| XI 6). Эта изменчивость, кроме того, обусловлена реальным различием между субстанцией и свойствами, или содержащим и содержимым, во всяком тварном существе. Субстанция может то обладать теми или иными свойствами, то лишаться их, а интенсивность этих свойств - то возрастать, то уменьшаться (De civ. Dei. XI 10). В отличие от Бога «мир не имеет своего самостоятельного существования» (Confess. XII 25). Поскольку его нельзя признать неизменно сущим, его также нельзя признать и истинно прекрасным и благим. Для твари Бог является источником всего: бытия, формы, истины, красоты, блага и др. Относительно действия Св. Троицы в творении А., с одной стороны, полагает, что вся Св. Троица действует едино и нераздельно, но, с другой стороны, часто говорит и о специфически-икономическом действии каждой из Трех Ипостасей: Отец наделяет все бытием, Сын - формой, свойствами, премудростью, Св. Дух - порядком, согласием, благостью (De Trinit. VI 12). 2. Порядок творения. Само творение осуществляется в неск. этапов. На первом этапе мир был сотворен Богом «идеально» (idealiter), т. е. в качестве вечных и неизменных идей или образцов (rationes, exemplaria, отчего это христианизированное платоновское учение об идеях получило название «экземпляризма»), поскольку Бог до сотворения мира имел о нем знание, ибо Он не творил ничего не зная, как не творит даже ни один человек-художник (De civ. Dei. XI 10). Это не было творением в собственном смысле, ибо мир тогда еще не существовал самостоятельно. Родив Свое Слово прежде всех век, Бог Отец в Нем изрек все, что затем получило отдельное существование во времени (Confess. XI 7-8). На втором этапе мир творится «в возможности, или причинности» (potentialiter vel causaliter), когда Божественные идеи мгновенно и все сразу внедряются в изначально бесформенную мировую материю, в это «почти ничто» (pene nulla res), вызванное в свою очередь к бытию из совершенного ничто. Т. о., в материальной основе мира возникают потенции, или семена (rationes seminales), всех будущих вещей. |
| Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight: or at least when He says: Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. But I knew that You hear Me always. But though our Lord made a distinction between these four kinds of prayers as to be offered separately and one by one according to the scheme which we know of, yet that they can all be embraced in a perfect prayer at one and the same time He showed by His own example in that prayer which at the close of S. John " s gospel we read that He offered up with such fullness. From the words of which (as it is too long to repeat it all) the careful inquirer can discover by the order of the passage that this is so. And the Apostle also in his Epistle to the Philippians has expressed the same meaning, by putting these four kinds of prayers in a slightly different order, and has shown that they ought sometimes to be offered together in the fervour of a single prayer, saying as follows: But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Philippians 4:6 And by this he wanted us especially to understand that in prayer and supplication thanksgiving ought to be mingled with our requests. Chapter 18. Of the Lord " s Prayer. And so there follows after these different kinds of supplication a still more sublime and exalted condition which is brought about by the contemplation of God alone and by fervent love, by which the mind, transporting and flinging itself into lovefor Him, addresses God most familiarly as its own Father with a piety of its own. And that we ought earnestly to seek after this condition the formula of the Lord " s prayer teaches us, saying Our Father. When then we confess with our own mouths that the God and Lord of the universe is our Father, we profess immediately that we have been called from our condition as slaves to the adoption of sons, adding next Which art in heaven, that, by shunning with the utmost horror all lingering in this present life, which we pass upon this earth as a pilgrimage, and what separates us by a great distance from our Father, we may the rather hasten with all eagerness to that country where we confess that our Father dwells, and may not allow anything of this kind, which would make us unworthy of this our profession and the dignity of an adoption of this kind, and so deprive us as a disgrace to our Father " s inheritance, and make us incur the wrath of His justice and severity. |
| Our Church is not a branch office of the Ministry of Social Services, nor does She compete with various social welfare organizations. This does no mean that She does not acknowledge their significant and well-meaning work, or that She Herself does not offer such services bounteously, admirably and wondrously. But the Church is mainly a provider of meaning in life, of redemption and salvation of the faithful, “for the sake of whom Christ died,” through their participation in the sacraments of the Church. “The priest’s stole is a planing instrument,” as Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain used to say, “that planes and straightens out a person. It is a therapeutic scalpel that excises passions, and not a trowel for workaholics, or a symbol of power. It is a servant’s apron intended for ministering to people, for providing therapy and salvation.” God uses the priest for the forgiveness of His creature. It is plainly stated in the absolution blessing: “May God forgive you—through me the sinner—everything, in both the present and future age, and may He render you blameless before His awesome Seat of Judgment. Having no longer any worry for the crimes that have been confessed, may you go forth in peace.” Sins that have not been confessed will continue to burden a person, even in the life to come. How to confess. Confessed sins should not be re-confessed; it would be as though one doesn’t believe in the grace of the Sacrament. God is of course aware of them, but it is for the sake of absolution, humbling, and therapy that they need to be outwardly confessed. As for the occasional penance imposed for sins, one must realize that it does not negate the Church’s love for the person, but that it is simply an educative imposition, for a better awareness of one’s offenses. According to Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, “confession is a willed, verbal revealing of one’s evil deeds and words and thoughts; solemn, accusatory, direct, without shame, decisive, to be executed before a legitimate spiritual father.” This God-bearing saint has succinctly, fully and meaningfully clarified that confession must be willed, free, effortless, without the confessor straining to extract the person’s confession. It should be solemn; in other words, with an awareness of the sorrow that the sinner caused God with his sin, and not with sentimental, hypocritical, fainthearted tears. |
| 569 Об отношении церкви Христовой к Иисусу Христу, как своему основателю, христ. чт, 1843 г. 1, 126. 572 По суду реформаторов «человек первоначально научается Богом внутренне и непосредственно и потом освящается Им: вот и происхождение церкви». (Luther de iust. minist. eccl. op. t. 2. p. 584. Zwingli de certitut. et clavit. verbi Dei,-op. t. 1. p. 169). Apologia confess. p. 145. Ecclesia principaliter’ est societas fidei et Spiritus s.in cordibus. 574 «В ней (в церкви) содержит и сочетавает каждый член в единомыслии с другим единая и истинно единственная глава, которая есть Христос.» О суде Бож. § 3. Твор. отц. IX, 12. 578 Confessio avgustana art. 7. Confess.helvet. p. 18. « церковь – общество верных, вызванное или собранное из мира, соединение всех святых, т. е. тех, которые правильно познают и право чтут Бога во Христе Спасителе, при посредстве слова и Духа Св. и учавствуют верою во всех благах, блаюдатно дарованных чрез Христа» 579 Лютер de servo arbitrio (Ор. 3, 182): «не одобряю тех, которые находят убежище в гордости духа. Мы так полагаем, что духи должны быть испытываемы двояким судом, одним внутренним.... другой суд- суд публичного служения слову, принадлежащий вождям и проповедникам слова». Apologia confes. р. 353. говорит: «где церковь , там и право служить евангелию». 580 Евсевий о жизни царя Константина. 4, 24. Епископ, избираемый светскими властями, да отлучится», говорит 30 апостольское правило. 581 Св. Лев: человеческие дела не иначе могут быть благоуспешны, как когда соединяются с божественным исповеданием и их защищает власть царская и священническая». Тертуллиан в своем апологетике выставил язычникам на вид, как благодетельна христианская вера для римской империи, даже и тогда, как империя гонит св. веру. 582 См. суждения протестанта Бречнеидера о протестанстве. Dogmatik 2, 758. 860–862. Аммона Fortbidung d. Christenthams 4. в. s. 137–140. 589 Св. Иустин: «мы уверовали именем Иисуса, как бы один человек». Dialog. с. Tryph. § 42. 43. 46. Епифаний Expos. fid. cath. § 5. |
| Enchir. 9; 38). «Следы» Божественной Троичности А. находит также во внешнем мире: бытие вещей указывает на Отца как на Источник всякого бытия и высшее Бытие, разнообразие форм и видов вещей указывает на Сына как на Источник всякой формы и высшую Премудрость, упорядоченность вещей по отношению друг к другу и согласованность их с самими собой указывают на Св. Духа как на Источник всякого порядка и любви (De Trinit. VI 12; De civ. Dei. XI 28). Дальнейшим следствием такого учения А. о Св. Троице является равенство и единосущие трех Божественных Лиц: Отец, Сын и Св. Дух, обладая единой сущностью (substantia vel essentia), нераздельно равны в Божественном единстве и суть не три бога, а единый Бог (De Trinit. I 7). В Боге существует такое равенство, что не только Отец не больше Сына, но и ни одно из Лиц Троицы не меньше, чем Сама Троица. Отсюда следует также единое и нераздельное действование (operatio) Божественных Лиц. Это учение А. позволяет обосновать, во-первых, единство Бога и единосущие Божественных Лиц, во-вторых, необходимую внутреннюю обусловленность бытия именно Трех Божественных Лиц, в-третьих, тесную взаимосвязь и взаимопроникновение Лиц. Однако коренной недостаток данного учения кроется в его «эссенциальности»: Лица Св. Троицы в нем как бы вторичны и производны по отношению к Божественной сущности, оказываясь ее «основными свойствами» или «образами существования»; впрочем, сам А., отвлекаясь от своей «психологической» конструкции Троичного догмата, иногда утверждает, что различия между Лицами Св. Троицы появляются лишь в категории отношения (secundum relativum, De Trinit. V 5) - т. зр., воспринятая Боэцием и развитая в средневек. схоластике. О творении 1. Онтология тварного. Бог по своей благости совершенно свободно сотворил мир «из ничего» (ex nihilo; см. Confess. XII 7-8; De Gen. VII 21; De civ. Dei. XII 6). В отличие от Творца мир не безначален, ибо его не было до того, как он был создан. Самим фактом возникновения мир указывает на свое коренное отличие от бытия Нетварного - на свою изменчивость (Confess. |
| But in the contemporary world there are also other states--and they are probably the majority--which proclaim the principle of separation of Church and state. In the constitution of the Russian Federation this principle is formulated in the fourteenth article: “No religion can be established as the state or mandatory religion. Religious assemblies are separate from the state and equal before the law.” The Russian Empire, by the way, also had no one religion that was mandatory for all citizens. Orthodox citizen during the imperial era could not legally apostatize from the Orthodox Church, and Christians of all confessions did not have the right to apostatize from Christianity; the conversion of the Orthodox to a heterodox confession, or of any Christian to Judaism, Islam, or paganism was punishable by law, and converts were held responsible for their action. However, although people of other religions or confessions had the right to become Orthodox, no one was ever forced to do so, and all religions recognized by the state enjoyed protection by the law. As for the separation of religious assemblies from the state—that statement in the current Russian Constitution should not be subjected to a broad interpretation. It means only that the parishes, monasteries, synodal departments, and theological seminaries are not governmental organs or government institutions similar to state ministries, police departments, or military bases. This constitutional statement has no bearing upon, for example, the possibility of teaching religion in school as an elective course or otherwise. It is well known that although in certain countries that uphold the principle of separation, like the United States or France, religion is not taught in public schools; but other countries, where there is also no state Church, such as in Austria or Poland, religious education is provided in public schools. The constitutional right to confess a religion or to confess no religion, the right to “the freedom to choose, have, and disseminate religious and other convictions and freely disseminate corresponding views,” guaranteed by article 28 of the Constitution, cannot be equated with the right to conduct militant atheist propaganda in the impudent and rowdy style of Yaroslavsky [vi] or Demyan Bedny [vii] , or the right to offend the religious sensibilities of the faithful, as these defenders of home-grown products so desperately insist. |
| And all this anguish is sometimes forestalled by one stroke of the body or sudden flitting of the soul, the swiftness of which prevents it from being felt. But whatever that may be in the dying which with violently painful sensation robs of all sensation, yet, when it is piously and faithfully borne, it increases the merit of patience, but does not make the name of punishment inapplicable. Death, proceeding by ordinary generation from the first man, is the punishment of all who are born of him, yet, if it be endured for righteousness» sake, it becomes the glory of those who are born again; and though death be the award of sin, it sometimes secures that nothing be awarded to sin. Chapter 7.– Of the Death Which the Unbaptized Suffer for the Confession of Christ. For whatever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism. For He who said, Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, John 3:5 made also an exception in their favor, in that other sentence where He no less absolutely said, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven; Matthew 10:32 and in another place, Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. Matthew 16:25 And this explains the verse, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. For what is more precious than a death by which a man " s sins are all forgiven, and his merits increased an hundredfold? For those who have been baptized when they could no longer escape death, and have departed this life with all their sins blotted out have not equal merit with those who did not defer death, though it was in their power to do so, but preferred to end their life by confessing Christ, rather than by denying Him to secure an opportunity of baptism. And even had they denied Him under pressure of the fearof death, this too would have been forgiven them in that baptism, in which was remitted even the enormous wickedness of those who had slain Christ. |
| And so, with all diligence, after having made a thorough examinatexamination and analysis, and following the path of the truth, we have diminished nothing; we have added nothing. On the contrary we have preserved unchanged everything pertaining to the catholic church. Following the six ecumenical synods, especially that which met in this illustrious metropolis of Nicea, and also that which was afterwards gathered together in the God-protected Royal City we declare our belief: [There follows the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed] We detest and anathematize Arius and all the sharers of his absurd opinion; also Macedonius and those who following him are well styled “Fighters against the Spirit” [Pneumatomachi]. We confess that our Lady, the holy Mary, is properly and truly the Mother of God, because she was the Mother after the flesh of one of the persons of the Holy Trinity, namely, Christ our God, just as the council of Ephesus had already defined when it cast out of the church the heretic Nestorius with his colleagues, because he taught that there were two persons [in Christ]. Along with the Fathers of that synod we confess that he who was incarnate of the immaculate Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary has two natures, recognizing him as perfect God and perfect man, as also the Council of Chalcedon declared when it expelled Eutyches and Dioscorus from the divine atrium for their blasphemy and placed Severus, Peter and a number of others who had blasphemed in different forms, in that same category of sacrilege. Moreover, along with these we anathematize the fables of Origen, Evagrius, and Didymus, in harmony with the decisions of the Fifth Council held at Constantinople. We affirm that in Christ there are two wills and two operations according to the reality of each nature, as also the Sixth Synod, held at Constantinople, taught, casting out Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, and those who agreed with them, and all those who were unwilling to be reverent. To make our confession short, we keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally, all of which are interconnected and related; and one of which is the making of pictorial representations, agreeable to the history of the preaching of the Gospel. For this is a tradition useful in many respects, but especially in this regard that the incarnation of the Word of God may thus be depicted as real and not merely imaginary. |
| Romanides, John S., The Ancestral Sin (Ridgewood, NJ: Zephyr, 2002), p. 173. John 3:5. “In One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.” Obviously, these two articles of the Symbol of Faith were meant to be confessed one after the other for the precise reason that the latter, the “one baptism” is understood to take place exclusively in the former, the “One Church.” Eph. 3:5-6. Παπαθανασου, Χρστου, Το «Κατ’ Ακριβειαν» Βπτισμα και Οι Εξ Αυτο Παεκκλησεις (Athens:Grigori 2001) , p. 258. Ibid. p. 293. Ibid. p. 258. Bishop Kallistos Ware, Eustratios Argenti: A Study of the Greek Church under Turkish Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 83-4. Παπαθανασου, Χρστου, Το «Κατ’ Ακριβειαν» Βπτισμα . pp. 296-7. “[F]or the conversion (i.e. entrance) to Orthodoxy of Latins and Western Christians in general, economia may be exercised only in such cases when a Christian confession administered baptism with triune immersion and emersion according to its Apostolic and patristic form.” Fr. George Metallinos, I Confess One Baptism (Mt. Athos: St. Paul’s Monastery, 1994), p. 115. “Ecclesiastical economy” is not exercised in just any case, but only when formal conditions are met. “It is applied on the basis of principles which provide for it and determine it” (Παπαθανασου, Το « Κατ ’ Ακριβειαν » Βπτισμα , p. 296). Ware, Eustratios Argenti , p. 84. It should be noted that when the application of economy, which necessarily is exceptional and warranted by dire circumstances, lends towards a blurring of the lines between orthodoxy and heresy or a perpetuation of misconceptions concerning heterodox rites, it is self-defeating, insomuch as economy aims at the same end as exactitude ( akriveia ), if only by other means. See St. Basil the Great’s first canon. There the great Father of the Church agrees totally with St. Cyprian of Carthage that with schism those who depart from the Church no longer possess the grace of the Holy Spirit, the priestly gift of grace is discontinued, and the transmission of the priesthood is obstructed. Without the transmission of the priesthood, apostolic succession, those baptized by them are considered to be baptized by laymen. Consequently, “they have neither authority to baptize nor to ordain.” |
| The situation in Bangladesh is a matter for great anxiety. The lands and property of Christians in the mountainous region of Rangamati and in the Gulishahali Region are taken away. According to Fides, most often these criminal actions have been committed by Muslims who predominate there and have not been punished. Neither the police nor the civil authorities guarantee the protection of the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. Anti-Christian forces have become more active in Indonesia. At present this country is the most densely populated Muslim country. Out of 228,5 million inhabitants of Indonesia 86% are Muslims, 6% are adherents of various trends of Protestantism, and 3% confess Catholicism. There are several scores of Orthodox parishes. Since 2006, 200 Christian churches were attacked in Indonesia, with 14 of them attacked only for the first five months of 2011. On February 24, 2011, the Orthodox church of St. Catherine was attacked by extremists at Bojolali in the Island of Java. In Philippines, most people confess Catholicism. However, in the Islands of Jolo and Mindanao inhabited by Muslims, a movement called Abu Sayyaf appeared in the 1990s and established relations with Al-Qaeda. For the last 10 years 120 thousand people were killed in Mindanao as a result of the activity of terror groups, and 500 thousand people have become refugees. About 70% of the people in Laos confess Buddhism, 30% are pagans and 1,5% are Christians. Christians are deprived of the right to occupy public posts and have little chance to enter a university. In 2009, the leader of Salawan Province gathered together all the rural dwellers and announced to them that ‘Christianity is forbidden’. He also said that ‘the worship of spirits’ was the only acceptable cult for them. At his instruction, cattle were confiscated from local Christians. Repressions continue to this day. In one of the most densely populated country of the world, India, Christians suffer from radical Hindu organizations. India’s population total 1,1 billion. Over 2% of the people are Christians. In total in India there are 23-24 million Christians of various denominations. Some 70% of the Indian Christians come from the untouchables. In the state of Orissa where a great proportion of the untouchables live, the number of conversions to Christianity has considerably grown in the last decade. In some areas of the state, the proportion of Christians has doubled in this period. In 2008, the state became a place of mass killings of Christians and pogroms of Christian churches and houses which lasted for two months. |
|
|
