| A.V. Nesteruk 7. Humanity as Hypostasis of the Universe Defining the Humankind-Event – The Humankind-Event and the Anthropic Principle – Hypostatic Dimension of the Humankind-Event – From Anthropic Transcendentalism to Christian Platonism – Intelligibility and Meaning of the Universe: The Participatory Anthropic Principle – The Humankind-Event and the Incarnation – The Universe as Hypostatic Event There are in personality natural foundation principles which are linked with the cosmic cycle. But the personal in man is of different extraction and of different quality and it always denotes a break with natural necessity… Man as personality is not part of nature, he has within him the image of God. There is nature in man, but he is not nature. Man is a microcosm and therefore he is not part of the cosmos. – Nicolas Berdyaev, Slavery and Freedom, pp. 94 – 95 The fact that the universe has expanded in such a way that the emergence of conscious mind in it is an essential property of the universe, must surely mean that we cannot give an adequate account of the universe in its astonishing structure and harmony without taking into account, that is, without including conscious mind as an essential factor in our scientific equations… Without man, nature is dumb, but it is man’s part to give it word: to be its mouth through which the whole universe gives voice to the glory and majesty of the living God. – Thomas F. Torrance, The Ground and Grammar of Theology, p. 4 This chapter develops the idea that the phenomenon of intelligent human life in the universe, which we call the humankind-event, is not entirely conditioned (in terms of its existence) by the natural structures and laws of the universe. The actual happening of the humankind-event, which is treated as a hypostatic event, is contingent on nonnatural factors that point toward the uncreated realm of the Divine. We develop an argument that modern cosmology, if seen in a wide philosophical and theological context, provides indirect evidence for the contingency of the universe on nonphysical factors, as well as its intelligibility, established in the course of the humankind-event, which is rooted in the Logos of God and detected by human beings through the logoi of creation. The universe, as experienced through human scientific discursive thinking, thus becomes a part of the humankind-event; that is, the universe itself acquires the features of the hypostatic event in the Logos of God. Defining the Humankind-Event |
| Le but est donc de créer cette église. Selon certaines rumeurs, il devrait y avoir le 21 ou le 22 novembre un concile de réunion ou un concile constituant, auquel prendraient part tous les soi-disant évêques schismatiques. Ils éliront le chef de « l’église autocéphale » créée sous l’égide de Constantinople. Ce ne sera pas Philarète Denissenko, une personnalité trop controversée. C’est à cette nouvelle structure que le patriarche de Constantinople remettra le « tomos » d’autocéphalie. Philarète Denissenko, de son côté, tente par tous les moyens de conserver ses privilèges mal acquis. Il souhaiterait, notamment, porter le titre de « patriarche émérite de Kiev et de toute la Russie-Ukraine », ainsi que présider le synode de cette « église », qui serait, cependant, dirigée par un autre. Je ne sais pas à quel point cela est réalisable, mais il y a déjà beaucoup d’acrobaties dans toute cette histoire d’octroi d’une prétendue autocéphalie. Les schismatiques ukrainiens doivent, d’une part, s’intégrer dans la famille des Églises orthodoxes et, d’autre part, sauver la face. E. Gratcheva : Petro Porochenko s’est donc servi de Philarète Denissenko ? Philarète Denissenko était-il prêt à être laissé pour compte dans cette histoire ? Le métropolite Hilarion : Je ne pense pas. Mais Porochenko poursuit ses propres buts. Philarète Denissenko aura bientôt 90 ans, et je pense qu’on a décidé de le sacrifier, avant tout pour parvenir au but qu’on s’était fixé, créer une autocéphalie ukrainienne pour augmenter la popularité du président Porochenko. E. Gratcheva : Le 6 novembre 1943, Kiev a été libérée des fascistes. Cette année, ni Petro Porochenko, ni le maire Klitchko, n’ont pas pris part aux cérémonies du souvenir. Cette tendance des autorités ukrainiennes à oublier des leçons de l’histoire comme celle-ci est-elle dangereuse ? Quelles pourraient en être les conséquences ? Le métropolite Hilarion : Il existe, dans le monde civilisé d’aujourd’hui, un certain consensus sur le régime nazi. En Europe occidentale, il est impensable de justifier les actes des fascistes ou d’atténuer l’importance du courage de ceux qui se sont battus contre le fascisme. Aujourd’hui encore, dans des pays comme la Grande-Bretagne, la France, les États-Unis, on honore les dates importantes de la lutte de ces pays contre le fascisme allemand. |
| The Third Guidepost was the Resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of the ROCA, in September of 1927, which rejected the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius and defined the following rule: «The part of the All-Russian Church located abroad must cease all administrative relations with the church administra-tion in Moscow…until restoration of normal relations with Russia and until the liberation of our Church from persecutions by the godless Soviet authorities…The part of the Russian Church that finds itself abroad considers itself an inseparable, spiritually united branch of the Great Russian Church. It does not separate itself from its Mother Church and does not consider itself autocephalous.» This Resolution makes it clear that the emigre Hierarchs, while rejecting what later became known as «Sergianism», did not separate the part of the church that was abroad from that in the homeland, thus showing compassion to those who did not withstand the terror. At about that time evolved the concept of the three parts of the Russian Church: the «Church enslaved», that is, the Moscow Patriarchate; the «Catacomb Church», i.e, the secret, persecuted, underground Church of confessors within the borders of the Soviet Union; and the «Russian Orthodox Church Abroad», which was the free voice of the whole Russian Church. The Fourth Guidepost was the adoption of the Temporary Polozheniye (Fundamental Law) of the ROCA by the General Sobor of Bishops on September 22-24, 1936. Its first paragraph states: «The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which consists of dioceses, spiritual missions, and parishes outside Russia, is an inseparable part of the Russian Orthodox Church, which exists temporarily under autonomous administration». This Sobor, in effect, established an orderly administrative leadership of the ROCA for the entire period of its independent existence. The Fifth Guidepost is defined by the Reply of the Blessed Metropolitan Anastassy in 1945, and of the Bishops’ Sobor in Munich in 1946, in response to the address of the Patriarch of Moscow Aleksey I, who called for reunification after the Second World War. |
| The questions encompassed by our theme as they appear from the sources of the first three centuries, can be grouped under three main headings. Firstly, we must examine the general presuppositions underlying the formation of each Church into a unity in the Eucharist and the bishop 69 . The fundamental question here is this: in the consciousness of the primitive Church, how were the Eucharist and the bishop connected with the Church and her unity? In order for there to develop, in the post-apostolic period and later, the strong consciousness expressed by Ignatius of Antioch that each Church finds her unity and fullness in the one Eucharist “under the leadership of the bishop”, this must have been preceded by a consolidation of the relationship between Eucharist, bishop and Church. The first part of our study will be devoted to the investigation of precisely this relationship in the consciousness of the first Apostolic Churches. More specifically, in the two chapters of Part I we shall examine (Chapter 1) the relationship of the Eucharist to the Church, and (Chapter 2) the relationship of the bishop to the Eucharist in the years up to and including Ignatius. The second set of questions which will be examined in Part II of our study has to do with the actual formation of the early Church into a unity in the Eucharist and the bishop, and the implications of this fundamental event for the formation of the early Catholic Church. Here we encounter many questions of a historical and ecclesiological nature. The principle, laid down by Ignatius, of one Eucharist and one bishop in each Church, gives rise to the serious historical problem of whether, in the period under examination, this principle actually corresponded to historical reality, or whether it is simply an exhortation on Ignatius’ part. This problem is compounded if one takes into account the existence of “household Churches” and of Christians in country areas. How is it possible that all the Christians of one Church came together for one Eucharist under the bishop when there existed on the one hand “household churches” usually regarded as being several semi-official eucharistic assemblies within one and the same city, and on the other, Christians in the villages who were far away from the city and could not, therefore, participate in the Eucharist under the bishop? Furthermore, it should be investigated whether this principle applied to all geographical areas, given certain indications in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History that some places, such as Egypt, Pontus etc., had their own organization. |
| For its part, society should distinctly acknowledge that the church, in her connection with the spiritual life of the people, cannot be reformed according the model of secular institutions. In today’s circumstances, the social function of the church consists not in serving technological and social progress, but rather in protecting people from their negative effects. The accusation of conservatism leveled against the church can be answered by the assertion that she is conservative in her very nature. In the consciousness of the faithful, she is associated with the eternal and immutable. Therefore all attempts to radically contemporize the church, to adapt her to the momentary whims of this or that segment of the population, are clearly doomed to failure. Before the Russian church lies the task of learning how to live in a contemporary, democratic society while, at the same time, preserving all the riches of Orthodoxy, with its canons, developed over centuries, its dogmas, holy traditions, its order of divine services — and without becoming any sort of relic of the past. Here, it seems, the church might have recourse to the experience of the Russian Orthodox church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). The original ROCOR was a church of refugees. Her clergy shared with their flocks the full weight of exile, poverty and homelessness. From her very inception, therefore, she was deprived of any sort of administrative resources. It fell to the exiled part of the Russian Orthodox church to conduct her ministry without any support from state authorities. But, together with state support, the meddling of state powers in the internal affairs of the church also ceased. The church had become self-constituted, in the common sense of the term, and it was given to her find her own way under new circumstances. The special character of the ROCOR consists in the fact that her clergy and laity were always dominated, for the most part, by the right-leaning, conservative segment of the Russian emigration. To a large extent, in particular, they persistently resisted assimilation, considering themselves to be a part of the Russian nation. They strove to preserve the Russian language and culture. In ecclesiastical life, this conservatism expressed itself in a striving for the strict preservation of all liturgical and canonical structure, and in the guarding of Russian church law. Russian Church Abroad had to adapt herself to circumstance, and in the process she constructed a new model of relations with state powers, with society, and with her own parishioners. |
| Nevertheless, in spite of the voices of these Churches, the Patriarchate of Constantinople decisively and ignoring all objections insisted upon holding the Council. And now we can understand why. It was pursuing different aims. It needed a different icon – the image of an earthly head for the whole Church who, ignoring everyone and acting only by his own discretion, could convoke Pan-Orthodox Councils and make their decisions binding for those who did not even attend them. We know to what consequence holding the Council of Crete have led: part of the Local Churches recognizes it as Pan-Orthodox while others decline to do so. We have an evident division. However, an incomparably greater blow for Church unity was inflicted by the interference of the Patriarch of Constantinople in Ukraine and the legitimization by him of the Ukrainian schism in 2018. This evening, as part of our conference proceedings, we will acquaint participants with a fuller collection of documents on the history of the unification of the metropolitanate of Kiev with the Russian Orthodox Church in 1686. This is a collective labour, the fruit of the endeavours of the best Russian scholars and competent specialists of our Church. The published documents manifestly show that when the metropolitanate of Kiev was transferred to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate there was no question of a supposedly temporary or limited nature of this transfer. The documents clearly state: “Let the metropolitanate of Kiev be subject to His Holiness the Patriarch of the see of Moscow and let her bishops recognize as their head and primate the Patriarch of Moscow as it will be at the present time and by those who are consecrated by him.” There is not a single word on the temporary nature of this decision or of the possibility of it being reviewed in the future. The patriarchs of Constantinople proceeded from this very position when they published in their annual calendars of their Church the names of the bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as being part of the Moscow Patriarchate when they recognized the decisions concerning the Ukrainian Church as being part of the exclusive realm of competence of the Russian Orthodox Church. |
| Hilarion (Troitsky), Hieromonk, " Letter to L.P. Archangelskaya, July 5, 1913. " Archives of A.V. Nikitsky. Ibid. “Journals of the Meetings of the Council of the Moscow Spiritual Academy for 1913” in “The Theological Herald,” 1914, No. 4, 549-550 (4 th pagination). [staff= штатный . In some European countries, including Russia, there are two kinds of professors: extraordinary and ordinary. The “ordinary” means “full,” while the “extraordinary” professor is not usually head of a department, and is not usually shtatny , either, is not a member of the Council. St. Hilarion’s “extraordinary” professorship seems to be lesser more in title than in actual fact, as it is shtatny (staff) and he is a member of the Council, and it is at any rate higher than his previous position of docent.—Trans.] Sergiy Golubtsov, Protodeacon. Materials for the Biographies of the Professors and Instructors of the MSA: Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky), 158. V.A. Troitsky, Letter to L.P. Archangelskaya, October 30, 1912. Archives of A.V. Nikitsky. Hilarion (Troitsky), Archimandrite. “Letter to L.P. Archangelskaya, April 6, 1914” from the archives of A.V. Nikitsky. Hilarion (Troitsky), Archimandrite, Letter to Priest Leonid Archangelsky, April 29, 1914; “Letter to Priest Leonid and Lydia Archangelsky, April 1914” (in the copy, the second part of the letter is erroneously dated April 1913; the first part of this composite letter is another letter, sent by V. Troitsky to L.P. Archangelsky in January 1913.) Archives of A.V. Nikitsky. “Summary of the State of the Moscow Spiritual Academy in the 1915/1916 academic year,” “The Theological Herald,” 1916, No. 10/11/12, 7 (5 th pagination). Volkov, the Last at Trinity, 113. Hilarion (Troitsky), Archimandrite, Letter to Priest Leonid Archangelsky, April 29, 1914; Letter to Priest Leonid and Lydia Archangelsky, April 1914 (in the copy, the second part of the letter is erroneously dated April 1913; the first part of this composite letter is another letter, sent by V. Troitsky to L.P. Archangelskaya in January 1913.) Archives of A.V. Nikitsky. |
| Chapter IV “Old chronological accounts of the New Babylonian kings” Chapter 4 consists of two parts. In the first part, pp. 6675, which I will call part A, Furuli reviews some of the ancient secondary and tertiary sources that contain information about NeoBabylonian kings and their reigns. In the second part, pp. 7592, which I will call part B, he discusses six of the Biblical passages that mention a period of 70 years, claiming that they all refer to the same period–namely, a period of complete desolation of Judah and Jerusalem during the Jewish exile in Babylonia. This accords with the view of the Watchtower Society. Secondary and tertiary sources Furuli’s presentation of the secondary and tertiary sources for the NeoBabylonian chronology seems to be based mainly on the surveys of R. P. Dougherty in Nabonidus and Belshagyar (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929, pp. 710) and Ronald. H. Sack in Neriglissar–King of Babylon (Neukirchen– Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994, pp. 122). Most of the ancient authors that Furuli mentions lived hundreds of years after the NeoBabylonian era, and their writings, which are preserved only in very late copies, often give distorted royal names and regnal years. Most of these sources, therefore, are useless for chronological purposes. (See GTR 4 , Ch. 3, A). This can be seen in Furuli’s table on page 74, in which he lists the concordant chronology for the NeoBabylonian era given by Berossus (3rd century BCE) and Ptolemy’s Royal Canon, together with the conflicting figures of Polyhistor (1st century BCE), Josephus (1st century CE), the Talmud (5th century CE), Syncellus (c. 800 CE), and, strangely, a totally corrupt kinglist from 1498 CE. Putting such distorted sources in the same table with Berossus and the Ptolemaic Canon–the two most reliable chronological sources for the NeoBabylonian era next to the cuneiform documents themselves–suggests that the sources are equally unreliable and should not be trusted. That this is the purpose of the table is obvious from Furuli’s comments on its conflicting figures: |
| For Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Israel, did not, like the others, form one tribe, but two, Ephraim and Manasseh. Yet the tribe of Levi also belonged more to the kingdom of Jerusalem, where was the temple of God whom it served. On the division of the people, therefore, Rehoboam, son of Solomon, reigned in Jerusalem as the first king of Judah, and Jeroboam, servant of Solomon, in Samaria as king of Israel. And when Rehoboam wished as a tyrant to pursue that separated part with war, the people were prohibited from fighting with their brethren by God, who told them through a prophet that He had done this; whence it appeared that in this matter there had been no sin either of the king or people of Israel, but the accomplished will of God the avenger. When this was known, both parts settled down peaceably, for the division made was not religious but political. Chapter 22.– Of Jeroboam, Who Profaned the People Put Under Him by the Impiety of Idolatry, Amid Which, However, God Did Not Cease to Inspire the Prophets, and to Guard Many from the Crime of Idolatry. So also in the kingdom of Judah pertaining to Jerusalem prophets were not lacking even in the times of succeeding kings, just as it pleased God to send them, either for the prediction of what was needful, or for correction of sin and instruction in righteousness; 2 Timothy 3:16 for there, too, although far less than in Israel, kings arose who grievously offended God by their impieties, and, along with their people, who were like them, were smitten with moderate scourges. The no small merits of the pious kings there are praised indeed. But we read that in Israel the kings were, some more, others less, yet all wicked. Each part, therefore, as the divine providence either ordered or permitted, was both lifted up by prosperity and weighed down by adversity of various kinds; and it was afflicted not only by foreign, but also by civil wars with each other, in order that by certain existing causes the mercy or anger of God might be manifested; until, by His growing indignation, that whole nation was by the conquering Chaldeans not only overthrown in its abode, but also for the most part transported to the lands of the Assyrians – first, that part of the thirteen tribes called Israel, but afterwards Judah also, when Jerusalem and that most noble temple was cast down – in which lands it rested seventy years in captivity. |
| 300 См.: Соловьёв П.К. История православных храмов г. Балаково (1862–191 гг.). Саратов, 2020. С. 57. 310 Соловьёв П.К. Балаковские «австрийцы»//«Рождественское тож...»: Очерки по истории православия, единоверия и старообрядчества на Балаковской земле. Саратов, 2018. С. 47–48, 50–51. 312 Катькова В.В. Миссионерская деятельность Русской Православной Церкви среди старообрядцев в Самарской епархии последней трети XIX века//Известия Самарского научного центра Российской Академии наук. Т. 11. 2. Самара, 2009. С. 60. 314 История евангельских христиан-баптистов в СССР. М.: Издание Всесоюзного совета евангельских христиан-баптистов, 1989. С. 52. 316 Баптисты. Православная энциклопедия [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://www.pravenc.ru/text/77510.html#part_15 (дата обращения: 10.03.2021). Загл. с экрана. 318 Барсов Т.В. Сборник действующих и руководственных церковных и церковно-гражданских постановлений по ведомству православного исповедания. СПб., 1885. С. 202. [Электронный ресурс]. (дата обращения: 15.02.2021). Загл. с экрана. 320 Баптисты/Православная энциклопедия. [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://www.pravenc.ru/text/77510.html#part_15 (дата обращения: 10.03.2021). Загл. с экрана. 321 Баптисты/Православная энциклопедия. [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://www.pravenc.ru/text/77510.html#part_15 (дата обращения: 10.03.2021). Загл. с экрана. 324 Бонч-Бруевич В.Д. Преследование баптистов евангелической секты. М.: Книга по требованию, 2011. С. 60–69. 325 Устав о предупреждении и пресечении преступлений. М., 1872. [Электронный ресурс]. URL:http://www.prlib.ru/item/459984 (дата обращения: 20.02.2021). Загл. с экрана. 327 Альманах по истории русского баптизма. Вып. 2: Сборник/Сост. М.С. Каретникова. СПб.: Христианское общество «Библия для всех», 2001. С. 21–29. 329 Хотя большую часть из них составляли по-прежнему немецкие колонисты. Баптисты/Православная энциклопедия. [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://www.pravenc.ru/text/77510.html#part_15 (дата обращения: 10.03.2021). Загл. с экрана. |
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