At the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on February 2-3, 2016, regulations were adopted regarding the veneration of a number of Russian Saints
OnThe Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on February 2-3, 2016 adopted a number of regulations regarding the pan-church, pan-Orthodox veneration of a number of Russian Saints. Among them are the Blessed Grand Duke of Kiev and All Rus' Yaroslav-George Vladimirovich the Wise, Reverends Alexander Peresvet and Andrey Oslyabya, Saints Gennady (Gonzov), Archbishop of Novgorod, and Seraphim (Sobolev), Archbishop of Bogucharsky. The conciliar document says: “Inform the names of the listed ascetics to the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches for inclusion in their calendar.”
Blessed Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise(987 - †1054) was a locally revered Saint of Kyiv, Novgorod and Rostov, and was revered in Rus' for centuries. In many ancient Russian monthly books, the Grand Duke is present as a Saint. It is gratifying that a conciliar resolution was adopted, glorifying the ancient ascetic in universal dignity.
The Venerable Nestor the Chronicler called Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, comparing him with the biblical King Solomon, and also praised him for the creation of the Temple of Hagia Sophia - the Wisdom of God - on the site of the battle against the Pechenegs. The great merit of Grand Duke Yaroslav is that he churched Rus'. The rite of the temple service in the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral was established as a model for worship in all churches of Rus'. For this purpose, provincial clergy were specially sent to Kyiv so that they could undergo the school of regular worship. At the behest of the Grand Duke, cathedrals were created in many cities of Rus'. They, in turn, became liturgical schools for local monasteries and parish churches. Here we should not see only the administrative initiative of the Sovereign. The nature of such innovations is in the highly spiritual, Christian loving attitude of Prince Yaroslav towards his people and the Fatherland. People felt and understood this attitude sensitively. Therefore, the veneration of Prince Yaroslav the Wise as a regular memorial service continued until the Mongol invasion. The tomb of the Blessed Prince has never been forgotten. During or after such funeral services, miraculous healings, fair solutions to some difficult cases, and deliverance from misfortunes took place. People came again and again, ordering funeral services in gratitude for the wonderful help. The veneration began in Kyiv, Rostov, Novgorod, then moved to Vladimir, and then to Moscow.
Undoubtedly, the church-wide glorification of the schema warriors was a significant event. Venerable Alexander Peresvet And Andrey Oslyabi(†1380) - spiritual associates of St. Sergius of Radonezh and the Blessed Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy. Their tomb in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Stary Simonovo was revered for centuries, starting with the burial of their bodies after the Battle of Kulikovo, and in Moscow from time immemorial they became locally revered Saints. After the all-Union celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo in 1980, they began to be officially venerated as locally revered in the Bryansk and Kursk dioceses. In fact, Peresvet and Oslyabya were spiritually revered throughout Russia, especially from the late 80s - early 90s. Recently I read an interesting material by captain of the second rank of the reserve, candidate of theology, Bishop of North Sea and Umba Mitrofan (Badanin), which says:
« There is a monk in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra who, in his youth, like many then, was fascinated by Eastern spiritual traditions and martial arts. When perestroika began, he and his friends decided to go to Tibet in order to enter some Buddhist monastery... And it must be said frankly that the attitude towards foreigners in the monasteries was extremely bad: after all, this is Tibetan national spirituality. Our future monk and his friends were disappointed: they were so eager for this sublime teaching, for this brotherhood, spiritual exploits, mantras and prayers. This attitude continued until the Tibetans learned that they were facing Russians. They began to talk among themselves, and the word “Peresvet” was heard in the conversation. They began to find out, and it turned out that the name of this Russian monk was written down in a special book where their most important spiritual events were recorded. The victory of Peresvet is listed there as an event that fell out of the usual course of things. It turns out that Chelubey was not just an experienced warrior and hero - he was a Tibetan monk who was trained not only in the Tibetan martial arts system, but also mastered the ancient practice of Bon-po combat magic. As a result, he reached the heights of this initiation and acquired the status of “immortal.” The phrase “Bon-po” can be translated as “school of combat magic speech,” that is, the art of fighting in which the effectiveness of fighting techniques increases infinitely by attracting the power of powerful entities of the other world - demons (demons) through magical spells. As a result, a person allows into himself the “power of the beast”, or, more simply put, turns into a single being with the demon, a kind of symbiosis of man and demon, becoming possessed. The payment for such a service is the immortal soul of a person, which even after death will not be able to free itself from these terrible posthumous embraces of the forces of darkness. It was believed that such a warrior monk was practically invincible. The number of such Tibetan warriors chosen by spirits has always been extremely small; they were considered a special phenomenon in the spiritual practice of Tibet. That is why Chelubey was put up for single combat with Peresvet - in order to spiritually break the Russians even before the start of the battle».
In the light of this modern legend, the decision of the perspicacious St. Sergius of Radonezh to send to the Battle of Kulikovo precisely the schema-monks, who in the past had both military experience and prayer experience of spiritual warfare, the experience of hesychasm, is seen completely differently.
All-Russian veneration Saint Gennady of Novgorod(1410 - †1505), an ascetic of the second half of the 15th century, has been known at least since the middle of the 17th century. It began a century earlier - in the era of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible and St. Macarius of Moscow - in Moscow and Veliky Novgorod. But then there was no special conciliar decision on his glorification, and in the 18th century, when, through the efforts of the Holy Synod, the calendar of the fraternal Orthodox Churches was replenished, for some reason he fell into oblivion.
Saint Gennady (Gonzov) is a most interesting personality, the most enlightened person of his time. From the beginning of the 1470s, he was the archimandrite of the Kremlin Chudov Monastery. The Miracle Monastery in those days was the highest school of the Russian Grand Duchy, it had workshops for correspondence and book production, translators worked, and both clergy and secular persons studied there, who were preparing for public service, primarily for embassy needs. In 1484, Archimandrite Gennady was consecrated as a bishop and appointed Archbishop of Novgorod and Pskov. He also created a powerful intellectual and spiritual center in Novgorod.
Back in the 1470s, under the influence of visiting Talmudic Jews, the so-called heresy of Judaizers secretly arose among the Novgorod clergy and boyars. From the very beginning of his service at the department, the new Archbishop suspected something was wrong in the Pskov Nemtsov Monastery, where Zacharias was the Abbot, who himself stopped receiving communion and forbade the reception of the Holy Mysteries to his monks. After the investigation began, Abbot Zacharias began writing denunciations and anonymous letters against the Archbishop, falsely accusing the Bishop of “simony” - receiving the Novgorod see for a monetary donation to Grand Duke John Vasilyevich, and allegedly demanding payment from those ordained as priests by the Archbishop.
Three years later, it turned out that some priests of the Novgorod diocese deny the New Testament, the holiness of the Life-giving Cross, the Most Holy Trinity, Holy Communion, the Mother of God, holy icons, and see the “true” faith only in the Talmudic version of the Old Testament. The heretical hydra had by that time captured Moscow, high Moscow officials, Moscow Metropolitan Zosima, and involved the grand-ducal family - the widowed daughter-in-law and grandson of Prince Dimitri Ioannovich. Grand Duke John Vasilyevich the Elder wanted to see his grandson as his successor and even crowned him in 1498 with the title of second Grand Duke. A terrible spiritual disaster attacked Rus'. And if power were transferred to that young man, spiritual perversion could become the official religion of our state.
It was precisely for the successful fight against religious error, for visual proof of the inextricable spiritual connection between the New and Old Testaments, for the successful exposure of the lies of Talmudism that Saint Gennady and his assistants compiled the complete Church Slavonic canon of the Old Testament. Before that, there were scattered Church Slavonic translations of biblical texts in the form of proverbs for liturgical readings in the church, as well as the Psalter, the Book of Job and some prophetic books. The Orthodox Slavs did not have a complete codex, like the Septuagint in Greek. The spiritual feat of Saint Gennady of Novgorod in compiling the complete Slavic Bible is still revered not only in Rus', but also among all Orthodox Slavs, as well as by heterodox Slavophiles of the West. Moreover, to translate the Bible into Church Slavonic, he used not only the Septuagint - the Greek version of the Holy Scriptures, but also those Bible books that by that time had survived only in Latin. In his fight against the heresy of the Judaizers, Saint Gennady relied on one of the spiritual centers - the Assumption Volokolamsk Monastery, now known as the Joseph-Volotsk Monastery, where there also existed a rich library and at the head of which stood Abbot Joseph. Under the influence of the denunciations of Saint Gennady and the Reverend Joseph of Volotsk, Grand Duke John Vasilyevich the Elder, who was the first to bear the nickname of the Terrible, betrayed the young Grand Duke Dimitri Ioannovich and his mother into disgrace, and nominated his Orthodox son Prince Vasily Ioannovich as his successor, under whom the heresy of the Judaizers was finally extinguished convicted.
It is well known that in the 1970s - 1990s, clerical liberals repeatedly raised the question of the decanonization of St. Gennady. Why, I would like to know? Now, after the decision of the Council of Bishops on the pan-Orthodox recognition of the holiness of the Novgorod Saint Gennady, such demarches in the Church will become completely unacceptable.
Archbishop Seraphim, in the world Nikolai Borisovich Sobolev (1881 - †1950), in time the closest devotee of Orthodox piety to us, who is of particular importance for modern times. He was a highly educated man, graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, and there, in his final year in 1908, he was tonsured a monk with the name Seraphim in honor of the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, glorified five years earlier. His classmates testified that monk Seraphim, even during his studies, was distinguished by an unusually developed mind, asceticism and love for God, neighbors and high Orthodox Theology. His consecration as a bishop took place in the “white” Crimea, in Simferopol in October 1920, and he was entrusted with the care of the army. Together with thousands of Russian refugees, he soon found himself in Constantinople, and then in Bulgaria, where, by decision of the Provisional Church Administration under the leadership of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), he was appointed vicar bishop of Bogucharsky of the Voronezh diocese. But he was never able to serve at his destination, and he spent the rest of his life in exile. He served as rector of the Russian embassy church in Sofia, where he was later buried. In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, he was locally revered as an ascetic of piety soon after his death; memorial services were performed over his tomb, and those praying received spiritual help in their various needs. In June 1989, I had the opportunity to visit Sofia and venerate the tomb of St. Seraphim, and I want to note that for this I had to stand in line of several dozen people, which testified to the special veneration of the Russian God-pleaser even before his unofficial glorification by the ROCOR in 2002.
Bishop Seraphim devoted his theological works of the 1920-1940s mainly to the fight against modern heresies and exposing various deviations from Orthodox canons and customs. In 1938, for the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR, he compiled a report entitled “Russian Ideology.” It was on the basis of that report that the most famous book of Lord Seraphim was written. In general, church theologians at the beginning of the twentieth century were afraid of the very term “ideology”. But in the 1930s it became clear that the spiritual battle with the forces of evil was taking place precisely in the sphere of ideas. Then the God-fighting communist ideology, the God-fighting fascist ideology, the God-fighting ideology of German Nazism, and finally the God-fighting ideology of financial Nazism, which was promoted through transnational corporations and the politics of the United States of North America, grew. A spiritual need arose to contrast such diverse sets of atheistic ideas with Orthodox ideology, Russian ideology.
And if now in most countries of the European civilizational type the ideologies of outright fascism, Nordic Nazism and international communism have become the lot of marginalized people or oppositionists, then the ideology of financial dollar Nazism, the religion of the yellow devil after the fall of the regimes of the USSR and its numerous satellite countries, has embraced most of the states of the planet, in the international and internal politics depriving them of sovereignty. The ideology of financial Nazism, with the help of clearly formulated strategems, massive propaganda and agitation, influences the consciousness of billions of people every day. Since the late 1980s and the emergence of the special propaganda myth about the “wooden ruble,” throughout the 1990s and 2000s, it almost reigned supreme in Russia. Until now, it has been fiercely resisting the revival of Russian sovereignty both from the outside - with the help primarily of financial sanctions, and from the inside - from the fifth column.
For us, the Orthodox Tsarists of the second half of the 1980s, at the time of our churching, “Russian Ideology” became a guiding book! Even then we made a lot of efforts to distribute it in numerous photocopies. At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, St. Petersburg resident Konstantin Dushenov clandestinely published “Russian Ideology” in almost a thousand copies, and he O The majority went to Moscow. From here it spread throughout the province. With the advent of the official Orthodox book publishing, “Russian Ideology” was published in various dioceses, and its total circulation, I believe, has already reached hundreds of thousands of copies; it is also distributed on the RuNet.
In the church environment, “Russian Ideology” has become one of the most popular books of the 21st century. Now the significance of the work of Bishop Seraphim Sobolev in the revival of Orthodox Christian civilization will only increase.
Vladyka Seraphim was one of the first to sense the destruction of the blossoming satanic ideologies and realized that we, church people, cannot distance ourselves from the ideological form of spiritual warfare. He collected and formulated the key ideas of the Russian state, the Russian Kingdom, which will certainly be useful to the future Rus'. And re-reading his work in the present century, we can safely say that the views of the Saint were not naive. In many ways, it was his book that formed among our Russian Orthodox people civil, politically savvy individuals, subjects of the coming Russian Kingdom, ready to accept completely new state relations, still unknown to us. I have no doubt that in the end the holiness of Bishop Seraphim (Sobolev) will be recognized and understood by the Orthodox all over the world!
In a certain sense, the named ascetics of the X-XI, XIV, XV and XX centuries, each in their own way with their exploits, deeds, their own sacrificial life and death, were exponents of different aspects of the Russian Idea. Thus, Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, in his church-state construction, in the widespread dissemination of written literacy in Rus', in the creation of temples of the Wisdom of God - St. Sophia Cathedrals in Kiev, Novgorod, Smolensk and, possibly, in Polotsk, created the foundations of Russian Civilization, Russian Ideology. Monk-warriors Reverend Alexander Peresvet and Andrei Oslyabya not only stood up for the defense of the Fatherland, but also entered into the struggle for its spiritual civilizational code. Saint Gennady of Novgorod became a zealot for the establishment of a truly biblical worldview in Rus'. And Vladyka Seraphim (Sobolev) brought together thousands of years of efforts for the conciliar discovery of the Russian Idea in his fundamental theological work. Modern Russian temple builders, educators, educators, warriors, ideologists, politicians in the person of these ascetics in our difficult and fateful times have found Heavenly Patrons and helpers.
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For our readers: holy people in Rus' with detailed descriptions from various sources.
Russian saints...The list of saints of God is inexhaustible. By their way of life they pleased the Lord and thanks to this they became closer to eternal existence. Each saint has his own face. This term denotes the category to which the Pleasant of God is classified during his canonization. These include the great martyrs, martyrs, saints, saints, unmercenaries, apostles, saints, passion-bearers, holy fools (blessed), saints and equal to the apostles.
Suffering in the name of the Lord
The first saints of the Russian Church among the saints of God are the great martyrs who suffered for the faith of Christ, dying in severe and long agony. Among the Russian saints, the first to be numbered in this rank were the brothers Boris and Gleb. That is why they are called the first martyrs - passion-bearers. In addition, the Russian saints Boris and Gleb were the first to be canonized in the history of Rus'. The brothers died in the internecine war for the throne that began after the death of Prince Vladimir. Yaropolk, nicknamed the Accursed, first killed Boris while he was sleeping in a tent while on one of his campaigns, and then Gleb.
The face of those like the Lord
Reverends are those saints who led an ascetic lifestyle, being in prayer, labor and fasting. Among the Russian saints of God one can single out St. Seraphim of Sarov and Sergius of Radonezh, Savva of Storozhevsky and Methodius of Peshnoshsky. The first saint in Rus' to be canonized in this guise is considered to be the monk Nikolai Svyatosha. Before accepting the rank of monasticism, he was a prince, the great-grandson of Yaroslav the Wise. Having renounced worldly goods, the monk labored as a monk in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Nikolai Svyatosha is revered as a miracle worker. It is believed that his hair shirt (a coarse woolen shirt), left behind after his death, cured one sick prince.
Sergius of Radonezh - the chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit
The 14th century Russian saint Sergius of Radonezh, known in the world as Bartholomew, deserves special attention. He was born into the pious family of Mary and Cyril. It is believed that while still in the womb, Sergius showed his chosenness of God. During one of the Sunday liturgies, the not yet born Bartholomew cried out three times. At that time, his mother, like the rest of the parishioners, was overcome with horror and confusion. After his birth, the monk did not drink breast milk if Mary ate meat that day. On Wednesdays and Fridays, little Bartholomew went hungry and did not take his mother's breast. In addition to Sergius, there were two more brothers in the family - Peter and Stefan. Parents raised their children in Orthodoxy and strictness. All the brothers, except Bartholomew, studied well and knew how to read. And only the youngest in their family had a hard time reading - the letters blurred before his eyes, the boy was lost, not daring to utter a word. Sergius suffered greatly from this and fervently prayed to God in the hope of gaining the ability to read. One day, again ridiculed by his brothers for his illiteracy, he ran into the field and met an old man there. Bartholomew spoke about his sadness and asked the monk to pray to God for him. The elder gave the boy a piece of prosphora, promising that the Lord would definitely grant him a letter. In gratitude for this, Sergius invited the monk into the house. Before eating, the elder asked the boy to read the psalms. Timidly, Bartholomew took the book, afraid to even look at the letters that always blurred before his eyes... But a miracle! – the boy began to read as if he had already learned to read and write for a long time. The elder predicted to the parents that their youngest son would be great, since he was the chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit. After such a fateful meeting, Bartholomew began to strictly fast and pray constantly.
The beginning of the monastic path
At the age of 20, the Russian saint Sergius of Radonezh asked his parents to give him a blessing to take monastic vows. Kirill and Maria begged their son to stay with them until their death. Not daring to disobey, Bartholomew lived with his parents until the Lord took their souls. Having buried his father and mother, the young man, together with his older brother Stefan, set off to take monastic vows. In the desert called Makovets, the brothers are building the Trinity Church. Stefan cannot stand the harsh ascetic lifestyle that his brother adhered to and goes to another monastery. At the same time, Bartholomew took monastic vows and became the monk Sergius.
Trinity-Sergius Lavra
The world-famous monastery of Radonezh once originated in a deep forest in which the monk once secluded himself. Sergius was in fasting and prayer every day. He ate plant foods, and his guests were wild animals. But one day several monks found out about the great feat of asceticism performed by Sergius and decided to come to the monastery. There these 12 monks remained. It was they who became the founders of the Lavra, which was soon headed by the monk himself. Prince Dmitry Donskoy came to Sergius for advice, preparing for the battle with the Tatars. After the death of the monk, 30 years later, his relics were found, performing a miracle of healing to this day. This 14th-century Russian saint still invisibly welcomes pilgrims to his monastery.
The Righteous and the Blessed
Righteous saints have earned God's favor by living godly lives. These include both lay people and clergy. The parents of Sergius of Radonezh, Cyril and Maria, who were true Christians and taught Orthodoxy to their children, are considered righteous.
The blessed are those saints who deliberately took on the image of people not of this world, becoming ascetics. Among the Russian Pleasers of God, Basil the Blessed, who lived during the time of Ivan the Terrible, Ksenia of St. Petersburg, who abandoned all benefits and went on long wanderings after the death of her beloved husband, Matrona of Moscow, who became famous for the gift of clairvoyance and healing during her lifetime, are especially revered. It is believed that I. Stalin himself, who was not distinguished by religiosity, listened to the blessed Matronushka and her prophetic words.
Ksenia is a fool for Christ's sake
The blessed one was born in the first half of the 18th century into a family of pious parents. Having become an adult, she married the singer Alexander Fedorovich and lived with him in joy and happiness. When Ksenia turned 26 years old, her husband died. Unable to bear such grief, she gave away her property, put on her husband’s clothes and went on a long wandering. After this, the blessed one did not respond to her name, asking to be called Andrei Fedorovich. “Ksenia died,” she assured. The saint began to wander the streets of St. Petersburg, occasionally visiting her friends for lunch. Some people mocked the grief-stricken woman and made fun of her, but Ksenia endured all the humiliation without complaint. Only once did she show her anger when local boys threw stones at her. After what they saw, the local residents stopped mocking the blessed one. Ksenia of Petersburg, having no shelter, prayed at night in the field, and then came to the city again. The blessed one quietly helped the workers build a stone church at the Smolensk cemetery. At night, she tirelessly laid bricks in a row, contributing to the speedy construction of the church. For all her good deeds, patience and faith, the Lord gave Ksenia the Blessed the gift of clairvoyance. She predicted the future, and also saved many girls from unsuccessful marriages. Those people to whom Ksenia came became happier and luckier. Therefore, everyone tried to serve the saint and bring her into the house. Ksenia Petersburgskaya died at the age of 71. She was buried at the Smolensk cemetery, where the Church built by her own hands was located nearby. But even after physical death, Ksenia continues to help people. Great miracles were performed at her tomb: the sick were healed, those seeking family happiness were successfully married. It is believed that Ksenia especially patronizes unmarried women and already accomplished wives and mothers. A chapel was built over the tomb of the blessed one, to which crowds of people still come, asking the saint for intercession before God and thirsting for healing.
Holy sovereigns
The faithful include monarchs, princes and kings who have distinguished themselves
a godly lifestyle that strengthens the faith and position of the church. The first Russian saint Olga was canonized in this category. Among the faithful, Prince Dmitry Donskoy, who won a victory on the Kulikovo field after the appearance of the holy image of Nicholas, stood out to him; Alexander Nevsky, who did not compromise with the Catholic Church in order to maintain his power. He was recognized as the only secular Orthodox sovereign. Among the faithful there are other famous Russian saints. Prince Vladimir is one of them. He was canonized in connection with his great activity - the baptism of all Rus' in 988.Empresses - God's Pleasants
Princess Anna, the wife of Yaroslav the Wise, was also counted among the saints, thanks to whom relative peace was observed between the Scandinavian countries and Russia. During her lifetime, she built a convent in honor of St. Irene, since she received this name at baptism. Blessed Anna revered the Lord and sacredly believed in him. Shortly before her death, she took monastic vows and died. Memorial Day is October 4 according to the Julian style, but in the modern Orthodox calendar this date, unfortunately, is not mentioned.
The first Russian holy princess Olga, baptized Elena, accepted Christianity, influencing its further spread throughout Rus'. Thanks to her activities that contributed to the strengthening of faith in the state, she was canonized.
Servants of the Lord on earth and in heaven
Saints are saints of God who were clergy and received special favor from the Lord for their way of life. One of the first saints ranked among this rank was Dionysius, Archbishop of Rostov. Arriving from Athos, he headed the Spaso-Kamenny Monastery. People were drawn to his monastery, since he knew the human soul and could always guide those in need on the true path.
Among all the saints canonized by the Orthodox Church, Archbishop Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra stands out. And although the saint is not of Russian origin, he truly became the intercessor of our country, always being at the right hand of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Great Russian saints, the list of which continues to grow to this day, can patronize a person if he diligently and sincerely prays to them. You can turn to the Pleasers of God in different situations - everyday needs and illnesses, or simply wanting to thank the Higher Powers for a calm and serene life. Be sure to purchase icons of Russian saints - it is believed that prayer in front of the image is the most effective. It is also advisable that you have a personalized icon - an image of the saint in whose honor you were baptized.
7 first canonizations of saints in Rus'
The first Russian saints - who are they? Perhaps as we learn more about them, we will find insights into our own spiritual path.
Boris Vladimirovich (Prince of Rostov) and Gleb Vladimirovich (Prince of Murom), at baptism Roman and David. Russian princes, sons of Grand Duke Vladimir Svyatoslavich. In the internecine struggle for the Kiev throne, which broke out in 1015 after the death of their father, they were killed by their own elder brother for their Christian beliefs. Young Boris and Gleb, knowing their intentions, did not use weapons against the attackers.
Princes Boris and Gleb became the first saints canonized by the Russian Church. They were not the first saints of the Russian land, since later the Church began to honor the Varangians Theodore and John who lived before them, martyrs for the faith who died under the pagan Vladimir, Princess Olga and Prince Vladimir, as equal-to-the-apostles enlighteners of Rus'. But Saints Boris and Gleb were the first married elects of the Russian Church, its first miracle workers and recognized heavenly prayer books “for the new Christian people.” The chronicles are full of stories about miracles of healing that took place at their relics (particular emphasis was placed on glorifying the brothers as healers in the 12th century), about victories won in their name and with their help, about the pilgrimage of princes to their tomb.
Their veneration was immediately established as a nationwide one, before church canonization. The Greek metropolitans at first doubted the holiness of the miracle workers, but Metropolitan John, who doubted the most, soon himself transferred the incorrupt bodies of the princes to the new church, established a holiday for them (July 24) and composed a service for them. This was the first example of the firm faith of the Russian people in their new saints. This was the only way to overcome all the canonical doubts and resistance of the Greeks, who were generally not inclined to encourage the religious nationalism of the newly baptized people.
Rev. Theodosius Pechersky
Rev. Theodosius, the father of Russian monasticism, was the second saint solemnly canonized by the Russian Church, and its first reverend. Just as Boris and Gleb forestalled St. Olga and Vladimir, St. Theodosius was canonized earlier than Anthony, his teacher and the first founder of the Kiev Pechersk Monastery. Ancient life of St. Anthony, if it existed, was lost early.
Anthony, when the brethren began to gather to him, left her in the care of the abbot Varlaam, whom he had appointed, and shut himself up in a secluded cave, where he remained until his death. He was not a mentor or abbot of the brethren, except for the very first newcomers, and his lonely exploits did not attract attention. Although he died only a year or two earlier than Theodosius, by that time he was already the only focus of love and reverence not only for the monastic, already numerous brethren, but for all of Kyiv, if not all of southern Rus'. In 1091 the relics of St. Theodosius were opened and transferred to the great Pechersk Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which spoke of his local, monastic veneration. And in 1108, at the initiative of the Grand Duke Svyagopolk, the Metropolitan and the bishops performed his solemn (general) canonization. Even before the transfer of his relics, 10 years after the death of the saint, Rev. Nestor wrote his life, extensive and rich in content.
Saints of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon
In the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, in the Near (Antonieva) and Far (Feodosieva) caves, the relics of 118 saints rest, most of whom are known only by name (there are also nameless ones). Almost all of these saints were monks of the monastery, pre-Mongol and post-Mongol times, locally revered here. Metropolitan Petro Mohyla canonized them in 1643, instructing them to compile a common service. And only in 1762, by decree of the Holy Synod, the Kyiv saints were included in the all-Russian month books.
We know about the lives of thirty of the Kyiv saints from the so-called Kiev-Pechersk Patericon. Paterikas in ancient Christian writing were the names of summary biographies of ascetics - ascetics of a certain area: Egypt, Syria, Palestine. These eastern patericons were known in translations in Rus' from the first times of Russian Christianity and had a very strong influence on the education of our monasticism in spiritual life. The Pechersk Patericon has its own long and complex history, from which one can fragmentarily judge ancient Russian religiosity, Russian monasticism and monastic life.
Rev. Avraamy Smolensky
One of the very few ascetics of pre-Mongol times, from whom a detailed biography remains, compiled by his student Ephraim. Rev. Abraham of Smolensk was not only revered in his hometown after his death (at the beginning of the 13th century), but also canonized at one of the Moscow Macarius Councils (probably 1549). Biography of St. Abraham conveys the image of an ascetic of great strength, full of original features, perhaps unique in the history of Russian holiness.
The Monk Abraham of Smolensk, preacher of repentance and the coming Last Judgment, was born in the middle of the 12th century. in Smolensk from wealthy parents who had 12 daughters before him and prayed to God for a son. From childhood he grew up in the fear of God, often attended church and had the opportunity to study from books. After the death of his parents, having distributed all his property to monasteries, churches and the poor, the monk walked around the city in rags, praying to God to show him the path of salvation.
He took monastic vows and, as an act of obedience, copied books and performed the Divine Liturgy every day. Abraham was dry and pale from labor. The saint was strict both towards himself and towards his spiritual children. He himself painted two icons on the topics that occupied him most: on one he depicted the Last Judgment, and on the other - torture at the ordeal.
When, due to slander, he was forbidden to perform sacred functions, various troubles appeared in the city: drought and disease. But through his prayer for the city and its inhabitants, heavy rain began to fall, and the drought ended. Then everyone became convinced of his righteousness and began to highly honor and respect him.
From the life we see an image of an ascetic, unusual in Rus', with an intense inner life, with anxiety and agitation breaking out in stormy, emotional prayer, with a gloomily repentant idea of human destiny, not a healer pouring oil, but a stern teacher, animated, perhaps prophetic inspiration.
The holy “blessed” princes constitute a special, very numerous rank of saints in the Russian Church. One can count about 50 princes and princesses canonized for general or local veneration. The veneration of the holy princes intensified during the Mongol yoke. In the first century of the Tatars, with the destruction of monasteries, Russian monastic holiness almost dried up. The feat of the holy princes becomes the main, historically important, not only national matter, but also church service.
If we single out the holy princes who enjoyed universal, and not just local, veneration, then this is St. Olga, Vladimir, Mikhail Chernigovsky, Theodore Yaroslavsky with their sons David and Konstantin. In 1547-49, Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail Tverskoy were added to them. But Mikhail Chernigovsky, the martyr, takes first place. The piety of the holy princes is expressed in devotion to the church, in prayer, in the construction of churches and respect for the clergy. There is always a love of poverty, concern for the weak, orphans and widows, and less often justice.
The Russian Church does not canonize national or political merits in its holy princes. This is confirmed by the fact that among the holy princes we do not find those who did the most for the glory of Russia and for its unity: neither Yaroslav the Wise, nor Vladimir Monomakh, with all their undoubted piety, no one among the princes of Moscow, except Daniil Alexandrovich, locally revered in the Danilov Monastery built by him, and canonized no earlier than the 18th or 19th centuries. But Yaroslavl and Murom gave the Church holy princes, completely unknown to the chronicles and history. The Church does not canonize any politics, neither Moscow, nor Novgorod, nor Tatar; neither unifying nor specific. This is often forgotten nowadays.
Saint Stephen of Perm
Stephen of Perm occupies a very special place in the host of Russian saints, standing somewhat apart from the broad historical tradition, but expressing new, perhaps not fully explored, possibilities in Russian Orthodoxy. Saint Stephen is a missionary who gave his life for the conversion of the pagan people - the Zyryans.
St. Stephen was from Ustyug the Great, in the Dvina land, which just in his time (in the 14th century) from the Novgorod colonial territory became dependent on Moscow. Russian cities were islands among a foreign sea. The waves of this sea approached Ustyug itself, around which settlements of Western Permians, or, as we call them, Zyryans, began. Others, eastern Permians, lived on the Kama River, and their baptism was the work of the successors of St. Stefan. There is no doubt that both the acquaintance with the Permians and their language, and the idea of preaching the Gospel among them date back to the saint’s adolescence. Being one of the smartest people of his time, knowing the Greek language, he leaves books and teachings for the sake of preaching the work of love, Stefan chose to go to the Perm land and become a missionary - alone. His successes and trials are depicted in a number of scenes from life, not devoid of humor and perfectly characterizing the naive, but naturally kind Zyryansk worldview.
He did not connect the baptism of the Zyryans with their Russification, he created the Zyryans writing, he translated the divine service for them and St. Scripture. He did for the Zyryans what Cyril and Methodius did for the entire Slavs. He also compiled the Zyryan alphabet based on local runes - signs for notching on wood.
Rev. Sergius of Radonezh
The new asceticism, which arose from the second quarter of the 14th century, after the Tatar yoke, is very different from the ancient Russian one. This is the asceticism of the desert dwellers. By taking upon themselves a most difficult feat, and, moreover, necessarily associated with contemplative prayer, the desert monks will raise spiritual life to a new height, not yet reached in Rus'. The head and teacher of the new desert-dwelling monasticism was St. Sergius, the greatest of the saints of ancient Rus'. Most of the saints of the 14th and early 15th centuries are his disciples or “interlocutors,” that is, they experienced his spiritual influence. Life of Rev. Sergius was preserved thanks to his contemporary and student Epiphanius (the Wise), biographer of Stephen of Perm.
His life makes it clear that his humble meekness is the main spiritual fabric of the personality of Sergius of Radonezh. Rev. Sergius never punishes spiritual children. In the very miracles of his reverends. Sergius seeks to belittle himself, to belittle his spiritual strength. Rev. Sergius is the exponent of the Russian ideal of holiness, despite the sharpening of both its polar ends: mystical and political. The mystic and the politician, the hermit and the cenobite were combined in his blessed fullness.
Who: Nikolai Ugodnik.
Why they are revered: He beat Arius for heresies, this happened during the Ecumenical Council, and according to the rules he was immediately deposed for a fight. However, on the same night, the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to all participants of the Ecumenical Council in a dream and categorically ordered that it be returned. Nikolai Ugodnik was a fiery, fiercely religious man, he was kind, he saved many people from unfair lawsuits. He is best known for giving gifts at Christmas. And it was like this: his neighbor went bankrupt and was planning to marry off his daughters to unloved, old, but rich people. When Nikolai Ugodnik learned about this injustice, he decided to give his neighbor all the gold of the church in which he was a bishop. He found out about this just before Christmas. Nikolai Ugodnik went to the temple, collected gold, but there was a lot of it, he couldn’t carry it in his hands, and then he decided to pour it all into a sock, and threw the sock to his neighbor. The neighbor was able to pay off his creditors, and his girls were not harmed, and the tradition of giving Christmas gifts in socks has been preserved to this day.
It is worth noting that Nikolai Ugodnik is an endlessly revered saint by the Russian people. In Peter’s times, the main argument for not wanting to trim beards was the following: “How can I appear before St. Nicholas the Pleasant without a beard!” He was very understandable to the Russian people. For me, this is a very warm saint, I cannot explain or motivate it, but I feel it very strongly in my heart.
Who: Spyridon of Trimifuntsky.
Why they are revered: He distinguished himself at the same Ecumenical Council as Nikolai Ugodnik, proving the dual nature of Christ. He squeezed a brick in his hand and received sand and water, thus proving that there can be two natures in one. But another incident connected with this saint is much more interesting. It is known that Gogol was finally strengthened in the Orthodox faith after his visit to Corfu. Gogol and his English friend got to carry out the incorruptible relics of Spyridon of Trimifuntsky. During this procession, the saint’s relics are carried on a special stretcher, in a crystal shrine. Watching the procession, the Englishman told Gogol that this was mummification, and the seams were not visible because they were on the back and covered with clothing. And at that moment the relics of Spyridon of Trimifuntsky moved, he turned his back to them and threw off the robes thrown over his shoulders, showing a completely clean back. After this event, Gogol finally turned to religion, and the Englishman converted to Orthodoxy and, according to unconfirmed reports, eventually became a bishop.
Who: Ksenia Petersburgskaya.
Why they are revered: Her story is known to everyone. She was the wife of the director of the royal choir. She loved her husband dearly, and when he died, she went out into the street in his clothes and said that it was Ksenia who died, and not Ivan Fedorovich. Many people took her for crazy. Later everything changed; she performed miracles during her lifetime. The merchants considered it a great honor if she came into their shop - because then trade went much better.
I have felt her help many times in my life. Whenever I come to St. Petersburg, the main purpose of my trip is not to visit the Hermitage or other museums and churches, but to visit the chapel of Xenia of Petersburg and the temple where she prayed.
Who: Basil the Blessed.
Why they are revered: At one time, Basil the Blessed was the only person, besides Metropolitan Philip, who decided to tell Ivan the Terrible the truth, without thinking about how his fate might develop in the future. He had the gift of working miracles.
True, nothing personally touched me with him, except for the views of St. Basil's Cathedral, but I feel in my heart that he is a great saint, he is very close to me.
Who: Praskovya Friday.
Why they are revered: They pray to her for children. Once I was in Yugoslavia, went there for Easter, just when the Americans were just starting to bomb these territories. I visited the Praskovya Friday monastery and prayed for my children, of which I have many. There they gave me the simplest icon of it, an ordinary cardboard one. I brought her to Moscow. I decided to bring it to the temple to show it; my friend was carrying it in his bag, since I had nowhere to put it. And the entrance to the temple was through a gate with a bell tower over the gate. I decided to climb the bell tower, and my friend went further. Then I remembered that I had forgotten to take the icon of Praskovya Friday from him, and called out to him. My friend took a step towards me, and at the same moment a hammer fell from the bell tower to the place where my friend had just stood. He fell with such force that he broke through the asphalt and entered it to the very handle. This is how Praskovya Friday saved my friend.
Who: John the Warrior.
Why they are revered: They pray to him to protect against theft. I myself didn’t pray to him for protection from theft, but he’s just my saint. This is a military man. At one time he was a major Roman military leader. He accepted Christianity, transferred all his property to the nascent church, thereby giving a strong impetus to the development of Christianity. They did not dare to execute him because he was a hero, but simply sent him into exile.
Who: Venerable Kuksha of Odessa.
Why they are revered: Favorite saint of Odessa residents. Almost our contemporary, he died in December 1964. He was so revered that on the day of his death, the authorities banned accepting messages about this on telegraphs, so as not to provoke a flow of believers to Odessa. The Monk Kuksha was infinitely kind, bright and cheerful. He was not a martyr, but he could calm and soothe any emotional trauma with his words. He healed people both before his death and after. The Monk Kuksha of Odessa is very close to my heart.
Who: Alexander Svirsky.
Why they are revered: He is famous for the fact that when the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to him and ordered him to go across the lake to build the Svirsky Monastery, he stood on a stone and swam across the lake on the stone. I really like this poetic image. And in my heart I feel that he can help me and will not leave me in prayer.
Who: Seraphim of Sarov.
Why they are revered: His story is known to everyone. Along with Nikolai Ugodnik, he is a saint very close and understandable to the heart of the Russian people.
Who: 40 Martyrs of Sebaste.
Why they are revered: I will tell their story in modern language. These were 40 contract soldiers, an invincible cohort, veteran soldiers who had faithfully served the emperor for many years, but converted to Christianity. In those days, attitudes towards Christians were extremely contradictory. And this fact seemed extremely suspicious to local officials. They drove them into the lake in winter so that the warriors would cool their hot minds, come to their senses and abandon Christianity. The military did not want to give up their beliefs and remained standing in the lake until everyone died. One of them became faint-hearted, got out of the water and went to warm himself in the bathhouse, which was heated on the shore, and there he died due to a sharp temperature change and the lack of God’s protection. And the bath attendant, seeing the courage of the soldiers, considered it an honor to share their convictions and death. I really like the spirit of collective feeling in this story.
Who: Feodor Ushakov.
Why they are revered: This is the well-known Admiral Ushakov. Ushakov was an Orthodox man and an ideal military man who shared all the hardships with his soldiers. Thanks to his courage, his faith in the power of Christ, he won many victories. He is recognized as a saint, including in Greece.
Who: Daniil Moskovsky.
Why they are revered: Daniil of Moscow is one of those people who, in bloody times for Rus', decided everything peacefully. Did not participate in civil strife. When dividing his father's inheritance, he inherited the rather worthless territory of the Moscow Principality. During the years of his reign, he managed not to enter into intrigues, not to encroach on other people's territories, and when his own brother went to war against him, he defeated him with a small army, and then let him in. And this elder brother, pacified by the nobility and peacefulness of Daniil of Moscow, when he was dying, bequeathed his principality to him, and as a result, Daniil of Moscow became the most powerful prince. With all my humility.
Who: Saint Boniface.
Why they are revered: He was a slave at the court of a rich Christian woman. He lived with his mistress in a civil marriage and led an extremely riotous lifestyle. Back then it was considered very honorable to have a reliquary in your home church. At that time, and this was already the end of the Roman Empire, quite a lot of Christians were still executed. So he went, on the orders of his mistress, to look for the relics of the martyrs. He walked for a long time, found nothing, but ended up being executed by Christians, and during this execution he decided to declare himself a Christian and sacrifice himself for his mistress. Then his relics were given to this woman. And after some time she left worldly life and devoted herself to God. This is the story.
The Baptism of Rus', its influence on the further development of the spirituality of the Russians. Canonization. Virtues and sins. Saints in Rus'. Some saints of the Russian people: Elijah the Prophet, St. George the Victorious, Nicholas the Wonderworker, Boris and Gleb.
Introduction. About holiness
1. canonization
2. virtues and sins
Saints in Rus'
1. Some saints of the Russian people:
a) Elijah the prophet
b) St. George (George the Victorious)
c) Nicholas the Wonderworker
d) Boris and Gleb
Conclusion.
“If the world can be saved, it will be saved by spirituality. Politicians, bankers, soldiers, businessmen, even writers and artists are not the most important people. We need saints. The most significant individuals are not those who understand the world, but those who can give something to the world from outside, who can serve as a channel of God's mercy... God does not force humanity to survive, but at least in every generation there are enough saints to show we have this opportunity. The saints lead society, and the spiritual world of the separated future will not only be a better place, but also a much safer place.”
Lord Rees - Mogg
"Independent".
Saints are mythical or historical persons who in various religions (Christianity, Islam) are credited with piety, righteousness, piety, and mediation between God and people.
The veneration of saints was legitimized by local councils of the 4th century - Gangra and Laodicea. The doctrine of veneration of saints was developed by church writers of the 4th century (Efrem the Syrian, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and others). The Church fought against opponents of the cult of saints - the Paulicians, Bogomils, Albigensians, Hussites, etc. The Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) declared an anathema to all those who refused to venerate the saints. The Church established for each saint a day of his memory. Initially, individual Christian communities had their own saints, then canonization and the introduction of the cult of a new saint were centralized through canonization (the inclusion of a person among the saints). In Russia, canonization was introduced in the 16th century and placed under the control of the tsar, and since the time of Peter I was carried out according to imperial decrees on the proposal of the synod.
The number of saints included “martyrs”, “ascetics”, “those who suffered for the faith”, as well as many popes (Gregory I, Leo III, etc.), princes (for example, Vladimir Svyatoslavich, Alexander Nevsky, Boris and Gleb), sovereigns ( Charlemagne, French King Louis IX, etc.).
· The Church created biographies of saints - lives of saints. Lives of Saints - biographies of clergy and secular figures canonized by the Christian Church. The lives of saints began to take shape in the Roman Empire as tales of Christian martyrs (martyrologies). Then (from the 4th century) 3 main types of collections of the Lives of Saints were created: calendar collections for the year -
· “menaia” (lengthy lives for church services);
· “synaxari” with brief Lives of the saints, arranged in calendar order;
· “patericon” (Lives of saints, selected by the compilers of collections).
The Byzantine Symeon Metaphrastus (106) reworks the lives, giving them a moralizing, panegyric character. His collection of Lives of Saints becomes a model for hagiographers (saints) of the East and West, who, while creating images of ideal “saints,” increasingly move away from the real circumstances of their lives and write conventional biographies. The lives of the saints absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images, often pre-Christian (myths about slaughter, etc.), as well as medieval parables, short stories, and anecdotes.
The lives of saints came to Ancient Rus' with the beginning of writing - through the southern Slavs, as well as in translations from Greek. language. Original lives of the first Russian saints - Boris and Gleb, Theodosius of Pechersk (11th century) - began to be compiled. In the 16th century, Metropolitan Macarius expanded the “host” of Russian saints and supervised the compilation of their lives, which were combined in the “Great Four - Menaions” (12 vols.).
The objects of cult in the Christian religion are images of Saints (icons). An icon (image, image) in the Christian religion (Orthodoxy and Catholicism) in a broad sense is an image of Jesus Christ, the Mother of God and saints, to which the church attributes a sacred character; in a narrow sense - a work of easel painting that has a cult purpose. In Orthodoxy, pictorial images on wood predominate. The holiness of icons is symbolized by a halo (shine in the form of a circle around the head).
Stories of heroic deeds, virtuous living, and courageous deaths were valued and circulated among believers. In fact, this process began already in the time of the New Testament (Hebrews 11, 12). Hence the desire to honor these men and women. This desire reveals the germs of canonization - the procedure by which certain people are officially canonized as saints.
Christianity knows many virtuous lives and heroic deaths; Modern Christians draw faith and inspiration from the stories of such people. Therefore, in the Christian calendar there are days dedicated to individual saints canonized by the church. Special honor is given to the disciples of Christ, but there are many others.
People are canonized because of their holiness. Holiness implies renunciation of sin, victory over temptations and the cultivation of Christian virtues.
Over time, Christianity developed the idea of 7 deadly sins: vanity, envy, anger, despondency, stinginess, gluttony and extravagance. The Bible does not limit sins to this number, but it does speak of their "mortality." “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Sin is a serious matter. It is rooted in hostility or indifference to God, to His truths and standards established for us. According to Jesus, sin can enslave us to such an extent that we cannot free ourselves from it (John 8:34). But thanks to the atoning sacrifice of I. Christ, we can receive forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies us - gives us strength to fight and overcome.
“Salvation” means the freedom to become fully human. I. Christ points to a world in need of our help, he calls for love and service in His name and power.
Christian novitiate allows one to open oneself to the Holy Spirit so that one can grow in faith, hope and love. These three virtues above all else are the hallmarks of holiness.
Faith.
In a certain sense, faith is universal. Christians are called “believers” not because they alone live by faith, but because they live by faith in Jesus Christ. Faith does not replace reason; in fact, she has a different basis in her mind.
Hope.
* Christian hope means confidence in the future
- Christian hope is joyful. Saints are often thought of as inaccessible, majestic figures whose appearance should remind us of death and suffering. But overall, the New Testament breathes joy, and people who live close to God are joyful and serene.
Love.
Love (“agape”) is the selfless, sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, showing deep compassion for those in need and especially for those who have been rejected by society. By his death on the cross he proved that love can be heroic.
Love is the highest sign and main condition of holiness, whether we are talking about a formally canonized saint or about a person living in obscurity. This is the most important quality. The Apostle Paul ends his great hymn of love with the following words: “And now these three remain: faith, hope, love; but love is the greatest of these.” (Corinthians 13:13)
According to Christian doctrine, saints are people of high righteousness who glorified themselves by serving God. With this righteousness they “acquired grace”: their human nature, darkened by sin, but initially created in the image and likeness of God, was purified and transformed, and they found eternal life. It was believed that the saints had already embodied the plan of Jesus Christ for man: for the sake of atonement for human sins, he sacrificed himself: “God became man, so that man could become God.”
The Old Testament already tells about such people, about saints. Following the story of the creation of the world and the fall of Adam and Eve, it talks about the beginning of the restoration of the connection between man and God, about the people who served this restoration with their righteousness. These people were considered saints in Christianity.
The New Testament, which talks about the incarnation of God for the sake of people, about bringing them a saving creed, also speaks of many people who have truly approached God. As Christianity spread throughout the world, many people became famous for their righteousness, were considered to have acquired grace, and were canonized.
In Rus', martyrs who died for their faith during the persecution of Christians were revered as saints; the hierarchs of the church who approved its doctrine; monks who renounced worldly temptations for the sake of serving God. Along with the saints inherited by Ancient Russia with the adoption of Christianity, it also had its own righteous people. In their acquired height, saints are the connectors between God and people, their intercessors and intercessors before him.
People sought to get closer to the saints, to comprehend them, to convey their prayer to them. For this purpose, the memory of the saints was carefully preserved: everything that was said about them in the Old and New Testaments, in the ancient stories and apocrypha that filled out this was comprehended. About those of them who became famous for righteousness after the spread of Christianity, information was carefully collected (sometimes this began to be done even during the life of the righteous person), and when the glorified person was canonized after death, he was canonized, on the basis of this information a life was compiled that helped understand what his righteousness consisted of. And, helping this understanding, the saints were always remembered and identified at church services.
His images—icons—were supposed to serve this same goal of comprehension, of approaching the saint in whom he trusted, to whom he turned in prayer. Striving towards this goal, to express the truth about the person depicted, the features of his appearance, once gleaned from lifetime images, or from ancient verbal descriptions, were carefully preserved over the centuries - the icon of the saint embodied a living, concrete human personality. Icons of the Saint made visible, preserved in human memory what the word conveyed about the saint: the text of the Bible, the text of the Gospel, lives written in honor of the saint, hymns, services.
There were a great many saints revered in Rus'. But among this multitude there were those especially beloved and revered by the people - among them those about whom the Old and New Testaments spoke, and those who became famous after the spread of Christianity, and those who “shone in the Russian land.” Let's look at some of those saints on whose intercession the people especially firmly trusted: Elijah the Prophet, St. George, Nicholas the Wonderworker, Boris and Gleb.
Having adopted Christianity, Ancient Rus' also took from Byzantium the church calendar, where one day a year (or several) was dedicated to each of the Saints. The calendar (“saints”) became the basis that connected into one whole the names of Orthodox saints, the experience of the peasant - tiller, artisan - of all segments of the population with primordially Russian rituals and holidays. The Byzantine saints in the Slavic consciousness were transformed beyond recognition. So, for example, Saint Athanasius the Great was the archbishop of Alexandria, frantically and fiercely defended the Christian church from heretics. In the Russian “saints” he became Afanasy Lomonosov, since on January 18, the day of veneration of the saint, there were the bitterest frosts, from which the skin peeled off the nose. The stern prophet Elijah (a prophet is one who has been given the gift of prophecy, a prophet of the future illuminated by God. God took the righteous Elijah alive to heaven. On this day, the waters of the Jordan part before Elijah and his disciple, the prophet Elisha, and a chariot of fire appears, which carries Elijah away, and he disappears in the sky) turned into a grain god - “Ilya the prophet is a grain god,” the peasants said and named wooden village churches after him. Over time, the Byzantine saints became so Russified that their Greek origin was barely recognizable.
Saint George, George the Victorious, is one of the revered and beloved saints of Ancient Rus'.
St. George belongs to the holy martyrs - to that type of holiness, as they say, which developed in the first centuries of the existence of Christianity. The fact is that at the very emergence of Christianity, the Roman authorities treated it with contemptuous indifference. But then everything changed. Even during the lifetime of the apostles, persecutions fell upon Christians, which were characterized by terrible cruelty, especially under the emperors Nero (37-68) and Diocletian (243-318). Christians were crucified on crosses, subjected to sophisticated torture, and thrown into circuses to be torn to pieces by wild animals. And extraordinary, immortal was the firmness with which the persecuted endured these torments - a firmness that was rooted in the very religion that they professed and for which they died. After all, this religion gave them the belief that a person’s existence does not end with his earthly life, that, having atoned for sins in this life through suffering, a person gains the right to the Kingdom of Heaven. Suffering was understood as the path to this kingdom. It likened and brought a person closer to Jesus Christ, who voluntarily suffered for people. The martyrs who died in persecution were deeply revered by Christians as “those who acquired grace in faith,” which strengthened their human nature and allowed them to endure the unbearable. The Church canonized them as Saints.
He suffered torment and death for his faith and St. Georgiy, who actually lived in the 3rd century AD. The first life of St. George appeared in the 5th century, then it was reworked more than once. In Rus', the version of life that developed in the 11th century was mainly used.
This life tells that St. George was a Christian, although he comes from a noble family. When persecution broke out under Diocletian, George renounced his wealth and title and went to the emperor to defend his faith. By the power of his faith, St. George converts Empress Alexandra to Christianity, but Emperor Diocletian imprisons him. George is subjected to monstrous tortures, each of which is enough to break a person’s will or simply kill him: he is killed, “flogged in the air” (a suspended body with such a section has no support), molten tin is poured into his throat, and he is placed on a red-hot metal bull , they are tortured by wheeling (the person tied to the wheel is rotated, pressed against sharpened peaks). They stabbed George with spears, but the spears bent; they poisoned him, but he remained alive, they tore his body into pieces, crushed his bones and threw him into a well, but he remained unharmed; finally, he was sawed up and boiled in a cauldron, but he was resurrected. George endures all this, drawing strength from faith, from God’s grace that he has acquired. Then, by order of the emperor, he is killed again (his head is cut off).
In the life itself, in the story of the miraculously endured torture, the motive of the victory of George, who became a saint pleasing to God, is clearly heard.
The aura of terrible torment made him one of the most popular saints: cities, countless churches and monasteries bore his name; image of St. George was printed on coins and depicted on coats of arms. The church life of the holy martyr George was so colored by popular imagination that it became like a fairy tale.
In the country of Libya, as the life says, there lived an idolater king. For their sins, God sent a terrible serpent to the city, which began to destroy the inhabitants of the Libyan country. To appease the monster, young men and women were given to him to be devoured. The turn came to the king’s daughter; there was nothing to do, and she went to the lake where the snake lived. At this time, George was passing by the lake; he stopped to water his horse. “Run,” sir,” the princess warned him, “the dragon is already close.” But Georgy did not even think about running away. The battle of George, or Yegor, as he was called in Rus', was told by passers-by Kaliki - wandering singers - performers of spiritual songs.
Yagoriy ran into a fierce snake,
The snake is fierce, fierce, fiery.
Like fire from the mouth, flames from the ears,
Fire streams pour from the eyes into them.
Yagorya wants to consume
George, feeling that the serpent was stronger than him, as it is said in the life, began to pray: “Lord, give me your strength so that I can cut off the dragon’s head, so that everyone will know that you are with me, and glorify your name forever and ever.” . In the folklore interpretation, George's prayer sounded like a fairy tale.
Yagorius light said:
Oh, fierce snake, fierce, fiery!
Even if you eat me, you won’t be full,
The piece is not even, it’s a snake, you’ll choke.
After such furious words, the serpent humbled himself, obeying Saint George.
The folklore image of the warrior-hero became one of the most beloved in Ancient Rus'. He was revered by great princes and simple warriors, peasants and artisans. Icon painters were commissioned to create large hagiographic icons, but most often the “Miracle of St. George.” This theme in Iconography represented the moment of the saint’s victory over the monstrous serpent: a young man on a rearing snow-white horse pierces the monster with a golden spear.
There is another, expanded iconographic version of the “Miracle”: a young warrior on a horse and a princess, followed obediently by a humble serpent, are met on the city walls by the king, queen, and residents of the Libyan country saved by George. Folk poems told about this in a completely fairy-tale way:
And she leads the snake on her belt,
Like a cow that has been milked.
The same motif is quite often found in icon painting: a young princess leads a snake on a leash - a belt.
Saint George, also known as Yuri or Yegor in the popular calendar, had many worries:
Yuri, get up early,
Unlock the ground
Release the dew
For a warm summer,
To a lush life,
To people's health...
The people revered Saint George as both a glorious warrior, a defender of the Russian land, and the master of Russian nature. Icons of St. George always look unusually festive, bright, and colorful.
Many other Byzantine saints also changed beyond recognition on Russian soil. Saint Nicholas entered the history of the church as one of the strictest defenders of dogma, a ruthless persecutor of heresy; This is how Byzantine painters imagined him - an unforgiving, stern ascetic. On Russian soil he became Nikolai, an assistant in all good endeavors, a great worker.
Saint Nicholas, Miracle Worker of Myra – Saint Nicholas is a revered saint of the Russian Church, one of the most beloved saints of the Russian Church.
Saint Nicholas belongs to the holy saints, i.e. to the saints who during their lifetime were saints - bishops, metropolitans, who occupied the highest positions in the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church, and gained holiness in serving it. This type of holiness arose when the Christian religion became increasingly widespread and its church hierarchs were glorified, when Christianity, from a persecuted doctrine, became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire and spread widely beyond its borders.
It was during this time that Saint Nicholas lived. A native of Asia Minor, he witnessed both the persecution of Christians and the leading position that the Christian Church occupied under Emperor Constantine the Great. He was a bishop in the city of Myra in Lycia (hence his name), a miracle worker, i.e. who worked miracles, a saint of God, as they said about him in Rus'. There are many lives of Nicholas the Wonderworker. In Rus', lives written in Greek were also known. the writer Simeon Metaphrastus, and lives created and supplemented in the Slavic lands and in Rus' itself. On their basis and on the basis of festive chants dedicated to Nicholas, the idea of Nicholas the Wonderworker was formed and firmly entered into the people's consciousness.
His life acts only as a service to God and the Church. Saint Nicholas did good, performed miracles for people with the help of God’s acquired grace. In the stories about the accomplishments of St. Nicholas’s good deeds firmly echo a thought that is very important for Christianity: good should be done not in anticipation of a reward, not to satisfy pride, but out of genuine love for one’s neighbor; It is best to create it anonymously, remaining unrecognized.
Lives tell that already during his lifetime the appearance of St. Nicholas spoke of his holiness, pointing to the transformation that had taken place in him. “The ancient legend that has reached us,” writes the Greek author. life, - represents Nicholas as an old man with an angelic face, full of holiness and the grace of God. A certain radiance emanated from him, and his face sparkled more than Moses’ (according to the Bible, Moses’ face shone after he received the tablets of the Covenant from God).
The holiness of the Bishop of Myra, according to the lives, is confirmed by his death. When the time came for him to die, he sang funeral chants and joyfully awaited his departure to another world. When his body was brought to the city temple, it began to exude myrrh; and after his death healings took place at the grave.
Lives known in Rus' also mention an event that happened several centuries after the death of the saint. Asia Minor, including the city of Myra, where St. Nicholas, were conquered by Muslim Arabs in the 8th century. And in 1087, an Italian merchant managed to transfer the remains of the saint - his relics - to the Christian land, to Italy, where they were buried in the cathedral of the city of Bari and where they are still given due veneration.
In memory of St. Nicholas, two holidays were established: December 6 (19) in honor of his presentation - death (this holiday in Russian is usually called “Winter St. Nicholas”) and May 9 (22) in honor of the transfer of his relics to Bar-grad (feast of -in Russian it is called “Nikola the Spring”). In the hymns of these holidays, what the lives told about the saint was clearly and accurately reflected. The hymns of St. are called “the rule of faith and the image of meekness.” Nicholas, they call him “quick in help,” a saint of God.
To match St. Nicholas were the apostles Peter and Paul and even the Mother of God herself.
Saint Peter walks behind the plow,
St. Paul drives the oxen,
The Blessed Virgin is wearing,
Carry the truth, ask God,
God, freak out the wheat,
All arable land.
The Byzantine martyr in the popular consciousness became the spinning goddess Paraskeva Friday, the patroness of trade and bazaars; she is a wedding planner, a benefactor of women.
The twin brothers Flor and Laurus were famous as holy horse breeders; it is no coincidence that the icons with their image also depicted the Archangel Michael holding two stately horses on a leash; it was he who taught Flor and Laurus horse breeding.
Boris and Gleb remained in the people's memory as holy warriors and great workers. The brothers Boris and Gleb are real historical figures, the heroes of the story “On the Murder of Borisov,” which was included in the Russian chronicle in the year 1015. Boris and Gleb were the sons of the great Kyiv prince Vladimir, nicknamed “The Red Sun” in epics for his gentleness and clarity of mind. The eldest son of the prince, Boris, reigned in Rostov, the youngest, Gleb, went to Murom. After the death of Vladimir Svyatoslavich (980-1015), the squad wanted to place Boris on the Kiev throne. Svyatopolk, Boris' half-brother, killed both Boris and Gleb, hoping to take his father's throne by force. People's memory branded his name with the nickname Damned. After the burial of the murdered brothers, a rumor spread that miracles were performed at their graves: “the lame can walk, the blind receive their sight.” “Healing gifts,” as the people believed, they gave not only to individual people, but to “the entire Rustei of the earth.”
Prince Yaroslav obtained the canonization of the brothers from the Byzantine patriarchs; Boris and Gleb became the first Russian national saints, and not only Russians: their cult was recognized in Byzantium, the Czech Sazavsky monastery. “The Tale of Boris and Gleb” was translated into Armenian in the 13th century.
Boris was 26 years old when Svyatopolk the Accursed killed him, Gleb even younger. Boris “is tall, thin in stature, handsome in face, kind in appearance, his beard and mustache are small, for he is still young,” it is written in the interpretation of the iconographic original. According to the interpretation, the icon painters depicted Boris. Gleb, remembering his tender age, was written beardless; They dressed the brothers in princely robes embroidered in gold, decorated with gold brooches - clasps with precious stones, lalas and yahonts. The brothers hold a sword and a cross in their hands - symbols of their princely power and martyrdom.
Thus, in the world, many people, as Christianity spread, were canonized as saints, as they became famous for their righteousness and were considered to have found grace. Over time, a pantheon of national saints emerged in Rus': saints, martyrs, saints, and righteous ones. Among them are warrior-princes, boyars, church and secular political figures who laid down their lives for the Motherland and the spiritual unity of the people: Alexander Nevsky, Metropolitans Alexei and Peter, Sergius of Radonezh and many others. They revered among the saints and people from the lower classes - “fools”, such as, for example, Basil the Blessed, Procopius of Ustyug; under the guise of visible madness, they spoke the truth to the powers that be, and, as their fellow citizens believed, saved them from troubles and misfortunes through the power of prayer.
The lives of saints were told about the “miracles”; Hagiography (hagiography) is part of the great literature of Ancient Rus'. On its basis, an iconographic tradition developed. Icons, as a rule, were painted many years after the death of the hero of the life in the “image and likeness” of an already famous saint. The icon painter did not set goals for specific similarities, remembering that all people, and especially saints, as the Bible says, are created “in the image and likeness” of God. The hallmarks of hagiographic icons represented feats from the hagiography, that is, specific historical events in the consciousness of a medieval person.
Hagiographic icons of Russian saints are the embodiment in visible images of Russian history and the spiritual ideals of the Russian people using pictorial means.
List of used literature:
Likhachev D.S. Man in the literature of ancient Russia. - M., 1970.
Ranovich A. How the lives of saints were created. - M., 1961.
Young D. Christianity. - M., 1999, pp. 189-208.
Taktashova L.E. Russian icon. - Vladimir, 1993.
Barskaya N. An Subjects and images of ancient Russian painting. - M., 1993.
Uspensky L.A. Theology of the icon of the Orthodox Church. - M., 1989.
Sergeev V.N. Andrey Rublev. - M., 1981.
Alpatov M.V. Old Russian painting. - M., 1978.
Chapter 1. Boris and Gleb - holy passion-bearers. Chapter 2. Venerable Theodosius of Pechersk Chapter 3. Saints of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon Chapter 4. Venerable Abraham of Smolensk Chapter 5. Holy Princes Chapter 6. Saints Chapter 7. Saint Stephen of Perm Chapter 8. St. Sergius of Radonezh Chapter 9. Northern Thebaid Chapter 10. Venerable Nil of Sorsky Chapter 11. Reverend Joseph of Volotsky Chapter 12. The tragedy of ancient Russian holiness Chapter 13. Fools Chapter 14. Lay saints and their wives Chapter 15. Legendary motifs in Russian lives Conclusion Literature Index BibliographyWhy is this book so important to us today? First of all, it reminds us of the moral ideals on which more than one generation of our ancestors was brought up. The myth about the backwardness of Ancient Rus' has long been dispelled by scientists, but still continues to take root in the consciousness of a huge number of our compatriots. We have already understood the height of ancient Russian craft, sometimes already unattainable for us, and we are beginning to understand the significance of ancient Russian music and literature.
I am glad that the propaganda of ancient Russian music is expanding, and it is finding more and more fans. With ancient Russian literature the situation is more complicated. Firstly, the level of culture has fallen. Secondly, access to primary sources is extremely difficult. The publication of “Monuments of the Literature of Ancient Rus'”, undertaken by the department of ancient Russian literature of the Pushkin House, is not yet able to satisfy the growing demands of readers due to the small circulation. That is why the Nauka publishing house is preparing a twenty-volume edition of “Monuments” with a circulation of two hundred thousand. We have yet to learn and comprehend all the greatness of ancient Russian literature.
Why is the publication of Georgy Fedotov’s book valuable to us? It introduces us to a special and almost forgotten world of ancient Russian holiness. Morality has always been necessary in social life. Morality is ultimately the same in all ages and for all people. Honesty, conscientiousness in work, love for the Motherland, contempt for material wealth and at the same time concern for the public economy, love of truth, social activity - all this is taught to us by life.
When reading old literature, we must remember that the old does not become obsolete if it is approached with adjustments for time and other social conditions. The historian's gaze should never leave us, otherwise we will not understand anything about culture and will deprive ourselves of the greatest values that inspired our ancestors.
Academician D. S. Likhachev
Archpriest Alexander Men. Back to the roots
He was rightly compared with Chaadaev and Herzen. Like them, Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886–1951) was a historian-thinker and publicist on a European and world scale, and like them, he had the gift of putting his ideas into a brilliant literary form.
Like them, the ancient saying can be applied to Fedotov: “There is no prophet in his own country.” Like Chaadaev, he was attacked by a variety of ideological camps and, like Herzen, he died in a foreign land.
But unlike Herzen, he did not go through painful crises, did not know tragic disappointments and discord. Even having abandoned any views, this surprisingly harmonious person always retained from them what he considered genuine and valuable.
During his lifetime, Fedotov did not become, like Chaadaev and Herzen, a legendary man. He left Russia without yet gaining fame, and the emigrant environment was too torn by passions for it to appreciate the calm, independent, crystal-clear thought of the historian. Fedotov died in the Stalin era, when the very fact of emigration inevitably erased a person, be he a writer or an artist, a philosopher or a scientist, from the national heritage.
Meanwhile, internally, Fedotov always remained in Russia. His thoughts were with her both when he worked in France and when he went overseas. He thought a lot and intensely about her fate, studied her past and present. He wrote armed with a scalpel of strictly historical analysis and criticism, avoiding the pitfalls of myths and prejudices. He did not rush from one extreme to another, although he knew that few among those around him would want to understand and accept him.
Fedotov closely followed the events taking place in his homeland and, as a rule, gave them deep and accurate assessments. But most of all he did for the study of Russian history. The past was not an end in itself for him. A conscious focus is everywhere visible in his works: to comprehend the soul of Ancient Rus', to see in its saints a specific national embodiment of the universal Christian world ideal and to trace his fate in subsequent centuries. In particular, he was deeply concerned about the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia, and he sought to understand what they had retained and what they had lost from the original spirituality of Christianity. Like his friend the famous philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948), Fedotov considered political freedom and free creativity an integral part of cultural creation.
History provided Fedotov with food for broad generalizations. His views as a whole were formed even before emigration. The famous Russian scientist Vladimir Toporov rightly considers Fedotov a representative of the Russian philosophical revival, “which gave Russia and the world many glorious and very different names and had a great influence on the spiritual culture of the entire 20th century.” But among them, Fedotov occupies a special place. His own axial theme was what is commonly called "philosophy of culture" or "theology of culture." And he developed this topic based on Russian history.
Today, shortly after the significant anniversary of the millennium of the Baptism of Rus', Fedotov is finally returning home.
The meeting of our readers with him, with one of the main books of his life, can be considered a real holiday of national culture.
The origins of Fedotov are on the Volga. He was born in Saratov on October 1, 1886, a few months after the death of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, who immortalized the world of the provincial cities of the Volga region. The historian's father was an official under the governor. He died when George was eleven years old. The mother, a former music teacher, was forced to support her three sons on her own (the pension was small). And yet she managed to give George a gymnasium education. He studied in Voronezh and lived in a boarding school at public expense. He suffered deeply in the oppressive atmosphere of the hostel. It was then, as a high school student, that Fedotov was imbued with the conviction that “you can’t live like this anymore,” that society needs radical changes. At first, he seemed to find the answer to pressing questions in the ideas of the sixties and populists, and by the end of the course he had already turned to Marxism and social democracy. In these new doctrines for Russia, he was most attracted by the pathos of freedom and social justice. And much later, having found his own path, Fedotov did not change his commitment to the democratic spirit.
Since his school years, the future scientist and thinker was distinguished by organic integrity and some kind of enlightenment of nature. Protesting against social ills did not infect his soul with bitterness. Physically weak, lagging behind his peers in their entertainment, Georgy was not tormented by, as they now say, “complexes”, he was open, friendly, and responsive. Perhaps his brilliant abilities played a role here.
But in 1904 the gymnasium was left behind. You need to choose a career path. An eighteen-year-old boy who considers himself a social democrat proceeds not from his own interests and tastes, but from the needs of the working class, to which he decided to devote himself. He comes to St. Petersburg and enters the Technological Institute.
But he did not have to study for long. The revolutionary events of 1905 interrupt the lectures. Fedotov returns to Saratov. There he takes part in rallies and in the activities of underground circles. Soon he is arrested and sentenced to exile. Thanks to the efforts of his grandfather, the police chief, instead of being sent to Siberia, Fedotov was sent to Germany, to Prussia.
There he continues to contact the Social Democrats, is expelled from Prussia, and studies at the University of Jena for two years. But the first changes have already appeared in his views. He begins to doubt the inviolability of atheism and comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to find the right course for social transformation without a serious knowledge of history.
That is why, having returned to St. Petersburg in 1908, Fedotov entered the Faculty of History and Philology.
Connections with revolutionary circles remain, but from now on science is at the center for Fedotov: history, sociology.
Fedotov was lucky with his teacher. It was the largest Russian specialist on the Middle Ages, Ivan Mikhailovich Grevs (1860–1941). At Grevs's lectures and seminars, Fedotov not only studied monuments and events of the past, but also learned to understand the meaning of living continuity in the history of peoples and eras. This was the school that largely determined Fedotov’s cultural studies.
However, studies are again interrupted under dramatic circumstances. In 1910, in Fedotov’s Saratov house, the police discovered proclamations brought from St. Petersburg. Actually, Georgy Petrovich himself had no direct connection to the case: he only fulfilled the request of his acquaintances, but now he realized that he would be arrested again, and hastily left for Italy. And yet he completed the university course. First he came to St. Petersburg using someone else's documents, then he declared himself to the police, was deported to Riga, and finally passed the exams.
He is appointed as a private assistant professor at the university in the department of Middle Ages, but due to a lack of students, Fedotov has to work at the St. Petersburg Public Library.
There he became close to the historian, theologian and public figure Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev (1875–1960), who by that time had already made a difficult journey from the “neo-Christianity” of D. S. Merezhkovsky to the Orthodox worldview. Kartashev helped Fedotov finally gain a foothold on the basis of the spiritual ideals of Christianity. For the young scientist, this did not at all mean burning what he worshiped. Having become a conscious and convinced Christian, he did not change one iota his devotion to freedom, democracy, and cultural construction. On the contrary, in the Gospel he found a “justification” for the dignity of the individual, the eternal foundations of creativity and social service. Therefore, as his biographer writes, Fedotov saw in the First World War not only a disaster, but also “a struggle for freedom in alliance with Western democracies.” He regarded the October Revolution as “great,” comparable only to the English and French. But from the very beginning he was worried about the possibility of its degeneration into “personal tyranny.” Historical experience gave rise to rather pessimistic forecasts.
However, starting from the war years, Fedotov moved away from public activities and devoted himself entirely to scientific work. In Petrograd, he became close to the Christian thinker Alexander Meyer (1876–1939), who wrote “on the table,” and his religious and philosophical circle. The circle did not join the political opposition, but set as its goal the preservation and development of the spiritual treasures of Russian and world culture. At first, the orientation of this community was somewhat amorphous, but gradually the majority of its members entered the fold of the Church. This was the path of Fedotov himself, and until the last day of his life in his homeland he was associated with Meyer and his like-minded people, participating in their magazine “Free Voices,” which existed for only one year (1918).
Like many cultural figures, Fedotov had to experience the difficulties of the hungry and cold years of the Civil War. He was unable to defend his dissertation. Continued to work in the library. He suffered from typhus. After his marriage in 1919, he had to find new means of livelihood. And it was then that Fedotov was offered the chair of the Middle Ages in Saratov. In the fall of 1920, he arrived in his hometown.
Of course, he could not expect that in this formidable era students would be interested in medieval studies. But some of his courses and conversations on religious and philosophical topics attracted huge audiences. Soon, however, Fedotov became convinced that the university was placed under strict censorship conditions. This forced him to leave Saratov in 1922. The sad fact remains that many honest and principled people like Fedotov unwittingly became outsiders. They were increasingly pushed aside by opportunists who quickly adopted the new “revolutionary” jargon. The era of the great Russian exodus began, when the country lost many outstanding figures.
For several years, Fedotov tried to find his place in the current conditions. In 1925, he published his first book, “Abelard,” about the famous medieval philosopher and theologian. But the censorship did not allow the article about Dante to pass.
Lenin's NEP was fading, and the general atmosphere in the country was noticeably changing. Fedotov understood that events were taking the ominous turn that he had long foreseen. He was alien to monarchism and restorationism. The “right” remained for him the bearers of a dark, inert element. However, being a historian, he was able to assess the real situation very early. Later, already abroad, he gave an accurate and balanced assessment of Stalinism. In 1937, he wrote with irony about emigrants who dreamed of “getting rid of the Bolsheviks,” when it was no longer “they” who ruled Russia. Not them, but he." Fedotov considered the dispersal of the Society of Old Bolsheviks to be one of the symptoms of the political metamorphosis that took place under Stalin. “It would seem,” the historian notes, “in the Society of Old Bolsheviks there is no place for Trotskyists by definition. Trotsky is an old Menshevik who only joined Lenin’s party during the October Revolution; The dissolution of this powerless but influential organization shows that Stalin is striking a blow precisely at the traditions of Lenin.”
In a word, it is not difficult to understand what motives guided Fedotov when he decided to leave for the West. It was not easy for him to take this step, especially since A. Meyer and his friends in the religious and philosophical circle were against emigration. And yet Fedotov did not delay. In September 1925, he left for Germany, carrying with him a certificate that allowed him to work abroad in the Middle Ages. What awaited him if he had not done this, we can guess from Meyer’s fate. Four years after Fedotov’s departure, members of the circle were arrested, and Meyer was sentenced to death, from which he was saved only by the intercession of his old friend, A. Enukidze. The philosopher spent the rest of his life in camps and exile. His works were published in Paris almost forty years after his death.
So, a new period of life began for Fedotov, the life of a Russian exile.
A short attempt to settle in Berlin; futile efforts to find a place for himself in Parisian medieval studies; first appearances in the press with essays about the Russian intelligentsia; ideological confrontation with various emigrant movements. In the end, his fate is determined by an invitation to the Theological Institute, recently founded in Paris by Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgievsky). His old friends are already teaching there - Anton Kartashev and Sergei Bezobrazov, later a bishop and translator of the New Testament.
At first, he naturally reads the history of Western confessions and the Latin language, this was his element. But soon the department of hagiology, that is, the study of the lives of saints, became vacant, and Fedotov entered a new field for him, which has since become the main vocation of a historian.
Navigating among the emigrants was not easy. There were monarchists, ascetic-minded people who were suspicious of culture and the intelligentsia, and “Eurasianists” who harbored hopes for dialogue with the Soviets. Fedotov did not join any of these groups. His calm character, analytical mind, and loyalty to the principles of cultural creativity and democracy did not allow him to accept any of the radical concepts. He became closest friends with the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, the publicist Ilya Fondaminsky and the nun Maria, later a heroine of the Resistance. He participated in the Russian Christian student movement and in ecumenical work, but as soon as he noticed the spirit of narrowness, intolerance, and “witch hunts,” he immediately stepped aside, preferring to remain himself. He accepted the idea of “restoration” in only one sense – as a revival of spiritual values.
In 1931, the “Karlovites,” a church group that broke away from the Moscow Patriarchate, declared that the Orthodox Church and the autocracy were inseparable. The “Karlovites” attacked both the Theological Institute and the hierarchy in Russia, which at that time was under pressure from the Stalinist press. Fedotov could not sympathize with the “Karlovites” who considered themselves “nationally minded”, not only for moral reasons: he was clearly aware that the Russian Church and the Fatherland had entered a new phase of history, after which there was no turning back. Also in 1931, he founded the magazine “Novy Grad” with a broad cultural, social and Christian-democratic platform. There he published many bright and profound articles, devoted mainly to current issues of world and Russian history, events and disputes of those days. Grouped around the magazine were people who wanted to stand on the other side of “right” and “left”: Mother Maria, Berdyaev, Fyodor Stepun, Fondaminsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, philosophers Vladimir Ilyin, literary scholars Konstantin Mochulsky, Yuri Ivask, monk Lev Gillet - a Frenchman who became Orthodox . Fedotov also published in Berdyaev’s organ, the famous Parisian magazine “The Path”.
However, Fedotov most fully expressed his cherished thoughts in his historical works. Back in 1928, he published a fundamental monograph about Metropolitan Philip of Moscow, who opposed the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible and paid with his life for his courage. The topic was not chosen by the historian by chance. On the one hand, Fedotov wanted to show the injustice of the reproaches against the Russian Church, which supposedly has always been distinguished by its indifference to public life: and on the other, to debunk the myth that old Muscovite Rus' was almost the standard of religious and social order.
Fedotov was deeply convinced that the primordial spiritual ideals of Orthodox Rus' have enduring significance and are extremely important for modern times. He only wanted to warn against unjustified nostalgia for the distant past, which had both bright and shadow sides.
“Let us beware,” he wrote, “of two mistakes: overly idealizing the past - and painting it entirely in black light. In the past, as in the present, there was an eternal struggle between good and dark forces, truth and falsehood, but, as in the present, weakness and cowardice prevailed over good and evil.” This “weakness” became, according to Fedotov, especially noticeable in the Moscow era. “It can be noted,” he writes, “that examples of courageous lessons from the church to the state, frequent in the appanage veche era of Russian history, are becoming rarer in the century of Moscow autocracy. It was easy for the Church to teach peacefulness and fidelity, the word of the cross to violent but weak princes, who had little connection with the land and were torn apart by mutual strife. But the Grand Duke, and later the Tsar of Moscow, became a “formidable” sovereign who did not like “meetings” and did not tolerate opposition to his will.” All the more significant and attractive is, according to Fedotov, the figure of St. Philip of Moscow, who was not afraid to engage in single combat with the tyrant, before whom young and old trembled.
The feat of St. Philip Fedotov considers against the background of the patriotic activities of the Russian Church. The Moscow First Hierarch cared about his fatherland no less than St. Alexy, confessor of Prince Dmitry Donskoy. We are talking only about various aspects of patriotism. Some hierarchs contributed to the strengthening of the grand ducal throne, while others faced a different task - a social and moral one. "St. Philip, the historian claims, gave his life in the fight against this very state, in the person of the king, showing that it too must submit to the highest principle of life. In the light of Filippov’s feat, we understand that the Russian saints did not serve the Moscow great power, but the light of Christ that shone in the kingdom - and only as long as this light shone.”
In the conflict between Metropolitan Philip and Grozny, Fedotov saw a clash of the evangelical spirit with the authorities, which trampled all ethical and legal norms. The historian’s assessment of the role of Ivan the Terrible seemed to anticipate discussions about this tsar, related to Stalin’s desire to turn him into an ideal monarch.
Fedotov also had to conduct polemics with those who, under the influence of the apocalyptic events of our century, came to devalue culture, history, and creativity. It seemed to many that the world was going through an era of decline, that the West and Russia, albeit in different ways, were heading towards their end. It was not difficult to understand such sentiments, which were characteristic not only of the Russian emigration. Indeed, after the First World War, the consistent destruction of those institutions and values that lived in the 19th century began. It took a fair amount of courage and perseverance, it took strong faith to overcome the temptation to “withdraw into oneself,” passivity, and abandonment of creative work.
And Fedotov overcame this temptation.
He affirmed the value of work and culture as an expression of man's higher nature, his likeness to God. Man is not a machine, but an inspired worker called to transform the world. A supernatural impulse has been at work in history from its very beginning. It defines the difference between man and animal. It sanctifies not only the rise of consciousness, but also the everyday existence of a person. To consider culture a diabolical invention is to renounce human birthright. The highest principle is manifested in both Apollo and Dionysus, that is, both in the enlightened mind and in the flaming elements. “Not wishing to yield to the demons of either the Apollonian Socrates or the Dionysian Aeschylus,” wrote Fedotov, “we Christians can give true names to the divine forces that acted, according to the Apostle Paul, in pre-Christian culture. These are the names of Logos and Spirit. One signifies order, harmony, harmony, the other - inspiration, delight, creative impulse. Both principles are inevitably present in any cultural endeavor. And the craft and labors of a farmer are impossible without some creative joy. Scientific knowledge is unthinkable without intuition, without creative contemplation. And the creation of a poet or musician involves hard work, molding inspiration into strict forms of art. But the beginning of the Spirit predominates in artistic creativity, just as the beginning of the Logos predominates in scientific knowledge.”
There is a gradation in the fields of creativity and culture, but in general they are of higher origin. Hence the impossibility of discarding them, treating them as something transitory, and therefore unnecessary.
Fedotov realized that human actions can always be brought before the court of Eternity. But eschatology was not for him a reason for the “inaction” preached by the Chinese Taoists. Explaining his position, he cited an episode from the life of a Western saint. When he, as a seminarian, was playing ball in the yard, he was asked: what would he do if he knew that the end of the world was soon? The answer was unexpected: “I would continue to play ball.” In other words, if the game is evil, then it should be abandoned anyway; if not, then it always has value. Fedotov saw a kind of parable in the above story. Its meaning is that work and creativity are always important, regardless of the historical era. In this he followed the Apostle Paul, who condemned those who quit work under the pretext of the imminent end of the world.
On the occasion of the centennial anniversary of the birth of G. P. Fedotov, the American Russian almanac “The Path” published an editorial about him (New York, 1986, No. 8–9). The article was called “The Creator of the Theology of Culture.” Indeed, of the Russian thinkers, along with Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov, Fedotov did the most for a deep understanding of the nature of culture. They see its root in spirituality, in faith, in intuitive comprehension of Reality. Everything that culture produces: religions, arts, social institutions - one way or another goes back to this primary source. If the psychophysical properties of a person are a gift of nature, then his spirituality is a gift acquired in the transcendental dimensions of existence. This gift allows a person to break through the rigid circle of natural determinism and create something new, something that has never happened, and move towards cosmic unity. Whatever forces hinder this ascent, it will be accomplished in spite of everything, realizing the secret inherent in us.
Creativity, according to Fedotov, has a personal character. But the individual is not an isolated unit. It exists in living relationships with surrounding individuals and the environment. This is how superpersonal but individual images of national cultures are created. Accepting their value, Fedotov sought to see their unique features. And first of all, this task faced him when he studied the origins of Russian spiritual culture, sought to find the universal in the domestic, and at the same time - the national embodiment of the universal in the specific history of Russia. This is one of the main goals of Fedotov’s book “Saints of Ancient Rus'”, which was published in Paris in 1931, was published twice more: in New York and in Paris - and is now offered to our readers.
The historian was prompted to write it not only by his studies in hagiology at the institute, but also by the desire to find the roots and origins of Holy Rus' as a special, unique phenomenon. It was not by chance that he turned specifically to the ancient Lives. For Fedotov, his work was not “archaeology,” not a study of the past for its own sake. It was in pre-Petrine times that, in his opinion, an archetype of spiritual life emerged, which became the ideal for all subsequent generations. Of course, the history of this ideal was not cloudless. He made his way in difficult social conditions. In many ways, his fate was tragic. But spiritual creation throughout the world and at all times has not been an easy task and has always faced obstacles that it had to overcome.
Fedotov’s book about ancient Russian saints can be considered unique in some ways. Of course, before him, many studies and monographs were written on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and its prominent figures. It is enough to recall the works of Filaret Gumilevsky, Makariy Bulgakov, Evgeniy Golubinsky and many others. However, Fedotov was the first to give a holistic picture of the history of Russian saints, which did not get bogged down in details and combined a broad historiosophical perspective with scientific criticism.
As literary critic Yuri Ivask wrote, “Fedotov sought to hear the voices of history in documents and monuments. At the same time, without distorting facts or artificially selecting them, he emphasized in the past what could be useful for the present.” Before the book was published, Fedotov carried out a thorough study of the primary sources and their critical analysis. He outlined some of his initial principles a year later in the essay “Orthodoxy and Historical Criticism.” In it, he spoke out both against those who believed that criticism of sources encroached on church tradition, and against those who were prone to “hypercriticism” and, like Golubinsky, disputed the reliability of almost all ancient evidence.
Fedotov showed that faith and criticism not only do not interfere with each other, but must organically complement each other. Faith concerns those issues that are not subject to the judgment of science. In this regard, tradition and legend are free from the conclusions of criticism. However, criticism “comes into its own whenever tradition speaks of a fact, a word or an event limited in space and time. Everything that flows in space and time, that is or has been accessible to sensory experience, can be the subject of not only faith, but also knowledge. If science is silent about the mystery of the Trinity or the divine life of Christ, then it can give a comprehensive answer about the authenticity of the Gift of Constantine (once recognized in the East), about the attribution of a work to one or another father, about the historical situation of persecution or the activities of ecumenical councils.”
As for “hypercriticism,” Fedotov emphasized that, as a rule, it is guided not by objective scientific considerations, but by certain ideological premises. In particular, these are the hidden springs of historical skepticism, which is ready to deny, discard, and question everything from the very threshold. This, according to Fedotov, is more likely not even skepticism, but “a passion for one’s own, all the time new, fantastic designs. In this case, instead of criticism, it is appropriate to talk about a kind of dogmatism, where it is not traditions that are dogmatized, but modern hypotheses.”
The historian also touched upon the question of miracles, which are so often found both in the ancient Lives and in the Bible. Here Fedotov also pointed out the line of demarcation between faith and science. “The question of a miracle,” he wrote, “is a question of a religious order. No science, least of all historical science, can resolve the question of the supernatural or natural character of a fact. The historian can only state a fact that always allows for not one, but many scientific or religious explanations. He does not have the right to eliminate a fact just because the fact goes beyond the boundaries of his personal or average everyday experience. Recognition of a miracle is not recognition of a legend. A legend is characterized not by the simple presence of the miraculous, but by a set of signs indicating its folk or literary, super-individual existence; the absence of strong threads connecting it with this reality. The miraculous can be real, the natural can be legendary. Example: the miracles of Christ and the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus. Naivety, which believes in legends, and rationalism, which denies miracles, are equally alien to Orthodox historical science—I would say, to science in general.”
This balanced approach, both critical and connected with the tradition of faith, was used by Fedotov as the basis for his book “Saints of Ancient Rus'”.
Considering the topic of Fedotov’s book, Vladimir Toporov correctly noted that the concept of holiness has its source in the pre-Christian tradition. In Slavic paganism, this concept is associated with a mysterious excess of vitality. To this we can only add that the terms “holy” and “holiness” also go back to the Bible, where they indicate the close connection of earthly humanity with the supreme Mystery of divinity. A person called a “saint” is dedicated to God and bears the stamp of another world. In the Christian consciousness, saints are not just “good”, “righteous”, “pious” people, but those who were involved in the transcendental Reality. They are fully characterized by the features of a specific person, inscribed in a certain era. And at the same time, they rise above it, pointing the way to the future.
In his book, Fedotov traces how a special Russian religious rite was formed in ancient Russian holiness. Although genetically he is connected with general Christian principles and the Byzantine heritage, individual traits appeared in him very early.
Byzantium breathed the air of “sacred solemnity.” Despite the enormous influence of monastic asceticism, she was immersed in the magnificent beauty of the sacred rite, reflecting motionless eternity. The writings of the ancient mystic, known as Dionysius the Areopagite, largely determined the worldview, churchliness and aesthetics of Byzantium. The ethical element, of course, was not denied, but it often receded into the background compared to aesthetics - this mirror of the “heavenly hierarchy.”
Christian spirituality in Rus' acquired a different character already in the very first decades after Prince Vladimir. In the person of St. Theodosius of Pechersk, while preserving the ascetic tradition of Byzantium, she strengthened the evangelical element, which prioritized effective love, service to people, and mercy.
This first stage in the history of ancient Russian holiness during the era of the Horde yoke is replaced by a new one - mystical. He is embodied by St. Sergius of Radonezh. Fedotov considers him the first Russian mystic. He does not find direct evidence of a connection between the founder of the Trinity Lavra and the Athonite school of hesychasm, but asserts their deep closeness. In hesychasm, the practice of spiritual self-deepening, prayer, and personal transformation through its intimate unity with God was developed.
In the third, Moscow period, the first two trends come into collision. This happened due to the fact that supporters of the social activity of the Church, the Josephites, began to rely on the support of powerful state power, which strengthened after the overthrow of the Horde yoke. Bearers of the ascetic ideal, St. Nil Sorsky and the “non-possessors” did not deny the role of social service, but they were afraid of the Church turning into a rich and repressive institution and therefore opposed both monastic land ownership and the execution of heretics. In this conflict, the Josephites outwardly won, but their victory led to a deep and protracted crisis, which gave rise to a split in the Old Believers. And then another split occurred, which shook the entire Russian culture, connected with the reforms of Peter.
Fedotov defined this chain of events as “the tragedy of ancient Russian holiness.” But he also noted that, despite all the crises, the original ideal, which harmoniously combined service to society with spiritual self-deepening, did not perish. In the same 18th century, when the Church found itself subordinated to a rigid synodal system, the spirit of the ancient ascetics unexpectedly resurrected. “Under the soil,” writes Fedotov, “fertile rivers flowed. And it was precisely the age of the Empire, so seemingly unfavorable for the revival of Russian religiosity, that brought a revival of mystical holiness. At the very threshold of a new era, Paisiy (Velichkovsky), a student of the Orthodox East, finds the creations of Nil Sorsky and bequeaths them to the Optina Hermitage. Even Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, a student of the Latin school, preserves in his meek appearance the family features of the Sergius house. Since the 19th century, two spiritual bonfires have been lit in Russia, the flames of which warm the frozen Russian life: Optina Pustyn and Sarov. Both the angelic image of Seraphim and the Optina elders resurrect the classical age of Russian holiness. With them comes the time of rehabilitation of St. Nile, whom Moscow even forgot to canonize, but who in the 19th century, already revered by the church, for all of us is an exponent of the deepest and most beautiful direction of ancient Russian asceticism.
When Fedotov wrote these lines, only three years had passed since the death of the last of the elders of Optina Hermitage. Thus, the light of the Christian ideal that developed in Ancient Rus' has reached our troubled century. This ideal was rooted in the Gospel. Christ proclaims the most important two commandments: love for God and love for man. Here is the basis of the feat of Theodosius of Pechersk, who combined prayer with active service to people. From him begins the history of the spirituality of the Russian Orthodox Church. And this story continues today. It is as dramatic as in the Middle Ages, but those who believe in the vitality of eternal values and ideals can agree with Fedotov that they are needed now - both in our country and in the whole world. Fedotov continued to teach at the institute. Wrote numerous articles and essays. He published the books “And There Is and Will Be” (1932), “The Social Significance of Christianity” (1933), “Spiritual Poems” (1935). But it became increasingly difficult to work. The political and social atmosphere became tense and gloomy. The rise to power of Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco once again split the emigration. Many exiles saw the totalitarian leaders of the West as almost the “saviors of Russia.” Democrat Fedotov, of course, could not accept such a position. He increasingly felt alienated from the “nationally minded” who were ready to call on any interventionists, no matter who they were, to the “kingdom of the Bolsheviks.”
When Fedotov publicly stated in 1936 that Dolores Ibarruri, despite all his disagreement with her views, was closer to him than Generalissimo Franco, a hail of insinuations rained down on the historian. Even Metropolitan Evlogy, a man of broad views who respected Fedotov, expressed his disapproval of him. From that moment on, any political statement by the scientist was attacked. The last straw was the New Year's article of 1939, where Fedotov approved the anti-Hitler policy of the Soviet Union. Now the entire corporation of teachers at the Theological Institute, under pressure from the “right,” has condemned Fedotov.
This act caused the indignation of the “knight of freedom” Nikolai Berdyaev. He responded to it with the article “Does freedom of thought and conscience exist in Orthodoxy?”, which appeared shortly before the Second World War. “It turns out,” wrote Berdyaev, “that the defense of Christian democracy and human freedom is unacceptable for a professor at the Theological Institute. The Orthodox professor should be the defender of Franco, who betrayed his fatherland to foreigners and drowned his people in blood. It is absolutely clear that the condemnation of G.P. Fedotov by the professors of the Theological Institute was precisely a political act that deeply compromised this institution.” Defending Fedotov, Berdyaev defended spiritual freedom, the moral ideals of the Russian intelligentsia, the universalism of the Gospel against narrowness and pseudo-traditionalism. According to him, “when they say that an Orthodox should be “nationally minded” and should not be an “intellectual,” they always want to preserve the old paganism that has entered into Orthodoxy, with which it has merged and does not want to be purified. People of this formation may be very “Orthodox,” but they are very little Christian. They even consider the Gospel to be a Baptist book. They do not like Christianity and consider it dangerous to their instincts and emotions. Everyday is paganism within Christianity.” These lines sounded especially poignant in connection with the growing tendency to consider only as part of the national heritage, regardless of the very essence of the Gospel. It was in this spirit that Charles Maurras, the founder of the Action France movement, who was later convicted of collaborating with the Nazis, spoke out in France.
Fedotov always emphasized that, as a cultural phenomenon, it stands on a par with paganism. Its uniqueness is in Christ and the Gospel. And it is in this spirit that every civilization based on Christianity, including Russian, should be assessed.
However, there were no conditions for a calm dialogue. Arguments were responded to with bullying. Only the students stood up for their professor, who was then in London, and sent him a letter expressing support.
But then war broke out and stopped all disputes. Trying to get to Arcachon to Berdyaev and Fondaminsky, Fedotov ended up on the island of Oleron along with Vadim Andreev, the son of a famous writer. As usual, work saved him from gloomy thoughts. Fulfilling his long-time dream, he began to translate biblical psalms into Russian.
Without a doubt, Fedotov would have shared the fate of his friends - mother Maria and Fondaminsky, who died in Nazi camps. But he was saved by the fact that the American Jewish Committee included his name in the lists of people whom the United States was ready to accept as refugees. Metropolitan Evlogy, who by that time had already reconciled with Fedotov, gave him his blessing to leave. With great difficulty, risking his life every now and then, Fedotov and his relatives reached New York. It was September 12, 1941.
Thus began the last, American, decade of his life and work. He first taught at the theological school at Yale University, and then became a professor at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary. Fedotov’s most significant work during this period was the book “Russian Religious Thought,” published in English. It is still awaiting its Russian publishers, although it is unknown whether its original has survived.
In the post-war years, Fedotov could see how his political forecasts were being realized. The victory over Nazism did not bring internal freedom to its main winner. Stalin's autocracy, having appropriated the fruits of the people's feat, seemed to be heading towards its zenith. Fedotov had to hear more than once that all this was the fate of Russia, that she knew only tyrants and slaves and therefore Stalinism was inevitable. However, Fedotov did not like political myths, even plausible ones. He refused to accept the idea that Russian history had programmed Stalin, that only despotism and subjugation could be found in the foundations of Russian culture. And his position, as always, was not just emotional, but was built on a serious historical foundation.
Shortly before his death, in 1950, he published an article “The Republic of Hagia Sophia” in the New York magazine “People’s Truth” (No. 11–12). It was dedicated to the democratic tradition of the Novgorod Republic.
Fedotov revealed the exceptional originality of the culture of Novgorod not only in the field of icon painting and architecture, but also in the socio-political field. For all its medieval flaws, the veche order was a very real “rule of the people,” reminiscent of the democracy of ancient Athens. “The Veche elected its entire government, not excluding the archbishop, controlled and judged it.” In Novgorod there was an institution of “chambers”, which collectively decided all the most important state affairs. The symbols of this Novgorod democracy were the Church of Hagia Sophia and the image of Our Lady of the Sign. It is no coincidence that legend connects the history of this icon with the struggle of the Novgorodians for their freedom. And it is no coincidence that Grozny dealt with Novgorod with such ruthlessness. His anger was even brought down on the famous veche bell - the emblem of ancient democracy.
“History,” concludes Fedotov, “judged the victory of another tradition in the Russian church and state. Moscow became the successor to both Byzantium and the Golden Horde, and the autocracy of the tsars was not only a political fact, but also a religious doctrine, for many almost a dogma. But when history has finished with this fact, it is time to remember the existence of another major fact and another doctrine in the same Russian Orthodoxy. Orthodox supporters of democratic Russia can draw inspiration from this tradition.” Fedotov opposes the political domination of the Church and theocracy. “Every theocracy,” he writes, “is fraught with the danger of violence against the conscience of the minority. Separate, albeit friendly coexistence of church and state is the best solution for today. But, looking back into the past, one cannot help but admit that within the Eastern Orthodox world, Novgorod found the best solution to the ever-worrying question of the relationship between the state and the church.”
This essay became, as it were, the spiritual testament of Georgy Petrovich Fedotov. On September 1, 1951, he died. Then hardly anyone could have imagined that the day of the end of Stalinism was not far off. But Fedotov believed in the meaningfulness of the historical process. He believed in the victory of humanity, spirit and freedom. He believed that no dark forces could stop the flow that flows to us from early Christianity and Holy Rus', which adopted its ideals.
Archpriest Alexander Men
Introduction
The study of Russian holiness in its history and its religious phenomenology is now one of the urgent tasks of our Christian and national revival. In Russian saints we honor not only the heavenly patrons of holy and sinful Russia: in them we seek revelation of our own spiritual path. We believe that every people has its own religious calling, and, of course, it is most fully realized by its religious geniuses. Here is a path for all, marked by milestones of the heroic asceticism of a few. Their ideal has nourished the life of the people for centuries; All Rus' lit their lamps at their fire. If we are not deceived in the belief that the entire culture of a people is ultimately determined by its religion, then in Russian holiness we will find the key that explains much in the phenomena of modern, secularized Russian culture. Setting ourselves the grandiose task of its ecclesiasticalization, its reincorporation into the body of the universal Church, we are obliged to specify the universal task of Christianity: to find that special branch on the Vine that is marked by our name: the Russian branch of Orthodoxy.
Successful resolution of this problem (of course, in practice, in spiritual life) will save us from a big mistake. We will not equate, as we often do, Russian with Orthodox, realizing that the Russian theme is a particular theme, and the Orthodox is a comprehensive one, and this will save us from spiritual pride, which often distorts Russian national-religious thought. On the other hand, awareness of our personal historical path will help us concentrate on it the most organized efforts possible, saving us, perhaps, from the fruitless waste of energy on alien roads that are beyond our strength.
Currently, a complete confusion of concepts in this area prevails among the Russian Orthodox society. Usually they compare the spiritual life of modern, post-Petrine Russia, our eldership or our folk foolishness, with the “Philokalia”, that is, with the asceticism of the ancient East, easily throwing a bridge across millennia and bypassing the completely unknown or supposedly known holiness of Ancient Rus'. Strange as it may seem, the task of studying Russian holiness as a special tradition of spiritual life was not even set. This was prevented by a prejudice that was and is shared by the majority of both Orthodox people and people hostile to the Church: the prejudice of uniformity, the immutability of spiritual life. For some, this is a canon, a patristic norm; for others, it is a stencil that deprives the topic of holiness of scientific interest. Of course, spiritual life in Christianity has some general laws, or better yet, norms. But these norms do not exclude, but require the separation of methods, exploits, and callings. In Catholic France, which is currently developing a huge hagiographical production, the school of Joly (author of a book on the “psychology of holiness”) dominates, which studies individuality in the saint - in the conviction that grace does not force nature. It is true that Catholicism, with its characteristic specifications in all areas of spiritual life, directly attracts attention to a specific individual. In Orthodoxy, the traditional, the general prevails. But this generality is given not in faceless schemes, but in living personalities. We have evidence that the iconographic faces of many Russian saints are basically portraits, although not in the sense of a realistic portrait. The personal in life, as in the icon, is given in subtle features, in shades: this is the art of nuances. That is why the researcher here requires much more keen attention, critical caution, and subtle, jewellery, than for a researcher of Catholic holiness. Then only behind the type, the “stencil”, the “stamp” will a unique appearance appear.
The enormous difficulty of this task depends on the fact that the individual is revealed only against the clear background of the general. In other words, knowledge of the hagiography of the entire Christian world, primarily the Orthodox, Greek and Slavic East, is necessary in order to have the right to judge the special Russian character of holiness. None of the Russian church and literary historians has so far been sufficiently equipped for such work. That is why the proposed book, which can only rely on the results of finished works in very few points, is only a rough sketch, rather a program for future research, so important for the spiritual tasks of our time.
The material for this work will be the hagiographic hagiographic literature of Ancient Rus' available to us. The lives of saints were the favorite reading of our ancestors. Even laymen copied or ordered hagiographic collections for themselves. Since the 16th century, in connection with the growth of Moscow national consciousness, collections of purely Russian lives have appeared. Metropolitan Macarius of Grozny, with a whole staff of literate employees, collected ancient Russian writing for more than twenty years into a huge collection of the Great Four Menaions, in which the lives of the saints took pride of place. Among the best writers of Ancient Rus', Nestor the Chronicler, Epiphanius the Wise and Pachomius Logothet devoted their pens to the glorification of saints. Over the centuries of its existence, Russian hagiography has gone through different forms and known different styles. Formed in close dependence on the Greek, rhetorically developed and decorated, life (model - Symeon Metaphrast of the 10th century), Russian hagiography, perhaps, bore its best fruits in the south of Kiev. The few, however, monuments of the pre-Mongol era combine the richness of a specific scripture and the distinctness of personal characteristics with a lush verbal culture. The first shoots of hagiographic literature in the north before and after the Mongol pogrom have a completely different character: these are brief, poor in both rhetoric and factual details, records - rather a canvas for future tales than ready-made hagiographies. V. O. Klyuchevsky suggested a connection between these monuments and the kontakion of the sixth song of the canon, after which the life of the saint is read on the eve of his memory. In any case, the opinion about the folk origin of the most ancient northern Russian lives (Nekrasov, partly Shevyrev) has long been abandoned. The nationality of the language of some lives is a secondary phenomenon, a product of literary decline. From the beginning of the 15th century, Epiphanius and the Serb Pachomius created a new school in northern Rus' - undoubtedly under Greek and South Slavic influences - a school of artificially decorated, extensive life. They - especially Pachomius - created a stable literary canon, a magnificent “weaving of words”, which Russian scribes strive to imitate until the end of the 17th century. In the era of Macarius, when many ancient inexperienced hagiographic records were being redone, the works of Pachomius were included in the Chetya Menaion intact. The vast majority of these hagiographic monuments are strictly dependent on their samples. There are lives almost entirely copied from the ancients; others develop generalities while eschewing precise biographical information. This is what hagiographers involuntarily do, separated from the saint by a long period of time - sometimes centuries, when the popular tradition dries up. But the general law of the hagiographic style, similar to the law of icon painting, is also at work here: it requires the subordination of the particular to the general, the dissolution of the human face in the heavenly glorified face. A writer-artist or a devoted disciple of a saint, who has taken up his work over his fresh grave, knows how to paint a few personal features with a thin brush, sparingly but accurately. A late writer or a conscientious worker works according to “original originals,” refraining from the personal, unstable, and unique. Given the general stinginess of ancient Russian literary culture, it is not surprising that most researchers despair at the poverty of Russian lives. In this regard, Klyuchevsky’s experience is characteristic. He knew Russian hagiography like no one else before or after him. He studied the manuscripts of up to 150 lives in 250 editions - and as a result of many years of research he came to the most pessimistic conclusions. With the exception of a few monuments, the rest of Russian hagiographic literature is poor in content, most often representing literary development or even copying of traditional types. In view of this, the “poor historical content of the life” cannot be used without preliminary complex work of criticism. Klyuchevsky’s experience (1871) scared Russian researchers away from the “ungrateful” material for a long time. Meanwhile, his disappointment depended to a large extent on his personal approach: he was looking in life not for what it promises to provide as a monument to spiritual life, but for materials for studying an alien phenomenon: the colonization of the Russian North. As soon as 30 years after Klyuchevsky, one secular provincial scientist set his topic to the study of religious and moral trends, and Russian lives were illuminated in a new way for him. Based precisely on the study of patterns, A. Kadlubovsky could discern differences in spiritual directions in the slightest changes in patterns and outline the lines of development of theological schools. True, he did this only for one and a half to two centuries of the Moscow era (XV-XVI), but for the most important centuries in the history of Russian holiness. One must be surprised that the example of the Warsaw historian did not find imitators among us. In the last pre-war decades, the history of Russian life had many well-armed workers in our country. Mostly either regional groups (Vologda, Pskov, Pomeranian) or hagiological types (“holy princes”) were studied. But their study continued to remain external, literary and historical, without sufficient attention to the problems of holiness as a category of spiritual life. It remains for us to add that work on Russian hagiography is extremely difficult due to the lack of publications. Of the 150 lives, or 250 editions, known to Klyuchevsky (and after him others unknown to him were found), no more than fifty, mostly ancient monuments, were printed. A. Kadlubovsky gives an incomplete list of them. Starting from the middle of the 16th century, that is, just from the heyday of hagiographic production in Moscow, almost all the material lies in manuscripts. No more than four hagiographic monuments received scientific publications; the rest are reprints of random, not always the best, manuscripts. As before, the researcher is chained to old pre-print collections scattered in the libraries of Russian cities and monasteries. The original literary material of antiquity has been replaced by later adaptations and translations. But these transcriptions are far from complete. Even in the Four Menaions of St. Demetrius of Rostov, Russian hagiographic material is presented extremely sparingly. For the majority of domestic ascetics, St. Demetrius refers to the “Prologue,” which gives only abbreviated lives, and even then not for all the saints. A pious lover of Russian hagiography can find a lot of interesting things for himself in the twelve volumes of A. N. Muravyov’s transcriptions, written - this is their main advantage - often from handwritten sources. But for scientific work, especially in view of the above-mentioned nature of Russian life, transcriptions, of course, are not suitable. Under such conditions, it is clear that our modest work abroad in Russia cannot satisfy strict scientific requirements. We are only trying, following Kadlubovsky, to introduce new light into Russian hagiography, that is, to pose new problems - new for Russian science, but very old in essence, because they coincide with the meaning and idea of hagiography itself: the problems of spiritual life. Thus, in the analysis of the difficulties of Russian hagiographic science, as in almost every Russian cultural problem, the main tragedy of our historical process is revealed. Silent “Holy Rus'”, in its isolation from the sources of the verbal culture of antiquity, failed to tell us about the most important thing - about its religious experience. The new Russia, armed with the entire apparatus of Western science, passed indifferently past the very topic of “Holy Rus'”, not noticing that the development of this topic ultimately determines the fate of Russia.
To conclude this introductory chapter, it is necessary to make a few comments regarding the canonization of Russian saints. This particular theme has been lucky in Russian literature. We have two studies: Vasiliev and Golubinsky, which have shed enough light on this previously dark area. Canonization is the establishment by the Church of veneration of a saint. The act of canonization - sometimes solemn, sometimes silent - does not mean defining the heavenly glory of the ascetic, but addresses the earthly Church, calling for the veneration of the saint in the forms of public worship. The Church knows about the existence of unknown saints, whose glory has not been revealed on earth. The Church has never prohibited private prayer, that is, asking for prayer from the departed righteous who were not glorified by it. This prayer of the living for the departed and the prayer of the departed, which presupposes the reciprocal prayer of the departed for the living, expresses the unity of the heavenly and earthly Church, that “communion of saints” about which the “apostolic” creed speaks. The canonized saints represent only a clearly, liturgically outlined circle at the center of the heavenly Church. In Orthodox liturgics, a significant difference between canonized saints and other deceased people is that prayers are served to saints, not funeral services. Added to this is the remembrance of their names at various moments of the service, sometimes the establishment of holidays for them, with the compilation of special services, that is, variable prayers of the service. In Rus', as indeed throughout the Christian world, popular veneration usually (although not always) precedes church canonization. The Orthodox people currently honor many saints who have never enjoyed the cult of the church. Moreover, a strict definition of the circle of canonized saints of the Russian Church encounters great difficulties. These difficulties depend on the fact that, in addition to general canonization, the Church also knows local canonization. By general, in this case, we – not entirely correctly – mean national, that is, in essence, also local veneration. Local canonization can be either diocesan or narrower, limited to a separate monastery or church where the relics of the saint are buried. The latter, that is, narrowly local forms of church canonization often approach folk ones, since they are sometimes established without proper permission from the church authorities, are interrupted for a while, are resumed again and raise insoluble questions. All lists, calendars, indexes of Russian saints, both private and official, disagree, sometimes quite significantly, in the number of canonized saints. Even the latest synodal publication (however, not official, but only official) - “The Faithful Monthly Book of Russian Saints” of 1903 - is not free from errors. He gives a total number of 381. With a correct understanding of the meaning of canonization (and prayer to the saints), controversial issues of canonization largely lose their urgency, just as the cases of decanonization known in the Russian Church, that is, the prohibition of the veneration of already glorified saints, cease to be confusing. Princess Anna Kashinskaya, canonized in 1649, was removed from the list of Russian saints in 1677, but restored under Emperor Nicholas II. The reason for the decanonization was the real or imaginary two-fingered folding of her hand, used by the Old Believers. For the same reason, St. Euphrosyne of Pskov, an ardent champion of the double “Hallelujah,” was transferred from generally revered to locally revered. There are also other, less remarkable cases, especially frequent in the 18th century. Church canonization, an act addressed to the earthly Church, is guided by religious, pedagogical, and sometimes national and political motives. The choice it establishes (and canonization is just a choice) does not claim to coincide with the dignity of the heavenly hierarchy. That is why, along the paths of the historical life of a people, we see how the heavenly patrons change in their even church consciousness; some centuries are painted in certain hagiographic colors, which subsequently fade. Now the Russian people have almost forgotten the names of Cyril of Belozersky and Joseph of Volotsky, two of the most revered saints of Muscovite Rus'. Both the northern hermits and the Novgorod saints turned pale for him, but in the era of the empire the veneration of St. Princes Vladimir and Alexander Nevsky. Perhaps only the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh shines with a never-fading light in the Russian sky, triumphing over time. But this change of favorite cults is a precious indicator of deep, often invisible germination or withering in the main directions of the religious life of the people. What are the ecclesiastical authorities that have the right of canonization? In the ancient Church, each diocese kept its own independent lists (diptychs) of martyrs and saints; the spread of veneration of some saints to the limits of the universal Church was a matter of free choice of all city - episcopal churches. Subsequently, the canonization process was centralized - in the West in Rome, in the East in Constantinople. In Rus', the Greek metropolitans of Kyiv and Moscow, naturally, retained the right of solemn canonization. There is even a single document known related to the canonization of Metropolitan Peter, from which it is clear that the Russian Metropolitan requested the Patriarch of Constantinople. There is no doubt, however, that in numerous cases of local canonization, bishops did without the consent of the metropolitan (of Moscow), although it is difficult to say what the prevailing rule was. From Metropolitan Macarius (1542–1563), the canonization of both generally revered and local saints became the task of councils under the metropolitan, later the Patriarch of Moscow. The time of Macarius - the youth of Ivan the Terrible - generally means a new era in Russian canonization. The unification of all Rus' under the scepter of the princes of Moscow, the crowning of Ivan IV as king, that is, his entry into the succession to the power of the Byzantine “ecumenical”, according to the idea of the Orthodox kings, unusually inspired the Moscow national-church identity. The expression of “holiness” and the high calling of the Russian land were its saints. Hence the need for the canonization of new saints, and for a more solemn glorification of the old ones. After the Makariev Councils of 1547–1549. the number of Russian saints almost doubled. Everywhere in the dioceses it was ordered to carry out a “search” about new wonderworkers: “Where are those wonderworkers who became famous for their great miracles and signs, from how many times and in what years.” Around the metropolitan and throughout the dioceses, a whole school of hagiographers worked, hastily compiling the lives of new miracle workers and reworking old ones in a solemn style that corresponded to new literary tastes. The Chetya Menaion of Metropolitan Macarius and his canonization councils represent two sides of the same church-national movement. The conciliar, and from the 17th century, the patriarchal power retained the right of canonization (exceptions occur for some local saints) until the time of the Holy Synod, which from the 18th century became the only canonization authority. Peter's legislation (Spiritual Regulations) treats new canonizations with more than restraint, although Peter himself canonized St. Vassian and Jonah Pertominsky in gratitude for saving them from a storm on the White Sea. The last two synodal centuries have been marked by extremely restrictive canonization practices. Before Emperor Nicholas II, only four saints were canonized. In the 18th century, there were frequent cases when diocesan bishops, by their own authority, stopped the veneration of local saints, even those canonized by the church. Only under Emperor Nicholas II, in accordance with the direction of his personal piety, canonizations followed one after another: seven new saints in one reign. The grounds for church canonization were and remain: 1) the life and feat of a saint, 2) miracles and 3) in some cases the incorruption of his relics.
The lack of information about the lives of the saints was an obstacle that made it difficult to canonize Saints Jacob Borovitsky and Andrew of Smolensk in the 16th century. But miracles triumphed over the doubts of the Moscow metropolitans and their investigators. Miracles in general are the main basis for canonization - although not the exclusive one. Golubinsky, who is generally inclined to attribute decisive importance to this second point, points out that church tradition has not preserved information about the miracles of St. Prince Vladimir, Anthony of Pechersk and many holy Novgorod bishops. As for the incorruption of relics, completely incorrect ideas have recently prevailed on this issue. The Church honors both the bones and the incorruptible (mummified) bodies of saints, now equally called relics. Based on a large material of chronicles, acts of examination of holy relics in old and new times, Golubinsky could give examples of the incorruptible (Prince Olga, Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky and his son Gleb, the Kiev Pechersk saints), corruptible (St. Theodosius of Chernigov, Seraphim of Sarov, etc. .) and partially incorruptible (St. Demetrius of Rostov, Theodosius of Totem) relics. Regarding some, the evidence is double or even suggests the later corruption of once incorruptible relics. The very word “relics” in Old Russian and Slavic meant bones and was sometimes contrasted with the body. About some saints it was said: “Lies in power,” and about others: “Lies in the body.” In the ancient language, “imperishable relics” meant “imperishable,” that is, bones that did not decay. There are not very rare cases of natural incorruption, that is, mummification of bodies that have nothing in common with saints: mass mummification in some cemeteries in Siberia, the Caucasus, in France - in Bordeaux and Toulouse, etc. Although the Church has always seen the incorruption of saints as a special gift God and the visible evidence of their glory, in Ancient Rus' did not require this miraculous gift from every saint. “Naked bones exude healing,” writes the learned Metropolitan Daniel (16th century). Only in the Synodal era did the misconception take root that all the reposeful relics of saints are incorruptible bodies. This error - partly an abuse - was first loudly refuted by Metropolitan Anthony of St. Petersburg and the Holy Synod during the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Despite the explanation of the Synod and the research of Golubinsky, the people continued to hold the same views, and therefore the results of the blasphemous opening of the relics by the Bolsheviks in 1919–1920. were a severe shock for many. Oddly enough, Ancient Rus' looked at this matter more soberly and wisely than the new “enlightened” centuries, when both enlightenment and church tradition suffered from mutual disunity.
The strengthening and spread of Christian doctrine in Ancient Rus' also presupposed the establishment of the cult of saints - both general Christians and Russians themselves. Saints are canonized, i.e. officially canonized, ascetic monks who have devoted their entire lives to serving God; martyrs who suffered for the faith; the saints who stood at the helm of the Russian Orthodox Church; secular rulers who, through their deeds in the name of faith, deserved church veneration.
The Orthodox Church teaches that the act of canonization itself does not change anything in the fate of a saint, for God’s judgment on him has already been completed. Canonization is much more important for the living. Indeed, through turning to the saint, through likening him, at least in part, a person becomes aware of the meaning of his earthly existence. And the main meaning, from the Orthodox point of view, was to earn the posthumous salvation of the soul with one’s earthly life. Therefore, the prayer addressed to the saint presupposed the heavenly protection of this saint for his spiritual children. “Heavenly man and spiritual angel” - this is how saints were called in Ancient Rus'.
And it is not for nothing that reading the lives of saints was an indispensable duty of every ancient Russian person. The lives of the saints gave a person strong moral guidelines in the real world around him, taught him to distinguish between truth and falsehood, good and evil, righteousness and sin. “The lives of saints,” wrote an ancient Russian scribe, “instill the fear of God in the soul... Those lives are visible, the sense of their deeds passes away, the cessation of the evil is contemplated; For this is the light of the lives of the saints and the enlightenment of our souls.”
Among the first Russian authors-hagiographers are the famous Nestor, Jacob Mnich, Simon, Bishop of Vladimir and the monk Polycarp (authors and compilers of the “Kievo-Pechersk Patericon”). Most of the lives did not preserve the names of their creators, and some lives did not survive at all. Thus, back in the 13th century, there was a life of Anthony of Pechersk, which was lost by the 16th century.
The veneration of icons also became an integral part of ancient Russian religious and philosophical consciousness. The meaning of the icon as a spiritual phenomenon was that it bore the image of the Lord or saint. And the very concept of image is one of the key concepts of the Orthodox worldview. In addition, an icon is also a doctrinal text designed to help comprehend Christian truth. And in general, the icon is a kind of window into the spiritual world. Hence its special language, where each sign is a symbol denoting something greater than itself.
Even in the ancient Christian church there was a struggle between icon worshipers and iconoclasts. And it is no coincidence that the victory of the icon venerators, approved at the VII Ecumenical Council and finally consolidated in 843, went down in history as the holiday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
Main part................................................ ................. 3
1. Prince Vladimir................................................... ................. 3
2. Boris and Gleb................................................... ....................... 5
3. Sergius of Radonezh................................................ ....... 9
Conclusion................................................. ......................... eleven
List of used literature................................... 11
Introduction
Every society, like every person, needs a bright spiritual ideal. Society needs it especially urgently in times of troubles. What serves us, the Russian people, as this spiritual ideal, the spiritual core, the force that for a whole millennium united Rus' in the face of invasions, unrest, wars and other global cataclysms?
There is no doubt that such a connecting force is Orthodoxy, but not in the form in which it came to Rus' from Byzantium, but in the form in which it acquired on Russian soil, taking into account the national, political and socio-economic characteristics of Ancient Rus'. Byzantine Orthodoxy came to Rus' with an already formed pantheon of Christian saints, for example, Nicholas the Wonderworker, John the Baptist and others, deeply revered to this day. By the 11th century, Christianity in Rus' was only taking its first steps and for many ordinary people of that time it was not yet a source of faith. After all, in order to recognize the holiness of the visiting saints, it was necessary to believe very deeply, to be imbued with the spirit of the Orthodox faith. It’s a completely different matter when before your eyes there is an example in the person of your own, Russian person, sometimes even a commoner, performing holy asceticism. At this point, the most skeptical person about Christianity will come to believe. Thus, by the end of the 11th century, a purely Russian pantheon of saints began to form, revered to this day on an equal basis with general Christian saints.
What made me take up writing a work on this topic was my interest in this period of time in Russian history, interest in the historical role of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as some unpopularity of this topic among students (with the possible exception of students of theological seminary). In addition, this topic is more relevant than ever in our time of transition, when many talk about Orthodox ideals and values, often without adhering to them, when the emphasis is only on the visible side of worshiping God, and when many of us do not live according to the commandments that formed the basis of Christianity .
Main part
The turbulent Russian history has brought forward many bright, extraordinary personalities.
Some of them, thanks to their ascetic activity in the field of Orthodoxy, thanks to their righteous life or deeds as a result of which the name of Russia acquired greatness and respect, were awarded the grateful memory of their descendants and canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
What kind of people were these, Russian saints? What was their contribution to history? What were their deeds?
Prince Vladimir
A special place both in Russian history and among the saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church is occupied by Prince Vladimir (? -1015 son of Prince Svyatoslav, Prince of Novgorod (from 969), Grand Duke of Kiev (from 980), who received the nickname Krasnoye in Russian epics Sunny, What is so remarkable about this prince and how did he take his place in the pantheon of Russian saints?
To answer these questions, it is necessary to analyze the situation that developed in Kievan Rus by the end of the 10th and beginning of the 11th centuries. During his lifetime, Prince Svyatoslav transferred the Kiev throne to his son Yaropolk, another son Oleg became the Drevlyan prince, and sent Vladimir to Novgorod.
In 972, with the death of Prince Svyatoslav, civil strife broke out between his sons. It all started with the fact that the Kiev governor essentially initiated the campaign against the Drevlyans, which ended in the victory of the Kyivans and the death of the Drevlyan prince Oleg. During the retreat, he fell into the fortress moat and was trampled by his own warriors. Having learned about these events, Prince Vladimir gathers Scandinavian mercenaries, kills his brother Yaropolk and seizes the Kiev throne. If Yaropolk was distinguished by religious tolerance, then Vladimir at the time of the conquest of power was a convinced pagan. After defeating his brother in 980, Vladimir built a pagan temple in Kyiv with idols of especially revered pagan gods, such as Perun, Khors, Dazhdbog, Stribog and others. In honor of the gods, games and bloody sacrifices with human sacrifices were organized. And Vladimir began to reign in Kiev alone, says the chronicle, and placed idols on the hill behind the tower courtyard: a wooden Perun with a silver head and a golden mustache, then Khors, Dazhdbog, Stirbog, Simargl and Mokosha. And they made sacrifices to them, calling them gods... And the Russian land and that hill were defiled with blood" (around 980). Not only those close to the prince, but also many townspeople treated this approvingly. And just a few years after the reign in Kiev, in 988-989, Vladimir himself accepted Christianity, and also converted his subjects to it. But how did a convinced pagan suddenly believe in Christ? It is unlikely that he was guided only by an understanding of the state benefits of Christianity.
Perhaps this was caused by repentance for the atrocities committed, fatigue from the wild life. Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev, monk Jacob and chronicler St. Nestor (11th century) named the reasons for Prince Vladimir’s personal conversion to the Christian faith, pointing out the action of the calling grace of God.
In his “Sermon on Law and Grace,” St. Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev, writes about Prince Vladimir: “A visit from the Most High came upon him, the All-Merciful Eye of the Good God looked upon him, and reason shone in his heart. He understood the vanity of idolatry’s delusion and sought the One God ", who created everything visible and invisible. And especially he always heard about the Orthodox, Christ-loving and faith-strong Greek land... Hearing all this, he was kindled in spirit and desired in his heart to be a Christian and to convert the whole Earth to Christianity."
At the same time, Vladimir, as an intelligent ruler, understood that a power consisting of separate principalities that were always at war with each other needed some kind of super-idea that would unite the Russian people and keep the princes from civil strife. On the other hand, in relations with Christian states, the pagan country turned out to be an unequal partner, with which Vladimir did not agree.
Regarding the question of the time and place of the Baptism of Prince Vladimir, there are several versions. According to the generally accepted opinion, Prince Vladimir was baptized in 998 in Korsun (Greek Chersonese in Crimea); according to the second version, Prince Vladimir was baptized in 987 in Kiev, and according to the third - in 987 in Vasilevo (not far from Kyiv, now Vasilkov). Apparently the second one should be considered the most reliable, since the monk Jacob and the Monk Nestor agree on the year 987; the monk Jacob says that Prince Vladimir lived 28 years after baptism (1015-28 = 987), and also that in the third year after baptism ( i.e. in 989) made a campaign against Korsun and took it; the chronicler Reverend Nestor says that Prince Vladimir was baptized in the year 6495 from the creation of the world, which corresponds to 987 from the Nativity of Christ (6695-5508 = 987). So, having decided to convert to Christianity, Vladimir captures Chersonesus and sends messengers to the Byzantine Emperor Vasily the Second demanding that he give him the emperor’s sister Anna as his wife. Otherwise, threatening to approach Constantinople. Vladimir was flattered to become related to one of the powerful imperial houses and, along with the adoption of Christianity, this was a wise step aimed at strengthening the state. The people of Kiev and residents of the southern and western cities of Rus' reacted calmly to baptism, which cannot be said about the northern and eastern Russian lands. For example, to conquer the Novgorodians, it even took an entire military expedition of the Kievites. The Christian religion was considered by the Novgorodians as an attempt to infringe on the ancient primordial autonomy of the northern and eastern lands.
In their eyes, Vladimir seemed to be an apostate who had violated ancestral liberties.
First of all, Prince Vladimir baptized 12 of his sons and many boyars. He ordered all the idols to be destroyed, the main idol, Perun, to be thrown into the Dnieper, and the clergy to preach a new faith in the city.
On the appointed day, a mass baptism of Kiev residents took place at the confluence of the Pochayna River into the Dnieper. “The very next day,” says the chronicler, “Vladimir with the Tsaritsyn and Korsun priests went out to the Dnieper, and countless people gathered there. Enter the water and stand there alone up to the neck, others up to the chest, the young ones near the shore up to the chest, some were holding babies, and the adults were wandering, while the priests were praying, standing still. And joy was visible in heaven and on earth over so many souls being saved... People , having been baptized, they went home. Vladimir was glad that he knew God and his people, looked at the sky and said: “Christ God, who created heaven and earth! Look at these new people and let them, Lord, know You, the true God, just as Christian countries have known You. Establish in them a right and unwavering faith and help me, Lord, against the devil, so that I may overcome his wiles, trusting in You and Your strength."
This most important event took place, according to the chronicle chronology accepted by some researchers, in 988, according to others - in 989-990. Following Kiev, Christianity gradually came to other cities of Kievan Rus: Chernigov, Novgorod, Rostov, Vladimir-Volynsky, Polotsk , Turov, Tmutarakan, where dioceses are created. Under Prince Vladimir, the overwhelming majority of the Russian population accepted the Christian faith and Kievan Rus became a Christian country. The Baptism of Rus' created the necessary conditions for the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church. Bishops headed by the Metropolitan arrived from Byzantium, and priests from Bulgaria brought with them liturgical books in the Slavic language; churches were built, schools were opened to train clergy from the Russian environment.
The chronicle reports (under 988) that Prince Vladimir “ordered to cut down churches and put them in the places where the idols had previously stood. And he built a church in the name of St. Basil on the hill where the idol of Perun and others stood and where the prince and others performed their services for them. people. And in other cities they began to build churches and appoint priests in them and bring people to Baptism in all cities and villages." With the help of Greek craftsmen, a majestic stone church in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Tithe) was built in Kiev and the saints were transferred to it relics of Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga. This temple symbolized the true triumph of Christianity in Kievan Rus and materially personified the “spiritual Russian Church.”