Religion in Russia: history of the Russian Orthodox Church

Baptism of Rus'

The official history of the Russian Church dates back to 988, when, by the decision of Prince Vladimir, Rus' accepted baptism according to the Greek model. This event is described in the Tale of Bygone Years. This is the earliest surviving chronicle, dating back to the 12th century. It describes a beautiful legend about why Vladimir chose the Greek version of Christianity. According to it, ambassadors from different religions came to the prince: Muslims, Jews, envoys of the Pope and Byzantines. Vladimir refused Muslims because of the ban on wine, Jews because they did not have their own state, and envoys of the Pope because of long-standing enmity, but the story of the ambassador from Byzantium impressed the prince. Later, Vladimir sent envoys to look at the rituals of each of the religions, but only the Byzantine ones made an impression on them.

The conclusions of modern historians allow us to say that this is most likely nothing more than a legend. The choice of religion was probably determined by political factors. Firstly, the Slavs had long-standing ties with Byzantium. Secondly, in the 10th century this country was one of the most powerful militarily and culturally, and unification with it on a religious basis was very beneficial for the young Kievan Rus.

For the first five centuries, the Russian Church did not have independence and was subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople, who appointed the head of the Russian Church (metropolitan) from among the Greeks. This situation changed in 1051, when Prince Yaroslav the Wise ensured that a Russian, Metropolitan Hilarion, became head for the first time.

Almost immediately after the official spread of Christianity, monasteries were founded in Rus', which became centers of spiritual and cultural life. Chronicles and books are written in them, icons are created. One of the most famous monasteries, the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, was founded in 1051 and still remains one of the most important Orthodox shrines.

Until the 13th century, the residence of the metropolitan was Kyiv, however, due to its decline after the invasion of the Golden Horde, in 1299 the residence was moved to the city of Vladimir, and later, in 1325, to Moscow.

The last metropolitan appointed by Constantinople was the Greek Isidore (1436). He was a supporter of the so-called. Union - unification of the Roman and Byzantine churches. However, in Byzantium itself this initiative was supported only by the patriarch and the emperor. Ultimately, the rapprochement of the churches did not take place. This is how their final separation occurred, and the formation of Catholicism and Orthodoxy as different branches of Christianity.

History of Orthodox Christianity in Russia

Russia professes a special form of Christianity - Orthodoxy (there are more than 80% of Orthodox believers in Russia). This movement arose at the moment when the Roman Empire, which recognized Christianity as the state religion, was divided into Western and Eastern. The Eastern part had its own church head - the Patriarch of Constantinople. Formally subordinate to the Pope, the Constantinople church elite actually had their own, special view on the principles of church structure - but simply, they wanted to govern the eastern part of the world themselves, without the intervention of the Pope. After the Western Church made a small addition to the Christian Creed about the procession of the Holy Spirit not only from God the Father, but also from God the Son, the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople simultaneously anathematized each other. The famous division of churches into Catholic and Orthodox took place.

The history of the emergence of Christianity in Rus' is known to everyone: the great Russian principality simply decided to establish closer contacts with Byzantium, that is, the Eastern Roman Empire and adopted Orthodoxy.

So what is the difference between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church? Let's name the main features... The first difference is the different understanding of the unity of the church. For the Orthodox it is enough to share one faith and sacraments; Catholics, in addition to this, see the need for a single head of the church - the Pope.

By the way, the Orthodox do not recognize the primacy of the Pope at all. Whereas Catholics accepted the dogma of the entire dogma of the Pope over the church.

Another difference in the Creed. The Catholic Church confesses in the Creed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Orthodox Church professes the Holy Spirit, which comes only from the Father.

The Catholic Church also accepted the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. This means that even original sin did not touch the Mother of the Savior. Orthodox Christians glorify the holiness of the Mother of God, but believe that she was born with original sin, like all people.

The Orthodox Church accepts the decisions of only the first seven Ecumenical Councils, while the Catholic Church is guided by the decisions of the 21st Ecumenical Council.

Despite their differences, Catholics and Orthodox Christians profess and preach throughout the world one faith and one teaching of Jesus Christ.

Moscow – Third Rome

The aspirations of Metropolitan Isidore were not supported in Moscow either. In 1448, Moscow Prince Vladimir appointed Bishop Jonah as head of the Russian Church. He does not coordinate this appointment with Byzantium (remember that the emperor and the Byzantine patriarch supported the Union). Thus, from December 15, 1448, the Russian Church de facto became independent.

During the reign of Ivan III (1462-1505), a significant number of Russian lands around Moscow were united, and important economic and political reforms were carried out. Against the backdrop of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the strengthening of Moscow statehood forms the concept that would later be called “Moscow - the Third Rome”. The Russian Church declared itself the only heir to the true teachings of Christ. Adherents of other Christian movements were not considered true, and had to undergo the rite of baptism again when converting to Russian Orthodoxy.

At the end of the 16th century, the Russian Church was recognized as independent de jure, and metropolitans received the rank of patriarch. This is the highest rank in the Orthodox Church. From now on, the head of the Russian Church is formally and officially equal in rights with the Greek patriarchs.

Orthodoxy

We examined in the previous chapter the elements from which the faith of the modern Russian people was formed. We can say in advance that the result of such a connection will be something very unique and complex. This is how it really is. The Russian peasant, who now most fully and sincerely professes Orthodoxy, believes in God, the Church and the sacraments, but at the same time he no less firmly believes in the devil, shishiga, barnyard, conspiracies, etc., and this last is an equally indispensable element his faith, his behavior and worldview, like the first. He has a mystical attitude not only to the world of saints, but also to nature, not only to God, but also to the unclean. Moreover, the realm of the religious is not limited to the church and nature for the peasant; the third sphere of his religious life is everyday life, which includes his agricultural work, family relationships, food, sleep, clothing and generally everyday life. Therefore, we will consider Russian Orthodoxy in three areas: Church, everyday life, nature - understanding by nature not only natural phenomena in the usual sense, but the world of pagan elemental spirits.

For the Orthodox, the Church is not an external authority, like with Catholics; The Orthodox have never valued church unity, which is bought by the loss of freedom of church members, but they are also far from the Protestant understanding of freedom, in which the church becomes an empty phrase. Catholicism tends to identify the Church with the clergy and contrast the clergy with the laity. In Orthodoxy, the Church is unthinkable without the people, and the believing people are the Church. This is the view common to all Orthodox churches from the Armenians to the Greeks; in the 17th paragraph of the district message of the Eastern Patriarchs on May 6, 1848 it is written:

“With us, neither the patriarch nor the council could ever introduce anything new, because our guardian of piety is the very body of the Church, i.e. the very people." Innocent, Bishop of Aleut, said that a bishop is at the same time a teacher and a student of his flock. In the absence of a sharp division between clergy and laity, what results (ideally) is a close and friendly life for all members of the Church. Therefore, in the Orthodox Church, “every word inspired by a feeling of true Christian love, living faith, or hope is teaching; every deed sealed by the Holy Spirit is a lesson; every Christian life is a model and an example” (words of Khomyakov).

Another feature of the Orthodox attitude towards the Church is the predominance of cult and, in particular, ritual over the teaching and moral side of Christianity. Swearing, fighting, drunkenness is a lesser sin than breaking the fast; violation of chastity will be more easily forgiven by the confessor than failure to go to church; participation in worship is a more salutary matter than reading the Gospel; worship is more important than charity. It was not for nothing that our people assimilated Christianity not according to the Gospel, but according to the prologue (the lives of the saints), they were enlightened not by sermons, but by worship, not by theology, but by worship and kissing shrines. Minds that are inclined to give first place to understanding, reason, and analysis are indignant at the so-called ritual faith of the Orthodox; but this indignation is nothing more than a misunderstanding. Is it really more beneficial for a patient to start studying medicine than to take medicine and be cured? Religion is by no means a matter of reason; For someone who does not recognize religion, not only ritual, but also religious philosophy is outrageous; and he who recognizes religion as a real matter must admit that religion is not in reason and not even in knowledge, but in a real relationship to God; religion is not reasoning about divine things, but the acceptance of the divine into one's being. Therefore, prayer, in which God descends into the soul of the prayer, is higher for the believer than even reading the Bible; kissing the relics, from which, like from an overflowing vessel, grace flows, is more important than the assimilation of theological wisdom; the Eucharist, the acceptance of the Lord's Body into one's body, is infinitely more important than all sermons, the establishment of charitable institutions, schools, hospitals, etc. The Orthodox considers not only the above-mentioned acts to be divinely effective; prayer formulas pronounced in church, melodies sung there, lamps, lighting candles - all these are not just words and gestures, these are sacred rites, i.e. such formulas and such acts that, despite all their similarity to ordinary words and movements, are distinguished by a mysterious, mystical, supernatural power. Blessed water is no different in appearance from plain water, but it makes demons run away, it will cure the evil eye, it will help with all illnesses.

This explains the stubborn conservatism of Russian Orthodoxy, which does not allow changing a single letter or movement in the ritual. It was these formulas that turned out to be life-saving, but what the new ones will be is not yet known.

Perhaps such reasoning is unconsciously present here. In the church they sing “Christ is risen!” This hymn, with exactly the same words and in the same melody, is now sung in all the temples, churches and chapels of Russia. Our distant ancestors sang it in exactly the same way; the pious Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Alexander Nevsky and his retinue listened and repeated the same words. Moreover, in the dark Roman catacombs, in the light of oily copper and clay lamps, the first Christians sang the same song. But the melody of the anthem itself, its music, is even more ancient; our solemn, similar song is sung to the tune of Hellenic wedding hymns, which were sung in the presence of ancient deities. All the deep, hoary antiquity sounds in this hymn, and only our inattentive ear feels it little, listens little and, listening, understands nothing. A candle in a glass lantern is carried in front of the priest in the procession. This is a remnant of the custom of carrying a torch before the bishop, who made his way in the darkness of the catacombs to the underground temple. Many rituals and symbols of our worship trace their origin (in their outer shell, in their body) not only from Christian antiquity, but also directly from Hellas, Phenicia, and Egypt. And is it possible for the human mind, which is limited by the horizon of a few years, which knows only yesterday, to change what has lived people for thousands of years and reunited them with the divine world?

However, Orthodox conservatism is not unconditional. The Orthodox consciousness willingly and even joyfully accepts the new, but only if it sees in it the clear stamp of the sacred. New, especially effective prayers, new (revealed) icons, and finally, new saints are met with lively joy and without any hesitation, since grace has clearly rested on the new one. In this area, the Orthodox people are even too gullible, easily succumbing to deception, they often mistake a fake for a shrine.

Now we will leave these general features of Orthodoxy and move on to the details.

An Orthodox Christian equally considers himself, who lives with a family, and a monk, who has dedicated himself entirely to God, to be a Christian, but still he considers the path of a monk to be something special and more saving than the life of a layman. Thus, living in everyday life, the Orthodox value the monastery as the highest path, designated for special chosen ones. As in ancient times, so today the illiterate peasant receives food for his religious feelings in worship and pilgrimages. He visits the elders, known for the severity of their lives, stands idle for long monastic services, venerates the relics of saints, in the refectory listens to stories about the lives of holy ascetics, and these stories, together with stories about holy places, spread in the form of oral stories throughout the villages and hamlets, strengthening the ideals of asceticism among the people. feat.

He separates this Christianity of monasteries and saints from his, so to speak, home Christianity, the center of which is in the local parish church and priest. Here the parishioner is completely undemanding, he even cares little about the splendor of his church, and parish life in our country is not developed at all. He is not upset that the deacon reads unintelligibly and is often drunk, but from the priest he mainly wants to correct the requirements. From the “priest” no one expects particularly splendid service, sermons, parish organization, or even moral leadership. His job is to baptize, marry, bury, serve prayers in the fields, illuminate Easter cakes and fruits for the Savior. Of course, an energetic priest can understand his responsibilities more broadly and begin to educate his parish, instill moral habits in his parishioners, begin to eradicate drunkenness, improve family relationships, and finally open a credit partnership or a consumer shop, but all this will be accepted as something supererogatory, and a true Orthodox would probably suspect the Lutheran spirit here and condemn such activity.

Let us now move on to the second area of ​​Orthodoxy, to everyday life. It is not for nothing that the peasants have a saying: “without God there is no way to reach the threshold.” Outside of worship, outside of church, the Orthodox is surrounded by the same churchliness. But in the temple, as far as possible, he forgets his humanity and lives exclusively in the divine, and outside the temple, the human comes first, seeking God’s blessing for himself, while still remaining human.

First of all, an Orthodox Christian leads his life according to the church calendar and the calendar. On the one hand, he religiously observes the holidays, knows them exactly down to the most insignificant ones, observes all fasts according to the monastery charter, remembers when he can eat fish and when only vegetables are allowed. On the other hand, the peasant assigns certain agricultural and economic concerns to certain days. Depending on this, the days of the year receive special names, for example: January 24 - Aksinya-half-winter and half-bread, i.e. Half the winter has passed and half of the reserves have been eaten; April 1st – empty cabbage soup; April 12th – Vasily turn out the shafts, i.e. leave the sleigh, equip the cart; April 23rd – Yegoriy the herdsman (pasture of cattle into the field); May 5th – Irina the seedbed (planting cabbage); 6th – Job the pea-grower; 23rd - Leonty the borage, etc. Thus, acts of agricultural and domestic life are placed under the protection of the saints. But this is not enough. We would in vain look for moments in the life of an Orthodox Christian that he would not consecrate either with a complex ritual or even with the sign of the cross. First of all, the most important moments of his life - birth, death, marriage - take place before the face of God and are blessed by sacraments and divine services. Here, of course, the main role is played by the Church and the priest; but the ancient pagan rituals have not been forgotten. They are closely intertwined with church rites and are still fully performed in many areas. The description of one wedding ceremony in some northern province takes up dozens of pages of ethnographic writings. Until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these rituals were especially alive, and the church authorities fought in vain against them.

“At worldly weddings,” says one paragraph of Stoglav, “laughmakers and arganniks play, and laughers, and caterpillars, and sing demonic songs. And when they go to the church to get married, the priest is riding with a cross, and in front of him they are prowling with all those demonic games.”

Less important occasions of life are also sanctified by the church, for example, housewarming, sowing, harvest, name days, remembrance of the dead. The Orthodox commemorate all such occasions with prayers, sprinkling with holy water, religious processions on the field, inviting a particularly revered icon to his home, etc. All of these are special points in the life of the Orthodox; but even everyday, everyday affairs are accompanied by prayer. Prayer precedes eating, sleeping, all work, and the “creation” of bread. Where prayers are not read, at least the sign of the cross with a bow is performed.

We must, of course, admit that often, even in most cases, prayer and the sign of the cross are performed mechanically; in other words, consciousness at this time is not occupied with divine things; but, probably, even such mechanical prayer arouses some subconscious movements in the soul, which ultimately created the type of Orthodox peasant as we see him in the remote districts of the northern provinces. Strict obedience to church fasts, obligatory attendance at services, prayer before every task permeate the life of a Great Russian, strengthen it, make it, above all, harmonious and strong. A participant in such a measured, strong life feels in his place in it, is in no hurry, and the consciousness that he is doing something that hundreds of generations have done before him makes him self-confident, sedate and solemn. In addition, constant prayer creates silence in the soul and a special gentleness, combined with deep seriousness. For an Orthodox Christian, food is a sacred matter; he does not eat, but tastes; he enters someone else's house, crosses himself in front of the icons, and this act sets him up deeply - seriously both in relation to the house he is entering and to the people with whom he will now speak. For greater clarity, let us imagine from the outside the life of a European intellectual. He eats hastily, treating food in a crudely materialistic manner, reading the newspaper with one eye, rushing to do some business. He enters someone else's house as if he were entering a restaurant, a store, or a club; goes on a long journey, the train starts moving, and while the Orthodox Christian crosses himself and becomes at least for a second concentratedly serious, the European hastily finishes the pie he grabbed at the station buffet and skims the evening paper. In all this, first of all, there is a lack of respect for the same newspaper, for reading, for food, for people, for every act of life, often even for family and for one’s work. That is why, while among the peasants “living” in the old days there are many faces from which one can directly paint an icon, they are so strict, handsome and “stylish”, the European physiognomy amazes with its randomness, expressionlessness and lack of spirituality.

It is customary to say that the peasants (we are talking mainly about the peasantry, since they have most fully preserved Orthodoxy) have no culture. The premise of such a statement is the idea that there is only one culture - European. Of course, this is not true. Not only the peasant, but also the savages of all continents and parts of the world have a very strong, deeply rooted and complex culture. In particular, the Russian peasant also has his own culture. We mention this here because this culture is of a religious nature and is covered by one designation - Orthodoxy. This would not be an abuse of the word; Orthodox Christians themselves use this word in this sense. From their point of view, being Orthodox does not mean denying filoque and purgatory and recognizing the sacrament sub utraque. “He doesn’t eat like an Orthodox,” “he doesn’t dress like an Orthodox”—these are common expressions. An Orthodox person is Orthodox not only in dogmas and, perhaps, least of all in them, but in the fact that he does not eat before he has heard early mass, that on holidays he eats pies, that unless he crosses his forehead, he will not sit at the table , that on Saturdays he steams in the bathhouse, in a word, he lives in a certain way of life, that he is the son of Orthodox culture.

The third sphere to which the Orthodox religiously relates is nature. This area closely merges with what we considered above under the name of everyday life. Here we will have in mind the Orthodox attitude not only to nature in the narrow sense, but also to agriculture, which, being the basis of peasant life, is no less related to nature. In addition, the same category will include those remnants of natural pagan forces in the form of goblins, brownies, etc., with which the Orthodox peasant still deals.

Grasses, birds, trees, insects, all kinds of animals, the earth - each element evokes an incomprehensible sympathy in the peasant. Listen to how a peasant talks to cattle, to a tree, to a thing, to all of nature: he caresses, asks, begs, scolds, curses, talks with it, is indignant at it and sometimes hates it. He lives with nature in close union, fights with it and humbles himself before it. All nature and all things are something living and personal. These are countless creatures - forest, field, brownies, halves, barns, mermaids, kikimoras, etc., etc. - doubles of things, places and elements. They live their lives, demand food from a person, carry out everyday affairs, get married, eat, drink, sleep, quarrel, fight, cry, die. All things and events take on a special appearance. There is no just food, just illness, just clothes, just fire. Everything is simple and not simple. There’s a whirlwind spinning along the road, but it’s not just wind. This is a witch celebrating her unclean wedding with the devil. And you can be sure of this. You just need to throw a knife into this whirlwind, and the knife will fall to the ground, bloodied.

That the earth for the Orthodox is a mother and a shrine, this is a common place. But in order to show that this common place has a living and real meaning for the peasant, we will give illustrations. In the Yaroslavl province there is such a custom. This custom is observed when “butting”, i.e. such a mysterious disease for which the peasant finds no explanation; So, a completely healthy person, while in the field, at work suddenly feels pain in some part of the body; this is a sign that he is being punished by mother earth for some guilt. To recover, you need to ask the earth for forgiveness. At the place where a person felt pain, he must say, turning to the east and bowing to the ground: “Forgive me, mother of the damp earth, for what I have annoyed you with” (“Living Antiquity”, 1896, vol. VI). It is easy to imagine the sacred and serious significance that working on the earth acquires.

The gifts of the earth and, above all, bread are also sacred. Bread is a “gift of God”, it is an emblem of wealth and fertility. Starting a new rug, the peasant says: “Lord, bless.” Careless handling of bread and rolling it into balls is a great sin. On the contrary, whoever does not disdain any bread, but eats it both stale and in full bloom, will not be afraid of thunder, will not drown in water, and will live to an old age in abundance. All work related to the production of bread, obviously, has been surrounded by religious rituals since ancient times. “Before the start of these works, as well as after - before mowing and reaping, a religious procession is taken to the fields, and church images and banners are entwined with fresh greenery and flowers; the priest blesses the fields and sprinkles them with holy water. At Candlemas, each owner sanctifies a wax candle for himself; He carefully stores this candle in the barn, and when sowing and reaping, he takes it out to the field.” “On Annunciation and Maundy Thursday, the villagers consecrate prosviras and then tie them to seeders; in some villages these breads are dried, ground into powder and mixed with grains intended for sowing; in the Chernigov province it is customary to consecrate the very seeds in churches.” The harvest is also accompanied by special rituals. In some places in Little Russia the first sheaf is lit by a priest. We will not cite here all the rituals related to agriculture, limiting ourselves to those given as typical (they are collected, among other things, in the third volume of “The Poetic View of the Slavs on Nature” by Afanasyev).

If we, having left the land and agricultural labor, turn to other natural phenomena, we will notice the following feature: while having a religious attitude towards all natural phenomena, the peasant has a non-Christian attitude towards many of them. So there is nothing Christian in the numerous remnants of religious pagan festivals, in dancing, games, jumping over fires, curling wreaths, which usually accompany various moments in the life of nature. For the peasant, elemental spirits, spirits of water, forests, and houses are personal living beings. Are they light forces or dark ones? At least not light ones. Not a single Orthodox Christian would think of remembering God or a saint when turning to a brownie in prayer; when the spirits get wild in the house (and this happens in the spring, when the brownie changes his skin, or gets mad because he wants to marry a witch), the peasant will not turn to the priest - he will go to the healer. But these forces are not always evil forces. The same brownie is usually considered the good spirit of the house; he sweeps the floor, feeds the cattle, looks after the house, warns the peasant of misfortune, gives him abundance in everything and wealth. And not only the brownie can help the peasant. Here, for example, is the prayer of a peasant woman in the Smolensk province, addressed to all elemental forces: “the owner is the brownie father and the hostess is the brownie mother! the owner is the forest father and the hostess is the forest mother! the owner is the water father and the hostess is the water mother! The owner is the field father and the hostess is the field mother! Forgive me, a sinner and unworthy (bow to four directions). Help, help from internal superficialities and from tedious negotiations; give me good health!”

But even more often it happens that these spirits do evil to a person, send illness to him, crop failure in his field, death to his livestock. This is evil spirits, trash, evil spirits, etc. And the peasant, recognizing himself as Orthodox and a son of the church, feels stronger than these spirits; he rarely turns to the Church to get rid of them. True, sometimes he protects himself with prayer, or sprinkles holy water in the corners, but more often he goes to a sorcerer, a healer, a terrible person, born of a woman from the same natural spirit, who does not attend the sacrament, who begins his conspiracies with the significant formula: “I will become without being blessed, I will go without crossing myself,” etc... And one should not think that those who turn to the sorcerer experience the same feelings as Western Fausts who sell their soul to the devil. Nothing happened: the woman who went to “remove the keel” to the sorcerer does not feel like she has sinned; After this, with a pure heart, she will light candles in the church and remember her dead there. In her mind, the Church and the sorcerer are simply different departments, and the Church, which has the power to save her soul, cannot save her from the evil eye, and the sorcerer who is treating her child for criss, does not have the power to pray for her dead husband.

We must make a reservation here. Such duality is the most ordinary and common phenomenon; but it must be said that in some places, and even very often, there is complete confusion in this area. Besides the fact that for treatment of demons, possession, hysteria, even toothache, people turn to members of the “church rank” - from some elder, to the parish malt shop inclusive - besides this, there are healers and not of such a dark character as we described higher. The conspiracies themselves often take the form of Christian prayers, read “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” and the formula that we cited above is read differently, namely: “I will stand blessed, I will go crossing myself,” etc. There are even villages where the duties of a healer are performed by a priest. Nevertheless, in the attitude of the Orthodox to nature there is an element of lack of freedom, fear, subordination, “superstition” in the sense of recognizing one’s weakness in front of elemental spirits.

We have examined the material, ecclesiastical and everyday, that constitutes Orthodoxy. Let's draw some conclusions from it.

First patriarchal period

Under this name, the period from 1589 to 1700 entered the history of the Russian Church. During this period, the church strengthens its influence, and the patriarch, as its head, begins to play an increasingly important role in the political life of the country. In particular, the church has been ensuring that since 1625 the lands it owns (of which there were quite a few) are not subject to state jurisdiction. In essence, it becomes a state within a state.

Throughout the 17th century, the Russian Church was actively engaged in missionary activities in Siberia, Karelia and the Kazan region. New printing houses are being created, spiritual literature is developing. In the middle of the century, Patriarch Nikon carried out reforms that mainly concerned the correction of liturgical books. As a result of the reforms, the church split and the Old Believers appeared. Since 1666, Old Believers have been persecuted criminally at the state level. As a result, this will cause quite large-scale repressions against opponents of Nikon’s church reform. Many Old Believers will be forced to move to the outskirts of the country or abroad. So a large community of Old Believers appeared on the territory of what is now Latgale (the eastern part of Latvia), which was then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In particular, a large Old Believer community lives in Daugavpils. The conflict between the Orthodox and Old Believers has not yet been completely resolved.

THE MODERN ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY

Orthodoxy has an invisible enemy: he is everywhere and nowhere, he is neither “what” nor “who”. This is a certain spirit that permeates the atmosphere of the earth with its miasma, poisons its soil, contaminates its waters, turns cities into rotting swamps, and villages into wastelands; it seems that it is impossible to hide from him anywhere: he will find fugitives both on the tops of mountains and in the depths of the seas.

This enemy is the spirit of corruption, which in modern language is called liberalism.

The word "liberalism" means freedom. This is a special demonic freedom to kill your spirit, pervert the powers of the soul and desecrate the body, this is freedom from shame, as from prejudice, this is the freedom to mock what is sacred to a person, this is the freedom of a mad dog that rushes at its owner. Already in ancient times, liberalism followed two paths, outwardly dissimilar to each other, but with one goal: to free man from God. The first way is cynicism, the second is aestheticism. Cynicism is the destruction of all moral foundations and traditions, the transformation of man into a dirty animal, a fierce struggle against one’s own spirit, the overturned ladder of Darwinism, where man evolves into a monkey. His motto: “Freedom lies in shamelessness.”

Aestheticism seems to be the opposite of cynicism; This is a cult of beauty, but created, sensual and material beauty, which obscures the beauty of divine light. This is the beauty of man-made idols, the beauty of Aphrodite and Apollo, beauty that kills the spirit. Aestheticism turned art into a servant of human passions, deified these passions, exhausted itself and turned into anti-aestheticism - decadence, the agony of beauty.

At the very beginning, liberalism saw Christianity as its irreconcilable enemy. He initiated persecution of the Church during the time of the pagan emperors. Even then, Christians were judged from the position of liberalism, accusing them of being misanthropes, fanatics who prefer death to life, enemies of human happiness, and therefore must be destroyed, just as an ulcer is burned out with a hot iron. It is characteristic that both cynics and platonists - these aesthetes of philosophy - took part in the persecution of Christians.

Liberalism once created an anti-Christianity within Christianity itself - a renaissance, replacing asceticism with the cult of the flesh. He brought Catholicism to its knees, making it the handmaiden of the world. He paved the way for Protestantism, which crushed in an iron mortar the fragments of ancient tradition that still remained in Catholicism. All reformation had the goal of elevating man above God.

Liberalism is the soul of revolutions that take place under the black and scarlet banner of Satan. He is trying to destroy the Church either through bloody persecution, like blows from a battering ram, or to undermine it from the inside, replacing it with another religion - where the appearance of Christianity is preserved, but there is no Christ as the Son of God, Redeemer and Judge of the world.

Liberals have a constant nostalgia for paganism; deep down they want to turn the sky into Olympus or the Himalayas. This spirit hates Christ, so it tries to replace Him with images of a false Christ; makes idols under the name of Christ to be worshiped by those who consider themselves Christians. Liberalism especially hates the doctrine that God is the highest Justice, the Judge of the world, and will reward each person according to his deeds. The Rosicrucian Goethe, through the mouth of Mephistopheles, says that God is a kind old man with whom the devil can agree on everything.

Do Christians see the danger of such counterfeiting? I think that some people do not see, trusting their blind guides; others see and sound the alarm, but they are not listened to, like Laocoon, who warned the Trojans that the enemies of Troy were hiding inside the decorated horse; still others understand, but remain silent so as not to be crushed by the iron heel of liberals; the fourth do not see because they do not want to see, since liberalism has poisoned their consciousness, corrupted their feelings, justified their lust, and therefore, deep down in their souls, they themselves want to be deceived.

Currently, before our eyes, the destruction and substitution of Christian values ​​is taking place: faces are replaced by masks, essence - by names.

Protestantism has turned into permanent reformation, into meaningless subjectivism, into religious anarchism; his near future is atheism or existentialism. Catholicism, in pursuit of the world slipping from its hands, moved from the Inquisition to solidarity with all heresies and is now flirting with sects and godless unions. He put aside his previous weapons - the sword and pincers - and opened his arms wide to the lustful girl - avant-garde art and the iron lady - soulless technical civilization. He strives to assimilate those teachings and theories, ideas and slogans that the world follows, but in fact he himself turned out to be assimilated by them, and now the Catholicism that existed before does not exist.

The main obstacle to the global march of liberalism remains Orthodoxy. Until recently it was subjected to persecution, compared with which the cruelties of Nero and Diocletian pale. Now Orthodoxy faces another danger. The walls of the Church have withstood the blows of a battering ram, but will they withstand the undermining through which opponents of Orthodoxy seek to penetrate the Church, and not only penetrate, but speak on its behalf and represent it? We do not at all want to say that at present the Church is captured by modernists, like a ship by pirates - it remains the pillar and affirmation of the truth; We also do not think that all modernists are conscious enemies of Christ, but liberalism has corrupted minds with false freedom, suppressed the spiritual intuitions of people, and therefore many have ceased to understand that liberal forces are replacing the religion of heaven with the religion of earth - the cult of the flesh.

Liberalism represents the modern stage in the process of secularization of the consciousness of mankind. Christ united earth with heaven, and liberals again separate them, and man increasingly distances himself from the spiritual world, which becomes alien and cold to him.

Christianity is a universal phenomenon, and for liberalism it is an episode in the history of mankind. For the secularized consciousness of modern man, God ceases to be a living Person and turns into some indefinite force, cosmic intelligence, extropic energy, the opposite of entropy. For a Christian, the goal of existence should be deification - communion with the eternal light of the Divine, and faith should become the core of his personality and the main content of life. In communion with God, man finds himself and himself becomes a reflection of divine glory. In liberalism, the existence of God is justified only by the fact that He can be useful to people as one of the guarantors of their earthly well-being. Christianity elevates man to the heavenly world and makes a son of heaven from a son of earth, and liberalism, having subordinated the spirit to the soul, and the soul to the body, tries to earth the sky itself, and squeeze eternity into the framework of time. Liberalism is incompatible with Orthodoxy: it must either reject or distort it. At the present stage of history, liberals choose the latter. They say almost nothing about the transcendental world, and if they sometimes mention it, it is to show that they have not completely broken with Christianity.

Man belongs to two worlds - material and spiritual. Liberalism seeks to destroy the idea of ​​man as the connecting link of these worlds. For liberalism, the doctrine of original sin, transmitted from generation to generation, because of which the descendants of Adam became prey and captives of Satan, is incomprehensible and hateful. For liberals, the fall of the forefathers, their expulsion from Eden, the torment of hell is an allegory presented in the form of a myth. They do not understand the mystical and genealogical unity of humanity - unity in plurality and plurality in unity, where their descendants are responsible for the sin of the forefathers - the ancestors of humanity. They are shocked by the idea that people are captives of a demon and only the sacrifice of Christ frees them from this slavery. Having rejected the doctrine of original sin, liberals reject the doctrine of atonement; for them, the crucifixion of Christ is an example of selfless service to an idea, the apotheosis of the Gospel, and not the salvation of the world. Often they turn the very concept of redemption from the central fact of human history through verbal balancing act into an allegory and synecdoche, crossing out its direct meaning. Without the dogma of atonement there is no Christianity; it falls like a house without a foundation - and this is what the opponents of Christ need.

For liberals, salvation is identified with personal self-improvement, and dependence on God for salvation is perceived as a humiliation of man. They began to write the name of God with a small letter, and the word “man” with a capital letter. Satan wanted to become free from God; he breathed into his chest the air of this freedom, which turned out to be the breath of death. Man continues the work of Satan - he seeks false freedom in permissiveness and, losing God, finds himself in the darkness of chaos and madness.

Christianity revealed to man the full depth of sin, the tragedy of the fall and the metaphysical roots of the apostasy. Secularized consciousness is gradually depriving Christianity of its mystical depth, turning a huge iceberg into a thin ice floe floating on the surface of the water.

The Christian must contend with three enemies: the demon, the pride of the world, and the lusts of the body. Modernism ignores the existence of the demon, enters into an agreement with the semi-pagan world, justifies the passions and lusts of man and makes the soul unprotected from these enemies.

Liberal Christianity has broken its connection with the metaphysical world; for him there is no angelology and demonology. The first enemy of humanity, the demon, takes the form of a foggy abstraction. The doctrine of demons as living beings seems to be outdated mythology. Those liberals who still recognize the existence of the demon try to show it as a harmless spirit, which, having temporarily fallen away from God, will eventually return to Him and again take its former place. If they occasionally mention hell, it is in order to reassure sinners that the keys to hell are in the hands of man himself: he can stay in the underworld or, having unlocked the doors from the inside, come out of there of his own free will. So one desire of a sinner opens hell and heaven for him, and God and Satan do not interfere with his choice. Let us remember that excessive hope in God’s mercy, which turns into connivance of sin, is considered by the Church to be blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is not forgiven either in this or the future life.

A significant part of modernists are generally inclined to believe that hell is not a terrible reality of the other world, but a person’s mental state, depressive mania, the treatment of which requires the help of a psychiatrist. Liberals are confident that the demonic world and hell must disappear from the consciousness of modern people, dissipate like smoke from the wind, melt like the shadows of a medieval night before the intellectual light of modern times. Liberals believe that it is necessary to free a person not from a demon, but from superstitions and atavistic ideas about evil spirits.

It is characteristic that modernists unitedly take up arms against incantatory prayers to drive out demons. In their opinion, why drive out someone who doesn’t exist, and if the devil exists, then it’s all the more not worth spoiling relations with him: it’s the same as kicking the first minister, who is in temporary exile, but can return to his previous post and deal with offenders. So, the modernists and liberals have amicably settled the matter with the main enemy of Christians - the demon.

The second enemy of Christianity is the spirit of this world. The world here means semi-pagan customs and ideas, a scale of values, concepts of good and evil, the spirit of selfishness and egocentrism, pseudoscience trying to replace faith, passionate art that covers up the rottenness of sins with gilding. This spirit of the world opposes Christianity, it tries to take possession of the minds and hearts of people. Liberalism wants to exalt the values ​​of this world in the eyes of Christians, and present secularization itself as a struggle for freedom of spirit and mind. Already the Renaissance was an attempt to restore the pagan world under Christian names and to return the Olympian gods to Europe under the pseudonyms of Christian saints. Modern Christian liberals, under the slogan of love, want to drown and dissolve the Church in the sea of ​​this world, and present the Last Judgment as a general amnesty for sinners and demons. Where metaphysics is rejected, there physics conquers the spirit, and the body conquers the soul: the passionate maid of the night becomes a queen.

The third enemy of Christianity is carnal lusts. Liberals consider them to be natural properties of man, and what is natural comes from God. They tend to view sinful passions not as a loss of grace and a falling away of the soul from God, but as an excess that is harmful to human health. Radical modernists believe that sin is the ferment of creative and intellectual life; morally, it gives a person spiritual experience and is therefore a component of wisdom.

The liberalization of Christianity, that is, its perversion, occurs under the guise of modernism, renovationism, dogmatic revisionism, and through the constant abuse of the principle of oikonomia.

We must remember that the representative of humanism and liberalism in one person was an ancient serpent who crawled into Eden under the guise of a good friend. As a liberal, he called the forefathers to freedom from all prohibitions and staged the first revolution at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and as a humanist he promised them a tempting opportunity - to become gods without God. And now this “friend” of humanity, who seduced Adam, seduces his distant descendants with the same serpentine song.

Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin)

Source: ( link )

Synodal period

Peter I was afraid of the great influence of the church on political life in the state; this prevented him from fully carrying out the planned reforms. When Patriarch Adrian died in 1700, Peter I forbade the election of a new head of the church and some time later established the Holy Synod. The Synod is a kind of parliament that can make decisions related to the life of the church. In most Orthodox churches, such a body existed for a long time and was designed to limit the power of the patriarch, but in the Russian tradition the patriarch has always been the sole ruler of the church.

The Synod, which Peter I created, was a state body, of which the tsar himself was a member. This led to a weakening of the position of the church, which now became more closed, and access to the clergy from other classes was limited. In essence, all clergy become government officials. This order persists until the revolution.

A Brief History of the Development of Orthodoxy in Russia

Home Articles A brief history of the development of Orthodoxy in Russia

Russia was, is and will be an Orthodox country, and numerous attempts to rewrite history, often undertaken recently, are doomed to failure in advance. The reasons for this, most likely, lie not even in the Slavic mentality, but in deep and very extensive historical roots. Moreover, the Orthodox Faith is not a frozen, lifeless monolith, but a living, developing organism.

The past 20th century cannot be called calm or quiet, because for 75 long years they tried to impose on us values ​​that were alien to the heart of any believer. Fortunately, now the country is rising from its knees, but the memory of what happened in the past should not be forgotten, because Russian Orthodox history is a chronicle dedicated to finding the path to God.

954 Kiev princess Olga was one of the first in Rus' to accept the Orthodox faith.

988 Baptism of Rus' by Prince Vladimir. For a short time (the “pre-Mongol” era), the Russian Orthodox Church was considered the metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

1051 _ For the first time, a Slav ascended the high priestly throne - Metropolitan Hilarion, one of the most educated people of his time. The Monk Anthony of Pechersk founded the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery.

X century . In Rus', the most beautiful, majestic temples are beginning to be built (at first, wood is most often used for this), decorated with gilded and silvered icons.

XI century. Rapid development of monasteries.

XII century. During the period of feudal fragmentation, the Russian Church becomes perhaps the only bearer of the idea of ​​​​the unity of the Russian people, actively counteracting feudal princely civil strife.

1334 The foundation of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, in which the Monk Andrei Rublev subsequently worked.

1354-1378 . Years of the life of Metropolitan Alexy, educator and mentor of Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy.

XIII century . Foundation of the Pochaev Lavra.

1448 Gaining independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Jonah becomes Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus'.

1589 Metropolitan Job is proclaimed the first Russian Patriarch.

1608-1610. Heroic defense of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra from Polish and Swedish troops.

First half of the 17th century. Church reform. Schism in the Russian Orthodox Church. The emergence of the Old Believers.

1721 Establishment by Peter I of the Holy Governing Synod (valid until 1917).

XIX century. It is considered the “golden” era of Russian Orthodoxy. The life of Metropolitans Philaret and Innocent, especially revered to this day, and the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, often depicted on body icons of the Matrona of Moscow.

1917 Restoration of the Patriarchal administration of the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Tikhon becomes Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'.

May 1922. Arrest of Patriarch Tikhon. Another – “renovationist” – split of the Church, in which a significant part of the clergy fully supported the Bolsheviks (the initiative did not gain any significant support among the people).

June 1924. Release of Patriarch Tikhon. The fading of the “renovationist schism.”

Interwar time. The struggle for power within the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Sergius becomes Patriarch. Another schism (this time “right”, which gave rise to the so-called “catacomb” church). Almost complete liquidation of the entire church structure.

1941-1945. The Russian Orthodox Church is drawing closer to the Bolsheviks against the background of the threat from Nazi Germany. In 1943 (September 4), Stalin received Patriarchal Locum Tenens Sergius (who would soon be elected Patriarch) and Metropolitans Alexy and Nicholas. In 1945, the Russian Orthodox Church reunified with the “catacomb”.

1948 Creation of the Pan-Orthodox Conference.

Board of N.S. Khrushchev and L.I. Brezhnev. The Church remains under strict government control.

1988 An inglorious end to the era of rabid atheism. The beginning of the revival of Orthodoxy, the return of honor to the Orthodox saints.

Second patriarchal period

In 1917, the Russian Church took advantage of the difficult political situation to once again increase its weight in society. Despite the fact that many members of the Provisional Government were against restoring the power of the patriarch, the success of the Bolsheviks, who were anti-religious in their views, allowed the church to “push through” its position.

However, it is worth noting that the church hierarchy was not restored to its original form. The Holy Synod was abandoned and the Supreme Church Council was organized. Both of these bodies did not allow the patriarch to have absolute power over the church, and each was given its own powers. Thus, the Synod dealt with issues of church service, and the Supreme Church Council dealt with administrative matters.

Having won the civil war, the Bolsheviks set a course to eradicate religion. Initially, only a decree was adopted on the complete separation of church and state and the cessation of funding for the church. In fact, any activity of the clergy was perceived as a call for sabotage. Many were repressed: shot or sent to camps.

By 1939, the structure of the church was practically destroyed, and there was no centralized management. Most of the clergy went underground, organizing the so-called Catacomb Church, which was able to maintain several hundred parishes and a unified governance structure.

During World War II, the Soviet leadership needed additional incentives to raise morale and unite the soldiers, and they resorted to the help of the church. Despite the official policy, there remained a very large number of believers in the country, for whom the patriarch was an authority. Thus, during the war, religious activity was allowed, and many churches were restored.

The second important reason for weakening the anti-religious policy was the conditions of the Western allies, mainly President Roosevelt, who, through his personal representative in October 1941, stated that assistance to the Soviet Union directly depended on the state’s position towards the church.

In the post-war period, the Russian Church no longer encountered such harsh opposition. But the state still tried to control it and prevent large-scale expansion. Church activities were subject to taxes that were noticeably higher than others. At times, clergy were required to give up to 85% of their income.

A new anti-religious campaign unfolded under Nikita Khrushchev. Church structures were driven into even stricter tax and legal frameworks, and there was a campaign in the media designed to show religion as a relic of the past. However, most importantly, no attempts were made to prosecute.

After Khrushchev's resignation, until the 1980s, relations between the state and the church were quite stable. The active anti-clerical campaign was stopped, taxes were slightly weakened, which, despite this, were still significantly higher than those levied on other organizations.

During Perestroika, for the first time in many years, the number of new churches significantly increased, almost all restrictions on religious activity were lifted, and the church’s financial obligations to the state were weakened. The turning point was the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus' in 1988. The ban on covering religious life on television was lifted. For the first time in the USSR, people were able to see live broadcasts of worship services. An important marker was the fact that in 1989, about 300 clergy became people's deputies at various levels.

History of the Russian Orthodox Church

Brief history of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The first mentions of the penetration of Christianity into Russian soil are associated with the names of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius.

According to legend, in
862
the Moravian prince turned to Emperor
Michael III
with a request to send teachers who would educate his people in the Slavic language.
Moravia had by that time adopted Christianity, but services were held in German. To resolve this issue, the brothers Cyril and Methodius were sent to Moravia. The holy brothers arrived with the Slavic alphabet
compiled by them.
In addition to the alphabet, they brought with them liturgical books and Holy Scripture, translated into Slavic
. From then on, the people of Moravia could listen to sermons in the Slavic language they understood.

Later, Christianity developed and took hold in Bulgaria, and then all the southern outskirts of Rus' were sanctified by the activities of Russian enlighteners. A number of historians even suggest that they could have been the first baptizers of the Russian people.

According to the legends of Russian chronicles , Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called

laid the foundation for Christianity in Rus'. Preaching the Gospel, he traveled through many countries. Having reached the Dnieper Mountains, he predicted that there would be a city here and there would be churches in it. The Apostle erected a cross on the hill. After the Apostle's journey, there was no mention of Christianity in the chronicles for a long time.

At the beginning of the century, Christianity was already present in Kyiv. Prince Oleg,

after the death of the Russian prince, the Varangian Rurik, he ruled over the Novgorod lands.
With his squad, he captures Kiev, killing the Varangian princes Askold and Dir.
With the transfer of the capital there, the two main centers of the Eastern Slavs were united. In this regard, some researchers call him, and not Rurik, the founder of the Old Russian state.

Under the Prophetic Oleg in Kyiv, the connection with Byzantium is becoming increasingly stronger. Trade treaties allow the Russian people to trade with the Greeks. Staying for a long time in Greek monasteries, they begin to learn more and better about Christianity.

Under the reign of Prince Igor Rurikovich, the Russian state is already divided into baptized and unbaptized Rus'. The pagan faith is considered the state faith, but the number of Christians in Kyiv is rapidly growing and multiplying.

Igor's wife, Holy Princess Olga

Having early become disillusioned with paganism,
he accepts Christianity
.
In 957 , in Constantinople
, she was baptized.

Olga's youngest grandson, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, was a fan of the pagan faith.

Idols were erected everywhere, idolatry and sacrifices flourished.
But over time, he began to feel more and more the rudeness and emptiness of paganism. He begins to gravitate toward the Christian faith, study its canons, and in the spring of 988 he is baptized.
According to legend,
in the summer of 988, Vladimir issued a decree on the general baptism of the people of Kiev.
The baptism took place in the Dnieper River, the people were baptized by priests from Byzantium. Christianity became the dominant faith in Rus'. The Russian Orthodox Church was formed, which is the Russian Metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Kyiv became the center of the metropolis.

The church was headed by a metropolitan appointed by the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople.
Later, in 1051
, a metropolitan from Russian Christians was appointed to the head of the Church for the first time.

Having been completely reborn after baptism, Saint Vladimir began to zealously propagate Christianity.

Not without the use of force.
Christianity made its way through the resistance of the pagans “by fire and sword
. Pagan magicians tried in various ways to prevent the spread of Christianity in the Russian state. But the Christian faith became more and more firmly established on Russian soil and became a national religion.

Dual faith

existed among the people for a long time, when they revered and listened to both priests and magi.
Some pagan rituals and beliefs survived in baptized Rus' until later times. Christianity flourished in full force during the reign of Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise,
son of Saint Vladimir.
Saint Vladimir took care of the education of the Russian people, opened the first schools, and Yaroslav made efforts to increase the number of churches and priests. Many churches were built at the expense of archpastors, private individuals and popular communities. Churches were mostly built of wood; stone ones were rare
. They were built in the image and likeness of Byzantine churches. Bells borrowed from the Germans were used for worship. The first icons in Rus' were brought from Byzantium, but over time Russian icon painting, wall painting, and mosaics began to develop. The Russian Church not only accepted the holidays of the Greek Church, but also introduced its own.

Temples began to play a big role in the life of the Russian state. Parochial schools and parish almshouses were opened at churches, gatherings were held, transactions and trades were carried out.

Since the 11th century

Monasteries are actively developing in Rus'. They fulfill the mission of not only spiritual education, but also the education of the people. In the monasteries, chronicles are kept, icon painting is developed, theological works, historical and literary works are copied and translated into Russian.

After the capture of Kiev by the Tatar-Mongol army, the Russian Metropolis moved first to Vladimir, then to Moscow.

In
the 14th
century, scattered Russian principalities began to unite around Moscow, and the Russian Church made a huge contribution to the revival of a unified Russian state.

When in 1439

year, the Greek hierarchs
signed a document on subordination to the Roman throne
, the Russian Church was forced to look for its own path.
In 1448
, a council of Russian bishops, without the participation of Constantinople, elects the Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia.
The Russian Church becomes autocephalous (independent). In 1589
, the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople. The following patriarchs have already been elected bishops of the Russian Church. As the power of the Russian state grew, so did the authority of the Autocephalous Russian Church.

In the 12th
century, Patriarch Nikon
, at the behest of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, began work on correcting liturgical books and establishing rules for a unified church service.
This caused unrest and protest among the clergy, peasants, boyars and archers. There was a split in the church. The Old Believers, not accepting the innovations,
separated from the Russian Orthodox Church 1667

In 1721
, Peter I established the Holy Governing Synod.
For almost
200
years it has remained the highest church body, replacing the patriarchal government. The Synod reports directly to the Tsar. The church is deprived of almost all its lands, and its property is completely controlled by the state.

In the 19th
century, the Church was already called the “Department of Orthodox Confession
,” and the Chief Prosecutor became its head. Eldership is becoming widespread. This time is marked by the emergence of a large number of religious educational institutions. Famous scientists, philosophers, and clergy teach there.

Already after the February Revolution
1905
, persecution of the Church began, and after the October Revolution, the atheist state launched a widespread struggle against the Church.
Already in January 1918
, church property was subject to confiscation. Anti-religious propaganda is unfolding in full force. Control is established over the printing houses of the Church.

In 1918
, the new government adopted a decree
separating church and state. The decree deprived the Church of the rights to own property and the rights of a legal entity. All property of the Church was declared public property. The same decree separated the school from the church. During the years of devastation and civil war, murders of clergy, destruction and looting of churches, and desecration of shrines were widespread.

A movement of “renovationism” began within the Church itself .

Part of the clergy accepted Soviet power, and to renew religious life announced the creation of
the “Living Church.”
Arbitrary changes in the order of worship and gross violations of church regulations began.
In 1924
, instead of the Supreme Church Council,
a renovationist Synod was created.
Russian churches in the country of the Soviets in the thirties were mostly destroyed, many religious figures, priests, and theologians of Russia perished in Gulag camps. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, only a few dozen churches were operating in the USSR. The country's authorities turned their faces to the Church when the whole country stood up to defend the Motherland from the German invaders. All national reserves were used to defend the country. For the common cause of victory, to support the moral strength of the people, the Russian Orthodox Church was called upon. New parishes began to open, and thousands of clergy were released from places of imprisonment. The Russian Church provided both spiritual and material support to the Fatherland. The church allocated funds for uniforming the army, for the production of a tank column and a squadron of aircraft. Relations between the state and the Church began to strengthen, but constant state control was exercised over the activities of the Church.

With Khrushchev coming to power, atheistic propaganda in the country intensified. In accordance with ideological guidelines, thousands of churches were closed in the Soviet Union.

IN 1988

widely
celebrated.
Relations between the state and the Church received a new development. A positive dialogue began. The enormous historical role of the Church in the fate of the Fatherland and its contribution to the formation of the moral and ethical qualities of the nation was recognized. The ideology of atheism of the Communist Party ceased to exist. The restoration of church life began throughout the country. Enormous efforts were made to revive long-standing traditions lost during years of persecution. Thousands of temples and monasteries were raised from the ruins, and new churches were erected. As a result, the people again reached out to Christ and his Holy Church.

Current situation

Today, the Russian Orthodox Church has a fairly high weight in society, and, at times, plays an important role in the political life of the country.

But there are crises: since the 90s, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been striving to separate from the Moscow Patriarchate and gain independence. Today this conflict is felt quite acutely, and, most likely, a split in churches will occur. There is also growing discontent in liberal circles, who believe that church and state today are too closely connected.

A little about the Local Orthodox Churches

What do we Orthodox know about ourselves? How many of us are there? Which Local Churches does the one Church of Christ consist of? What do they do in each of them? This publication is intended to clarify this issue a little.

Here you will not find detailed reports on the state of affairs in this or that Church, but some statistics and interesting facts will give you an idea of ​​what and how the Orthodox Churches live in different countries of the world.

Church of Christ

Historically, the one Church founded by the Savior is divided into a number of Orthodox communities according to territorial principles. These communities are in communication with each other through worship, prayers for each other and diplomatic contacts. They recognize each other as absolutely equal and resolve any difficulties that arise through joint discussions at Church Councils.

Each canonically recognized part of the united Church has its own hierarchy (bishops), an unbroken chain of ordinations of which goes back to the apostles themselves, and a tomos of autocephaly (a special document of independence), issued by the mother Church or is an ancient see directly founded by the apostles.

Currently, there are 15 Local Orthodox Churches : the Church of Constantinople, the Church of Alexandria, the Church of Antioch, the Church of Jerusalem, the Russian Church, the Georgian Church, the Serbian Church, the Bulgarian Church, the Romanian Church, the Cypriot Church, the Greek Church, the Albanian Church, the Polish Church , Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia and American Church.

In total, the number of Orthodox Christians in the world today is estimated at 225-300,000,000 people.

The largest Church is the Russian Church (180,000,000 believers), the oldest is the Jerusalem Church (founded on the day of Pentecost by the apostles Peter and John), the youngest is the American Church (received autocephaly in 1970), and the first in honor is the Constantinople Church (after the fall of Rome in 1054). year), the leader in missionary work is Alexandria (since the late 1930s, the flock has grown hundreds of times).

One of the biggest problems of the modern Church is the presence of several patriarchates with dioceses in diasporas. This leads to the existence in the same territory (for example, in the USA, Canada, Western Europe or Australia) of simultaneously bishops of two, three or even six different Local Churches, which creates fertile ground for conflicts.

Russian church

The canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church includes 16 states: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, China, Japan and Mongolia.

The Moscow Patriarchate includes a number of self-governing Churches: the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Japanese Orthodox Church, the Chinese Orthodox Church.

The Russian Church has about 300 dioceses, 1,000 monasteries, 35,000 parishes, 40,500 clergy and about 180,000,000 believers.

Since the end of the 20th century, the efforts of the Church have been focused on educating residents in the territory of the former USSR, especially young people, who, during the years of Soviet power, have largely lost Christian traditions and faith. In recent years, the Church has also been taking steps to revive Orthodoxy in China and is engaged in missionary work in Southeast Asia.

In 2009, a long schism with the ROCOR was overcome, as a result of which the latter became part of the Russian Orthodox Church. In recent years, the Russian Church has managed to achieve a significant presence in the army, revive the institutions of prison clergy and sisterhoods of mercy at hospitals, and also achieve the introduction of the “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” course in schools.

The Church actively uses the media (including its own: TV channels “Spas” and “Soyuz”, radio “Vera”, online publications “Pravoslavie.ru”, “Sedmitsa.ru”, “Orthodoxy and the World”, “Foma” " and etc.).

Church of Constantinople

The Patriarchate of Constantinople has long been trying to extend its canonical territory to all areas not included in the canonical territories of other Local Churches. The Patriarch of Constantinople even adopted the title “Ecumenical”.

However, in fact, the territories of the Church of Constantinople include the territory of Turkey in Asia Minor, Istanbul with its suburbs, some islands of the Aegean Sea, the Athos peninsula, the island of Crete and the dioceses of the Greek diaspora existing in certain countries, as well as Finland. The Church of Finland and the Archdiocese of Crete enjoy broad autonomy. Also has disputed jurisdiction in Estonia.

The Church has about 5,255,000 believers in all controlled territories, 63 dioceses, about 60 monasteries, 3,200 parishes and 130 bishops. The Church is headed by the 232nd Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew.

After the fall into heresy of the Roman Church, the Patriarch of Constantinople has the advantage of honor among the Primates of the Local Churches. The advantage of honor gives the Patriarch of Constantinople the right to convene and preside over pan-Orthodox events, address the rest of the world on behalf of all Churches, provided that he is authorized to do so by all local Orthodox Churches, as well as resolve disputes between Local Churches if they both appeal to him, as to the referee.

Due to its difficult financial situation, it does not recognize the autocephaly of the American Orthodox Church, since it receives a significant portion of its funds from parishes in the USA and Canada.

Alexandria Church

The Patriarch of Alexandria, like the High Priest of Rome, is often called pope. Alexandria is an ancient see, founded by the apostles themselves, as well as the birthplace of monasticism, with which the high authority of the Church in the world is associated.

For several centuries the Church struggled with the Monophysite schism, then was under the unfriendly rule of various Muslim governments and received relative freedom in its actions only in the 20th century.

The canonical territory of the Alexandrian Patriarchate is all African countries. Since the 1930s, the Church has had an active mission among the inhabitants of the continent and currently its flock numbers more than 6,800,000 people in 31 dioceses.

Church missionaries preach and worship in Greek, Arabic, French and English, as well as in the languages ​​of indigenous peoples of Africa. Among the priests and bishops of the patriarchy there are many blacks. Large Orthodox communities have already developed in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Zaire, Ghana and Madagascar.

In addition to Christian preaching, the patriarchate is engaged in the construction of educational institutions and hospitals, as well as the organization of humanitarian actions. Among the recent important undertakings of the Church we can mention the opening of an Orthodox university in Madagascar.

Antioch Church

Also an ancient apostolic see, which has its center in Damascus and extends jurisdiction to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, as well as some Orthodox communities in the USA and Western Europe.

For several centuries, the Church was under conditions of official domination of Islam in the canonical territory and a ban on the preaching of Christianity. Recently, due to the destabilization of the situation in the region and the activities of terrorist groups, it has found itself in extremely difficult living conditions.

Despite the persecution and genocide of Christians opened by Islamists, the Church has about 7,500,000 believers, united in 22 dioceses and more than 400 parishes. The main liturgical languages ​​are Arabic and Greek, as well as English.

A feature of the development of the life of the Antiochian Church in the last twenty years has been the mission among the residents of the USA and Canada and a significant increase in the number of patriarchates due to the massive conversion to Orthodoxy of the Anglican and Protestant communities, for which a special metropolitanate of the Western rite was created. Also, the parishes of the Antiochian Church in the USA have been replenished with Orthodox refugees from the Middle East for several decades.

Jerusalem Patriarchate

The Jerusalem Patriarchate was the very first Christian community in the world, created by the apostles Peter and John the Theologian in the places where the Lord Jesus Christ directly preached and lived. Most of the most significant shrines of the entire Christian world are located on the territory of the patriarchate.

The canonical territory of the patriarchate consists of Israel, Palestine and Jordan, as well as the Sinai Peninsula. The Autonomous Church of Sinai is unique in that it consists of a single monastery of St. Catherine the Great Martyr, headed by an archbishop who is ordained by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The Patriarchate has about 130,000 believers, mostly Greeks and Arabs, in whose languages ​​the services are performed. There are 65 parishes and 25 monasteries in the 4 dioceses of the Patriarchate. The Cathedral of the Patriarch is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Patriarchate owns about 18% of the total territory in Jerusalem. One of the most important areas in the activities of the Jerusalem Church is the preservation and maintenance of Christian shrines, as well as organizing access to them and residence in Israel for pilgrims from all over the world.

Georgian Church

The canonical territory of this patriarchate is quite small - Georgia and Abkhazia. Also, dioceses in Europe, North America and Australia are subordinate to the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia.

The Georgian Church has about 3,500,000 believers. 45 dioceses unite under their omophorions 170 monasteries and 550 parishes, in which about 1,300 clergy serve. This is one of the most ancient Churches in the world. Tradition says that it was the territory of Georgia that fell as the lot for the preaching of the Mother of God.

Services in the Church are conducted in Georgian, which is one of the claims of Abkhazians and Ossetians, who have long had translations of services and the Gospel into their languages. The parishes in Abkhazia have currently declared their autocephaly (which has historical grounds in the form of the existence of their own patriarchate) and are in schism with the Georgian Church.

Georgian Patriarch Ilia II came up with an original measure to support the birth rate in the country - he personally becomes godfather to every third and subsequent children.

Serbian Church

The first mass baptism of Serbs who settled on the Balkan Peninsula occurred under the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, and in 869, at the request of Prince Muntimir, the Byzantine Emperor Basil the Macedonian sent Greek priests to the Serbs.

The canonical territory of the Serbian Patriarchate extends to several states: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, as well as several dioceses in Hungary, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

The Church consists of more than 3,500 parishes, united in 46 dioceses and has 47 active bishops, about 1,900 priests and 1,300 monastics. The church is headed by a patriarch whose residence is in Belgrade. The Church Slavonic and Serbian languages ​​are used in worship.

Since 1967, several dioceses of the Serbian Patriarchate have been in schism, declaring themselves the Macedonian Orthodox Church, which is not recognized by other Churches. This situation is very painful for the Serbian Church and it is negotiating with the separated dioceses about reunification.

Romanian Church

Christianity first appeared on the territory of Romania, in what was then Dacia, in the 1st century. Tradition says that the first sermon of the Gospel was brought here by the Apostle Andrew the First-Called.

Divine services in the Romanian Patriarchate are conducted in Romanian and Ukrainian. The church has more than 18,800,000 believers. The Church consists of 38 dioceses, 11,674 parishes and 475 monasteries, in which more than 14,600 clergy serve. The Patriarchal Chair is in Bucharest.

Orthodoxy in Romania has the status of a state religion, and Romanian clergy and clergy are paid by the authorities. In the country's schools, the Law of God is officially taught by priests.

The Romanian Church has jurisdiction over Romania itself, as well as dioceses in North America and Western Europe, comprising mainly the Romanian diaspora. The Patriarchate also seeks to expand its canonical territory at the expense of the canonical territory of the Russian Church in Moldova and Ukraine.

Bulgarian Church

There are more than 8,000,000 Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria. In 15 dioceses of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, more than 1,500 clergy serve in 120 monasteries and 2,600 parishes. The residence of the patriarch is located in the capital of the country, Sofia.

The canonical territory of the Bulgarian Patriarchate is Bulgaria itself and dioceses in Western Europe, North America and Australia. The spread of Christianity in Bulgaria began in the 1st century by the first disciples of the apostles.

Since 1992, a large schism has occurred in the Church, through the mediation of the authorities, which could only be healed by a council with the participation of the Primates of the seven Local Churches. The last schismatic hierarch repented only in 2012, after which the schism can be considered finally healed.

During the service in all Orthodox Churches in Bulgaria, during the Great Entrance, Emperor Alexander II and the Russian soldiers who died for the liberation of Bulgaria in the war with Turkey of 1877-1878 are still remembered.

Cyprus Church

On the island of Cyprus, the word of God was preached by the apostles Paul, Barnabas and Mark, and later Lazarus the Four-Days, resurrected by the Savior, became the bishop of one of the Cypriot cities.

In 1960, the Republic of Cyprus declared independence, with the Primate of the Church of Cyprus becoming its president. However, in 1974, more than a third of the island was occupied by Turkish troops and is still controlled by Turkey. At the same time, dioceses in the occupied territory were abolished, the clergy were expelled, and churches were closed, burned or turned into mosques.

The Church of Cyprus, centered in Nicosia, is headed by the Archbishop of New Justiniana and all Cyprus and has no canonical territories outside the island. In 9 dioceses of the Church there are more than 500 parishes and more than 40 monasteries (due to the occupation, 6 dioceses and 9 monasteries operate). 600 clergy minister to approximately 450,000 Orthodox believers.

Greek Church

The canonical territory of the Greek Church includes the territory of modern Greece and some islands of the Aegean Sea, which historically were part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but in the 19th century received autocephaly due to the emergence of the independent kingdom of Greece.

The canonical status of some territories has not yet been finally settled and they are considered “temporarily transferred” to the Greek Church by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The church in Greece is supported by the state, and in the country’s schools the subject “The Law of God” is taught quite officially. Orthodoxy in Greece is the state religion, professed by about 85% of the country's population.

The Church's flock consists of more than 9,245,000 people. The Greek Church has 81 dioceses, 200 monasteries and about 9,300 clergy. Services are conducted in Greek. The Church adheres to the New Julian calendar. The Church is headed by the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.

Albanian Church

The first information about the existence of Christianity in Albania dates back to the 3rd century. However, the first episcopal see of the Albanian Church was established in the 10th century thanks to the missionary work of the disciples of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius - Clement and Naum

There are only 4 dioceses in the Albanian Church and they are headed by 4 bishops, the eldest of whom is the Primate of the Church and bears the title of Archbishop of Tirana and all Albania. The Church has about 100 parishes, about 100 priests and deacons, and about 700,000 Orthodox Christians.

The canonical territory of the Church includes only Albania, where the Orthodox population lives primarily in the south of the country. Services are held in Albanian, Greek and Vlach languages. The Church received autocephaly relatively recently - in 1937 from the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

In 1991, after brutal persecution by the communist government, there were only 15 priests in Albania. Metropolitan Anastassy, ​​who arrived from the Patriarchate of Constantinople, had to make enormous efforts to restore church life in the country.

A theological seminary was opened, three more bishops and several priests were ordained, a new charter of the Albanian Church was drawn up, and several churches were restored and consecrated. Today, church life in Albania is still being restored.

Polish Church

The Polish Orthodox Church is headed by the Metropolitan of Warsaw and All Poland. The jurisdiction of the Church includes the territory of Poland, as well as dioceses in Portugal and Brazil.

After Poland's secession from the Russian Empire in 1918, the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church in Poland were unable to function properly due to dual opposition from the Bolshevik authorities in Russia and the nationalist government in Poland. As a result, during the period of house arrest in Russia of the holy Patriarch Tikhon, the Patriarch of Constantinople arbitrarily granted autocephaly to the Polish Church. The non-canonical tomos was not recognized by the Russian Church, and only in 1948 the Russian Church for the second time, already canonically, granted autocephaly to the Polish Church.

Today the Polish Church numbers about 600,000 lay people in 8 dioceses, 11 monasteries and more than 230 parishes. The Church has 11 active bishops and more than 410 priests and deacons. The bulk of believers live in South-East Poland.

In 1990, several Orthodox dioceses and parishes in Portugal and Brazil joined the Polish Church with the rights of broad autonomy. Divine services are performed not only in Polish and Church Slavonic, but also in Ukrainian and Portuguese.

Since 1996, the Church has devoted a lot of work to social service, opening centers to help the poor, organizing humanitarian actions and creating sisterhoods at hospitals. The ancient institution of brotherhoods with a certain narrow specialization (publishing activities, missionary work, work with youth, etc.), operating both at the level of parishes and at the level of dioceses or even the Church as a whole, has also been revived.

Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia

The founders of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are considered to be the enlighteners of the Slavs, the Equal-to-the-Apostles brothers Cyril and Methodius, who preached in the 9th century. Later, Catholics almost completely ousted or subjugated local Orthodox clergy, and Orthodoxy experienced its rebirth in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the 19th century, when several dioceses of the Serbian Church appeared in this territory.

During the Second World War, the Czechoslovak Church helped the people resist the German occupier, for which many clergy were shot or imprisoned. After the war, the Czechoslovak Church came under the jurisdiction of the Russian Church, from which it received autocephaly in 1951. Autocephaly was not recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople until 1998.

The canonical territory of the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia includes the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The residence of the Metropolitan is located in Prague. The languages ​​of worship are Church Slavonic, Slovak and Czech.

About 100,000 Orthodox Christians consider themselves to belong to the Czechoslovak Church. The church is divided into 4 dioceses and has about 250 parishes and more than 200 clergy. In the last two decades, the Church in the Czech Republic and Slovakia has been growing very quickly due to the conversion of representatives of other Christian denominations to Orthodoxy. Another feature of the Church is the almost complete absence of monastics. Orthodox monasteries began to appear only in the last few years.

Since 2013, a schism began in the Church with the active intervention of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as a result of which the new Primate, Metropolitan Rostislav, elected by the Local Council of the Czechoslovak Church, began to be opposed by Archbishop Simeon of Olomouc, seeking to create an alternative synod and lead the Church. The split has not yet been resolved.

American Church

The American Orthodox Church received autocephaly from the mother Russian Church in 1970. The main language of worship is English. The Church is headed by the Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada.

The autocephaly of the American Church is recognized by the Russian Church, the Bulgarian Church, the Georgian Church, the Polish Church, the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.

Orthodoxy in America began to spread thanks to the efforts of missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church back in the 18th century, among the inhabitants of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, California and Hawaii. In the 20th century, a significant number of Orthodox Christians from the countries of the former Russian Empire immigrated to the United States, who were cared for by hierarchs previously sent to the departments of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as hierarchs of the ROCOR. Soon, thanks to active missionary work, the Church's flock significantly increased at the expense of the local English-speaking population.

The American Church has 14 dioceses, 25 monasteries, about 650 parishes and four large educational institutions. The Orthodox community of the American Church numbers more than 1,000,000 people and is growing quite quickly. The canonical territory includes the USA, Canada, as well as some parishes in Mexico, South America and Australia.

Andrey Szegeda

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