Wondrous is God in His saints.

Ps. 67:36. (Septuagint translation).

Pavel Rogozin's assertions about the veneration of relics reveal the author's very mediocre awareness of the subject of his reasoning. In particular, speaking about the era of persecution of the Christian Church, Rogozin writes: "At that time, no one had the idea of turning in prayer to the murdered members of the community and asking them to intercede before God. In the minds of the Christians of that time, such a prayer could only come from the lips of a pagan who did not know the truth, and the giving of Divine honors to the "remains of the martyrs" (relics) would seem blasphemous. But at the end of the fourth century, the worship of these remains began to penetrate the church."64 We will talk about the veneration of saints and the difference in theological understanding between worship and veneration in the chapter devoted to the veneration of icons, but here we will touch primarily on the historical aspect of the issue. First of all, the appeal to the departed members of the Church, to the martyrs, was widespread in the early Church, during the era of persecution, as evidenced by the inscriptions of the catacombs.65 Christians began to venerate the relics of saints from the first centuries of the Church's existence. An epistle of the Church of Smyrna about the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna († 155-156) has been preserved. It says: "... We are... they gathered up his bones, which are more precious than precious stones and nobler than gold, and put them where they belonged. There, if possible, the Lord will allow Jacob, who have gathered in rejoicing and joy, to celebrate the birthday of His martyr in memory of the former fighters for the faith, the instruction and training of the future."66 On the persecution of Christians that accompanied the martyrdom of the Holy Martyrs. Anthimus, Bishop of Nicomedia in 302-303, i.e. at the very beginning of the fourth century, the church historian Eusebius Pamphilus writes: "Executioners tied many people to boats and drowned them in the depths of the sea. The imperial court youths were not buried with due honor after their death; the pretended rulers decided that their bodies should be dug up and thrown into the sea, so that no one would come to worship them resting in their graves (emphasis added. – M.O.), and so that they would not be considered gods. Such was their train of thought."67 As we can see, by the very beginning of the IVc. the veneration of holy relics was so widespread in the Christian Church that pagans tried to exterminate the bodies of the holy martyrs so that they would not fall into the hands of Christians, and therefore the statement that the veneration of relics gradually began to penetrate into the Church only at the end of the fourth century does not correspond to historical reality. Pavel Rogozin declares that the veneration (Rogozin writes "worship") of the remains of the martyrs was confirmed by the Council of Nicaea in 787 in defiance of the Holy Scriptures. To the Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church.68 Unfortunately, the author does not specify, contrary to which Fathers of the Church, in his opinion, this veneration was established, moreover, it remains unclear which of the Holy Fathers Rogozin recognizes as such, and whom he does not recognize, and why. True, Rogozin gives interesting details of the lives of St. Anthony the Great and St. Athanasius the Great. Rogozin writes: "Anthony of Egypt and Athanasius the Great, the pillars of the church in the fourth century, strongly condemned this dangerous, pagan trend in the church. In order to prevent the ignorant masses from such a danger, they ordered that all the remains of the martyrs that had survived up to that time be walled up in the walls of the churches and that under no circumstances should they be worshipped."69 Judging by the fact that Pavel Rogozin from time to time refers to St. John Chrysostom in his book, it seems that the author nevertheless refers to St. John as one of the Holy Fathers. If the instructions of St. John Chrysostom are important for Rogozin's readers, then let us pay attention to the following words of the saint: "Just as the imperial crown, adorned on all sides with precious stones, emits a variety of lustre, so the bodies of the holy martyrs, speckled as it were with precious wounds suffered for the Lord, are more precious and venerable than any imperial crown."70 This reverent attitude towards the remains of martyrs and saints throughout the history of the Christian Church would not have been possible if Christians had not witnessed the manifestation of the grace of the Holy Spirit resting on the holy relics. St. St. John Chrysostom writes that in the body of a martyr, already deprived of spiritual activity, "... there is another power, higher than that of the soul itself, the grace of the Holy Spirit, which, through its miracles, speaks to all in defense of the resurrection,"71 "the bones of the saints have power... the higher – torturing and driving away demons and freeing those who are bound by their bitter bonds... Demons cannot endure the wondrous power that is in holy bodies... dust, bones, ashes are wounded by invisible beings (their invisible nature). Such is the power of the saints who have died."72 These words, uttered as early as the fourth century, are not an empty phrase, but the reality of the religious life of every person who at least once in his life has seen everything that happens to people possessed by unclean spirits at the relics of the saints.

With regard to what Rogozin proposes to "remember in passing,"73 namely, the celebration of the Eucharist only when there is a particle of relics in the church, it is impossible not to notice that this fact is inseparably linked, first of all, with the biblical-theological basis for the veneration of holy relics. Let us dwell briefly on these questions.

Already in the Old Testament we find evidence of a special attitude towards the bodies of the righteous dead.74 In the 13th chapter of the book. Exodus we read that prk. Moses and the people of Israel, leaving the land of Egypt, paid special honor to the relics of Joseph, taking them with them as a precious treasure and transporting them to the Promised Land (Joshua 24:32). This testimony is all the more important for us, since in the Old Testament the body of the deceased is spoken of as unclean, and the touch of it as defilement. The 4th chapter of the Book of Kings (Samuel 13:20-21) tells about the resurrection of the dead through the touch of his body on the bones of the prophet Elisha. Not only the relics of the saints reveal the power of God, but even their clothing: with the help of the mercy of the priest. Elijah prk. Elisha performs a miracle (4 Kings 2: 13-14), bk. Acts tells us that handkerchiefs and aprons were placed on the sick from the body of Ap. Paul and about what miracles the Lord performed over the suffering: "... their sickness ceased, and evil spirits went out of them" (Acts 19:11-12). Even through the shadow of Ap. The Lord worked miracles: "... so that they carried the sick out into the streets, and laid them on beds and beds, so that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow any of them" (Acts 5:15). In our opinion, what has been said is enough to make it obvious that the body of the saint has the special grace of the Holy Spirit. Through which God manifests many miracles and healings. In general, the veneration of holy relics is based on the teaching about the high purpose of the body of a Christian to be the temple of St. John. To participate in deification. The Orthodox Church teaches that deification, i.e. transfiguration by divine uncreated energies, to which man was called from creation, also affects the body. Since the body is an integral part of the human personality, since Christ redeemed and saved the entire human personality, it follows that the body also plays a role in deification, assimilation to God. The Church knows examples of saints who experienced in their earthly life the beginnings of visible bodily deification. When Arsenius the Great (†450) prayed, his disciples saw him "like fire", N.A. Motovilov, talking with St. Seraphim of Sarov (†1909), saw the saint shining "brighter than the sun"75. The radiance of the face of St. John of Kronstadt (†1909) during his Liturgy was testified to by an eyewitness who was present at the service76; charismatic gifts continue to be invariably active in the Church of Christ, without this action the veneration of saints and their relics would be incomprehensible, both by the ancient Church and by the modern Church. Touching upon the historical and theological aspect of the veneration of holy relics, it should be said that one of the grounds for the veneration of the relics of martyrs in the Ancient Church was the testimony of Christ through them about the victory over death. For the Ancient Church, the body of the martyr is the pledge of the final victory of the risen Lord. From the very beginning, there is a semantic connection between the sacrament of life – the Eucharist ("And Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:53-54)) and the veneration of martyrs for the faith, through whose relics God also gives His grace-filled help, as a testimony that death was abolished by the Conqueror of death. Christians of the first centuries celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the graves of the holy martyrs; the Liturgy was accompanied by memories of sacred events from the life of Christ, His death on the cross, and the feats and sufferings of His followers. Later, particles of the holy relics began to be placed under the altar in Christian churches, put into antimensions. St. St. Gregory of Neocaesarea (teacher of St. Macrina, grandmother of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa) established feasts in memory of the martyrs and placed their relics in various places in his diocese, where Christians gathered for divine services on their feast days (3rd century).77 Pope Felix of Rome (269) decreed that, "according to ancient custom, the Liturgy should be celebrated only on the relics of the martyrs".78 As we can see, already in the third century the tradition of celebrating the Liturgy on the relics of the martyrs was considered ancient. The Church, by the tenth canon of the Fifth Council of Carthage, decreed that no church should be built except on the relics of the martyr, which were placed under the altar.79 The seventh canon of the Seventh Ecumenical Council determines that those bishops who consecrate a church without relics should be expelled from the rank of bishop. Relics are revered by the Orthodox Church on a par with icons.

Chapter V Veneration of Icons

In the chapter devoted to the consideration of the issue of icon veneration, Pavel Rogozin writes: "A great influence on the appearance of images was exerted by those drawings with which the first Christians tried to remind the figurative speech of their Divine Teacher. The symbols of the lamb, the vine, the fish, the inscription of alpha and omega, the monograms of the name of Christ, and so on, were a kind of puzzles, the meaning of which was revealed to believers, but hidden from the uninitiated.

Gradually, there was a transition from drawings depicting the earthly life of Christ to depicting Christians who were famous for their martyrdom and feats."80 The art of the early Christian period really knew the language of symbols, this was required, in particular, by the conditions of the existence of the Church surrounded by the pagan world. The little that has come down to us from the art of the first Christians can be judged mainly from the frescoes of the Roman catacombs. But already in the catacombs, along with symbolic images of Christ, we also find those that depict Christ in the form of a man, primarily in the image of the Good Shepherd, and such images appear as early as the first century81 and are almost always placed in the center of the vaults of the burial chambers, constituting, importantly, the main subject82 of the paintings. This does not allow us to agree with Rogozin's statement: "With the development of the worship of the Virgin Mary and the dead saints, there arose in the church the need for images of these saints of God, the Virgin Mary, and later Christ Himself (emphasis added). – M.O.)" 83. The images of the Mother of God in the catacombs are almost as numerous as the images of the Saviour, but while Christ is often depicted symbolically, the Mother of God is always depicted directly. However, the oldest of the extant images of the Mother of God dates back to the second century.84 In the catacombs, in addition to symbolic or direct images of the Savior and the Mother of God, images of apostles, prophets, martyrs, angels, and all the diversity of Christian iconography have also been discovered.85

We fundamentally disagree with the following statement by Rogozin, which, in our opinion, reveals the author's incompetence in the issue he is trying to consider: "... at first (when exactly is not specified. – M.O.) these images served only as decoration of church walls..."86 The images of the period of the early Church carry a deep theological meaning, their content is primarily Christocentric, focused on the theme of sacrifice. A vine and ears of wheat, laurel garlands and a ship – each of these and many other images common in catacomb painting concentrates Christological, Eucharistic aspects of meanings: wheat and grapes are the Body and Blood of Christ, laurel is Christ the Victorious, and the ship is the image of the Church of Christ in the world.87 Finally, the most important image of the fish in catacomb painting has its basis not only in the images of the worker and the fish, as symbols of the preacher and the convert (Matt. 4:19, Mk. 1:17), but also, above all, is the most ancient symbol of faith of the Christian Church: the initial letters of the Greek word "fish" signify the following words (we quote them in Latin transcription): "Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter", which means "Jesus Christ, The Son of God, the Saviour." As we can see, the images of the catacombs are filled with the deepest semantic content and by no means can be called "only the decoration of church walls".