| Proud words. How much of the professor’s pride and scorn in these words is felt towards this «plebeian» activity of «baptizing and bringing Good News,» which we, together with all the Apostles and holy bishops revere as the highest, single task in the universe, which all these proud «aristocratic heights of the theological bloom» can only serve as secondary or tertiary subsidiaries. And if they stop being such subsidiaries, but reach for an independent role that doesn’t belong to them, or turn onto the crooked paths of corporal wisdom, then the Divine hand mercilessly overthrows them: sometimes mercifully earlier than the indicated disgrace touches them, as it happened to Russian academic science, sometimes permitting them to agree to Herculean columns of unbelief and insanity, as it happened with the Protestant, for example, the Tubingen German so-called theological science. What are these «conclusions of Biblical criticism,» the lack of assimilation of which in Orthodox theological science grieves Prof. Kartashev? They are many. In the above-mentioned book, they are mentioned in brief. First of all, it turns out that the whole slew of books in the Old Testament is «pseudo-epigraphic,» i.e. these books do not belong to the authors to which they were assigned. But Prof. Kartashev hastens to qualify that «the faith-teaching authority of the holy books does not depend on definite authorship.» This thought is correct. The Church already gives authority to a holy book by including it in Its canon, by authorizing it, i.e. the given holy book is recognized as a book of the Church. That is why, for example, the authority of corresponding books does not lessen because their author was King Solomon, who from the «the lover of wisdom» turned into «the lover of loose women.» But this means, that the Church authorizes the given holy book completely. And for any unbiased believing person, not blinded by the proud presentation about the cultural superiority of his generation over the rest, the two thousand-year long testimony of the Church about this or that authorship, of this or that holy book, is more convincing, both because of the infallibility of its moral authority and as well as rational considerations, than the kaleidoscopically changing opinions on this question of various «scientific» authorities. |
| Nicet.Amas. Patr. Nicetas of Amasia. On the Patriarchs Nicet.Byz. Nicetas of Byzantium Arab. Refutation of the Falsely Written Book of the Arab Mohammed Arm. Refutation of the Epistle Sent by the Prince of the Armenians Lat. Against the Latins Ref.Ep. Refutation of the Epistles of the Hagarenes Nicet.Chon. Thes. Nicetas Choniata. Thesaurus of the Orthodox Faith Nicet.Nicom. Nicetas of Nicomedia Nicet.Steth. Nicetas Stethatos Antidial Antidialogue Arm.etLat. Against the Armenians and the Latins Nicol.I. Ep. Pope Nicholas I. Epistles Nil.Cab. Nilus Cabasilas of Thessalonica Caus.Diss. On the Causes of Dissensions in the Church Prim. On the Primacy of the Pope Nil.Dox. Not. Nilus Doxopatres. The Order of the Patriarchal Sees (Notitia thronorum patriarchalium) Nil.Sor. Nilus Sorskij Pred. Legacy to His Disciples Ustav. Monastic Rule Or. Origen of Alexandria Cels. Against Celsus Jos. Homilies on Joshua Luc. Homilies on the Gospel of Luke Patr.Job. Excerpt from the Record of the Installation of Patriarch Job Patr.Mosc. Establishment of the Patriarchate of Moscow Paul.I. Ep. Pope Paul I. Epistles Paul.Ant. Ep.Thds.Al. Paul of Antioch. Epistle to Theodosius of Alexandria Paul.II.CP. Ep.Thdr. Paul II of Constantinople. Epistle to Pope Theodore Paulin.Aquil. Paulinus of Aquileia Carm. Poems (Carmina) CFor.(796) Council of Frejus-Toulon [Concilium Forojuliense] Fel. Against Felix of Urgel Paulin.N. Ep. Paulinus of Nola. Epistles Petr.Ant. Peter of Antioch Ep.Al. Epistle to the Patriarch of Alexandria Ep.Cerul. Epistle to Michael Cerularius Ep.Dom. Epistle to Dominicus of Venice Ep.H. Epistle to the Patriarch of Jerusalem Ep.Leo IX. Epistle to Pope Leo IX Petr.Chrys. Serm. Peter Chrysologus. Sermons Petr.Dam. Proc. Peter Damian. Against the Error of the Greeks on the Procession of the Holy Spirit Petr.Lomb. Sent. Peter Lombard. Sentences Petr.Sic. Peter of Sicily Hist. History of the Heresy of the Manicheans, Who Are Also Called Paulicians Serm. Sermons against the Manicheans, Who Are Also Called Paulicians |
| Only having prepared themselves in such a manner, first by exterminating all the Hebrew texts, where the terrifying word was used, having also prepared translations that corresponded to this idea, Judaism published the prophesy of Isaiah with the refutation of the Christian understanding about the Holy Virgin. But in reply to all these thorough, scrupulous machinations, the Christian apologists calmly answered what we can repeat to Prof. Kartashev: «If the Prophet Isaiah had really written the word «a young woman» instead of the word «a virgin,» then there would be no sign in that. Young women give birth to children daily, and no one sees any miracle in that, any sign.» A professor of the highest theological school should have known that the Church had already answered this question posed by him again, which he answers not according to Its voice, but by the voice of Its enemies. The prophesy of the holy prophet of God Isaiah can be heard from every page of the New Testament, is the corner-stone of our faith, and we can admit this prophesy to be an erroneous translation or a forgery, either by the testimony of such ancient enemies of Christianity as Aquila and Symmachus, nor by the conjectures of new philosopers. On page 46 of the book being discussed, we approach the main question it analyzes, the question about the origin of the Pentateuch of Moses. The author bombards us with names of the known and unknown to us authorities of Protestant German criticism and says: " The primary share of the work and, it can be said, of the most glorious achievements, German Protestant science took upon itself, and then – Dutch science, and with the help of the works of Eichgorn, Fatter, Evalds, Reiss, Graf, Kuenen, and Wellgausen, the outlines of the most probable hypothesis about the genesis of the Pentateuch of Moses were definitively chiseled out… It began with the literary analysis of the Pentateuch, the establishment of its multi-constituency, and then went on to the profound rebuilding of the whole historical scheme of the development of the religion of Israel, i.e. of the whole customary holy history. Already in 1834, Professor E. Reise of the Protestant Theological Department in Strasburg proclaimed a thesis, which was diametrically opposite to this scheme: it was not the Law of Moses that came first, and then the prophets, but just the opposite: the prophets came first historically, and only then the written Laws of Moses. The whole essence of the literary-historical discoveries of the Old Testament Biblical criticism fits into this formula» (p.47). |
| But the direct analogy between physical time and eschatological time, coming from the kingdom of God, is not simply a working tool in tackling the problem of time from within the scientific context, for the “reality” of the kingdom and the ontology of the coming from the future have a different status in comparison with what is argued in science. This means that the role of the future in the sustenance of time, as its creation from the kingdom, can be articulated only through an appeal to ecclesial and liturgical experience. Can, then, the scientific models of becoming serve as discursive prototypes of the experience of God from his kingdom? 394 Since the act of creation cannot be conceived as a temporal act, it constitutes an “everlasting” act, which, metaphorically speaking, is contemporaneous with all times, for example, with all temporal spans of the evolution of the universe. 395 But the evolution of the visible universe has a beginning, in the time of the created world. The temporality of the visible universe thus represents an aspect of aidion that projects the act of creation into its temporal appearance in the visible creation. The creation, however, is initiated from the atemporal and noneternal realm, which means that there is something in it that cannot be projected into the created realm through any form of temporality. It is exactly this remnant that is intuitively sought by science when it attempts to provide the theory of the origin of time. We have seen in chapter 5 that in order to establish the link between the visible universe in its temporal mode of existence and the source of its existence and the source of temporality, scientific means alone have been insufficient. This is because the basic diastema in creation can be grasped only through the detection of the presence of the logoi of creation in scientific theories. These logoi point toward the logos of the entire creation, which holds all things together, including irreversible time, with respect to God. It is clear that such mediations on the nature and origin of time cannot be the task of positive science; that is why scientific experience is destined to accept dispassionately the time of the material world, which manifests itself through the change of sensible things. Despite this acceptance, however, it is amazing to witness how scientific knowledge, being part of the human cognitive faculties, incessantly leads to the production of multiple theories of time. Nevertheless, time, this fascinating feature of all existence in the world around us, inevitably escapes from our scientific understanding into a spiritual world of ideas, becoming again the subject of rather wide contemplative experience, but this time it is the contemplation of meditating scientists, not that of devoted believers. |
| The temporary division of one Metropolia of All Russia into two parts was caused by the dire consequences of the Council of Ferrara-Florence and the beginning of the Unia with Rome, which the Church of Constantinople first accepted, and the Russian Church immediately rejected. In 1448 the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church, without the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople who was in the Unia at the time, elected St. Jonah as Metropolitan. At that moment the autocephalous life of the Russian Orthodox Church began. However, ten year later, in 1458, the former Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory Mammas, who was in the Unia and lived in Rome, consecrated an independent metropolitan for Kiev – Gregory the Bulgarian, an Uniate, and submitted to him the territories which are now parts of Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Russia. By the decision of the Council of Constantinople of 1593, in which all four Eastern Patriarchs participated, the Moscow Metropolia was elevated to the status of Patriarchate. This Patriarchate united all Russian lands, as is evidenced by a letter sent by Patriarch Paisius of Constantinople to Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in 1654. In this letter Patriarch Nikon is called “Patriarch of Moscow, Great and Little Russia.” The reunification of the Kiev Metropolia with the Russian Church took place in 1686. It was done in a form of the Act signed by Patriarch Dionysius IV of Constantinople and members of his Synod. The document says nothing about the temporary nature of the transfer of the Metropolia, contradicting the current groundless allegations of Constantinople’s hierarchs. No statements concerning the temporary transfer of the Kiev Metropolia can be found in Patriarch Dionysius’ other two Letters of 1686, addressed to the Moscow tsars and the Metropolitan of Kiev. On the contrary, the Letter sent by Patriarch Dionysius to the Moscow tsars in 1686 provides for the submission of all the Metropolitans of Kiev to Patriarch Joachim of Moscow and his successors. “From henceforth and forever more they shall recognize as most senior and first in rank the current Patriarch of Moscow as having received the office of bishop from him,” the Letter reads. The interpretations of the meaning of the abovementioned documents made by representatives of the Church of Constantinople have no justifications in the texts. |
| Metropolitan Hilarion Celebrates the 20th Anniversary of His Episcopal Consecration Source: DECR Photo: mospat.ru January the 14th, 2022, the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord and the commemoration day of St. Basil the Great, marked the 20th anniversary of the episcopal consecration of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk. The Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate presided over the festive Divine Liturgy at the church of the Icon of the Mother of God ‘the Joy to All Who Sorrow’ in Moscow. His concelebrants were Metropolitan Dionisy of Voskresensk, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate; Metropolitan Niphon of Philippopolis, representative of the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia; Metropolitan Zinovy of Saransk and Mordovia; Metropolitan Anthony of Chersonesus and Western Europe, Patriarchal Exarch for Western Europe; Metropolitan Leonid of Klin, Patriarchal Exarch for Africa; Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, DECR vice-chairman; Archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov), DECR vice-chairman; Archimandrite Seraphim (Shemyatovsky), representative of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia to the Patriarchal See of Moscow; Archpriest Kakhaber Gogotishvili, a cleric of the Georgian Orthodox Church; and the clergy of the church. During the Prayer of Fervent Supplication, prayerful petitions were offered for the deliverance from the coronavirus infection. After the Divine Liturgy, Metropolitan Dionisy of Voskresensk read out a congratulatory message from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Metropolitan Hilarion’s episcopal consecration. Then Metropolitan Niphon of Philipoppolis extended congratulations to His Eminence Hilarion on behalf of the representatives of Local Orthodox Church to the Patriarchal See of Moscow. He noted in particular, “In your youth you were given the gift of faith in God. Through the subsequent years, you have lived up to this faith, developing it and bearing in yourself the flame of love for neighbours. In ascending the stairs of the service of the Holy Church and accumulating knowledge and experience in carrying out various tasks, you have discovered how rich the Lord is in His mercy to us in His great love wherewith He loved us (Eph. 2:4). |
| During the Synod’s meeting, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk presented a report on the participation of a delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 11th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches that had taken place in Karlsruhe, Germany, on August 31 – September 8. The Assembly’s theme was “Christ’s Love Moves the World to Reconciliation and Unity.” Taking part in the conference were over five thousand people from various countries and continents. On September 1, a meeting was held between the leadership of the World Council of Churches and the delegation of the Moscow Patriarchate led by Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations. As was emphasized during that meeting, the WCC is to remain an open platform for dialogue between all Christians. On the same day, the DECR chairman met with His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch who had arrived in Karlsruhe to attend the Assembly as an honorary guest. The participants in the meeting discussed a wide range of issues of mutual interest, as well as prospects of further cooperation between the Russian Church and the Church of Antioch. On the side-lines of the Assembly, the DECR chairman met with Metropolitan Mark of Berlin and Germany and Bishop Job of Stuttgart; the head of the Church of England, Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury; a delegation of the Coptic Church led by Metropolitan Serapion of Los Angeles; the General Secretary of the World Evangelical Alliance, Bp. Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher; Archbishop Urmas Viilma of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church; and others. On the side-lines of the Assembly, Metropolitan Sergy of Singapore, Patriarchal Exarch of South-East Asia, met with the General Secretary of the Global Christian Forum, Revd Dr Casely Essamuah; a delegation of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia led by Pastor Gomar Gultom; and the General Secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia, Jonathan Dgezudas. A meeting also took place between co-chairs of the Working Group for the Coordination of Bilateral Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Church, Metropolitan Leonid of Klin, Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, and Metropolitan Zachariah Mar Nicholovos of North America. During the Assembly, elections were held to the WCC Central and Executive Committees. |
| The Supreme Church Council consists of: Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations; Metropolitan Dionisy of Voskresensk, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate; Metropolitan Clement of Kaluga and Borovsk, chairman of the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church; Metropolitan Ioann of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, chairman of the Synodal Department for Mission; Metropolitan Merkury of Rostov and Novocherkassk, chairman of the Synodal Department for Religious Education and Catechization; Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations with the Cossacks; Metropolitan Ignaty of Vologda and Kirillov, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Finance and Economic Administration; Metropolitan Mitrofan of Murmansk and Monchegorsk, chairman of the Patriarchal Commission for Physical Culture and Sport; Metropolitan Tikhon of Pskov and Porkhov, chairman of the Patriarchal Council for Culture; Metropolitan Antony of Korsun and Western Europe, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administration for Institutions Abroad; Archbishop Feognost of Kashira, chairman of the Synodal Department for Monasteries and Monasticism; Bishop Irinarkh of Krasnogorsk, head of the Synodal Department for Prison Ministry; Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuevo, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry; Bishop Foma of Pavlovsky Posad, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administrative Secretariat; Bishop Serafim of Istra, chairman of the Synodal Department for Youth Affairs; Bishop Stefan of Klin, chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies; Archpriest Maxim Kozlov, chairman of the Education Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church; Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, chairman of the Patriarchal Commission for Family and Protection of Motherhood; and Mr. Vladimir Legoida, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church’s Relations with Society and Mass Media. |
| Here are the signs, courses and proofs of those who are practising solitude in the right way: an unruffled mind, sanctified thought, rapture towards the Lord, recollection of eternal torments, the urgency of death, constant hunger for prayer, unsleeping vigilance, wasting away of lust, ignorance of attachment, death to the world, loss of gluttony, a sure understanding of divine things, a well of discernment, a truce accompanied by tears, loss of talkativeness, and many such things which the common run of men are wont to find quite alien to them. And here are the signs of those who are practising solitude in the wrong way: dearth of (spiritual) wealth, increase of anger, a hoard of resentment, diminution of love, growth of vanity; and I will be silent about all the rest which follow. 432 But our chapter has now reached the point at which we must consider the case of those living in obedience; all the more so because this chapter is especially meant for them. The signs of those who are lawfully, unadulterously and sincerely wedded to this orderly and fair obedience, both in reality and according to the teaching of the inspired Fathers, are these–and everyday (if only we have consecrated a day to the Lord) 433 they reach forward and obtain increase and progress so that they become perfect in due time: an increase of elementary humility, a lessening of bad temper (for how can it not decrease as the gall is exhausted?), dissipation of darkness, access of love, estrangement from passions, deliverance from hatred, diminution of lust through continual scrutiny, ignorance of despondency, increase of zeal, compassionate love, banishment of pride. This is the achievement which all should seek, but few attain. A well without water does not deserve the name. And what follows, he who is capable of thought already knows. 434 A young wife who has not been faithful to her marriage bed has defiled her body; and a soul who has not been faithful to his vow has defiled his spirit. Reproach, hatred, thrashings and, most wretched of all, separation will befall the first. The other will have to face: pollution, forgetfulness of death, insatiability of stomach, lack of control of the eyes, working for vainglory, pining for sleep, hardening of the heart, deadness and insensibility, rank growth of wrong thoughts and an inclination to allow them, captivity of the heart, disturbance of spirit, disobedience, contradiction, attachment, unbelief, scepticism, talkativeness and, worst of all, free familiarity; and still more wretched, a heart without compunction which in the negligent is followed by in difference, the mother of devils and falls. |
| Holdin puts the basis of the art of “pnevmatic photography” (in Russian: “svetopis”, literally meaning “photo-graphia”, “the art of writing or painting with light”), conferring to an art strongly connected with technology the elevation of the old medieval icon-painting. The spiritual continuity between Saint Gregory Palamas, the old master Dionisy and the contemporary photo-artist Yuri Holdin is ensured by the confessing by everyone of them of the experience of Taboric light, by the languages of theology, icon-painting, or photography respectively. Abstract: This contribution proposes to discuss the reception of Aristotle’s ontology, in particular of his theory of categories, by Gregory Palamas. Palamas’ metaphysics is deeply determined by the notion of energeia. This notion is central to the rethinking by Palamas of Aristotle’s categorical ontology. Palamas’ knowledge of Aristotle stems from Byzantine handbooks of logic and from the process of integration of Aristotelian logic by patristic authors from Gregory of Nyssa to John of Damascus. We can observe in Palamas acceptance of the validity of the doctrine of the Categories for the sensible world: “those realities that are subsequently observed in substance, can be included within ten categories, namely, substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, action, affection, possession and situation” (The one hundred and fifty chapters, § 134). The ten categories are a correct way of understanding created beings. Two aspects of his theory will be of particular interest to us: his notion of substance as applied to ontology of the created world and that of relation, most importantly in theological context. The notion of substance is reconceptualised in a very interesting way due to the importance of the notion of energy. Gregory gives as an ontological rule that “If the substance does not possess an energy distinct from itself, it will be completely without actual subsistence and will be only a concept in the mind” (op. cit., § 136). This has a direct consequence on his theory of universals – ‘secondary substance’ according to Aristotle’s expression. Given that is does not have energeia, a universal cannot subsist. As Gregory states for the example of man: “And so the universal man is entirely lacking actual subsistence”. Relation has an interesting characteristic: it is, with the category of action (to poiein), the only one that can be attributed to the superessential essence of God. But here again, the notion of relation is reconceptualised. The case of the two mentioned categories should allow us better to understand the complex attitude of Gregory Palamas toward Aristotle: he uses elements of Aristotle’s thought, which have often be mediated though a long tradition, but he also seeks to show that Aristotelian logic is not sufficient to define divine transcendence. |
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