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Religious dogmas. Dogmas about God, trinity in persons. Doctrines about the Holy Church

Basic tenets:

1. The dogma of the Holy Trinity.

2. The dogma of the creation of the world.

3. Dogma about angels.

4. The dogma of the fall.

5. The dogma of the ever-virginity of the Most Holy Theotokos.

6. Dogma about the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

7. The dogma of the redemption of mankind from sin.

8. The dogma of the suffering on the Cross and the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9. Dogma about the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

10. Dogma about the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.

11. Dogma about the Second Coming of the Savior and the Last Judgment.

12. Dogma about the procession of the Holy Spirit.

13. The dogma of the one (one), holy, catholic Church and the continuity in it of the teaching and priesthood from the apostles.

14. Dogma about the sacraments of the Church.

15. Dogma about general resurrection people and future life.

16. The dogma of the two natures of the Lord Jesus Christ (adopted at the IV Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon).

17. The dogma of two wills and actions in the Lord Jesus Christ (adopted at the VI Ecumenical Council in Constantinople).

18. The dogma of icon veneration (adopted at VII Ecumenical Cathedral at Nicaea).

19. Dogma about divine energy or about Grace.

Structure of dogmatic theology:

1. Dogmas about God and His general relation to the world and man

General Properties of the Being of God

God is incomprehensible and invisible. God revealed himself to people in creation and in supernatural Revelation, which was preached by the only begotten Son of God through the Apostles. God is one in essence and three in persons.

God is an eternal Spirit, all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-pervading, unchangeable, all-satisfied, all-blessed.

The nature of God is completely immaterial, not involved in the slightest complexity, simple.

God, as a Spirit, in addition to the spiritual nature (substance), has a mind and a will.

God, as a Spirit, is infinite in all respects, otherwise, all-perfect, He is original and independent, immeasurable and omnipresent, eternal and unchanging, omnipotent and omnipotent, perfect and alien to any lack.

Particular Properties of the Being of God

Identity - everything that has, has from itself.

Independence - in being, in forces and in actions is determined by Himself.

Immeasurability and omnipresence - not subject to any limitation of space and place.

Eternity - He has neither the beginning nor the end of his being.

Immutability - He always remains the same.

Omnipotence - He has unlimited power to produce everything and rule over everything.

Properties of the Mind of God

The property of the mind of God in itself is omniscience, i.e. He knows everything and knows in the most perfect way.

The property of the mind of God in relation to his actions is the highest wisdom, i.e. the most perfect knowledge of the best ends and the best means, the most perfect art of applying the latter to the former.

Properties of God's Will

The properties of the will of God in itself are the highest free and all-holy, i.e. pure from all sin.

The property of the will of God in relation to all creatures is all-good, and in relation to rational creatures it is true and faithful, since it reveals itself to them as a moral law, as well as just, because it rewards them according to their deserts.

The unity of God in essence

God is one.

2. Dogmas about God, trinity in persons

There are essentially three Persons or Hypostases in God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The three persons in God are equal and consubstantial.

Three persons are different in their personal properties: the Father is not begotten of anyone, the Son is begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

Hypostases are inseparable and unmerged; the birth of the Son never began, never ended, the Son was born from the Father, but was not separated from him, He abides in the Father; God the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father.

3. Dogmas about God, as the Creator and Provider, to the spiritual world

The spiritual world is made up of two kinds of spirits: good, called angels, and evil, called demons.

Angels and demons are created from God.

Demons became evil from good spirits of their own free will with the connivance of God.

God, as a Provider, gave nature, powers and abilities to both Angels and demons.

God assists the Angels in their good deeds and governs them according to the purpose of their existence.

God allowed the fall of demons and allows their evil activity, and limits it, directing it, if possible, to good goals.

Angels

By their nature, angels are incorporeal spirits, the most perfect of the human soul, but limited.

The angelic world is extraordinarily large.

Angels glorify God, serve Him, serve people in this world, guiding them to the kingdom of God.

The Lord grants a special guardian angel to each of the believers.

Demons

The devil and his angels (demons) are personal and real beings.

Demons by their nature are incorporeal spirits, higher human souls, but limited.

Demons cannot use violence against any person if God does not allow them.

The devil acts as an enemy of God and as an enemy of man.

God is destroying the kingdom of demons on earth through the unceasing expansion of His blessed kingdom.

God gave people Divine powers against demons (prayer, etc.).

God allows the activity of demons, aimed at the destruction of mankind, for the moral benefit of people and their salvation.

4. Dogmas about God, as the Creator and Provider, to man

Man is created in the image and likeness of God.

God created man so that he would know God, love and glorify Him, and through that he would be eternally blessed.

God created the first people, Adam and Eve, in a special way, different from the creation of His other creatures.

The human race originated from Adam and Eve.

Man consists of an immaterial soul and a material body.

The soul, the highest and most excellent part of a person, is an independent, immaterial and simple, free, immortal being.

The purpose of man is to remain faithful to the high covenant or union with God, to which the All-Good One called him at the very creation, to strive for his Prototype with all the forces of his rationally free soul, i.e. He knew and glorified his Creator, he lived for Him and in moral unity with Him.

The fall of man was allowed by God.

Paradise was a place to live happy and blissful, both sensual and spiritual. Man in paradise was immortal. It is not true that Adam could not die, he could not die. Adam had to make and keep paradise. To instruct the truth of faith, God honored some people with His revelations, appeared to them Himself, talked with them, revealed His will to them.

God created man fully capable of achieving the goal set by Him, i.e. perfect, both in soul, mentally and morally, and perfect in body.
For the exercise and strengthening of moral strength in goodness, God commanded man not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A person has not kept the commandments, then he has lost his dignity.

All people came from Adam and his sin is the sin of all people.

God has bestowed His grace on man from the very beginning.

The serpent that seduced Adam and Eve contained the devil. Eve was carried away by the dream of becoming equal to God, Adam fell as a result of addiction to his wife.

Death came to man from the devil's envy of God.

Consequences of a fall in the soul: termination of the union with God, loss of grace, spiritual death, clouding of the mind, subversion of the will and its inclination more towards evil than good, distortion of the image of God.

The consequences of the fall for the body: illness, sorrow, exhaustion, death.

The consequence for the external state of man: the loss or reduction of power over animals, the loss of the fruitfulness of the earth.

The consequences of the fall extended to all mankind. Original sin is universal.

After the fall of Adam and Eve, God did not stop thinking about man. He is the king of all the earth, rules over the peoples and looks after them. He puts kings over the peoples, grants them power and power, governs earthly kingdoms through kings. He supplies lower authorities through kings, supplies His servants (Angels) to arrange the happiness of human societies.

God provides for individual people and, in particular, for guides, keeps us throughout our lives, assists us in our activities, sets the limit for our earthly life and activities.
God provides in ways natural (preserves people and assists them) and supernatural (miracles and actions of the Divine economy).

5. Dogmas about God the Savior and His special relationship to the human race

God sent His Only Begotten Son into the earthly vale, so that He, having taken flesh from the Most Pure Virgin through the action of the Holy Spirit, redeemed man and brought him into His kingdom in much greater glory than what he had in paradise.

God is our Savior in general, since all the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity participated in the work of our salvation.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Head and Finisher of our faith and salvation.

In the Person of Jesus Christ, each of His natures transfers its properties to another, and precisely, what is proper to Him in a human way is assimilated by Him as God, and what is proper to Him, according to Divinity, is assimilated by Him as a man.

The Most Holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Lord Jesus, not according to His Divinity, but according to humanity, which, however, from the very moment of His incarnation, became inseparably and hypostatically united in Him with His Divinity, and became His own Divine Person.

In Jesus Christ, not the entire Holy Trinity was embodied, but only one Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity.

The attitude of the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity has not changed in the least through His incarnation, and after the incarnation, God the Word remains the same God's Son as he was before. The son of God the Father is natural, not adopted.

Jesus Christ was anointed as high priest, king and prophet for the threefold ministry of the human race, through which he accomplished his salvation.

6. Dogmas about Christ the Savior

The One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten for the sake of man and the human race of salvation, descended from heaven and became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became human.
Jesus Christ, perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity; truly God and truly man; also from soul and body; consubstantial with the Father in divinity and consubstantial with men in humanity; in everything like men, except for sin; born before the age of the Father, according to the Divinity, in the last days, born for us and for our salvation from Mary the Virgin Theotokos, according to humanity; The only-begotten, in two natures, unmerged, unchanging, inseparable, inseparably cognizable; not into two persons cut or divided, but one Son and the Only Begotten God the Word.

How did the two natures in Jesus Christ, the Divine and the human, despite all their difference, unite into one Hypostasis; as He, being perfect God and perfect man, there is only one Person; this, according to the Word of God, is a great mystery of piety, and, therefore, is inaccessible to our reason. The Lord fulfilled the prophetic ministry directly, having assumed the office of a public Teacher, and through His disciples. The Teaching consists of the law of faith and the law of activity and is entirely directed to the salvation of mankind.

The law of faith about God, the highest and most perfect Spirit, one in essence, but trinity in Persons, original, omnipresent, all-good, all-powerful, Creator and Provider of the universe, Who takes care of all his creatures, especially the human race.

About Himself as the Only Begotten Son of God, who came into the world for reconciliation and reunification of man with God.

About His saving sufferings, death and resurrection; about a fallen, corrupted person and about the means by which he can rise up and acquire salvation for himself, be sanctified, reunite with God through his redeemer and achieve an eternally blessed life beyond the grave.

Christ expressed the law of activity in two main commandments: the eradication of the very beginning of any sin in us - pride or self-love, purification from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit; love for God and neighbor with the aim of rooting in us, instead of the former sinful, the seed of a new life, holy and pleasing to God, to bring into us the union of moral perfection.

In order to excite people to the acceptance and fulfillment of the laws of faith and activity, the Lord Jesus pointed to the greatest calamities and eternal torments to which all sinners will inevitably undergo if they do not follow His teaching, but also to the greatest and eternal blessings that the Heavenly Father has prepared, also for the sake of His merits. beloved Son, for all the righteous who follow His teachings.

Jesus Christ taught the law to all people and for all time.

Jesus Christ taught the law of salvation and, therefore, necessary for the attainment of eternal life.

As a prophet, Christ the Savior only announced salvation to us, but did not yet accomplish salvation itself: he enlightened our minds with the light of true theology, testified about himself that he is the true Messiah, explained how He would save us, and showed us a direct way to eternal life.

The high priestly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was a work by which eternal life was earned for us.

He did this, following the custom of the Old Testament high priests, offering Himself as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world, and thus reconciled us with God, delivered us from sin and its consequences, and acquired eternal blessings for us.

Christ the Savior, in order to satisfy eternal Truth for all these human sins, deigned, instead of them, to fulfill for people in all integrity and breadth the will of God, to reveal in himself the most perfect example of obedience to it and humble, humble Himself for us to the last degree.

Christ, the God-man, in order to save people from all these disasters and sufferings, deigned to take on Himself all the wrath of God, to suffer for us everything that we were worthy for our iniquities.

The high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ encompasses all of His earthly life. He constantly bore on Himself His cross of self-denial, obedience, suffering and sorrow.

The death of Jesus Christ is a redemptive sacrifice for us. He paid with His blood the debt to the Truth of God for our sins, which we ourselves were not able to pay, and He Himself was not indebted to God. This replacement was the will and consent of God, because. The Son of God came to earth to do not His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him.

The sacrifice offered for us by Christ the Savior on the cross is a comprehensive sacrifice. It extends to all people, to all sins and to all times. By His death, He earned the kingdom for us. Not the Kingly ministry of the Lord Jesus is that He, having the power of the King, in proof of the divinity of His gospel, performed a series of signs and wonders - without which people would not be able to believe in Him; and, moreover, destroy the realm of the devil - hell, really conquer death and open the entrance to the kingdom of heaven for us.

In His miracles, He manifested power over all nature: He turned water into wine, walked on the waters, tamed the sea storm with one word, healed all kinds of diseases with one word or touch, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, language to the dumb.

He exercised his power over the forces of hell. With one command, he cast out unclean spirits from people; the demons themselves, learning of His power, trembled at His power.

Jesus Christ conquered and destroyed hell when He abolished by His death the ruler of the power of death - the devil; He descended into hell with His soul, like God, in order to announce salvation to the captives of hell, and led out from there all the righteous of the Old Testament to the bright abodes of the Heavenly Father.

Jesus Christ conquered death with His resurrection. As a result of the resurrection of Christ, one day all of us will also be resurrected, because through faith in Christ and through communion with His holy sacraments we become partakers of Him.

Jesus Christ, after the liberation of the Old Testament righteous from hell, solemnly ascended to heaven with human nature assumed by Him and, thus, opened for all people a free entrance to the kingdom of heaven.

7. Dogma about sanctification

In order for each person to become a partaker of salvation, the sanctification of a person is necessary, i.e. the actual assimilation of the merits of Christ by each of us, or such a deed in which the all-holy God, under certain conditions on our part, really cleanses us from sins, justifies and makes us sanctified and holy.

All the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity participate in the work of our sanctification: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father is presented as the source of our sanctification. The Holy Spirit is presented as the finisher of our sanctification. The Son is presented as the author of our sanctification.

The grace of God, i.e. the saving power of God communicates to us for the sake of the merits of our Redeemer and accomplishes our sanctification.

Particular types of grace: external, acting through the Word of God, the Gospel, miracles, etc.; internal, acting directly in a person, destroying sins in him, enlightening the mind, directing his will to good; transitory, producing private impressions and assisting in private good deeds; constant, which constantly dwells in the soul of a person and makes him righteous; anticipating, preceding a good deed; accompanying, which accompanies good deeds; sufficient teaches a person sufficient strength and convenience to act; effective, accompanied by human action, bearing fruit.

God foresaw that some people would use their free will well, while others would use it badly: therefore, he predestined some to glory, and condemned others.

The prevenient grace of God, like a light that enlightens those who walk in darkness, leads all. Therefore, those who wish to freely submit to her and fulfill her commands, which are necessary for salvation, receive therefore special grace. Those who do not want to obey and follow grace, and therefore do not keep the commandments of God, but, following the promptings of Satan, abuse their freedom given to them from God so that they will arbitrarily do good, they are subjected to eternal condemnation.

The grace of God extends to all people, and not to some predestined to a righteous life; God's predestination of some to eternal bliss, others to eternal condemnation, is not unconditional, but conditional, and is based on the foreknowledge of whether they will use or not use grace; the grace of God does not constrain the freedom of man, does not affect us irresistibly; man actively participates in what the grace of God accomplishes in him and through him.

8. Dogmas about the Holy Church

The church of Christ is either a society of all reasonably free beings, i.e. angels and people who believe in Christ the Savior and are united in Him as their one head; or a community of people who believed and believe in Christ, whenever they live and wherever they are now; either only the Church of the New Testament and militant, or the grateful Kingdom of Christ.

The Lord Jesus wished that people, having accepted the new faith, would not keep it separately from each other, but would constitute for this a specific community of believers.

Christ laid the foundation and foundation for His Church, choosing for Himself the first twelve disciples, who formed His first Church. He also instituted an office of teachers to spread his faith among the nations; established the sacraments of baptism, the Eucharist and repentance.

Christ founded or erected His Church only on the cross, where He acquired it with His blood. For only on the cross did the Lord redeem us and reunite us with God, only after suffering on the Cross did He enter into the glory of God and could send the Holy Spirit to His disciples.

Clothed with power from above, the holy Apostles of those who believe in different places they tried to form societies which they called churches; commanded these believers to have meetings to hear the word of God and offer up prayers; admonished them that they all form one body of the Lord Jesus; commanded them not to leave their congregation for fear of excommunication from the Church.

All people are called to be members of the Church, but not all are actually members. Only those who have been baptized belong to the Church. Those who have sinned, but profess the pure faith of Christ, also belong to the church, so long as they do not become apostates. Apostates, heretics, renegades (or schismatics) are cut off as dead members by the invisible act of God's judgment.

The purpose of the Church, for which the Lord founded it, is the sanctification of sinners, and then reunion with God. To achieve this goal, the Lord Jesus gave His Church the Divine teaching and established the rank of teachers; He established in His Church the holy sacraments and rites in general, established in His Church a spiritual administration and stewards. the church is obliged to preserve the precious pledge of the saving teaching of faith and to spread this teaching among the nations; to preserve and use for the benefit of people the Divine sacraments and the sacred rites in general; to preserve the government established in it by God and to use it in accordance with the intention of the Lord.

The church is divided into a flock and a hierarchy. The flock consists of all those who believe in the Lord Jesus, while the hierarchy, or hierarchy, is a special God-established class of people whom the Lord alone authorized to manage the means that He gave to the Church for its purpose.

The three degrees of the God-established hierarchy are bishops, priests, and deacons. The bishop in his diocese is the locum tenens of Christ and, consequently, the chief commander over the entire hierarchy under his jurisdiction and over the entire flock. He is the main teacher for both ordinary believers and pastors. The bishop is the first executor of the holy sacraments in his private church. He alone has the right to ordain a priest on the basis of the word of God, the rules of the holy Apostles and holy Councils. The priest has the power to perform the sacraments and in general sacred rites, except for those belonging to the bishop. He is subject to the constant supervision, authority, and judgment of his archpastor. Deacons are the eye and ear of the bishop and priest.

Twice a year, a council of bishops, private or local, should meet to discuss the dogmas of piety and resolve the occasional church controversy.

The center of spiritual power for the Ecumenical Church is in the Ecumenical Councils.

The true Head of the Church is Jesus Christ, who holds the helm of the government of the Church, enlivens her with the one and saving grace of the Holy Spirit.

The Church is one, holy, catholic and saving. It is one in its beginning and foundation, in its structure, external (division into shepherds and flocks), internal (union of all believers in Jesus Christ as the true Head of the Church); by its purpose. It is holy in its beginning and foundation; according to its purpose, according to its structure (its head is the All-Holy Lord Jesus; the Holy Spirit abides in it with all the grace-filled gifts that sanctify us; and a number of others). It is catholic, otherwise catholic or ecumenical in space (intended to embrace all people, wherever they live on earth); according to time (destined to lead to faith in Christ and exist until the end of time); according to its structure (the teaching of the Church can be accepted by all people, educated and uneducated, without being connected with the civil system and, therefore, with any specific place and time). It is apostolic in origin (since the Apostles were the first to assume authority to spread the Christian faith and founded many private churches); according to its structure (the Church originates from the Apostles themselves through the continuous succession of bishops, borrows its teaching from the writings and traditions of the apostles, rules the believers according to the rules of the holy apostles).

There is no salvation for a person outside the Church, because faith in Jesus Christ is necessary. reconciled us to God, and faith is preserved intact only in His Church; participation in the holy sacraments, which are performed only in the Church; a good, pious life, cleansing from sins, which is possible only under the guidance of the Church.

9. Dogmas about the Sacraments of the Church

The Sacrament is a sacred act, which, under a visible image, communicates to the soul of the believer the invisible grace of God.

The essential attributes of each sacrament are considered to be the Divine establishment of the sacrament, some visible or sensible image, the communication of invisible grace by the sacrament to the soul of the believer.

There are seven sacraments in total: baptism, chrismation, communion, repentance, priesthood. marriage, unction. In baptism a person is mysteriously born into spiritual life; in chrismation receives the grace that restores and strengthens; in communion nourishes spiritually; in repentance he is healed of spiritual diseases, i.e. from sins; in the priesthood he receives grace to spiritually regenerate and educate others through doctrine and sacraments; in marriage he receives the grace that sanctifies marriage and the natural birth and upbringing of children; in unction he is healed of bodily diseases by healing from spiritual diseases.

10. Dogmas on the Sacrament of the Priesthood

So that people could become pastors of Christ's Church and receive the power to perform the sacraments, the Lord established another special sacrament - the sacrament of the priesthood.

The priesthood is such a sacred ceremony in which, through the prayerful laying on of the hands of the bishops on the head of the chosen person, the God's grace sanctifying and delivering him to a certain level church hierarchy, and then assisting him in the passage of hierarchical duties.

11. Dogmas about God as the Judge and the Giver

God accomplishes the great work of sanctifying people or assimilating the merits of Christ only with the free participation of people themselves, under the conditions of their faith and good deeds. For the completion of this work, God has appointed a limit: for private individuals, it continues until the end of their earthly life, and for the entire human race it will continue until the very end of the world. At the end of both periods, God is and has to be the Judge and Giver for each person and all mankind. He demands and will demand from people an account of how they used the means given for their sanctification and salvation, and will reward everyone according to their deserts.

The whole Holy Trinity participates in the work of judgment over us and in recompense for us.

The death of a person is an essential circumstance that precedes this judgment.

Death is the separation of the soul from the body, the cause of death lies in its fall into sin, death is the common destiny of the entire human race, death is the limit by which the time of exploits ends and the time of retribution begins.

The souls of the dead are blissful or tormented, looking at their deeds. However, neither this bliss nor this torment is perfect. They receive them perfect by the general resurrection.

Retribution to the righteous according to the will of the heavenly Judge has two types: their glorification in heaven and their glorification on earth - in the militant Church.

The glorification of the righteous, after their death, on earth is expressed by the fact that the earthly Church honors them as saints and friends of God and calls them in prayers as intercessors before God; honors their very relics and other remains, as well as their sacred images or icons.

Sinners depart with their souls to hell - a place of sorrow and sorrow. The full and final recompense for sinners will be at the end of this age.

For sinners who repented before death, but did not have time to bring fruits worthy of repentance (prayer, contrition, consolation of the poor and expression of love for God in deeds), there is still an opportunity to receive relief from suffering and even complete liberation from the bonds of hell. But they can only be received by the goodness of God, through the prayers of the Church and doing good.

12. Dogma about the General Court

The day will come, the last day for the whole human race, the day of the end of the century and the world, the day established by God, who wants to make a universal and decisive judgment - the day of judgment.

On this day, Jesus Christ will appear in His glory to judge the living and the dead. The Lord did not reveal to us when this great day would come, for our own moral benefit.

Signs of the coming of the Great Judgment: extraordinary successes of good on earth, the spread of the gospel of Christ throughout the world; the extraordinary successes of evil and the appearance on earth of the Antichrist, the tools of the devil.

On the day of universal judgment, the Lord will come from heaven - the Judge of the living and the dead, who will abolish the Antichrist by the appearance of His coming; according to the voice of the Lord, the dead will rise for judgment and the living will be changed; the judgment itself will take place over both; the end of the world and the grace-filled kingdom of Christ will follow.

At the conclusion of the universal judgment, the righteous Judge will pronounce His final judgment on both the righteous and sinners. This reward will be complete, perfect, decisive.

Retribution for both the righteous and sinners will be in proportion to their good deeds and their sins, and extends from different degrees of eternal bliss to different degrees of eternal torment.

Presentation of the dogmas according to the book: “A Guide to the Study of Christian, Orthodox-Dogmatic Theology”, M.A.L., M., Synodal Printing House, 1913. - 368 + VIII p. By definition of the Holy Governing Synod. Reprint edition of the Center for the Study, Protection and Restoration of the Heritage of Priest Pavel Florensky, St. Petersburg, 1997.

The true Church of Christ is the Ecumenical Orthodox Church, of which the Russian Orthodox Church is a part.

Sources of the Orthodox Faith (from the Orthodox Catechism):

1) Divine revelation (Old and New Testament (in the composition of the canon as it was adopted by the Ecumenical Councils).

2) Sacred Tradition - all the decisions of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the canons of the holy apostles, ten Local Councils and 13 holy fathers.

3) Resolutions of the Councils of Constantinople: 543,843,875-881,1076,1156,1157,1341,1351, 1484

4) Jerusalem Council of 1640.

5) the Great Moscow Cathedral of 1666-1667 (except for the anathema to the old rites).

6) Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs (1848).

7) In understanding Revelation, we are guided by the teachings of the holy fathers in that they do not contradict what everyone has taught always and everywhere.

8) The apostolic succession of the Russian Orthodox Church comes from Patriarch Alexei I (Simandsky), who accepted consecration in 1913 by Patriarch Gregory IV of Antioch, and the subsequent ones have apostolic succession from the bishops of the Synodal Decree.

Orthodox Church teachers

Universal Teachers: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom (they revealed the understanding of the Holy Trinity, introduced the Greek term “hypostasis” into the theological lexicon, with the help of which they were able to express the mystery of the one nature of God and the differences between the hypostases of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) - IV century.

Athanasius the Great (priest)- fighter against the Arian heresy - IV century.

Arius, not recognizing the divine dignity of Jesus Christ and His equality with God the Father, thus nullified the saving significance of the God-man's feat on the cross.

Maxim the Confessor- a simple monk, fought against the Monothelites, who denied the presence of the human will in the God-Man Jesus Christ. (VII - VIII centuries)

John of Damascus- (VII century), who lived in the Middle East - a defender of icon veneration.

Church writers who lived in the first centuries of Christianity: Tertullian, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Blessed Augustine. Their creations are devoted to controversy with the pagans and sometimes contained opinions that were later not accepted by the Church.

Brief information about the Ecumenical Councils

There were seven Ecumenical Councils in the true Orthodox Church of Christ:

Nicene
Constantinople
Ephesian
Chalcedonian
Constantinople 2nd
Constantinople 3rd, and
Nicene 2nd.

About Ecumenical Councils

FIRST Ecumenical Council

The first Ecumenical Council was convened in 325, in the mountains. Nicaea, under Emperor Constantine the Great.

This Council was convened against the false teaching of the Alexandrian priest Arius, who rejected the Divinity and the pre-eternal birth of the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, from God the Father; and taught that the Son of God is only the highest creation.

The Council was attended by 318 bishops, among whom were: St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, James Bishop of Nisibis, Spyridon of Trimyphus, St. Athanasius the Great, who at that time was still in the rank of deacon, and others.

The Council condemned and rejected the heresy of Arius and approved the indisputable truth - dogma; The Son of God is the true God, born of God the Father before all ages and is just as eternal as God the Father; He is begotten, not created, and consubstantial with God the Father.

In order for all Orthodox Christians to know exactly the true teaching of the faith, it was clearly and briefly stated in the first seven members of the Creed.

At the same Council, it was decided to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring, it was also determined for priests to be married, and many other rules were established.

SECOND Ecumenical Council

The Second Ecumenical Council was convened in 381, in the mountains. Constantinople, under Emperor Theodosius the Great.

This Council was convened against the false teachings of the former Arian Bishop of Constantinople Macedonia, who rejected the Divinity of the third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit; he taught that the Holy Spirit is not God, and called Him a creature or a created power, and at the same time serving God the Father and God the Son, as the Angels.

The Council was attended by 150 bishops, among whom were: Gregory the Theologian (he was the chairman of the Council), Gregory of Nyssa, Meletios of Antioch, Amphilochius of Iconium, Cyril of Jerusalem and others.

At the Council, the heresy of Macedonia was condemned and rejected. The Council approved the dogma of the equality and consubstantiality of God the Holy Spirit with God the Father and God the Son.

The Council also supplemented the Nicene Creed with five articles, which set out the doctrine: on the Holy Spirit, on the Church, on the sacraments, on the resurrection of the dead, and on the life of the future age. Thus, the Nicetsaregrad Creed was drawn up, which serves as a guide for the Church for all time.

THIRD Ecumenical Council

The Third Ecumenical Council was convened in 431, in the mountains. Ephesus, under Emperor Theodosius II the Younger.

The Council was convened against the false teaching of the Archbishop of Constantinople Nestorius, who impiously taught that the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth to a simple man Christ, with whom, later, God united morally, dwelt in Him, as in a temple, just as He formerly dwelt in Moses and other prophets . Therefore, Nestorius called the Lord Jesus Christ Himself a God-bearer, and not a God-man, and called the Most Holy Virgin a Christ-bearer, and not the Mother of God.

The Council was attended by 200 bishops.

The Council condemned and rejected the heresy of Nestorius and decided to recognize the union in Jesus Christ, from the time of the incarnation, of two natures: Divine and human; and determined: to confess Jesus Christ as perfect God and perfect Man, and the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Theotokos.

The Council also approved the Nicetsaregrad Creed and strictly forbade making any changes or additions to it.

FOURTH Ecumenical Council

The Fourth Ecumenical Council was convened in 451, in the mountains. Chalcedon, under the emperor Marcian.

The council was convened against the false teachings of the archimandrite of a monastery in Constantinople, Eutychius, who denied human nature in the Lord Jesus Christ. Refuting heresy and defending the Divine dignity of Jesus Christ, he himself went to extremes and taught that in the Lord Jesus Christ human nature was completely absorbed by the Divine, why in Him only one Divine nature should be recognized. This false doctrine is called Monophysitism, and its followers are called Monophysites (one-naturalists).

The Council was attended by 650 bishops.

The Council condemned and rejected the false teaching of Eutyches and determined the true teaching of the Church, namely, that our Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man: in divinity He is eternally born of the Father, in humanity He was born of the Blessed Virgin and in everything is like us, except for sin. . At the Incarnation (birth from the Virgin Mary), the Divinity and humanity united in Him as a single Person, inseparably and unchangingly (against Eutychius), inseparably and inseparably (against Nestorius).

FIFTH Ecumenical Council

The Fifth Ecumenical Council was convened in 553, in the city of Constantinople, under the famous Emperor Justinian I.

The council was convened over disputes between the followers of Nestorius and Eutyches. The main subject of controversy was the writings of three teachers of the Syrian Church, who were famous in their time, namely Theodore of Mopsuet, Theodoret of Cyrus and Willow of Edessa, in which Nestorian errors were clearly expressed, and at the Fourth Ecumenical Council nothing was mentioned about these three writings.

The Nestorians, in a dispute with the Eutychians (Monophysites), referred to these writings, and the Eutychians found in this a pretext to reject the 4th Ecumenical Council itself and slander the Orthodox Ecumenical Church that she allegedly deviated into Nestorianism.

The Council was attended by 165 bishops.

The Council condemned all three writings and Theodore of Mopsuet himself, as not repentant, and regarding the other two, the condemnation was limited only to their Nestorian writings, while they themselves were pardoned, because they renounced their false opinions and died in peace with the Church.

The council again repeated the condemnation of the heresy of Nestorius and Eutyches.

SIXTH Ecumenical Council

The Sixth Ecumenical Council was convened in 680, in the city of Constantinople, under the emperor Constantine Pogonates, and consisted of 170 bishops.

The Council was convened against the false teachings of heretics - Monothelites, who, although they recognized in Jesus Christ two natures, Divine and human, but one Divine will.

After the 5th Ecumenical Council, the unrest produced by the Monothelites continued and threatened the Greek Empire with great danger. Emperor Heraclius, desiring reconciliation, decided to persuade the Orthodox to make concessions to the Monothelites, and by the power of his power commanded to recognize in Jesus Christ one will in two natures.

The defenders and expounders of the true teaching of the Church were Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the monk of Constantinople Maximus the Confessor, whose tongue was cut out and his hand cut off for the firmness of faith.

The Sixth Ecumenical Council condemned and rejected the heresy of the Monothelites, and determined to recognize in Jesus Christ two natures - Divine and human - and according to these two natures - two wills, but in such a way that the human will in Christ is not opposed, but submissive to His Divine will.

It is noteworthy that at this Council the excommunication was pronounced among other heretics, and Pope Honorius, who recognized the doctrine of one-will as Orthodox. The decision of the Council was also signed by the Roman legates: presbyters Theodore and George, and deacon John. This clearly indicates that the supreme authority in the Church belongs to the Ecumenical Council, and not to the Pope.

After 11 years, the Council reopened meetings in the royal chambers called Trulli, to resolve issues primarily related to the church deanery. In this regard, he, as it were, supplemented the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils, and therefore is called the Fifth-Sixth.

The Council approved the rules by which the Church should be governed, namely: 85 rules of the Holy Apostles, rules of 6 Ecumenical and 7 local Councils, and rules of 13 Church Fathers. These rules were subsequently supplemented by the rules of the Seventh Ecumenical Council and two more Local Councils, and made up the so-called "Nomocanon", and in Russian "The Pilot Book", which is the basis of the church administration of the Orthodox Church.

At this Council, certain innovations of the Roman Church were condemned, which did not agree with the spirit of the decrees of the Ecumenical Church, namely: the compulsion of priests and deacons to celibacy, strict posts on Saturdays of Great Lent, and the image of Christ in the form of a lamb (lamb).

SEVENTH Ecumenical Council

The Seventh Ecumenical Council was convened in 787, in Mt. Nicaea, under Empress Irina (widow of Emperor Leo Khozar), and consisted of 367 fathers.

The Council was convened against the iconoclastic heresy that arose 60 years before the Council, under the Greek emperor Leo the Isaurian, who, wanting to convert the Mohammedans to Christianity, considered it necessary to destroy the veneration of icons. This heresy continued under his son Constantine Copronymus and his grandson Leo Khozar.

The Council condemned and rejected the iconoclastic heresy and determined - to supply and believe in St. temples, along with the image of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, and holy icons, to honor and worship them, raising the mind and heart to the Lord God, Mother of God and the Saints depicted on them.

After the 7th Ecumenical Council, the persecution of holy icons was again raised by the subsequent three emperors: Leo the Armenian, Michael Balboi and Theophilus, and for about 25 years worried the Church.

Veneration of St. The icons were finally restored and approved at the Local Council of Constantinople in 842, under Empress Theodora.

At this Council, in gratitude to the Lord God, who granted the Church victory over the iconoclasts and all heretics, the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy was established, which is supposed to be celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent and which is celebrated to this day in the entire Ecumenical Orthodox Church.

NOTE: The Roman Catholic Church, instead of seven, recognizes more than 20 universes. councils, incorrectly including in this number the councils that were in the Western Church after the division of the Churches, and the Lutherans, despite the example of the Apostles and the recognition of the entire Christian Church, do not recognize a single Ecumenical Council.

Law of God Seraphim Sloboda

The exact presentation of the Orthodox faith - st. John of Damascus.

About the visible creature.

Our God Himself, glorified in Trinity and Unity, created heaven and earth, and all that is in them (Ps. 145.6 ), bringing everything from non-existent into being: something else from a substance that was not previously, such as: sky, earth, air, fire, water; and the other of these substances already created by Him, such as: animals, plants, seeds. For this, at the command of the Creator, came from earth, water, air and fire.

Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy developed on the territory of the Byzantine Empire and served as the ideological support of the imperial power. It did not have a single church center, since from the very beginning of its formation, church power in Byzantium was concentrated in the hands of four Patriarchs: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Moreover, the Patriarch of Constantinople, although he was called ecumenical, was only the first among equals. As the Byzantine Empire collapsed, each of the mentioned Patriarchs began to head an independent (autocephalous) local Orthodox Church. Subsequently, autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox Churches arose in other countries - mainly in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe. The basis of the Orthodox faith is the Holy Scripture (Bible) and Holy Tradition (the decisions of the first seven Ecumenical Councils and the writings of the Church Fathers of the 2nd - 8th centuries). The basic principles of Orthodoxy as a religious system are set forth in the 12 clauses (members) of the creed adopted at the first two Ecumenical Councils in Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381).

The most important postulates of Orthodox doctrine are the dogmas: the trinity of God, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus Christ. Formally, it is believed that dogmas are not subject to change and refinement, not only in content, but also in form.

Orthodoxy is characterized by a complex, elaborate cult. Divine services in Orthodoxy are much longer than in other Christian denominations, and include many rites. The main service is the Liturgy. An important role is given to the holidays, the main of which (according to the common Christian tradition) is the Resurrection of Christ (Easter).

The clergy in Orthodoxy is divided into "white" (married parish priests) and "black" (monastics who take a vow of celibacy). There are male and female monasteries. The church hierarchy (episcopate) is formed only from representatives of the "black" clergy. The highest episcopal rank is the patriarch.

Currently, most Orthodox Churches (with the exception of the Jerusalem, Russian, Serbian and Georgian Churches) use the new style in liturgical practice ( Gregorian calendar), but the date of Easter is determined according to the old Julian calendar.

With a common doctrine and ritual, each local Orthodox Church (both autocephalous and autonomous) has its own specifics, not only confessional, but also ethnic.

Currently, there are 15 autocephalous Orthodoxy in Orthodoxy (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Russian, Georgian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Cypriot, Greek, Albanian, Polish, Czechoslovak, American) and 4 autonomous Churches (Sinai, Finland, Crete and Japanese).

Dogmas

For all Christians, the Church is one and universal: it is the Body of Christ. However, the Orthodox believe that since the Church is not limited either in time or space and is offered to people new life with and in Christ, the organizational structure of the church is only of relative interest. The concept of the head of the church - the vicar of Christ, as Catholics say about the pope - is shocking, since Christ is really present and lives in His Church.

There is no need for a formal proclamation of new dogmas. Any record in human language can be misinterpreted. Only the help of the Holy Spirit makes it possible to read the Holy Scriptures with absolute clarity. Besides, in initial period there were no dogmas for the existence of the church. Only the imperfection of human nature makes it necessary to intellectually structure faith at least to a minimal extent. Everything essential for this was expressed in the creed of the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the theological definitions of the seven Ecumenical Councils, the last of which was also held in Nicaea in 787.

In the Creed adopted at the Ecumenical Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, these foundations of the doctrine are formulated in 12 parts or terms:

“I believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten, Who was born from the Father before all ages: Light, from Light, God is true from God is true, begotten, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father. Imzhe the whole bysha. For us for the sake of man and for our sake of salvation, he descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became human. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried. And resurrected on the third day, according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. And the packs of the future with glory judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will have no end. And in the Spirit of the Holy Lord the Life-Giving One, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who spoke the prophets. Into One holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the future age. Amen."

The first term speaks of God as the creator of the world - the first hypostasis of the Holy Trinity.

In the second - about faith in the only begotten Son of God - Jesus Christ.

The third is the dogma of the Incarnation, according to which Jesus Christ, while remaining God, at the same time became a man, having been born of the Virgin Mary.

The fourth article of the Creed is about the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. This is the dogma of redemption.

The fifth is about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The sixth refers to the bodily ascension of Jesus Christ. On sky.

In the seventh - about the second, the coming presence of Jesus Christ on earth.

The eighth article of the Creed is about faith in the Holy Spirit.

In the ninth - about the attitude towards the church.

In the tenth - about the sacrament of Baptism.

In the eleventh - about the future general resurrection of the dead.

In the twelfth member - about eternal life.

Orthodoxy seeks not so much to convince as to charm and reassure. Its hierarchy is primarily concerned with the performance of religious rites and sacraments. Priests are much more willing to devote themselves to liturgy and prayer than to activities in the world. The Orthodox believer willingly accepts the mystical and seeks rather to escape from the world than to live in it.

The life of the church takes place outside of time; religious services, especially during big holidays, are long and complex and appeal more to feeling and imagination than to reason: in the end, the believer forgets where he is - on Earth or in heaven.

In their liturgical life, Orthodox devote special attention to the veneration of the Mother of God, the celebration of the seven sacraments and the veneration of icons and holy relics. Orthodox spirituality perceives "tradition" as loyalty to Jesus Christ and love for one's church, rather than as an intellectual reflection on sacred texts. In this sensual search for the Divine, the icon occupies a paramount place. She, of course, is not an idol - it is only a means of concentrating spiritual attention on the mystery of the Incarnation: the fact that God became Man in the face of Jesus Christ finds its parallel in the image (icon) created by the icon painter.

Currently, most Orthodox Churches (with the exception of the Jerusalem, Russian, Serbian and Georgian Churches) use the new style (Gregorian calendar) in their liturgical practice, but the date of Easter is determined according to the old Julian calendar.

With a common doctrine and ritual, each local Orthodox Church (both autocephalous and autonomous) has its own specifics, not only confessional, but also ethnic.

For all Christians, the Church is one and universal: it is the Body of Christ. However, Orthodox believe that since the church is not limited either in time or space and is a new life offered to people with Christ and in Christ, the organizational structure of the church is only of relative interest. The concept of the head of the church - the vicar of Christ, as Catholics say about the pope - is shocking, since Christ is really present and lives in His Church.

There is no need for a formal proclamation of new dogmas. Any record in human language can be misinterpreted. Only the help of the Holy Spirit makes it possible to read the Holy Scriptures with absolute clarity. In addition, in the initial period of the existence of the church, there were no dogmas. Only the imperfection of human nature makes it necessary to intellectually structure faith at least to a minimal extent. Everything essential for this was expressed in the creed of the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the theological definitions of the seven Ecumenical Councils, the last of which was also held in Nicaea in 787.

In the Creed adopted at the Ecumenical Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, these foundations of the doctrine are formulated in 12 parts or terms:

The life of the church takes place outside of time; religious services, especially during major holidays, are long and complex and appeal more to feeling and imagination than to reason: in the end, the believer forgets where he is - on Earth or in heaven.

DOGMA OF CHRISTIANITY

... Now we see

as if through a mirror,

in a riddle.

Corinthians 1, ch.13

"DOGMA" is now an abusive word, a sign of the indisputability of authoritative judgments uttered once and for all, a symbol of the deadness of the spirit, ideological obstinacy, violence against free thought ... Alas! This word is of ecclesiastical origin; and quite recently there was a shameful fact of dogmatic violence - the prohibition of the works of the late Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in the name of the Catholic dogma of the biblical Adam.

For a correct view of the matter, one must return to the true. the original meaning of the word. According to the Greek dictionary "DOGMA" (in plural"DOGMA") is an "opinion", "decree", "decision". In church history, DOGMA are decisions, resolutions of councils on questions of the teaching of faith. These decrees were caused by the appearance of "heresies" - false teachings that claimed universal recognition, which became the subject of disputes and divisions. Those who have closely studied the history of cathedrals speak of phenomena that are by no means inspiring: the dominance of the imperial power, which sought the forced unity of the state religion; court intrigues, personal quarrels; fanatical persecution of dissidents on both sides ... Here is a living and very authoritative evidence:

"... To tell the truth, I decided to generally avoid any meeting of bishops. I have never seen a single such example when the cathedral did any good, or did no more harm than good. Discord and ambition reign in them (do not think that I express myself too harshly) to an incredible degree" (St. Gregory the Theologian, Letter). But with all the historical sins and abuses, the authority of some councils later became universally recognized and they were called "ecumenical." The ancient "undivided" Church had only SEVEN such universally recognized, ecumenical councils. , must first eliminate an important misunderstanding: dogmas are not "mystical facts", as they are sometimes exaltedly expressed about them; DOGMA IS NOT FACTS, BUT WORDS, rulings of councils on heresies. If there were no heresies, there would be no dogmas.

After the so-called "separation of the churches" in the West, the compilation of dogmas continued. Catholics and Protestants denounced each other and delivered lengthy statements of faith, binding separately for all Catholics and for all Protestants. Among Catholics, this dogmatic creativity resulted in a detailed system of beliefs. In the last century, Catholics have adopted the dogma that the Pope, even without a council, can single-handedly decide on matters of faith. Quite recently, Pope Pius XII took advantage of this right and drew up a new dogma on the bodily Ascension of the Mother of God... I do not consider it necessary to consider these later Catholic and Protestant dogmas: it is clear that they have no general Christian significance. Another thing is the dogmas of the ancient "undivided" Church: they are recognized by Catholics, and in general, I believe, by all Christians. These DOGMA and I will remember in order.

The first dogma of Christianity was adopted at the council of 325 against the heresy of Arianism. The dogma is stated in the ancient form of the "Symbol" - the confession of faith, which was read during the so-called "announcement", preparation for the acceptance of the sacrament of holy Baptism:

into one GOD

Almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth,

visible to all and invisible.

“That is God in reality, it will always be hidden from us, and the highest knowledge that we can have about GOD in this life is that He is incomparably higher than any idea that we can ever form about Him” (St. Thomas Aquinas, "On Truth"). Known. that at the end of his earthly life the great scholastic ceased to practice scholasticism:

"... His friend Reginald asked him to return to books and engage in disputes. Then St. Thomas said with amazing excitement:" I can not write anymore. " Reginald did not move away, and St. Thomas answered with even greater force: "I cannot write. I saw things before which all my writings are like straw "(G, Chesterton," St. Thomas Aquinas "). Unfortunately, I have no quotations on this subject from the works of the great mystics of Eastern Christianity. Here is just one passage - the testimony of the venerable Simeon the New Theologian (XI century) "God is known to us as much as anyone can see the boundless sea, standing on its edge at night with a small lighted candle in their hands. How much, do you think, will he see from the whole boundless sea? Of course, a little or almost nothing. For all that, he sees that water well and knows that the sea is before him, that the sea is boundless and that he cannot embrace it all with his gaze. This is also the case with regard to our knowledge of God" (quoted from the "Journal of the Moscow Patriarchy", 1958, No. 1, p. 57).

DEITY is superintelligent and it is impossible to construct a "concept" of GOD. The Ancient Symbol did not set such a task. His confession is very short. In the word "GOD" we perceive, first of all, the most important thing - our religious intuition of Divine Holiness. "In one" - probably then it was directed against pagan polytheism. Now we have already forgotten about polytheism and can mean here our faith in God, the same for all religions on earth and for all worlds in the Cosmos. "Father" - of course, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; but through Him also our Heavenly Father. For He "predestined to adopt us to Himself through Jesus Christ" (Ephesians, ch.1). "Father" - in this word a Christian, acutely aware of his utter unworthiness, hears the symbol of "fatherly", demanding, strict love.

"Almighty" - a symbol, which seems to be most consistent with the apostolic word: "For we live and move and have our being" (Acts, ch.17). The symbol of the "Creator" may have a polemical orientation against the Gnostic heresies, which considered the creation of such an imperfect world to be the work of an evil inclination. It was said above that this problem is still open today. The Creator of everything, the Almighty - how could HE allow the very appearance of evil and such suffering in His world? This mystery is incomprehensible, we accept it with faith - with TRUST in our GOD.

The symbol of the "Creator" does not contain, of course, any concept of the "method" of the creation of the world. The natural sciences and the opening pages of the Bible speak of natural Evolution. One could not even argue with the dogma of materialism about eternity and spatial infinity physical world- that is, in essence, about its fundamental incomprehensibility. For such a mysterious Cosmos would correspond to the greatness of GOD, who creates time and eternity. But one can hear that the latest physics speaks directly about the temporal and spatial finiteness of the physical universe.

"Sky", "invisible" - these symbols remind us of the intangible planes of being. “Therefore, we do not lose heart, but if our outer man smolders, then our inner one is renewed from day to day. For our short-term light suffering produces eternal glory in an immeasurable excess, when we look not at the visible, but at the invisible: the invisible is eternal" (to the Corinthians II, ch. 4). We "look" at the invisible - HOPE for the invisible. One can think differently about the "teachings" about the hierarchy of the incorporeal Heavenly Forces. The presence of a guardian angel is the personal spiritual experience of many Christians.

"Earth", "visible" seemed to the authors of the Symbol quite cozy. Today we know that our planet is just a speck of dust in the unimaginable vastness of the Cosmos, among billions of billions of suns... But it turns out that this speck of dust, in its SPIRITUAL significance, is the center of the universe. However, with some degree of probability, one can think that the physical Cosmos is not a dead desert, that we are surrounded, perhaps, by other inhabited worlds ... We must be spiritually ready to meet such an opportunity. To do this, we will need to expand our understanding of MAN. If I'm not mistaken, in Greek AN-TROPOS (man) means: UP-TURNING. Man, as the highest spiritual and bodily being, can also live on other planets, perhaps even in a different bodily form, nothing would change from this, For the Eternal, Heavenly Man is at the right hand of God, the Father.

Then - the main content of the dogma:

... And in one Lord

Jesus Christ

the only begotten Son of God,

before all ages.

Light from light

God is true from God is true,

born, not created

consubstantial with the Father,

They are all bysha.

For us people

and ours for the sake of salvation

descended from heaven

and embodied

from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin

and becoming human.

crucified for us

under Pontius Pilate,

and suffered, and buried.

And rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures,

And ascended to heaven

And sitting at the right hand of the Father.

And packs of the future

With glory

judge the living and the dead,

His kingdom will have no end.

In the first edition of the dogma, there were also such words (cited from the "History of the Ancient Church" by Abbot L. Duchen, vol. II, 1914, p. 101):

“As for those who say: There was a time when He was not; He was not before He was born; He was created from nothing or from another hypostasis or essence; the Son of God is a created, changeable, changeable being — then on them the catholic (universal) Church pronounces an anathema (excommunication)."

There is the TRUTH of the Christian religious experience - the absolute Divinity of Christ. We experience this truth with the people in the temple when we sing the Creed. This truth is protected from untruth, from heresy by the first dogma of Christianity. The practical goal is achieved - the heresy is rejected in terms that do not allow reinterpretation.

But turning to the positive interpretation of the text of the dogma, we see its frank inconsistency. "We believe in one God", but after that we confess faith in Christ - "God is true from God true" ... TWO GODS? This verbal inconsistency implied the PHILOSOPHICAL doctrine of the eternal "Logos" and the distinction in God of "one essence" and three "hypostases" or "persons". By the end of the 4th century, when the universal, "universal" recognition of dogma became clear,

"The Church has already found those formulas in which her view on the relationship between the concepts of the unity of the Divinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ began to be expressed. The Divinity manifested in Jesus Christ is completely identical with the one God whom Christianity professes; the Divinity of Christ differs from Him, however, by one, of course, incomprehensible feature, which in the New Testament, which guides the Church, is expressed in the likeness of the relationship between patronymic and sonship.From here follows the difference in persons, as they said in the West, or in hypostases, as they expressed in the East. , or Persons, the Father and the Son, joins in the same way of distinction the third hypostasis or person - the Holy Spirit. This is how the theological Trinity was formed - this is how the Christian tradition was formulated in the philosophical language of that time, formulated as clearly as it is possible to express such a mystery. (Abbé L. Duchenne, op. cit., p. 399). However, for a simple person (I judge by myself), the philosophical understanding of the Trinity is completely unacceptable, and this can lead to the greatest despondency. Where is the evangelical simplicity, why has the Christian faith become so complicated? Why in the spiritual Christian life these painful MENTAL efforts? Efforts are futile - none of them work out, some wild ideas arise of some kind of "symmetrical model" of God, as a Being with three faces ... What should we think about all this?

Here again, the Christian philosophy of N. A. Berdyaev helps me out:

"... The Divine is comprehended not in the categories of reason, but in the relations of spiritual life. The Trinity of the Divine is completely inaccessible to rational thinking, to a logical concept. dualism, and he is disturbed and even outraged by the mythology of the Christian Trinity, he is ready to see polytheism in it. The Christian Divine Trinity is a mythologeme. About the Trinity, only a myth and a symbol are possible, but not a concept. But this myth and this symbol does not reflect and depict my religious feelings and experiences, as the newest symbolists of the subjective-idealistic type think, but the very depth of being, the deepest mysteries of existing life. Only in the Trinity Divinity is there an inner life that eludes concepts. free spirit", part 1, underlined by me). So, the philosopher himself refuses a rational explanation of the first dogma of Christianity. And it should be clear to everyone that no rationalization is possible with respect to the most important thing in dogma - the mystery of the Person of Jesus Christ. First, the Creed refers to the "pre-human" existence of the Son of God (although this very concept of "Son" is a human concept). Then - "and becoming human"; in the Latin text of the Symbol - "and became a man" ... Here comes the main "icon-painting" contradiction, already noted above in the chapter on the Gospels. If Christ on earth preserves PERSONAL UNITY with the eternal Son of God - REMEMBERS everything, KNOWS everything - then all His human experiences and sufferings turn out to be illusory... It would be most realistic to imagine Christ on earth as a Man Who "forgot" about His Whom only the mighty intuition of God's Sonship remained. Only in this way would the words of the Symbol be fulfilled: "and became a Man." But this would contradict not only the gospel icons, but also the Creed itself, for in this way the PERSONAL UNITY of the eternal Son of God and the Man Jesus would be violated ... The mystery of the Person of Christ is superreasonable.

Below are extracts from the works of the Philosopher relating to the theme of Divine humanity. From "Self-Knowledge":

"... My religious and philosophical worldview can, of course, be interpreted as profound humanism, as the affirmation of eternal humanity in God. Humanity is inherent in the second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, this is the real grain of dogma. Man is a metaphysical being. This conviction of mine cannot be shaken by baseness empirical man. I am characterized by the pathos of humanity. Although I am convinced and am becoming more and more convinced that humanity is not very characteristic of man. Now I often repeat: "God is human, man is inhuman." Faith in man, in humanity is faith in God and it requires illusions about a person "...

From "The Existential Dialectic of the Divine and the Human":

"The theme of God-manhood is the main theme of Christianity. I would prefer to say not God-manhood - an expression favored by Vl. Solovyov - but God-manhood. Christianity is anthropocentric. It proclaims the liberation of man from the power of cosmic forces and spirits. man, and in this it differs from abstract monotheism, Judaism and Islam, from Brahmanism. It must be resolutely said that Christianity is not a monistic and monarchical religion, it is a God-human and Trinitarian religion. But the vital dialectic between Divinity and humanity was so complex that the human was often humiliated in the history of Christianity. In the historical fate of God-manhood, the Divine swallowed up the human, then the human absorbed the Divine. The very dogma of the God-manhood of Jesus Christ expressed the mystery of God-manhood, the union of two natures without confusion and identity. That was a symbolic expression of the mystery. But the monarchical and monistic tendency has always existed V Christian history and sometimes dominated.

In my old book, The Meaning of Creativity, I said that a new anthropology, the Christology of man, should correspond to the Christological dogma. But only in the future it can be fully revealed. There was no real Christian anthropology yet. In patristics, St. Gregory of Nyssa, the most philosophical of the teachers of the Church, he tried to raise the dignity of man. But little was followed. Only Christianity teaches that God became man. The gulf between God and man must be bridged. The humanity of God is revealed, not only the Divine in man, but also the human in God. If we think through the humanity of Christ to the end, then we must admit that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is the Pre-Eternal Man. And this mystery does not at all mean the assumption of identity between God and man, which would be tantamount to a rational denial of the mystery.

In the first centuries of Christianity, when dogmatic disputes were waged and dogmatic formulas were developed in which they wanted to express the events of the spiritual world in symbols, a complex dialectic unfolded about the relationship between the Divine and the human. Both the emergence of heresies and the denunciation of heresies are connected with this topic. Arianism, Monophysitism, Nestorianism, Monothelitism - all these are heresies about God-humanity. The disputes were confined to the Christological problem, that is, the relationship of the two natures in Christ. But the problem itself is broader and deeper, it affects the relationship between the Divine and the human in general. Let the problem of Christology be resolved already in the first centuries and a formula for the correlation of the Divine and the human in Christ be found, on the other side of monism and dualism. But in our world epoch - speaking of the epoch of the Spirit - the question becomes different, for the question of man, which the patristic epoch did not yet know in such a form, becomes with unprecedented acuteness, and God-consciousness itself changes depending on changes in human consciousness.

The new soul has come to know freedom—the quests and temptations of freedom, and slavery from freedom—in such sharpness, in such depth, that the former Christian souls did not know. The human soul has not improved, but it has become very complex and unfolded, and a different consciousness corresponds to this.

Man became less whole, more divided, and new disturbing questions confronted him. Catechisms do not answer these questions. In world culture, in literature and philosophy, people of the prophetic type appeared, such are Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Vl. Solovyov, L. Blois and others. The Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the scholastic theologians, cannot answer the topics they have raised. the prophetic fire has always been a regenerating force in a frozen, chilled spiritual life. Mysticism was another regenerating force.

For the topic of the relationship between the Divine and the human mystic is very difficult. A certain type of mystics tend towards monism, towards the recognition of one nature, towards the quenching of human nature in the Divine. Such is all Quietism. Jansenism is interesting for the dialectic of God-humanity. We meet the classical image of mystical monism in the religious philosophy of India. Such is the religious philosophy of Shankara, for whom our soul - Brahman, the One - is opposed to any origin and formation. Orobindo, the most remarkable contemporary philosopher of India, teaches that the idea that we are the authors of our actions must be abandoned - the universal acts through the personality. Impersonality is a condition for union with the Divine; it is necessary to achieve impersonality and indifference. The soul is a particle of the Divine.

Mysticism is often accused of inclining towards pantheism and this is often abused. This is due to a misunderstanding of the language of mysticism. But it must be said that when pantheism really exists, then it is not so much a heresy about God as a heresy about man, a diminution of the role of human freedom and human creativity. The fate of European humanism, its inner drama, poses an entirely new religious theme. This is the theme of God-humanity"...

Another extract from the same place:

“... A static understanding of God cannot be preserved. It is the Christian God, the God of the religion of crucified Truth, that can only be understood dynamically. but in such a way that the process taking place in the world is internally connected with what is happening in eternity, and not in time, with the process in God, that is, with the Divine drama. And only because of this, what is happening with the world and man receives the highest meaning. God would not need them for anything, they would be an accident, and thus would be deprived of any meaning. We must boldly recognize the need of God in man, and this need does not limit God at all, it would limit and humiliate His stony immobility and self-satisfaction. In God there is anguish according to the beloved, and this gives the highest meaning to the beloved. Faith in God is faith in the highest Truth, which rises above the untruth of the world. But this Truth requires the creative participation of man and the world, it is God-human, and ideal humanity operates in it "...

"... Genuine humanity is the God-like Divine in man. The Divine in man is not "supernatural" and is not a special act of grace, but there is a spiritual beginning in him, as a special reality. This is the paradox of the relationship between the human and the Divine. In order to resemble fully like a man, you need to resemble God. In order to have a human image, you need to have the image of God. Man in himself is very little human, he is even inhuman. It is not man who is human, but God. It is God who requires humanity from man, but man not very demanding. In exactly the same way it is God who requires man to be free, and not man himself. Man himself loves slavery and easily puts up with slavery. Freedom is not a right of man, but a duty of man before God. The same must be said about humanity By realizing in himself the image of God, man realizes in himself the image of man, and by realizing in himself the image of man, he realizes in himself the image of God.This is the secret of God-humanity, the greatest secret of human life. Humanity is God-humanity."

The philosopher talks about the relationship "between the Divine and the human in general", but does not touch on the personal mystery of Jesus Christ. Below are some more remarks on the text of the first dogma of Christianity.

"Our sake of salvation"... What is SALVATION? The Catechism explained this in a rationally negative sense: salvation is from what. Salvation from the consequences of the fall of Adam and Eve in the earthly paradise - salvation "from sin, damnation and death." But we know that there was no earthly paradise, that the curse of mutual eating, the struggle for existence, suffering, death were already on earth even before the appearance of man. And we see that even after the Appearance of Christ, nothing in this sense has changed on earth: all living things suffer, we are sinners, we are born in torment and we die… There was no return to earthly paradise. Yes, there is not a word about it in the Gospels. The true idea of SALVATION has a positive, mysterious meaning. St. John Chrysostom said somewhere: "with Adam we lost paradise, with Christ we gained heaven"... SALVATION IS INVOLVEMENT TO THE DIVINE LIFE. "The love of God for us has been revealed in this, that God sent His only begotten son into the world, that we might receive life through Him" (1 John, ch.4). Another apostle wrote that great and precious promises have been given to us in Christ, so that through them we "may become partakers of the divine nature" (1 Peter, ch. 1). How will it be, how will it be done? We do not know. "Beloved! We are now the children of God, but it has not yet been revealed what we will be; we only know that when it is revealed, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is" (1 John, ch.3). SALVATION IS A MYSTERY, about which the holy teachers surprisingly agreed expressed themselves in the sense that the “incarnation of God” has as its goal the “deification of man”…

Here is the last testimony of St. Simeon the New Theologian in this continuity:

"... What is the purpose of the incarnate dispensation of God the Word, which is preached in all Divine Scripture, but which, while reading this Scripture, we do not know? None other than that, to partake of what is ours. to make us partakers of what is His. The Son of God became the Son of Man in order to make us humans sons of God, raising our race by grace into what He Himself is by nature, giving birth to us from above by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and immediately leading us into the Kingdom of Heaven, or, better to say, granting us to have this heavenly Kingdom within us (Lk. XNUMX, 21), so that we, not only by the hope of penetrating into it, but having already been introduced into its possession, cry out: "our life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. .III,3)…

This is how the holy teachers wrote, for whom SALVATION was already "destined" in their especially enlightened spiritual life. SALVATION does not fit in this existence, it is the aspiration of the future age, our destiny in the mysterious Eternity. We can only foresee SALVATION in the rarest moments of spiritual uplift, in the prayers and sacraments of the Church, as well as in the sacraments of practical life, when Christ is depicted among us.

"And Mary the Virgin"… Thanks be to God - I have already successfully recovered from the theme of Ever-Virginity, it seems to me insignificant. For many Christians, this is an inviolable Shrine. But I can fully understand others who, on the contrary, are very embarrassed, directly tempted by analogies in pagan myths and believe that it is impossible to make belief in a biological miracle an indispensable condition of Christianity. Indeed, this is a difficult and, it seems, an unnecessary obstacle on the path of faith for modern man. Referring to the conjecture of Rev. John of Damascus, our Catechism states that the birth of Christ was also "painless" ... How do they know this? In an effort to glorify the Mother of God, they free Her from maternal suffering! Former seminarians recall one blessed rector who just recently taught about the painless birth of Christ: "as the wind brought" ... The ancient heretics-docets (from the Greek "seem") would agree with this, who taught about the unreal, ghostly, " apparent "corporeality of Christ. By the way. it is against this heresy that the words of the Symbol are directed: "and she suffered, and she was buried." Christ suffered and died like us; nothing terrible if He were born in everything, like us. Blessed Jerome wrote about the Nativity of Christ:

"... Add, if you like, other natural troubles - a womb that swells for nine months, nausea, childbirth, blood, diapers. Imagine the Infant himself, wrapped in an ordinary cover of membranes. Attach a hard manger, the Infant's crying, circumcision on the eighth day, the time of cleansing, in order to show Him unclean. We do not blush, we do not keep silent. How much more humiliating is what he endured for me, so much more I am indebted to Him. And having exposed everything, you will not imagine anything more shameful than the Cross "...

("On the ever-virginity of Mary"). So, the complete naturalness of birth does not prevent us from honoring the Mother and the Child. This fundamental position today can be expanded. B. Pasternak wrote in his novel: "every conception is immaculate" - because the sacred ministry of Motherhood begins with it ... There are people who think differently - that any conception is EVIL, because it is associated with the satisfaction of bodily desire, and this is a SIN. Is not it? Then, after all, every eating of food, and the quenching of thirst, and even our very breathing - all this is a SIN? Yes, everything bodily is sinful: this was taught by the ancient heresies and "deviations" of Christianity, which secretly live in it today. But there is a church sacrament of marriage. There is the greatest secret of life - the secret of sex, and there are in it the possibilities of both a very evil and sinful, and a very good and even sacred content. And does the reverence that everyone feels for the sacred memory of HIS MOTHER - does it offend in any way from the consideration that our birth did not take place supernaturally? Looking from here at the theme of Ever-Virginity, we can confidently conclude that it has no essential, fundamental significance in the confession of Christianity. Anyone who is embarrassed - let him attribute this to the general problem of the "icon-painting" of our Gospels. None of this can prevent our free veneration of the Mother of Jesus Christ.

I am not able to adequately speak out about the sacrament of Motherhood, about holiness maternal love: verily, there is something Divine in it. Christ spoke of His future Golgotha: "My hour" (according to John, ch.2,7,8,12,17); and about pregnancy and childbirth of women he said: "HER HOUR". “When a woman gives birth, she endures sorrow, because her hour has come; when she gives birth to a baby, she no longer remembers that sorrow - for joy, because a man was born into the world” ... (according to John, ch.16). But in the suffering and joy of birth, the service of Motherhood only begins. We venerate the Mother of God as "the CROWNING OF ALL MOTHERS"; this is Dante's expression:

... And I see a temple, and a confluence of people in it.

And the wife enters the temple and, like a crown

To all mothers, he meekly broadcasts: "Child!

What have you done to us? Here is your father

And I - with great sorrow in the midst of the city

You were looking for...

(The Divine Comedy, "Purgatory, XV, corresponds to the Gospel according to Luke, ch. 2). Other gospel evidence has also been preserved that it was not at all idyllic, but tragic Motherhood (according to Matthew, ch. 12, according to Mark, ch. 3, according to Luke, ch.8, ch.11).Even before Golgotha, the prophecy began to come true: "And the weapon will go through your soul" (according to Luke, ch.2). Church poetry truthfully depicts how the Mother suffered and died with the Son on the Cross "Alas for me! Alas for me, my child! Alas for Me, My Light and My beloved womb "... "My Light and My joy go into the tomb: I will not leave Him alone, here I will die and bury Him" ... But in the triumph of the Resurrection - Mother is given the first place: "Rejoice now and be merry , Zion, You, Pure, make up, Mother of God, about the uprising of Your Nativity. "So the humble translators translated the Greek: about the uprising of Your Beloved, Your Child ... The Mother of God is not only personal, She is a cosmic Image. In Her Face, all mothers and everything " Matter", all Mankind and all Creation give birth to Christ. "Every creature rejoices in You, O God-given one"... Dostoevsky:

"... And in the meantime, whisper to me, leaving the church, one of our old women, in repentance, we lived for the prophecy: "What is the Mother of God, what do you think? "Great Mother, - I answer. - The hope of the human race." - "So, he says, the Mother of God - the great mother of Cheese the Earth is, and great joy lies in this for a person. And every earthly longing and every earthly tear - there is joy for us; and how you fill the earth with your tears under you half an arshin deep then at once you will rejoice over everything”…

("Demons", the speech of the Lame-foot). I cannot explain to myself the excitement with which every time I remember these amazing verses:

"Earth is the Mistress! I bowed my forehead to you,

And through your fragrant cover

I felt the flame of my native heart,

I heard the trembling of the life of the world."

(Vladimir Solovyov). Personal and cosmic images merge in our veneration of the Mother of God - and it is impossible to fully comprehend this. In Eastern Christianity, and especially in Catholicism, there are extremes that give reason to reproach us for the revival of the pagan cults of the Mother Goddess. It is not necessary to assume that in paganism it was very deep. For we know from experience that there is something truly divine in a mother's love.

"And the packs of the future" ... Prophecy of the New Testament. “And suddenly, after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven; and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (according to Matthew, ch.24). "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and then the heavens will pass away with a noise, the elements, having flared up, will be destroyed, the earth and all the works on it will burn" II Epistle of Peter, ch.3). "However, the end of everything is near" (ibid., ch.4). The Second Coming of Christ, according to the gospel and apostolic predictions, will take place after a cosmic catastrophe - already outside our space and time. This means that the Second Coming cannot be interpreted in what terms of our visible world. Just as there was "nowhere" for Christ to "ascend" physically, so there is "nowhere" for Him to physically "come"... The Second Coming is a SYMBOL. This is a symbol of the Appearance of Christ in glory - A APPEARANCE FOR ALL, for all mankind, as opposed to the First Appearance, when He was revealed to so few. As it will be? We do not know.

"... Let's be frank: WE DO NOT KNOW what we are talking about when we talk about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ for judgment, about the Resurrection of the dead, about eternal life and eternal death. Scripture so often testifies that all this will be connected with a new deepest comprehension, - a vision, in comparison with which all our present vision will turn out to be blindness "... (Karl Barth). Will not this be accomplished in our "personal doomsday" - in personal DEATH? Then the sun will darken for each of us, and then all of us, together with everyone who lived before us and who will live after us on earth, will stand before the Lord in Mysterious Eternity.

The first dogma of Christianity ended with the words: "And in the Holy Spirit." Behind this remarkably brief confession lay the reality of the spiritual experience of the ancient Church. In the action of the Holy Spirit lies the mystery of early Christianity. no matter how great was the charm of the Person of Christ, no matter how convincing the Apparitions of His Resurrection were for the unbelievers, - all this could have an impact only on a handful of eyewitnesses and after their death should soon be forgotten ... What Power inspired Christian communities, martyrs, preachers, - all this Movement that has grown into a worldwide Church?

Christ promised to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit (according to John, ch.14,15,16), and after the Resurrection he commanded to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (according to Matthew, ch.28). Starting with the appearance of fiery tongues on the day of Pentecost, the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles tells about the actions of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "And, at their prayer, the place where they were gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness" (chapter 4). There are many such texts. The Apostolic Council decreed the abolition of circumcision: "Be pleased with the Holy Spirit and us" (Ch. 15). The Apostle Paul spoke in farewell speech that the Holy Spirit appointed the elders of the Church (chap. 20). And in the epistles of the apostles the Holy Spirit is always referred to as the highest, Divine Reality." "... Because you did not accept the spirit of Slavery in order to live in fear again, but you accepted the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry: Abba, Father! This very Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God…. Likewise, the Spirit strengthens us in our weaknesses; for we do not know what to pray for, as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be expressed" (Romans, ch. 8). "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are with you all" ( to Corinthians II, ch.12) "For God gave us the Spirit not of fear, but of power and love and chastity" (to Timothy II, ch.1).The Holy Spirit is the Third Divine Reality in the mystical experience of the Church.

The confession about the Holy Spirit was brief at first, but it soon proved to be insufficient:

"... Between people who are disposed to recognize the Son as an unconditional, essential likeness to the Father and even to accept the term "consubstantial" in relation to the first two Persons of the Holy Trinity, there were those who refused to extend this concept to the Holy Spirit. Little by little the dispute turned in this direction , and the positions were determined" (abbot L. Duchen, op. cit., p. 248). At the end of the 1st century, the Creed was supplemented by a more lengthy statement about the Holy Spirit, which is erroneously (quoted op. p. 297) attributed to the Council of Constantinople in 381:

... And in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord of Life,

Who comes from the Father,

Together with the Father and the Son

Worshiped and glorified

Speaking through the prophets.

Later in the West, this dogma took shape with one insignificant addition: "Who is from the Father and the Son (Filioque) proceeding." It is strange for us now to hear that because of this one word "FILIOKVE" the so-called "separation of the churches" took place, thousands of years of disputes between the church wise men of the East and West followed, many books were written ... An interesting impression of an inexperienced observer already in the 19th century - an entry in the "Diary" Russian official A. V. Nikitenko:

"... 23.X.1875. Meeting at the Society for Christian Enlightenment ... Osinin read in the report on the Bonn Conference of the Old Catholics, where he was among our delegates. It was about the union of our church with the Old Catholic. The main issue that made this connection difficult was the Holy Spirit "The debate that took place on this subject is extremely curious. The fact is that no one knows anything about the Holy Spirit, and whether He proceeds from the Father or from the Father and the Son. It is strange to see that people seem serious, they catch the air with importance with their hands and they think they have something in them"...

This image of catching air also correctly characterizes other "dogmatic" disputes, when scholasticism tries to replace religious experience with itself. The Holy Spirit is the most Mysterious in Christianity... It seems that no one has yet explained the meaning of the gospel symbolization of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descending on Christ (according to Matthew, ch.3, according to Mark, ch.1, according to Luke, ch.3, according to John , Ch.1). Here it is also appropriate to note that in the liturgical, prayerful experience of the ancient Church there is no "Person" of the Holy Spirit. According to the Gospels, Christ never prayed to the Holy Spirit. And the apostles did not pray to the Holy Spirit; according to Acts, they prayed to GOD - and received the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the prayers of the Eucharist, even at that moment, which is called "the invocation of the Holy Spirit", there is no personal appeal to Him. Even the church feast of the Holy Spirit - neither in the troparion, nor in the kontakion, nor in the magnificence, nor in the three prayers of vespers, is there a personal appeal to him. Our current prayer "O Heavenly King" (as well as the personal prayers of St. Simeon the New Theologian that are not used in the Church) is of later origin. In the ancient church, it would have sounded something like this: Heavenly King, send us the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth... And now we pray: "come" - as if in the third person: YES HE COMES.

The rest of our Symbol repeats the texts of even more ancient "baptismal" symbols:

… into one

cathedral and apostolic

At first, everything was so simple: there was one Church and there was an entrance to the Church - one Baptism. But at the end of the 4th century, when common Symbol faith, external ecclesiastical unity was already supported by the forcible cares of state power. In the 11th century, the "separation of the churches" of the East and the West was completed, and in the 16th century the "separation" of the Western Church also followed (not to mention the many later minor "separations"). And so, for a thousand years now we have not had the outward unity of the Church of Christ on earth. Our Catechism does not recognize this truth, it asserts that there is one Church - that it is supposedly the only "Eastern Church". The Catechism contains an unworthy frivolous praise of the "Eastern Church" even for some reason and simply in geographical terms: in the East there was an earthly paradise, in the East Christ appeared ... In the same spirit of pride, Archpriest Fr. Sergei Bulgakov wrote that "not the entire human race is included in the Church, but only the elect, and not even all Christians fully belong to the true Church, but only the Orthodox" ("Orthodoxy", p. 43); and further: "The Church is one, and therefore unique," and this "is Orthodoxy" (p. 203). On the attitude of "Orthodoxy" to other Christian confessions: "it can strive only for one thing - to justify the entire Christian world" (p. 291)... Christendom consists of many "separate" churches, equally confessing in Christ the true Son of God, equally calling Him their spiritual Head. A monstrous image: a single Head - and many bodies, alien, and even completely hostile to each other ... What a shame for Christianity!

However, even in the last century, the author of the Catechism, Metropolitan Filaret, admitted: "I dare not call any Church that believes that Jesus is the Christ false." Metropolitan Platon (Gorodetsky) famously said in a speech when visiting the church: "Our partitions do not reach the sky." Recently, many pleasant declarations have been made on all sides about the striving for all-Christian unity. But the difficulties of organizational "unification of churches" are insurmountable. After all, the Catholics will never renounce the principle of papal primacy in world Christianity, and the rest of the Christians of East and West will never agree to this. And Protestants of all directions will never give up the principles of the Reformation... Where is the way out?

"The unity of the Church is not created, it is discovered" (Karl Barth). Here is a real "project for the unification of churches": to recognize that the Church is not divided, that all of us, Christians, are members of the one Church of Christ. "Is Christ divided?" (to Corinthians 1, ch.1). Dogma speaks of one Church and one Baptism. And it is true: if a Catholic or a Protestant wishes to "join" the Russian Church, then their Baptism in Catholicism or Protestantism is recognized as valid, and thus in fact it is recognized that every BAPTIZED (significantly this expression of our people) already belongs to the one Church of Christ. "One Lord, one faith, one Baptism" (to the Corinthians, ch.4). All of us Christians have one Lord and one Baptism; in the essential, faith is also one, but trifles, conventions, as well as human sins prevent us from recognizing this unity. Are Catholics delusional about the universal authority of the Bishop of Rome? But this is essentially not even a question of faith, but of practice, and this practice in some respects proves to be very useful. Protestants terribly impoverish themselves by refusing prayerful communion with saints, refusing to commemorate the dead: such was the trauma they received from Catholic perversions; but this is also a practice, a matter of their religious experience, and there is nothing about this in the Creed. Do they teach about the Eucharist differently, in their own way? But "the doctrine of the Eucharist has never been the subject of consideration by the highest authoritative body of the Church" ("Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate", 1965, No. 5, p. 79). And in general, these eternal disputes about the Eucharist, as someone said, are similar to the debate of idlers on the topic of who dine better ... Is there any external "uniformity" in the traditions of the cult? But even Blessed Augustine wrote somewhere that the Church of Christ is DECORATED BY VARIETY. And, to tell the truth, we have a lot to learn by visiting the churches of "non-Orthodox" Christians. Chekhov did not quite joke that "when you stand in a church and listen to the organ, you want to accept Catholicism" (letter from Italy). "I love the Lutheran service" ... (Tyutchev). It has long been said that there is no dispute about tastes. If we talk about the obvious weaknesses and defects of “non-Orthodox” rites, then we have no less such phenomena ... No, no, no delusions and old habits will prevent me from realizing that all Christians actually belong to the one Church of Christ.

This consciousness is growing and expanding among us. And we are already so late with this!.. For now the problem of the Church, one might say, goes beyond the limits of the Creed. Blessed Jerome wrote on some occasion: "Christ is not so poor as to have the Church only in Sardinia." Now we must say: Christ is not so poor as to have the Church only in us, "baptized" so unworthy of our Baptism. "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; and whoever does not believe will be condemned" (according to Mark, ch.16, later addition). No, we have already grown out of this isolation of primitive Christianity. And even then the apostle wrote: “... We trust in the Living God, Who is the Savior of all people, especially the faithful (Timothy 1, ch. In S. Markevich's pamphlet "The Secret Ailments of Catholicism", M.1967, p.

"introduced the concept of" anonymous Christians ". These are people who, although they do not believe in Jesus Christ and do not adhere to the principles proclaimed by the Church, are often better Catholics in their behavior than those who are listed as such by the metric. It is characteristic that, like John XXIII, so did Cardinals Depfner and König defend Rahner against the criticism of the Integrists.

The Church is THE BODY OF CHRIST. This apostolic symbol does not coincide with the "ecclesiastical" boundaries of the Church. The dogma about the Church has long since become a problem. One must not think that the Eternal Man is only with us, in our ecclesiastical provinces. "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Everything that is best in universal humanity, everything truly spiritual, directed towards God, belongs to Christ. There can be no human holiness outside of the Holy Spirit, outside of Christ. All people of good will, believers and non-believers in the divinity of Christ, belong to Christ. They partake of him in the sacraments of a conscientious life, enter into the mystical BODY OF CHRIST. "Where the love of God is, there is Jesus Christ; and where Jesus Christ is, there is the Church with Him" (Lacordaire). Today we can talk about "anonymous Christians", about the "Church of good will". This idea is a valuable acquisition in the modern crisis of church teaching; this paradox of Christian thought must be accepted. Some analogy can be seen in how living cells human body they may not know the head of a person, the whole person... Let us pay tribute to church organizations - their saving sacraments, ancient rites, spiritual guidance. And yet the Church of Christ is not just the sum of provincial Christian churches. The big question is whether they will ever achieve formal unity. Even more doubtful, in all likelihood, the unification of all religions is impossible at all. But there is a third unity that exists in reality, today. This is not a unification of beliefs, but an incomparably deeper and more essential UNITY OF SPIRIT. Once the disciples of Christ confessed the greatest faith, but received a reproach from the Teacher: "YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT SPIRIT YOU ARE" (according to Luke, ch. 9). And for us now it is not the formal unity of beliefs that is essential, but WHAT SPIRIT WE ARE. There is the Spirit of mercy, truth, freedom - this is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. And there is a spirit of hatred, lies, violence - this is the spirit of the Devil. According to these signs, everything in our world is divided: this is the real border of the Church of Christ.

Dogmas The depth of dogmas is inexhaustible, and it is dangerous to touch it, especially to those who are subject to any kind of passion. Who can affirm the dogmas of the Holy Trinity and theologize? )

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