of canonization in the Eastern Church is the letter of the Patriarch of Constantinople John the Caleca (Apren) to Metropolitan Theognost of Kiev (1339) about the relics of St. Alexy.
The Russian Orthodox Church, when naming ascetics among the saints, was guided by rules that in general terms resemble the rules of the Church of Constantinople. It should be noted that the main criterion for canonization was the gift of miracles, which manifested itself during the life and after the death of the saint. In some cases, the basis for canonization was the presence of incorrupt remains. There were three types of canonization. Along with the faces of the saints, according to the nature of their church ministry (martyrs, saints, reverends, etc.), the saints in the Russian Church differed in the prevalence of their veneration - local temple, local diocesan and national.
Local temple and local diocesan saints could be canonized by the ruling bishop with the consent of the Metropolitan (later - the Patriarch) of All Russia. Canonization could be limited only by an oral blessing for the veneration of a local ascetic. In this regard, when examining the history of Russian canonizations, one can find a fairly large number of saints who do not have a written definition for their veneration, but in reality they are venerated, while having solemn services and rites and great fame. Most of the saints of the Ecumenical Orthodox Church do not have any formal, documentary evidence of their canonization, for example, ascetics from the patericans, but all of them are included in the national calendar and even in the Russian calendar calendar "without formal regulations.
The right to canonize common church saints belonged to the Patriarch Metropolitan or Metropolitan of All Russia with the participation of the Council of Russian hierarchs.
In monasteries, the veneration of ascetics could begin by decision of the council of monastic elders, who later presented the case for approval by the local bishop. Previously, the diocesan authorities carried out work to certify the authenticity of miracles at the grave of the deceased (and often in the incorruptible relics). Then a solemn divine service was established in the local church and the day of honoring the saint was appointed, a special service was drawn up, an icon was written, as well as a "life" depicting miracles, certified by the inquiry of the church authorities.
In the history of the canonization of saints in the Russian Orthodox Church, five periods can be distinguished: from the baptism of Rus to the Macarius Councils, the Macarius Councils proper (1547 and 1549); from Macarius Councils to the establishment of the Holy Synod; synodal and modern periods.
3. Old Russian saints
Each of us has at least once heard the names of the ancient Russian saints. These are the Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duke Vladimir (died in 1015. Further, the years of death are indicated in parentheses), and the faithful princes Boris and Gleb (1015), the Monks Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves (1074, 1075), the Monk Ilya of Muromets (c. 1188), holy noble Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, in the schema Alexy (1263), the Monks Sergius and Herman of Valaam (c. 1353), the Monk Alexander Peresvet, the warrior schema monk, Radonezh (1380), the Monk Andrei Oslyabya, the warrior schema monk, Radonezh (XIV century .), the holy noble Grand Duke Demetrius of Donskoy (1389), the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, the miracle worker (1392), the Monk Andrei Rublev (15th century), the Monk Nil Sorsk (1508), the Monk Maxim the Greek (1556), the holy Martyr Paul the Russian ( 1683), Saint Pitirim, Bishop of Tambov (1698), Saint Mitrofan of Voronezh (1703), Saint Joasaph, Bishop of Belgorod (1754), Venerable Seraphim of Sarov (1833).
Prince Vladimir was the great-grandson of Rurik, the grandson of the Grand Duchess Olga and the son of Prince Svyatoslav and the Christian Malusha, the housekeeper in his house.
The young prince of Novgorod, Vladimir, was distinguished by a stern, irrepressible character and sometimes a quick-tempered disposition. Although he was brought up in tolerance and love by a Christian woman, Saint Olga, he took an example in everything from the warrior-father, who until the end of his days worshiped idols. Therefore, the first years of the reign of Vladimir, who showed himself to be an ardent pagan, were marked by many unseemly deeds and actions.
The legend that has survived to this day depicts Prince Vladimir in the first years of his reign as a man of unbridled passions, a lover of noisy feasts, military campaigns and sensual pleasures. The pagan religion allowed the prince to have as many wives as he wanted, he had three more legal wives. Meanwhile, grand ducal affairs demanded special attention from Vladimir. More and more often in Russia the preaching of Christ was heard, brought from enlightened countries.
The legend tells how the Grand Duke Vladimir in 986 gathered boyars in his chambers and began to receive in turn ambassadors from different countries, who sought to attach a powerful state to their faith and thus gain a strong ally.
The imminent baptism of the Grand Duke was also facilitated by certain military-political circumstances that firmly tied Orthodox Byzantium and Russia.
Sacred tradition says that before the baptism, misfortune happened to the prince. A sudden illness weakened his body and took away his sight. The prince began to hesitate whether to accept Christianity, but the wise princess Anna said to her betrothed: “Accept temporary blindness as a visit from God, for the Lord wishes to enlighten you by showing a miracle; if you want to recover, then be baptized, prince, in the name of the Holy Trinity. " Vladimir ordered to prepare everything for baptism. A baptismal font was prepared in the Church of St. James the Apostle. The Bishop of Korsun performed the sacrament of the baptism of Grand Duke Vladimir with the greatest solemnity, in the presence of a huge crowd of courtiers and squads. As soon as the bishop laid his hand on the head of the newly baptized and began to plunge it into the font with the words: "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit," Prince Vladimir regained his sight. But not only his eyes received their sight, the prince's sight and soul, to which the whole depth of the Christian faith was revealed. "Now I have come to know the true God!" - Vladimir exclaimed, and his whole future life became a confirmation of this. He marked his righteous deeds with a gratifying event. In Korsun, he erected a church named after St. Basil (the angel of Prince Vladimir). The city itself was returned to Byzantium as a sign of friendship and reconciliation.
For thirty-three years the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir sat on the throne of Kiev, for twenty-eight years he ruled the state, already being baptized. And all these years, the prince contributed to the spread of enlightenment in Russia, erected churches and cities and at the same time successfully repelled the attacks of unfriendly neighbors. For good deeds and tireless concern for the state, the Russian people began to affectionately call the Grand Duke - Vladimir Krasnoe Solnyshko.
The first Russian saints, glorified by the Church, are the faithful princes Boris and Gleb. It is known that their canonization became an example for the glorification of Emperor Nicholas II and his family as saints in 2000. They were the younger sons of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir. Boris had an ardent desire to imitate the feat of the saints of God and often prayed that the Lord would grant him such an honor. From early childhood Gleb was brought up with his brother and shared his desire to devote his life exclusively to serving God. The brothers were distinguished by mercy and kindness of the heart. In everything they tried to imitate the example of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duke Vladimir, who was merciful, responsive to the poor, sick, and disadvantaged. Shortly before his death, his father called Boris to Kiev and sent him with an army against the Pechenegs. However, the death of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir soon followed. His eldest son, Svyatopolk, declared himself the Grand Duke of Kiev. He did not believe that Boris would not claim the throne and sent assassins to him. Saint Boris was informed of this act by Svyatopolk, but he did not hide and met death with readiness. The assassins overtook him while he was praying for mornings on Sunday, July 24, 1015, in his tent on the banks of the Alta River. After this, Svyatopolk just as treacherously killed the holy prince Gleb. Svyatopolk summoned his brother from Murom and sent his warriors to meet him in order to kill Saint Gleb on the way. Prince Gleb already knew about the death of his father and the villainous murder of Prince Boris. Deeply grieving, he chose death rather than war with his brother.
The feat of the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb consisted in the fact that they gave their lives for the sake of observing obedience, on which the spiritual life of a person and, in general, all life in society is based.
Ilya Muromets became a monk, already crowned with the glory of the beloved hero of the people and the winner of adversaries. He himself never sought fame: neither on the battlefield, nor even more so in a monastery. His monastic exploits are hidden from us, but, undoubtedly, they were great, even greater and more difficult than the exploits of war - proof of this is the incorruptible relics of Elijah, which still rest in the Near Caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
The Moscow priest Ioann Lukyanov in his "Journey to the Holy Land" in the 17th century writes: "Poidokh to Antoniev's cave and there, by the sight of the brave warrior Ilya Muromets in incorruption, lying under a cover of gold, as tall as today's large people, his left hand is pierced by a mop, an ulcer everything is visible, and the right hand depicts the sign of the cross. " From this description it is clear that Ilya Muromets was not a fabulous giant, but was a very large and strong man.
The Monk Elijah was born in the village of Karacharovo near the ancient Russian city of Murom. The name of this village has survived to this day. The name of Ilya's father, the peasant Ivan Timofeevich, is also lovingly preserved in the people's memory. Other heroes are mainly knights of a noble family, Dobrynya Nikitich is even a relative of Prince Vladimir, according to the chronicles - his uncle, according to epics - his nephew. Ilya Muromets is the only peasant by origin among the Russian heroes. And it was he who was given the greatest strength - both spiritual and physical.
From birth, Elijah was weak, he could not even walk until he was thirty. And it can be seen that in these thirty years great patience and humility, great meekness were brought up in him, if by God's Providence he was determined to become at that alarming time at the head of the entire heroic army. Their young strength and power, always worried, ready to break out into a quarrel, needed just such a leader, respected by everyone for his spiritual strength, who would unite and reconcile everyone. "Under the glorious city near Kiev stood a heroic outpost. At the outpost the ataman was Ilya Muromets, the tax was Dobrynya Nikitich, the esaul was Alyosha, the priest's son." These words from the epic were captured in his famous painting "Three Heroes" Vasnetsov.
From the epics it is clear that Elijah of Muromets is a special chosen one of God, the strength is given to him by a miracle, through the holy elders, "kalik passing", that is, itinerant monks. They come to his house, where he is habitually silent alone, and from the authorities they say: "Go and bring us something to drink." Trying to obey the order of the elders, he receives help from above and gets up. Here, the moment of testing the faith of Elijah is very important - "according to your faith be it unto you" (Gospel of Matthew, ch. 9, v. 29). The Lord does not do anything to a person forcibly. It takes a free striving of the will of a person, his determination, in order to receive everything else freely, by grace. The future great hero was worthy of his chosenness. Truly great faith one had to have in order to try to get up after thirty years of immobility at the request of the "kalik passers-by".
Having received strength by a miracle, already in adulthood, Elijah could not become proud of it, he carried it through his whole life as a precious gift that did not belong to him, but to the entire Russian people, to whom he served forever and unselfishly, in sorrows and hardships, to a ripe old age , becoming for many years the image of his spiritual and physical strength.
By all accounts, Elijah received a good Christian upbringing. Gathering for heroic deeds, he bows down to his father and mother, asks for their great blessing. The father and mother understand the high purpose of their son, they understand that it is not just that great power was given to him from God. People are already old, they nevertheless unquestioningly let go of Elijah, give him a great blessing and a covenant not to shed Christian blood. And in all the heroic deeds of the hero, we see that he never enters the battle out of daring or in the heat of anger. He uses the power given to him only to defend his Fatherland or restore justice. But before the battle with the pagan Kalin-king, who threatened to take Kiev, Elijah persuades him for a long time to leave voluntarily, not to shed blood in vain. Here, and in every deed of the holy hero, one can see his calm, quiet disposition, Christian patience and mercy.
The holy noble Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky was the great-grandson of Vladimir Monomakh and descended from his youngest son, Grand Duke Yuri Dolgorukov - the ancestor of the younger, northern branch of the Monomakhs. In his person, in a rare way, statesmanship, a distinctive feature of the princes of this branch, and military valor were combined with holiness. It should be considered a special happiness for Russia that after its defeat by the Tatars and the battle in the City, his father became the Grand Duke. Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, intercessor for the Russian people before the khan. No wonder his contemporaries called him "a sufferer for the Russian land" - for it he laid down his soul, poisoned by the Tatars.
Saint Prince Alexander Nevsky was born in 1220 in Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, where his father Yaroslav Vsevolodovich reigned. He headed the Russian troops that defended the northwestern lands of Russia from capture by Swedish and German feudal lords. After the landing of the Swedish troops at the confluence of the river. Izhora in r. Neva Alexander Nevsky with a small squad, joining with the Ladoga residents, on July 15, 1240, suddenly attacked the Swedes and completely defeated their numerous army, revealing exceptional courage in battle.
Alexander received his nickname "Nevsky" for the Battle of the Neva in 1240, which averted the threat of an enemy invasion from the North. The victory contributed to the growth of the political influence of Alexander Nevsky, but at the same time contributed to the aggravation of his relations with the boyars, as a result of which Alexander Nevsky was forced to leave Novgorod. After the invasion of the Livonian knights into Russia, the Novgorodians asked Alexander Nevsky to return. In the spring of 1241, he created an army that drove the invaders out of Russian cities. A large cavalry army headed by the master of the order opposed Alexander Nevsky, but it was decisively defeated on April 5, 1242 on the ice of Lake Peipsi. In the history of the military art of the Middle Ages, the victory of Alexander Nevsky on Lake Peipsi was of great importance: the Russian foot army surrounded and defeated the knightly cavalry and detachments of foot knechtes, long before the infantry in Western Europe learned to prevail over the knights. Thanks to this victory, Alexander Nevsky became one of the largest military leaders of his time. The aggression of the German knights against Russia was stopped.
Alexander Nevsky made a great contribution to the strengthening of the northwestern borders of Russia, showed himself to be a cautious and far-sighted politician. Alexander Nevsky was canonized by the Russian Church. At the end of the 13th century. was compiled "The Life of Alexander Nevsky", in which Alexander Nevsky appeared as an ideal warrior prince, defender of the Russian land from enemies. In accordance with the order of Peter I, the remains of Alexander Nevsky were transported to St. Petersburg. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the Order of Alexander Nevsky was established on May 21, 1725. On July 29, 1942, the Soviet military order of Alexander Nevsky was established in honor of Alexander Nevsky.
Conclusion
In Russia, the cult of saints appeared with the introduction of Christianity. The Orthodox Church, having borrowed many saints from the common Christian pantheon, began canonization of Russian saints. The cult of saints is widespread in Christianity (it does not exist in Protestantism) and in Islam. In Orthodoxy there are about 400 saints, in Catholicism it is half less.
Russian saints are the divine fruit of the millennial Orthodox faith of the Russian people.
Little is said about them and rarely written. But when in 1941 the time for trials came for Russia, they again remembered the forgotten names of the holy noble grand dukes.
In our, perhaps, no less difficult time of the moral test of the Russian people, we need even more support in the face of Russian saints. After all, in their earthly life, with their purity, justice, spirituality and righteous life, they created the moral shield of the Russian people.
Bibliography
Yablokov I.N. Religious studies: textbook. - M .: Gardariki, 2002.
Karpov A.Yu. Orthodox saints and miracle workers: Ancient Russia. Moscow Russia. The Russian Empire. - M .: "Veche", 2005.
Skorobogatko N.V. Russian saints. - M .: White city, 2004.
Krupin V. Russian Saints. M .: Veche, 2006.
Why is this book so important to us today? First of all, it reminds us of those moral ideals on which more than one generation of our ancestors was brought up. The myth of the backwardness of Ancient Russia has long been dispelled by scientists, but it still continues to be rooted in the minds of a huge number of our compatriots. We have already understood the height of the Old Russian craft, sometimes already unattainable for us, and we are beginning to understand the meaning of Old Russian music and literature.
I am glad that the propaganda of ancient Russian music is growing, and it finds more and more fans. With old Russian literature, the situation is more complicated. First, the level of culture has dropped. Secondly, access to primary sources is extremely difficult. The publication of "Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus" undertaken by the Department of Old Russian Literature of the Pushkin House is not yet able to satisfy the growing demands of readers due to the small circulation. That is why the publishing house "Nauka" is preparing a twenty-volume edition of "Monuments" with two hundred thousand copies. We have yet to learn and comprehend all the greatness of Old Russian literature.
Why is the publication of Georgy Fedotov's book valuable to us? It introduces us to a special and almost forgotten world of ancient Russian holiness. The moral principle has always been necessary in public life. Morality is ultimately the same in all ages and for all people. Honesty, conscientiousness in work, love for the Motherland, contempt for material goods and at the same time concern for the public economy, love of truth, social activity - all this is taught to us by the Lives.
Reading the old literature, we must remember that the old does not become obsolete if it is addressed with an amendment for the time, for other social conditions. The historian's gaze should never leave us, otherwise we will not understand anything in culture and deprive ourselves of the greatest values \u200b\u200bthat inspired our ancestors.
Academician D. S. Likhachev
Archpriest Alexander Men. Back to the roots
He was rightly compared with Chaadaev and Herzen. Like them, Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886–1951) was a historian-thinker and publicist of European and world scale, like them, he had the gift of putting his ideas into a brilliant literary form.
As well as to them, the ancient dictum can be applied to Fedotov: "There is no prophet in his own country." Like Chaadaev, he was attacked by various ideological camps and, like Herzen, died in a foreign land.
But unlike Herzen, he did not go through painful crises, did not know tragic disappointments and discord. Even abandoning any views, this surprisingly harmonious person always retained from them what he considered authentic and valuable.
During his lifetime Fedotov did not become, like Chaadaev and Herzen, a man-legend. He left Russia, not yet receiving fame, and the emigre milieu was too torn apart by passions for it to be able to appreciate the calm, independent, crystal-clear thought of the historian. Fedotov died in the Stalin era, when the very fact of emigration inevitably deleted a person, be he a writer or artist, philosopher or scientist, from the national heritage.
Meanwhile, internally Fedotov always remained in Russia. He had his thoughts with her both when he worked in France and when he went overseas. He thought a lot and intensely about her fate, studied her past and present. He wrote, armed with a scalpel of strictly historical analysis and criticism, avoiding the pitfalls of myths and prejudices. He did not rush from one extreme to another, although he knew that few among those around him would want to understand and accept him.
Fedotov closely followed the events taking place in his homeland and, as a rule, gave them deep and accurate assessments. But most of all he did for the study of Russian history. The past was not an end in itself for him. In his writings, a conscious orientation is visible everywhere: to comprehend the soul of Ancient Rus, to see in its saints the concrete national embodiment of the common Christian world ideal and to trace its fate in subsequent centuries. In particular, he was deeply worried about the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia, and he strove to understand what she preserved and what she lost from the primordial spirituality of Christianity. Like his friend, the famous philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948), Fedotov considered political freedom and free creativity an integral part of cultural creation.
History gave Fedotov food for broad generalizations. His views on the whole were formed even before emigration. The well-known Russian scientist Vladimir Toporov rightfully considers Fedotov a representative of the Russian philosophical revival, "which gave Russia and the world many glorious and very different names and had a great influence on the spiritual culture of the entire XX century." But among them Fedotov occupies a special place. Its own pivotal theme was what is commonly called "philosophy of culture" or "theology of culture." And he developed this theme on the basis of Russian history.
Today, shortly after the significant millennium anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, Fedotov is finally returning home.
The meeting of our readers with him, with one of the main books of his life, can be considered a real holiday of national culture.
Fedotov's origins are on the Volga. He was born in Saratov on October 1, 1886, a few months after the death of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, who immortalized the world of the provincial cities of the Volga region. The historian's father was an official under the governor. He died when George was eleven years old. The mother, a former music teacher, had to pull her three sons on her own (the pension was small). And yet she managed to give George a gymnasium education. He studied in Voronezh, lived in a boarding school at public expense. He suffered deeply in the oppressive atmosphere of the hostel. It was then, as a high school student, that Fedotov was imbued with the conviction that "it is no longer possible to live like this," that society needs radical transformations. At first, it seemed, he found the answer to the painful questions in the ideas of the sixties, the populists, and by the end of the course he had already turned to Marxism and Social Democracy. In these new doctrines for Russia, he was most attracted by the pathos of freedom and social justice. And much later, having found his own path, Fedotov did not change his commitment to the democratic spirit.
The future scientist and thinker from school years was distinguished by organic integrity and some kind of enlightenment of nature. The protest against social ailments did not infect his soul with anger. Physically weak, lagging behind his peers in their entertainment, Georgy did not torment, as they say now, "complexes", was open, benevolent, responsive. Perhaps his brilliant abilities played a role here.
But in 1904 the gymnasium was over. You need to choose a life field. An eighteen-year-old boy who considers himself a social democrat does not proceed from his own interests and tastes, but from the needs of the working class, to which he decided to devote himself. He comes to St. Petersburg and enters a technological institute.
But he did not have to study for long. The revolutionary events of 1905 interrupt the lectures. Fedotov returns to Saratov. There he takes part in meetings, in the activities of underground circles. Soon he is arrested and sentenced to exile. Thanks to the efforts of his grandfather, the chief of police, instead of being sent to Siberia, Fedotov was sent to Germany, to Prussia.
There he continued to contact the Social Democrats, was expelled from Prussia, and studied for two years at the University of Jena. But in his views, the first changes were already outlined. He begins to doubt the inviolability of atheism and comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to find the right course for social transformations without a serious knowledge of history.
That is why, after returning to St. Petersburg in 1908, Fedotov entered the Faculty of History and Philology.
Ties with the circles of revolutionaries remain, but from now on in the center for Fedotov is science: history, sociology.
Fedotov was lucky with the teacher. The largest Russian specialist in the Middle Ages, Ivan Mikhailovich Grevs (1860–1941), became him. At Grevs's lectures and seminars, Fedotov not only studied the monuments and events of the past, but also learned to understand the meaning of living continuity in the history of peoples and eras. It was a school that largely determined Fedotov's cultural studies.
However, studies are interrupted again under dramatic circumstances. In 1910, in the Saratov house of Fedotov, the police found proclamations brought from St. Petersburg. Actually, Georgy Petrovich himself had no direct relation to the case: he only complied with the request of his acquaintances, but now he realized that he would be arrested again, and hastily left for Italy. And yet he graduated from the university course. First, he came to St. Petersburg on someone else's documents, then he declared himself to the police, was sent to Riga and finally passed the exams.
He was appointed assistant professor of the university in the department of the Middle Ages, but due to a shortage of students, Fedotov had to work in the St. Petersburg Public Library.
There he became close to the historian, theologian and public figure Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev (1875-1960), who by that time had already made the difficult path from the “neo-Christianity” of D. S. Merezhkovsky to the Orthodox worldview. Kartashev helped Fedotov to finally strengthen himself on the basis of the spiritual ideals of Christianity. For a young scientist, this did not at all mean burning what he worshiped. Having become a conscientious and convinced Christian, he did not change one iota of his devotion to freedom, democracy, and cultural construction. On the contrary, in the Gospel he found the "justification" of the dignity of the individual, the eternal foundations of creativity and social service. Therefore, as his biographer writes, Fedotov saw in the First World War not only a disaster, but also "a struggle for freedom in alliance with Western democracies." He regarded the October Revolution as "great", comparable only to the English and French. But from the very beginning he was worried about the possibility of her rebirth into "personal tyranny." Historical experience gave rise to rather pessimistic forecasts.
However, starting from the war years Fedotov moved away from social activities and completely went into scientific work. In Petrograd, he became close to the Christian thinker Alexander Meyer (1876–1939), who wrote on the table, and his religious and philosophical circle. The circle did not adhere to the political opposition, but set itself the goal of preserving and developing the spiritual treasures of Russian and world culture. At first, the orientation of this community was somewhat amorphous, but gradually most of its members entered the enclosure of the Church. This was also the path of Fedotov himself, and until the last day of his life at home he was associated with Meyer and his associates, participated in their magazine "Free Voices", which existed for only one year (1918).
Like many cultural figures, Fedotov had to experience the hardships of the hungry and cold years of the civil war. He could not defend his thesis. He continued to work in the library. Suffered typhoid. After his marriage in 1919, he had to find new means of subsistence. And it was then that Fedotov was offered the chair of the Middle Ages in Saratov. In the fall of 1920 he came to his hometown.
Of course, he could not expect that in this formidable epoch students would be interested in medieval studies. But some of his courses and talks on religious and philosophical topics attracted a huge audience. Soon, however, Fedotov became convinced that the university was placed under strict censorship conditions. This forced him to leave Saratov in 1922. The sad fact remains that many, like Fedotov, honest and principled people unwittingly became outsiders. They were increasingly pushed aside by opportunists, who quickly adopted the new "revolutionary" jargon. The era of the great Russian exodus began, when the country was losing many prominent figures.
For several years Fedotov tried to find his place in the current conditions. In 1925 he published his first book, Abelard, about the famous medieval philosopher and theologian. But the censorship did not miss the article about Dante.
Lenin's NEP was fading away, and the general atmosphere in the country changed noticeably. Fedotov understood that events were taking the ominous turn that he had long foreseen. He was alien to monarchism and restoration. The "rightists" remained for him the bearers of a dark inert element. However, as a historian, he was able to assess the real situation very early. Later, already abroad, he gave an accurate and balanced assessment of Stalinism. In 1937, he wrote with irony about the emigrants who dreamed of "getting rid of the Bolsheviks," while it was no longer "they" who were ruling Russia. Not they, but he. " Fedotov considered the dispersal of the Society of Old Bolsheviks to be one of the symptoms of the political metamorphosis that took place under Stalin. “It would seem,” the historian remarks, “in the Society of Old Bolsheviks there is no place for Trotskyists by their very definition. Trotsky is an old Menshevik who only joined Lenin's party during the October Revolution; the dissolution of this powerless, but influential organization shows that it is precisely Lenin's traditions that Stalin is delivering the blow. "
In a word, it is not difficult to understand what motives drove Fedotov when he decided to leave for the West. It was not easy for him to take this step, especially since A. Meyer and friends in the religious-philosophical circle were against emigration. And yet Fedotov did not postpone. In September 1925 he left for Germany with a certificate allowing him to work abroad in the Middle Ages. What awaited him, if he did not, we can guess from the fate of Meyer. Four years after Fedotov's departure, the members of the circle were arrested, and Meyer was sentenced to death, from which he was saved only by the intercession of his old friend, A. Yenukidze. The philosopher spent the rest of his life in camps and exiles. His works were published in Paris almost forty years after his death.
So, for Fedotov, a new period of life, the life of the Russian exile began.
A short attempt at settling in Berlin; futile efforts to find a place in Parisian medieval studies; first appearances in the press with essays on the Russian intelligentsia; ideological confrontation with various emigre currents. In the end, his fate is determined by an invitation to the Theological Institute, recently founded in Paris by Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgievsky). His old friends, Anton Kartashev and Sergei Bezobrazov, who later became a bishop and translator of the New Testament, are already teaching there.
In the beginning, he naturally reads the history of Western confessions and the Latin language, that was his element. But soon the department of hagiology, that is, the study of the lives of saints, was vacated, and Fedotov entered a new area for him, which has since become the main vocation of a historian.
It was not easy to maneuver in the emigrant environment. There were monarchists, ascetic-minded people who were suspicious of culture and the intelligentsia, and "Eurasians" who had hopes for a dialogue with the Soviets. Fedotov did not join any of these groups. Calm character, intelligence of the analyst, loyalty to the principles of cultural creativity and democracy did not allow him to accept any of the radical concepts. He became closest to the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, publicist Ilya Fondaminsky and nun Maria, later a heroine of the Resistance. He took part in the movement of Russian Christian students and in ecumenical work, but as soon as he noticed the spirit of narrowness, intolerance, “witch hunt,” he immediately stepped aside, preferring to remain himself. He accepted the idea of \u200b\u200b"restoration" only in one sense - as the revival of spiritual values.
In 1931, the Karlovites, a church group that broke away from the Moscow Patriarchate, announced that the Orthodox and autocracy were inseparable. "Karlovtsy" attacked both the Theological Institute and the hierarchy in Russia, which was at that time under pressure from the Stalinist press. Fedotov could not sympathize with the “Karlovites”, who considered themselves “nationally minded,” not only for moral reasons: he was clearly aware that the Russian Church and the fatherland had entered a new phase of history, after which there was no turning back. In the same 1931 he founded the magazine "New Grad" with a broad cultural, social and Christian-democratic platform. There he published many bright and profound articles, devoted mainly to topical issues of world and Russian history, events and disputes of those days. Around the magazine were grouped people who wanted to be on the other side of the "right" and "left": mother Maria, Berdyaev, Fedor Stepun, Fondaminsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, philosophers Vladimir Ilyin, literary critics Konstantin Mochulsky, Yuri Ivask, monk Lev Gillet - a Frenchman who became Orthodox ... Fedotov was also published in Berdyaev's organ, the famous Paris magazine "Put".
However, Fedotov expressed his cherished thoughts most fully in his historical works. Back in 1928, he published a fundamental monograph on Metropolitan Philip of Moscow, who opposed the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible and paid with his life for his courage. The topic was not chosen by the historian by chance. On the one hand, Fedotov wanted to show the injustice of reproaches against the Russian Church, which was allegedly always distinguished by indifference to public life: on the other, he wanted to debunk the myth that old Muscovite Russia was almost the standard of the religious and social order.
Fedotov was deeply convinced that the primordial spiritual ideals of Orthodox Russia are of lasting importance and are extremely important for our time. He only wanted to warn against unjustified nostalgia for the distant past, which had both light and shadow sides.
“Let us beware,” he wrote, “of two mistakes: over-idealizing the past — and painting it entirely in black light. In the past, as in the present, there was an eternal struggle between good and dark forces, truth and falsehood, but, as in the present, weakness, cowardice prevailed over good and evil. " This "weakness" became, according to Fedotov, especially noticeable in the Moscow era. “It can be noted,” he writes, “that examples of the church’s courageous lessons to the state, frequent in the specific-veche era of Russian history, become less common in the century of the Moscow autocracy. It was easy for the Church to teach peacefulness and fidelity, the word of the cross of violent but weak princes, little connected with the land and torn apart by mutual strife. But the Grand Duke, and later the Tsar of Moscow, became a "formidable" sovereign who did not like "meetings" and did not tolerate opposition to his will. " The more significant and attractive is, according to Fedotov, the figure of St. Philip of Moscow, who was not afraid to engage in single combat with the tyrant, before whom old and young were in awe.
Feat of St. Philip Fedotov examines against the background of the patriotic activities of the Russian Church. The Moscow First Hierarch cared about his fatherland no less than St. Alexy, confessor of Prince Dmitry Donskoy. We are only talking about various aspects of patriotism. Some hierarchs helped to strengthen the Grand Duke's throne, while others faced a different task - a social and moral one. "St. Philip, the historian claims, gave his life in the struggle against this very state, in the person of the tsar, showing that it must submit to the higher principle of life. In the light of Filippov's feat, we understand that the Russian saints did not serve the great power of Moscow, but that Christ's light that shone in the kingdom - and only as long as this light shone. "
In the conflict between Metropolitan Philip and the Terrible, Fedotov saw the clash of the evangelical spirit with the authorities, which had violated all ethical and legal norms. The historian's assessment of the role of Grozny, as it were, anticipated the discussions about this tsar, connected with Stalin's desire to turn him into an ideal monarch.
Fedotov also had to engage in polemics with those who, under the influence of the apocalyptic events of our century, came to devalue culture, history, and creativity. It seemed to many that the world was going through an era of decline, that the West and Russia, albeit in different ways, were heading towards their end. It was not difficult to understand such sentiments, characteristic not only of the Russian emigration. Indeed, after the First World War, the consistent destruction of those institutions and values \u200b\u200bthat lived in the 19th century began. A fair amount of courage and perseverance was needed, a firm faith was needed to overcome the temptation of “withdrawing into oneself,” passivity, and refusal from creative work.
And Fedotov overcame this temptation.
He affirmed the value of labor and culture as an expression of the higher nature of man, his godliness. Man is not a machine, but an inspired worker, called upon to transform the world. The supernatural impulse has been at work in history from the very beginning. It defines the difference between man and animal. It sanctifies not only the rise of consciousness, but also the everyday life of a person. To consider culture a diabolical invention is to renounce the human primogeniture. The higher principle is manifested both in Apollo and in Dionysus, that is, in the enlightened mind, and in the flaming element. “Not wishing to yield to the demons of either the Apollonian Socrates or the Dionysian Aeschylus,” wrote Fedotov, “we Christians can give true names to the divine forces that acted, according to the Apostle Paul, in pre-Christian culture. These are the names of Logos and Spirit. One signifies order, harmony, harmony, the other - inspiration, delight, creative impulse. Both principles are inevitably present in every cultural matter. Both the craft and the labors of the farmer are impossible without some creative joy. Scientific knowledge is inconceivable without intuition, without creative contemplation. And the creation of a poet or musician involves hard work, casting inspiration into rigorous art forms. But the beginning of the Spirit prevails in artistic creation, as the beginning of the Logos prevails in scientific knowledge. "
There is a gradation in the spheres of creativity and culture, but in general they have a higher origin. Hence the impossibility of rejecting them, treating them as something transitory, and therefore unnecessary.
Fedotov realized that human deeds can always be brought before the judgment of Eternity. But eschatology was not a pretext for him for the "non-action" preached by the Chinese Taoists. Explaining his position, he cited an episode from the life of a Western saint. When he, being a seminarian, was playing ball in the yard, he was asked: what would he do if he knew that the end of the world was coming soon? The answer was unexpected: "I would continue to play ball." In other words, if the game is evil, then it must be abandoned anyway; if not, then it always has value. Fedotov saw in the above story a kind of parable. Its meaning is that labor and creativity are always important, regardless of the historical era. In this he followed the apostle Paul, who condemned those who quit their jobs under the pretext of the imminent end of the world.
On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of G. P. Fedotov, the American Russian anthology "Put" published an editorial about him (New York, 1986, no. 8-9). The article was titled "Creator of the Theology of Culture." And indeed, of the Russian thinkers, along with Vladimir Soloviev, Nikolai Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov, Fedotov did most of all for a deep understanding of the nature of culture. They see its root in spirituality, in faith, in the intuitive comprehension of Reality. Everything that culture produces - religions, arts, social institutions - somehow goes back to this primary source. If the psychophysical properties of a person are a gift of nature, then his spirituality is a gift acquired in the transcendent dimensions of being. This gift allows a person to break through the rigid circle of natural determinism and create a new, unprecedented, to go towards cosmic unity. Whatever forces hinder this ascent, it will be accomplished in spite of everything, realizing the secret inherent in us.
Creativity, according to Fedotov, has a personal character. But personality is not an isolated unit. It exists in living relationships with the surrounding individuals and the environment. This is how super-personal, but individual forms of national cultures are created. Accepting their value, Fedotov strove to see their unique features. And first of all, this task faced him when he studied the origins of Russian spiritual culture, sought to find the universal in the domestic, and at the same time - the national embodiment of the universal in the concrete history of Russia. This is one of the main goals of Fedotov's book "The Saints of Ancient Rus", which was published in Paris in 1931, was published twice more: in New York and in Paris - and is now offered to our readers.
Writing her historian was prompted not only by studies in hagiology at the institute, but also by the desire to find the roots, sources of Holy Russia as a special unique phenomenon. It is not by chance that he turned to the ancient "Lives". For Fedotov, his work was not "archeology", not a study of the past for his own sake. It was in pre-Petrine times that, in his opinion, the archetype of spiritual life was formed, which became the ideal for all subsequent generations. Of course, the history of this ideal did not run smoothly. He made his way through difficult social conditions. In many ways, his fate was tragic. But spiritual creation all over the world and at all times was not an easy task and always faced obstacles that had to be overcome.
Fedotov's book about ancient Russian saints can be considered unique in some ways. Of course, many studies and monographs on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and its outstanding figures were written before him. Suffice it to recall the works of Filaret Gumilevsky, Makariy Bulgakov, Evgeny Golubinsky and many others. However, Fedotov was the first to give a complete picture of the history of Russian saints, which did not drown in details and combined a broad historiosophical perspective with scientific criticism.
As the literary critic Yuri Ivask wrote, “Fedotov strove to hear the voices of history in documents and monuments. At the same time, without distorting the facts and not selecting them artificially, he emphasized in the past what could be useful for the present. " Before the book was published, Fedotov carried out a thorough study of the primary sources and their critical analysis. Some of his original principles he outlined a year later in the essay "Orthodoxy and Historical Criticism." In it he spoke out both against those who believed that criticism of sources encroaches on church tradition, and those who were inclined to "hypercriticism" and, like Golubinsky, disputed the reliability of almost all ancient evidence.
Fedotov showed that faith and criticism not only do not interfere with each other, but should organically complement each other. Faith concerns matters that are not subject to the judgment of science. In this respect, tradition and tradition are free from the conclusions of criticism. However, criticism “comes into its own whenever tradition speaks of a fact, word or event, limited in space and time. Everything that flows in space and time, that is accessible or was accessible to sensory experience, can be the subject of not only faith, but also knowledge. If science is silent about the mystery of the Trinity or the divine life of Christ, then it can give an exhaustive answer about the authenticity of the gift of Constantine (once recognized in the East), about the belonging of the work to one or another father, about the historical situation of persecution or the activities of ecumenical councils. "
As for "hypercriticism", Fedotov emphasized that, as a rule, it is guided not by objective scientific considerations, but by certain ideological prerequisites. In particular, these are the hidden springs of historical skepticism, which is ready to deny, reject, and question everything from the very start. This, according to Fedotov, is not even skepticism, but “a fascination with our own, all the time new, fantastic constructions. In this case, instead of criticism, it is appropriate to speak of a kind of dogmatism, where not traditions are dogmatized, but modern hypotheses. "
The historian also touched upon the issue of miracles that are so common both in the ancient "Lives" and in the Bible. Here Fedotov also pointed to the line of demarcation between faith and science. “The question of a miracle,” he wrote, “is a question of a religious order. No science - less than others historical - can solve the question of the supernatural or natural character of a fact. The historian can only state a fact that always admits not one, but many scientific or religious explanations. He has no right to eliminate a fact only because the fact goes beyond the boundaries of his personal or average everyday experience. The recognition of a miracle is not the recognition of a legend. The legend is characterized not by the simple presence of the miraculous, but by a set of signs indicating its folk or literary, supraindividual existence; the lack of strong threads connecting it with this reality. The miraculous can be real, the natural legendary. Example: the miracles of Christ and the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus. Naivety, believing in legends, and rationalism, denying miracles, are equally alien to Orthodox historical science - I would say to science in general. "
This, at the same time critical and associated with the tradition of faith, balanced approach was taken by Fedotov in the basis of his book "Saints of Ancient Rus".
Considering the theme of Fedotov's book, Vladimir Toporov correctly noted that the concept of holiness has its source in the pre-Christian tradition. In Slavic paganism, this concept is associated with a mysterious excess of vitality. To this we can only add that the terms "holy" and "holiness" also go back to the Bible, where they indicate the close connection of the earthly human with the supreme Secret of divinity. A person called a "saint" is dedicated to God, bears the stamp of another world. In the Christian consciousness, saints are not just “good”, “righteous”, “pious” people, but those who were involved in the transcendental Reality. They are fully inherent in the features of a specific person, inscribed in a specific era. And at the same time, they tower above her, pointing the way to the future.
In his book Fedotov traces how a special Russian religious mud was formed in ancient Russian holiness. Although it is genetically related to general Christian principles and the Byzantine heritage, individual traits appeared in it very early.
Byzantium breathed the air of “sacred solemnity”. Despite the enormous influence of monastic asceticism, she was immersed in the magnificent beauty of the sacred rite, reflecting the motionless eternity. The writings of the ancient mystic, known as Dionysius the Areopagite, largely determined the world outlook, churchliness and aesthetics of Byzantium. The ethical element, of course, was not denied, but it often receded into the background in comparison with aesthetics - this mirror of the "heavenly hierarchy".
Christian spirituality in Russia acquired a different character already in the very first decades after Prince Vladimir. In the person of St. Theodosius of the Caves, she, while preserving the ascetic tradition of Byzantium, strengthened the gospel element, which put active love, service to people, and mercy at the forefront.
This first stage in the history of ancient Russian holiness in the era of the Horde yoke is replaced by a new one - mystical. He is embodied by St. Sergius of Radonezh. Fedotov considers him the first Russian mystic. He does not find direct evidence of the connection between the founder of the Trinity Lavra and the Athonite school of hesychasm, but asserts their deep closeness. In hesychasm, the practice of spiritual self-absorption, prayer, transformation of the personality through its intimate union with God was developed.
In the third, Moscow period, the first two tendencies collide. This happened due to the fact that the supporters of the social activity of the Church, the Josephites, began to rely on the support of the powerful state power, which had grown stronger after the overthrow of the Horde yoke. Bearers of the ascetic ideal, St. Neil Sorsky and the "non-possessors" did not deny the role of social service, but they were afraid of the transformation of the Church into a rich and repressive institution and therefore opposed both monastic land tenure and the execution of heretics. The Josephites outwardly won this conflict, but their victory led to a deep and protracted crisis, which gave rise to a split in the Old Believers. And then came another split that shook the whole of Russian culture - connected with the reforms of Peter.
Fedotov defined this chain of events as "the tragedy of ancient Russian holiness." But he also noted that, despite all the crises, the original ideal, harmoniously combining service to society with spiritual self-absorption, did not die. In the same 18th century, when the Church found itself subordinated to the rigid synodal system, the spirit of the ancient ascetics suddenly revived. “Beneath the soil,” writes Fedotov, “fertile rivers flowed. And just the century of the Empire, so seemingly unfavorable for the revival of Russian religiosity, brought the revival of mystical holiness. On the very threshold of a new era, Paisiy (Velichkovsky), a student of the Orthodox East, finds the works of Nil Sorsky and bequeaths them to Optina Pustyn. Even Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, a pupil of the Latin school, preserves in his meek appearance the family traits of Sergius' house. Since the 19th century, two spiritual bonfires have been lit in Russia, the flame of which warms up frozen Russian life: Optina Pustyn and Sarov. Both the angelic image of Seraphim and the Optina elders resurrect the classic age of Russian holiness. Together with them comes the time of St. Nile, whom Moscow forgot even to canonize, but who in the 19th century, already revered by the Church, for all of us is the spokesman for the deepest and most beautiful direction of ancient Russian asceticism.
When Fedotov wrote these lines, only three years had passed since the death of the last of the elders of Optina Hermitage. Thus, the light of the Christian ideal that took shape in Ancient Rus has reached our troubled century. This ideal was rooted in the gospel. Christ proclaims the two most important commandments: love for God and love for man. Here is the basis of the feat of Theodosius of the Caves, who combined prayer with active service to people. The history of the spirituality of the Russian Orthodox Church was conceived from him. And this story continues today. It is as dramatic as in the Middle Ages, but those who believe in the vitality of eternal values \u200b\u200band ideals can agree with Fedotov that they are needed now - both in our country and the whole world. Fedotov continued to teach at the institute. He has written numerous articles and essays. He published the books “And there is and will be” (1932), “The social meaning of Christianity” (1933), “Spiritual poetry” (1935). But the work became more and more difficult. The political and social atmosphere became tense and gloomy. The coming to power of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco once again split the emigration. Many exiles saw the totalitarian leaders of the West as almost “saviors of Russia”. Democrat Fedotov, of course, could not accept such a position. He felt more and more alienation from the "nationally minded" who were ready to call on the "kingdom of the Bolsheviks" any invaders, whoever they were.
When Fedotov publicly expressed in 1936 that Dolores Ibarruri, for all his disagreement with her views, was closer to him than Generalissimo Franco, a hail of innuendo fell on the historian. Even Metropolitan Evlogy, a broad-minded man who respected Fedotov, expressed his disapproval to him. From that moment on, any political statement of the scientist was attacked. The last straw was the 1939 New Year's article, where Fedotov approved the anti-Hitler policy of the Soviet Union. Now the entire corporation of teachers of the Theological Institute, under pressure from the "right", condemned Fedotov.
This act aroused the indignation of the "knight of freedom" Nikolai Berdyaev. He responded to it with the article “Does freedom of thought and conscience exist in Orthodoxy?”, Which appeared shortly before the Second World War. “It turns out,” wrote Berdyaev, “that the defense of Christian democracy and human freedom are inadmissible for a professor at the Theological Institute. An Orthodox professor should be the defender of Franco, who betrayed his fatherland to foreigners and drowned his people in blood. It is absolutely clear that the condemnation of GP Fedotov by the professor of the Theological Institute was precisely a political act that deeply compromises this institution. " Defending Fedotov, Berdyaev defended spiritual freedom, the moral ideals of the Russian intelligentsia, the universalism of the Gospel against narrowness and pseudo-traditionalism. According to him, “when they say that an Orthodox Christian should be“ nationally minded ”and should not be an“ intellectual ”, they always want to protect the old paganism that entered Orthodoxy, with which it has grown together and does not want to purify itself. People of this formation can be very "Orthodox", but they are very few Christians. They even consider the Gospel to be a Baptist book. They do not like Christianity and consider it dangerous to their instincts and emotions. Everyday life is paganism within Christianity. " These lines sounded especially poignant in connection with the growing tendency to view only as part of the national heritage, regardless of the very essence of the gospel. It was in this spirit that Charles Morras, the creator of the Axien France movement, who was subsequently convicted of collaborating with the Nazis, spoke at that time in France.
Fedotov has always stressed that, as a cultural phenomenon, it is on a par with paganism. Its uniqueness is in Christ and in the Gospel. And it is in this vein that every civilization based on Christianity, including the Russian one, should be evaluated.
However, there were no conditions for a calm dialogue. The arguments were answered with persecution. Only the students stood up for their professor, who was then in London, and sent him a letter of support.
But then the war broke out and stopped all disputes. Trying to get to Arcachon to Berdyaev and Fondaminsky, Fedotov ended up on the island of Oleron together with Vadim Andreev, the son of a famous writer. As usual, work saved him from sad thoughts. Fulfilling his old dream, he began to translate biblical psalms into Russian.
Without a doubt, Fedotov would have shared the fate of his friends - mother Maria and Fondaminsky, who died in the Nazi camps. But he was saved by the fact that the American Jewish Committee put his name on the list of persons whom the United States was ready to accept as refugees. Metropolitan Evlogy, by that time already reconciled with Fedotov, gave him a blessing to leave. With great difficulty, every now and then risking his life, Fedotov and his loved ones made it to New York. It was September 12, 1941.
Thus began the last, American, decade of his life and work. At first he taught at the theological school at Yale University, and then became a professor at the Orthodox St. Vladimir Seminary. The most significant work of Fedotov during this period was the book "Russian Religious Thought", published in English. It is still waiting for its Russian publishers, although it is not known whether its original has survived.
In the postwar years Fedotov could see how his political forecasts were being carried out. The victory over Nazism did not bring internal freedom to its main winner. The Stalinist autocracy, having appropriated the fruits of the people's feat, seemed to be on its way to its zenith. Fedotov more than once had to hear that all this is the fate of Russia, that she knew only tyrants and slaves, and therefore Stalinism is inevitable. However, Fedotov did not like political myths, even plausible ones. He refused to accept the idea that Russian history had programmed Stalin, that only despotism and submission could be found in the foundations of Russian culture. And his position, as always, was not just emotional, but built on a serious historical foundation.
Shortly before his death, in 1950, he published an article entitled "The Republic of Hagia Sophia" in the New York magazine Narodnaya Pravda (No. 11–12). It was dedicated to the democratic tradition of the Novgorod Republic.
Fedotov revealed the exceptional originality of the culture of Novgorod not only in the field of icon painting and architecture, but also in the field of socio-political. For all its medieval flaws, the veche order was a very real "rule of the people", reminiscent of the democracy of ancient Athens. "Veche elected all of its government, not excluding the archbishop, controlled and judged him." In Novgorod there was an institution of "chambers" that collectively decided all the most important state affairs. The symbols of this Novgorod democracy were the Church of St. Sophia and the image of Our Lady of the Sign. It is no coincidence that the legend connects the history of this icon with the struggle of the Novgorodians for their freedom. And it is no coincidence that Grozny dealt with Novgorod with such ruthlessness. His anger was brought down even on the famous veche bell - the emblem of the ancient people.
“History,” concludes Fedotov, “judged the victory of another tradition in the Russian Church and State. Moscow became the successor of both Byzantium and the Golden Horde, and the autocracy of the tsars was not only a political fact, but also a religious doctrine, for many almost a dogma. But when history has finished with this fact, it is time to recall the existence of another major fact and another doctrine in the same Russian Orthodoxy. Orthodox supporters of democratic Russia can draw their inspiration from this tradition. " Fedotov opposes the political domination of the Church, theocracy. “Every theocracy,” he writes, “is fraught with the danger of violence against the conscience of the minority. Separate, albeit friendly, coexistence of church and state is the best solution for today. But looking back into the past, one cannot but admit that within the Eastern Orthodox world, Novgorod has found a better solution to the ever-troubling question of the relationship between the state and the church. "
This essay became, as it were, the spiritual testament of Georgy Petrovich Fedotov. He died on September 1, 1951. Then hardly anyone could have guessed that the day of the end of Stalinism was not far off. But Fedotov believed in the meaningfulness of the historical process. I believed in the victory of humanity, spirit and freedom. He believed that no dark forces would be able to stop the stream that flows to us from early Christianity and the ideals of Holy Russia that had adopted it.
Archpriest Alexander Men
Introduction
The study of Russian holiness in its history and its religious phenomenology is now one of the urgent tasks of our Christian and national revival. In Russian saints we honor not only the heavenly patrons of saint and sinful Russia: in them we seek revelation of our own spiritual path. We believe that every nation has its own religious vocation, and, of course, it is most fully realized by its religious geniuses. Here is the path for all, marked by the milestones of the heroic asceticism of the few. Their ideal has fed the life of the people for centuries; at their fire all Russia lit its lamps. If we are not deceived into believing that the entire culture of a people, in the last analysis, is determined by its religion, then in Russian holiness we will find a key that explains much in the phenomena of modern, secularized Russian culture. Setting ourselves the daunting task of her churching, her re-incorporation into the body of the universal Church, we are obliged to specify the universal task of Christianity: to find that special branch on the Vine, which is marked by our name: the Russian branch of Orthodoxy.
The successful solution of this task (of course, in practice, in spiritual life) will save us from a big mistake. We will not equate, as we often do, the Russian with the Orthodox, realizing that the Russian theme is a private topic, and the Orthodox one is all-encompassing, and this will save us from spiritual pride that often distorts Russian national-religious thought. On the other hand, awareness of our personal historical path will help us to focus on it as much organized efforts as possible, saving, perhaps, from a fruitless waste of energy on alien, unbearable roads for us.
At present, a complete confusion of concepts in this area prevails among the Russian Orthodox society. Usually they compare the spiritual life of modern, post-Peter the Great Russia, our eldership or our folk foolishness, with "Philosophy", that is, with the asceticism of the ancient East, easily throwing a bridge over the millennia and bypassing the completely unknown or supposedly known holiness of Ancient Russia. Strange as it may seem, the task of studying Russian holiness as a special tradition of spiritual life was not even posed. This was hindered by a prejudice that was shared and is shared by the majority of both Orthodox Christians and people hostile to the Church: the prejudice of uniformity, the immutability of spiritual life. For some it is a canon, a patristic norm, for others it is a stencil that deprives the topic of sanctity of scientific interest. Of course, the spiritual life in Christianity has some general laws, or rather, norms. But these norms do not exclude, but require the separation of methods, exploits, vocations. In Catholic France, which develops a huge hagiographic production, the Joly school (the author of a book on the "psychology of holiness") currently dominates, which studies individuality in the saint - in the conviction that grace does not force nature. It is true that Catholicism, with its characteristic specification in all areas of spiritual life, directly attracts attention to a particular person. In Orthodoxy, the traditional, the general prevails. But this general is not given in faceless schemes, but in living personalities. We have evidence that the iconographic faces of many Russian saints are basically portrait, although not in the sense of a realistic portrait. The personal in the life, as in the icon, is given in subtle lines, in shades: this is the art of nuances. That is why a researcher is required here much more keen attention, critical care, delicate, jewelry acrivia than for a researcher of Catholic holiness. Then only behind the type, "stencil", "stamp" there will be a unique appearance.
The enormous difficulty of this task depends on the fact that the individual is revealed only against a distinct background of the general. In other words, knowledge of the hagiography of the entire Christian world, primarily of the Orthodox, Greek and Slavic East, is necessary in order to have the right to judge the special Russian character of holiness. None of the Russian church and literary historians have hitherto been sufficiently armed for such work. That is why the proposed book, which only in very few points can rely on the results of finished works, is only a rough outline, rather a program for future research, so important for the spiritual tasks of our time.
The material for this work will be the hagiographic hagiographic literature of Ancient Russia available to us. The Lives of the Saints were the favorite reading of our ancestors. Even lay people copied or ordered hagiographic collections for themselves. Since the 16th century, in connection with the growth of the Moscow national consciousness, collections of purely Russian lives have appeared. For more than twenty years, Metropolitan Macarius of Grozny, with a whole staff of literate workers, collected ancient Russian writing in a huge collection of the Great Menyi Meni, in which the lives of the saints took pride of place. Among the best writers of Ancient Russia, they dedicated their pen to the glorification of the saints Nestor the Chronicler, Epiphanius the Wise and Pakhomiy Logofet. Over the centuries of its existence, Russian hagiography has gone through different forms, knew different styles. Forming in close dependence on the Greek, rhetorically developed and decorated, hagiography (sample - Simeon Metaphrast of the 10th century), Russian hagiography, perhaps, bore its best results in the Kiev south. True, the few monuments of the pre-Mongol era with a magnificent verbal culture combine the richness of a specific description, a distinctness of personal characteristics. The first shoots of hagiographic literature in the north before and after the Mongol pogrom have a completely different character: they are short, poor in rhetoric and in factual details of the records - rather a canvas for future legends than ready-made lives. V.O. Klyuchevsky suggested that these monuments were connected with the kontakion of the sixth canon, followed by the life of the saint on the eve of his memory. In any case, the opinion about the folk origin of the most ancient northern Russian lives (Nekrasov, partly already Shevyrev) has long been abandoned. The nationality of the language of some lives is a secondary phenomenon, a product of literary decline. From the beginning of the 15th century, Epiphanius and the Serb Pachomius also created a new school in northern Russia - undoubtedly under Greek and South Slavic influences - a school of artificially decorated, extensive life. They - especially Pachomius - created a stable literary canon, a magnificent "weaving of words", which Russian scribes strive to imitate until the end of the 17th century. In the era of Macarius, when many of the ancient unsophisticated hagiographic records were being altered, the creations of Pachomius were brought to the Chetii Menaia intact. The vast majority of these hagiographic sites are strictly dependent on their specimens. There are lives almost entirely copied from the earliest; others develop commonplaces by refraining from precise biographical information. This is how hagiographers unwillingly act, separated from the saint by a long period of time - sometimes centuries, when folk tradition dries up. But here the general law of the hagiographic style also operates, similar to the law of icon painting: it requires the subordination of the private to the general, the dissolution of the human face in the heavenly glorified face. A writer-artist or a devoted disciple of a saint, who took up his work on his fresh grave, knows how to give a few personal features with a thin brush, sparingly, but definitely. A late writer or a conscientious worker works according to "facial originals", refraining from the personal, unstable, and unique. With the general parsimony of Old Russian literary culture, it is not surprising that most researchers are desperate from the poverty of Russian lives. The experience of Klyuchevsky is characteristic in this respect. He knew Russian hagiography like no one else before or after him. He studied up to 150 lives in 250 editions from manuscripts - and as a result of many years of research, he came to the most pessimistic conclusions. With the exception of a few monuments, the rest of the Russian hagiographic literature is poor in content, representing most often literary development or even copying of traditional types. In view of this, even the "poor historical content of the life" cannot be used without preliminary complex work of criticism. The experience of Klyuchevsky (1871) for a long time frightened Russian researchers away from the "ungrateful" material. Meanwhile, his disappointment largely depended on his personal approach: he looked in his life not for what it promises to give as a monument of spiritual life, but for materials for studying an extraneous phenomenon: the colonization of the Russian North. As soon as 30 years after Klyuchevskoy, a secular provincial scientist made the study of religious and moral trends his topic, and Russian lives were illuminated in a new way for him. Proceeding precisely from the study of templates, A. Kadlubovsky could see the differences in spiritual directions in the slightest changes in the schemes, outline the lines of development of theological schools. True, he did this only for one and a half to two centuries of the Moscow era (XV-XVI), but for the most important centuries in the history of Russian holiness. It should be surprising that the example of the Warsaw historian did not find imitators in our country. In the last decades before the war, the history of Russian life had many well-armed workers in our country. They studied mainly either regional groups (Vologda, Pskov, Pomor), or hagiological types ("holy princes"). But their study continued to be external, literary and historical, without sufficient attention to the problems of holiness as a category of spiritual life. It remains for us to add that the work on Russian hagiography is extremely difficult due to the lack of publications. Of the 150 Lives, or 250 editions known to Klyuchevsky (and after him, those unknown to him were also found), no more than fifty mostly ancient monuments were published. A. Kadlubovsky gives an incomplete list of them. Starting from the middle of the 16th century, that is, just from the heyday of hagiographic production in Moscow, almost all of the material is in manuscripts. Scientific publications received no more than four hagiographic monuments; the rest are reprints of random, not always the best, manuscripts. As before, the researcher is chained to the old prepress collections scattered in the libraries of Russian cities and monasteries. The authentic literary material of antiquity has been supplanted by later transcriptions and translations. But these arrangements are far from complete. Even in the Four Menaion, St. Dimitri of Rostov, Russian hagiographic material is presented extremely sparingly. For the majority of domestic ascetics, St. Demetrius refers to the Prologue, which gives only abridged lives, and even then not for all the saints. A pious lover of Russian hagiography can find a lot of interesting for himself in the twelve volumes of A. N. Muravyov's transcriptions, written - this is their main advantage - often from manuscript sources. But for scientific work, especially in view of the above-mentioned character of the Russian life, the transcriptions, of course, are not suitable. Under these conditions, it is understandable that our modest work abroad in Russia cannot meet the strict scientific requirements. We are only trying, following Kadlubovsky, to introduce new illumination into Russian hagiography, that is, to pose new problems - new for Russian science, but very old in essence, because they coincide with the meaning and idea of \u200b\u200bhagiography itself: the problem of spiritual life. Thus, in the analysis of the difficulties of Russian hagiographic science, as in almost every Russian cultural problem, the main tragedy of our historical process is revealed. The silent "Holy Russia", in its isolation from the sources of the verbal culture of antiquity, failed to tell us about the most important thing - about its religious experience. New Russia, armed with the entire apparatus of Western science, indifferently passed by the very theme of “Holy Russia”, not noticing that the development of this theme ultimately determines the fate of Russia.
At the end of this introductory chapter, it is necessary to make several remarks concerning the canonization of Russian saints. This particular topic in Russian literature is lucky. We have two studies, Vasiliev and Golubinsky, which shed enough light on this previously dark area. Canonization is the establishment by the Church of the veneration of the saint. The act of canonization - sometimes solemn, sometimes silent - does not mean the determination of the heavenly glory of the ascetic, but refers to the earthly Church, calling for the veneration of the saint in the forms of public worship. The Church knows about the existence of unknown saints, whose glory is not revealed on earth. The Church has never forbidden private prayer, that is, asking for prayer to the departed righteous, not glorified by it. This prayer of the living for the departed and the prayer to the departed, which presupposes the response of the dead for the living, expresses the unity of the heavenly and earthly Church, that "communion of saints" about which the "apostolic" symbol of faith speaks. The canonized saints represent only a clearly, liturgically outlined circle in the center of the heavenly Church. In Orthodox liturgy, the essential difference between canonized saints and other departed ones is that prayers are served to the saints, and not requiems. To this is added the commemoration of their names at various moments of the service, sometimes the establishment of holidays for them, with the preparation of special services, that is, variable prayers of the service. In Russia, as, indeed, throughout the Christian world, popular veneration usually (although not always) precedes church canonization. The Orthodox people are currently honored by many saints who have never used the church cult. Moreover, the strict definition of the circle of canonized saints of the Russian Church runs into great difficulties. These difficulties depend on the fact that, in addition to general canonization, the Church also knows the local one. By general, in this case - not entirely correctly - we mean national, that is, in essence, also local veneration. Local canonization is either diocesan or narrower, confining itself to a separate monastery or temple where the relics of the saint rest. The latter, that is, narrowly local forms of church canonization often approach the popular, since they are sometimes established without the proper permission of the church authorities, are interrupted for a while, renewed again and raise unsolvable questions. All lists, calendars, indexes of Russian saints, both private and official, will disagree, sometimes quite significantly, among the canonized saints. Even the last synodal edition (by the way, not official, but only semi-official) - "Faithful Months of Russian Saints" in 1903 - is not free from errors. He gives the total number 381. With a correct understanding of the meaning of canonization (and prayer to the saints), the controversial issues of canonization lose their acuteness to a large extent, just as the cases of decanonization known in the Russian Church, that is, the prohibition of veneration of already glorified saints, ceases to be embarrassing. Princess Anna Kashinskaya, canonized in 1649, was struck out of the ranks of Russian saints in 1677, but restored under Emperor Nicholas II. The reason for the de-canonization was the real or imaginary double-fingered folding of her hand, used by the Old Believers. For the same reason, St. Euphrosynus of Pskov, an ardent champion of the two-time "Hallelujah", was transferred from the generally revered to the locally revered saints. Other, less remarkable, cases are also known, especially frequent in the 18th century. Ecclesiastical canonization, an act addressed to the earthly Church, is guided by religious-pedagogical, sometimes national-political motives. The choice it establishes (and canonization is only a choice) does not claim to coincide with the dignity of the heavenly hierarchy. That is why on the paths of the historical life of the people we see how the heavenly patrons change in their even church consciousness; some centuries are painted in certain hagiographic colors, subsequently fading. Now the Russian people have almost forgotten the names of Cyril Belozersky and Joseph Volotsky, two of the most revered saints of Muscovite Rus. The northern hermits and the Novgorod saints also turned pale for him, but in the era of the empire the veneration of St. princes Vladimir and Alexander Nevsky. Perhaps only the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh shines with a never-dimming light in the Russian sky, triumphing over time. But this change of favorite cults is a precious indicator of the deep, often invisible germination or withering in the main directions of the religious life of the people. What are the bodies of ecclesiastical authority that have the right to canonization? In the ancient Church, each diocese kept its own independent lists (diptychs) of martyrs and saints, the spread of the veneration of some saints to the limits of the universal Church was a matter of free choice of all city - episcopal churches. Subsequently, the canonization process was centralized - in the West in Rome, in the East in Constantinople. In Russia, the metropolitans of Kiev and Moscow - the Greeks, naturally, retained the right of solemn canonization. There is even a single document related to the canonization of Metropolitan Peter, from which it can be seen that the Russian Metropolitan requested the Patriarch of Constantinople. There is no doubt, however, that in numerous cases of local canonization, bishops did without the consent of the metropolitan (of Moscow), although it is difficult to say what the prevailing rule was. From Metropolitan Macarius (1542-1563), the canonization of both generally revered and local saints became a matter of councils under the metropolitan, later the patriarch of Moscow. The time of Macarius - the youth of Grozny - generally signifies a new era in Russian canonization. The unification of all Russia under the scepter of the princes of Moscow, the wedding of Ivan IV to the throne, that is, his entry into the succession of the power of the Byzantine "ecumenical", according to the idea of \u200b\u200bOrthodox tsars, extraordinarily inspired Moscow's national church identity. The expression of the "holiness", the high vocation of the Russian land was its saints. Hence the need for the canonization of new saints, for a more solemn glorification of the old. After the Makariev Councils of 1547–1549. the number of Russian saints almost doubled. Throughout the dioceses, it was ordered to conduct a "search" about new miracle workers: "Where are these miracle workers glorified with great miracles and signs, from colic times and what are the years." A whole school of hagiographers worked in the environment of the metropolitan and in dioceses, which hastily compiled the lives of new miracle workers, remaking old ones in a solemn style corresponding to new literary tastes. The Readings of the Menaion of Metropolitan Macarius and his canonization councils represent two sides of the same church-national movement. The conciliar, and from the 17th century, the patriarchal authority retained the right of canonization (exceptions are found for some local saints) until the time of the Holy Synod, which since the 18th century became the only canonization instance. Peter's legislation (Spiritual Regulations) is more than restrained towards the new canonizations, although Peter himself canonized St. Vassian and Jonah of Pertominsky in gratitude for saving from the storm on the White Sea. The last two synodal centuries have been marked by extremely restrictive canonization practices. Before Emperor Nicholas II, only four saints were numbered among the revered saints. In the 18th century, there were frequent cases when diocesan bishops, by their own authority, stopped venerating local saints, even those who were canonized by the Church. Only under Emperor Nicholas II, in accordance with the direction of his personal piety, canonizations follow one after another: seven new saints in one reign. The grounds for church canonization were and remain: 1) the life and exploits of the saint, 2) miracles, and 3) in some cases the incorruption of his relics.
The lack of information about the lives of the saints was an obstacle that impeded the canonization of Saints James Borovitsky and Andrew of Smolensky in the 16th century. But miracles triumphed over the doubts of the Moscow metropolitans and their investigators. Miracles are generally the main reason for canonization - although not exclusive. Golubinsky, who is generally inclined to attribute decisive importance to this second moment, indicates that church tradition has not preserved information about the miracles of St. Prince Vladimir, Anthony of the Caves and many holy Novgorod bishops. As for the incorruptibility of the relics, absolutely wrong ideas have dominated in our country lately. The Church honors both bones and imperishable (mummified) bodies of saints, now equally called relics. On the basis of a large material of chronicles, acts of examination of holy relics in the old and modern times, Golubinsky could give examples of incorruptible (Prince Olga, Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky and his son Gleb, Kiev Caves saints), corruptible (St. Theodosius of Chernigov, Seraphim of Sarov, etc. .) and partially imperishable (St. Demetrius of Rostov, Feodosia Totem) relics. For some, the evidence doubles or even allows us to assume the later perishability of the once imperishable relics. The very word "power" in the Old Russian and Slavic languages \u200b\u200bmeant bones and was sometimes opposed to the body. It was said about some saints: "Lies in relics", and about others: "Lies in the body." In the ancient language, "incorruptible relics" meant "incorruptible", that is, not decayed bones. There are not very rare cases of natural incorruption, that is, the mummification of bodies that have nothing to do with saints: mass mummification in some cemeteries in Siberia, the Caucasus, in France - in Bordeaux and Toulouse, etc. Although the Church has always seen in the incorruption of saints a special gift God and the visible evidence of their glory, in Ancient Russia, did not require this wonderful gift from every saint. “Naga bones exude healing,” writes the learned Metropolitan Daniel (16th century). It was only in the synodal era that the misconception took root that all the relics of the saints are incorruptible bodies. This delusion - partly an abuse - was first loudly refuted by the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Anthony and the Holy Synod during the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Despite the explanation of the Synod and the research of Golubinsky, the people continued to adhere to the same views, and therefore the results of the blasphemous opening of the relics by the Bolsheviks in 1919-1920. were a heavy shock for many. Oddly enough, Ancient Russia looked at this matter more soberly and more reasonably than the new "enlightened" centuries, when both enlightenment and church tradition suffered from mutual disunity.
Holiness is purity of the heart seeking uncreated divine energy that manifests itself in the gifts of the Holy Spirit as a multitude of colored rays in the solar spectrum. Pious ascetics are the connecting link between the earthly world and the heavenly Kingdom. Penetrating with the light of divine grace, they, through the contemplation of God and communication with God, cognize the highest spiritual secrets. In earthly life, the saints, performing the feat of self-denial for the sake of the Lord, receive the highest grace of divine Revelation. According to the biblical teaching, holiness is the likeness of a person to God, who is the only bearer of the all-perfect life and its unique source.
The church procedure for canonizing a righteous person is called canonization. She encourages believers to honor the recognized saint in public worship. As a rule, church recognition of piety is preceded by popular glory and veneration, but it was the act of canonization that made it possible to glorify the saints by creating icons, writing lives, composing prayers and church services. The reason for the official canonization can be the feat of the righteous man, the incredible deeds he has done, his whole life or martyrdom. And after death, a person can be recognized as a saint because of the incorruptibility of his relics, or the miracles of healing occurring at his remains.
In the event that a saint is venerated within the confines of one temple, city or monastery, they speak of diocesan, local canonization.
The official church also recognizes the existence of unknown saints, whose piety is not yet known to the entire Christian flock. They are called the revered deceased righteous and they serve them requiem, while the canonized saints are served with prayers.
That is why the names of Russian saints, whom they revere in one diocese, may differ and be unknown to parishioners in another city.
Who was canonized in Russia
Long-suffering Russia gave birth to more than a thousand martyrs and martyrs. All the names of the saints of the Russian land, who were canonized, entered in the calendar, or months. The right to solemnly rank the righteous among the saints was originally possessed by the Kiev, and later Moscow, metropolitans. The first canonizations were preceded by the exhumation of the remains of the righteous to perform a miracle. In the 11-16 centuries, the burials of princes Boris and Gleb, Princess Olga, Theodosius of Pechersky were uncovered.
From the second half of the 16th century, under Metropolitan Macarius, the right to canonize saints passed to church councils under the chief priest. The indisputable authority of the Orthodox Church that had existed in Russia by that time for 600 years, was confirmed by numerous Russian saints. The list of names of the righteous men glorified by the Macarius Councils was supplemented by the naming of 39 pious Christians as saints.
Byzantine Canonization Rules
In the 17th century, the Russian Orthodox Church succumbed to the influence of the ancient Byzantine rules of canonization. During this period, mainly clergymen were canonized because they had a church dignity. Also, missionaries carrying the faith and companions in the construction of new temples and monasteries deserved to be counted. And the need for miracles has lost its relevance. So 150 righteous people were canonized, mainly from among monks and higher clergy, and the Saints added new names of Russian Orthodox saints.
Weakening Church Influence
In the 18-19 centuries, only the Holy Synod had the right to canonize. This period is characterized by a decrease in the activity of the church and a weakening of its influence on social processes. Before Nicholas II ascended the throne, only four canonizations took place. During the short period of the reign of the Romanovs, seven more Christians were numbered among the saints, and the saints added new names of Russian saints.
By the beginning of the 20th century, generally recognized and locally revered Russian saints were included in the month's words, the list of whose names was supplemented by a list of deceased Orthodox Christians, with whom funeral services were performed.
Modern canonizations
The beginning of the modern period in the history of the canonizations carried out by the Russian Orthodox Church can be considered the Local Council held in 1917-18, where the universally revered Russian saints Sophronius of Irkutsk and Joseph of Astrakhan were numbered among the saints. Then, in the 1970s, three more clergymen were canonized - German of Alaska, Archbishop of Japan and Metropolitan Innokenty of Moscow and Kolomna.
In the year of the millennium of the baptism of Rus, new canonizations took place, where Xenia of Petersburg, Dmitry Donskoy and other equally famous Orthodox Russian saints were recognized as pious.
In 2000, the jubilee Bishops' Council was held, at which Emperor Nicholas II and members of the Romanov royal family were canonized "as martyrs."
First canonization of the Russian Orthodox Church
The names of the first Russian saints, who were canonized by Metropolitan John in the 11th century, became a kind of symbol of the true faith of the newly baptized people, their full acceptance of Orthodox norms. Princes Boris and Gleb, the sons of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich, after canonization became the first heavenly defenders of Russian Christians. Boris and Gleb were killed by their brother in an internecine struggle for the throne of Kiev in 1015. Knowing about the impending assassination attempt, they accepted death with Christian humility for the sake of autocracy and peace of their people.
The veneration of princes was widespread even before the recognition of their holiness by the official church. After the canonization, the relics of the brothers were found incorrupt and showed miracles of healing to the ancient Russian people. And the new princes ascending to the throne made pilgrimages to the holy relics in search of a blessing for a just reign and help in military exploits. Memorial Day Saints Boris and Gleb is celebrated on July 24.
Formation of the Russian holy brotherhood
Following princes Boris and Gleb, the Monk Theodosius of the Caves was numbered among the saints. The second solemn canonization by the Russian Church took place in 1108. The Monk Theodosius is considered the father of Russian monasticism and the founder, together with his mentor Anthony, of the Kiev Caves Monastery. The teacher and the student showed two different ways of monastic obedience: one - severe asceticism, rejection of everything worldly, the other - humility and creativity for the glory of God.
In the caves of the Kiev-Pechersky Monastery, bearing the names of the founders, the relics of 118 novices of this monastery, who lived before and after the Tatar-Mongol yoke, rest. All of them were canonized in 1643, constituting a general service, and in 1762 the names of Russian saints were entered into the calendar.
Venerable Abraham of Smolensk
Very little is known about the righteous of the pre-Mongol period. Abraham of Smolensk, one of the few saints of that time, about whom a detailed biography composed by his disciple has survived. Abraham was revered for a long time in his hometown even before his canonization by the Macarius Cathedral in 1549. Having distributed to the needy all his property left over after the death of wealthy parents, the thirteenth child, the only son begged from the Lord after twelve daughters, Abraham lived in poverty, praying for salvation during the Last Judgment. Having tonsured a monk, he copied church books and painted icons. The Monk Abraham is credited with saving Smolensk from a great drought.
The most famous names of the saints of the Russian land
On a par with the aforementioned princes Boris and Gleb, peculiar symbols of Russian Orthodoxy, there are no less significant names of Russian saints who became the intercessors of the entire people through their contribution to the participation of the church in public life.
After liberation from the Mongol-Tatar influence, Russian monasticism saw as its goal the enlightenment of pagan peoples, as well as the construction of new monasteries and temples in the uninhabited north-eastern lands. The most prominent figure in this movement was the Monk Sergei of Radonezh. For a God-obedient seclusion, he built a cell on the Makovets hill, where the Trinity-Sergius Lavra was later erected. Gradually, the righteous began to join Sergius, inspired by his teachings, which led to the formation of a monastic monastery, living by the fruits of their hands, and not by the alms of believers. Sergius himself worked in the garden, setting an example for his brothers. The disciples of Sergius of Radonezh erected about 40 monasteries throughout Russia.
Saint Sergius of Radonezh carried the idea of \u200b\u200bgodly humility not only to ordinary people, but also to the ruling elite. As a skillful politician, he contributed to the unification of the Russian principalities, convincing the rulers of the need to unite the dynasties and scattered lands.
Dmitry Donskoy
Sergius of Radonezh enjoyed great veneration among the Russian prince, canonized, Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy. It was the Monk Sergius who blessed the army for the battle of Kulikovo, started by Dmitry Donskoy, and for God's support he dispatched two of his novices.
Having become a prince in early childhood, Dmitry in state affairs listened to the advice of Metropolitan Alexy, who strove for the unification of the Russian principalities around Moscow. This process was not always calm. Where by force, and where by marriage (to the Suzdal princess), Dmitry Ivanovich annexed the surrounding lands to Moscow, where he erected the first Kremlin.
It was Dmitry Donskoy who became the founder of a political movement that aimed to unite the Russian principalities around Moscow to create a powerful state with political (from the khans of the Golden Horde) and ideological (from the Byzantine church) independence. In 2002, in memory of Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy and Reverend Sergius of Radonezh, the Order "For Service to the Fatherland" was established, fully emphasizing the depth of the influence of these historical figures on the formation of Russian statehood. These Russian holy people were concerned about the prosperity, independence and tranquility of their great people.
Faces (ranks) of Russian saints
All the saints of the Ecumenical Church are summarized in nine faces or ranks: prophets, apostles, saints, great martyrs, hieromartyrs, monastic martyrs, confessors, unmercenaries, holy fools and blessed.
The Orthodox Church of Russia divides the saints into faces differently. Russian holy people, due to historical circumstances, are divided into the following ranks:
Princes... The first righteous people recognized as saints by the Russian Church were princes Boris and Gleb. Their feat consisted in self-sacrifice in the name of the peace of the Russian people. This behavior became an example for all the rulers of the times of Yaroslav the Wise, when the power in whose name the prince made a sacrifice was recognized as true. This rank is subdivided into Equal-to-the-Apostles (the disseminators of Christianity - Princess Olga, her grandson Vladimir, who baptized Russia), monks (princes who were tonsured as monks) and passion-bearers (victims of civil strife, attempts, murders for faith).
Reverends... This is the name of the saints who chose monastic obedience during their lifetime (Theodosius and Anthony of the Caves, Sergius of Radonezh, Joseph Volotsky, Seraphim of Sarov).
Saints - the righteous, who have a church rank, who based their ministry on the protection of the purity of faith, the spread of Christian teachings, the foundation of churches (Nifont Novgorod, Stephen of Perm).
Holy fools (blessed) - the saints who bore the guise of madness during their lifetime, rejecting worldly values. A very numerous rite of the Russian righteous, replenished mainly by monks who considered monastic obedience insufficient. They left the monastery, going out in rags to the streets of cities and enduring all the hardships (Basil the Blessed, Isaac the Recluse, Simeon Palestinsky, Xenia of Petersburg).
Holy laymen and wives... This rite unites murdered infants recognized as saints, renounced the wealth of the laity, the righteous, distinguished by their boundless love for people (Juliania Lazarevskaya, Artemy Verkolsky).
Lives of Russian saints
The Lives of the Saints is a literary work containing historical, biographical and everyday information about the righteous man canonized by the church. Lives are one of the oldest literary genres. Depending on the time and country of writing, these treatises were created in the form of biography, enkomiya (word of praise), martyria (testimony), patericon. The style of writing lives in Byzantine, Roman and Western ecclesiastical cultures was significantly different. Back in the 4th century, the Church began to unite the saints and their biographies into vaults that looked like a calendar indicating the day of commemoration of the pious.
In Russia, the Lives appear together with the adoption of Christianity from Byzantium in Bulgarian and Serbian translations, combined into collections for reading by months - mesyaslovs and menaea.
Already in the 11th century, a laudatory biography of princes Boris and Gleb appears, where the unknown author of the life is Russian. The holy names are recognized by the church and added to the monthly words. In the 12th and 13th centuries, along with the monastic desire to enlighten the north-east of Russia, the number of biographical works also increased. Russian authors wrote the lives of Russian saints for reading during the Divine Liturgy. The names, the list of which was recognized by the church for glorification, now received a historical person, and the holy deeds and miracles were enshrined in a literary monument.
In the 15th century, there was a change in the style of writing lives. The authors began to pay the main attention not to factual data, but to the skillful command of the artistic word, the beauty of the literary language, the ability to pick up many impressive comparisons. Skillful scribes of that period became known. For example, Epiphanius the Wise, who wrote the vivid lives of the Russian saints, whose names were most famous for the people - Stephen of Perm and Sergius of Radonezh.
Many Lives are considered to be a source of information about important historical events. From the biography of Alexander Nevsky, you can learn about political relations with the Horde. The lives of Boris and Gleb tell about the princely feuds before the unification of Russia. The creation of a literary and church biographical work largely determined which names of Russian saints, their exploits and virtues, would become best known to a wide circle of believers.
Religion had a strong influence on the formation of the spiritual values \u200b\u200bof our ancestors. This is understandable, because religion is an element of human culture, and such an element that, under certain historical conditions, plays a significant and sometimes dominant role in the system of spiritual culture.
The economic development of ancient Russia of the pre-Christian era, characterized by dynamism and versatility, gave rise to a plurality of forms and manifestations of spiritual culture, high enough for its time. The materials collected by domestic scientists characterize the general level of views of the Slavic agricultural and pastoralist society at the early stages of development up to the adoption of Christianity.
To understand the worldview of the ancient Slav, one should pay attention to the features of his consciousness. And this feature is reduced to the specificity of the mythological perception of reality. The myth and an important form of its objectivity - the primitive rite - were very complex, multidimensional formations in which elements of magic, and the rudiments of artistic creativity, and social norms regulating human behavior were intricately intertwined and organically merged. The paganism of Ancient Rus was not a frozen form, it developed and from the sphere of mythological-religious-oznoy passed into the sphere of folk art, therefore, outside the connection with ancient paganism, it is impossible to understand the folk culture of subsequent centuries.
The religious beliefs of pre-Christian Russia fully corresponded to the tribal relations of the Slavs. The Slavs worshiped the forces of visible nature and revered their ancestors. The forces of nature were embodied in their personal deities. The first place among them was occupied by the sun deity - Dazhbog (or Dazhdbog), Horos, Veles (or Volos). Dazhdbog was revered as a source of warmth and light, as the giver of all blessings, Veles - as the patron saint of herds or "cattle god"; "Great Khoros", apparently, was the name of the sun itself, making its way through the sky. Another deity was Perun, who personified a thunderstorm with terrible thunder and deadly lightning. The wind had its own deity - Striboga. The sky in which Dazhdbog stayed was called Svarog and was considered the father of the sun. The deity of the earth bore the name Mother Earth Raw. Honoring the earth as their mother, the Slavs honored Dazhdbog and Veles as human grandfathers. But all these images of the gods did not receive from the Slavs that clarity and definition, as, for example, in the more developed Greek mythology. The external cult of the Slavs was also not developed: there were neither temples, nor a special class of priests. In some places, in open places, crude images of gods - idols - were placed. Sacrifices were made to them, and idolatry was limited to this. The Arab traveler Ahmet Ibn Faldan described the sanctuary of the Slavs in this way. The sanctuary is a high pillar, dug into the ground, in the upper part with a carved face "like a human." Around this image are the same, smaller ones. Behind each of the small ones there is a pillar somewhat higher than the figures. They come to the idol and bring bread, meat, milk, onions and some kind of alcoholic drink.
In addition to the cult of nature, the Eastern Slavs also developed a cult of ancestors associated with the family life of the Slavs. The ancestor, who had died long ago, was deified and considered as a living patron of his offspring. His name was by birth, Schur. The progenitors of the clan were called women in labor and were revered in the same way as the clan. With the fall of clan ties, when families became isolated, the place of the schur was taken by the family ancestor - the grandfather of the brownie, the patron of his court, invisibly managing the household. The belief in the afterlife, permeating the entire cult of ancestors, was also reflected in the belief that the souls of the dead seemed to wander the earth and inhabited fields, forests and waters (mermaids). Believing in the existence of mysterious owners of human dwellings, the Slav was looking for the same owners outside the dwellings - in the forest (goblin), in the water (water). All nature seemed to him spiritualized and alive. He entered into communication with her, wanted to participate in the changes that were taking place in nature, and accompanied these changes with various rituals. Thus, a circle of pagan holidays associated with the worship of nature and the cult of ancestors was created.
The rituals reflected the way of life, everyday norms or customs of the family. All work cycles were celebrated by rituals: plowing, sowing, harvesting, gathering, harvesting, hunting, etc. Pre-Christian holidays and rituals were essentially folk, as they were formed in the process of development of labor activity, as a result of which they became the fundamental basis of all folk holidays and rituals that existed in subsequent historical eras. Religious, or magical, motives in folk rituals had a specific purpose - to win over or render harmless the "forces of evil."
Pagan holidays usually began inside the house. This is not only about narrow family matters like matchmaking, weddings, funerals. New Year's fortune-telling and spells of the future harvest, carols, masquerades, Pancake feasts with pancakes, rituals associated with the first pasture of cattle, commemoration, celebration of the harvest and much more - all this began in every family, where the head of the family performed the functions of a priest and supervised all ceremonial. Then the holiday was carried out to places of public "world gathering", where it was accompanied by chants to the accompaniment of musical instruments.
Paganism was not a religion in the modern sense. It was a rather chaotic collection of various beliefs, cults, but not teachings. This is a combination of religious rites and a whole heap of objects of religious veneration. The pagan world outlook of our ancestors, which did not reach much development and did not have an inner strength, found itself under extraneous religious influence. If the Slavs easily mixed the superstitions of the Finns with their superstitions and fell under the influence of shamans - magi and sorcerers, then the more the Christian faith should have influenced the same Slavs who could know it. Trade relations with Byzantium made it easier for Russia to get acquainted with the Christian faith. Varangian merchants and warriors, who went to Constantinople, began to convert there to Christianity and brought a new teaching to Russia, passing it on to the Slavs.
During the reign of Igor in Kiev, there was already a Christian church of St. Elijah is a cathedral, that is, the main church of the city. Therefore, we can conclude that there are Christian communities in Kiev with their own churches and clergy. According to the chronicler, in Kiev "there are many boesha varazi christiani". There were many Christians in Igor's squad. The prince's wife, Princess Olga, also converted to Christianity.
What was the position of the Kiev Christian communities? Most likely rather unstable. Simultaneously with the prayers addressed to Christ, pagan sacrifices were performed, which the insatiable Perun demanded. The chronicle tells how, under Prince Vladimir, a crowd of pagan Kievites (983) killed two Christians, a father and a son, for the father's refusal to voluntarily sacrifice his son to the gods.
And yet Byzantine Christianity was slowly but stubbornly making its way to Russia: churches were being built, clergymen appeared, the formation of the church organization began. However, this does not mean that Christians were numerous and influential at that time. We know that by the beginning of the 40s. X century. they met among the "princely men" and other residents of Kiev, making up a certain group. Themselves as representatives of the princely family remained "filthy", pagans. The exception was Princess Olga. In 955, the chronicler notes, "Olga's idea of \u200b\u200bthe Greeks, where she was baptized." In baptism she was given the name Olena (Elena) in honor of Empress Helena, mother of Constantine I, who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
The ancient Russian chroniclers perceived Olga's conversion to Christianity as a manifestation of the deepest wisdom inherent in the princess. And in the memory of the descendants, Olga's baptism became an event of great importance, the personality of the princess is surrounded by an aura of glory. However, Olga's baptism was rather a fact of her personal life, devoid of any serious political meaning. She did not try to establish Christianity in Russia and did not even manage to cultivate in her own son a propensity for Christianity. Svyatoslav remained a pagan. For Svyatoslav, the Christian faith seemed insane and stupid.
Consequently, until the last decades of the X century. Christianity could not thoroughly take root in Russian society. In the situation described above, Vladimir's conversion to Christianity may seem unexpected. However, the conversion of the Kiev prince to the new faith was highly motivated. Having extended his power to practically all the Russian-Slavic lands, Vladimir inevitably had to adhere to some kind of, as they would say today, "national" political program, which, according to the conditions of that time, was expressed in a religious form.
In 980, the prince tried to unite paganism throughout the entire territory from the eastern slopes of the Carpathians to the Oka and Volga, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. To this end, the prince carried out a reform of the pagan cult. The main deity was declared the god of thunder and lightning Perun, who was especially revered in the princely squad environment. Among the all-Russian deities (pantheon) were also revered in various Slavic lands Dazhdbog, Horos, Stribog, Mokosh, Semargl, after the creation of the pantheon of gods in Kiev, Vladimir sent his uncle Dobrynya to Novgorod, and he "put an idol over the Magus." However, the country's interests called Russia to a more developed and more universal religion.
The religions that have a significant impact on the situation in Eastern Europe in the 10th century include Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam. Russian "seekers of faith" had to represent the differences between these main religions, since Kiev merchants and warriors constantly visited Constantinople, fought in Crete and Asia Minor, traded with the Egyptians and Syrians, and traveled to Volga Bulgaria and Khorezm. But Byzantium undoubtedly had the predominant influence. The Byzantine Empire and its culture at that time occupied a leading position in the international arena of the medieval world. And as mentioned above, Kievan Rus was actively involved in contacts with Byzantium. This is explained by two reasons: on the one hand, the Eastern Slavs made frequent forays into the territory of Byzantium, on the other, Byzantium itself drew Kievan Rus into its foreign policy activities. The policy of temporary alliances is one of the weapons of Byzantine diplomacy. This fully applies to the time immediately preceding the adoption of Christianity by Russia. At that time, an uprising broke out under the leadership of the commander Varda Fokin. The Greek government, lacking the strength, sought help from the Kiev prince Vladimir. An alliance was concluded (987), thanks to Russian intervention, the rebellion was suppressed, and Varda Foka was killed (988).
Logically, the new religion should have been accepted by the Slavs only from the hands of the Byzantines. But the chronicle unexpectedly offers us a story about the "choice of faiths." It is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that the chronicle brings missionaries from countries neighboring Russia, countries with which Russia had mutual relations in many spheres, countries whose representatives often visited and even settled in Russia. It can be said that Vladimir's “choice” of faith was predetermined by the presence in Russia of certain religious communities and, specifically, by cultural and political contacts with neighboring countries during this period.
There were many legends in Russia about how Prince Vladimir was baptized and how he baptized his people. Not remembering the exact circumstances of the case, some said that the prince was baptized in Kiev; others indicated the place of his baptism in the town of Vasilev (near Kiev); still others said that he was baptized in the Crimea, in the Greek town of Korsun (Chersonesos), after taking this city from the Greeks. About a hundred years after the baptism of Russia, the chronicler entered into his chronicle such legends about this event.
In addition to the chronicle, Metropolitan Hilarion, the monk Jacob, narrates about the baptism of Vladimir, who deny the role of Greek missionary work and write that Vladimir decided to convert to Christianity himself, without anyone's mediation and assistance. In particular, the monk Jacob, in his "praise to Prince Volodymyr of Russia," explains his act, firstly, by the fact that God himself "enlightened his heart", and secondly, having heard about his grandmother Olga, he was inflamed with a desire to imitate her. Further, Jacob reports that Vladimir was baptized before the campaign against Korsun, which he already undertook as a Christian. This message is recognized by scientists as more reliable than the chronicle "Korsun legend". The famous Russian Byzantologist of the 19th century. V. Vasilievsky wrote that the capture of Korsun was not in any connection with the baptism of the Russian people. Academician A. Shakhmatov believes that the Korsun version of the baptism of Vladimir was composed by the Greek clergy in order to assert the role of Byzantium in the baptism of Rus.
However, no matter how interpreted the version of the baptism of Vladimir, from the Korsun campaign, he returned to Kiev with a numerous retinue of priests, the relics of Saints Clement and Fif, icons and began to convert the Kievites to the new faith. The people of Kiev were baptized on the banks of the Dnieper and its tributary Pochayna. The idols of the old gods were thrown to the ground and thrown into the river. This event is attributed to 988. Does it mean that all the inhabitants of Kiev were baptized? No doubt not. The chronicle reports that there were those who continued to believe as before. It was they who ran after the floating Perun, mourning the overthrown shrine.
The baptism of the people was a very difficult matter, it took time for the people to accept the new faith. The next year after the baptism of Kiev, Vladimir sent Dobrynya to baptize the Novgorodians. Preferring paganism, the Novgorodians resisted, but were crushed by military force. Resistance came from Chernigov and Smolensk. In remote corners (for example, among the Vyatichi), paganism held on, not yielding to the new faith, for whole centuries. Maybe only by the middle of the XII century. the bulk of the population in Russia was baptized. However, the old beliefs were not immediately forgotten by the people and were intertwined with the new doctrine in a motley mixture of faith and superstition.
Christianity has become the spiritual core of the state. If before Vladimir “the body of the state was created, then Vladimir breathed the soul into it”. This was the great merit of the true creator of the Old Russian state - Prince Vladimir I Svyatoslavovich. The son of Vladimir - Yaroslav the Wise - stubbornly sought the canonization of Vladimir from the Patriarch of Constantinople. The refusal was categorical. Only the sons of Vladimir, Boris and Gleb, who perished in their struggle, were recognized as saints. A single day of commemoration of the first Russian saints was established - July 24. The chronicle obituary contains indications of why the Greek priesthood refused to canonize the prince. He “was not glorified by God,” that is, miracles do not occur from the tomb of Vladimir, which in those days were considered an indispensable sign of holiness. And it so happened, the chronicler writes, that we, "becoming Christians, do not give him honors equal to his work."
Vladimir was proclaimed saints by the Novgorod church on the direct orders of Alexander Nevsky in 1240. The day of Vladimir's death, June 15, coincided with the day of Alexander's victory on the Neva. Religious consciousness saw here the patronage of the saint, who himself, even for a short time, reigned in Novgorod. For Alexander Nevsky, a diplomat, patriot and politician, it was important by the canonization of Vladimir to show the people of Kiev that the Russian land is alive, that the greatness of Kiev is remembered and preserved in the north, that Russia remembers and preserves the glory of its great ancestors.
The all-Russian canonization of the prince took place only under Ivan IV.
With the introduction of Christianity, the international ties of Kievan Rus are strengthened, it is an equal partner among the states of Christian Europe, it begins to draw widely from a common source of culture for the whole of Europe: the Byzantine Christianized heritage of Ancient Greece and the civilizations of the East. All-Slavic Cyrillic writing comes to Russia, and in the circle of the scribes of the Kiev Metropolitanate a mighty centuries-old tree of Russian annals is growing. Here are the origins of Russian literature, professional architecture, painting, musical art. The perceived Christianity merged with the folk culture of the Slavs, its traditions, mythology, historical memory, creating the ground on which the first shoots of not only Russian, but, to the same extent, Ukrainian, Belarusian cultures would sprout.
With the help of Byzantium, secular and ecclesiastical authorities took care of saturating the spiritual life of the baptized with the magical tools of the new religion. Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, according to the Ipatiev Chronicle, brought from Korsun the relics of St. Clement, bishop of Rome. Subsequently, the shrines flowed in a stream from Byzantium to Russia. So, in 1134, the "plaque of the Holy Sepulcher" was erected, followed by crowns of thorns, the relics of New Testament leaders, etc.
As soon as Christianity was adopted in Russia, church symbolism immediately appears. There could be nothing accidental in the appearance and interior of the temples, since every detail carried its own ideological load. The church was not only a luxurious and magnificent building for those conditions, but, which is very important, it was accessible to the masses. The construction of the church has always proceeded from the task of spreading Christian teachings, influencing the spiritual life of parishioners. Therefore, already in Kievan Rus in the temple architecture, a multi-dome arose: the five-dome is a symbol of domination and the four evangelists; the seven-headed - the seven gifts of the "Holy Spirit"; nine-headed - nine officials of God's saints; 33 chapters mean 33 years of Christ's life….
The role and significance of Christianity in Russia were very changeable, just as Orthodoxy itself was changeable in Russia. However, it was Orthodoxy that gave Russia a thousand-year history. And Pushkin is right when he said that recent history is the history of Christianity, because painting, music, to a large extent architecture and almost all literature were in the orbit of Christian thought.
Presentation on the topic: Psychological violence
Presentation "Foul language is dangerous!
Presidents of Russia presentation for a history lesson (grade 10) on the topic