Experience shows that knowledge of dogmas and canons allows you to protect yourself from the influence of dangerous thoughts and people. By the way a person speaks about them (not to mention whether he observes them or not) it becomes clear whether he is in fact an Orthodox person. Even if outwardly everything is fine with him, but his attitude is the most negligent, “creative,” then sooner or later it turns out that he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Dogmas speak about God in relation to man and about man in relation to God. The canons regulate the life of the Church and Christians in the disciplinary legal and moral sense. The canon (in the sense of church law) is the fundamental church law that applies throughout the entire Orthodox Church.

There is always an immutable dogmatic point in the idea of ​​a canon. However, in the literal sense, the canon reflects the transitory circumstances of the life of the Church.

The canons are not subject to repeal, but their legal norms are not absolute. Moreover, in the rules themselves one can find an indication of flexibility. A canon may no longer apply because the relationship it regulates has disappeared. At the same time, the rule of the canon can serve as a guide: thus, an indication of the age of deaconesses that do not currently exist (40 years) forms the basis for reasoning about the age of a woman appointed to existing church positions.

The canons, even if they are no longer applied, in any case remain the criteria of church legislation and the basis of church legal consciousness. The canon is a pointer to the correct orientation in current problems church life.

Church knowledge can be divided into four areas:

• dogmas - clear church definitions;
• canons - regulations for the life of the Church and Christians;
• liturgical tradition regulating the liturgical life of the Church;
• Orthodox asceticism is the experience of communion with God, the basic laws of spiritual life and a deep ascetic apparatus designed to help build an Orthodox personal form of spiritual life.

Dogmas about God and His general relationship to the world and man, For example:

1. God exists.

1. original (does not come from anyone or anything, has existence in itself), immutable (“I am the Lord, I do not change” (Mal. 3:6)), eternal (does not depend on time), immeasurable and omnipresent (see, for example, Psalm 138) – so-called. apophatic properties based on the denial of certain qualities inherent in the finite creature;
2. possesses divine intelligence and wisdom, omniscience. God is holy (i.e., guided by the idea of ​​one supreme good). God is omnipotent (Genesis 17, Luke 1:37) and all-blessed, good, and merciful. God is love. And, at the same time, God is fair.

1. God is the Creator of the world. God created the world out of nothing. God created the world with reason and wisdom, will and word. There was no time before God. God created a perfect world.
2. God is the Provider of the world, i.e. cares for the world, preserves it and rules it.

Dogmas about God, Trinity in Persons, For example:

1. God is one in essence, but trinity in persons - Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Trinity consubstantial and indivisible (Three independent Persons possessing all perfections, but not three Gods, but God).
2. The three Persons of the Trinity differ in their personal properties: the Father is not begotten of anyone, the Son is begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

Dogmas about God as Creator and Provider for the spiritual world, For example:

1. good angels - ministering spirits who serve God, nations, individuals, churches;
2. evil spirits - fallen angels, live in the air, constantly looking for how to destroy a person. The Lord allows and limits their activities.

Dogmas about the relationship of God, as Creator and Provider, to man, For example:

1. Man is created in the image and likeness of God.
2. Only three persons in the entire history of mankind originated in a special way - Adam, Eve and our Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone else came from Adam and Eve.
3. A person consists of soul and body.
4. The soul is a higher, spiritual, independent, rational, conscious, free, immortal essence.

Dogmas about God the Savior and His special relationship to the human race, For example:

1. The sin of the forefathers (Adam and Eve) is on all their descendants, i.e. all people. This is universal, original sin.
2. Consequences of the Fall: rupture of communion with God, loss of grace, spiritual death, darkening of the mind, perversion of the will, inclination towards evil rather than good, distortion of the image of God.
3. All creation, through the fall of man, interrupted communication with God, and is tormented to this day (Rom. 8:22).
4. The Lord through His Son was pleased to save people. The Son accomplished this salvation. The Holy Spirit, by His assistance, accomplishes the work of salvation in the hearts of people.

Dogmas about Christ the Savior, For example:

1. The Lord Jesus Christ is the true God.
2. The Lord Jesus Christ is a true but sinless Man, born supernaturally from the Virgin Mary through the action of the Holy Spirit.
3. We are all redeemed by His death and resurrection.
4. Jesus Christ conquered and destroyed hell.
5. Having defeated death by His resurrection, Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, thereby ascending human nature into heaven and thereby opening the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven for all people.

Dogmas of Sanctification For example:

1. Without Divine help, people cannot be saved.
2. Grace is a special uncreated Divine power.
3. Grace reaches us in the Hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, which is why it is often called the power of the Holy Spirit (although it belongs to all the Persons of the Trinity).
4. Grace is given to people as a result of the feat of Jesus Christ.
5. Grace does not change human nature, but transforms it.

Dogmas about the Holy Church, For example:

1. The Church is a mediator in the matter of sanctification and salvation, founded by our Lord Jesus Christ.
2. There is no salvation outside the Church.
3. Head of the Church – Jesus Christ
4. The Holy Spirit works in the Church.
5. The Church is holy, united, catholic, apostolic.

Dogmas about the Sacraments of the Church, For example:

1. The sacraments are sacred actions through which grace acts on a person in a secret way, i.e. the saving power of God (Long Catechism).
2. The celebrant of the Sacraments is Jesus Christ himself.
3. The Sacrament is valid subject to faith in Christ and the saving power of the Sacraments, and a sincere desire to accept grace.
4. Baptism is performed only once.
5. In the Sacrament of the Eucharist, wine and bread are transformed into the Blood and Body of Christ.
6. The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving, propitiation and unification of the entire Church into the Body of Christ.
7. Repentance cures sins.

Dogmas about the Sacrament of the Priesthood:

priesthood is a divine institution, presupposes election from above, and is accomplished through ordination (laying on of hands).

Dogmas about God as Judge and Rewarder:

1. The body is mortal, the soul is immortal.
2. After bodily death, everyone faces a private trial and retribution until the Last Judgment.
3. Retribution after a private trial is just an expectation of bliss or torment. Divine Liturgy, prayers, alms, fasting can change the fate of the deceased.

Dogmas of the General Court:

1. Only God knows the time of the Second Coming.
2. Before the General Judgment, only the soul (not the body) receives reward, both the righteous and sinners are in anticipation (anticipation) of well-deserved bliss or torment; sinners have a chance that, through the prayers of the Church, their fate will change.
3. The Second Coming will be in glory and majesty.
4. The resurrection of the dead will be real, universal and simultaneous, in identical bodies.
5. The living will change instantly and simultaneously.
6. Sinners will be given over to eternal torment along with the devil, the righteous will forever inherit the Kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). Once again: both are forever.>

DOGMATS OF CHRISTIANITY

...Now we see

as if through a mirror,

in a riddle.

Corinthians 1, ch.13

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

To view the matter correctly, one must return to the truth. the original meaning of the word. According to the Greek dictionary "DOGMA" (in plural"DOGMA" is an "opinion", "decree", "decision". IN church history DOGMA are decisions and decrees of councils on issues of the doctrine of faith. These decrees were caused by the emergence of “heresies” - false teachings that claimed to be universal recognition, which have become the subject of controversy and division. Those who have closely studied the history of the councils speak of far from inspiring phenomena: the dominance of imperial power, which sought forced unity state religion; court intrigues, personal quarrels; fanatical persecution of dissidents on both sides... Here is a living and very authoritative testimony:

"...To tell the truth, I decided to avoid any meeting of bishops altogether. I have never seen a single example of such a council doing any good, or not doing more harm than good. Dissent and ambition reign in them (don’t think that I express myself too harshly) to an incredible degree" (St. Gregory the Theologian, Letter). But despite all the historical sins and abuses, the authority of some councils subsequently became generally recognized and they were called “ecumenical.” The ancient “undivided” Church had only SEVEN such generally recognized, ecumenical councils. Their decisions on issues of doctrine are the essence of the DOGMA of our Eastern Christianity. So, , must first clear up an important misunderstanding: dogmas are not " mystical facts", as they are sometimes expressed in the most lofty manner about them; DOGMATS ARE NOT FACTS, BUT WORDS, resolutions of councils regarding heresies. If there were no heresies, there would be no dogmas.

After the so-called "division of churches" in the West, the compilation of dogmas continued. Catholics and Protestants denounced each other and issued lengthy statements of faith, obligatory separately for all Catholics and for all Protestants. Among the Catholics, this dogmatic creativity resulted in a detailed system of creeds. In the last century, Catholics accepted the dogma that the Pope, even without a council, can alone make decisions on matters of faith. More recently, Pope Pius XII took advantage of this right and composed a new dogma on the bodily Ascension Mother of God... I do not consider it necessary to consider these later Catholic and Protestant dogmas: it is clear that they do not have general Christian significance. Another thing is the dogmas of the ancient “undivided” Church: they are recognized by Catholics, and in general, I believe, by all Christians. I will remember these DOGMA in order.

The first dogma of Christianity was adopted at the council of 325 against the heresy of Arianism. The dogma is set out in ancient form“Symbol” - a confession of faith, which was read during the so-called “catechumen”, preparation for receiving the sacrament of holy Baptism:

into one GOD

Almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth,

visible to all and invisible.

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

"... His friend Reginald asked him to return to his books and join in the debate. Then St. Thomas said with amazing emotion: “I can no longer write.” Reginald did not leave, and St. Thomas answered with more greater strength: “I cannot write. I have seen things before which all my writings are like straw” (G, Chesterton, “St. Thomas Aquinas”). Unfortunately, I have no quotations on this topic from the works of the great mystics of Eastern Christianity. Here is just one passage - the testimony of St. Simeon the New Theologian (11th century). “GOD is known to us as much as someone can see the boundless sea, standing on its edge at night with a small lit candle in his hands. How much, do you think, will he see from the entire boundless sea? Of course, a little or almost nothing. For all that, he sees that water well and knows that in front of him is the sea, that the sea is boundless and that he cannot embrace it all with his gaze. This is also the case with regard to our knowledge of God" (quoted from the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1958, no. 1, p.57).

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

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

The symbol of the “Creator” does not, of course, contain any concept of the “way” of creating the world. Natural sciences and the first pages of the Bible speak of natural Evolution. One could not even argue with the dogma of materialism about the eternity and spatial infinity of the physical world - that is, in essence, about its fundamental incomprehensibility. For such a mysterious Cosmos would correspond to the greatness of GOD, who creates time and eternity. But it is heard that the latest physics directly speaks about the temporal and spatial finitude of the physical universe.

“Sky”, “invisible” - these symbols remind us of the non-material planes of existence. “Therefore, we do not lose heart, but even if our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light suffering produces eternal glory in an immeasurable abundance, when we look not at what is visible, but at what is unseen: for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (Corinthians II, chapter 4). We "look" at the unseen - we HOPE for the unseen. There are different ways of thinking about the "teachings" of hierarchy. Heavenly Powers ethereal. The presence of a Guardian Angel is a personal spiritual experience for many Christians.

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

Then - the main content of the dogma:

... And in one Lord

Jesus Christ

The only begotten Son of God,

before all ages.

Light from light,

God is true from God is true,

born, not created,

consubstantial with the Father,

It's all up to them.

For our sake, people,

and ours for the sake of salvation

descended from heaven

and incarnate

from the Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary

and becoming human.

Crucified for us

under Pontius Pilate,

and suffered and was buried.

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

And ascended to heaven,

And sitting at the right hand of the Father.

And more of the future

With glory

judge the living and the dead,

There will be no end to his reign.

In the first edition of the dogma there were also these words (quoted from the “History of the Ancient Church” by Abbot L. Duchesne, vol. II, 1914, p. 101):

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

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

But turning to the positive interpretation of the text of the dogma, we see its outright inconsistency. “We believe in one God,” but after this we confess faith in Christ - “true God from true God”... TWO GODS? Behind this verbal inconsistency was meant the PHILOSOPHICAL doctrine of the pre-eternal “Logos” and the distinction in God of a “single essence” and three “hypostases” or “persons”. By the end of the 1st century, when the general, “ecumenical” recognition of the dogma became clear,

“The Church has already found those formulas in which henceforth it began to express its view of the relationship between the concepts of the unity of the Divinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Divinity revealed in Jesus Christ is completely identical with the one God whom Christianity professes; the Divinity of Christ is different from Him, however, one, of course, incomprehensible feature, which in the New Testament, which guides the Church, is expressed in the similarity of the relationship between patronymic and sonship.From this follows the difference in persons, as they said in the West, or in hypostases, as they expressed it in the East. To two hypostases , or Persons, the Father and the Son, is added in the same way of distinction by a third hypostasis or person - the Holy Spirit. This is how the theological Trinity was formed - this was formulated in the philosophical language of that time Christian tradition, is formulated as clearly as it is possible to express such a mystery." (Abbé L. Duchesne, op. cit., p. 399). However, for common man(judging by myself) the philosophical understanding of the Trinity is completely unacceptable, and this can lead to the greatest despondency. Where is the simplicity of the Gospel, why has the Christian faith become so complicated? Why in spiritual Christian life these painful MENTAL efforts? The efforts are fruitless - nothing comes of them, some wild ideas arise of some kind of “symmetrical model” of God, as a Being with three faces... What should we think about all this?

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

"... The Divinity is comprehended not in the categories of reason, but in the relations of spiritual life. The Trinity of the Divinity is completely inaccessible to rational thinking, to logical concept. Reason cannot develop any logical concept of the trinity of the Divine. A mind not enlightened by faith naturally strives for monism or dualism, and it is disturbed and even outraged by the mythological nature of the Christian Trinity; it is ready to see polytheism in it. The Christian Divine Trinity is a mythologem. About the Trinity, only a myth and a symbol are possible, but not a concept. But this myth and this symbol reflect and depict not my religious feelings and experiences, as the newest symbolists of the subjective-idealistic type think, but the very depth of being, the deepest secrets of existing life. Only in the Trinity Godhead is there inner life escaping concepts. It is also impossible to formulate any concept of the Theanthropic nature of Christ "... ("Philosophy of the Free Spirit", part 1, underlined by me). So, the philosopher himself refuses a rational explanation of the first dogma of Christianity. And it should already be clear to everyone that no rationalization is impossible in relation to the most important thing in the dogma - the mystery of the Person of Jesus Christ. First, the Creed speaks of the “pre-human" existence of the Son of God (although this very concept of “Son” is a human concept). Then - “and becoming human” ; in the Latin text of the Symbol - “and became man”... Here comes the main “iconographic" contradiction, already noted above in the chapter on the Gospels. If Christ on earth maintains PERSONAL UNITY with the eternal Son of God - REMEMBERS everything, KNOWS everything - then everything His human experiences and suffering turn out to be illusory... It would be most realistic to imagine Christ on earth as a Man Who “forgot” about His pre-eternity, Who only had the powerful intuition of God’s Sonship. Only in this way would the words of the Symbol be fulfilled: “and he became a Man.” But this would contradict not only the Gospel icons, but also the very Creed, for this would violate the PERSONAL UNITY of the eternal Son of God and the Man Jesus... The Mystery of the Personality of Christ is super-intelligent.

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

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

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

"The theme of God-manhood is the main theme of Christianity. I would prefer to say not God-manhood - the expression favored by Vladimir Solovyov - but God-manhood. Christianity is anthropocentric. It heralds the liberation of man from power Space Force and spirits. It presupposes faith not only in God, but also in man, and this differs from abstract monotheism, Judaism and Islam, from Brahmanism. It must be said decisively that Christianity is not a monistic and monarchical religion, it is a God-human and Trinitarian religion. But the vital dialectic between Divinity and humanity was so complex that the human was often humiliated in the history of Christianity. In the historical fate of God-humanity, the Divine absorbed the human, and the human absorbed the Divine. The very dogma of the Divine-Humanity of Jesus Christ expressed the mystery of the Divine-Humanity, the union of two natures without confusion or identity. It was a symbolic expression of the secret. But the monarchical and monistic tendency has always existed in Christian history and sometimes prevailed.

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

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

The new soul came to know freedom - the quest and temptations of freedom and slavery from freedom - in such acuteness, in such depth that previous Christian souls did not know. The human soul has not improved, but has become very complex and expanded, and this corresponds to a different consciousness.

The man became less whole, more divided, and new disturbing questions arose before him. Catechisms do not answer these questions. In world culture, in literature and philosophy, people of the prophetic type appeared, such as Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Vl. Soloviev, L. Blois and others. The fathers and teachers of the Church, scholastic theologians cannot answer the topics they pose. prophetic fire has always been a regenerating force in a numb, chilled spiritual life. Another reviving force was mysticism.

For the topic of the relationship between the Divine and the human, the mystic is very complex. Some types of mystics have a bias towards monism, towards the recognition of one nature, towards the extinction of human nature in the Divinity. Such is all quietism. For the dialectic of God-humanity, Jansenism is interesting. We find the classic image of mystical monism in the religious philosophy of India. This is also the religious philosophy of Shankara, for whom our soul - Brahman, the One - is opposed to all origin and formation. The most remarkable of modern Indian philosophers, Orobindo, teaches that we must abandon the idea that we are the authors of our actions - the universal acts through the personality. Impersonality is a condition for union with the Divine; it is necessary to achieve impersonality and indifference. The soul is a particle of the Divine.

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

Another extract from the same place:

"...A static understanding of God cannot be preserved. Christian God, the God of the religion of crucified Truth, can only be understood dynamically. In God there is a dynamic process taking place in eternity. This should not be understood in such a way that God depends on the world and the process occurring in the world, but in such a way that the process occurring in the world is internally connected with what is happening in eternity, and not in time, with the process in God, that is, with the Divine drama. And only because of this, what happens to the world and man receives a higher meaning. The world and man, which God did not need for anything, would be an accident and thereby would be deprived of all meaning. We must boldly recognize God's need for man, and this need does not limit God at all; stony immobility and self-sufficiency would limit and humiliate Him. In God there is longing for the beloved and this gives the highest meaning to the beloved. Faith in God is faith in the highest Truth, rising above the untruths of the world. But this Truth requires the creative participation of man and the world, it is God-human, ideal humanity operates in it”...

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

The philosopher discusses the relationship “between the Divine and the human in general,” but does not touch upon the personal mystery of Jesus Christ. Below are some more comments on the text of the first dogma of Christianity.

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

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

“...What is the purpose of the incarnate economy of God the Word, which is preached throughout the Divine Scripture, but which we, reading this Scripture, do not know? None other than this, so that by partaking of what is ours, we will become participants in what is His. The Son of God became the Son of Man for this purpose, in order to make us, men, sons of God, elevating our race by grace into what He Himself is by nature, giving birth to us from above by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and immediately leading us into the Kingdom of Heaven, or, better yet, say, granting us to have this Heavenly Kingdom within us (Luke XUII, 21), so that we, not only with the hope of entering into it, but having already been brought into possession of it, cry out: “our life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. III,3)…

This is how the holy teachers wrote, for whom SALVATION had already “begun” in their especially enlightened spiritual life. SALVATION does not fit into this existence; it is the aspiration of the future century, our destiny in the mysterious Eternity. We can only have a presentiment of SALVATION in the rarest moments of spiritual uplift, in the prayers and sacraments of the Church, as well as in the sacraments of practical life - when Christ is depicted among us.

“And the Virgin Mary”... Thank God - I have successfully gotten over the topic of Ever-Virginity, it seems to me unimportant. For many Christians this is an inviolable Shrine. But I can completely understand others who, on the contrary, are very confused, are directly seduced by analogies in pagan myths and believe that faith in a biological miracle cannot be made an indispensable condition for Christianity. Indeed, this is a difficult and, it seems, unnecessary obstacle on the path of faith for modern man. Referring to the speculation of Rev. John of Damascus, our Catechism claims that the birth of Christ was also “painless”... How do they know this? In an effort to glorify the Mother of God, they free Her from maternal suffering! Former seminarians recall one blessed rector who recently taught about the painless birth of Christ: “as if brought by the wind”... The ancient heretics, the Docetes (from the Greek “to seem”), who taught about the unreal, illusory, “would have agreed with this.” the apparent" physicality of Christ. By the way. It is precisely against this heresy that the words of the Symbol are directed: “she suffered and was buried.” Christ suffered and died like us; nothing terrible if He had been born in everything like us. Blessed Jerome wrote about the Nativity of Christ:

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

("On Mary's Ever-Virginity"). So, the complete naturalness of birth does not at all prevent us from honoring the Mother and Child. This fundamental position can be expanded today. B. Pasternak wrote in his novel: “every conception is immaculate” - because the sacred service of Motherhood begins with it... There are people who think differently - that every conception is VICIOUS, because it is associated with the satisfaction of bodily desire, and this is a SIN. Is not it? Then, after all, every eating of food, and quenching thirst, and even our very breathing is all a SIN? Yes, everything bodily is sinful: this is what the ancient heresies and “deviations” of Christianity taught, which secretly live in it today. But there is a church SACRAMENT of marriage. There is the greatest mystery of life - the mystery of sex, and there are possibilities in it of both very evil and sinful, and very good and even sacred content. And does the reverence that everyone experiences before the sacred memory of HIS MOTHER - does it offend at least in the least from the consideration that our birth did not take place supernaturally? Looking from here on the topic of Ever-Virginity, we can confidently conclude that it does not have significant, fundamental significance in the profession of Christianity. Anyone who is confused should attribute this to the general problem of the “iconography” of our Gospels. None of this can hinder our free veneration of the Mother of Jesus Christ.

I am not able to adequately speak about the sacrament of Motherhood, about the holiness mother's love: Truly, there is something Divine in her. Christ spoke about His future Golgotha: “My hour” (according to John, ch. 2, 7, 8, 12, 17); and about pregnancy and childbirth of women he said: “IT’S HOUR.” “When a woman gives birth, she suffers sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to a baby, she no longer remembers that sorrow—for joy, because a man has been born into the world”... (according to John, chapter 16). But in the suffering and joy of birth, the ministry of Motherhood only begins. We honor the Mother of God as the “CROWNING OF ALL MOTHERS”; This is Dante's expression:

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

And the Woman enters the temple and, like a crown,

To all mothers, he says meekly: “Child!

What have you done to us? Here is your father

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

They were looking for you...

(The Divine Comedy", Purgatory, XV, corresponds to the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 2). Other gospel evidence has been preserved that this was not an idyllic, but a tragic Motherhood (according to Matthew, chapter 12, according to Mark, chapter 3, according to Luke, chapter 8, chapter 11). Even before Golgotha, the prophecy began to come true: “And a weapon will pierce your own soul" (according to Luke, chapter 2). Church poetry truthfully depicts how the Mother suffered and died with her Son on the Cross "Woe is Me! Woe is Me, My Child! Alas for Me, My Light and My beloved womb”… “My Light and My joy will go into the tomb: I will not leave Him alone, here I will die and be buried with Him”… But in the celebration of the Resurrection, the Mother is given first place: “Rejoice now and be merry.” , Zion, You, Pure, are beautiful, O Mother of God, about the uprising of Your Nativity." This is how the humble translators translated the Greek: about the uprising of Your Beloved, Your Child... The Mother of God is not only personal, She is a cosmic Image. In Her Face are all mothers and everything " Matter", all Humanity and all Creation give birth to Christ. “Every creature rejoices in You, O God-given One”... From Dostoevsky:

"... And in the meantime, whisper to me, leaving the church, one of our elders, who lived in repentance for the prophecy: “What do you think the Mother of God is?” “Great Mother,” I answer. “The hope of the human race.” - “So, says the Mother of God - great mother There is a damp Earth, and therein lies great joy for man. And every earthly melancholy and every earthly tear is joy for us; and when you water the ground under you with your tears to a depth of half an arshin, you will immediately rejoice over everything”...

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

"Earth-Mistress! I bowed my forehead to you,

And through Your fragrant cover

I felt the flame of my dear heart,

I heard the thrill of world life."

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

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

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

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

Christ promised to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit (according to John, ch. 14, 15, 16), and after the Resurrection he commanded to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (according to Matthew, ch. 28). Beginning with the appearance of tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost, the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles narrates the actions of the grace of the Holy Spirit. “And because of their prayer, the place where they were gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness” (chapter 4). There are many similar texts. The Apostolic Council decreed the abolition of circumcision: “It pleased the Holy Spirit and us” (chapter 15). The Apostle Paul said in his farewell speech that the Holy Spirit appointed elders of the Church (chapter 20). And in the epistles of the Apostles the Holy Spirit is always called as the highest, Divine Reality." "... Because you did not accept the spirit of Slavery to live in fear again, but received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry: Abba, Father! This very Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God... Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses; for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be expressed" (Romans, ch. 8). "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all" ( Corinthians II, chapter 12). “For God has not given us the Spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind” (Timothy II, chapter 1). The Holy Spirit is the Third Divine Reality in the mystical experience of the Church.

The confession about the Holy Spirit was brief at first, but it soon turned out that this was not enough:

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

...And in the Holy Spirit,

Lord Life-Giving,

Those who come from the Father,

Same with the Father and the Son

We bow and praise,

Who spoke through the prophets.

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

"... 23.H. 1875. Meeting at the Society of Christian Education... Osinin read in the report about the Bonn Conference of Old Catholics, where he was among our delegates. The matter was about uniting our church with the Old Catholic one. Main question, which made this connection difficult, concerned the Holy Spirit. The debates that have taken place on this subject are extremely interesting. The fact is that no one knows anything about the Holy Spirit, and whether He comes from the Father or from the Father and the Son. It’s strange to see that people, who seem serious, solemnly catch the air with their hands and think that they are holding something in them”...

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

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

...Into one

conciliar and apostolic

At first everything was so simple: there was one Church and there was an entrance to the Church - one Baptism. But at the end of the 4th century, when the common Creed took shape, external church unity was already supported by the violent concerns of state power. In the 11th century, the “division of the churches” of East and West ended, and in the 16th century the “division” of the Western Church followed (not to mention the many later small “divisions”). So, for a thousand years now we have not had the external unity of the Church of Christ on earth. Our Catechism does not recognize this truth; it asserts that there is one Church - that it is supposedly the only “Eastern Church”. The Catechism contains unworthy, frivolous praise of the “Eastern Church,” even for some reason and simply in a geographical sense: in the East there was an earthly paradise, in the East Christ appeared... In the same spirit of pride, quite recently, Archpriest Fr. Sergius Bulgakov wrote that “not the entire human race enters the Church, but only the elect, and not even all Christians fully belong to the true Church, but only the Orthodox” (“Orthodoxy”, p. 43); and further: “The Church is one, and therefore unique,” ​​and this “is Orthodoxy” (p. 203). On the relationship of “Orthodoxy” to other Christian confessions: “it can strive for only one thing - to orthodox the entire Christian world” (p. 291) ... The Christian world consists of many “separate” churches, equally confessing the true Son of God in Christ, calling Him the same by your spiritual Head. A monstrous image: a single Head - and many bodies, alien, or even completely hostile to each other... What a shame of Christianity!

However, even in the last century, the author of the Catechism, Metropolitan Philaret, admitted: “I do not dare to call any Church that believes that Jesus is the Christ false.” Known catchphrase Metropolitan Platon (Gorodetsky), said in a speech during a visit to the church: “Our partitions do not reach the sky.” IN Lately Many pleasant declarations have been made from all sides about the desire for pan-Christian unity. But the difficulties of an organizational “union of churches” are insurmountable. After all, Catholics will never again renounce the principle of papal supremacy in world Christianity, and the rest of the Christians of the East and West will never agree to this. And Protestants of all directions will never renounce the principles of the Reformation... Where is the way out?

“The unity of the Church is not created, it is discovered” (Karl Barth). Here is a real “project for the unification of churches”: to recognize that the Church is not divided, that all of us Christians are members of the one Church of Christ. "Is Christ divided?" (Corinthians 1, chapter 1). The dogma speaks of one Church and one Baptism. And it is true: if a Catholic or Protestant wishes to “join” the Russian Church, then their Baptism in Catholicism or Protestantism is recognized as valid, and so in fact it is recognized that everyone who is BAPTIZED (this is a significant expression of our people) already belongs to the one Church of Christ. “One Lord, one faith, one Baptism” (Corinthians, chapter 4). All of us Christians have one Lord and one Baptism; In essentials, faith is one and the same, but trifles, conventions, as well as human sins prevent us from recognizing this unity. Are Catholics Deluded About the Worldwide Power of the Bishop of Rome? But this is essentially not a matter of faith, but of practice, and this practice in some respects shows itself to be very useful. Protestants are terribly impoverishing themselves by refusing prayerful communication with saints, from commemorating the dead: such was the trauma they received from Catholic perversions; but this is also a practice, a matter of their religious experience, and there is nothing about this in the Creed. Do they teach about the Eucharist differently, in their own way? But “the doctrine of the Eucharist has never been the subject of consideration by the highest authoritative body of the Church” (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1965, No. 5, p. 79). And in general, these eternal debates of ours about the Eucharist, as someone said, are similar to debates among idlers on the topic of who dines better... Is there no external “uniformity” in the traditions of the cult? But also St. Augustine I wrote somewhere that the Church of Christ is DECORATED BY DIVERSITY. And, to tell the truth, we have a lot to learn by visiting the churches of “heterodox” Christians. Chekhov was not entirely joking that “when you stand in a church and listen to the organ, you want to convert to Catholicism” (letter from Italy). “I am a Lutheran and love Divine services”... (Tyutchev). It has long been said that there is no arguing about tastes. If we talk about clearly weaknesses and the defects of “heterodox” rituals - then we have no less such phenomena... No, no, no delusions and old habits will prevent me from recognizing the actual belonging of all Christians to the one Church of Christ.

This consciousness is growing and expanding among us. And we are already so late with this!.. For now the problem of the Church, one might say, goes beyond the limits of the Creed. Blessed Jerome wrote on some occasion: “Christ is not so poor as to have a Church only in Sardinia.” Now we must say: Christ is not so poor as to have the Church only in us, “baptized” so unworthy of our Baptism. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; and whoever does not believe will be condemned” (according to Mark, chapter 16, later addition). No, we have already grown out of such isolation of primitive Christianity. And even then the apostle already wrote: “... We trust in the Living God, Who is the Savior of all people, especially the faithful (Timothy 1, chapter 4). This means, not only the faithful... Now even among Catholics great progress is noticed in this regard In the brochure by S. Markevich “The Secret Ailments of Catholicism,” M. 1967, p. 73 et seq., the German theologian Karl Rahner is mentioned, who

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

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

Dogmas The depth of dogmas is unsearchable, and it is dangerous to touch upon it, especially to one subject to any passion. .Who can assert dogmas about Holy Trinity and theology? )