| The fact that the Great Prince had changed his attitude toward Metropolitan Clement, shows the influence of the Kiev Caves monastery, and in particular of Archimandrite Polycarp. Archimandrite Polycarp, who followed the traditions of the Caves (in 1165 he became head of the monastery), was personally very close to Saint Rostislav. Saint Rostislav had the pious custom of inviting the igumen and twelve monks to his own table on the Saturdays and Sundays of Great Lent, and he served them himself. The prince more than once expressed the wish to be tonsured a monk at the monastery of Saints Anthony and Theodosius, and he even gave orders to build a cell for him. The monks of the Caves, a tremendous spiritual influence in ancient Rus, encouraged the prince to think about the independence of the Russian Church. Moreover, during those years in Rus, there was suspicion regarding the Orthodoxy of the bishops which came from among the Greeks, because of the notorious “Dispute about the Fasts” (the “Leontian Heresy”). Saint Rostislav’s pious intent to obtain the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople for Metropolitan Clement came to naught. The Greeks believed that appointing a Metropolitan to the Kiev cathedra was one of their most important prerogatives. This served not only the ecclesiastical, but also the political interests of the Byzantine Empire. In 1165 a new Greek Metropolitan arrived at Kiev, John IV, and Saint Rostislav accepted him out of humility and churchly obedience. The new Metropolitan, like his predecessor, governed the Russian Church for less than a year (+ 1166). The See of Kiev was again left vacant, and the Great Prince was deprived of the fatherly counsel and spiritual wisdom of a Metropolitan. His sole spiritual solace was the igumen Polycarp and the holy Elders of the Kiev Caves monastery and the Theodorov monastery at Kiev, which had been founded under his father. Returning from a campaign against Novgorod in the spring of 1167, Saint Rostislav fell ill. When he reached Smolensk, where his son Roman was prince, relatives urged him to remain at Smolensk. But the Great Prince gave orders to take him to Kiev. “If I die along the way,” he declared, “put me in my father’s monastery of Saint Theodore. If God should heal me, through the prayers of His All-Pure Mother and Saint Theodosius, I shall take vows at the monastery of the Caves.” |
| In September 1487 he sent to Metropolitan Gerontius at Moscow all the material from the inquiry, together with a list of the apostates he had discovered, as well as their writings. The struggle with the Judaizers became the main focus of Saint Gennadius’ archpastoral activity. In the words of Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk (September 9), “this archbishop, angered by the malevolent heretics, pounced upon them like a lion from out of the thicket of the Holy Scriptures and the splendid heights of the prophets and the apostolic teachings.” For twelve years Saint Gennadius and Saint Joseph struggled against the most powerful attempts of the opponents of Orthodoxy to alter the course of history of the Russian Church and the Russian state. By their efforts the Orthodox were victorious. The works of Gennadius in the study of the Bible contributed to this victory. The heretics in their impious cleverness used texts from the Old Testament, but which were different from the texts accepted by the Orthodox. Archbishop Gennadius undertook an enormous task: bringing the correct listings of Holy Scripture together in a single codex. Up until this time Biblical books had been copied in Russia, following the example of Byzantium, not in their entirety, but in separate parts—the Pentateuch (first five books) or Octateuch (first eight books), Kings, Proverbs, the Psalter, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Epistles, and other instructive books. The holy books of the Old Testament in particular often were subjected to both accidental and intentional errors. Saint Gennadius wrote about this with sorrow in a letter to Archbishop Joasaph: “The Judaizing heretical tradition adheres to the Psalms of David, or prophecies which they have altered.” Gathering around himself learned and industrious Biblical scholars, the saint collected all the books of the Holy Scripture into a single codex, and he gave his blessing for the Holy Books which were not found in manuscripts of the traditional Slavonic Bible to be retranslated from the Latin language. In 1499 the first complete codex of Holy Scripture in Slavonic (“the Gennadius Bible,” as they called it after its compiler) was published in Russia. This work became an integral link in the succession of Slavonic translations of the Word of God. From the God-inspired translation of the Holy Scripture by Saints Cyril and Methodius, through the Bible of Saint Gennadius (1499), reproduced in the first printed Bible (Ostrozh, 1581), the Church has maintained a Slavonic Biblical tradition right through the so-called Elizabethan Bible (1751) and all successive printed editions. |
| 524 . Bailleux E. La soteriologie de saint Augustin dans le «De Trinitate»//MSR 23 (1966). P. 149–173. 525 . Idem. Dieu Trinite et son oeuvre//REAug 7 (1971). P. 189–218. 526 . Idem. La christologie de saint Augustin dans le «De Trinitate»//Recherches Augustiniennes 7 (1971). P. 219–243. 527 . Idem. Histoire de salut et le foi trinitaire chez saint Augustin//Revue thomiste 75 (1975). P. 533–561. 528 . Idem. L’Esprit du Pere et du Fils selon saint Augustin//Revue thomiste 77 (1977). P. 5–29. 529 . Barnes M. R. The Arians of Book V, and the Genre of «De Trinitate»//Journal of Theological Studies 44 (1993). P. 185–195. 530 . Idem. Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology//Theological Studies 56 (1995a). P. 237–250. 531 . Idem. De Regnon Reconsidered//Augustinian Studies 26, 2 (1995b). P. 51–79. 532 . Idem. Exegesis and Polemic in Augustine’s «De Trinitate» I//Augustinian Studies 30 (1999). P. 43–52. 533 . Idem. Re-reading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity//The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity/Ed. S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, G. O’Collins. Oxford, N. Y., 1999. P. 145–176. 534 . Idem. The Visible Christ and the Invisible Trinity: Mt. 5in Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology of 400//Modern Theology 19 (2003). P. 329–355. 535 . Bastiaensen A. A. R. Augustin et ses predecesseurs latins chretiens//Augustiniana Traiectina. Communications presentees au Colloque international d’Utrecht. 13–14 novembre 1986/Ed. J. den Boeft, J. van Oort. Paris, 1987. P. 25–57. 536 . Bavel T. J. van. Recherches sur la christologie de saint Augustin. (Paradosis, 10). Fribourg, 1954. 537 . Behr J. Calling upon God as Father: Augustine and the Leacy of Nicaea//Orthodox Readings of Augustine/Ed. G. E. Demacopoulos, A. Papanikolaou. N.Y., 2008. P. 153166. 538 . Bermon E. Le cogito dans la pensee de saint Augustin. Paris, 2001. 539 . Boigelot R. Le mot «personne» dans les ecrits trinitaires de Saint Augustin//Nouvelle revue theologique 57 (1930). P. 5–16. 540 . Bourassa F. Appropriation ou «propriete»//Sciences ecclesiastiques 7 (1955). P. 57–85. |
| Viens haleine et vie mienne, consolation de mon humble cœur 266 .» . L’enseignement même sur le Saint-Esprit a le caractère d’une tradition plus secrète, moins révélée, contrairement à la manifestation éclatante du Fils, proclamée par l’Église jusqu’aux confins de l’univers. Saint Grégoire de Nazianze signale une économie mystérieuse dans la connaissance des vérités touchant la personne du Saint-Esprit. «L’Ancien Testament, dit-il, a clairement manifesté le Père, obscurément le Fils. Le Nouveau Testament a révélé le Fils et a insinué la divinité de l’Esprit. Aujourd’hui l’Esprit vit parmi nous et Il se fait plus clairement connaître. Car il eût été périlleux, alors que la divinité du Père n’était point reconnue, de prêcher ouvertement le Fils, et, tant que la divinité du Fils n’était point admise, d’imposer, si j’ose dire, comme en surcharge, le Saint-Esprit… Il convenait bien plutôt que, par des additions partielles, et, comme dit David, par des ascensions de gloire en gloire, la splendeur de la Trinité rayonnât progressivement… Vous voyez comment la lumière nous vient peu à peu. Vous voyez l’ordre dans lequel Dieu nous est révélé: ordre qu’il nous faut respecter à notre tour, ne dévoilant pas tout sans délai et sans discernement et ne tenant pourtant rien de caché jusqu’au bout. Car l’un serait imprudent et l’autre impie. L’un risquerait de blesser ceux du dehors, et l’autre d’écarter de nous nos propres frères… Le Sauveur connaissait certaines choses qu’il estimait que ses disciples ne pourraient encore porter, bien qu’ils fussent pleins déjà d’une doctrine abondante… Et Il leur répétait que l’Esprit, lors de sa venue, leur enseignerait tout. Je pense donc qu’au nombre de ces choses était la divinité elle-même du Saint-Esprit: elle devait être déclarée plus clairement dans la suite lorsque, après le triomphe du Sauveur, la connaissance de sa propre divinité serait affermie 267 .» La divinité du Fils est affermie par l’Église et prêchée dans l’univers entier nous confessons aussi la divinité de l’Esprit-Saint, commune avec celle du Père et du Fils, nous confessons la Sainte Trinité. Mais la personne même du Saint-Esprit qui nous révèle ces vérités, qui nous les rend intérieurement visibles, manifestes, presque tangibles, reste néanmoins non révélée, cachée, dissimulée par la divinité qu’elle nous révèle, par le don qu’elle nous communique. |
| In church present at the service were the chairman of the oversight committee of the Orthodox Russia public movement M.M. Ivanov and the president of the International Foundation of Slavic Literature and Culture and editor-in-chief of the Russky Dom magazine Alexander Krutov. The liturgical hymns were performed by the combined choir of the Orthodox Volunteers choir singers and the youth choir of the Tver diocese under the direction of Anna Golik. The TV channels Soyus and Spas, as well as the official site of the Russian Orthodox Church patriarchia.ru, broadcast the Patriarchal service live. At the Litany of Fervent Supplication special petitions were added and the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church read the prayer for Holy Russia. At the Liturgy His Holiness ordained deacon Dimitry Gatin, cleric of the Church of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker in Zelenograd, to the priesthood. Before communion the sermon was delivered by archpriest Alexander Ptitsyn from the Moscow Church of the Ascension by the Saint Nicetas Gates. After the Liturgy His Holiness the Patriarch, accompanied by hymns, said the prayer to the holy hierarchs of Moscow and venerated the relics of Saint Peter and Saint Philip of Moscow. The Primate of the Russian Church addressed the faithful with a sermon and then distributed the following church awards to: the metropolitan of Kaluga and Borovsk Clement for his diligent archpastoral service and the occasion of his fortieth anniversary of his episcopal consecration, who was presented with the Order of Saint Seraphim of Sarov (2nd Class); archpriest Maxim Kozlov, for his labours for the good of the church and the occasion of his thirtieth anniversary to the ordination of the priesthood, who was presented with the Order of Saint Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow (2nd Class); and Alexander Krutov for his contribution to the preservation of traditional spiritual and moral values in society and on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, who was presented with the Order of Saint Daniel of Moscow (3rd Class). |
| In 1878, Saint Alexis Toth (1853–1909) was ordained as a priest of the Byzantine Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, in Slovakia. After serving for some time as Director of the Prešov Seminary, where he also taught Church History and Canon Law, he was sent in 1889 to Minneapolis, Minnesota, as a missionary priest to serve the Uniate immigrants there. However, when he reported to the local Latin-rite Roman Catholic Bishop John Ireland, upon his arrival in the city, he was rudely rejected. Two years later, he did what he said was “something which I had carried in my heart for a long time, for which my soul longed: that is, to become Orthodox.” In 1891 Bishop Vladimir (Sokolovsky; r. 1888–1891), head of the Russian mission-diocese, personally received Saint Alexis and his 361 parishioners into the Orthodox Church. Soon thereafter, Saint Alexis was invited to serve the Uniate parish in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After receiving the approximately 500 parishioners’ unanimous decision to become Orthodox, he began his 16 years of ministry there, until his death in 1909. In these years, enduring strong opposition from both Eastern- and Latin-rite Roman Catholics, he guided some 29,000 Uniates in 17 parishes, mostly in Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut, into Orthodoxy. In 1994 the mitred Archpriest Alexis was glorified as a saint, with the title “Confessor and Defender of Orthodoxy in America,” in services held at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania. The Serbs Attracted by the California Gold Rush, Serbian immigrants began arriving in California in 1850. Some of them became involved in the Russian Orthodox parish in San Francisco established in the 1860s. This was where a Serbian-American child named Sebastian Dabovich (1863–1940) was baptized. In 1892 he became the first native-born American to be ordained as an Orthodox priest. Two years later he built Saint Sava Orthodox Church, the first Serbian Orthodox church in America, in the gold-mining town of Jackson, California. In May 2015, Sebastian was canonized by the Serbian Church and became the first American-born saint of the Orthodox Church. |
| Saint Maximus and Saint Martin suffered greatly for opposing the Monothelite position. They were both arrested by the imperial authorities and brought to Constantinople, where they were tried on false charges, condemned, imprisoned, and exiled. Saint Maximus even had his right hand and his tongue cut off by the imperial powers, who were determined to force the Chalcedonians and the Non-Chalcedonians into theological agreement. Ironically, by then real reconciliation between the two sides had been made virtually impossible by the Arab conquests, which in effect sealed off Egypt, Palestine, and Syria from the Byzantine world, preventing the possibility of further theological discussion. The Sixth Ecumenical Council The doctrine of Saint Sophronius, Saint Maximus, and Saint Martin prevailed at the Third Council of Constantinople, known as the Sixth Ecumenical Council, held in 680–681. This council verified their teaching and condemned Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople and his successors Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter, as well as Pope Honorius of Rome, together with all who defended the false doctrine about Jesus that deprived Him of His genuine humanity. Pope Saint Agatho of Rome (r. 678–681) did much to prepare the way for this council and its decision, whereby communion between Rome and the Eastern Churches was restored. The Council of Trullo or the Quinisext Council In 692, just eleven years after the Sixth Ecumenical Council was held, another major council of Eastern bishops was held in the imperial palace called Trullo in Constantinople-hence the name, the Council of Trullo. This Council made no doctrinal proclamations; rather, it issued 102 canonical regulations on a wide variety of topics. This council is probably more often called the Quinisext Council (meaning “fifth-sixth”), because its canonical legislation is understood as having completed the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils, neither of which had passed any canons. So its rulings are held by the Orthodox Church to be at the same level of authority as the canons passed by the first four Ecumenical Councils. |
| στι πρ τ θεον ντως κτιστον ρατν γε ναρχον κα λον τε … 372 mais elle n’est pas non plus une lumière intelligible. Le Tome hagioritique, une apologie rédigée par les moines du Mont-Athos lors des débats théologiques sur la lumière de la Transfiguration, distingue la lumière sensible, la lumière de l’intelligence et la lumière incréée qui surpasse également les deux autres. «La lumière de l’intelligence, disent les moines athonites, est différente de celle qui est perçue par les sens. En effet, la lumière sensible nous révèle les objets propres à nos sens, tandis que la lumière intellectuelle sert à manifester la vérité qui est dans les pensées. Donc, la vue et l’intelligence n’appréhendent pas une seule et même lumière, mais il est propre à chacune de ces deux facultés d’agir selon leurs natures et dans leurs limites. Cependant, lorsque ceux qui en sont dignes reçoivent la grâce et la force spirituelle et surnaturelle, ils perçoivent par les sens aussi bien que par l’intelligence ce qui est au-dessus de tout sens et de tout intellect…, comment, cela n’est connu que de Dieu et de ceux qui ont eu l’expérience de sa grâce 373 .» La plupart des Pères qui ont parlé de la Transfiguration attestent la nature incréée, divine, de la lumière apparue aux apôtres. Saint Grégoire de Nazianze, saint Cyrille d’Alexandrie, saint Maxime, saint André de Crète, saint Jean Damascène, saint Syméon le Nouveau Théologien, Euthymius Zigabène s’expriment dans ce sens et il serait fort maladroit d’interpréter toujours ces passages comme une emphase rhétorique. Saint Grégoire Palamas développe cet enseignement en rapport avec la question de l’expérience mystique. La lumière que les apôtres ont vue sur le Mont Thabor est propre à Dieu par nature. Éternelle, infinie, existant en dehors du temps et de l’espace, elle apparaissait dans les théophanies de l’Ancien Testament comme la gloire de Dieu: apparition terrifiante et insupportable pour les créatures, parce qu’extérieure, étrangère à la nature humaine avant le Christ, en dehors de l’Église. |
| In the ninth century another great saint, Saint Theodore of Studion, was involved with a number of liturgical developments. The service books for Great Lent and Easter, the Lenten Triodion and the Flower Triodion (also called the Pentecostarion), are almost totally the work of the Studite monks, among the most famous of whom was Saint Joseph the Hymnographer. The liturgical typikon, the order of worship in the Studion Monastery, has been the normative order of worship for the entire Orthodox Church since the ninth century. As abbot of the Studion Monastery in Constantinople, the leading monastery in the Empire of his day, he had ultimate authority over about a hundred thousand monks throughout the Empire. Also dating from the ninth century is a copy of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom which has the Liturgy of the Faithful in virtually the exact form in which it is celebrated in the Orthodox Church today. New Law Code Near the end of the ninth century, a famous new law code was published by Emperor Basil I. In its introduction, called the Epanagoge, the system known as “symphonia” – the harmonious cooperation between the Church and State – is eloquently reaffirmed, with extremely high standards of moral probity, personal sanctity, and theological wisdom placed upon both the patriarch of Constantinople and the emperor. For example, the patriarch is to “lead unbelievers into adopting the Faith, astounding them with the splendor and glory and wondrousness of his own devotion”; and the emperor “must be of the highest perfection in Orthodoxy and piety.” The West Generally speaking, the 9th century was one of the most significant centuries in Church history. It was a period of renaissance in the East after 843, while in the West it was one of increasing centralization around the Roman Papacy, especially through the efforts of Pope Nicholas I. The most important theologian in the West in this century was John Scot Erigena (d. 877), who brought the strong influence of the Eastern theology of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite and Saint Maximus the Confessor into the Western Church. However, he interpreted the mystical writings attributed to Saint Dionysius along Neo-Platonic lines. Cultural Renaissance |
| Together with the preparation of the Bible, the circle of church scholars under Archbishop Gennadius also undertook a great literary task: the compilation of the “Fourth Novgorod Chronicle.” Numerous hand-written books were translated, corrected and transcribed, bringing the Chronicle up to the year 1496. Dositheus, the igumen of the Solovki monastery who was at Novgorod on monastery matters, worked for several years with Saint Gennadius compiling a library for the Solovki monastery. It was at the request of Saint Gennadius that Dositheus wrote the Lives of Saints Zosimas (April 17) and Sabbatius (September 27). The majority of the books transcribed with the blessing of the Novgorod hierarch (more than 20), were preserved in the collection of Solovki manuscripts. Ever a zealous advocate for spiritual enlightenment, Saint Gennadius founded a school for the preparation of worthy clergy at Novgorod. The memory of Saint Gennadius is preserved also in his work for the welfare of the Orthodox Church. At the end of the fifteenth century many Russians were concerned about the impending end of the world, which they believed would take place at the end of the seventh millenium from the creation of the world (in 1492 A.D.). Therefore, in 1408, it was decided not to compute the Paschal dates beyond the year 1491. In September 1491, however, the Archbishops’ Council of the Russian Church at Moscow, with the participation of Saint Gennadius, decreed that the Paschalion for the eighth millenium be calculated. Metropolitan Zosimas at Moscow on November 27, 1492 “set forth a cathedral Paschalion for twenty years,” and asked Bishop Philotheus of Perm and Archbishop Gennadius of Novgorod each to compile their own Paschalion for conciliar review and confirmation on December 21, 1492. Saint Gennadius finished calculating his Paschalion, which in contrast to that of the Metropolitan, extended for seventy years. It was distributed to the dioceses, with the approval of the Council, as the accepted Paschalion for the next twenty years. Included with the Paschalion was Saint Gennadius’s own commentary upon it in an encyclical entitled, “Source for the Paschalion Transposed to the Eight Thousandth Year.” |
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