I. The "Mirror of Theology" by Hieromonk Cyril, as well as other Old Russian theological works, is free from the scholastic division of Christian theology into the departments of faith, hope and love;

II. Completely free from the explanation of our salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ in the juridical sense, as it began with us with Lavrenty Zizanii ("who is all the creation, i.e. the tares in the field of the Church" - the words of an old Russian theologian);

III. The "Mirror" does not have a mechanical teaching about the sacraments and does not affirm their septenary number. In short, it is incomparably closer to the ancient patristic theology than to medieval Latin and modern school theology.

In the above-mentioned "Mirror", the author, having expounded in sufficient detail the Orthodox teaching about God, about the Holy Trinity, about the Incarnation, proceeds further, following the example of the most ancient Fathers, and even earlier - the Apostolic Fathers, to an exposition of the concept of the two kingdoms - God and the devil - and their mutual struggle, and like the books of the New Testament and in particular the works of Ap. John, beginning with the teaching about God and His Son and ending with the Apocalypse, that is, the prophecy of the struggle between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the devil, with which the 4th Gospel is also set forth.

Perhaps the unfortunate conversion of Tranquillion to the Roman Union was the reason why subsequent South Russian theologians did not use his "Mirror", and it, together with its author, was consigned to oblivion.

Mitre. Anthony (Khrapovitsky)

Chapter One. The General Character of the Theology of Moscow and Kiev

In the sixteenth century, the Russian Local Church heard for the first and, it seems, only time, a powerful echo of universal patristic theology, and in the next century the Kievan scholasticists laid the foundation for school theological science in Russia. Both of these phenomena, caused by extraordinary historical circumstances, had a completely different fate. The theology of Kiev soon penetrated into Moscow; met here with unfriendliness and suspicion, it found strong support in the person of the admirer of the West, Tsar Peter I, and with his assistance spread throughout Russia and took possession of the theological school established in the eighteenth century, where it still exists with minor modifications.

A completely different fate befell Moscow theology. None of the movements of Russian thought had against itself such numerous, diverse, and bitter enemies as this bright and noble trend in the theological development of Russian society. The cautious suspicion of the supreme spiritual authority, the ignorant superstition of the people, the decline of monastic life under Peter the Great, and, finally, the Westernizing current of all Russian life, greatly weakened the theology of Moscow. Brilliant in the sixteenth century, it no longer has strong expressions in the following centuries. The Great Catechism of the South Russian scholar Lavrenty Zizanius left its characteristic imprint on the thinking of the Moscow scribes against their will and even without their knowledge. The extent to which theological ignorance and formal literalism had reached in the seventeenth century is best evidenced by the sad history of the Russian schism, the so-called Old Believers. It would be extreme frivolity and an unforgivable misunderstanding of the spirit of the Church to consider the leaders of the schism to be the successors of the Moscow theologians of the sixteenth century. As far as we know their tendencies, the religious doctrine of schism is a sad mixture of extreme Muscovite ignorance, based on scholastic formulas of Catholic origin. If the patristic trend did not disappear completely in Russia, then it always represented something completely separate from theological science. It manifested itself mainly in oral preaching, private correspondence, and even private conversations of our most spiritually enlightened hierarchs.

Moscow theologians

I. General information about them

And my word and my preaching are not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the manifestation of the Spirit and power (1 Corinthians 2:4).

Remembering the reception of the grace of holy baptism from the Greek Church, the Russian Church has always looked upon the treasures of the spiritual wisdom of the Greek Fathers as the main source of her enlightenment. Therefore, composing a truly Orthodox solution to controversial questions in refutation of heresies, our theologians first of all turned to the works of the Holy Fathers of the Eastern Church. But since the heresies of the Russian false teachers represented, as can be seen from the characteristics of the Judaizers (the Enlightener) and Theodosius the Oblique (Zinovy of Otensky), an empty and unsubstantiated denial of the truths of the faith on the basis of moral unbridled and abominable depravity, the Russian theologians had to borrow the exposition of dogmas entirely from the works of the Greek dogmatists. This is evidenced by numerous excerpts from the Holy Fathers in the works of Joseph of Volokolamsk and Zinovy of Otensk, and Blessed Maximus, who laid the foundation for monastic life on Holy Athos, had the opportunity to use the works of the Holy Fathers in the originals. They looked upon their works as a collection of patristic teachings with explanatory notes for the given circumstances. "I have collected little from the Divine Scriptures, contrary and accusatory to heretical speeches... having gathered together from the various Divine Scriptures, as those who lead the Divine Scriptures, having read them, let them remember themselves, and those who do not know have read them, let them understand. And whosoever needs anything against heretical speech, and by the grace of God, he shall find it ready without difficulty in some word" (The Enlightener, 48). Another defender of Orthodoxy of that epoch, the blessed monk Zinovii, tells of his reasoning with the kliroshans, followers of the heresy of Theodosius the Oblique: "After reading the words of the Great Basil, we have come to reverence, we have said to them to come on certain days, to abolish me a little to fast, and to be diligent in prayer, to ask grace, that the Lord may give a word to answer, as the words of the Great Basil did, asking the Lord to tell them" ("Testimony of the Truth to Those Who Inquire About the New Teaching", 728p.). Maximus the Greek, like all the best representatives of Greek monasticism, considered the reading of the works of the Holy Fathers to be his main occupation and the best consolation. How he treated the wondrous creations of his great countrymen, full of power and spiritual beauty, is best evidenced by the following touching lines, apparently written from the conclusion: "To this I beseech you, for God's sake, send me to the support of Gregory the Theologian, a Greek book with an interpretation, for God's sake, send it to me" (II vol., 286 p.).

Noting thus the fact of the undoubted borrowing from the Greek Holy Fathers and writers, let us see the works of which authors were used by Russian theologians of the sixteenth century. In the "Enlightener" of Joseph of Volokolamsk we find excerpts from almost all the most famous Fathers of the Eastern Church; Zinovy of Otensk used mainly the ascetic works of Basil the Great. The works of which church writers were in the XVI century in Russian translation, and what was used by St. Joseph in his numerous references to ecclesiastical historical events, what is the special difference between the 13th word of the "Enlightener"? In the Russian language in the sixteenth century there was an extensive translated literature, and it was it that was used by St. Joseph, almost always calling the works of the Holy Fathers divine writings, thereby expressing his special respect for them. Of course, he did not mix with them the books of the Bible, as is evident from the 5th and 6th words of the "Enlightener"; He only asserted, "That the essence of the Holy Fathers of the Scriptures is true: since the essence is in agreement with the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures." In addition to the works of the Holy Fathers, St. Josephus often referred to the patericons and chronographs. The following translated works have survived from the sixteenth century, references to which are found in the Enlightener: the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, Athanasius the Great on the Arians, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil the Great, the Lenten Homilies, the Golden-Strui (a collection of the words of St. John Chrysostom), Margaret (the same), the Ladder of St. John of Sinai, Isaac the Syrian, and others. The influence of the authors we have listed is undeniable; There are references to them in the works of Russian theologians, especially St. Joseph, the most talented of the Russian dogmatists. As for the special, exclusive influence of any particular father on our theologians, it can be said that the entire dogmatic part of the "Enlightener" is borrowed from the fundamental work of St. John of Damascus. Most of the reasoning of the Otensk monk Zinovy consisted in the interpretation of the ascetic rules of St. Basil the Great, which, apparently, were well known to Zinovii's opponents. With regard to the most educated of the Russian authors of the sixteenth century, Blessed Maximus, it can be said that in the midst of the sorrowful circumstances of his life he was mentally transported to the age of the flowering of theological knowledge and positively lived by the ideas and concepts of the fourth century. Denouncing the Latins for using unleavened bread at the Eucharist, he very skillfully accuses them of secretly confessing the false teaching of Apollinarius. This circumstance shows to what extent St. Maximus was imbued with the spirit of ancient Church traditions, and with what zeal he studied the works of his fathers, we have seen above.